This was too good merely to attach to the end of the previous post as an update. David Brooks's The End of Philosophy thoroughly refuted in a webcomic. In the process, chaospet shows just how much philosophy you can do in a webcomic. More philosophical webcomics of this quality could start a revolution and make the comic a recognized philosophical medium.
In the meantime, PZ Myers, of all people, also has a good and thoughtful post criticizing the op-ed, thus showing that he is, in fact, still capable of good and thoughtful posts.
Tuesday, April 07, 2009
The End of Philosophy?
I don't think we should exaggerate the flaws, despite the absurd hed, but the problem with David Brooks's The End of Philosophy piece begins with the very opening paragraph:
But this is not very Socratic at all. For Socrates, morality is a craft or skill, analogous to shoe-making or medicine, and just as it would be odd to characterize the craft of a physician by saying "Think through medical problems, find a healthy principle, apply it," so it would be odd to characterize the Socratic approach to moral thinking in these terms. And Socrates pretty clearly denies that moral thinking is mostly a matter of reason and deliberation; rather, it is knowing how to live, which makes use of reason and deliberation but is not "mostly" reason and deliberation. And in fact, thinking through moral problems is itself not a major part of Socratic discussion of morality.
Nor, outside a handful of exceptions, like casuists and a few contemporary analytic philosophers, has it been a major part of philosophy. And even the casuists were writing confessor's manuals, which are primarily for evaluating matters after the fact and only secondarily and indirectly for deciding behavior before the fact; the real practical influence of casuistics was always intended to reside in the living practice of confession and spiritual direction. So I suppose the 'approaches of millions of people' is really 'approaches of a small handful of analytic philosophers in the past few decades', because that's about all it really covers.
The problem with sensationalism about the "evolutionary approach to morality" is that this is all business as usual. Nothing Brooks says was not already said more rigorously by Darwin in the nineteenth century, when he entered into the field of moral philosophy on the side of the moral sense theorists against the utilitarians; very little of that is much beyond what Hume had already said in the eighteenth century; and the basic point, of morality as being like aesthetics, we already find in Shaftesbury in the seventeenth. And one can probably trace it back further. There has been no sea change; only a gradual development of modern moral philosophy along a direction laid down centuries ago.
Socrates talked. The assumption behind his approach to philosophy, and the approaches of millions of people since, is that moral thinking is mostly a matter of reason and deliberation: Think through moral problems. Find a just principle. Apply it.
But this is not very Socratic at all. For Socrates, morality is a craft or skill, analogous to shoe-making or medicine, and just as it would be odd to characterize the craft of a physician by saying "Think through medical problems, find a healthy principle, apply it," so it would be odd to characterize the Socratic approach to moral thinking in these terms. And Socrates pretty clearly denies that moral thinking is mostly a matter of reason and deliberation; rather, it is knowing how to live, which makes use of reason and deliberation but is not "mostly" reason and deliberation. And in fact, thinking through moral problems is itself not a major part of Socratic discussion of morality.
Nor, outside a handful of exceptions, like casuists and a few contemporary analytic philosophers, has it been a major part of philosophy. And even the casuists were writing confessor's manuals, which are primarily for evaluating matters after the fact and only secondarily and indirectly for deciding behavior before the fact; the real practical influence of casuistics was always intended to reside in the living practice of confession and spiritual direction. So I suppose the 'approaches of millions of people' is really 'approaches of a small handful of analytic philosophers in the past few decades', because that's about all it really covers.
The problem with sensationalism about the "evolutionary approach to morality" is that this is all business as usual. Nothing Brooks says was not already said more rigorously by Darwin in the nineteenth century, when he entered into the field of moral philosophy on the side of the moral sense theorists against the utilitarians; very little of that is much beyond what Hume had already said in the eighteenth century; and the basic point, of morality as being like aesthetics, we already find in Shaftesbury in the seventeenth. And one can probably trace it back further. There has been no sea change; only a gradual development of modern moral philosophy along a direction laid down centuries ago.
Clothed with the Wisdom and the Power
Further Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. Lo! the death of Christ, that is, the Cross, clothed us with the enhypostatic wisdom and power of God. And the power of God is the Word of the Cross, either because God’s might, that is, the victory over death, has been revealed to us by it, or because, just as the four extremities of the Cross are held fast and bound together by the bolt in the middle, so also by God’s power the height and the depth, the length and the breadth, that is, every creature visible and invisible, is maintained.
John of Damascus, An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Book IV, Chapter XI.
Monday, April 06, 2009
Open-Mindedness and Other Videos
A nice YouTube video on open-mindedness. There are a few (minor) missteps (e.g., the 'unexplained therefore explained' objection requires an oddly uncharitable interpretation of the argument to which it is an objection), but it's actually pretty decent.
The user, QualiaSoup, has a number of other good videos up -- again, here and there there are a few things I would consider missteps, but many of them are worth watching. I recommend Evolution and The problem with anecdotes.
There are bound to be other good YouTube videos along these lines. Have any of you come across any?
The user, QualiaSoup, has a number of other good videos up -- again, here and there there are a few things I would consider missteps, but many of them are worth watching. I recommend Evolution and The problem with anecdotes.
There are bound to be other good YouTube videos along these lines. Have any of you come across any?
Sunday, April 05, 2009
Links for Noting
* One of the world's most elusive, dangerous, and astoundingly successful serial criminals, the Phantom of Heilbronn, may not exist at all, but may instead be a defective series of cotton swabs that contaminated evidence in more than 40 different German crime scenes over 15 years. The Phantom seems to have been quite literally that: an evidential phantom.
* It's no secret that I like Finnish music. If this were a perfect world, we'd all use Latin for thinking, Greek for praying, English for trading, Spanish for loving, Gaelic for storytelling, and Finnish for singing. Here are some excellent Finnish music YouTube finds; the first group is women's voices and the second men's.
Johanna Kurkela, Häävalssi
Johanna Kurkela, Kauriinsilmät
Jippu, Metsäkukkia
Juha Tapio, Kaksi puuta
Ville Valo, Kun Minä Kotoani Läksin
Kari Tapio, Mun sydämeni tänne jää
* Diana Wynne Jones discusses her medieval influences and mocks, rightly, large portions of the fantasy market.
* Kenny Pearce discusses good and bad apologetics.
* Will Huysman pointed out to me that St. Francis de Sales's The Catholic Controversy is online. This is one of the classics of the Counter-Reformation, growing out of a tract campaign that addressed many of the pro-Reformation arguments that were common in France in the late 16th century. Neither those arguments nor Francis de Sales's responses to them always map very closely to the current Catholic-Protestant zones of controversy, as one might expect from the sheer number of important things that had not yet happened (the Synod of Dort, for instance); but there is still much of interest in the work.
* It's no secret that I like Finnish music. If this were a perfect world, we'd all use Latin for thinking, Greek for praying, English for trading, Spanish for loving, Gaelic for storytelling, and Finnish for singing. Here are some excellent Finnish music YouTube finds; the first group is women's voices and the second men's.
Johanna Kurkela, Häävalssi
Johanna Kurkela, Kauriinsilmät
Jippu, Metsäkukkia
Juha Tapio, Kaksi puuta
Ville Valo, Kun Minä Kotoani Läksin
Kari Tapio, Mun sydämeni tänne jää
* Diana Wynne Jones discusses her medieval influences and mocks, rightly, large portions of the fantasy market.
* Kenny Pearce discusses good and bad apologetics.
* Will Huysman pointed out to me that St. Francis de Sales's The Catholic Controversy is online. This is one of the classics of the Counter-Reformation, growing out of a tract campaign that addressed many of the pro-Reformation arguments that were common in France in the late 16th century. Neither those arguments nor Francis de Sales's responses to them always map very closely to the current Catholic-Protestant zones of controversy, as one might expect from the sheer number of important things that had not yet happened (the Synod of Dort, for instance); but there is still much of interest in the work.
Friday, April 03, 2009
On Controversial Blogging and Temperament
We do not live in an ideal world. There are quite a few things, though, that I think in an ideal world would always be done only by people of a certain temperament, for moral reasons. Driving, for instance, which is pretty clearly the sort of thing that is in its own small way morally bad for a great many people, leading them to do all sorts of morally dubious things out of irritation, impatience, and anger.
Apologetics, religious or otherwise, is another of these things. I think it's clear enough that only a very small handful of people are cut out to do apologetics, or, indeed, any sort of intense debate, without coming out of it morally worse than they were when they went into it. And unfortunately it doesn't take much experience with it to see that this is, in fact, its effect: I've seen quite decent people deteriorate in their attitudes toward others through it, and it's not hard to find apologists for all sorts of positions who have clearly begun to confuse truth with their own personal victory. If you want to be an apologist of any sort, the only way you are really cut out for it is if you are in final analysis willing to lose every debate if that's what the truth requires. You have to be the sort of person, or at least be willing to become the sort of person (and have the temperament for becoming the sort of person) who will never argue merely to win an argument, and will be satisfied, where persuasion is not possible, if people merely come away with a slightly better appreciation of the subject. That's one reason why I stay away from it as much as I can; academics are not, I think, well suited for it in general. Our truth-oriented habits tend to be of a somewhat different sort, the range of temperaments capable of living an academic life is much larger, and the sort of generally useful contribution of which we are usually capable is somewhat different.
Certain kinds of blogging, especially but not exclusively political blogging, are another. I am always mystified by bloggers who can rant, day in and day out, about exactly the same things -- the same groups of people, the same problems, the same human failings. I would be thoroughly bored with the topic after a day or two. But more importantly, I always wonder how they could possibly think that this is healthy. Surely it must have occurred to them occasionally that their actions are likely to induce habits and attitudes, and that the habit of ranting at a particular group of people is probably not a morally good one? Or that they are spending an awful lot of time ranting that could be spent doing something more constructive? The truth is, you really need the right sort of temperament for blogging about controversial subjects in a controversial way, and most people who are tempted to do it clearly do not have it. I'm sure I'm not the only person who began following a particular blog with interest and watched in dismay as it became more and more the stage for uncritical ranting. And, if you're not the right sort of person, that's the way you may well be heading.
Of course, in this case, as with the others, some people do in fact have the temperament for it -- probably a sizable group, in absolute terms, even if they make up only a very small proportion of the whole. And it's a different matter if it's something one does only on a rare occasion, and likewise if one touches on the same subjects but in a very different way. But regardless of what we are doing, we should always at least ask ourselves the question whether our practices are really the kinds of practices that are likely to train us to be better people, and we should be careful not to deceive ourselves about it.
Apologetics, religious or otherwise, is another of these things. I think it's clear enough that only a very small handful of people are cut out to do apologetics, or, indeed, any sort of intense debate, without coming out of it morally worse than they were when they went into it. And unfortunately it doesn't take much experience with it to see that this is, in fact, its effect: I've seen quite decent people deteriorate in their attitudes toward others through it, and it's not hard to find apologists for all sorts of positions who have clearly begun to confuse truth with their own personal victory. If you want to be an apologist of any sort, the only way you are really cut out for it is if you are in final analysis willing to lose every debate if that's what the truth requires. You have to be the sort of person, or at least be willing to become the sort of person (and have the temperament for becoming the sort of person) who will never argue merely to win an argument, and will be satisfied, where persuasion is not possible, if people merely come away with a slightly better appreciation of the subject. That's one reason why I stay away from it as much as I can; academics are not, I think, well suited for it in general. Our truth-oriented habits tend to be of a somewhat different sort, the range of temperaments capable of living an academic life is much larger, and the sort of generally useful contribution of which we are usually capable is somewhat different.
Certain kinds of blogging, especially but not exclusively political blogging, are another. I am always mystified by bloggers who can rant, day in and day out, about exactly the same things -- the same groups of people, the same problems, the same human failings. I would be thoroughly bored with the topic after a day or two. But more importantly, I always wonder how they could possibly think that this is healthy. Surely it must have occurred to them occasionally that their actions are likely to induce habits and attitudes, and that the habit of ranting at a particular group of people is probably not a morally good one? Or that they are spending an awful lot of time ranting that could be spent doing something more constructive? The truth is, you really need the right sort of temperament for blogging about controversial subjects in a controversial way, and most people who are tempted to do it clearly do not have it. I'm sure I'm not the only person who began following a particular blog with interest and watched in dismay as it became more and more the stage for uncritical ranting. And, if you're not the right sort of person, that's the way you may well be heading.
Of course, in this case, as with the others, some people do in fact have the temperament for it -- probably a sizable group, in absolute terms, even if they make up only a very small proportion of the whole. And it's a different matter if it's something one does only on a rare occasion, and likewise if one touches on the same subjects but in a very different way. But regardless of what we are doing, we should always at least ask ourselves the question whether our practices are really the kinds of practices that are likely to train us to be better people, and we should be careful not to deceive ourselves about it.
Thursday, April 02, 2009
Wikipedia on Hume on Design
It's always interesting to see how Wikipedia is handling philosophical topics. The current Wikipedia discussion on Hume's criticism of the design argument foregoes a summary of the criticism itself (which is probably wise, as there is no general consensus on the whole shape of Hume's criticism) and instead just lists a handful of points made:
Here are some of his points:
1. For the design argument to be feasible, it must be true that order and purpose are observed only when they result from design. But order is observed regularly, resulting from presumably mindless processes like snowflake or crystal generation. Design accounts for only a tiny part of our experience with order and "purpose".
2. Furthermore, the design argument is based on an incomplete analogy: because of our experience with objects, we can recognise human-designed ones, comparing for example a pile of stones and a brick wall. But to point to a designed Universe, we would need to have an experience of a range of different universes. As we only experience one, the analogy cannot be applied. We must ask therefore if it is right to compare the world to a machine — as in Paley's watchmaker argument — when perhaps it would be better described as a giant inert animal.
3. Even if the design argument is completely successful, it could not (in and of itself) establish a robust theism; one could easily reach the conclusion that the universe's configuration is the result of some morally ambiguous, possibly unintelligent agent or agents whose method bears only a remote similarity to human design. In this way it could be asked if the designer was God, or further still, who designed the designer?
4. If a well-ordered natural world requires a special designer, then God's mind (being so well-ordered) also requires a special designer. And then this designer would likewise need a designer, and so on ad infinitum. We could respond by resting content with an inexplicably self-ordered divine mind but then why not rest content with an inexplicably self-ordered natural world?
5. Often, what appears to be purpose, where it looks like object X has feature F in order to secure outcome O, is better explained by a filtering process: that is, object X wouldn't be around did it not possess feature F, and outcome O is only interesting to us as a human projection of goals onto nature. This mechanical explanation of teleology anticipated natural selection. (see also Anthropic principle)
6. The design argument does not explain pain, suffering, and natural disasters. See Problem of evil.
(6) is right, although it is misleading simply to lay it out there without development; Hume is quite clear that the design argument's failure to explain pain, suffering, and natural disasters is not a problem for the design argument itself but for a particular use of it. And Hume definitely does make point (5), which can indeed be seen as a sort of loose anticipation of natural selection if we are thinking only of biological organisms (Hume himself, of course, is thinking more generally than that). Point (3) as laid out here seems to me to be confused and to muddle more than one thing together, but it does identify an important and often overlooked point (related, actually, to point (6)), namely, that a hefty portion of Philo's criticism in the Dialogues is devoted not to attacking the design argument but to attacking Cleanthes's claim that the design argument is sufficient for all religious purposes. The first sentence in (1) is certainly false in Humean terms, and I think Hume makes clear enough from the discussion that he actually rejects it. For exactly the same reason, the "analogy cannot be applied" point in (2) is not right: Philo's point is precisely that the analogy can be applied -- and so can a very wide variety of other analogies. This is actually important: Hume does not reject the analogy, which he has Philo explicitly affirm more than once in the Dialogues. Nor does he deny that you can make some sort of inference on the basis of it. Philo instead argues that the analogy, and the related analogical inference, can't do what Cleanthes thinks it can.
All in all, though, it's a decent attempt; I've come across professional philosophers making worse and more obvious errors in discussing this topic. Like I said, I think it was a wise move to focus on 'points' rather than to try to lay out the overall shape of the argument, and most of my disagreements would be on matters of wording and organization, both of which could be better. The only major error is the one about Hume's view about the feasibility of the analogy, and it's an easy one to make given the complexity of the discussion. And whoever wrote it caught on to the importance of the relation between the design argument and religion, which is definitely an important part of the argument, but easily missed. I was pleasantly surprised with this Wikipedia discussion: it's a very hard topic, involving a great many controversies, but was handled reasonably well here. I hope future revisions keep the same basic approach and just refine the listing of points (ideally with indications of which Parts in the Dialogue make these points).
Here are some of his points:
1. For the design argument to be feasible, it must be true that order and purpose are observed only when they result from design. But order is observed regularly, resulting from presumably mindless processes like snowflake or crystal generation. Design accounts for only a tiny part of our experience with order and "purpose".
2. Furthermore, the design argument is based on an incomplete analogy: because of our experience with objects, we can recognise human-designed ones, comparing for example a pile of stones and a brick wall. But to point to a designed Universe, we would need to have an experience of a range of different universes. As we only experience one, the analogy cannot be applied. We must ask therefore if it is right to compare the world to a machine — as in Paley's watchmaker argument — when perhaps it would be better described as a giant inert animal.
3. Even if the design argument is completely successful, it could not (in and of itself) establish a robust theism; one could easily reach the conclusion that the universe's configuration is the result of some morally ambiguous, possibly unintelligent agent or agents whose method bears only a remote similarity to human design. In this way it could be asked if the designer was God, or further still, who designed the designer?
4. If a well-ordered natural world requires a special designer, then God's mind (being so well-ordered) also requires a special designer. And then this designer would likewise need a designer, and so on ad infinitum. We could respond by resting content with an inexplicably self-ordered divine mind but then why not rest content with an inexplicably self-ordered natural world?
5. Often, what appears to be purpose, where it looks like object X has feature F in order to secure outcome O, is better explained by a filtering process: that is, object X wouldn't be around did it not possess feature F, and outcome O is only interesting to us as a human projection of goals onto nature. This mechanical explanation of teleology anticipated natural selection. (see also Anthropic principle)
6. The design argument does not explain pain, suffering, and natural disasters. See Problem of evil.
(6) is right, although it is misleading simply to lay it out there without development; Hume is quite clear that the design argument's failure to explain pain, suffering, and natural disasters is not a problem for the design argument itself but for a particular use of it. And Hume definitely does make point (5), which can indeed be seen as a sort of loose anticipation of natural selection if we are thinking only of biological organisms (Hume himself, of course, is thinking more generally than that). Point (3) as laid out here seems to me to be confused and to muddle more than one thing together, but it does identify an important and often overlooked point (related, actually, to point (6)), namely, that a hefty portion of Philo's criticism in the Dialogues is devoted not to attacking the design argument but to attacking Cleanthes's claim that the design argument is sufficient for all religious purposes. The first sentence in (1) is certainly false in Humean terms, and I think Hume makes clear enough from the discussion that he actually rejects it. For exactly the same reason, the "analogy cannot be applied" point in (2) is not right: Philo's point is precisely that the analogy can be applied -- and so can a very wide variety of other analogies. This is actually important: Hume does not reject the analogy, which he has Philo explicitly affirm more than once in the Dialogues. Nor does he deny that you can make some sort of inference on the basis of it. Philo instead argues that the analogy, and the related analogical inference, can't do what Cleanthes thinks it can.
All in all, though, it's a decent attempt; I've come across professional philosophers making worse and more obvious errors in discussing this topic. Like I said, I think it was a wise move to focus on 'points' rather than to try to lay out the overall shape of the argument, and most of my disagreements would be on matters of wording and organization, both of which could be better. The only major error is the one about Hume's view about the feasibility of the analogy, and it's an easy one to make given the complexity of the discussion. And whoever wrote it caught on to the importance of the relation between the design argument and religion, which is definitely an important part of the argument, but easily missed. I was pleasantly surprised with this Wikipedia discussion: it's a very hard topic, involving a great many controversies, but was handled reasonably well here. I hope future revisions keep the same basic approach and just refine the listing of points (ideally with indications of which Parts in the Dialogue make these points).
Calvin on the Image of God
An obscure but interesting passage by John Calvin on the image of God (he is arguing against Osiander):
Institutes of the Christian Religion By Jean Calvin
I've noted some of the interesting facets, including a few puzzles, of Calvin's scattered claims on this subject before, focusing on Calvin's scriptural commentaries rather than the Institutes.
Institutes of the Christian Religion By Jean Calvin
I've noted some of the interesting facets, including a few puzzles, of Calvin's scattered claims on this subject before, focusing on Calvin's scriptural commentaries rather than the Institutes.
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
Boswell, 1764
I finally got around to putting up at HL the last part of my Boswell's Christmas 1764 series. The first three parts discussed Boswell's meeting with Rousseau in the early part of December; this last one discusses his meetings with Voltaire over Christmas.
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