A baker does all those things too!

But bakers aren't philosophizing, nor philosophers.

So, let's say there is a motivation, but the motivation is constitutively built-in to the reason itself. There might be a contingent emotion associated with the reason, but it doesn't need to be basis for our action.

As for the empirical evidence, I'm still not seeing how empirical evidence doesn't underdetermine the facts of how we make certain types of choices, particularly ethical ones. I don't think freedom is even possible if we have external mechanisms creating the basis of our actions. Simply because if they did, then there is no scenario of which we could do otherwise other than what the external constraints governed us to do. And if we can't do otherwise, I don't see how we can have agency. For agency requires that we could have inhibited the actions that are deemed unethical at times.

Now, if the motivation for our actions were built into Reason, then the basis for our actions would be intrinsically self-determined. We would desire to do the good, but as a consequence of doing the good. If we did the good because of our desires, then the basis for doing the Good would be a means to an end, and not end in-itself.

They can act for good reasons, in a space of reasons - but that's only if that space already aligns with their emotions.

You've never been motivated to do something that doesn't align with your passions? By passions we mean something like self-interested passions. What about the interests of others? Surely, when we care about other people's interests, we are not interested in our interests of other people's interests, but their interests. But how are we able to take into consideration other people's ends if not by being disinterested in our own ends?

It seems like a plausible story to me. When we say, make a hippocratic oath, we don't play this game of, "Oh, well, there's no way to divorce ourselves from our own passions" — we remain true to the oath despite our own inclinations.

Lastly, perhaps the error here is that you view the space-of-reasons to be external to our own desires. One can desire, in a way, to participate in the space of reasons because such a space is intrinsically - and perhaps even unconditionally - valuable.

An affect isn't the explanation for our action, just a consequence.

Where does it say that in the article?

I think another conclusion you can reach is that empirical evidence underdetermines our actions, and empirical evidence can never give us justification for how to reason correctly about ethics.

All it shows is that sometimes we use emotions to make judgements. That's not controverisal.

The studies of decision-making in neurological patients who can no longer process emotional information normally suggest that people make judgments not only by evaluating the consequences and their probability of occurring, but also and even sometimes primarily at a gut or emotional level

They are the tools for grounding. I don't understand why ideal relations/inferences need to be grounded, either. Presumably, if we make judgements, we necessarily use inferences. We have judgements, therefore we necessarily use inferences. I know that I make judgements from first-hand experiences, even though they rely on external sensibilities to supply the content of my beliefs. However, there's no distance between myself and myself when I weigh in whether I have inferences.

Epistemic justification/explanations.

I don't think I'm quite following which part you've disagreed with.

I'm not sure what you mean by "determining the truth of this system." And why that has to be done after the fact. If I'm acting based on ethical reasons, then the good will enables me to act on those reasons. Why should we smuggle in a motivated reason retroactively? It seems perfectly fine to imagine that I help someone out who I dislike, and after doing it, I feel unpleasant because I just didn't like them. There could be no possible prior incentive to help the person outside of my ethical vocation. And that may have been enough to act.

I'm also not sure why I'd reduce human agency to causal explanations alone.

I'm not really sure how that article proves that all of our decisions require prior desires/ some prior disposition or emotive backing. I'm also apprehensive of any identity claim in neuroscience.

Yeah, I'm not sure if people often just pretend to believe in stuff, but that they do believe in stuff that works in a very confused way.

And no, I haven't read him!

Also, I think if we were to just imagine philosophy going down tube, say, 2500 years ago, I think a lot would have change today. Drastically. So, some might do that analysis of the present (as TGW has) where he asks us to imagine a counter-factual reality without philosophy from now. Is anything lost? I don't see a reason why a counter-factual situation like this would look as radically different as the one we just envisioned had we never had philosophy in the first place. He seems to think otherwise. But I don't think there's good a posterori evidence for that.

I'd have to say that maybe that's partially true.

There's a sense of where logical positivism dropped away seemingly useless metaphysical language, but then, that failed. In came back in metaphysics. There's a sense where, personally, I think older claims like essences, teleology, etc are making some form of come-back in philosophy and aren't dropped away. Some professors in NYU are, you know, concerned with creating a notion of an essence that's nonmodal. They are concerned in ontological grounding. Powers, which are in Aristotle's philosophy, creep back up as a form of modality in-between necessity and possibility in, say, Mumford's theories of causation. There's a way of where philosophy just does cycle.

I'm sympathetic to the idea, not sold, yeah. I think there's a sense of when one assumes an "outside-in look", then it seems very pointless as a whole historical structure. And I'm wondering if there is something odd about that "outside-in" look to begin with.

But if I'm in the system, I start creating systems. And I'm sold to systematic philosophy.

Okay, take for example the debate between Idealism and Realism. I think it's highly confused. Nobody believes in the idea of a world completely made of just ideas. (Berkeley's philosophy). You can take a more nuanced form of idealism, such as we see in the German Idealist movement (Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel), but I think that's really just realism with a few caveats.

I guess the question then becomes, do any of these paths actually lead anywhere? I think sometimes it's enough to simply know what sort of question a question is. Wondering if closing your hand into a fist creates another object by itself is an odd question, but defining it as a mereological question, and clumping it together with other questions of a similar sort makes it less odd. I think eventually you can get to a point where it seems like just about all possible positions in a given domain have been explored, and no further progress is to be made apart from eliminating positions.

But isn't that just frustrating? And make the whole thing seem pretty pointless? I mean, if a problem is so extensive, and has made no progress in thousands of years, wouldn't that be a good reason to think it's irresolvable? Not a priori, but a posteriori evidence suggests it.

It's not even a division between academia/non-academia. Just doing philosophy past asking ordinary existential questions and basic epistemics. Which isn't philosophy, imho. At least I don't think a baker baking bread is philosophy.

Well, if philosophy was pursuing wisdom, finding truth, and there's people that do it for thousands of years, wouldn't you see at least one sufficent answer to any problem in mereology? I mean, we can use other domains of inquiry. Like free will. But that seems somewhat equally confused doesn't it?

It's fine to call "philosophy" just asking question as long as you know that's not what it is anymore, nor how any philosophers now practice it. I take it to be asking questions in a more precise way than that. So it's not really relevant to the question I'm asking. As I said, we'd be equivocating.

But mereology is a philosophical inquiry for the last 2,500 years. People in philosophy attempt to answer questions like these all the time.

Well, I thought I addressed some of these concerns but I feel like these type of responses sorta don't get at my anxiety about these concerns that I raised.

It is also possible to write and think endlessly about topics and go round in circles, never coming up with any answers. Perhaps it is about lack of commitment to and one way of seeing amidst a diversity of possible options. Or, perhaps it is about not seeing thinking to clear ends. It is easy to dabble with philosophical questions but not work hard enough at them.

The concern isn't just that we don't answer questions, but that the questions themselves aren't interesting because they unanswerable.

It's true that some more profound questions like, "Is there meaning in the world?" or "Is their a unity to it all?" can be asked without getting any resolutions, but I feel like a baker can ask these questions. And Bakers aren't philosophers in any relevant sense. (Because we'd be equivocating between philosophy as the philosopher does it, and just ordinary arguments or contemplations.)

I am not sure that the issue is simply that pre-philosohical solutions is a solution because I am not sure that such solutions are pre-philosophical in the first place. That is because philosophy goes back to ancient times and by using arguments so most ways of seeing life are rooted in some kind of roots in philosophy in the first place.

And ordinary questions and actions go even further back. Before anything we can properly call philosophy. In that sense, bakers aren't philosophers, mechanics aren't philosophers, etc, etc.

Maybe. But the point of this thread is to rid us of that anxiety. So for example,

If I turn my hand into a fist, does a new object appear? Or is it the same object as before? And how do you come to know that?

Yeah, so, saying, "saying philosophy is useless is philosophical" is, I think, missing the point.

What makes parsimony a metaphysical commitment that one ought to take?

And there seems to be a lot of examples where the opposite it true: the parts are maintained by the whole.

Sure, but it’s easier to remain convinced of a falsehood by a bad argument when there’s nothing at stake for being wrong.

Yeah, but that's beside the point.

Even if the correct philosophical answers end up being common sense, there is still value in exposing why all the alternative nonsense is wrong, to keep people from veering away from common sense.

But the problem is this doesn't usually occur. It rarely occurs, if ever, in philosophy.

And the way to come to a common sense point doesn't have to be philosophical.

Also, if the result that we end up using just common sense. Isn't that just the entire point that's being made here?

I don't see that being the case? There's plenty of committed individuals who have come up with proofs for the existence of essences, substances, mereological wholes, mereological nihilism, idealism, etc. Some of these views seem equally plausible as their alternative sometimes creating an antimony. I doubt a lot of people are in denial of the truth as much as they are convinced by the arguments.

I'm wondering if the problem is looking at philosophy from the "outside-in". There doesn't seem to be any large consensus in philosophy.

But that doesn't seem to be the case because we're still debating the same questions two-thousand and five hundred years later. With more nuanced, sure, but it's still the same issues.

And we have all sorts of things that are right in the other fields. Take for example we can calculate the surface area of the ocean, or know whether or not Napoleon existed.

I suppose the same way one can make Logic or Aesthetics "first philosophy"? Or the same way one can start a 10,000 piece jigsaw puzzle with this piece or that one. Any map of the same terrritory will suffice for relating, or framing, other subsequent maps palimpsest-like to one another. One starts from one's own 'ultimate concern' as a thinker (not as a "believer" (pace Tillich)).[/quote]

But this seems to fail to distinguish between ontological or epistemic dependency with a form of psychological dependence for a starting point. The latter might be interesting in some psychological sense, but doesn't seem like the inquiry at stake.

I don't recognize any grounds for assuming the ethics needs "epistemological justification" because I approach philosophy as a noncognitive performative exercise for proposing rigorously coherent criteria for conjecturing and methods for conjecture-testing, and not a cognitive theoretical practice for explaining (with 'testable conjectures') how nature (or even culture) works.

It always seem very strange to me to start with a non-cognitive position. It'll provide a psychological/biological account of why we started somewhere but it doesn't provide any answers to the ordinary questions of how inquiry is possible, what it depends on epistemically, what could have created the propositional (cognitive) abilities in the first place that seem to have a disjunction from the noncognitive.

May I ask how can one make Ethics first philosophy? I never understood this view but I'm sympathetic to it. How do you argue against general objections to ethics needing epistemology to justify it, or a metaphysics in which is sympathetic to moral properties existing, or needing a logic to make proper ethical inferences? Why a beginning/first principle in philosophy at all?

I can see why all these things wouldn't matter unless one had a value system, or a motivation to do them, but this isn't what you'd argue for, is it?

Because this particular potential (among others) was realised by an acorn’s interaction with the world.

But particular thing doing other particular things isn't saying anything more than "things happen". That doesn't have any explanatory power. Why does that happen to be the way it is as oppose to it not being that way? It doesn't seem like a coincidence to me that oak trees don't come from whales. Nor am I going to accept a full on rejection of the question of "Why?"

Clearly trees come from a particular set of properties, but that's true of anything. It's not interesting.

One way or another when you're endorsing certain claims, you're endorsing it because there's a rational constraint or a type of ontological normativity in the world that presses itself on you, and make you responsibility to get it right. If there wasn't, then there's nothing to distinguish anything.

It does work - you’re just not accustomed to looking at the universe as a dynamically built relational structure. It’s a paradigm shift. The ‘whole’ is the origin - the ‘parts’ are only perceived as discrete in ignorance of this relational ‘whole’. So it’s not so much discrete parts making the whole, but rather the whole increasing awareness, connection and collaboration with itself through dynamic structural relations.

So the modality of acorns is constrained by ignorance - in the dynamic structure of interacting ‘parts’ - of the relational ‘whole’.

Sure I am. I'm a process ontologist. I don't think non-dynamic relationships exist. I'm completely convinced that things work relationally, dynamically, continuously, and processual. I haven't denied that from the beginning.

That also doesn't answer the question.

Normativity is just perceived value/potential as a prediction for future interactions based on information from past interactions. Beliefs are not formed according to what a thing IS, but always according to this perceived potential, which is necessarily uncertain and subjective.

No, I'm not talking about perceived normativity. I'm talking about the ontological normativity. Even if there was a distinction between our beliefs and how things are, that doesn't mean that things aren't a certain way relative to others things.

What you call ‘relative telos’, I’m calling perceived potential - the semantic difference is one of perspective. Telos assumes objective knowledge, but it is this ‘objectivity’ that is unknown as such. Your term is as useful as ‘relative truth’ or ‘relative infinity’.

The inner is not ‘preserved’ - it is sustained as a dynamic relational structure — Possibility

I don't see the difference. Why is it sustained? And again, don't tell me because of particular events.

This occurs to some extent all the way down to basic atomic structure. In self-aware organisms it manifests as fear, but the process is the same. This is what constrains forms, and it isn’t rational at all.

You're misunderstanding what I mean by rational here. I'm saying that nothing can fill in for distinguishing things from other things in the first place, because what makes distinction possible is a conceptual distinction — a material incompatibility (though rationally structured) between two things.

But you changed the investigation I brought up. It's not that acorns will become oak trees, it's that all oak trees were acorns. Why?

And what is the whole (universe) relative to?

I don’t believe the modality of acorns is rationally constrained - at least, not from the top down.

Doesn't work. You said these structure of the parts are dynamically built. So you're going up (relationally), not down (through discrete parts making the whole).

You also can't generate any normativity this way — never form a belief which can be in accordance with what a thing is.

define ‘purpose’ is necessarily limited by the relativity of perspective.

Why is it that, despite organisms being a dynamic process, they have at least a relatively fixed process? That is, I can change some of the environmental pressures and the organism remains intact in some ways. What is this regulation or maintenance of its parts if not at least a relative telos? Why does the inner seem preserved? And if there is some level of preservation, does this not at least show a inner-outer distinction to some extent?

I haven’t changed ‘ends’ here, only realised a certain potential

What is a rational constrain if not related to potential forms? Unless you're saying that things can become anything and everything, then you're already saying they are constrained.

Again: You got dynamism, conceptual content, said conceptual content constraints what the properties of any object is (through physical mutual incompatibility). If said concepts determine how that object functions and determines it's nature — regardless of it having a dynamic property related to other objects — doesn't mean we eliminate said properties, nor its telos.

I don't understand.Just because you can change ends, or the potential can change, it doesn't mean that things aren't working dynamically towards ends. And of course acorns are going to become tree unless they are inhibited. This is demonstrated in the case that no oak trees came from elephants, whales, humans, dandelions, etc. There is something that rationally constrains the modality of acorns. Notice all oak tress came from an acorn. Wild!

Teleology I have no problem with - it’s the explanations I disagree with, so my approach to it is always one of caution. Interrelation and dynamism is indicative of Darwinian evolutionary theory, for example - but I have serious problems with its interpretation in relation to explanations of purpose. Natural selection need not be explained as ‘survival of the fittest’, and the purpose of life is NOT to maximise survival, dominance and proliferation of the species. These teleological explanations (like most) are ignorant of contributing causal conditions and dimensional aspects of reality that point to a MUCH broader and more relative dispositional potential (and therefore purpose) than our limited perspective assumes.

My view of purpose vs cause is one of BOTH/AND: for me, the impetus underlying the cosmos is both teleological and random, and it is our limited perspective that determines our intentional capacity. What matters to the whole is awareness/ignorance, connection/isolation and collaboration/exclusion.

I see the ultimate purpose AND cause of the cosmos as maximising awareness, connection and collaboration. It is the value attributed to preserving identity which limits this capacity - whether at the level of atoms, molecules, objects, events, organisms, persons, ideologies, etc. In order to change, we must let go of this fear of losing an identity constructed entirely of ongoing relationships whose potential is limited only by ignorance, isolation and exclusion. It is this courage that has inspired the Big Bang, chemical reaction, the origin of life, consciousness, curiosity and love.

To be honest, I have no idea how to make sense of natural selection without teleology. For the reasons Jerry Fodor gives in What Darwin Got Wrong. There's also plenty of philosopher of biology who show it's compatible with purposefulness.

I'm not suggesting a teleology that is the same as some form of biological determinism. I think there's freedom in life, if that's what you're advocating for, but nonetheless relative direction. You can include all the causal contingencies in the world and still work your way completely top-down and see all the process/parts are moving relative to the whole. But, again, unless you're saying we can't make identities at all, then I don't see a problem with showing how there are dispositional qualities to organisms. The organism itself isn't a by-product of just external factors, it participates with its outside — co-determines it's own trajectory.

Look, if there's conceptual content, if there's dynamic, interrelation, holism, if things are operating towards ends... What the hell is purpose if not that? I'm not presupposing a personal God here. It's like I'm making a pizza with pepperoni, dough, ketchup, and you tell me, "Why are you calling that a pizza!?"

I was reading your post and I can't see what I actually disagree with. So it just leads me to believe you don't really disagree with me.

No causal action is done in isolation. When we say phrases like, "This causes that" we're talking about relatively localized events, states which have some self spatial containment and like-partedness — the more you deviate from those the more you lose sight of the identity. So when we are talking about human agents, we are obviously not including the ecosystem around them that preserve their bodies literally at all times. It certainly doesn't seem like we can't talk about the identity of the person — we do it all the time. We see that, despite their interdependence with the ecosystem there's still an inner identity (some determinate form that resists being homogenized with the rest of the world). Identities that are based, in part, on things like our immunity system, our metabolic structure, etc — all locally contained, and attributed to some like-partedness. So when I say that organisms have an offspring that passes on it's form, I just mean that there is something about the form of the offspring that is inherited and identical, or passed on. I certainly don't see how this is identical to the same type of imposition of a form that an artisan gives to a painting. A purpose being based on a concept that an artisan intended seems distinct from a form that is inherited.

Also, alteration does not mean destruction. Alteration, akin to change, presupposes something in a temporal sequence that was not fully eliminated — presumably something in the organisms form that was inherited and then expressed differently with the surrounding context. Otherwise we would assume nothing was inherited. I'm not arguing for biological determinism, or some causa-sui being.

I am also not sure how any of this denies teleology. At best you're now arguing against our knoweldge of cosmic teleology.

That’s interesting, because you did distinguish between extrinsic and intrinsic teleology with this example:

Ah, okay. Well, when the artisan 'imparts' his concept onto the work of art, the art doesn't take on the inherent form of the artisan. All it does it take on the concept of the artisan. Whereas, in parent-offspring relationships, the form is passed on, inherited. That is, the organism is the cause and effect of the organism — reproduces itself as a species.

All teleology IS relative - it comes and goes depending on your perspective of the situation - in particular on your awareness of, connection to and collaboration with dimensional aspects of reality. The more you increase awareness of this inner arrangement to a subject, object or process, and the dynamic relationships that build this identity, the less teleological it appears to be, because everything is interrelated.

So you agree in teleology then?

Interrelation and dynamism is indicative of teleological systems, though. And why can't there be a dynamic system within the entire cosmos? You just take the dynamism to the whole.

Which then brings us to the teleological explanation of ‘top-down’ meaning/purpose. This is where our perspective of intention skips a dimensional aspect again, and suggests that everything and everyone has a specific purpose intended for us, our awareness of which often conflicts with the individual will of the organism. My problem with this perspective is that it ignores the distinction between value/potential and meaning/purpose. The teleology comes from assuming value or perceived potential is equal to the end-goal or purpose.

Who said anything about purposes being tailored towards us? Their purpose isn't internal to the subject. If it was, then it is only a regulative teleology.

And I'm not sure why it does that? The hypothetical necessity shows that the potential is going to occur unless there is something that stops it. Are you denying dispositional potentials?

How is ‘passed on’ not the same as ‘imparted’ in relation to DNA information? What’s the difference?

I'm not sure I see the difference. Unless you're suggesting the word "imparted" is an external relationship that does not pass down a form, but just explains some sort of kinematics. The word 'information', however, suggests conceptual content, however. Some conceptual form that instructs how an organism will operate underneath. That is, the concept subsumes it's parts towards a functional end.

So, what you’re saying is that it’s ‘teleological’ if you ignore the causal conditions contributing to the object/process/state of things? Isn’t that like saying the billiard ball has a mind of its own?

It doesn't ignore the causal conditions, it asks why are the causal conditions constituted the way they are. Teleological explanations aren't incompatible with other forms of causation. If we examine early notions of teleology we find that explanations in nature are just incomplete until we have all four forms of causation that Aristotle postulated. Teleological explanations would now be known as epistemic explanations. However, if you're conceptual realist.... then... well... these explanations inhere in the world too.

I believe it's okay to ascribe a minimal force of agency to any object in the universe. As long as we recognize that this form of "intention" is not conscious intention but just goal-orientated activity. I'm not a panpsychist.

My point is that teleological explanations necessarily isolate an interaction from the conditions in which it occurs. It sounds ridiculous when you try to identify telos here because to do so, you would need to isolate the action of falling down the slope from the conditions of moving forward on the cue’s impact, or vice versa. The ball curves to the left as it moves forward from the cue’s impact due to a slope in the table.

‘Dispositional’ refers to arrangement, particularly in relation to other things. You can try to isolate these qualities from the relational structures that determine them, but again you’re ignoring the causal conditions in which this particular arrangement occurs in the organism.

I think that's a reasonable concern. However, you don't have to isolate them, actually. You can see how identities (subjects, objects, processes, etc) are relative towards the surrounding context and it's dynamic relationship to others objects (or processes, whatever). I generally think that the inner is described through the outer, and outer defined through the inner. However, that dynamic relationship still manages to build an identity, and what we would consider a relative form of teleology. That's why the teleology can change based on the surrounding contexts. However, changing the surroundings contexts slightly doesn't generally seem to eliminate the dispositional (and teleological) qualities intrinsic to the organism generally — the organism dispositions 'resists' against environmental changes, and preserve its own homeostatic nature. And it can only do this dynamically. So, the metabolic structure of an animal in a harsh environment won't stop functioning. It will stop functioning if you place that animal in space or something. So I'm not an absolutist about natures, or teleology. They are hypothetical necessities generally. But I don't think anyone (including Aristotle) would deny this.

I think if you accept that things function dynamically, you won't believe in discrete causal activity, but start working more top-down. Which, imho, is teleological.

The one I gave using Kant is pretty sufficent!

Both teleological explanations and efficient causation derive from Aristotlean philosophy, which attempts to ‘solve’ the problem of infinite regress with the actual external existence of a ‘first cause’. When you say everything that occurs has a goal-orientated action behind it, this is essentially what you’re proposing: an intention that exists external to the occurrence.

That would only be true for extrinsic teleology, not intrinsic.

What you’re not addressing, however, is what this intention is and where it comes from. This is where teleological explanations don’t really explain - rather they hide behind the ambiguity of concepts such as ‘goal’ and ‘purpose’ to imply an actual ‘force’.

They don't "come" from anything. They are constitutive of the object/process/state of things. Perhaps those things come from something else, but that doesn't make them ateleological.

I think you’re missing the duality of intention in my description of the billiard ball’s movement. Unless you’re aware of, connected to and collaborating with the slope in the table or spin direction, then either of these effects on the ball’s movement across the table is external to your intention in exerting momentum onto the ball. But the effect of the slope in the table isn’t a goal-orientated action, either, but a causal condition of the four-dimensional event that is the ball’s movement across the table. It’s when you’re unaware of the slope that it appears to be either an external force or a goal-orientated action (the ball having a mind of its own). Once you’re aware of it as a three-dimensional relation to the space in which the ball’s movement occurs, you can allow for the slope, so that the effect is no longer external to the occurrence but incorporated into your action.

Teleological explanations don't work this way. Because teleological explanations don't have the premise located in the conclusion like this. That is, the ball having telos to be orientated towards falling down (due to a slope) because it's falling down. Teleological explainations (at least the ones I'm talking about) are dispositional qualities intrinsic to the organisms.

What I’m trying to get at is that what we think of as an external ‘force’ or a goal-directed action points (in my view) to a dimensional aspect of reality that we haven’t taken into account. Once we’re aware of this dimensional relation and can collaborate with it or allow for it within our actions, it’s no longer teleological - there would be no intention that exists external to the occurrence.

Okay, but that's just a claim, though, right? That just because we have things that show up to disprove our projected forms of directed activity doesn't mean that there's no directed activity. It also could be the case that when we have complete knoweldge of the world, it'll prove to be entirely mechanistic but that certainly doesn't prove that it is the case.