Maybe, and then I'd duck to avoid the brickbats! :wink: More fairly, I do read him as an anti-modernist, but his tone was rarely polemical. Also, I think he challenged us to either accept the original context of the Greek virtues or come up with something that doesn't claim merely to be talk about "the same" concepts.

And BTW, Whose Justice? Which Rationality? is really good, especially if you're somewhat put off by After Virtue.

We can talk about water because we learned what water is from our teachers, and they in turn from theirs. And so the reference to "water" is independent of any description, including finding out that water is H₂O.

On this account, the basis is a casual chain stretching back through time rather than any particular attribute of water.

Something like that. — Banno

I'd say: exactly like that. This is pure Kripke, and explains why he says things like "we don't need a telescope to identify the table" etc. This is a theory about what words identify, not about what things are. Kripke presumes a difference. As it happens, water is H₂O. The word "water" knows nothing of this. We would surely use the same word, just as our ancestors did, if water were something else. An account of what water actually is -- some sort of essence? -- is quite a different matter.

It is logically possible to describe a world in which a substance that is not H₂O is called ‘water’ and has none of the characteristics of actual water. But in doing so, we are no longer talking about water, strictly speaking, under rigid designation. — Banno

I think @Janus' question remains. "None of the characteristics" is quite a leap, even in terms of logical possibility. I can do without the characteristic of having two hydrogen atoms, but being clear and wet? Just how much "waterness" do we need in order to say, Ahah, this is what the causal chain is identifying?

if we call a substance that has nothing in common with water, "water", perhaps all we are doing is misusing the word. — Banno

I'd say so, leaving aside terminological ambiguities like whether ice should count as water.

So if "One Truth" (I guess I will start capitalizing it too) is "unhelpful," does that mean we affirm mutually contradictory truths based on what is "useful" at the time?
— @Count Timothy von Icarus

What I got from Banno seems to be that pluralistic or context-based truths don’t mean that every contradiction is true. Instead, truths depend on the situation, purpose, or point of view. When contradictions happen, it usually means they come from different ways of looking at things -not that truth doesn’t exist. — Tom Storm

I'd say further: In the context of "What is really real?" (the context in which @Banno said what he said), there is no truth, because the terms are hopelessly vague. Maybe the right way to say it is, There is no Truly True answer to the question of what is Really Real! Different philosophers and traditions will use "real" to occupy different positions in their metaphysics. There's absolutely nothing wrong with this; we often need some sort of bedrock or stipulated term to hold down a conceptual place, and "real" is a time-honored one. The mistake comes when we think we've consulted the Philosophical Dictionary in the Sky and discovered what is Really Real.

This is good. In drafting the OP, I found myself backing off further and further from my original claim, which would have been that we can always tell an (alleged) memory from an imagining. I'm fine with saying, instead, that it's only usually the case, as you show.

So, what can we say about these usual cases? "Clues in your thinking and your history" would be the sort of answer I'm looking for, but I question whether such clues are enough. I appeal to my own experience here: When something comes to mind and I (instantly, as far as I can tell) recognize it to be a memory, it all seems too fast and too assured to be accounted for by a sifting of thoughts and history. That's why I'm wondering whether there really is some feature we recognize -- not infallibly, but usually.

Another possibility would be that the sifting occurs subconsciously, beneath our awareness (and very fast).

What occurs, when an alleged memory comes to mind, that allows me to identify it as an alleged memory?
— J

It's a bit of a trite answer, but that it seems in the past. — fdrake

I imagine "pastness" comes along with what makes a memory autobiographical? — fdrake

Yes, this "pastness" may be the very thing I'm calling the "feature" of an alleged memory, by which we recognize it as such. But I'm asking further -- what is it? What is the experience of pastness? This may be one of those questions to which the only good answer is, "Oh shut up, it just is." Or maybe not. If I'm asked, what is it about a present sensual perception that allows me to recognize it as such, there are various things I can say in reply. Can similar things be said about "recognizing pastness"? Your idea about the different resolutions of visual impressions could be part of this.

Strictly speaking, the royal family are entitled to vote; it's just that they think it would be tactless to do so. — Ludwig V

:lol:

It seems likely that the real reason the practice survives is that "votes for criminals" does not look like a vote winner. — Ludwig V

Yes, and you really can't overestimate the degree to which the US is plagued by racist and classist assumptions. In depressingly large segments of the population, "votes for criminals" translates as "more so-called 'rights' for those people".

The claim that "'I get wet and do not get wet' violates the law of noncontradiction" misunderstands how modal logic works. — Hanover

Thank you. This is the basic insight, as you go on to explain, "which is why modal logic exists."

When we say it will rain in #1, while that sounds like any old generic rain will do, if we were being more precise, we'd describe the exact identity of the rain that would strike you in #1 versus #2. — Hanover

Right. The point is that nothing is the same in different worlds. Trying to import something that's the same automatically dissolves what "possible world" means in this discourse, if I can put it that way.

In short:

contradiction applies only intra-universe and not inter-universe. — Hanover

Well, yes. Thought experiments and idealizations have their place. But so does hard, practical experience. — Ludwig V

Yes. Habermas has perhaps done better with this than Rawls, because much of what he's written about this has been in response to ongoing European issues about which there is real debate, and real concern about how to frame the debate. These are very much practical issues.

Sitting Members of the House of Lords.

I had no idea! Is this an outgrowth of the tradition (if I've got this right) that certain members of the royal family may not vote either?

I'm unclear whether the reason is that those in prison are regarded as unfit to vote or whether loss of the right to vote is part of the punishment. — Ludwig V

I realized I didn't know, and spent a bit of time consulting online sources. In the US, the answer appears to be "neither" -- felon disenfranchisement evidently began as part of the Jim Crow reaction to Black emancipation. The idea was that, because more Blacks spent time in prison (wonder why!), they could be further excluded from political influence once they got out. White felons were collateral damage, on this account.

As for current arguments, the answer appears to be "both": The idea of "civil death" as a punishment for certain crimes goes back many centuries, and is seen as both a just punishment for criminally harming the state, and a just precaution to make sure that such malefactors can't do further harm with their vote. The ethical connection between committing a felony and being unqualified to vote is, I guess, taken for granted.

It seems to me that the project of disentangling nature from nurture is extremely difficult, if possible at all. — Ludwig V

Sure, but isn't there a clear distinction to be made between "born with a speech impediment" and "born into poverty"? Most of the boundaries are fuzzier than that, agreed, but in principle I think it's a conception worth clarifying when we can.

I think we would do better to consider the ways in which we negotiate this issue in real life — Ludwig V

I vote for both/and rather than either/or. Theory + political realities.

Now liberal democracies believe that all adult citizens (with some troublesome exceptions) indeed have this right.
— J
Yes, they do. And it is a problem. — Ludwig V

Can you say more about what the problem is, as you understand it? (The exceptions I had in mind are the various state laws about convicted felons voting.)

it's very easy to accept economic differences when you're higher up, and not so easy when you're lower down. So even if we go with the veil of ignorance I suspect the people who roll snake-eyes will still feel bitter and want more out of life. — Moliere

As an observation about people, I completely agree. And that bitterness would have a special sting since, as discussed, no one need be born poor.

Rawls has been described, personally, as a rather unworldly fellow who didn't care much for his own comforts. Thomas Nagel talked about "his purity and his freedom from the distortions of ego," but also said that "my dominant sense of Jack was that he was a natural aristocrat." Not sure that's the praise he would have wanted, if it is praise! But it speaks to your point, in that one's life experiences can't help influencing what you find acceptable, and maybe even noticeable.

I wonder who does the specifying and adjusting? In real life I think that there is a great deal of consensus developing and then being enforce in the same kind of ways that the rules of etiquette are enforced - spontaneous, non-organized individual reaction. — Ludwig V

A good question, which can be asked of both Rawls and Habermas. Rawls has in mind a sort of ideal dialogue or dialectic, that seems clear, but there might be different answers about how it is realized by the state. Your analogy with etiquette is fine, but the problem is that we wouldn't tolerate etiquette police, whereas it seems we do need enforcement of these naturally occurring, non-organized forms of consensus.

I think the talk of capacities comes from Nussbaum. — Ludwig V

Yes, she's developed it in a particularly interesting way, but the quote does come from Rawls, who also used the term often.

As to economic capacity, I assume that means the capacity to earn money. — Ludwig V

At a minimum, but I also have in mind the various power-capacities that economic privilege endows one with. I don't need to spell this out, I'm sure; the fact that my parents were middle-class US citizens gave me some obvious unearned and unfair advantages over others. This is a problem for classical liberalism because, while there's arguably not much we can do about differences an individual is born with, the differences in economic status are systemic, not "natural," and could be ameliorated. Indeed, they might not exist at all, which is hard to imagine with differences of, say, gender or physical robustness or IQ-type intelligence.

in this case at least, it may be more a question of finding some capacity that each person has that people will pay money for — Ludwig V

An interesting alternative to guaranteeing a minimum standard of living. I suppose a more social-democratic view here would challenge the idea that economic viability needs to be deserved or earned at all. But I can easily see a capitalist society using your idea as a sort of bridge.

We can notice how this thought developed in a related area. It used to be held that the right to vote was no such thing, but rather had to be earned, if you will, by being a member of a certain sex and racial and economic class. Now liberal democracies believe that all adult citizens (with some troublesome exceptions) indeed have this right. But the parallel with "right to be economically stable" hasn't been made yet. We still believe, by and large, that people should earn their living. There's been, at least, some movement toward thinking that those who are unable to do so can be supported by the state, but this rarely translates into anything you or I would recognize as economic stability. (I'm speaking now about the US, which lags so far behind in this area -- 16.3 % of children below the poverty line??? :cry: .)

The idea of justice includes classes of various kinds such that all the people, in the veil of ignorance, would agree to those classes before rolling the dice to find out which class they are in.

The big difficulty there is... well, whatever. — Moliere

Not sure about that last part? :smile: But yes, this is a huge problem with the veil of ignorance, for Nussbaum and many others. Rawls assumed a lot when he imagined what we could know and not know, accept and not accept, conceptualize and not conceptualize, from behind that veil. The idea is resilient, though, because you can correct and stretch it without breaking it and making it useless.

there's no discussion upon "just how low can the lower class go?", because he was not a member of the lower class. — Moliere

Not entirely fair. Rawls has all kinds of things to say about this, most famously his "Difference Principle":

The basic structure should allow organizational and economic inequalities so long as these improve everyone's situation, including that of the least advantaged, provided these inequalities are consistent with equal liberty and fair equality of opportunity. — Political Liberalism, 282

As for the ad hominem part -- well, maybe being a member of the lower class would be a necessary condition for seeing it differently, but certainly not a sufficient one. See Broke and Patriotic, by Francesco Duina.

Right now, too many people have very limited knowledge, and letting them loose is about like letting all the animals in a zoo loose. — Athena

Well, most of the US "founding fathers" agreed with you. These from Hamilton:

"The body of people … do not possess the discernment and stability necessary for systematic government. To deny that they are frequently led into the grossest errors by misinformation and passion, would be a flattery which their own good sense must despise."

"The history of ancient and modern republics has taught [us]… that popular assemblies are frequently misguided by ignorance, by sudden impulses and [by] the intrigues of ambitious men."

Nonetheless, I'd respectfully suggest that the next couple hundred years of US history represented an attempt to find a way to further democracy without treating vast sections of citizens as if they were animals who ought to be caged. I doubt even Hamilton went that far. Just curious: In the metaphor you employ, who are the zookeepers?

I would say that this is, very broadly, the "free institutions" enshrined in Western democracy.
— J
That's all very well. But doesn't he recognize that all these freedoms are heavily qualified? — Ludwig V

I think he does. In Political Liberalism, for instance, in the section called "Free Political Speech," he points out that "the basic liberties not only limit one another but they are also self-limiting" (341), and goes on to give a very nuanced discussion of how this is so. This section ends:

The discussion illustrates how freedom of speech as a basic liberty is specified and adjusted at later stages so as to protect its central range, namely the free public use of our reason in all matters that concern the justice of the basic structure and its social policies. — Political Liberalism, 348

I would call this "heavily qualified," if you think about what he's actually saying. The possibly ideal liberty to speak as one pleases becomes confined to its "central range," which appears to be reasonable political discussion about matters of justice as they relate to structure and policies. The use of "reasonable," alone, would force a discussion of what this means in terms of limits.

We arrive at “the property question”: is it reasonable to allow private ownership of society’s major means of production? If we agree to conceive political society as a fair cooperative system for mutual benefit, the answer must be No: these assets are such that private ownership inevitably endows the owner with inordinate political power.
Rawls was hesitant to state this conclusion. He wanted to leave open an alternative to liberal democratic socialism that he called “property-owning democracy.” These two “ideal regime-types,” as he called them, differ essentially only in how they answer the property question.

Excellent. This is just how I read him too -- though as I said, I'd need to do some rereading on this question to be sure. But we find him saying typical Rawlsian things such as:

I have assumed throughout . . . that while citizens do not have equal capacities, they do have, at least to the essential minimum degree, the moral, intellectual, and physical capacities that enable them to be fully cooperating members of society over a complete life. — Political Liberalism, 163

I call this typical because his conception of a "capacity" is usually individual, such that "economic capacity" might not qualify -- though I think it should. And the "essential minimum degree" bit has generated a lot of debate, which would certainly have to be extended into the economic area as well.

Maybe I should have expanded what I meant by “crude relativism.” It would be something like this:

“Everything is relative. There’s no true or false. There’s no right and wrong.”
“But I don’t agree with that.”
“Then you’re wrong!”

This is what I meant by a position no one could take seriously.

Reading over your responses here, though, I realize that I have a rhetorical habit of saying “anyone” or “no one” when what I really mean is “ . . . within the universe of competent philosophers.” You remind me that there are people willing to accept most any position, if it has some emotional appeal. I rarely encounter them, because I live my intellectual life largely in the company of the philosophers I’m reading (and TPF, of course). But you’re undoubtedly right – what I call “crude relativism” may present no problems whatsoever for some people. So I should amend what I just wrote, above, to read, “ . . . a position no one familiar with philosophical inquiry could take seriously.”

But what you're saying isn't a problem just for "foundational premises," it literally is a problem for affirming any proposition at all. — Count Timothy von Icarus

By foundational premises, I meant to include not just the logical forms, but the bedrock propositions to which the reasoning applies. Foundational philosophy doesn't merely specify modus ponens, for instance, but also declares content for P and Q that is claimed as foundational. Or, if "content" is suspect, it stipulates the connection between logical form and the world.

3. I don't see what institutions are considered to be free here and what status the others might have. — Ludwig V

Coming back to this: The context here, for Rawls, is what he says about "reasonable pluralism" as the "inevitable outcome" of such institutions. What he has in mind, I think, are institutions such as a free press, freedom of speech, no state religion, and a "free market." Leaving the last one aside for the moment, we can see the degree of freedom he's picturing concerning speech and religion. Broadly, he's imagining institutions that exact no penalties for a pluralism of views, and place no barriers to the expression of such views, and prohibit the state from placing a hand on the scale when there is disagreement. I would say that this is, very broadly, the "free institutions" enshrined in Western democracy.

But . . . Rawls is on much shakier grounds if he also regards Western late capitalism as a free institution. I am not sure he does. He's aware that economic inequality is not only a matter of individual good or bad fortune, but is to some extent a feature of the system. But I don't know if he ever seriously considered socialistic reforms -- pretty sure there's no discussion of that in either Theory of Justice or Political Liberalism. I'd have to reread both him and Nussbaum to have an educated opinion one way or the other.

Just to tie up this loose end . . .

This wasn't meant as a refutation of relativism, it's just pointing out that it doesn't make people play nice or avoid disagreement. — Count Timothy von Icarus

OK, I see that. I guess I wasn't imagining relativism as trying to avoid disagreements. And I'm sure you're right that a "crude relativist" could leave a discussion worse off than they found it, by accusing people who aren't relativists of being wrong. I hope we agree that this doesn't characterize a position that anyone could take seriously.

I hardly see how it [philosophy] is the sort of thing than can be rendered a manner of taste without trivializing essentially everything — Count Timothy von Icarus

I may never understand your rhetorical habit of contrasting Position A with a Position B that no one has ever espoused! :smile: In this case . . . do you honestly think that the single alternative to foundational philosophy is to make philosophy a "manner/matter of taste"? Do you find any philosophers saying this? When thinkers like Habermas and Gadamer and RJ Bernstein devote their careers to trying to articulate a way of thinking about these issues that does them justice, do you really believe their arguments come down to "it's all a matter of taste"? I call this a rhetorical habit of yours because I don't think, at bottom, you actually believe it. You're too intelligent and sensible. Why the rhetoric, then?

Yes, a long literature on this one. I myself think it's important to keep reasons distinct from causes. If reasons "just are" causes, we'd need to revise a lot of our way of talking about them. Perhaps we should -- but the other issue that seems important here is the vexed notion of freedom. If I'm caused to do something, I wasn't free to do otherwise. Is this how it is with thoughts, beliefs, even perceptions? Again, this could be true, but now we'd need a big conceptual revision about ourselves.

I'm wondering when you say that we understand things in the human sciences you mean that we understand human behavior in terms of reasons not causes. If so I agree. But can this also apply to experiences? — Janus

Exactly. I think so, but I'm not sure. Let's go back to the dream, rather than a mystical experience. When I interpret my dream, have I explained it or have I understood it? This is fuzzy, of course, but wouldn't we want to say that the interpretation can take place with or without an explanation? Put it in terms of the question, "Why did you dream X?" If I answer this by giving my interpretation, that doesn't quite suffice. The "why" question seems to require a bigger background story, something more theoretical about how dreams occur in the first place, and why I might have dreamed X at the particular moment in my life that I did. Certainly this isn't separate from interpretation, but I do think it's different.

This is all to show that the original question of what it is to mean something is a very difficult one, especially when extended beyond sayings and into experiences.

There's an alternative to thinking that an argument is either right or wrong. Rather than framing disagreements as binary conflicts we might seek the underlying structure of the disagreement, which could lead to deeper agreement or at least mutual intelligibility.

This would involve some good will on the part of the participants, and the acceptance of what we might call "liberal" guidelines for discussion. — Banno

Of course. "Argument" as a zero-sum game with winners and losers. . . . I had a professor who used to talk about "the gladiatorial theory of philosophy," in which two arguments battle it out, giving no quarter, and the result is supposed to settle some issue. He didn't think it worked, usually, and that's been my experience. More deeply, I've come to see that the reasons why it doesn't work can tell us a lot about what philosophy is -- how it is distinct from other human pursuits, and what can be gained by engaging in it.

Interesting. No doubt the European religious wars and persecutions of the 16th-17th centuries made tolerance look more attractive. So a country that was, let's say, 99% Hindu, with no prospect of this changing, might not need to value religious freedom. Maybe so, and it helps highlight whether and why a core principle could develop on strictly ethical grounds.

Regarding the question about "one correct interpretation" of texts; I can't see how that could be supportable. What could it mean to say there is only one correct interpretation if we cannot have any idea what criteria could be used to identify it? That said, I suppose it could be argued that what the author had in mind determined what was written; but then it could be asked as to what 'What the author had in mind" could refer to beyond the actual words that were written.

I mean the author could have been experiencing all sorts of feelings and associations during the process of writing, but it is questionable whether even the author, let alone anyone else, could identify and describe them after the fact. — Janus

Yes, it's a headache, but I don't think we can just throw out the idea of a correct interpretation, if we limit "interpretation" to some version of "conscious intention." Again, I'd appeal to ordinary experience: When you say something and I say, "Oh, you mean Y," getting it completely wrong, you're going to stand on your right to reply, "No, that's not it, I meant X." And so you should. This is a version of "author's authority," and you're right that it certainly leaves out many cases in which we'd like to say we have a correct interpretation but can't appeal to any "author." It also leaves out the "feelings and associations" problem, where it's not clear that even the author is fully in charge of what they meant. Psychoanalytic interpretation would be the locus classicus here.

Is the meaning of a mystical experience the same thing as the explanation of it? — Janus

I think not, but it's far from clear. The traditional distinction is that we're supposed to understand things in the human sciences and explain things in the physical sciences. Where does this kind of experience fall?

Perhaps the Theory of Evolution is a more pertinent case. Apparently Popper at one time claimed it was not falsifiable and hence did not count as a scientific theory. If memory serves he later withdrew the claim. — Janus

Yes, I think he was persuaded that there are falsifiable predictions associated with evolutionary theory, namely that if X aspect of the theory is true, we would expect to find Y types of fossils at location Z, dating to time T. And this has been borne out many times, and never to my knowledge falsified. Jerry Coyne's Why Evolution Is True is good on this. ("True," but perhaps not complete . . . see Nagel.)

Does tolerating different views necessarily mean reconciling them? — Ludwig V

I shouldn't think so. As you say, the tolerance presupposes that they won't be reconciled any time soon.

These don't look like objections to liberalism to me. — Ludwig V

Nor to me, frankly, but I'm trying to present what I've seen as typical objections. I should probably let those who hold them make the case.

3. I don't see what institutions are considered to be free here and what status the others might have. — Ludwig V

This point deserves a more thoughtful reply, as it speaks to both the strengths and weaknesses of Rawlsian theory. Pushed for time now but I'll come back to this . . .

But isn't the goal of the kind of philosophy you espouse to resolve those disputes? More, to claim that in principle they must be resolvable? This would make the history of philosophy, taken in toto, a story of failure, since the disputes live on. That's the part that I have trouble recognizing as my own experience of doing philosophy with others.

I don't see how this is a problem. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I guess it needn't be. As I say, it just doesn't fit my own experience of doing philosophy. I'm aware that, for some, philosophy is seen as a history of disputes that ought to have been resolved. You put it well:

it would not follow that one's own doctrine is undermined by the fact that some people are not perfected by these. — Count Timothy von Icarus

The idea that "some people are not perfected" by one's own presumably correct doctrine makes me smile, but I suppose it expresses the attitude you'd have to take if you saw philosophy as an attempt to make a single correct view triumph, and the failure to do so is down to the other guy, not the issue itself.

"The worry here is that the foundationalist philosopher who believes that everything of importance can be demonstrated apodictically, thus resolving all disagreements in favor of a position they hold, will treat those who disagree as if they must be doing something wrong, whether due to ignorance, stupidity, stubbornness, or malice.}

Wouldn't this just be true in general? If we think we know something, and people do not accept it, or affirm something contrary, we think they are ignorant in that matter (or I suppose acting in bad faith). — Count Timothy von Icarus

But when it comes to philosophical views? I would have said that one of the key differences between thinking philosophically and our ordinary ways of thinking about the world is the recognition that we don't propose ignorance or bad faith as a plausible explanation for someone's disagreeing with us. And I have to admit how difficult it is for me even to imagine carrying on as you suggest.

Third, while telling people they are wrong about closely held metaphysical or moral beliefs can produce friction, I don't see how other methods, i.e. explaining broad fields as pseudoproblems or declaring all sides of the debate "meaningless," claiming they involve merely relative truths, or that they deal in "fictions," etc. is necessarily any less so. — Count Timothy von Icarus

What would you think of the method that says, "Hmm, tell me more. Help me understand why you say this. Here's how I see it. Let's see what we can learn"? The difficulty that many people have with such a method, unlike all the ones you enumerate, including telling people they are wrong, is that it requires sincere curiosity and philosophical humility on the part of the inquirer. But if one is already sure enough about one's beliefs to declare someone else wrong, then curiosity and humility probably don't apply. BTW, I am far from a perfect exemplar of any of this. I too fall prey to arrogance and impatience.

I'll have to leave the relativism question for later. It's Sunday morning and -- I hope this doesn't shock or disappoint anyone :wink: -- I'm off to church.

But, I think a difficulty here, when one reads a work like De Anima is the desire to see it as some sort of contemporary empirical theory, which it sort of is, but this isn't really where its value lies. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Thank you for the citation. I always try to read philosophers sympathetically, in context, and fortunately with Aristotle there's an enormous interpretive literature I can consult.

And in virtue of what is a stance adopted? Reason? Sentiment? Aesthetic taste? Sheer impulse? — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'd refer you back to the "Epistemic Stances . . . " thread. I can't say it any better than Chakravartty does, or lay out the arguments any more clearly than I did in the OP. The short answer to your list, as you will see, is "none of the above." An epistemic stance will largely depend on "a collection of attitudes, values, aims, and other commitments relevant to thinking about scientific ontology, including policies or guidelines for the production of putatively factual beliefs," to quote Chakravartty. So I guess closer to "reasons," plural, than anything else on your list.

If they are disputable they will certainly be disputed, hence "how philosophy actually proceeds." — Count Timothy von Icarus

But isn't the goal of the kind of philosophy you espouse to resolve those disputes? More, to claim that in principle they must be resolvable? This would make the history of philosophy, taken in toto, a story of failure, since the disputes live on. That's the part that I have trouble recognizing as my own experience of doing philosophy with others.

and also morally questionable.

I don't get this one. How so? — Count Timothy von Icarus

The worry here is that the foundationalist philosopher who believes that everything of importance can be demonstrated apodictically, thus resolving all disagreements in favor of a position they hold, will treat those who disagree as if they must be doing something wrong, whether due to ignorance, stupidity, stubbornness, or malice. And we can't limit the "wrong" to "intellectual wrong," because the whole foundationalist picture is supposed to hang together, such that ethics follows from metaphysics, or at least depends upon it. Thus it is not merely possible but necessary that to be mistaken in one area is to be mistaken through and through, at least on the big-picture significant questions.

I certainly don't say that everyone who values a firm foundation for their philosophy has to think this way. But, as I said, it's a worry, especially when disagreements provoke ire, contempt, and unkindness toward those who disagree. In such cases, quite apart from the merits of the arguments, it's the attitude that disagreement must be ended, and would be ended if the world operated aright and everyone could reason properly, that gives me shivers. In everyday language, it's the attitude that says, "What's wrong with you! How can you still be disagreeing with me?!" Thomas knew about what can happen next . . . the old argumentum ad baculum. (He thought it was a fallacy. :smile: )

And would a strong epistemology of rational obligation mean that we were wrong in doing this?

Wrong in doing what exactly, not affirming truth? — Count Timothy von Icarus

No, I meant wrong in claiming that we had reasons for affirming what we think true, as opposed to being caused to do so. I can tell that the reason/cause thing doesn't really speak to you, and that's fine, there's no need to pursue if it's not philosophically fruitful for you.

One of the problems with relativism as a nice solution to disagreements is that it doesn't actually allow "everyone to be right" anyhow. It says that everyone who isn't a relativist (most thinkers) is wrong. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I don't actually think that's true. Can you cite a relativist philosopher who says this, or who's been unable to respond to this criticism? If it were that simple to refute relativism, surely the position would be in the graveyard by now!

It leads to implausible claims. Joe has the property of being awake at T1, and the property of being asleep at T2.

Indeed. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I know you meant to imply this, but just to keep things straight: What's implausible here is that Joe is two different objects at these two times, not that he could have these two properties.

Which might put a spanner into Kripke. Point 1 about how "if water is H2O" -- it's not, if we include D2O, for instance. — Moliere

Yes, maybe not a spanner exactly, but we can see that Kripke is working with some (unquestioned?) assumptions about who determines what something is -- scientists, in this case. He's willing to go along with the decision that H2O is water and D2O is not. That's reasonable, but it needs to be noticed as part of K's method.

What would the opposite of this be? You start with premises that are foundational and then refuse to affirm what follows from them? — Count Timothy von Icarus

No, that would be ruled out, so the opposite would indeed be irrational. That's why indisputably foundational premises might be abandoned in favor of something closer to epistemic stance voluntarism. This may not be a worry for you, but many philosophers, myself included, are concerned about the consequences of rational obligation which do seem to follow, as you correctly show, from allegedly indisputable premises. The idea that there is only one right way to see the world, and only one view to take about disagreements, seems counter to how philosophy actually proceeds, in practice, and also morally questionable.

But this seems to make reason extrinsic to the rational nature, a source of constraint rather than the very means by which finite natures can transcend their finitude by questioning current belief and desire. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'm getting confused by "rational nature" and "finite nature" and "transcend their finitude". Could you rephrase in more ordinary terms? Are you talking about objectivity and subjectivity?

The cause/reason issue is complicated. Maybe the right backdrop for it is the picture we commonly have of ourselves as thinkers. We give reasons, not causes, for what we think. Why is this? What difference does this way of talking point to? And would a strong epistemology of rational obligation mean that we were wrong in doing this?

As noted in the other thread, PA just lays out the challenge to scientific knowledge and demonstration. The full justification of the solution spans a good deal of the corpus because it involves the way man comes to know, and a sort of "metaphysics of knowledge." — Count Timothy von Icarus

I understand, and I don't expect you to do my Aristotle homework for me! Would it be possible, though, to point me toward the particular passages you describe thus?:

"'justification must end somewhere,' and Aristotle himself suggests this is an old problem by the time he is writing about it."

I'm very curious to see how Aristotle framed this problem.

Essentially, what we want to know is whether "a reason" must cash out to "an obligatory cause" of holding a particular belief. This is troubling, as discussed on the thread.
— J
So, not so sure about the "obligatory". — Banno

It's a big topic, probably not for this thread. One interesting way of phrasing the issue: If realism depends upon epistemic positions that must be taken on pain of self-contradiction, would that mean that even the most apparently entrenched philosophical disagreements not only are in principle resolvable, but must be so? In short, if you start from premises you believe you can show to be foundational, does that commit you to also saying that everything that follows is rationally obligatory? That you are caused to so reason?

It's a point about how there are a posteriori necessary truths -- it doesn't say that water is H2O; it's not relying upon the science for its point. Only if water is H2O then it is necessarily H2O, and this was a process of discovery from terms we previously would not have associated with H2O. — Moliere

This is how I read Kripke as well. The truth, if it is true, that water is H2O comes first, before invoking necessity.

I think I'd push against the notion that D2O is water, after all, because it's not potable. — Moliere

Well, here the "is" is open to interpretation. D2O isn't called water; it's called heavy water, which is meant to remind us of the family connection with what we do call water. We can, and do, also call it deuterium, with no reference to "water" at all. The Kripkean approach is, I think, intended to help us distinguish between which "is" questions are about essences, or properties like "potability," and which are about uses of words. Another way of saying this:

Different ways of talking about the same stuff. Are we obligated to say one is right, the other wrong? I don't see why. — Banno

Actually, I'm inclined to think that liberalism may be the best way of coping with the fact that we have to work out how to proceed from where we are, with all our different perspectives . . . — Ludwig V

Yes, this is key. I get the sense that hardcore opponents of liberal theory would object, right at the start, to the claim that we do have to do this -- that it may not be an ideal place to start but there's no way to create a different starting place without either tyranny or miracles. We find ourselves -- we in Western democracies, that is -- in a lively and diverse, if often acrimonious, conversation about what sorts of values and practices ought best to guide us. We can either encourage that conversation, hoping perhaps for a Peircean ideal convergence of inquiry, or attempt to abort it by the imposition of one set of values. (I'm still not clear how this would actually be done.)

The other point of strong objection, I think, is that Rawls (and to an extent Habermas) believes this pluralistic situation is inevitable and irreconcilable at this moment on some moral issues. "What are the grounds of toleration," Rawls asks, "given the fact of reasonable pluralism as the inevitable outcome of free institutions?" Opponents of this view would say three things:

1. You ought to be able to specify the grounds of toleration -- and we believe they're inconsistent and objectionable.

2. "Reasonable pluralism" is in the eye of the beholder.

3. What is it about "free institutions" that you think makes this outcome inevitable?

All three are perfectly good points to raise. But what is distressing to me is that, so often, opponents of liberalism seem to believe that merely to raise them is to defeat liberal theory -- as if these were stunning new insights that had never occurred to Rawls or Habermas! I think this attitude probably springs from never having actually read the philosophers in question, and using a straw-man cartoon of "liberalism," largely derived from contemporary politics, as the target. (I appreciate, BTW, your candor about your own knowledge of R and H.). But of course these issues have been intensely and carefully examined, repeatedly, in the literature.

OK, my mistake. If it's not much trouble, could you give the citation in PA for the argument you have in mind? Many thanks.

Sorry, I meant to include this link if it's helpful.

What is that difference? The similarity is here with the concept of God would be Deism, and in that case also, the consequences for us are irrelevant as we are probably an unknown entity of the simulation to those running it. — Christoffer

I'd think any concept of God would be parallel -- after all, the simulators are beings with personalities and desires, so perhaps more like the God of theism. Who knows what they know about us?

But I don't think that's the question. Your point -- that none of this should matter, since (without an interventionist God/simulator) it changes nothing in our possible daily experiences -- is perhaps correct, if humans were different sorts of creatures, more like Mr. Spock. But we care very much about meaning, about values, about who we are in the world, and for better or worse, the question of what created our world has almost universally been taken as mattering a great deal, on these questions. It's certainly my own experience. Again, you may be right that it shouldn't matter, logically, but that would involve some enormous changes in human culture.

If we are in a simulation, it is so advanced it is essentially reality for us, meaning, what's the difference between reality and a "simulation"? — Christoffer

None, in the sense you mean, but it would probably make a difference to us if we knew we were in a simulation. It's the same question as asking, "Are we in a world created by a God?" The answer seems to make a big difference . . . but maybe it shouldn't?

I defer to @Count Timothy von Icarus on that, though my impression is that Aristotelian metaphysics does depend on a robust concept of "essence."

Wittgenstein is unknowingly retreading the ground of Aristotle's Posterior Analytics re "justification must end somewhere," and Aristotle himself suggests this is an old problem by the time he is writing about it. — Count Timothy von Icarus

We discussed Aristotle's argument from PA on the "Epistemic Stances" thread. I argued that the reasoning was faulty, and concluded by saying:

"So this would not be a powerful enough conclusion to show that discursive knowledge is possible (one of the original premises of the argument as you gave it). In this version there is no longer a piece of discursive knowledge to point to. So perhaps this doesn’t get you (or Aristotle) where you’d like to go."

You never replied, but it did leave me wondering whether you agreed. I'd invite both you and @frank to have a look at the last page of that thread, beginning from where you introduce the PA, and tell me if you still believe Aristotle's reasoning holds up.

I'll insist that there can be no "pre-linguistic metaphysical practice" that we cannot put into words post-hoc; otherwise how could we be said to recognise it as a practice? — Banno

I was saying much the same thing. I don't think we even need the "post-hoc" qualification. Language can start with non-metaphysical uses, and build its boat on the ocean, as it goes along, concerning more philosophical uses. The idea is that the practice develops with the language, and vice versa. This is meant to counter the hypothesis that the relevant linguistic structures were there first, causing the metaphysical thinking to be what it is. And of course, as you say, the mirror hypothesis of "metaphysical thinking" starting before language seems unlikely as well.

It seems the problem with hermeneutics lies in specifying what criteria there could be for a reading to count as a correct reading. — Janus

Yes. And this encompasses the equally difficult question of whether there is only one correct reading. This becomes especially important when we extend hermeneutics from the interpretation of texts to the interpretation of experience, a la Gadamer and Ricoeur. What is valuable and freeing about hermeneutics, I think, is that it challenges the "one correct version" of things, all down the line. Gadamer and Ricoeur (and others) strive to find the middle ground between rejecting a kind of quasi-scientific, deductive method of interpreting experience, but also not falling into an anything-goes relativism about what counts as "correct."

But let's say we found a middle ground we could justify. Would "the meaning of X," using such a hermeneutic, be said to be knowledge? I think so. Our ordinary discourse speaks uncontroversially about "knowing what X means." And anyone is entitled to say, "That's not what I meant!" and be understood. To leap several steps ahead, I'm exploring whether the meaning of an allegedly mystical experience can be the subject of correct interpretation.

What could it mean to say I know the theory of relativity is correct beyond saying that there is reliable evidence that it works? — Janus

Quite so, but for me, the non-physicist, the reliable evidence is not Einstein's equations but my evaluation of the competence and sincerity of those who understand those equations. A very different kind of evidence, and yet I insist that I'm justified in saying that I know the theory is correct.

You seem to be hung up on the idea that every property of an object is essential to that object's identity. If not, then two distinct objects could have the same identity. Why is this difficult for you to accept? — Metaphysician Undercover

It leads to implausible claims. Joe has the property of being awake at T1, and the property of being asleep at T2. These are certainly not trivial properties, yet does anyone claim that Joe is not the same person? And this line of thought leads inevitably to the tensed character of such statements, which is why Kripke and possible worlds becomes important. I'll take your word for it that "rigid designator" seems very simple to you, but its use in understanding the issues here is not. At the risk of being a nag, could I suggest again that you actually read one of Kripke's lectures?

The point is not that the symbols on the paper somehow force you to add them, merely that when you add sums on a paper those signs determine which numbers you add. — Count Timothy von Icarus

There has to be some sort of "physical-ish causality," right? Else how could ink in a paper book (a physical object) lead you to have the very specific thoughts of War and Peace, or a light reliably make people apply their brakes? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Good, I understand you better now. What I want to understand better for myself is whether this conception of causality must entail necessity and obligation. The numbers don't force me to add them (an action in the physical world), granted, but the question is, if I do add them (and only them, not some others), do they force me to have the reasons I have for my correct answer? It's the relationship between causes and reasons that I'm concerned with here, how we bridge the gap between physical-ish causes and thought-ish reasons.

Similarly, with War and Peace, the cause/reason question emerges at the connection between these abstract marks on paper and what they mean. Arguably, the introduction of meaning moves us from causes to reasons.

But let me think more on it, thanks for clarifying.

Sure. And I don't really know how much info I'd need before some insight crystallized. One missing piece (or maybe you already said?): It sounds like there's a great deal of amity and cooperation among and between both the NHI groups and the Earth nations (USA, China, Russia, all getting along well on this topic). Is that part of what you want us to imagine? I can't help feeling that needs its own explanation, and it would definitely have a bearing on how a roll-out of disclosure might go.