The ‘traditional’ objections to a wholly naturalistic metaphysics, within the modern Western philosophical tradition, involve the vexed notions of freedom and consciousness. But there is, I think, a much deeper and more interesting line of criticism to naturalism, and that involves the notion of intentionality and its closely correlated notion of normativity.
What is involved in my belief that I’m drinking a beer as I type this? Well, my belief is about something — namely, the beer that I’m drinking. But what does this “aboutness” consist of? It requires, among other things, a commitment that I have undertaken — that I am prepared to respond to the appropriate sorts of challenges and criticisms of my belief. I’m willing to play the game of giving and asking for reasons, and my willingness to be so treated is central to how others regard me as their epistemic peer. But there doesn’t seem to be any way that the reason-giving game can be explained entirely in terms of the neurophysiological story of what’s going on inside my cranium. That neurophysiological story is a story of is the case, and the reason-giving story is essentially a normative story — of what ought to be the case.
And if Hume is right — as he certainly seems to be! — in saying that one cannot derive an ought-statement from an is-statement,and if naturalism is an entirely descriptive/explanatory story that has no room for norms, then in light of the central role that norms play in human life (including their role in belief, desire, perception, and action), it is reasonable to conclude that naturalism cannot be right.
(Of course, it does not follow from this that any version of theism or ‘supernaturalism’ must be right, either.)
I have to say I find out of the blue swipes at capitalism rather odd.
It just seems like something is being taken for granted. I haven’t been able to figure out what it is.
petrushka,
Fair enough, Petrushka. What I’m taking for granted here is a branch of philosophy called critical theory, especially the work of Theodor Adorno. But we really don’t have to get into it. It’s not central for anything I’m saying here.
A quick peek at the critical theory link leaves me speechless. But I agree that it doesn’t seem applicable to anything we typically discuss here.
petrushka,
I’m happy to drop it as well.
Several points are worth making here:
(1) if one doesn’t think that brain-states uniquely determine propositional content, then one should not identify brain-states with thoughts;
(2) if brain-states don’t uniquely determine propositional content, then what does? The naturalist is seemingly restricted to explaining propositional content in terms of whatever is intelligible by natural science — so, neurophysiological states plus body-states plus environmental configurations plus effects of past natural selection . . . but;
(3) the disjunction problem suggests that no list of natural facts, however comprehensive, will be sufficient to uniquely determine propositional content;
(4) from this, one could either (a) deny that there’s any such thing as unique propositional content (which is a very high price to pay!) or (b) acknowledge that propositional content is not determined ‘naturalistically’, but rather in terms of the norm-governed social practices by which we hold ourselves and each other responsible for what we say.
(5) I’m quite willing to allow for the possibility that some future development of neuroscience + evolutionary theory + _________ would satisfactorily explain normativity, but in order to do so, it would have be (I conjecture) a fairly radical revision of existing science.
walto,
Sure you can. You just have to recognize, as I do, that morality is subjective. I may think that S should do X, and you may think that S should do Y. If so, then we disagree about a moral issue.
Suppose you are parking your car on a hill, and you want to leave it in neutral. Your friend tells you that you shouldn’t do that. She says you are morally obligated to put it in park. You ask why. She replies that if you leave it in neutral, it might roll down the hill. You ask how that is morally problematic. She points out that your rolling car might injure or kill someone or damage their property. How is that immoral?, you ask. It’s pretty easy to see that the regress will continue until she offers a reason that you find persuasive, or until you determine that agreement is unlikely and not worth pursuing.
Sure, but ought statements aren’t a problem for naturalism. To show that normativity is a problem for naturalism, KN would need to come up with an objective ought that has no basis in physical reality. He hasn’t.
Is this going to be a variation of your “Plantinga can’t possibly be wrong about modal logic” argument? If you’ll recall, that one didn’t turn out very well for you.
keiths:
KN:
Not true. That would be a problem only if one attributed unique propositional content to thoughts. I don’t, just as I don’t attribute unique propositional content to the activation of Dennett’s “two bitser”.
Nothing. My opinion is that thoughts, like statements, do not have unique propositional content. They are “good enough” approximations. That’s all we need.
Yes, but the disjunction problem is no longer a problem if you accept that thoughts don’t have unique propositional content.
I think it’s a quite modest price to pay. The non-uniqueness of propositional content only matters if the differences matter. In other words, if a thought T picks out a set S of propositions, rather than a particular proposition P, then that is only a problem if the differences among the propositions in S are important.
That’s a false dichotomy. “Norm-governed social practices” are not a problem for naturalism unless you can demonstrate that the norms themselves are objective and somehow untethered from physical reality.
Ought-statements are a problem for naturalism because the naturalist can only describe and explain the world (including herself as part of that world) in terms of is-statements. Replacing ought-statements with is-statements (e.g. statements about occurrent or dispositional psychological states) doesn’t solve the problem — it just makes it go away by fiat. That’s precisely what Walter is trying to show you.
In any event, I would need to “come up with an objective ought that has no basis in physical reality” only if I thought that, in light of the failure of naturalistic metaphysics to accommodate normativity, the right way to accommodate normativity was through some non-naturalistic metaphysics.
But that seems, if not false, at least profoundly unmotivated — I don’t think that normativity requires any metaphysical “foundation” one way or the other, and pretty much any attempt to get normativity off the ground through appeals to metaphysics will be some version of the Myth of the Given, i.e. normative magic.
KN,
You need to distinguish carefully between the existence of an ought-statement (or an ought-thought) and the truth of the ought-statement (or ought-thought).
The existence of ought-statements is unproblematic for naturalism, because it can be described using is-statements.
Even the truth of ought-statements is unproblematic if they are conditioned on physical reality, as in “I ought to pay my taxes if I don’t want to go to prison.” That too can be expressed in terms of is-statements.
The only kind of ought that would be problematic for naturalism would be an objective ought that is ungrounded in physical reality — a “free-floating ought”, if you will.
Your claim is that naturalism is insufficient to explain at least some kinds of normativity. If you can’t identify an actual, realized type of normativity that is out of naturalism’s reach, then you haven’t achieved your goal.
An “objective ought that has no basis in physical reality” is the only kind of ought I can think of that would create trouble for naturalism, but since I am a moral subjectivist, I don’t think that such oughts exist.
If you can think of any other kind of ought that fits the bill, feel free to present it.
Do you personally consider yourself a ‘naturalist,’ keiths?
It’s often funny when people defend a position without actually saying that they are defending that position.
(The above quote sounds not only sociologically naive, but also more than a bit like Randism/objectivism, which was a position that welcomed atheism like its originator.)
keiths = ‘glory be to naturalism (& atheism)’ vs. KN = ‘naturalism *can* be critiqued (à la Goofy), but I am still a disenchanted (philosophistic) naturalist with no suitable alternative – just please take me seriously’
keiths,
(a) That’s not a regress. (You can look it up.)
(b) Thanks for your solicitude, but I’m not really too afraid of your “argumentation” which is largely a matter of making subtle changes to prior positions when somebody points out you’re mistaken, in addition to cutting and pasting irrelevant passages from others’ posts and pointing out they’re not consistent with stuff YOU believe (or did for a couple of minutes, anyhow). Anyhow, FWIW, I still think most of your posts on that thread are pretty funny–in spite of/because of your mad modal skills and very high self-assessment scores (for which, congrats!).
keiths,
For the same reason your criticism of KN is correct, this statement is wrong. Either ought statements either express values or they don’t. To make your conditional “natural” you simply alter the meaning of “ought” in the antecedent. Better not to equivocate and just deny values if you don’t think “I ought to pay my taxes” makes sense on its own, because throwing an “If” clause after it either removes the value part (and turns it into some sort of probability assessment) or still requires values to be true. Pick your poison (i.e., Man up, boy!)
Gregory,
Yes, but not in the weird ideological precommitment/tribal identity ways that you are so fixated on.
Do you personally consider yourself a Christian, Gregory?
Most of my readers are bright enough to infer that I am defending naturalism from the fact that I am defending it. The redundant statement “I am defending naturalism” is not necessary — for them, anyway.
It’s hard to see how a factual statement about my own views could be “sociologically naive”, but you’re welcome to make a case for that claim. I await your argument.
Don’t forget “Gregory = ‘I am an HPSS scholar, and I’m here to ‘elevate’ the discussion by hyperventilating at the suffix “-ism”, and… what’s that? You’re asking me for an argument? Well, I’m awfully busy right now. Gotta go.”
walto,
It’s a regress. (You can look it up.)
But if you think it isn’t, you could always provide an argument to that effect. Right?
And of course you’re able to back this up with specific examples, which are forthcoming. Right?
Well, you can still post comments on that thread if you think you’ve found a problem with my argument. Right?
keiths:
walto:
I’m not “altering” the meaning of “ought”. I’m showing that none of the different kinds of “oughts” present a problem for naturalism. The last category — what I called “objective, free-floating oughts” — would be a problem for naturalism, if they existed, but KN has provided no evidence that they do.
It makes sense on its own only if you can establish it as an objective, “free-floating” ought. Otherwise the question “Why should I pay my taxes?” arises, and the regress begins.
Still stinging from this, walto?
Oh, I think all here can agree there’s no point trying to convince you of anything. [EDIT: E.g., I’ve explained a couple of times that somebody can make an ought statement without being able to “establish it”: that’s just another confusion you can’t seem to clear yourself of.] Anyhow, almost all of your posts on that prior thread were pretty cute–seems unfair to discriminate. I do have a much more useful idea, though. I’m going to (i) send a little note to Plantinga indicating that you’re willing to give him some instruction on the de re, de dicto distinction, if he has a the time; and (ii) notify the media that you’re planning to publish something showing that Moore’s diagnosis of the naturalistic fallacy is confused. These are items with actual value (I mean if there were such a thing as value). Bravo!
I’ve got a better idea.
Since you think my arguments are faulty, why don’t you explain why and provide counterarguments?
Words like goodness and oughtness are multidimensional, like biological fitness.
They have no fixed objects. They always occur in the context of process.
walto,
Regarding your edit:
I addressed that above:
Only objective, free-floating “oughts” pose a problem for naturalism.
walto,
Right–and I agree with all that. But then you also wrote this:
“‘[You ought to pay your taxes]…makes sense on its own only if you can establish it as an objective, “free-floating” ought.”
And that’s wrong, it makes sense anyhow. Things can make sense that can’t be established.
Let me try again to explain why I disagree — and why I think that normative vocabulary as such poses a problem for naturalism.
The naturalist is committed to describing and explaining the world in de facto terms — what actually does happen. That is, her vocabulary consists entirely of declarative statements. And so the non-declaratival pragmatic functions — imperatives, vocatives, optatives — have no role within that vocabulary. (Of course they play a role in how the vocabulary of science is used by scientists.) So the normative vocabulary doesn’t show up within the world as described by science.
In other words, I’m urging the following claims:
(1) there is a important sub-class of intentional phenomena that are normatively constrained;
(2) normative constraints are irreducible to anything that can be captured in declarative statements (e.g. about dispositions or regularities);
(3) normative constraints are essentially social and linguistic in character — they are part of the “I-We” structure of discourse, not part of the third-person position or stance on reality;
so there cannot be a “naturalistic” explanation of norms (and hence of intentionality) unless there were a sufficiently radical transformation of scientific practice itself that accommodated non-declarative vocabulary.
In other words, I’m not making a ‘metaphysical’ point so much as I’m making a semantic point — though not ‘semantic’ in the lay sense of ‘a mere quibble’, but ‘semantic’ in the technical sense of ‘the nature of linguistic intelligibility’.
Kantian Naturalist,
I agree with your (1) – (3), KN. However, I think the naturalist still retains the choice (though I think it’s a bad one, myself) of saying that all those value-involving statements are simply illusory/false. That is, they can just ditch common-sense and ordinary language in this arena, just as some scientific realists (including your guy, Sellars) and phenomenalists do in the arena of tables, chairs and people. Personally, I prefer to bite the bullet with Hall and say that the implied values as well as the implied garden-variety physical objects are usually (although not always) much as they appear.
Pragmatism rules! Never mind Hall (who is he anyway?), what would Rorty say?
I’m glad you asked!
Hall is Everett Hall. Walto has written a book about him. (I assume that walto won’t object to my linking to things he’s written under his own name, since he’s cited them himself previously here.)
I’d agree with Hall on this point, provided that norms and values can be cashed out as to not seem Given (in the ‘mythic’ sense).
Sellars, infamously, held out the hope that the manifest image and the scientific image could be “fused” — he didn’t think it would make any sense to throw the manifest image under the bus. I used to hold out some hope for stereoscopic fusion of the two images, but the more I think about it, the less plausible fusion seems to me.
I think we will just be stuck with the scientific image for some purposes (e.g. describing and explaining the world) and the manifest image for other purposes (e.g. explicating the normative, intentional, and existential structures of human life). We don’t have any meta-image or meta-perspective from which to adjudicate the competing claims of the revisionary metaphysics of science and the descriptive metaphysics of everyday life, to the extent that they do compete.
Thanks, KN. It’s a widely unread classic–and at that price, I’m not expecting much in the way of future readers either.
FWIW, I’m also the author of that stubby wikipedia entry to which you linked (and which doubtless could be a lot better).
Re the “cashing out” of value statements, Hall says that emotional experiences function much as perceptual experiences do, that they’re also intentional, provide prima facie evidence, etc. But I don’t want to hijack your thread any more than I have already.
Kantian Naturalist,
KN, where does Sellars talk about “fusion” of the two images? I know mostly his earlier stuff, but he there says that the scientific image will eventually supersede the manifest image. As I’ve mentioned before here, I think, in one of his books Hall ridicules that position (which I think was also held at one time by Feyerabend).
walto, just curious, do you consider yourself a ‘naturalist’? I don’t consider myself a ‘naturalist,’ as said before.
I just got slammed with deadlines and likely won’t contribute much going forward (and my initial questions to KN, along with Alan’s direct question, at the start of this thread still haven’t been answered – KN is obviously not as brave or clear as walto). You linked your book here in regard to my query a month or two ago.
What alternatives to ‘naturalism’ are actually on the table (other than supernaturalism)? Intentionalism and normativism haven’t yet been discussed, just suggested loosely (as is typical with KN’s philosophistry).
I find it simply boring reading naturalists banter with other naturalists (reduced to ‘naturalistic fallacy’ – is vs. ought) about how naturalism is (groan, whine, complain) ‘imperfect,’ but yet is obviously still ‘best’ as a background assumption in their worldview. No way out, just into ‘naturalism.’ Disenchanting as usual at TSZ.
hee-haw! Not part of KN’s bar mitzvah.
In “Philosophy and the Scientific Image of Man” (1962):
Here the most appropriate analogy is stereoscopic vision, where two differing perspectives on a landscape are fused into one coherent experience. For the philosopher is confronted not by one complex many-dimensional picture the unity of which, such as it is, he must come to appreciate; but by two pictures of essentially the same order of complexity, each of which purports to be a complete picture of man-in-the-world, and which, after separate scrutiny, he must fuse into one vision. Let me refer to these two perspectives, respectively, as the manifest and scientific images of man-in-the-world. . . . . The philosopher, then, is confronted by two conceptions, equally public, equally non-arbitrary, of man-in-the-world and he cannot shirk the attempt to see how they fall together is one stereoscopic view.
—————————————————————————————-
The problem with Sellars is that we want to know how the same person who says that can also say, “one would expect there to be a sense in which the scientific picture of the world replaces the common sense picture; a sense in which the scientific account of ‘what there is’ supersedes the descriptive ontology of everyday life . . . in the dimension of describing and explaining the world, science is the measure of all things, of what is that it is and of what is not that it is not” (“Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind”, 41). (And, let us note, EPM is based on lectures given 1956 — four years before the lecture that became PSIM.)
In Science and Metaphysics Sellars makes another go at this, where he distinguishes between the epistemological priority of the manifest image and the ontological priority of the scientific image. By the end of his productivity — in “The Structure of Knowledge” (1974) and the Carus Lectures — Sellars was finally clear that he thought that science was the final word on the ratio essendi but that phenomenology and ordinary-language were essential for the ratio cognoscendi. Keeping these two distinguished was as pivotal for Sellars as it was for Hall (and, for that matter, C. I. Lewis).
On my reading of Sellars — which I think is fairly well-substantiated by the texts — his view seems to be this: our discourse is “polydimensional,” meaning that there are many different ‘domains’ or ‘dimensions’ that have their own constitutive rules governing material inferences in that domain — thus, the ethical, the logical, the mathematical, the empirical, the religious, the semantical, the aesthetic, and so forth. Since there are constitutively different rules in the domains, there’s no hope for collapsing all these dimensions into one (as Quine’s ‘web of belief’ does).
However, Sellars also holds that (1) the factual has epistemic priority over the other dimensions by virtue of being that dimension of discourse which “pictures” the world; (2) the scientific image supersedes the manifest image insofar as the descriptions and explanations of science replace those of the manifest image, while leaving the other dimensions of the manifest image more or less intact.
Why would we need an alternative?
Why would we need an “ism” at all?
What’s wrong with taking the world as we experience it, and describing it in as much detail as we can, but without imposing any ideology?
Your heart obviously cannot breathe in the all caps and boldface dimension.
Apparently this metaphor is so obviously intelligible that Gregory need only to shout it at the tops of the Internet in order for the rest of us to understand precisely what he means. No doubt if “allow his heart to breathe vertical” doesn’t make sense, it is only because of our spiritual confusion. Asking him for clarification and response to criticism — that is, treating him as a rational being and epistemic peer — is really unfair of us. I mean, here’s all of us nihilists, wallowing in our cynicism and despair, and Gregory comes in, the Boddhisattva of TSZ, who in infinite compassion invites us to “allow our hearts to breathe vertical”. Certainly Gregory deserves nothing but compassion, given that he’s casting spiritual pearls before nihilistic swine. Please bear that in mind from now on.
I have to say, I’m surprised that you haven’t realized that the whole point of my entire approach is to defend existential phenomenology, which I do regard as incompatible with naturalism (as typically construed).
You really have no idea what “the Myth of the Given” is, do you? I mean, none at all. I’ve been posting about it for about a year now, and most of the people here have figured out what I mean, but not you — you have absolutely no reading comprehension.
Is this enough to get Gregory banned?
Kantian Naturalist,
No, KN. I will move comments to guano when back at a keyboard.
I’m glad to see this thread back, if only so I can thank KN again here for the nice description of Sellars’ evolving positions (and because it’s now back where I can find it, if necessary!).
Gregory, you asked, “walto, just curious, do you consider yourself a ‘naturalist’?”
I guess I’d need a definition: I don’t really know what it means. (I’m guessing there are a few defs strewn around this thread, but I’d like to hear your own before I answer your question. Or try to….
Kantian Naturalist, thank you for that OP. I enjoyed it and it is certainly food for thought. The roles of normative value and informational value are very very hard to tease apart at the boundaries and I often think about that distinction. Models are definitely only meaningful in the service of a will. Schopenhaueresque.
walto,
Of course ought statements are intelligible, if that’s all you mean by “makes sense”, but that’s obvious, and not at all what the phrase means in the context of my statement:
This is reminiscent of what happened in the Plantinga thread, when you insisted on interpreting “what we can say” in a ridiculously literal manner:
And later:
Do we have to repeat all of this with “makes sense”?
P.S. Have you heard back from Plantinga? You were unable to find a flaw in my argument, so it would be interesting to see if he could.
I’ll respond to KN’s comment, though he may have left the discussion for good.
KN:
I understand what you’re trying to say, but you’re overlooking an important point. Hume’s guillotine tells us (correctly, in my opinion) that we can’t derive ‘ought’ from ‘is’. However, it does not say that that ought statements or feelings of moral obligation can’t be explained in naturalistic terms.
In other words, there is a crucial difference between a genuine, objective moral obligation and a mere feeling of obligation or a mere statement of obligation. The latter are compatible with naturalism and are not severed by Hume’s guillotine. The former, if it existed, would be a problem for naturalism, precisely because we cannot derive ‘ought’ from ‘is’.
Right, the ought statement makes sense, even though it doesn’t sense.
I’m afraid that post is basically gibberish, Keith. One thing you’re right about, however: it is indeed reminiscent of the Plantinga thread. Love that thread.
Gregory, I don’t have any definition of “naturalism” handy, but if I did, it probably wouldn’t be useful to you. My guess is you want to know if I agree with what YOU consider to be naturalistic philosophy, and that it wouldn’t matter much to you if I held something that you don’t care about one way or the other or don’t think is really naturalistic or whatever. So, for there to be any possibility of mutual understanding, the way this should go is–you tell me what you mean by “naturalism”, and I’ll tell you whether I think it might be true or whether I have any position about it one way or the other. We philosopher/insurance salesmen–unlike several of the people who post here who, have, apparently, solved all the long-disturbing mysteries of the cosmos (sometimes in spite of being unaware of those very puzzles until last week)–may not take positions on everything. As the guy playing Woody Allen’s dad in one of his movies says, “You’re asking me why there’s evil? I don’t even understand how this can opener works.” That kind of sums up the answer you’re likely to get from me to questions like yours.
I think that’s exactly right, and well said. However, it does not require (and is probably not consistent with) your remarks about about ought statements requiring antecedents (“if I want to go to the beach….”) or the establishment of free-floating values. Such values are needed only if these (actual) ought statements (i.e., not the ones revised to remove value content) are to be TRUE. That’s what you’re not getting.
walto,
That’s typical ‘show me yours first’ rhetoric. At some point I may get back to this thread wherein yet another USAmerican ‘philosopher’ wants to reject ‘naturalism’ while still calling himself a ‘naturalist’ in his avatar name at TSZ. He’s going through a crisis, should this be a surprise?
What’s noteworthy is that walto, a “philosopher/insurance salesmen,” doesn’t know or have a definition for himself of what a ‘naturalist’ is (and confused the question as asking for a handy definition of ‘naturalism’). That’s rather telling. That “you don’t even understand” could be seen as virtuous is ridiculous (like much of Woody Allen’s work, as entertaining/artistic as it may occasionally be – the guy is usually just depressing, much like KN).
To the question: “Are you really that unaware of the ideology of ‘naturalism’?” walto’s answer sadly seems to be ‘Yes.’
Gregory,
You want me to have a definition of “naturalism” and then tell you whether it describes a view I can support. OK, I’ll play (but don’t complain later–you insisted)!
Naturalism = df. A philosophy according to which the guy who posts nasty, humorless, semi-moronic, substanceless insults at TMZ as “Gregory” does so merely as a result of the state of his neural processes.
So, now we both have a definition we can use. Do I think it’s true? Let’s consider the matter for a minute. There are a couple of things that may seem to tell against it. For example, it may be claimed to be “natural” (in the sense of “common”) for English-speaking adults to know the difference between “regulation” and “sales” yet Gregory apparently does not. It is important to remember, however, that while this defect may not be “natural” in that sense of “common,” it could nevertheless be solely a function of poor brain function. The same could be said for the phrase “that unaware”–it’s not acceptable English, certainly, so it is “unnatural” in the sense of heterodoxical. But our question (or rather HIS question) is orthogonal: could it nevertheless be strictly a matter of brain mal- or weak functioning? To give one final example along these same lines (there are so many, but one must stop somewhere or keiths will no doubt think I’ve uncovered what he calls a “regress”), the sentence beginning “That ‘you don’t even understand’ could be seen as virtuous is ridiculous…” is errant nonsense beginning to end. Again, however, Gregory insists that we focus not on “natural” in this sense but on what follows from MY definition of “naturalism” because, in his world, no one can be a professional philosopher unless one takes a position on this, to him, crucial matter. And this is so, I take it, because in Gregory’s world naturalists (whatever definition they choose) are evil and anti-naturalists are good–especially if they’re Christian–I mean assuming that the definition of “naturalism” they use is inconsistent with Christianity as Gregory understands the latter.
Anyhow–I digress. Let us therefore leave issues regarding “natural” of the above kind as little more than irrelevant ad hominems and go back to the real matter at hand: Do I (yes or no, goddamit!) believe that
the guy who posts nasty, humorless, semi-moronic, substanceless insults at TMZ as “Gregory” does so merely as a result of the state of his neural processes ?
Put another way, could this man’s curiously intense interest in, e.g., the nature of KN’s former religious beliefs and choice of internet moniker on this site (Is he REALLY Kantian???? He was a reform Jew!!–These are the big questions for Gregory.) …could these interests reasonably be thought to be artifacts of Gregory’s neural states alone? Admittedly, it’s hard to believe. But, well, yeah, I guess so.
I readily concede that I may be wrong, however. It may be that there are other, non-physical factors at work. Perhaps, for example, there is some platonic form (I won’t say of what–it might be thought cruel) in which Gregory participates to a significant extent and this participation cannot be fully explained by his brain states alone. No doubt many will be likely to take such a position, and given the facts of this matter, it’s hard to gainsay them.
But I must not wimp out, for there is one (majestic intellect) among us here whose rapier witticism involving “big boy pants” will quickly note it if I do so, and this champion well knows that I simply cannot stand it when he (or indeed anyone) says “big boy pants” over and over, not only on the thread that I love most here but wherever I may wander–such power and brilliance does that canny remark have. So, to avoid any additional intense pain from that elevated quarter, I’ll stick with “Yeah, the guy who posts nasty, humorless, semi-moronic, substanceless insults at TMZ as “Gregory” does so merely as a result of the state of his neural processes. Nothing else going on there at all.”
Is this the kind of thing you were looking for?
Impressive! Following KN’s link to Halls Wikipedia entry, I get the impression that Hall spent some on linguistics, like Rorty. Would you agree with this snippet from the entry?
I’m a great fan of common sense myself. 😉
I better agree with it!
I think Gregory is in crisis. KN is gone, and he desperately needs someone else to rise to his bait.
Sorry, Gregory. If you want more than a cursory response from me, you’ll need to make an actual argument. Why do you think that naturalism is false?
walto,
Brilliant.
That’s one of the best take-downs that I have read in a long time.
🙂 Well, it is Wikipedia!