Berkeley and the No Good Inference Argument

I thought I would develop the point about Berkeley's anti-skeptical strategy a bit more. The No Good Inference Argument:

1. All knowledge is either immediate (not inferred from evidence) or mediate (inferred from immediate knowledge that serves as its evidence).

2. All immediate knowledge is about our ideas or sensations.

Therefore,

3. If we are to have knowledge of external objects, it must be by means of an adequate inference from knowledge of our ideas and sensations. (1,2)

4. But there is no adequate inference from knowledge of our ideas and sensations to our beliefs about external objects.

Therefore,

We can have no knowledge of external objects.

[Greco, J., “Reid’s Reply to the Skeptic,” in The Cambridge Companion to Reid, Terence Cuneo and René van Woudenberg, eds., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004, pp. 134-155; p. 143. Also quoted in Klima, G., "Putting Skeptics in Their Place vs. Stopping Them in Their Tracks: Two Anti-Skeptical Strategies," online PDF.]

Klima notes that Berkeley uses this argument against the materialist account of the external world:

But, though it were possible that solid, figured, movable substances may exist without the mind, corresponding to the ideas we have of bodies, yet how is it possible for us to know this? Either we must know it by sense or by reason. As for our senses, by them we have the knowledge only of our sensations, ideas, or those things that are immediately perceived by sense, call them what you will: but they do not inform us that things exist without the mind, or unperceived, like to those which are perceived. This the materialists themselves acknowledge. It remains therefore that if we have any knowledge at all of external things, it must be by reason, inferring their existence from what is immediately perceived by sense. But what reason can induce us to believe the existence of bodies without the mind, from what we perceive, since the very patrons of Matter themselves do not pretend there is any necessary connexion betwixt them and our ideas? I say it is granted on all hands (and what happens in dreams, phrensies, and the like, puts it beyond dispute) that it is possible we might be affected with all the ideas we have now, though there were no bodies existing without resembling them. Hence, it is evident the supposition of external bodies is not necessary for the producing our ideas; since it is granted they are produced sometimes, and might possibly be produced always in the same order we see them in at present without their concurrence.[PHK I, 8]

However, as I noted before, Berkeley rejects the No Good Inference Argument for the external world itself. His primary strategy is to deny that (3) follows from (1) and (2) -- and indeed, he is right to do so, since (1) and (2) yield (3) only if the immediate knowledge of ideas and sensations is not also an immediate knowledge of external objects. But Berkeley doesn't hold this; to know our ideas immediately is to know external objects immediately. (We also have inferred knowledge of external objects, of course; but that's not a problem given the immediate knowledge.) Since Berkeley understands 'idea' to mean any object of sensory perception, Berkeley's basic position is the following:

(B) The very objects we sense are (in some way) the external objects themselves.^*

Berkeley is very explicit that this is what he is defending by his attack on matter. What he is attacking when he attacks matter is any attempt to split off, in a sharp way, the objects we sense from the external objects we know through sensation. This makes Berkeley's response to the skeptic a close cousin of the responses of Aristotelians, whatever other differences there may be.^**

___________________
^* Note that this does not require Berkeley's thesis that all ideas (i.e., objects of sensation) are mind-dependent. Berkeley's primary intention, which is to refute skepticism, only requires a plausible defense of (B). Mind-dependence is introduced for a different reason, namely, as an alternative to dependence on an unknown-material-something. You don't have to accept this alternative to accept the basic soundness of Berkeley's anti-skepticism.

^** There are, of course, differences. The major difference with regard to skepticism itself, I think, is that Berkeley will want to read (B) in a somewhat stronger way than the Aristotelian. This is simply due to the fact that the Aristotelian allows for abstraction of forms as part of the story of (B), while Berkeley doesn't. They both accept (B), however, and with (B) the battle is largely won -- the only further concern is not losing it again by violating (B) in trying to fill out the details of (B). They also both deny, albeit for very different reasons, premise (4) of the No Good Inference argument; but this denial is not Berkeley's main thrust, and indeed, his rejection of (4) is due to his support for (B).

Daydreaming

Somewhere Beyond Saturn

Somewhere beyond Saturn
I sat thinking
of a seraph crucified
of an aspiration's whisper
of deathless men in spindizzy flight
I wandered
in my mind's wondering
in the drifting of my ship

I dreamed for long ages
of cat's eyes and soft purrs
of a preaching to the fishes
of the algebra of humanity
I was diligent in my dreaming
weaving gossamer moonbeams
building cities in the air
carving laws into mechanical brains
scarcely putting a pen to paper

Somewhere beyond Saturn
my mind wandered gently
seeing stars in a darkness
feeling an abstract cold
I looked across the table
to soft eyes and gentle
scarcely seeing with my eye
hovering on the edge of sense
where the je-ne-sais-quoi tugs
in peripheral shadows and lights

I was caught up
in the eye's swift twinkling
in my own private judgment
hearing some distant trump
A singular state was upon me
Then a mockingbird sang
startling me to the present
and I finally poured the tea

Linking for Thinking

* Harrison points to this interesting piece by George Friedman on the importance of New Orleans as a port city.

* Lee discusses Athanasius on the atonement. I think Athanasius somewhere denies (and rightly so) that we can exhaustively describe the good things that Christ has done for us. So I think he would be entirely happy to meet that more can be said, and needs to be said, than he was able to say.

* PZ Myers points out a problem with one of Kurzweil's graphs at "Pharyngula".

* Gyula Klima has another awesome paper: Putting Skeptics in Their Place vs. Stopping Them in Their Tracks: Two Anti-Skeptical Strategies (PDF), which discusses two responses to skepticism, one of which is represented by Buridan and Reid, and another of which is represented by Aquinas and those who, like him, accept the strong Aristotelian thesis that our cognitive abilities cannot be deceived about their proper objects. (Although Klima puts him on the skeptical side, I think Berkeley's positive view of the world falls into the second group. After all, Berkeley is explicitly building an anti-skeptical argument himself. To do so he identifies what he thinks is the source of a type of external world skepticism, namely, a particular view of matter; he then argues against this view. That's his negative response to skepticism, which is often taken as a sort of skepticism itself. His positive response to skepticism, however, takes the mind to be undeceivable with regard to its ideas. These ideas are the proper objects of the senses. Berkeley, of course, is not an Aristotelian, but a Platonist trying to argue against skepticism about the senses. As he insists in later works like Siris, however, his view is closer to Aristotle's on some points than, say, Locke's, despite Locke's more obvious borrowings from Aristotle. As Berkeley notes, for instance, Aristotle would reject Locke's account of matter just as surely as Berkeley did; so, if Berkeley is right -- as I think he is -- in his diagnosis of the source of much early modern skepticism about the external world, it is perhaps not surprising that Berkeley's response to this brand of skepticism has some similarities to an Aristotelian response.)

* Since I'm linking Gyula Klima, I'll also link to his On whether id quo nihil maius cogitari potest is in the understanding and his Saint Anselm's Proof. I've linked to them both before -- more than once, in fact -- but since they are far and away my favorite discussions of Anselm's argument, I never get tired of linking to them.

UPDATE:
* Laurence Thomas has a good discussion of Judith Jarvis Thomson's famous and interesting argument, "A Defense of Abortion". Thomson's argument, of course, is that in some cases abortion may be morally defensible even assuming the fetus to have a right to life. Thomas discusses the oft-forgotten self-imposed limits of Thomson's argument. Thomson's argument is often considered the most important, or at least the most influential, philosophical argument for the defensibility of certain kinds of abortions. (HT: Parableman) Jeremy also links to Frederica Matthewes-Green's Seeking Abortion's Middle Ground.

* The Third Poetry Carnival will be held the 26th at danweasel.com; follow the link for information on submission. Which reminds me that I still need to pick something suitable.

Political Taste and Punditry

The questions I suggested that we ask when reading a piece of literary criticism apply to a number of other things, precisely because the theory of taste applies to a diverse group of public discussions. As I've noted before, there is a political version of taste, with the same characteristics as all taste (someone with good political taste, for instance, is able to make comparisons with a broad range of experiences, to discern important features of situations that casual observers might miss, and to be self-critical). When we read or watch pundits, then, we should ask ourselves the same basic questions:

(1) Is this person helping me to identify aspects of the situation I could not otherwise see, or to develop the skills that are useful for doing this?

(2) Is this person informing me of interesting similarities or dissimilarities this case has with other cases, or giving me information so that I can do so myself?

(3) Is this person giving me insight into latent biases that are dangerous to fairminded and reasonable inference and evaluation?

Of course, to ask these questions properly we must also ask similar questions of ourselves, i.e., we should evaluate how well we are discerning, comparing, and self-critiquing in the process of listening to or reading a given pundit.

Casanova's Fideism

Claire points out that the memoirs of Casanova are online. The opening paragraphs of the Author's Preface:

I will begin with this confession: whatever I have done in the course of my life, whether it be good or evil, has been done freely; I am a free agent.

The doctrine of the Stoics or of any other sect as to the force of Destiny is a bubble engendered by the imagination of man, and is near akin to Atheism. I not only believe in one God, but my faith as a Christian is also grafted upon that tree of philosophy which has never spoiled anything.

As he notes, he writes his memoirs as a confession, but not in the style of a repentant sinner; he regards his indulgences as the follies of youth, and portrays them in that light. The Preface has what looks like a sharp rejection of Cartesianism:

A certain philosophy, full of consolation, and in perfect accord with religion, pretends that the state of dependence in which the soul stands in relation to the senses and to the organs, is only incidental and transient, and that it will reach a condition of freedom and happiness when the death of the body shall have delivered it from that state of tyrannic subjection. This is very fine, but, apart from religion, where is the proof of it all? Therefore, as I cannot, from my own information, have a perfect certainty of my being immortal until the dissolution of my body has actually taken place, people must kindly bear with me, if I am in no hurry to obtain that certain knowledge, for, in my estimation, a knowledge to be gained at the cost of life is a rather expensive piece of information.

He also laments over Spinoza:

Oh, blissful ignorance! Spinosa, the virtuous Spinosa, died before he could possess it. He would have died a learned man and with a right to the reward his virtue deserved, if he had only supposed his soul to be immortal!

It is not true that a wish for reward is unworthy of real virtue, and throws a blemish upon its purity. Such a pretension, on the contrary, helps to sustain virtue, man being himself too weak to consent to be virtuous only for his own 'gratification. I hold as a myth that Amphiaraus who preferred to be good than to seem good. In fact, I do not believe there is an honest man alive without some pretension, and here is mine.

Was Casanova a freethinker? Claire is right that he certainly has views that would ordinarily be considered freethinking rather than orthodox. On the other hand, he seems to distance himself from freethinkers:

A so-called free-thinker told me at one time that I could not consider myself a philosopher if I placed any faith in revelation. But when we accept it readily in physics, why should we reject it in religious matters? The form alone is the point in question. The spirit speaks to the spirit, and not to the ears. The principles of everything we are acquainted with must necessarily have been revealed o those from whom we have received them by the great, supreme principle, which contains them all. The bee erecting its hive, the swallow building its nest, the ant constructing its cave, and the spider warping its web, would never have done anything but for a previous and everlasting revelation. We must either believe that it is so, or admit that matter is endowed with thought. But as we dare not pay such a compliment to matter, let us stand by revelation.

I think that what he chiefly has in mind here is the immortality of the soul: Casanova is a skeptical fideist about the immortality of the soul. Reason cannot prove it (pace Descartes), it must be accepted on faith alone (pace an unnamed freethinker), and it is rational to hope for it (pace Spinoza).

He has an interesting discussion with a Muslim in chapter XIV, where he implicitly accepts the Incarnation, and gives a fideist response to the Muslim:

"My religion tells me to believe without arguing, and I shudder, my dear Yusuf, when I think that, through some specious reasoning, I might be led to renounce the creed of my fathers. I first must be convinced that they lived in error. Tell me whether, respecting my father's memory, I ought to have such a good opinion of myself as to sit in judgement over him, with the intention of giving my sentence against him?"

However, after the conversation, he allows that Yusuf might be right; but still says that it would be absurd to leave the creed of his fathers for Islam because even if Muhammed were right on this point, he was still an 'arrant imposter'. (The discussions with Yusuf are all fascinating, and well worth reading.) He is certainly a Catholic (goes to confession regularly, is certain that he is absolved of his sins in it, etc.) He is severely critical of the adoration of the Sacred Heart (which he thinks a bit disgusting), and is suspicious of Jesuits, but neither of those would have been uncommon for Catholics at the time. He reminds me in many ways of Montaigne: philosophically skeptical, fideistically Catholic. His memoirs are a great resource for those interested in early modern fideism.

Questions to Ask When Reading Literary Criticism

On the typical theory of taste, taste is built on (1) comparison with a broad range of experiences; (2) discernment of relevant features; (3) fairmindedness. Thus, whenever we read a piece of literary criticism, we should ask ourselves three questions:

(1) Does this piece enrich my base for comparing the experience of the literary work discussed with other experiences?

(2) Does this piece help me to identify interesting things in the literary work discussed that I would not otherwise have identified?

(3) Does this piece help me to recognize dangerous latent biases in myself that might interfere with the full experience of the literary work?

If the answer to none of these questions is 'Yes', we need to ask ourselves why we are reading such literary criticism. I wouldn't pull a Hume and consign what doesn't do one of these things to the flames; but one really does need to ask whether there is any real value for us in a bit of literary criticism that assists us in none of these ways.

On a Flaw with the Island Objection II

[1] Previously I pointed out an equivocation in the Island objection to Anselm's argument; if the key description is taken in a way that actually parallels Anselm's, it is obviously problematic in a way that Anselm's is not. The alternative interpretation (C), which is how everyone thinks of it, is not parallel. Given that the Island objection crucially depends on being parallel to Anselm's argument (that is how it performs its reductio), the Island objection equivocates in a key place.

(C) that island than which no greater island can be thought

(C) is not parallel to (A), and the Island objection cannot succeed unless it manages a parallel in all relevant aspects.

[2] But even if this is set aside, it immediately involves an additional problem. As Anselm pointed out in his reply to Gaunilo, the key point in (A) is that we are talking about something than which nothing greater can be thought, not simply something greater in some way. But an island is greater than an island merely in some way, and never in such a way as to be so great that nothing greater than it can be thought of.

[3] However, even if we set this aside, there's another problem that Gaunilo's objection runs into. A key point in both arguments, Anselm's and Gaunilo's, is that it is greater to exist than not to exist (i.e., any thought object that can be thought to exist in reality can be thought to be greater than any thought object that is only in the intellect). In Anselm's argument this only comes into play given that we are at a limit-case of greatness: we are at something so great that the only question is whether it also has the greatness of existing or not. And because of the nature of this limit-case, that it is that than which nothing greater can be thought, it must have the greatness of existing. If we are only comparing islands, however, we are not at the limit-case of greatness, unless we can also show that nothing can be conceived that is greater than the greatest island (which obviously we cannot, since it is false). Thus the parallel breaks down in yet another way.

[4] Yet another point. If A is greater than B it is always as something. Thus if an island is that than which no greater island can be thought, it must be greater as something. The question of 'as something' doesn't arise in Anselm's case because it is automatically constrained by the nature of the argument; we are considering greatness of being. In the island case, (C) suggests we are considering greatness relevant to islands (and, indeed, just about everyone takes it in such a way). But if this is so, the Island parallel breaks down at yet another point: the Island objection, taken as a reductio of Anselm's argument, is equivocating on the term 'greater'. The result is that the 'greater to exist in reality' premise is jeopardized in a way that it is not in Anselm's argument.

[5] Suppose, however, that we were to to take (C) in the following further-refined sense:

(E) that island than which no island greater as a being can be thought

What then? Unfortunately for the Island objection, the answer isn't helpful for the pro-Gaunilo side. For, as noted above, the reason 'greater as a being' is relevant to existence in Anselm's description (A) is that we are at a limit-case of greatness. (E) is not such a limit-case; for if the island than which no island greater as a being can be thought does not exist, this suggests nothing unless the only greatness left to consider is existence itself. That is, if there are other greatnesses of being besides existence that are involved in being a great island, (E) doesn't even suggest the existence of the island than which no island greater as a being can be thought.

[6] Beyond that, however, if we stipulate that the only greatness left to consider is existence, all (E) suggests is that the island than which no island greater as a being can be thought is just an island that actually exists, because any island that actually exists will be greater on this stipulation than any island that does not. This problem does not arise on Anselm's formulation of (A).

[7] Further still, as a smaller additional problem, (E) is only an issue if islands are not all on a par in terms of greatness of being. If they are on a par, and islands really exist, (E) is satisfied by any really existing island. By the same token, if no islands really existed, but only existed in the mind, (E) would be satisfied by every island existing in the mind. However, it is more plausible to say that islands, considered as beings, are all on a par in terms with greatness, because they are all the same basic thing (islands, namely, dry-land ecosystems encircled by water) than to say that all things, considered as beings, are on a par in terms with greatness. Gaunilo's objection depends on being plausibly parallel to Anselm's at every relevant point; but whether it is parallel even on this basic point is more murky than the pro-Guanilo camp wants to admit.

Conceivably one or two of these equivocations could be evaded; but (1) it requires more effort than Gaunilo supporters ever put forward; (2) it's unlikely that all of them can be neutralized. The objection is flawed through and through; it's clever, to be sure, because it makes use of an apparent, but purely verbal, similarity. The verbal similarity hides rooms upon rooms filled with equivocations, though; it is doubtful that the Island objection can ever be made genuinely parallel to Anselm's argument. If so, it can never be the reductio it is put forward to be. It is a clever bit of philosophical sleight-of-hand, useful for fooling those who don't take the trouble to analyze it, and nothing more. It's the philosophical equivalent of a magic trick; it works by misdirection. The real issues that Anselm's argument raises are elsewhere.