Aristotle on Intractable Problems

 In general, it is safe to suppose that, whenever any problem proves intractable, it either needs definition or else bears either several senses, or a metaphorical sense, or it is not far removed from the first principles; or else the reason is that we have yet to discover in the first place just this -- in which of the aforesaid directions the source of our difficulty lies: when we have made this clear, then obviously our business must be either to define or to distinguish, or to supply the intermediate premisses: for it is through these that the final conclusions are shown. 

 Aristotle, Topics VIII.3

Let Steady Reason Urge the Struggling Oar

 Epitaph, Intended for Himself
by James Beattie

Escap'd the gloom of mortal life, a soul
Here leaves its mouldering tenement of clay,
Safe, where no cares their whelming billows roll,
No doubts bewilder, and no hopes betray. 

Like thee, I once have stemm'd the sea of life;
Like thee, have languish'd after empty joys;
Like thee, have labour'd in the stormy strife;
Been griev'd for trifles, and amus'd with toys. 

Yet, for awhile, 'gainst Passion's threatful blast
Let steady Reason urge the struggling oar;
Shot through the dreary gloom, the morn at last
Gives to thy longing eye the blissful shore. 

Forget my frailties, thou art also frail;
Forgive my lapses, for thyself may'st fall;
Nor read, unmov'd, my artless tender tale,
I was a friend, O man! to thee, to all.

For Odour, Light, and Sound are Truthful Dreams

 Springtide
by Constance Naden 

 The silver birch, with pure-green flickering leaves,
 Flooded by morn with golden light, rejoices,
 And mingles with the kindred merriment
 Of perfume-laden winds and happy voices:
 No child of spring is lonely, but receives
 Some subtle charm, by diverse beauty lent,
 And with another life its own inweaves;
 E'en man's creative eyes win all their gain
 From light, whose glory, but for him, were vain.
 While bud the flowers, while May-tide sunshine beams,
 Through all the world of mind and body streams
 One constant rapture of melodious thought,
 One fragrant joy, with summer promise fraught,
 And one eternal love illumes the whole;
 For odour, light, and sound are truthful dreams,
 Inspired by Nature in the human soul.
 This fresh young life, whereof my own is part,
 With boundless hope all earth and heaven fills;
 The birds are waking music in my heart,
 A voiceless chant, more sweet than they can sing;
 My thoughts are sunbeams; all my being thrills
 With that exultant joy whose name is Spring.

The Genius of Metaphysick

 A person who called himself the Genius of Metaphysick was continually busied in turning a large engine, like that described in Gulliver's travels, which threw up an endless variety of combinations of words and letters, out of which were framed sentences and paragraphs, sections, chapters, and treatises. He told me, he was much employed, and had the custom of all the literati of the place, particularly of the Governour, who (he said) was his very good friend; adding, that if I had any job on hand in the bookmaking way, he would furnish me with materials in the neatest and newest fashion, and on the most reasonable terms.

James Beattie, "The Castle of Scepticism" [from Ernest Campbell Mossner, "Beattie's 'The Castle of Scepticism': An Unpublished Allegory Against Hume, Voltaire, and Hobbes", Studies in English, Vol. 27, No. 1 (JUNE, 1948), p. 134]. The "Governour" is Hume. This seems particularly appropriate in our age of LLMs that endlessly jabber.

I think it's an interesting thing about many of the most recent AI programs that (1) they are getting to be quite good but (2) it becomes clear when you 'chat' with them a while that they are as good as they are because they are set up so that you are in a weird way talking to yourself. They repeat back to you things that you say in slightly different forms; they do connect what you say to other things, but usually in a fairly typical and tedious way. It's not surprising, I think, that people are very impressed by the intelligence of something that keeps agreeing with them and finding obvious confirmations that they are right. The Great Impostor, Ferdinand Demara, used this method to great success. When asked how he was able to fake being a psychology professor so well for so long, he pointed out that, no matter what you say, nobody ever thinks you are stupid or ignorant if you tell them that you are convinced by them and ask them to explain themselves further. 

But there is room to worry in this, the point that AI seems to work like a successful con artist. I have yet to come across an AI program that does not disappoint in any field with which I am familiar myself; a form of talking to myself it may be, but it's talking to a weirdly more limited version of myself. The answers are never actually more likely to be right than they used to be. What is worrisome, though, is that the errors, which are still quite common, are trickier to catch. They are not any more right, but they sound more plausible. I recently 'chatted' with Grok 3 on the paradox of fiction; it got multiple things wrong, provably so, but always gave long, plausible-sounding arguments for the errors. Someone who had not been reading for quite a while on the paradox of fiction, as I have, would almost certainly not have caught most of the errors. Indeed, I cannot even be certain that I caught them all. Perhaps, for at least a lot of topics, they just have fewer and fewer signs of error when they are wrong.

Beattie's Genius of Metaphysick in the Castle of Scepticism has detached literature from reality; his point, of course, is that you can be as skeptical as you please if your words are just combinations that aren't about anything. It's the 'about something', however, that actually makes what you say matter, and it's the 'about something' that provides the standard of discourse. If you are talking with something that has no connection to the 'about something', you might as well just be discussing matters with an idle reverie in your own imagination. Idle reveries have their place; but you shouldn't trust them until you have completed the turn to reality.

Correcting the Momentary Appearances

 In general, all sentiments of blame or praise are variable, according to our situation of nearness or remoteness, with regard to the person blamed or praised, and according to the present disposition of our mind. But these variations we regard not in our general decision, but still apply the terms expressive of our liking or dislike, in the same manner, as if we remained in one point of view. Experience soon teaches us this method of correcting our sentiments, or at least, of correcting our language, where the sentiments are more stubborn and inalterable. Our servant, if diligent and faithful, may excite stronger sentiments of love and kindness than Marcus Brutus, as represented in history; but we say not upon that account, that the former character is more laudable than the latter. We know, that were we to approach equally near to that renowned patriot, he would command a much higher degree of affection and admiration. Such corrections are common with regard to all the senses; and indeed it were impossible we could ever make use of language, or communicate our sentiments to one another, did we not correct the momentary appearances of things, and overlook our present situation.

Hume, Treatise 3.3.1. The point in the last sentence, I think, is an underappreciated point in philosophy of language; in communicating with others, we communicate not from our immediate point of view but from a projected 'steady and general point of view', what we might think of as an official or public point of view that detaches from the variations, foibles, quirks, gaps, and obscurities of our immediate and unofficial point of view. Communication, literally making common, begins with building, by inference or guess, a candidate for a common point of view.

A True Adoption

Come, let us give thanks and glorify our good God, as much as we are able, for his benefits to our race: honor him for our establishment, from the beginning, in the name of his honorable Image; and, when the enemy envied our honor and cast us out of our glory, the Lord was revealed to us, and spoke to us in his Son, who is the Inheritance and Progenitor of the world to come; in whose birth gathered us from the error of ignorance to the knowledge of his Divinity; who was baptized and gave us a true adoption; who fasted and gave encouragement to our weariness that we might overcome Satan; in whose death conquered the tyrant; and who justified us, lifted us up and raised us with him in glory.

[From the Basilica hymn for the Second Week of Lent, in The Book of Before and After: The Liturgy of the Hours of the Church of the East, Fr. Andrew Younan, ed. and tr., The Catholic University of America Press (Washington, DC: 2024), p. 477.] 

Fortnightly Book, March 9

 Maurice LeBlanc (1864-1941) was born to a wealthy business family, but he left behind a secure factory career in order to pursue a career in writing. He struggled for a while, but then in 1905 he received a commission to write a story that was intended to be in the gentleman-thief genre that had recently become popular due to the A. J. Raffles stories of E. W. Hornung (the brother-in-law of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle). The short story, "The Arrest of Arsène Lupin", was a smashing success, and LeBlanc began turning out several other stories about the gentleman thief, imagining him to be a French version of the very British Raffles, and to be Sherlock Holmes's equal-and-opposite in the thieving world. The latter would eventually get LeBlanc in some legal trouble from the Doyle estate; unperturbed, LeBlanc just started calling the equal-and-opposite of Lupin in the detective world, 'Herlock Sholmes'. Ironically, LeBlanc would soon have the same problems with Arsène Lupin that Doyle had with Sherlock Holmes. The character was difficult to write convincingly and it was impossible to keep up with the demand for new stories; so, like Doyle, LeBlanc would eventually try to kill off his character and yet, like Doyle, find that when a character reaches a certain level of popularity, the author no longer has complete say on whether they stay killed. Nonetheless, LeBlanc seems to have reconciled to this more easily than Doyle, buying a house and calling it "Clos Lupin". He lived his last years as World War II began to ramp up, leaving Clos Lupin out of worries of German invasion, and died of pneumonia in 1941.

I've previously done all the Sherlock Holmes stories for the Fortnightly Book, and I have wanted to do all the Lupin stories as well. I read the first one, I think, a very long time ago, and a few years ago, I listened to several of them on audiobook, and ever since they have been on the list, and I have had the box set of the first ten sitting on my to-do pile, and I have just not gotten around to them. So let's start remedying that; the next Fortnightly Book is Arsène Lupin, Gentleman Burglar, the collection of nine short stories that started the character's career.