Merry Christmas

Things have gotten slow around here over the holidays, but we haven't forgotten about you. Regular posting will resume in January.

The Principle of Disagreement

Now the question raised by the mode of disagreement is this: Is the Principle of Disagreement true? And the answer is surely: Yes, the Principle is true. For suppose that it were not true. Then the following could be the case. I recognize that there is a dispute about the authenticity of the Magna Moralia, some holding that the work was written by Aristotle himself and others holding that it is a later counterfeit. I believe, further, that the dispute is still undecided: the parties have not come to any agreement, and no decisive argument or consideration for or against authenticity has yet been advanced. Nevertheless (if the Principle is false) it is rational for me to hold that the work is not authentic. Now it seems clear to me that this is incoherent; for how could it possibly be rational for me to plump for authenticity, thus opting for one side of the dispute, and yet still maintain that the dispute is undecided? If it is rational or warranted for me to decide against authenticity, then I must suppose that whatever warrants my decision also and thereby decides the dispute, which I can therefore no longer hold to be undecided. If, on the contrary, I insist that the disagreement remains undecided, then I cannot consistently suppose that my inclination to reject authenticity, whatever it may be founded upon, has any satisfactory justification; and hence it is not rational for me to reject authenticity.

Of course, I may adopt it as a 'working hypothesis' that the Magna Moralia is a counterfeit. I may act as if the work is spurious – say, by excluding it from my translation of the collected works of Aristotle. But in so acting I am not manifesting any belief that the work is spurious. I am not putting money on the horse. (Moreover, I may perhaps also hold that it is likely or probable that the work will turn out to be spurious. Then I shall indeed hold a belief on the matter – but not a belief which is, in any straightforward way, a party to the disagreement. For the disagreement is not over probabilities but over authenticity.) Thus while recognizing the existence of an unresolved dispute over authenticity, I may yet act as if the work is spurious (and perhaps even take it to be probably spurious); but I cannot rationally believe that it is spurious.

If the putative counter-example to the Principle of Disagreement is incoherent, then any putative counter-example is incoherent. And thus the Principle is true. Then since the Principle on which the mode of disagreement rests is true, the mode does indeed induce suspension of judgment. If I recognize undecided dispute over ?Q, then I must – I rationally must – suspend judgment over the matter.

Jonathan Barnes, The Toils of Scepticism.

I've discussed the principle of disagreement in a previous post here (the first premise), and thought some of you might be interested in Barnes's full argument for it.

Stoicism and the Four Noble Truths

Over the last decade or so an alliance of sorts has formed between the modern Stoic movement and a variety of Buddhist popularizers, especially those influenced by the secular Buddhist movement. It has been noted that both Buddhists and Stoics sought 1) to quiet their desires and minds through various techniques, 2) to impose on themselves a strict simplicity in thought, word, and deed, and 3) to take hold of a super-ordinary freedom. This point of view has been put forth in articles, books, and videoes. While no one reasonable claims that the two are identical (that Zeno would have become Bikkhu Zeno upon hearing a sermon, or that the the Buddha, had he traveled to Greece, would have set up shop under the Stoa) it often seems to me that the similarity is overstated between these two venerable traditions. As an experiment of sorts, I decided to imagine what a Stoic would think of the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism—how we would react and respond to the essential tenets of Buddhism, that were supposedly the core message of the very first sermon the Buddha taught after his Awakening.

The Franciscan Master

Today is the Feast of John Duns Scotus. I'm not Christian, but I have great respect for Scotus's work. Here is a quote from Efrem Bettoni's Duns Scotus: The Principles of his Philosophy depicting the great man in an act of intellectual heroism:

In 1304 Duns Scotus was already known both within and outside the Order as a religious of deep spirituality and as a man of wide culture and powerful mind. When Father Gonsalvus of Spain, Minister General of the Franciscan Order, proposed him to the Provincial of Paris as a candidate for a master's chair at the University of that city, he expressed himself in the following terms: "I recommend to your charity our beloved brother in Christ, Father John Scotus, whose laudable life, excellent knowledge, most subtle genius, and other remarkable qualities are fully known to me, partly because of my long association with him, and partly because of his widespread reputation.”

However, in 1304 Duns Scotus was no longer in Paris, as he had to leave the city suddenly in 1303, in the middle of the academic year. What was the reason for this sudden departure? In the first months of 1303 the struggle between Pope Boniface VIII and the King of France, Philip the Fair, which is better known from Dante's poem (cf. Purgatorio, XX, 85-93) than from the reports of historians, had become greatly intensified. Philip the Fair looked for adherents to his antipapal policies among the clergy. This led to a split even among the members of the religious orders. Duns Scotus, as is well documented by the list of the Friars Minor that took side with the Pope against the King—a list discovered and published by Father Ephrem Longpré in 1928—did not hesitate to follow the dictates of conscience and truth. Royal reprisal forced him to interrupt his teaching and return to Oxford in England, where he lectured during the scholastic year 1303-1304.

When in 1304, following the death of Boniface VIII, the storm subsided and all political difficulties were removed, John Duns Scotus was sent back to Paris by the Minister General in order to obtain the title of master. About Easter in 1305, when Simon of Guiberville was chancellor of the University, the official proclamation took place. 

This second period of teaching at the University of Paris became famous in scholastic tradition because of the theological dispute of the Subtle Doctor in favor of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Mother. Later traditions have invested this famous battle with legendary elements. Allegedly it ended in a grand finale, in which the Franciscan master, emulating in the field of culture the deeds of the bravest knights, victoriously withstood all the masters of the University of Paris, who were fierce opponents of his Mariology. However, the substantial historicity of this famous dispute has been proved in recent years by Father Charles Balic with an abundance of arguments which show how well Duns Scotus deserves the title of knight as well as of doctor of the Immaculate Conception.

The Goal of Skepticism

An article one of our authors, Brian York, wrote during his time as a student was recently published on pages eighty-five to ninety-three of the fourth issue of the independent journal Julep. I don't necessarily endorse everything he says in it, but it's worth checking out.

I haven't read any of the journal's other articles, which appear to be about subjects other than philosophy.

Can God Make a Picasso?

That God ultimately produced everything besides himself mediaeval philosophers had no doubt. But precisely what this creative act amounts to, whether and in what way it is ongoing, and how divine production relates to, say, human production—all these were important open questions. The title of this article is meant to focus our attention on one of the most interesting of these open questions, as it was discussed by Oxford philosophers Walter Chatton (d. 1343) and William Ockham (d. 1347). For while Chatton and Ockham would certainly have agreed that God is ultimately responsible for the existence of the works of Pablo Picasso (and indeed Picasso himself), they would not have agreed in precise detail about how to answer the question I intend in my title, that is: Does it violate God’s omnipotence to say that he cannot make something that Picasso made—for example, the painting Guernica—without using Picasso himself as an intermediate cause?

Rondo Keele. "Can God Make a Picasso? William Ockham and Walter Chatton on Divine Power and Real Relations". http://muse.jhu.edu/article/218279/pdf.

Constituent Versus Relational Ontologies

Since the relationship between God and universals is one factor in the controversy over divine ultimacy lurking behind the classical theist versus theist personalist dispute I discussed here, here and here, it seems fitting to review this old entry. 

Debates over the difference between Platonism and Aristotelianism, and the respective merits of each position, are likely to continue for as long as Man philosophizes. This post does not seek to take a stance on which position is correct but to provide clarification on an issue which is too often lumped into this debate, that is the way in which particulars are related to their universals.

I contend that many of the superficial charges Platonists and Aristotelians, particularly those who adopt such position in virtue of the role they play in wider philosophical systems, lay at one another's feet really relate to the alternative and more fundamental differences between constituent and relational ontologies. This entry is intended to give a brief run-through of these two approaches to ontology. To do so I will look at two claims attributed to each position, at least in popular presentations (let us call their proponents the ‘pop-Platonist’ and ‘pop-Aristotelian’ respectively).

Papers by David Lewis

I thought some of you might find Andrew Bailey's collection of David Lewis papers interesting. Lewis is wrong about a lot, but he's one of the finest prose stylists in recent analytic ontology and his papers usually have something of value in them.

Penetrate to the Very Marrow

... c'est [la raison] un guide qui s'égare: et l'on peut comparer la philosophie à des poudres si corrosives, qu'après avoir consumé les chairs haveuses d'une plaie, elles rongeraient la chair vive, et carieraient les os, et perceraient jusqu'aux moelles. La philosophie réfute d'abord les erreurs, mais, si on ne l'arrête point là, elle attaque les vérités: et quand on la laisse faire à sa fantaisie, elle va si loin qu'elle ne sait plus où elle est, ni ne trouve plus où s'asseoir.

... it [reason] is a guide that leads one astray; and philosophy can be compared to some powders that are so corrosive that, after they have eaten away the infected flesh of a wound, they then devour the living flesh, rot the bones, and penetrate to the very marrow. Philosophy at first refutes errors. But if it is not stopped at this point, it goes on to attack truths. And when it is left on its own, it goes so far that it no longer knows where it is and can find no stopping place.

Pierre Bayle, Dictionnaire Historique et Critique. Translated by Popkin.

Skepticism and Mysticism

What, if any, connection is there between skepticism and mysticism? First off, we should be clear what we are talking about. By skepticism I mean the Pyrrhonian skeptical tradition, exemplified by the writings of Sextus Empiricus. On this definition, the skeptic is someone who employs arguments on both sides of any issue. Finding that the arguments on both sides of any issue have equal strength, the skeptic suspends judgment about the truth or reality of that particular issue. By mysticism I mean the belief that one can achieve super-human knowledge inaccessible to ordinary reason or super-natural states of Being unachievable by ordinary practices or processes.

Two Arguments for Divine Simplicity

This post discusses two arguments philosophers have sometimes given in favour of divine simplicity. I do not believe either are successful but will give an overview of them as a preamble to more substantial arguments for and against this position.

Complexity Implies Causation

The first argument is discussed at length in a fine article ‘Divine Simplicity, Aseity, and Sovereignty’ by Matthew Baddorf; it is the claim that complexity implies causation, that if an entity is complex then it requires an efficient cause of its existence. Neither Baddorf nor Paul Vincent Spade, who the former quotes in favour of that thesis, are aware of any reason for this dictum beyond a purported inductive generalisation from observed contingent beings to the effect: all contingent beings are complex therefore all complex beings are contingent¹. The case for such a generalisation is weak and the purported supporting evidence easily explained in other ways e.g. by the aseity claim that all contingent beings depend on God for their existence. If such is granted then of course all non-God entities will require a cause, regardless of whether we assay God as ontologically simple or complex. As an inductive argument complexity implies causation has as much dialectical force as J. H. Sobel’s necessity implies abstractness animadversion against traditional theism (all abstract objects are necessary, God is necessary, ergo God is an abstract object)².

Dogmatists

The ancient sceptics labelled their opponents 'dogmatists'. The word 'dogmatist' in contemporary English has a pejorative tone – it hints at an irrational rigidity of opinion, a refusal to look impartially at the evidence. In its ancient sense the word lacked that tone: a dogmatist was simply someone who subscribed to dogmas or doctrines. We shall use the word in the ancient sense. The disadvantage of this practice is off-set by the convenience of having a short label for all those who are not sceptical philosophers.

Julia Annas and Jonathan Barnes, The Modes of Scepticism.

From the Mailbag: The Modes of Aenesidemus

I've been asked to say more about ancient skeptical arguments. An old friend, Charlie Black, writes:

I was wondering when you planned to write more on skepticism. In particular, I am interested in the modes in the early part of Sextus Empiricus' Outlines and whether you can update them into analytic idiom.

Part of the reason I've avoided writing more about the skeptical arguments (in spite of some past posts) is that many are fairly bad.¹ This, for me, makes them less exciting than if they were good. I'm still mainly interested in advancing the lot of philosophy or, at least, showing that it can't be advanced.

The Thoroughly Empirical Science

Metaphysics is the thoroughly empirical science. Every item of experience must be evidence for or against any hypothesis of speculative cosmology, and every experienced object must be an exemplar and test case for the categories of analytic ontology.

Donald Cary Williams. “The Elements of Being”. Principles of Empirical Realism, 1966, pp. 74–75.

The Method of Subtraction

The method of subtraction is simply a useful dodge when attempting logical analysis. In order to see whether a certain condition c is, or is not, a necessary condition for the occurrence of a certain sort of situation s, try conceiving of cases of s where it is given that c does not hold. It may turn out to be fairly clear that the notion of s without c is an incoherent conception, and so fairly clear that c is necessary for s. This simple technique, which resembles the method of reductio ad absurdum in mathematics and logic, and the 'method of difference' in empirical research, can be astonishingly fruitful. The neglect to apply it can lead to a lot of unnecessary beating about the bush.

D. M. Armstrong. Belief, Truth and Knowledge, Cambridge University Press, 1973, pp. 81–82.

The Metaphilosophy of Religion: Classical Theists versus Theistic Personalists, II

Whilst debates over the nature of simplicity are important, the polemical emphasis on them has served to obscure a more fundamental dispute in early analytical philosophy which threatened to leave us with a concept of God so radically different from the historical understanding as to call all ultimacy claims into question. The divine attribute under fire here was not simplicity or personhood but divine necessity—God’s status as a necessary being.

Almost all classical theists hold that God’s existence is necessary; indeed this claim is so fundamental that before modernity few philosophers, atheist or theist, thought to dispute it. Necessary here is meant in the strongest sense, that of logical necessity—for every way reality could be that way includes God’s existence⁶. That the Divine is that for which it is impossible not to be is one of the most ancient tenets of Western metaphysics dating back to Parmenides⁷. This intuition has been central to our notion of God for centuries before thinkers had the conceptual tools to explicate it within a particular logical framework—indeed it has been one of the prime motivations in philosophers’ seeking additionally sophisticated ways to articulate modal truths.

The Metaphilosophy of Religion: Classical Theists versus Theistic Personalists, I

A certain narrative pervades natural theology, particularly in Catholic quarters. This narrative is that analytical philosophy of religion, though greatly beneficial in resuscitating the intellectual respectability of theism, has lead philosophers down a blind alley by introducing a substantially false understanding of God termed by critics ‘theistic personalism’. This position, held by the majority of analytical theists, especially Protestants, stands opposed to and serves to obscure the traditional understanding of God known as ‘classical theism’, which has been standard from Plato to the early modern period. I hold that excess focus on this narrative has obscured a more fundamental dispute within early analytical treatments of God.

An Atheistic Argument from Bizarro Worlds

I’ve had a sketch of this argument written up in the Notes app on my phone for years. I thought it was relatively original but it turns out Hugh Chandler, a really under-regarded philosopher and one more students of modal metaphysics should read, beat me to it by some years. Chandler’s paper can be read here.

What follows is a short argument for atheism, or at least against the classical concept of God. I’m not suggesting it is very serious but it’s interesting because it highlights what is behind some of the more popular atheistic arguments.

Perpetually Troubled

For those who hold the opinion that things are good or bad by nature are perpetually troubled. When they lack what they believe to be good, they take themselves to be persecuted by natural evils and they pursue what (so they think) is good. And when they have acquired these things, they experience more troubles; for they are elated beyond reason and measure, and in fear of change they do anything so as not to lose what they believe to be good. But those who make no determination about what is good or bad by nature neither avoid nor pursue anything with intensity; and hence they are tranquil.

Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Scepticism. Translated by Annas and Barnes.

Pressing Business

Not to be constantly telling people (or writing them) that I'm too busy, unless I really am. Similarly, not to be always ducking my responsibilities to the people around me because of "pressing business."

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations.

Origin Essentialism and Disappearing Possibilities: A Problem for S5

In the spirit of continued self-criticism I will turn to a problem for a specimen of my favourite family of theistic proof, that it is Plantinga’s formulation of the modal ontological argument.

Axiom S5 states that if something is possible then necessarily it is possible¹. If Socrates is a possible being then this fact could not be otherwise; it is always and forever true that Socrates is a possible being. Possibilities do not change or pass away—they are a necessary part of the ‘deep’ ontological structure of reality and thus are set throughout all possible worlds.

Further Thoughts on the Maximal God Thesis

Nagasawa repeatedly affirms that holding the Maximal God thesis does not mean abandoning the omni-attributes, only not having to defend them as part of the perfect being thesis. Many theists however will reject this proposal straight out at the mere epistemic possibility of having to water down said attributes. Others will allege that the thesis anthropomorphises God or that it commits us to an account of properties incompatible with divine simplicity. Of these the simplicity question is probably the only one with (non-rhetorical) force, however it would take us on to a wider debate (probably the central debate for classical theism).

One objection that might be raised is that the three great-making properties Nagasawa discusses—power, knowledge and goodness—are each degreed properties i.e. those that admit of varying intensity. Although the Maximal God thesis makes sense in those cases it is difficult to see how it could be applied to divine timelessness, say, or simplicity, neither of which appear to admit of degrees. One could easily respond however that the Maximal God thesis is really intended as a development of the ‘Maximally Great’ definition of God employed in Plantinga’s formulation of the modal ontological argument, which was specifically intended to only capture a ‘bare bones’ picture of theism thus remaining neutral on further attribute debates. Whilst these attributes are important one is not required to defend them in the course of the ontological argument. This is probably a wise move: as Leftow and Gale have pointed out, the possibility of a timeless being or of a divinely simple being also entails the existence of said being, hence appealing to those attributes in the course of the ontological argument would render that argument superfluous. It could also be argued that, despite what Anselm himself may have thought, although timelessness and simplicity are attributes of God they are not great-making properties, that are entailed by God’s status as a perfect being.

A related objection is that theists may already have a priori commitment to the Omni-God thesis in virtue of other theistic arguments and background ontological assumptions. Many philosophers would take issue with Nagasawa’s claim that the ontological argument is the only direct argument for the God of perfect being theism and that at best the other arguments only show the existence of a being with impressive properties e.g. vast degrees of power or intelligence, compatible with God thus understood. Although the Gaps Problem is often touted as a serious objection it follows directly from certain variations on the PSR and powers cosmological arguments that the being in question has at least the power to actualise all possible states of affairs if not also agency and knowledge of all such states. Again defenders of the Maximal God thesis can respond that they do not a priori reject the Omni-God thesis, thus if the reasoning behind the these cosmological arguments is cogent then we have reason to think that Omnipotence and perhaps others are included amongst the maximally consistent set of positive properties God possesses.

Here there is a danger of critics of theism digging their heels in and claiming that far from establishing the existence of an Omnipotent being the fact that the cosmological argument would entail such gives us reason to reject it, as we already know such a being is impossible on the basis of a type A or type B objection (see Vallicella’s ‘Simple Atheist’ for an account of this problem albeit with simplicity instead of omnipotence). Responses vary from tackling the objection head-on with a refutation, the preferred approach since most of them are not that formidable, or ceding the cosmological argument and retreating to Maximal God theism on the basis of the ontological argument.

The type B objection has potentially more interesting consequences if developed along the lines that the cosmological argument does establish the existence of an omnipotent being and that, necessarily, Omnipotence cannot be among the maximal consistent set of positive properties possessed by the perfect being. This would mean we have two necessary beings, one Omnipotent and one with the properties ascribed by the Maximal God thesis, a conclusion many theists would want to reject (then again I cannot see it being a conclusion that would please most atheists either). In order to reach such a conclusion though the critic would have to show that the omni-attribute in question is not only incompatible with other omni-attributes but also with Maximal God’s other properties. This strikes me as implausible on axiological grounds.

It goes without saying that those whose ontology entails or depends on the existence of beings with the omni-attributes cannot profit from the open-endedness of the Maximal God thesis or can only do so as a backup in the eventuality that their preferred metaphysics is proven wrong. This is perhaps another instance of the specific metaphysics problem I discussed in my instalments on Feser’s Five Proofs: epistemically complete theistic ontologies have the advantage in exhaustively mapping God’s relationship to the rest of reality but cannot permit any flexibility in the understanding of God involved.

Finally there is another family of omni-attribute arguments Nagasawa does not discuss, some of which may experience a rise in epistemic credibility given the Maximal God thesis. I refer here to what shall be termed explanatory role arguments, those which claim the existence of a being with a given omni-attribute can be provide the most satisfactory solution to a philosophical problem. Examples would be the proof from eternal truths (which holds an Omniscient necessary being is the best way to account for abstracta), Pruss’ argument that an Omnipotent being helps explain global possibilities and Alan Rhoda’s intriguing suggestion that a timeless Omniscient being could solve the truthmaker objection to Presentism.

Explanatory role arguments are often under examined by sympathetic theists and atheists, perhaps because of an underlying feeling that the perceived ‘costly addition’ of said beings to one’s ontology would dissuade anyone who was not a priori committed to them. Here the Maximal God thesis may be of use—if one has prior reason to believe for example that a very knowledgeable necessary being exists and that the existence of an Omniscient being would solve ontological problem then might not one conclude that said very knowledgeable being is probably Omniscient? If explanatory role reasons are not strong enough to justify positing the existence of an exotic additional being in the first place they might still be enough to give us reason to revise our understanding of an existing being i.e. Maximal God. Likewise for epistemic stalemate situations with for and against arguments—if the reasons for positing an omni-attributed being have the same epistemic weight as those against the existence of a being with said attribute, might not additional prior knowledge of the existence of a being with something very close to that attribute shift the epistemic balance in the omni-being’s favour? The former seems a better route than the latter.

Notes on Pyrrhonism and Disagreement

In The Toils of Scepticism, Jonathan Barnes presents the following argument on behalf of Sextus Empiricus:

(1) If someone is aware that there is an undecided dispute about ?Q, then he ought not to accept or reject any proposed answer to ?Q.¹
(2) On every issue ?Q, there has been (or might be) disagreement.
(3) If a disagreement is to be decided, we need a yardstick (a criterion, a standard) to decide it.
(4) On any question of the form “Is Y appropriate for ?Q?” there is undecided disagreement.
(5) If we are to use a yardstick Y for issue ?Q, we must (a) believe that Y is appropriate to ?Q and (b) be justified in believing that Y is appropriate for ?Q.
(6) Hence, there is no Y and no ?Q for which we're justified in holding that Y is appropriate to ?Q. (1, 4)
(7) Hence, for no Y and no ?Q may we use Y for ?Q. (5, 6)
(8) Hence, no issue is decided. (2, 3, 7)
(9) Hence, we should suspend judgment on every issue ?Q. (1, 8)

It entails radical skepticism about the world.

I'll start my defense of the argument by summarizing Barnes on it.

Premises (1), (2), and (3)

Barnes first lays out definitions for attitude and dispute. He says that someone takes an attitude to a question ?Q if he either accepts some proposition as the answer to ?Q, rejects some proposition as the answer to ?Q, or suspends judgment over ?Q; and that two people dispute the answer to a ?Q whenever they take conflicting attitudes to it.

He also distinguishes historical decisions and rational decisions. Historical decisions concern the attitudes people take towards an issue; in contrast, rational decisions concern only the arguments for and against the issue. The dispute over the authenticity of the Magna Moralia is historically decided when everyone involved takes the same attitude towards its authenticity; it's rationally decided only when an argument determines the text's authenticity one way or the other. I'll use “decision” to mean “rational decision” in this post.

Barnes then argues for (1). Suppose (1) false. Then I could be aware of the dispute over the Magna Moralia's authenticity, decide for or against that authenticity, and still maintain that the dispute is undecided. But that is absurd. If it's rational or warranted for me to decide against the text's authenticity, then whatever warrants my decision also decides the dispute over the text's authenticity; if the dispute is undecided, then it must be irrational or unwarranted for me to decide against the text's authenticity. There is therefore good reason to accept (1): it's incoherent to both decide a dispute and maintain that it's undecided.

Next, Barnes points out that even if we reject (2), there has, as an empirical fact, been disagreement over almost everything interesting or important. In other words, he points out that even if (2) fails something close enough succeeds.

He then argues for (3). He argues (i) if we didn't need a criterion to rationally decide an issue ?Q, we would be able to rationally decide it by arbitrarily deciding it; (ii) we can't rationally decide something by arbitrarily deciding it; hence (iii), we need a criterion to rationally decide ?Q. In short, he argues that we need criteria to rationally decide questions because rationally deciding (at least in part) means deciding based on criteria.

He thinks the foregoing entails (1), (2), and (3).

Premise (4) and (5)

Next, Barnes suggests that Sextus means for us to take (4) as an empirical premise. He, however, doesn't think it's clear that it succeeds as such. (He would if we were talking about historically undecided disagreement, but not rationally undecided disagreement.) He ultimately concedes that (4) needs the support of other Pyrrhonian modes to stand².

He then argues that it's unclear whether (5) succeeds. Suppose, for instance, that someone uses the law of non-contradiction to resolve a dispute. Does he also need to hold a belief in its appropriateness to the dispute to be justified in using it? Barnes doesn't think it clear that he does. In brief, he thinks that it's unclear whether (5) succeeds because non-skeptics may be able to reject (5a).

He thinks the foregoing suggests that it's unclear whether (4) or (5) succeed.

But, Barnes adds, the skeptic isn't finished yet. For even if it turns out that the non-skeptic is right, it's still the case that if he ever stops and (to return to the last example) reflects on the law of non-contradiction and comes to a conclusion other than belief in its suitableness to the dispute, he can no longer be justified (or at least no longer feel justified) in using it to resolve the dispute. A modified version of the argument therefore succeeds for any yardstick the non-skeptic reflects on and doesn't come to believe appropriate.³

Conclusion

Barnes thinks that (1), (2), and (3) are well-supported, (4) requires the support of other Pyrrhonian modes, and (5) remains poorly supported even with other modes. He doesn't think that the argument is probative.<sup>4

1</sup>Barnes calls (1) the principle of disagreement.
²A “mode” is an argument-form.
³Barnes promises that this “form of reflection […] will turn out to be the final cunning thought in the Pyrrhonian philosophy”.
⁴There is one further consequence of the argument worth flagging—that of self-refutation. I have nothing to say about this charge here, except that a proper defense against it will take us straight to the heart of the Pyrrhonian way of life.

Like a Purge

The other statement, "Every saying, etc.," equally compels suspension of judgement; when facts disagree, but the contradictory statements have exactly the same weight, ignorance of the truth is the necessary consequence. But even this statement has its corresponding antithesis, so that after destroying others it turns round and destroys itself, like a purge which drives the substance out and then in its turn is itself eliminated and destroyed.

Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers 9.11.

The Ladder

Just as it is not impossible that a man who has used a ladder to climb up to a high place should overturn the ladder with his foot, so it is not unlikely that the Skeptic, having used the argument that shows that there is no proof as a kind of scaffolding to establish his thesis, should then destroy that argument itself.

Sextus Empiricus, Against the Logicians. Translated by Striker.

Review: Maximal God by Yujin Nagasawa

Reader's Note: Next week I will publish a follow-up entry giving more of my own thoughts on the book's central thesis. Since this review, like all of my Ontological Investigations reviews, was partly written with Amazon in mind it was neither desirable nor feasible to an in-depth technical response within the review itself.

In Maximal God Yujin Nagasawa presents an ambitious, fascinating and frustratingly sketchy development of perfect being theism. The book also contains a wealth of material on the ontological argument, including an overview of its history and a comprehensive discussion of the normally disregarded epistemic version originally given by Anselm. Nagasawa’s prose is admirably lucid and relatively free of technical jargon or the complex semantics of formal logic. Although the book requires a basic knowledge of analytical philosophy it will be accessible to anyone interested the topic and willing to put a bit of background reading in.

The Aim of the Sceptic

It will be apposite to consider next the aim of the Sceptical persuasion. Now an aim is that for the sake of which everything is done or considered, while it is not itself done or considered for the sake of anything else. Or: an aim is the final object of desire. Up to now we say the aim of the Sceptic is tranquility in matters of opinion and moderation of feeling in matters forced upon us. For Sceptics began to do philosophy in order to decide among appearances and to apprehend which are true and which false, so as to become tranquil; but they came upon equipollent dispute, and being unable to decide this they suspended judgment. And when they suspended judgment, tranquility in matters of opinion followed fortuitously.

Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Scepticism. Translated by Annas and Barnes.

A Standstill of the Intellect

A Pyrrhonist's researches do not end in discovery; nor yet do they conclude that discovery is impossible. For they do not terminate at all: the researches continue, and the researcher finds himself in a condition of epoche. 'Epoche is defined as 'a standstill of the intellect, as a result of which we neither deny nor affirm anything'. The Sceptical investigator neither asserts nor denies, neither believes nor disbelieves.

Jonathan Barnes, "The Beliefs of a Pyrrhonist".

Ού Μάλλον

'No more this than that' makes clear our feelings: because of the equipollence of the opposed objects we end in equilibrium. (By 'equipollence' we mean equality in what appears plausible to us; by 'opposed' we mean in general conflicting; and by 'equilibrium' we mean assent to neither side.) Thus, although the phrase 'In no way more' exhibits the distinctive character of assent or denial, we do not use it in this way: we use it indifferently and in a loose sense, either for a question or for 'I do not know which of these things I should assent to and which not assent to'. Our intention is to make clear what is apparent to us, and as to what phrase we use to make this clear we are indifferent. Note too that when we utter the phrase 'In no way more' we are not affirming that it is itself certainly true and firm: here too we are only saying how things appear to us.

Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Scepticism. Translated by Annas and Barnes.

One Blog, Three Bloggers

Ontological Investigations is one blog, but three bloggers. We aren't a hive mind, and what one of us posts shouldn't be taken as indicative of what all of us think.

The Explanatory Power of Thomist Aesthetics

One way to judge a theory is by its explanatory power. A theory that is able to account for more of the relevant phenomena is prima facie better than its rivals. In this short article I would like to bring to your attention the strong explanatory power of Thomist aesthetics, an area often overlooked by both popular and professional Thomists. One of the typical problems that aesthetic theories run into is not being able to adequately account for different types of art. Specifically, many theories of art account for classical or realistic art, while failing to comprehend modernist art or vice versa.

Before I begin, let me explain the fundamental idea behind Thomist aesthetics. According to Thomism unity, goodness, truth, and beauty are all transcendentals. Roughly, this means that wherever we find being, we also find unity, goodness, truth, and beauty, because all of these concepts point to one aspect of the notion of being. Thomist aesthetics, unlike other theories, begins with being, and not with a formalized and restrictive definition of beauty or art.

The naive aesthetic theory that I will call “realism” holds that art is an imitation of something real. This makes sense when looking at much of classical art and the history of painting, but utterly fails to explain why an impressionist or expressionist painting (by Claude Monet and Julius Evola, respectively) is considered good, despite that fact that art from the impressionist and early expressionist periods is almost universally loved by non-specialists. Similarly, a popular theory by Arthur Danto, often called “institutionalism” claims that art is whatever artists, galleries, and art-institutions can get away with calling 'art'. This definition seems to bypass the problem we are discussing, namely being able to comprehend a variety of different art styles, but it does so by ignoring the problem, not by answering it. This answer is unsatisfactory, because we want to know why some art seems good, beautiful, or satisfying, while other art does not. These two trends of realism and institutionalism represent most attempts at aesthetic theorizing. Theories that tend towards realism look for some objective feature of art that relates to the world, and all art can then be judged by whatever standard is put forward as the essence of art. Theories that tend towards institutionalism make all aesthetic judgment subjective by saying art is merely a sociological category, or is merely the cause of a subjective emotional response. Thomist aesthetics finds the middle road between these two paths by pointing to being as the foundation of beauty. By recognizing that beauty is an inherent aspect of being, Thomists can make sense of classical realistic art, an impressionist painting, and an abstract expressionist painting.

In a realistic painting or a portrait, a clear depiction of an object or person is the being dsplayed. For example, a young shepherdess is the subject of this painting by William Adolphe Bouguereau, and it is her beauty that is grasped, through her being, when we see the painting. In an impressionistic painting, like this one by Erin Hanson, what is portrayed is a subjective impression of some scene or object. According to Thomism, however, our feelings, emotions, and experiences all have being, and it is this being that is displayed in impressionist paintings. We can follow this logic even further to make sense of an abstract painting that consists two red and blue triangles, or even a painting consisting of one single black line, both by artist Ellsworth Kelly. Triangles and lines have a type of being (often called 'conceptual being' by Thomists), although it is not the exact type of being encountered in physical reality. In abstract paintings like these what is being displayed is the conceptual being of abstract objects contemplated in our minds. The beauty of modern art consists of the beauty contained in conceptual being. It may even be useful to think of the beauty of modern abstract art as more akin to the beauty one finds in the truth of a well-formed, true syllogism or a mathematical formula than to the beauty of a realistic portrait. But no matter how we think of it, it is beauty nonetheless.

Whatever its other virtues or vices as a theory, Thomist aesthetic theory manages to explain a vast array of different types of art, and for this reason alone it should be considered a strong and interesting theory, well worth the time of those looking into aesthetics.

The Regularity Theory of Causation

I'm sometimes told that the regularity theory of causation dominates Anglo philosophy. That isn't, however, true. The regularity theory fell out of favor in the '70s. You can learn more here.

A Skeptical Thought Experiment

Consider the following thought experiment:

An angel shows himself to you. In his hands he holds a book containing every true proposition. Nothing is left out, and nothing can ever be added to the set of propositions contained therein. The book is not to be had for free. In exchange, you must give up something dear. You may give up your ability to perceive beauty—for the rest of your life Beethoven will be indistinguishable from vicious animals growling at one another. You may give up the use of all four of your limbs. You may give up your emotional and sexual health, leaving you a sad, lonely person with unnatural and despicable urges. You may give up the ability to ever feel human love again.

Confronting you is the question of the value of truth. Traditionally, philosophers have claimed the highest value for truth, placing it above all else. But if you had to make the choice between truth and some other valuable thing in life, would you really choose truth? Not everyone would agree that truths can be found in propositions like this. For example, a pragmatist may say that truths are embodied in functional processes. A Platonist or Christian may assert that truth is something lived or conformed to through the virtues and the intellect. But surely, the ambiguous nature of truth cannot be used to argue in favor of its supreme value. Upon inspection it would seems that the propositionalist, the pragmatist, and the Platonist are actually talking about different things, despite all using the word 'truth'.

For modern man, however, truth is conceived primarily as proposition. A true proposition is one that accurately corresponds to reality, or accurately reflects reality. These are the sorts of propositions that are largely taught in schools. These are the sorts of propositions that scientists seek to lay down in systems called theories. These are the sorts of propositions that we call facts. How important are true propositions to you, and how do they compare to the other valuable things in your life?

For further reflections on this topic, see Nietzsche's On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense, one of Nietzsche's pieces which inspired this thought experiment.

An Introduction to Tropes

Since they have cropped up in a number of discussions before and arguably form an indispensable part of the metaphysics of 'Classical Realism', Scholastic Realism very much included, I thought it would be worth doing an all-round intro post on the subject of tropes. First of all a terminological distinction: the term 'tropes' and 'property-instance' will be used synonymous throughout this post, though the former is often used in the context of a certain kind of Nominalism it is in fact neutral as to whether one also includes universals in one's ontology. The term property-instance on the other hand might imply a realist commitment with said entities being instances of something above them. The phenomenologically inclined will of course also recognize tropes/property-instances as being equivalent to Husserl's 'moments'.

Could a Child Refute Eliminativism?

I was going to write an argument, inspired by one of Lycan's, against eliminativism. It, however, looks like Lycan himself beat me to it (with comments by Vallicella here).

FAQ: Substances and the Problem of Individuation

Another FAQ from the reading group. I was fond of apples at the time:

What is a substance?

A substance is something that bears properties but is not itself borne by anything else.

What's the difference between a substance-attribute theorist and a bundle theorist?

Substance-attribute theorists think a flower an irreducible-substance-instantiating-properties; bundle theorists, nothing more than a unity of properties. Substance-attribute theorists think there are irreducible substances; bundle theorists, that they're reducible to bundles of universals or tropes.

(Technical note: Having written this, there is a sense in which some bundle theorists substantialize first-order properties so those properties can themselves have properties.)

What is the Problem of Individuation?

Moreland writes:

To clarify . . ., recall Socrates and Plato, two red, round spots that share all their pure properties in common. The problem of individuation is the problem of offering an ontological [account] of the situation so as to specify what it is that makes the two red spots two particular, individual entities instead of one. (Universals)

Most people would use two red apples, not dots.

Sens and Sensibility: A Few Days on Another Planet

An article from the Peter Hitchens archives. Worth reading.

The Importance of Nietzsche

Some may like Heller's The Importance of Nietzsche. Others, who are almost certain to be triggered by it, may not. I recommend reading it either way. If you want to understand post-modern man, you must understand Nietzsche.

One Blog, Three Bloggers

Ontological Investigations is one blog, but three bloggers. We aren't a hive mind, and what one of us posts shouldn't be taken as indicative of what all of us think.

Does existence have an essence?

This post assumes distinctions drawn here.

It's sometimes objected that since Thomists say that “that something is” (existence) is really distinct from “what something is” (essence), they can't account for “what existence is”.

The reply is that even though a's existence is distinct from a's essence (a), it doesn't follow that a's existence doesn't have its own essence. So assuming Thomists can give some account of existence (e.g. Barry Miller argues that existence is a property), they can account for “what existence is”.

Three Essential Distinctions

The first is between a's essence and a. a's essence is identical with a. a is identical with a's essence. No matter how you slice it, they're the same thing. (a's essence encompasses all of what a is.) Essence and nature are synonyms.

The second is between a's essence and its substantial form (natural kind). a's essence is what a is; a's substantial form is the natural kind-universal or -instance that is a constituent of a. “a's essence” (a) includes its particularity, and we more or less come to know it through the senses; a's substantial form doesn't include a's particularity, and has to be abstracted from that which we acquire through the senses. If you muddle this distinction, you're going to run into questions like “How do we know x individual's essence?”

The third is between a's essence and a's existence. a's essence is just a. a's existence (say Thomists) is something additional to a (e.g. Barry Miller's existence property-instances). The result (if they're right) is that there is a real distinction between a and existing a.

Properties or Properties?

There is an ambiguity in how philosophers use "properties". Sometimes we talk about properties (universals) as opposed to particulars. Other times, properties as opposed to substances.

FAQ: The Problem of Universals

I originally wrote this for an ontology reading group in 2016. I thought it worth posting here, warts and all:

What is the Problem of Universals?

If I go outside, there are trees with same shaped leaves. If I go into my kitchen, there are bags of same coloured apples or potatoes. It's a Moorean fact—a pre-analytic datum—that many distinct things have identical properties.

The problem of universals asks how to account for this datum.

What is the difference between a realist and a nominalist?

Recall the categories tree from Lowe's A Survey of Metaphysics:

                                                   
Given two identically red apples, the believer in universals will say that the red in each of the apples is the exact same entity wholly present in both apples; the nominalist will deny that there are any such entities. The believer in universals says there are either universals, or universals and particulars in reality; the nominalist says there are only particulars.

Can nominalists still believe in properties?

Yes. Although, given our two apples, they would say that apple₁ and apple₂ each have their own red property, red₁ and red₂ respectively. They would, in other words, make the properties into particulars.

Wait, so I can believe in properties even if I'm not a “realist”?

Yes. There is a distinction between realism about universals (universals realism) and realism about properties (property realism). In work on the problem of universals, "realism" is usually used to mean realism about universals, but one shouldn't let this convention mislead them.

What about nominalists that don't believe in properties?

Nominalists that don't believe in properties try to give an analysis of our pre-analytic datum some other way (e.g. they say the two red objects just fall under the same words, or the same mental concepts).

What is the difference between transcendent and immanent realism?

There is an important distinction between instantiated and uninstantiated properties. The property white is instantiated when there is at least one white object in the universe. It's uninstantiated when there are no white objects in the universe.

Transcendent realists say that, whether or not there are instantiated properties, there are uninstantiated properties in the world; immanent realists say there are only instantiated properties.

(Transcendent and immanent realists are sometimes also called Platonic and Aristotelian realists respectively.)

Indiscernible Universals?

Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra on Indiscernible Universals—hardcore ontologyheads only.

Only as that of an Insane or Deranged Person

It was a custom among our ancestors, practiced even into my own lifetime, to add to the opening words of a letter, “If you are doing well, that’s good; I am doing well myself.” The right thing for us to say is, “If you are doing philosophy, that’s good.” For that is the only way one can really be doing well. Without that, the mind is sick; and the body too, even if it has great strength, is sound only as that of an insane or deranged person might be. So care for the mind’s health first and foremost, and for the other only secondarily: it will not cost you much, if you have resolved to be truly well.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Letters on Ethics.

It follows from Seneca's claim that most people are fit, but "only as [. . .] an insane or deranged person might be".

Two Stories by Hemingway

In Another Country and Homage to Switzerland by Ernest Hemingway. 1927 and 1933 respectively.

The Mystery of Time (or, the Man who did not know what Time is)

Bouwsma's The Mystery of Time (or, the Man who did not know what Time is) appeared in The Journal of Philosophy. The first part, however, is a short story. Only later does it turn into a reflection on language and time. The whole essay is a bit dated (1954), but with that in mind it's still worth reading.

Four Quotes on Time

The other day, I found a list of quotes from October 2015. I thought now as good a time as any to post it:

I.
For what is time? Who can easily and briefly explain it? Who even in thought can comprehend it, even to the pronouncing of a word concerning it? But what in speaking do we refer to more familiarly and knowingly than time? And certainly we understand when we speak of it; we understand also when we hear it spoken of by another. What, then, is time? If no one asks me, I know; if I wish to explain to him who asks, I know not. Yet I say with confidence, that I know that if nothing passed away, there would not be past time, and if nothing were coming, there would be no future time; and if nothing were, there would not be present time. Those two times, therefore, past and future, how are they, when even now the past is not; and the future is not as yet? But should the present be always present, and should it not pass into time past, time truly it could not be, but eternity. If, then, time present—if it be time—only comes into existence because it passes into time past, how do we say that even this is, whose cause of being is that it shall not be—namely, so that we cannot say that time is, unless because it tends not to be?

Augustine of Hippo. Confessions. (ca. 400 AD)

II.
Stand still, you ever-moving spheres of heaven.
That time may cease, and midnight never come

Christopher Marlowe. Doctor Faustus. (ca. 1604 AD)

III.
Philalethes: Our measurement of time would be more accurate if we could keep a past day for comparison with the days to come, as we keep measures of space.

G. W. Leibniz. New Essays on Human Understanding. (ca. 1765 AD)

IV.
The seasons bring the flower again,
And bring the firstling to the flock;
And in the dusk of thee, the clock
Beats out the little lives of men.

Lord Alfred Tennyson. In Memoriam A.H.H. (ca. 1849 AD)

The Bad and the Ugly

You see I'm trying in all my stories to get the feeling of the actual life across—not to just depict life—or criticize it—but to actually make it alive. So that when you have read something by me you actually experience the thing. You can't do this without putting in the bad and the ugly as well as what is beautiful. Because if it is all beautiful you can't believe it. Things aren't that way. It is only by showing both sides—3 dimensions and if possible 4 that you can write the way I want to.

Ernest Hemingway to Dr. C. E. Hemingway, Selected Letters, p. 153.

Politics and the Good Life

Why is it that when dealing with certain topics, namely political topics, arguments rarely come to any sort of satisfying conclusion? One possibility is that there is no reason or truth in matters like these; it is all just a matter of taste, sentiment, or personal opinion. Another possibility is that some people are just plain irrational and can't be convinced by good arguments. Both of these suggestions contain some small granule of truth, but generally, are too radical to serve as general explanations. We must conclude that the problem lies elsewhere.

For what it's worth, this problem of miscommunication is encountered even when political science professors and politicians are having high-level debates. And to make things worse, this problem does not seem to be encountered in other realms of life. Let's take a non-political example. Suppose I am trying to fix a door, and my friend and I are having a debate about how to properly do so. I think the door won't shut because the wood has warped and needs to be cut, while my friend thinks that the door's hinges are loose and the screws need to be tightened. We both have access to all the same information, we can both examine the other's proposed solution, and ultimately, we can try both solutions and see which one accomplished the goal.

Now let's look at a political example. Let's use gun violence, since that has been in the news lately. In this example, much like the door example, all parties have access to the relevant information (statistics, polls, and quantitative information), all the parties have access to historical attempts to solve the problem, and all the parties can look at recent attempts in our own society to curb the problem. But what is the difference? Obviously the level of complexity is different, but more importantly, the desired outcome is different. This fact is of the utmost importance and often overlooked. A libertarian, an authoritarian Catholic, and a Marxist all have very different visions of a good society, which entails different relationships to firearms, and most of those visions aren't clearly expressed when those people enter into a discussion.

Here is a very common example we have all seen. News stories that frequently make the social media circuit imply that the increased levels of crime, abuse, negligence, and poor-decision making found among the poor and destitute are explained by the more foundational economic inequality. Just to be clear, let me restate that, for the articles in question rarely make this assumption clear and explicit. It is often assumed in our society that a whole host of seemingly unrelated problems are explained by economic inequality. This may be true, although it seems outright false to me, and more importantly, the stories that typically push this narrative assume it without arguing for it. The problem is that this premise remains assumed in most modern political discourse, and so it is rarely ever discussed. The idea that crime, sexism, violence and other social ills follow from economic inequality is explicitly based on the ideas of Karl Marx, who thought that all of history moved in a linear way towards economic equality and that the prime mechanism of this movement was struggle between the different social classes. In turn, these ideas themselves are based on the conception of the human being as a primarily economic being.

What is almost always at issue in these sorts of political debates is not some mundane fact of how to allocate resources, but the much deeper problem of what constitutes a good life and what the philosophical criteria are for one deserving resources from the state. One of the problems is that in the political marketplace we typically only find three models of a good life presented to us. The first, and I would say increasingly popular model, of a good life is the one I just touched upon, that of economic equality. Marxists and progressive liberals tend to endorse this model, seeing many human problems arising from the economic sector. If this is true, then it would make sense that the goal of the state and of the majority of our domestic political action to be geared towards fixing the fundamental economic problem. A second model of the good life is based upon personal freedom. This model tends to be endorsed by both classical liberals and libertarians. This model sees happiness and flourishing as an essentially private affair, recognizing that people have different goals and standards, and that the best way to allow one to flourish is to get out of their way. By giving people the freedom to pursue what they desire, and by giving them the option to fail with no safety-net, the personal freedom model puts the burden solely in the individual to make the most of their life, whatever that may practically entail. As political pundits used to be fond of saying, libertarians support freedom of opportunity, while proponents of the first model support freedom of outcome. The third major model we encounter is based upon the primacy of morality, and is typically supported by Southern Republicans and activist Protestants. This model, it should be noted is rather skewed in contemporary culture. It is skewed for two reasons, 1) many political forces use the cover of the “moral majority” while actually pursuing ends totally foreign to it, and 2) the morals in question are interpreted in very particular sort of way, namely in the light of fundamentalist protestant Christianity. Be that as it may, this third model is prevalent, and very old. According to this model, what is most important in determining the fate of a society is virtue and vice. If a community has good people, morally speaking, it won't stand for crime and violence, nor will it let its members starve on the streets. Thus, a government should promote morality as its highest aim. As a quick aside, in recent years, a fourth model has come on to the scene. This model cares about community solidarity, tradition, and often race above all else. This model is endorsed by nationalists and the alt-right, but also by minority separatist groups and a host of other “pride” organizations. This model sees either genetics, a defining trait, or shared history as the basis of community, and the community as the basis of the meaningful lives of the members of the community. This model often tends towards an unwittingly cultural relativist attitude that says it does not matter so much what your community thinks, it is only important that that decision comes from the correct members and is rooted in history and tradition.

Until the enlightenment, the moral model was the de facto choice. But in modern times, this model has been so skewed and narrowed, that if you aren’t a Southern Baptist, it feels like you are signing up for a whole lot more than you meant to when you vote Republican. It would be interesting to see how the great philosophers of the past would vote today (that is, if you put aside the fact that most of them abhorred democracy). While many of them might give hesitant support to the moral majority Republican (seeing virtue as more important than economics or personal freedom), I think many of them (certainly Socrates!) would be appalled at how little people have thought about what makes a human life good. And that is precisely the problem. Without having an idea of what makes a society and a human life good, political debates become baffling because every person arguing says they want justice, but no one has defined what they mean by justice, and seemingly everyone wants something different.

God and Russell's Problem of General Truths

(i) Truthmaker Maximalism: All truths have truthmakers.
(ii) Divine Simplicity: God is absolutely simple.
(iii) God-only World: A world where only God exists is possible, but not necessary.

This isn't a genuine aporia, but it's interesting to think about anyway. (i) is the premise that every truth has a truthmaker, and some of us who find truthmaker theory attractive find it attractive too, (ii) has good arguments supporting it, and (iii) is an entailment of most Abrahamic religions.

If (i) and (ii) hold, by most truthmaker principles (iii) doesn't hold; if (i) and (iii) hold, God must sometimes differ between worlds and (ii) doesn't hold; if (ii) and (iii) hold, it can be true that only God exists without a corresponding truthmaker in the God-only world and (i) doesn't hold.

Truthmaker Necessitarianism?

Is there a way out by rejecting the underlying principle that truthmakers necessitate their truths? Here is an argument from Armstrong (by reductio) that we shouldn't do this:

Suppose that a suggested truthmaker T for a certain truth p fails to necessitate that truth. There will then be at least the possibility that T should exist and yet the proposition p not be true. This strongly suggests that there ought to be some further condition that must be satisfied in order for p to be true. This condition must either be the existence of a further entity, U, or a further truth, q. In the first of these cases, T + U would appear to be the true and necessitating truthmaker for p. (If U does not necessitate, then the same question raised about T can be raised again about U.) In the second case, q either has a truthmaker, V, or it does not. Given that q has a truthmaker, then the T + U case is reproduced. Suppose q lacks a truthmaker, then there are truths without truthmakers. The truth q will 'hang' ontologically in the same sort of way that Ryle left dispositional truths hanging (Ryle, 1949). (Truth and Truthmakers, pp. 6–7)

Most correspondence and truthmaker theories are going to demand a principle at least as strong as truthmaker necessitarianism.

Negative entities? 

What about negative "entities", like absences and limits? Then we have our truthmakers and can safely claim that God is the only existent in the God-only world, but I doubt this is in the spirit of what most Abrahamic religions want to affirm by (iii).

Theists' best bet is to reject (i)—truthmaker maximalism. But is it really okay for those who find truthmaker theory convincing to just give up on it as soon as the going gets tough?

Ontological Literacy

We can easily imagine traveling to a country where every time we talk to someone about quarks, or chemical bonds, or evolution, or what have you, they look at us like we have two heads or think we're stupid.

I put to you that this is the actual situation with ontology in most of the world right now. Most people are scientifically literate, but ontologically illiterate.

Fadograph of a Yestern Scene

Fadograph of a Yestern Scene was written by a friend who died in February 2016. It's rough and unfinished, but good anyway.

This Fleeting, Slippery Thing

Do that, dear Lucilius: assert your own freedom. Gather and guard the time that until now was being taken from you, or was stolen from you, or that slipped away. Convince yourself that what I write is true: some moments are snatched from us, some are filched, and some just vanish. But no loss is as shameful as the one that comes about through carelessness. Take a close look, and you will see that when we are not doing well, most of life slips away from us; when we are inactive, much of it—but when we inattentive, we miss it all. Can you show me even one person who sets a price on his time, who knows the worth of a day, who realizes that every day is a day when he is dying? In fact, we are wrong to think that death lies ahead: much of it has passed us by already, for all our past life is in the grip of death.

And so, dear Lucilius, do what your letter says you are doing: embrace every hour. If you lay hands on today, you will find you are less dependent on tomorrow. While you delay, life speeds by. Everything we have belongs to others, Lucilius; time alone is ours. Nature has put us in possession of this one thing, this fleeting, slippery thing—and anyone who wants to can dispossess us. Such is the foolishness of mortal beings: when they borrow the smallest, cheapest items, such as can easily be replaced, they acknowledge the debt, but no one considers himself indebted for taking up our time. Yet this is the one loan that even those who are grateful cannot repay.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Letters on Ethics.

Five Proofs Amazon Review

Here follows a review of Five Proofs which I recently posted to Amazon.com. It was written with a more general audience in mind but still represents a fair summary of my thoughts regarding the book's vices and virtues. Although I shall discuss many of the issues raised within (Thomism is all pervasive) my ongoing critique of the book will conclude with the third installment, an analysis of his presentation of the argument from eternal truths ('the Augustinian Proof').

Edward Feser presents a crisp and highly readable summary of several arguments for God’s existence. The author’s goal is to present in-depth but accessible summaries of several arguments for God’s existence, followed by an account of the divine attributes and a general defence of natural theology. At the former task he excels and at the latter he fails badly.  Those who are familiar with basic philosophy of religion material or have read Feser’s other works should skip the closing section.

The five arguments are presented in step by step form accompanied by a discussion and an overview of various objections. Only a basic philosophical vocabulary is required, as Feser explains most of the technical concepts he appeals to in the course of the discussion (the capacity to introduce arguments whilst at the same time familiarising readers with the wider philosophical apparatus behind them is one of Feser’s great strengths and has been evident since his first published book). Both casual and technical readers will benefit greatly from the detailed schematic presentations of each argument.

 

A full discussion of the arguments themselves would require more space than this review will allow. (Check out our website for detailed essays on some of them). Arguments One, Four and Five are broadly classifiable as cosmological arguments (arguably the first two depend on, though are not necessarily reducible to, the third). The Rationalist proof, the cosmological argument from the principle of sufficient reason, is probably the most powerful argument for the existence of God and raises a whole host of questions about rationality, explanation and freedom. Feser brings home the devastating cost of rejecting the argument’s core premise, the principle of sufficient reason itself, and deftly disarms a number of criticisms aimed at it, but spends little to no time on the concomitant issues of determinism and free will. The others, the Aristotelian and Thomistic proofs, are variants on Thomas Aquinas' First and Second Ways respectively. The discussion here makes a nice but not necessary supplement to Feser’s presentation of them in his Oneworld introduction to Aquinas and in his lectures e.g. An Aristotelian Proof of God’s Existence (available from his website).

The other two arguments are the book’s main selling point, so much so that it will become the main point of reference for those interested in such topics. The Augustinian proof, the claim that eternal truths and Platonic ideas require an eternal divine mind to contemplate them, is an argument often gestured to but very rarely worked out in any great depth. Feser’s discussion of it is clear and rewarding, though spends perhaps slightly too much time looking at arguments for universals in general instead of the specific accounts the argument requires. The objections he discusses are specific variants of more general problems raised by Brian Leftow and Patrick Grimm. The Neo-Platonic proof is an ingenious attempt to reason from facts about mereological and ontological composition to the existence of a completely simple being. Although such arguments were prominent in late pagan and classic Islamic theology, they are virtually unknown in modern debates.

Unfortunately, the overall discussion of the arguments is vitiated by Feser’s methodological approach to ontology. The way the book is structured means that each proof leans heavily on highly specific metaphysical premises set out in the section on the Aristotelian proof and thus are not really separate proofs in themselves. This is most noticeable in discussion of how each argument leads to a being having all the attributes we normally associate with God. This is a shame as Feser freely claims that the other four arguments have been formulated and championed by philosophers who do not share his Thomistic background. He also has an unfortunate and probably unintentional tendency for bait and switch manoeuvres such as presenting a common-sense argument for a certain conclusion (for instance the existence of irreducible dispositional properties) then conflating it with a very specific account (going with our earlier example the Thomistic Aristotelian account of pure actuality and prime matter). All in all it would be better if he did not rely so heavily on this account or at least devoted more time to deriving attributes from the reasoning central to the argument in question itself. 

Finally the last two sections are of uneven quality compared with the rest of the book. The first, an account of the Divine Attributes, is a mixed bag. There are some gems here, for instance his coverage of the privation account of evil and of the problem of the best possible world, the latter of which one of the best scholastic discussions of the subject (Feser should devote his talents to writing a full length work on such subjects).  On the other hand long term readers of Feser will be familiar with much of the material either from previous published works or copious blog entries.  Finally the section on the analogical theory of divine predication and its importance makes priority claims which, if true, has truly devastating consequences for natural theology. I make no judgements on that theory itself (modern Analytical philosophy has after all come round to the idea that one can truly predicate something of two different entities without allocating them a common property) but if the very prospect of theistic metaphysics or religious language depends on a vague and highly controversial theory of language then theism’s epistemic credibility takes a severe blow. Ironically Thomas threatens to plunge us back into bad old days of Logical Positivism and Plain Language. 

The closing section ‘Common Objections to Natural Theology’ is totally redundant. The positions refuted therein are either outdated or so bad as to be living strawmen. No minimally informed intellectually honest atheist, let alone an atheist philosopher of religion, would bother with them (at least in those forms). One wonders why Feser bothered discussing them in the first place. Had he taken on serious objections put forward by atheist philosophers he admires e.g. Graham Oppy or Richard Gale, then the section would have been of real value. As it stands response to serious atheist criticism is found only in discussion of potential objections to each purported proof and noticeably not here.

To conclude: although it presents accessible and well-worked out accounts of neglected arguments for theism, one is left with the impression that Five Proofs could have been a much better book had Feser taken more time to produce detailed original material.

The Library of Babel

Men usually infer from this mirror that the Library is not infinite (if it were, why this illusory duplication?); I prefer to dream that its polished surfaces represent and promise the infinite . . . Light is provided by some spherical fruit which bear the name of lamps. There are two, transversally placed, in each hexagon. The light they emit is insufficient, incessant.

Jorge Luis Borges, The Library of Babel.

Word-making isn't World-making

Properties don't stand in one-to-one correspondence with predicates, and predicates don't stand in one-to-one correspondence with properties.

Arguing in the first direction, there are probably properties for which human language has no terms. So, there are probably properties that don't stand in one-to-one correspondence with predicates.

And even if there aren't any properties for which human language has no terms, rocks, cabbages, trees and things had properties before man and would have had he never risen from the ooze at all.

Infinities and Infinities and Infinities

Arguing in the second direction, by following accepted predicate formation rules, predicates can be gratuitously generated from other predicates. They can, for example, be generated from disjunctive predicates like “—is red or yellow”, “—is red or shiny”, and “—is red or aquatic”, and negative predicates like “—is not yellow“, “—is not shiny”, and “—is not aquatic”. If predicates stand in one-to-one correspondence with properties, each of those predicates corresponds to a unique property. So, if predicates stand in one-to-one correspondence with properties, there is some indefinitely large number of properties in the world¹.

The one-to-one correspondence also leads to infinite regresses. For instance, “a is self-identical” would correspond to a property of self-identity. If, however, a has the property of being self-identical, it also has the property of being self-identical with itself-with-that-property-of-self-identity. And if a has the property of being self-identical with itself-with-the-first-self-identity-property, it also has the property of being self-identical with itself-with-the-self-identity-property-for-itself-being-self-identical-with-itself-with-the-first-self-identity-property. And so on, ad infinitum.

There is another regress. If predicates stand in one-to-one correspondence with properties, the truth of “a is red” necessitates that a has the property of being red. If, however, the truth of “a is red” necessitates that a has the property of being red, the truth of “a has the property of being red” necessitates that a has the second-order property of having the property of being red. And so on, ad infinitum.

There are more regresses. If predicates stand in one-to-one correspondence with properties, the previous argument applies to every property we can generate from a base predicate (e.g. red). So, if predicates stand in one-to-one correspondence with properties, there is an infinity of properties of having properties for every base predicate.

There are, however, probably not infinities of odious properties like the above. So, predicates probably don't stand in one-to-one correspondence with properties.

Contradiction

There are also paradoxical predicates like “—is a property to which no predicate corresponds”. So, predicates don't stand in one-to-one correspondence with properties, and we can abandon the disastrous conflation of predicates and properties, of language and reality, once and for all.

You will see why all this matters, if not now, in future posts.²


1. I take Ellis's word for it when he says that there is at least one infinite set corresponding to each generative operation.
2. Most of this post's arguments, as well as its title phrase, can be found in George Molnar's Powers.