A thread at UD that was just beginning to get interesting was unfortunately cut short when Elizabeth departed.
As is oh so typical over at UD, those silly IDiots were appealing to obvious truths and the primacy of logical reasoning. Elizabeth, in contrast, was championing her empirical methodology.
During the exchange, Elizabeth made the following statements:
My method is the standard empirical method.
If you can’t establish the truth of the premises how can you know your conclusion is correct, however impeccable the logic?
My question to Elizabeth was simple. How did you arrive at the truth of that statement [assuming it’s a rhetorical question] using the standard empirical method?
I’d really like to give Elizabeth an opportunity to answer.
For reference:
A deductive argument is said to be valid if and only if it takes a form that makes it impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion nevertheless to be false. Otherwise, a deductive argument is said to be invalid.
A deductive argument is sound if and only if it is both valid, and all of its premises are actually true. Otherwise, a deductive argument is unsound.
http://www.iep.utm.edu/val-snd/
Given the above explication of valid and invalid arguments and sound and unsound arguments, does Elizabeth’s question even make sense? IOW, logic does not and cannot tell us whether the conclusion is “correct.” Logic can only tell us whether an argument is valid. Logic cannot and does not tell us whether an argument is sound.
How do we discover these facts/truths of logic using Elizabeth’s standard empirical method? If they cannot be established as facts/truths using the standard empirical method, should logic be abandoned? If so, why?
William J. Murray,
They have reasons for their actions. I am not aware of a particular logical flaw in their rationales, though I would think them utterly misguided nonetheless.
On choosing your beliefs:
It doesn’t make sense to speak of choosing to believe something that you already believe (before making that choice). So when we speak of choosing to believe something, we’re speaking of something that you don’t already believe.
When you (try to) make someone believe something that you don’t believe, that’s called deception. So when you “choose” to believe something that you don’t (already) believe, that’s self-deception.
In short: A chosen belief is, necessarily, a dishonest belief.
It’s hard to see much value in any sort of apparently-rational discussion that is in fact based on beliefs held dishonestly. If you don’t take honesty as paramount, how can your discussion help lead anyone toward truth?
Well, there you have it William. Establishing the validity of the reasoning in classical logic is not enough to tell you whether a proposition is true. That’s what I’ve been saying all along. “Logic” is not a tool you can use, alone, to “arbit” between true and false claims.
It seems like you perhaps agree?
I possibly disagree with you here, KN! Although it might be a definitional thing. I think there is a sense in which “experience” happens when the self “represents” the immediate past to the “self”. Where that self is itself represented as the receiver of the representation.
That seems wrong.
That you did not already believe it, does not imply that you disbelieved it. And, even if you originally disbelieved it, you might recognize that you were wrong in that earlier disbelief.
I don’t think that matters, for what I said.
Right. And having made that recognition, you find that you no longer hold that earlier disbelief. But if it’s honest, you don’t choose to let it go; rather, you discover that you have already let it go. Same for adopting a belief.
Brother Daniel,
That sounds like an unnecessary quibble over the meaning of “choose”.
I’m not sure it’s so much a quibble as an illustration of the elephant in the room that I raised earlier: when we consider a word like “choose” – who is the agent? What is the referent for the subject of that verb?
Is belief something that a person passively possesses until she “chooses” to exchange it for a different one? Or is the act of changing belief the choice itself? Or is there no choice at all, simply a change in belief that we metaphorically phrase as a choice by the nominal owner of the brain?
Unless we start to talk about who the agent is behind these verbs, we won’t get anywhere IMO.
Neil, meet Daniel, mathematician.
Daniel, meet Neil, mathematician.
How nice to have so many mathematicians here!
I don’t think it’s definitional; I think it’s a difference between what is to epistemology influenced by phenomenology, and what it is to do psychology and neuroscience.
When I’m doing phenomenologically-influenced epistemology, and trying to give a preliminary description of our epistemic situation, I’m trying to describe the world as I experience it from my first-person standpoint. In doing so — I have been contending — I discover that my experience of the world as a world necessarily involves my encounters with other subjects with whom I share that world. I was arguing, against Murray, that when I’m engaged in that project, “representations” do not show up for me as my mode of encounter with the world. There’s a long argument here, but basically my point is that phenomenology prevents Cartesian skepticism from getting off the ground.
By contrast, when one is using the concept of “representation” to give a causal explanation of the underlying mechanics of subjectivity, one is doing so from a third-person perspective. It’s quite different from the first- and second-person perspectives of phenomenology. Though I’m hostile to the concept of representation in epistemology, I’m not at all sure that we can do cognitive science without it (though doing so is one of the main issues that enactive cognitive science has taken on board).
It seems to me that a simple “factual belief”, like the fact that the clear sky is blue, is indeed something that you don’t choose to believe or not. It is or isn’t, what’s the fuss?
It’s when we’re talking about more complex matters that one’s will might be exercised to reach a decision. Do you trust a person, either in a specific case, or generally? Do you believe in Christianity or animism (others might ask, do you trust God?). Even a theory might intrigue or satisfy some desire, so that persuasive speech might get the person to commit. But I don’t really see that as a honest response to theories. One might care if a theory is true or not, yet to espouse it because of its consequences seems out of place. Yet I am saying that I can see someone who might not have known enough to say either way on a theory could be persuaded to decide for or against it.
I think it’s with persons or religions that one had (especially before the Enlightenment) a reason to choose to trust it or not, on hopes for future reward, because of a sense of loyalty, or both. A person or a religion that is wholely implausible (in context, of course) isn’t usually going to have many “choose” to believe it. However, if it’s plausible, it will bring one into harmony with others who believe it and who you care about, and if you really really hope to survive death, maybe it’s your will that finally tips the balance. Pascal’s Wager and all of that–and he knew that some apparently “couldn’t believe” (which is better than your average UDite, who thinks believing a lie and roasting in hell is preferred by us to believing the “indubitable God” and living blissfully for eternity), yet he also knew that there were many who would doubt either way, and might be persuaded by portraying risks vs. benefits, as he narrowly considered these to be.
Of course Pascal’s Wager was hardly new, except in form, since the whole rewards/punishments idea exists to persuade doubters. No, I don’t think that it works on all, but I think it’s rather likely that it has worked on a great many.
Glen Davidson
LOL.
I’m the kind of mathematician who wants mathematical proofs to be strictly logical, but who is more relaxed about ordinary speech. I see Wittgenstein’s “meaning is use” as about right.
keiths:
Blas:
You didn’t answer my question. What is the evidence that persuades you that we must possess immaterial minds/souls?
Blas,
Sure. There is a theory — general relativity — that explains the former, and it has been spectacularly confirmed by science.
Since William hasn’t responded to this, I’ll repost it:
Some problems with William’s argument:
1. As I stated previously, to say that a physical system can’t really reason is like saying that a calculator or computer can’t really add. If a calculator can consistently take numbers and return their sum, it is really adding, despite the fact that it is a purely physical system. If we can consistently evaluate arguments, rejecting the invalid ones and assenting to the valid ones, then we are really reasoning, regardless of whether or not we are purely physical.
2. We don’t reason perfectly, and in fact there are certain logical errors that humans make systematically. That observation makes much more sense if we are physical entities with imperfect neural circuitry than it does if our minds are immaterial and have access to pure Platonic logic of some kind.
3. If the mind is immaterial, then the interaction problem looms: how does the immaterial mind influence the physical body?
4. I see absolutely no reason to treat other humans as “pointless meat-machines”, to use William’s phrase. I believe we are all “meat-machines”, but the word “pointless” is out of place. Why should we be considered “pointless”, or any less worthy of moral consideration, just because we are “meat-machines”?
Perhaps she will see a doctor who, in taking the design stance can describe what she sees, but who can then offer no diagnoses or cure.
keiths, your argument is self-refuting. That might have something to do with why William hasn’t felt any need to respond.
Mung,
How so?
keiths,
It saves him the effort of trying to refute it.
Evidently.
keiths said:
I didn’t say that physical systems can’t really reason. I said that under materialism, there’s no presumed objective arbiter of true statements we would have access to. The difference is that even if nature produced a “perfect reasoning machine” (whatever that would mean – what would it be compared against?), that machine and the flawed reasoning machines around it have no presumed objective means by which to arbit their reasoning outcomes.
The same is true of mathematics. You say a calculator can add, but unless we or it can check it against some presumed objective arbiter of mathematical outcomes, there’s no way to meaningfully vet the outcomes as valid. Are potentially erroneous machines compared against other potentially erroneous machines? Against humans – who are, under materialism, just more potentially erroneous machines? If all you presumedly have is potentially erroneous programming and potentially flawed circuit boards, there’s no objective means by which to check ones process and output.
But, that brings up the whole question of what “flawed” mans under materialism, since there are no presumed objective standards for these things. What does “error” even mean in a system of subjective processes of math and logic?
I never claimed humans reason perfectly. I said we presumedly have access to an objective arbiter of rational thought, and when we argue we expect others to have access to the same objective arbiter by which they can recognize the errors in their own reasoning. How is a meat machine supposed to use flawed reasoning to recognize its own flawed reasoning? Is that really a sound expectation – attempting to reason with machines with physically flawed reasoning processors?
“Imperfect neural circuitry” as a phrase doesn’t even make sense under materialism because there can be no objective arbiter of what “proper reasoning” is. Your neural circuitry is just what it is and just produces what it produces, like anyone else. Your output might be different from the output of others, and as such it might be euphemistically called “erroneous” because it doesn’t match the norm, but all it really is is different, like an oak tree that produces an oddly shaped leaf that’s not like most of the other leaves. Is the leaf’s shape an “error”?
But, as you say, all you’re really attempting to do is physically reprogram them by talking them out of their programming so that it is more in line with your own (you can’t say that it is more in line with any objectively valid reasoning, because there is no such thing). Is it ethical to try to physically reprogram others just so that they think more like you? Sounds to me like you’re treating other people as calculators that you want to calculate in your favor.
I’m not arguing that the mind is immaterial. I’m pointing out the fatal weaknesses of the “mind under a materialist paradigm” concept, and how it contradicts our expectations of what is going on in a rational debate with other presumed rational agencies.
Nor is there any reason not to. As you say, all we are doing is reprogramming the meat calculator, whether we do it with surgery, medicine, reason or magic nonsense words. Some meat machines may feel bad if they do it other than by using what they, as a meat machine, consider to be “logic” (whatever that is represented as in their particular system); others may not feel bad using any of the other techniques. At the end of the day, though, under materialism, all you can be doing (even if you are lying to yourself otherwise) is attempting to reprogram a meat machine so that it favors your particular views.
Thank you very much! I enjoy thinking through the objections and challenges you pose — please keep them coming!
I think that you are using “logic” in a slightly different and perhaps older way than I am. When I talk about “logic”, I am mostly talking about symbolic logic, since that’s what I know best. Given that narrow or restricted sense of logic, I would say that the goal of inquiry — “to the greatest extent possible, describe and explain how the world really is!” — isn’t grounded in logic per se, but that logic is one of the tools we use as we strive to satisfy that ideal.
It’s here that my empiricist sympathies will be laid bare. (I have rationalist sympathies, too, that are laid bare in other contexts.) Given no data, we can determine whether a view is logically possible, or logically necessary, but we cannot do anything else. This is one of the big things that Kant got right: a priori reasoning alone can’t really do that much.
Kant argued, in the Transcendental Dialectic, that one can support with perfectly cogent reasoning diametrically opposed metaphysical doctrines — materialism and immaterialism, determinism and free will, atheism and theism. One can’t rationally prefer one over the other, since there are perfectly fine rational arguments on both sides. As Kant notes, when we try to do a priori metaphysics, reason is divided against itself.
I accept that there is an a priori conceptual dimension to human life — even (contra empiricism) to direct perceptual experience itself! — as well as to higher-order cognitive tasks, such as science (hypothesis-generation, data collection, hypothesis testing, choosing between rival hypotheses) and logic (proving theorems within formal systems, constructing new formal systems). To that extent I can sound more like a rationalist than an empiricist.
But I also think that the a priori structures of reasoning tell us much about us than about how the world really is. We cannot find out, a priori, whether the world conforms to our categories (if the world even has categories). Rather, the task of inquiry is to revise our categories so that they come closer to that of the world (again, if it has categorical structure at all). To that extent I can sound more like an empiricist than a rationalist.
But of course I am neither a rationalist nor an empiricist — I am a pragmatist, in the rich philosophical sense that runs from Kant through Peirce and Dewey down to C. I. Lewis, Wilfrid Sellars, and contemporary pragmatists and neopragmatists.
And under non-materialism what are you doing? Something of eternal significance presumably?
Not necessarily; all Murray is doing is claiming that “materialism” (whatever he might mean by that) cannot accommodate the intentional stance. The gist of the argument is that materialism can only regard human beings as organisms, and not as agents.
If one combines that assumption with the further (in itself, prima facie reasonable) assumption that only agents ought to be treated as ends in themselves, and that organisms can be treated as means only (to cite Kant), the result is that materialism has no room for ethics.
No disagreement here. We use both empirical and intellectual (logical) tools in inquiry. However, I have been emphasising these little additional nuances:
– The different tools (logical versus empirical tools) can be comparatively ranked.
– The ranking occurs by means of logic, not sense-data.
– The intellectual tools are comparatively superior.
But the determination whether a view is logically possible or logically necessary is actually quite much. It determines the difference between inquiry and non-inquiry. It determines the difference between *is* and *should*. It determines the difference between humanity and animality.
All true. Now tell me, when reason is divided against itself, then how in hell will senses help you out of it? In my view, the only thing that will help is more reason.
Good enough. Better than an empiricist through Hume up to modern reductivists.
Yeah, but doing it towards what ends? OMagain’s question is actually a challenge something like:
Hey, WIlliam, are you just masturbating to the stimulus of seeing your own words on the screen? Or are you doing something significant, like trying to persuade one of the erroneously-self-identified “meat robots” to come around to your own objectively correct view? And if so, how is the eternal significance of your attempt any different from the “meat robots'” attempts which you’ve been mocking?
Well, I’m not saying that OMagain would be so rude as that, really. Rude is me.
But I’m pretty sure that WJM can neither admit that his screeds are pointless self-pleasuring, nor admit the alternative that he hopes they have some (moral, if not eternal) significance in swaying at least some onlooker or even one of us, the hopeless robots. And I’m pretty sure that if WJM were to take notice of OMagain’s question as the challenge it’s meant to be, he would deflect it similarly to the way you’ve already deflected it for him (“All [I’m] doing is …”).
Fine. I’m just glad there’s a screen separating me from him.
Kantian Naturalist,
Nope, still not getting it, even in precis form. Even accepting (which I don’t) that there is a clear and accessible distinction between ‘organism’ and ‘agent’, why ‘should’ agents be treated as ends and organisms means only? What standard decides that this dichotomous approach to living entities (the only kind we can have any behavioural interaction with) is the ‘right’ one? It seems that one is merely defining ethics out of the ‘materialist’ picture, just because one can.
It is possible for mere biological entities to have meaningful standards of interaction (meaningful to them). It is possible for ‘agency-driven’ biological entities (those special little Chosen bipeds!) to act in pure non-ethical self-interest, clambering over each other for God’s good graces or only pretending to give a shit about the material bodies or Higher Minds of other agencies. I don’t see any warrant for arguing that only the latter kind of entity can have ethics.
Exactly so. The asymmetry of it is astounding. The people who use objective morality, the people who clearly see design in the universe and a pattern in nature that reflects the designer of the universe. What do they spend their time doing? Anything but engage with their worldview.
Instead they spend their time telling the meat robots that meat robots don’t have souls. And that atheist meat robots don’t get to use arguments, as arguments need logic and logic is based on, well, god I suppose.
What is the divine plan? What are you doing to forwards it? As the plan unfolds, what will your place be in it?
If I believed as they do I’d be more concerned with what the universe is telling me and doing something about it.
No, I would be that rude.
But these interactions are useful practice at not being rude even though you’d quite like to.
I can’t get him to indicate if he thinks a fair die is possible. So, no, little chance of that I fear.
Similar to how christians historically had justified slavery. Simply define “slaves” as less-than-humans who can be treated as means to an end. Real-human-non-slave / not-fully-human-slave dichotomy.
We don’t accept that as a legitimate distinction anymore. It wasn’t valid when the christians used to do it. Why would we accept it as valid now, merely by switching the terms from non-slave to “agent” and slave to “organism”?
If WJM (or KN) wants to argue that materialism reasonably leads to us treating each other as organisms who can be “means only”, then what are they going to say when the next decade brings us material non-meat robots who demonstrate (something like) agency? What are they going to say when your AI-enhanced robotic servant asks you if you would prefer to stick with your diet and have fruit for desert or if you would prefer the fresh coffeecake? Will they tell us there should be no relationship, no “personal” interaction, no respect for self-awareness, with a robot? WIll they tell us that we should treat our robot servants merely as slaves to be ordered around, the way human servants often used to be treated? Why? Just because their intelligence will be silicon based rather than carbon based? Just because we’ll know that they’re manufactured, not ensouled in a birthed-body?
That sounds awfully bigoted and regressive to me.
I predict it’s going to turn out that neither the “meat” nor the “robot” part of “meat-robot” justifies treating self-aware entities as nothing more than means to an end.
William,
So? You’ve told us that truth doesn’t matter anyway. 🙂
hotshoe,
Indeed. To me, the capacity to suffer qualifies an entity for moral consideration.
I suppose William will tell us that meat robots can’t really suffer, even if they act like they do.
It’s chillingly close to what Descartes believed about non-human animals.
The bizarre part of the argument is when Murray insists that it is immoral (wrong according to an objective standard, hence perilous to souls) for someone who believes in neither objective standards nor souls to try and debate someone out of a position they may hold. This is about as ‘because-I-say-so’ as one can get: objectivism’s inherent subjectivism laid bare.
WJM probably doesn’t believe that non-human animals are meat robots. So that’s a straw man.
Meanwhile, it’s up the mechanists here to explain how machines can suffer.
I never claimed it was immoral for them to make the argument because they don’t believe in those things; my point was if materialism was true, rationally debating someone out of their beliefs would be no different than surgically or medically altering their beliefs, or using magic nonsense words to reprogram them: in all cases (if materialism is true) you would be physically reprogramming their mind-states to be more in line with your own.
If you consider any of those things immoral, then under a rationally consistent materialist worldview, rationally arguing with people to get them to change their minds is equally immoral, because it’s the same thing in principle. But then, what is “rationalism” under materialism anyway? Not much more than just another set of feelings, like morality. Sensations. Certainly not worth worrying about overmuch. Illusions that happen to pop up from a happenstance material substrate and happen to make us think what we think and say whatever we say.
Also, just for the record, IMO, nothing is “perilous” to a soul. Soul is never in any danger whatsoever.
Mung:
Are you kidding? He even believes that some humans are meat robots.
ETA: For those who aren’t familiar with William’s bizarre metaphysics:
keiths, you have not explained how machines can suffer.
Please proceed.
Ah, Mung, it would be so much more worthwhile if you were to explain how humans can suffer.
And it would be just brilliant if you were to demonstrate — taking into account whatever thing you think allows humans to experience suffering — how that same thing would not also allow AI machines to suffer. What’s going to be the difference, that one entity is incarnated in organo-carbons, and the other in silicon and plastic?
Of course, you could always plop down the idea of “soul” as the thing which would be different for humans and machines. But you must admit that your god has the potential to imbue AI machines with souls after humans (and generations of increasingly advanced, increasingly self-programming computers) do the hard work of building the machine which can think.
In fact, that’s a good question for you. If you do believe in the existence of souls (as I assume you do, sorry) then why would you think your god would refuse to give souls to evolved thinking machines? Do you imagine that your god is a bigot and prejudiced against any entities that are not of woman born?
Sounds pretty small-minded to me. Small gods, the bane of humanity.
Ah hotshoe_, Humans are just highly advanced machines. Machines cannot suffer. It follows that humans cannot suffer. Asking me to explain how a human can suffer is like me asking keiths how a machine can suffer.
Maybe keiths is a dualist. It would not surprise me.
Amazing, Mung, amazing, that you’ve lived as long as I’ve known you – years. already – and in all that time, you’ve never known suffering.
I don’t know whether to be happy for your sake or worried that you’ve missed out on so much of what makes human life, well, human. I wonder if it would be nice to be a machine that cannot feel. Is it nice for you, Mung?
hotshoe_, I’ve seen suffering, but I have never known suffering. Perhaps I am a machine. But if I am a machine, how is it that I can see suffering?
Is it only humans who can see suffering? Is it only humans who can experience suffering? I don’t know whether to be happy for your sake or worried that you’ve missed out on so much of what makes machine life, well, machine.
Mung,
Magic, of course. There is an immaterial soul attached to the Mung-machine, and souls are magically capable of doing things like willing, thinking, perceiving, and feeling. Because they’re immaterial.
Isn’t it obvious?
From keiths quote above:
WJM said:
In the above, I explain that (according to my metaphysical model at the time) the mind generates a physical body (obviously driven by mind, if the mind generates it) that can act without what appears to be an individuated mind. Obviously, it is not acting without mind, because under my metaphysics, mind is what manifests and drives all material bodies.
I make this more clear in the same post keith refers to:
Again, obviously, what I used to refer to as “biological automatons”, under my metaphysics, can never be what a biological automaton or “meat robot” would be under materialism.
So, when keith uses what he quoted to support his contention that “Are you kidding? He even believes that some humans are meat robots.”, can he possibly think that the extended explanation that I gave for how I used the term “biological automatons” under my metaphysics as context in that same post is the same thing as what I have referred to now as a “pointless meat robot” under materialism and what I have argued such a meat-robot is under materialsm?
Is a manifestation of divine intention, generated and driven in service of the intention by sentient mind, operated either locally or non-locally by an individuated consciousness, “the same as” a happenstance hodge-podge of animated matter haphazardly programmed by physical regularities and stochastic processes that ultimately serves no purpose whatsoever?
Or, is keiths quote-mining?
Also, keiths, be careful. I’ve told you my views are fluid and change over time and this has been problematic for you several times in the past when you juxtapose something I wrote years in the past to something I write now. My views actually change over time and are subject to immediate revision. I’ve also corrected you many times on your erroneous interpretations and oversimplifications of my metaphysical models both past and present.
It might be best for you to stick to the argument at hand rather than repeat the same errors over and over again in some attempt to score a “gotcha” by juxtaposing something I wrote over a year ago with something I write now.
Even if I currently believed that some people were meat-robots in the same sense as they would be under materialism, how would that help in a rebuttal against my argument here? What I believe and my metaphysics aren’t at issue here; what is at issue is (1) whether or not materialism provides a sound justification for what is expected to be going on in a rational argument, and (2) whether it provides a sound justification for the supposed categorical distinction between rationallly convincing and physically reprogramming.
Yes, and I’ve been resisting each of those moves. Whether formal reasoning is “superior” to empirical reasoning depends on the question: superior with regard to what? Formal reasoning can yield certain kinds of knowledge that empirical reasoning cannot (knowledge about possibility and necessity), and empirical reasoning can yield knowledge that formal reasoning cannot (knowledge about actuality). I don’t see how one kind of knowledge is better, or more important, or more foundational, than the other.
I think that we need to explain logic in terms of norms, not norms in terms of logic. I say this because if we think of logic as the meta-linguistic expression of norms — logic as “semantic self-consciousness”, as Brandom nicely puts it — then we have no real difficulty accounting for our cognitive grasp of logical rules. On the other hand, if we try and explain norms in terms of logical rules, then we have to explain our cognitive grasp of logical rules in some other fashion. I think that any attempt to do so will end in dogmatism (“it’s self-evident, damnit!”).
I do agree that it is implicit shared norms which structures the difference between “is” and “ought”, and it is implicit shared norms which distinguish humans from other animals, but we account for logic in terms of norms, not the other way around.
I don’t see how. If there two (or more) rival metaphysical theories, both of which are backed up by rigorous and a priori arguments, all one could do is appeal to “self-evidence”, the “self-evident” truths taken as foundational. I don’t see how reasoning can tell us whether one foundational assumption is any more “self-evident” than another.
Here’s an example of what I have in mind: Spinoza vs. Leibniz. In substantive doctrines the differences are stark: Spinoza gives us a pure immanent ontology in which there are no ontological differences between finite beings; Leibniz gives us a hierarchical ontology in which human beings are ontologically different from all other finite beings. In Leibniz there is a division between “the kingdom of grace” and “the kingdom of nature”, where only rational souls can know something of the former; in Spinoza there is no division. Leibniz defends a radical freedom in which nothing is causally affected by anything else; Spinoza defends a radical necesssitarianism in which everything is as it must be and must be as it is. Yet they are very similar in many other respects. What’s the point of divergence between them?
As I see it, both Leibniz and Spinoza accept, as a basic assumption, that the most fundamental kind of reality is that of substance, and a substance has attributes or properties. (Of course they inherit this from Scholasticism.) But Aristotle, and the Scholastic, had no trouble accounting for causal interaction between substances. Spinoza and Leibniz had a huge problem with causal interaction between substances, because the Scholastic model of causal interaction is not compatible with mechanistic physics. And they both appreciated that Descartes’s inability to explain causal interaction between mind and body is the Achilles’ heel of the Cartesian system. (One of them, anyway.) What to do?
Spinoza’s solution is to say that there is only one infinite substance, and all finite beings are “modes” (we might say, modifications) of the one substance, which he calls “Deus sive Natura” or “God, or rather, Nature”. Leibniz’s solution is to say that there are infinitely many finite substances, or “monads”.
So how are we to choose between one infinite substance and infinitely many finite substances? It’s been pointed out that this debate can be re-framed in metalinguistic terms as follows: is the term “substance” a mass-noun or a count-noun? If “substance” is a mass-noun, then we can go with Spinoza; if it is a count-noun, then we can go with Leibniz.
But which is it? How are we to decide? Is it “self-evident” that is one or the other? Does “reason” offer us guidance here?
That is not to say that sense-experience will tell us whether Spinoza or Leibniz is right; that raises a whole host of further issues, all turning on how a metaphysical claim can be operationalized in order to be the kind of claim that even admits of empirical verification in the first place. (I’m not a verificationist about meaning, but I am a verificationist about cognitive significance or importance. That right there is one of the very subtle differences between positivists and pragmatists.)
Indeed!
P.S.: I’ll be away and without regular Internet access from evening of 5/23 to morning of 6/16. I’m sure that by the time I return the conversation will have mutated several times, so can have the last word in this exchange!
Formal reasoning is superior to empirical reasoning because the comparison between the two occurs by means of formal reasoning, not empirical reasoning. Obviously.
True. But this very realisation (namely, that formal reasoning yields such-and-such knowledge and empirical reasoning certain other kind of knowledge) is again due to formal reasoning, not due to empirical reasoning.
And at closer analysis, it’s seen that the scope of empirical reasoning is limited to the physical and phenomenal, whereas formal reasoning has a larger scope involving crucial distinctions like epiphenomenal, supernatural, noumenal, immaterial and metaphysical that transcend physical and phenomenal. And this analysis occurs, yet again, by means of formal reasoning rather than by anything empirical. (Tell me you didn’t see this coming.)
Looks like you are implicating me of explaining norms in terms of logic. This involves some hitherto unrevealed presuppositions on your part.
I’ll deal with this point as soon as you explain what you mean by “norms”. Looks like you mean something similar to what metaphysicists would call “categories” but it’s not my job to disentangle this by guessing.
Who “we”? Pragmatists?
Self-evidence is not the bottom line. The characteristics of a good theory as per rationalist approach are:
– Explanatory scope
– Economy (Parsimony)
– Elegance (Constructivity)
Comparing any two theories, there is always some difference in terms of at least one of these characteristics. The only problem is the balance between these characteristics.
For example, “God exists” and “God does not exist” may superficially look like equally good rival theories. Atheists favour “God does not exist” on account of parsimony, while theists favour “God exists” on account of greater explanatory scope. Namely, miracles and paranormal phenomena are explained on theist account, while on atheist account they are simply denied. Also, spiritual yearning, which for theists is as real and concrete as need for air, is a hallucination to be suppressed for atheists. Thus “God exists” has a greater explanatory scope and constructivity.
Thus the balance between the two theories will be decided based on whether you appreciate greater explanatory scope or you prefer parsimony and close your eyes and mind to all phenomena that remain unexplained due to the lesser explanatory scope. This is a rational choice, not a debate between who yells “self-evident” louder.
(This hopefully serves as a relevant response to your story about Spinoza, Leibniz, and Aristotle. It was a nice story. Thanks for telling.)
In a good case this exchange will carry over several threads over several weeks, provided that we are able and willing to keep track of each other’s posts. No hurry.
Turns out I have some time to kill before I leave, so . . .
Actually, I am not sure about that. We learn from the history of philosophy that there’s an irreducible difference between empirical reasoning and formal reasoning, because every attempt to reduce empirical reasoning to formal reasoning has failed (as has every attempt to reduce formal reasoning to empirical reasoning). Isn’t historical knowledge a kind of empirical knowledge?
In other words, is the a priori/a posteriori distinction itself a priori? I see the point. I’m not completely sure that I agree. Then again, I am probably more receptive than you are to the idea that the a priori is relative and historical.
Yes, at this point I’m much less confident than you are that the supernatural, immaterial, and noumenal actually mean anything. An intellectualized or rationalized myth is still a myth.
I apologize; that wasn’t my intent. (Though I think Murray does have that commitment.)
By “norms” I mean shared tendencies of behavior that made explicit in prescriptive claims, and where the making of prescriptive claims plays a role in producing the relevant behavioral tendencies. Granted, it’s a pragmatist thesis.
Those are among the desiderata of any theory, whether empirical or formal. The question here is how far we can go in using those criteria in formal domains, and whether those kinds of theories can tell us anything beyond how reality might be or must be.
The problem, though, is this: whether or not the phenomena theism purports to explain are genuine phenomena is internal to the metaphysical doctrines themselves. To see them as real phenomena is already to have adopted a theistic view; to see them as unreal is already to have adopted an atheistic view.
I don’t think that atheism and theism can be compared as if they were scientific theories that are just rivals over a shared explanandum. Rather, both metaphysics — in order to be genuinely comprehensive, as scientific theories are not — already contain within themselves a way of characterizing the domain they purport to explain.
In short, I don’t think that empirical evidence or formal reasoning can furnish us with reasons for preferring one over the other. A strictly epistemological approach — however much it conjoins the insights of empiricism and of rationalism — can’t take us beyond agnosticism. Whether one opts for atheism or for theism, it’s a leap of faith in either direction.
Or, in my own case (and probably that of most people who self-label as atheists nowadays) it’s not a leap or faith at all but rather a resignation that I might as well call myself an atheist because all the theists will call me that anyways. Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, so to speak. Since I freely admit that I don’t believe in any of their odious gods and I despise the behaviors which they use their religion to excuse, I might as well go ahead and allow the name “atheist” for myself. But I haven’t taken a leap of faith. I don’t believe in atheism. I do not hold a belief that there are no gods. So why not (perhaps more honestly?) self-label as an agnostic? Because I don’t accept that self-labeling as an atheist requires a dogmatic certainty that atheism is “true”. I’ve already escaped the thought-prison of theism, why would I voluntarily submit to another kind of thought prison?
On pain of death, yes, I would make a black-or-white choice (my choice of course would be to adopt whichever faith the sword-wielder wished me to profess to save my life). In ordinary life I never expect to be forced to such an either/or choice. I understand that formal logic thinks it’s an either/or:(A or Not-A), but I think that’s a major failing of formal logic. It makes formal logic a parlor game with almost no applicability to the continuums of ordinary life.
I don’t mean to step on your larger point that neither empirical evidence nor logical reasoning are sufficient in themselves to choose the answer. I do indeed agree with you there.
Absolutely agree, hotshoe. I haven’t really taken to the “atheist” label, much although I don’t reject it – but it implies that my non-belief in god or gods is something categorically different from my non-belief in unicorns or toothfairies, or in the proverbial orbiting teapot.
It doesn’t define me in any meaningful way. It doesn’t even tell anyone much about what I think about anything else. I mostly disagree with Richard Dawkins, for instance.
🙂 🙂 🙂
That’s about it. When asked, I usually say that I am non-religious. But I actually have no position on whether there is a god. It’s just that the gods that I have heard of all seem to be made up cultural constructs.
How is that your non-belief in god or gods is something categorically different from your non-belief in unicorns or toothfairies, or in the proverbial orbiting teapot?