Darwin's Logic: Preliminaries: Vera Causa

Before I actually discuss the argument of The Origin of Species, I want to put forward a preliminary or two.

Newton in his first Rule of Reasoning in Philosophy states:

We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances.

There are different ways in which one can gloss the "true" here. However, while Newton does not here explicitly clue us in no what he means by a "true cause", he immediately goes on to explain the whole principle in terms of simplicity:

To this purpose the philosophers say that Nature does nothing in vain, and more is in vain when less will serve; for Nature is pleased with simplicity, and affects not the pomp of superfluous causes.

This suggests a natural way to read "true cause," namely, it is the opposite of a superfluous cause. In other words, the first Rule suggests that we should use only those causes that we know already to be effective (with the qualification that we should do this only to the extent that these causes are sufficient for the phenomena; it is also very likely that 'cause' here should be taken in a fairly broad sense to include laws and the like). This element of Newton's first Rule we can call by its common name, the vera causa principle.

The vera causa principle, in some form or other, is a very important part of the background for the argument of Darwin's The Origin of Species. While it is not directly responsible for any of Darwin's conclusions, it plays a very important role in structuring his argument. Twice in OS he explicitly appeals to it.

1. The first instance is in the chapter on Geographical Distribution (this is a link to the first edition; if you prefer the sixth edition, here it is), when discussing "single centres of creation". Darwin looks at a debate among those who hold the opposing point of view (the theory of special creation): for each given species, was it created at a single center of creation, or were there multiple centers of creation for each species? Darwin's reply:

Undoubtedly there are many cases of extreme difficulty in understanding how the same species could possibly have migrated from some one point to the several distant and isolated points, where now found. Nevertheless the simplicity of teh view that each species was first produced within a single region captivates the mind. He who rejects it, rejects the vera causa of ordinary generation with subsequent migration, and calls in the agency of a miracle. It is universally admitted, that in most cases the area inhabited by a species is continuous; and when a plant or animal inhabits two points so distant from each other, or with an interval of such a nature, that the space could not be easily passed over by migration, the fact is given as something remarkable and exceptional.

Note the way the argument works. It is not a simple labeling of one option as a miracle and the other as a vera causa. Rather, Darwin goes on to show (in greater detail than I have quoted) that as a matter of fact, natural historians already universally explain some cases of the wide distribution of species in terms of ordinary generation with subsequent migration; it is this that makes ordinary generation with subsequent migration a vera causa. Thus, the presumption is that we should see if we can find a way for this vera causa to explain the remarkable and exceptional cases as well. Darwin provides some argument that this is possible, which I won't go into here. He will then take this vera causa of ordinary generation with subsequent migration and use it for his own purposes.

2. The second explicit appeal occurs in the conclusion:

Several eminent naturalists have of late published their belief that a multitude of reputed species in each genus are not real species; but that other species are real, that is, have been independently created. This seems to me a strange conclusion to arrive at. They admit that a multitude of forms, which till lately they themselves thought were special creations, and which are still thus looked at by the majority of naturalists, and which consequently have every external characteristic feature of true species, -- they admit that these have been produced by variation, but they refuse to extend the same view to other and very slightly different forms. Nevertheless they do not pretend that they can define, or even conjecture, which are the created forms of life, and which are those produced by secondary laws. They admit variation as a vera causa in one case, they arbitrarily reject it in another, without assigning any distinction in the two cases. The day will come when this will be given as a curious illustration of the blindness of preconceived opinion.

Here we find a similar sort of argument, which brings out an important point about vera causa reasoning: it is, in fact, a form of parity reasoning. To put it crudely, vera causa reasoning is a particular case of treating things that are the same, the same, insofar as they are the same; we can only drop the vera causa if we have, as Darwin says, something that makes it possible for us to draw a principled distinction. Implicitly, I think this argument agrees with Newton: the sort of principle of distinction one would want is that the vera causa can be shown to be simply insufficient for the phenomena. The naturalists Darwin is considering are taking variation as a vera causa -- they use it to explain certain sorts of phenomena, namely, forms that they had thought to be specially created, but which they have come to think were not. But they deny its use in other cases without giving a principled reason why the two cases are different. They are thus appearing to violate parity.

3. These, then, are the two explicit cases of Darwin's appeal to vera causa by name. It would be a mistake to think that these are the only cases of vera causa reasoning in OS, however. For instance, Darwin's starting the work with methodical and unconscious artificial selection is at least in part clearly an argument for the use of the vera causa of variation in natural cases. Another clearcut case occurs in my favorite part of the book, the discussion of the classification. Darwin is arguing that the natural system of classification, that is, the classification that characterizes the kingdoms of life as they really are in themselves, is organized genealogically. Part of his argument is that naturalists already use descent in classification:

As descent has universally been used in classing together the individuals of the same species, though the males and females and larvae are sometimes extremely different; and as it has been used in classing varieties which have undergone a certain, and sometimes a considerable amount of modification, may not this same element of descent have been unconsciously used in grouping species under genera, and genera under higher groups, though in these cases the modification has been greater in degree, and has taken a longer time to complete?

And again:

We use the element of descent in classing the individuals of both sexes and of all ages, although having few characters in common, under one species; we use descent in classing acknowledged varieties, however different they may be from their parent; and I believe this element of descent is the hidden bond of connexion which naturalists have sought under the term of the Natural System. On this idea of the natural system being, in so far as it has been perfected, genealogical in its arrangement, with the grades of difference between the descendants from a common parent, expressed by the terms genera, families, orders, &c., we can understand the rules which we are compelled to follow in our classification.

In other words, we have here a clear vera causa argument; in classification, we already use the element of descent as the principle (cause in a broad sense) for classifying individuals; we use it for classifying varieties; so Darwin suggest that we carry it over to recognizing it as the causal basis for classifying species: in other words, that we take as the principle of the natural system. And much of Darwin's discussion of the natural system involves arguing exactly what he should, given the vera causa principle: that if we do, in fact, carry it over, we find that our vera causa is sufficient for giving us a handle on the phenomena.

And this is only a selection of the most obvious cases. Thus we see that the principle of vera causa plays an important general role in OS. One of the effects it will have is that of making some of Darwin's other arguments, the arguments that relate more strictly to the theory of descent with modification, much stronger than they would be if vera causa were not also in the background. So we will see it again when we get to those arguments.

On Austin on Natural Law Again

[I have thought these matters through more thoroughly and have worked up a better presentation of my primary points, here. Consider this post superceded.]

Andy has responded to my response to his response to my post on Austin on natural law. Unfortunately, I don't have time for much in the way of a response (it would be the case that all the interesting discussions are happening right when I can't afford the time), but here are my basic points, sort of bulleted and put forward without much development. Apologies if it seems a bit abrupt at points.

1. On the issue of Islamic terrorists, I think it is false to say that their motivation is "Allah wills it"; motivations take the form of ends, and their end is not "Obeying the will of God is good" but "Pan-Islamic civilization should be renewed to its rightful glory," which requires, in their view, that the West, as the primary obstacle to this renewal, be brought down. This is a utilitarian end. But more importantly it is blatantly false to say that religious fundamentalists are the textbook case of natural law theorists; religious fundamentalists all in fact reject natural law theory when it is proposed to them. The rejection of natural law follows strictly from principles of religious fundamentalism, because religious fundamentalism can't allow the account of reason and authority natural law implies. To treat religious fundamentalists as if they were natural law theorists is simply to make the silly mistake of thinking that everyone who talks about the law of God means the same thing by it. The idea that Osama bin Laden is a natural law theorist is utterly laughable, and could not conceivably be supported by a genuinely rational examination of natural law jurisprudence.

2. I don't understand what is meant by saying that moral authority is neither real authority nor practical authority, particularly since you deny that the law obligates, which implies that it has no authority at all, it simply exists.

3. The doctrine of toleration is not that we should obey laws that are unjust but that we should not impose laws merely because they would be just.

4. It is clearly false to say that natural law theory uses the term 'law' obsoletely; the term 'law' is clearly still often used in this sense, and it makes no sense to call a usage obsolete that still is common.

5. Insofar as it gives away the issue of authority to law, legal positivism cannot form an opposition to natural law in the way Bentham and Austin make it, because it has then simply confined itself to facts about law rather than to issues about the authority of law.

6. When I wrote "If we apply the word 'law' to it (as we usually do), we do so equivocally" you wrote:

But we don't do so equivocally. That's an empirical fact of language. We don't put scare quotes around "laws" which we believe aren't binding. People don't assert that abortion is really not legal; they agree that it is legal and assert that it shouldn't be. People don't assert that marijuana use is really legal; they agree that it's illegal and assert that it shouldn't be.

This makes no sense; since it is simply false that we only equivocate when we use scare quotes, equivocation being a logical issue and not an empirical fact about language, I don't know what you mean here. People do assert that abortion is really not legal; you can find Catholics who will say so. They will also allow that there is a sense in which abortion is legal. This is the whole point of saying that it is an equivocation: that people use it in the sense you are recognizing above does not imply that it is the only legitimate use of the word, nor does it mean that legal positivists are not equivocating when they criticize natural law theory (in fact, it can fairly easily be shown that most of them are, because they don't usually take much trouble to connect their use of the term 'law' in their criticism with the use of the term 'law' in natural law theory).

7. Austin's belief that natural law theory is founded on revelation is simply confused; it is a form of intellectualism about practical reasoning, which was assimilated by a particular sort of theology as being, independently, in conformity with that theology's principles.

8. Accordance with right reason is determined by reasoning. Sometimes the relevant reasoning will be utilitarian; in fact, historically the early roots of utilitarianism are arguably a split off from a particular set of considerations in natural law theory or related views. If this means there is no conflict, it is the utilitarian's fault for trying to pick the fight in the first place.

9. It is simply false to say that "An unjust law is not a law" is empirically false, because it is a normative claim that in natural law theory presupposes the recognition that 'law' means several different things. You keep saying that it is empirically false: my challenge is, let us actual see the empirical proof so we can make sure it does not depend on an equivocation or mischaracterization. That we use the word 'law' for unjust laws does not contradict the principle enunciated, for instance; so what is this empirical proof?

10. Since natural law theory is primarily a position about the basic principles of practical reasoning, your argument that King's argument is purely utilitarian fails. This is a problem with most oppositions to natural law theory, which I noted in a post several months ago: they are not rejections of natural law's basic principles but a restriction of them. What you are arguing for is not the rejection of natural law theory but a purely utilitarian natural law. To reject natural law consistently requires the denial that there are any basic principles of practical reason as such; systematic utilitarianism usually does not insofar as it is put forward as a general account of good moral reasoning, because it posits at least one such basic principle. (Nonsystematic or occasional utilitarianism, which does not put forward such a general account, does not depend on such basic principles, but is a simple appeal to consequential ends without attempting to justify this by basic principles of practical reason.)

[It occurs to me that part of the problem is that some things are being treated as principles of natural law theory that actually are conclusions. The principles of natural law theory are simply principles about the natural of practical reason; all the most distinctive aspects of natural law theory are either conclusions drawn from these principles (the notion of moral law, the relations of moral law and positive law, etc.) or are drawn from the doctrine of divine providence (natural law as the law of God), a doctrine that is not entailed by the principles of natural law theory, but which, in certain forms at least, entails that there be natural law. Thus natural law in itself is an account of the principles of practical reason; on supposition of divine providence we also say that these principles of practical reason are the law of God written on the human heart, and thus natural law has a thriving place in theology as part of a (broadly Augustinian, or something analogous to it) theology of providence. Now, unless legal positivists are going to deny either that they reason practically or that their practical reason involves basic practical principles, their fussing about morality and law or about the law of God does not and cannot get at the heart of natural law theory, which are its principles about the nature of practical reason. It is from these that the conclusions are drawn; so natural law theory can only be toppled by presenting a better account of practical reason, which does not involve appeal to fundamental rational principles. Legal positivists do not do this as legal positivists; which is why most of their arguments beg the question against the natural law theorist. Typically, when they do put forward arguments that don't beg the question, it isn't as legal positivists, but as something else; in other words, they really reject natural law's connection of morality and law not on the basis of their account of law, but on the basis of their rival ethical or psychological theory.]

Verisimilitude Again

Hugo asked for clarification on the previous post on verisimilitude; I'm not sure what aspect he wanted clarified, in particular, but here is a rough expansion. It will have to be rough because I have limited time at the moment.

First, we need to be clear about 'realism'; there is no such thing as realism simpliciter. We are always talking about realism about a particular sort of thing. Insofar as arguments against a given sort of realism don't recognize this, they are put into doubt, because they need to justify being carried over from whatever sort of thing it is for which they are found most convincing. For instance, the fact that particle realist has problem P in the case of particle physics does not in any way entail that the natural-historical realist has the same problem in the case of paleontology. Arguments against realist views must be justified for each particular case; there can be no free rides. (Similar things can be said about opposing positions like anti-realism.)

Second, it is simply unjustified to assume that theory-ladenness as such is a problem for a realist. Why would it be? The realist about x is simply committed (at least minimally) to the view that x is probably approximately true. The fact that x has to be conceptualized a certain way, put into a theoretical context, seen from a certain perspective, etc., in order to be posited in this way does not affect the realist claim itself at all. Particular sorts of theory-ladenness might be a problem for particular sorts of realism; indeed, it might be the case that every sort of realism, or every sort of realism associated with a particular discipline, has some sort of theory-ladenness that puts it into doubt -- but this must be proven, not assumed. It is rarely even argued outside the context of mathematical physics.

Third, insofar as we have already conceptualized history as being about traces of the past we have already granted some form of historical realism. By recognizing an archive as an archive, for instance, it has already been granted that we have a relevant hold on something of what happened, namely, on what happened so as to leave a trace of itself. It doesn't mean we have a straightforward hold, naturally; but this is not what's at issue, since what is at issue is whether the historian has anything in virtue of which historical realism about something becomes possible. And there is, if history is possible at all. The only alternative to at least a very minimal historical realism is skepticism about the past entirely. Once we grant that we can actually have evidences of the past, we have already granted that the historian has something of what she is trying to get at when she is trying to get at what happened; the only alternative is to deny that we can actually have evidences of the past at all.

Fourth, approximation does not require a unique reference point. In order to say that something is approximately true we do not have to determine what is precisely true. In the case of history, all we have to say is that it coheres with a whole set of traces of what happened; it therefore coheres with what happened inasmuch as that left traces, it therefore approximates what happened. It is not at all necessary in order to recognize something as approximately true that we identify precisely what it is that we are approximating, so long as we can connect the approximation to what we are approximating. Simply to identify traces of the past as traces of the past suffices for this; or at least, if it does not, opponents of realists have not done the work to show it is not.

Fifth, when we are dealing with approximately true accounts, it is simply erroneous to treat them as if they were single propositions. Mutually exclusive accounts, in the sense of accounts that could not both be precisely true, can both be approximately true; such mutually exclusive accounts do not contradict each other, although they would contain propositions that do contradict each other. But this is not relevant to the issue of whether the accounts themselves are both approximately true. It is not necessary to be able to rank such accounts according to greater and lesser degree of approximation to the truth in order to identify them as approximately true; such a ranking would always have to presuppose that we have already identified the accounts as approximately true. Likewise, there is no reason to think such a ranking would be a linear ranking rather than a multidimensional ranking; that is, given two mutually exclusive approximately true accounts, there may be no straightforward answer as to which more closely approximates the truth. They may have different strengths and weaknesses, for instance. They may approximate the truth in different ways. It is simply an unwarranted assumption to think of approximation to the truth as "unification of particular ideas into clearer accounts with fewer principles". It may be found that in certain cases this sort of progress in approximation is possible (I think it certainly is); but none of this, again, causes a problem for the original identification of some accounts as approximately true; progress in approximation is downriver from identification of approximation, and thus can't cause a problem for it. And all one needs for realism as such is simply the ability to identify things as probably approximately true.

Sixth, that we impose narratives on the evidences we have is simply irrelevant to the question of realism unless it is shown that the precise way in which we must impose the narrative is such as to make impossible the particular variety of realism being considered. I am open to the possibility of an argument for this in particular cases; but (1) it needs to be argued or it has no force against the realist; (2) it needs to be argued on a case-by-case basis.

In short, the case to discredit every form of historical realism hasn't been made yet, although I think it fair to say that certain forms have been shown to be impossible, and that there are issues that might be problems for at least some other forms.

No Infinite Regress Here

What are my philosophical interests? I'm interested in early modern philosophy because I'm interested in Malebranche and Hume. I'm interested in Malebranche because I'm interested in Hume. I'm interested in Hume because I'm interested in modern thought generally. I'm interested in modern thought generally because I'm interested in the extent to which a modern Aristotelianism is possible. I'm interested in that because I'm interested in Aristotle. I'm interested in Aristotle because I'm interested in medieval scholasticism. And so it goes. But eventually the line gets to Aquinas, and I'm interested in Aquinas because he's just awesome, the end. So when people ask me what my philosophical interests are, I either start at the end of the chain with early modern philosophy or at the beginning with Aquinas. The whole universe is in the middle.

Verisimilitude in History, My Rough Remarks

With regard to the subject of my last post, a post has been put up at Studi Galileiani on verisimilitude in history. Now, I first need to say that there are a lot of issues related to this subject I haven't thought through (hence my term 'naked' in the previous post); and the conclusions I have come to are inevitably idiosyncratic (they always are). So none of this is intended as more than a crude set of first thoughts. My thoughts on the post:

* I'm inclined to think that the 'theory-laden' nature of our evidences is not actually relevant to the issue. It only would become so if we thought that the ability to approximate reality actually depended on the ability to separate observation statements and theory statements. But there is no reason to assume this unless we are positivists. In fact, I think the 'theory-laden' nature of our evidences is a boon to a non-positivist realism, because it is precisely what makes it possible for us to engage in any inquiry at all (I follow Whewell to that extent). It is what makes them intelligible evidences rather than unintelligible brute facts.

* One effect of going to approximation, it seems to me, is that it does away with any demand for our histories to imply "a unique historical reality against which to measure the fit our histories." Measurement against a unique historical reality is not what being approximately true involves; in other words: you don't need to have in hand a unique historical reality in order to determine that a history is approximately true. Just as you don't need to know that the earth is a perfect sphere in order to say that "The earth is a perfect sphere" is approximately true (which is a good thing, since the earth is not a perfect sphere), so you don't need to know a unique historical reality in order to say that such-and-such history is approximately true. You just need to know some relevant reality; and there is no non-positivist reason to think our theory-laden traces of the past do not qualify as relevant reality. (A sense of the term 'reality' in which an archive does not count as real is a bizarre sense that may simply be discounted; such a sense would be irrelevant to anything and not what realists mean when they talk about reality. And the mere fact of conceptualizing it as an archive makes it relevant. Skeptical issues can arise about the ways in which it is relevant in any particular case; but once admit it an archive, you admit it is a reality relevant to building approximately true histories around.)

* If we take approximate truth seriously, an appeal to coherence doesn't require us to appeal to a coherence account of truth, but only to a coherence account of approximate truth; it is true that mutually exclusive accounts may both cohere in the way such an account requires, but that's not a problem for approximate truth. In fact, it is precisely what one would expect. Nor is it necessary in every case to rank the accounts relative to each other and say, this account is a better approximation than that one; such a ranking would be linear, but we are dealing with accounts, not single propositions, and there is no reason to think that there would always be a straightforward way in which this account is simply a better approximation than that one. Accounts are complicated things; things may approximate to reality in qualitatively different ways, i.e., while the approximation might be compared, there may be no common measure because they approximate in different ways. At least, it is arbitrary simply to assume otherwise at the outset. So the question "Which has the greater verisimilitude?" is only a bugbear for the historical realist if the historical realist is assuming that all historical accounts would be approximations of exactly the same thing in exactly the same way, so that each approximation could be ranked as more or less approximately true according to a single measure than every other approximation. But this contains a is a lot of strong modifiers a historical realist doesn't have to assume.

* History is narrative discourse, and a lot like literature, amen, amen, I say to you, amen. But it is entirely possible to be a realist and hold this.

I haven't looked at Dummettian semantic anti-realism or anti-representationalism here; I suspect there are stronger issues there, although I'm too fuzzy on both to say anything constructive. But I don't see that there's anything for the historical realist to fear in bias, underdetermination, or the theory-laden character of our evidences. They only really are a problem when we are trying to find a unique historical reality rather than approximation to it; they only arise under the latter case if we assume that to recognize something as approximately true requires a unique reference point, i.e., they only arise if one assumes that approximate truth requires both the approximation and the unique historical reality. I see no reason to think this is true.

Wherein I Jump Naked into a Boiling Cauldron of Debate

There is a really complicated discussion going on about philosophy of history and historiography, started off by the discussion at Blogenspiel of the discussion of Cantor's Inventing the Middle Ages at Studi Galileiani. It is continued in comments here at Studi Galileiani, then at Cliopatria and again here at Blogenspiel and again at Studi Galileiani. It has degenerated a bit, which is unfortunate because it brings up interesting issues. I find much of the argument a bit obscure, but I'll put my two cents and see whether my two cents make any sense. So, a few notes.

(1) I tend to agree with Another Damned Medievalist in the comments to one of my posts, on the question of "what historians have traditionally supposed they could achieve":

What do you mean by traditionally? Do you mean Herodotus? Thucydides? Tacitus? They all had very different purposes. Gibbon? Carlyle? Also different. Hegel -- still different.

I think this is a fair argument, and quite right (I can't help but smile at the thought of Gibbon and Hegel trying to convince each other on the issue of what the purpose of doing history is); and it's relevant to issues of philosophy of history. I don't think it plays much role in the part of the dispute which interested me most, though (and which I'll get to below).

(2) Just as some of the things said by the philosophers about history have sounded strange to the historians some of the things said by the historians about philosophy of history sound strange to a philosopher's ears. I would tend to defer to the historians on the actual practice of history as a discipline; but philosophy of history as a discipline is necessarily rather more than 'having a philosophy of history' (although obviously there's a connection). This isn't actually surprising; when philosophers do philosophy of history they are not typically doing it merely for the purpose of writing better history (or any history at all), but for what it shows about other things. One of the things that Newall says in his Philosophy of History essay which has received comment is that some have read him as saying that there's something wrong with history; when actually he's simply looking at some philosophical issues raised by the discipline of history and trying to put them in an elementary form (more on this below).

(3) In one of the comments somewhere it was said that the essay read as if there had been no advances in historical scholarship since WWI (or something to that effect); which is possible. Philosophy of history has been a very, very weak field for a long time now, and one of the reasons is that philosophers have, with a handful of relevant exceptions, just largely not tried to set down the issues involved. In other words, the problem is probably rather that the philosophy of history has not kept pace, simply because it hasn't been a particularly thriving field (unlike, say, philosophy of science). (I don't know, of course, what sources influenced Newall's essay.) One of the nice things about this discussion, despite the fact that it has degenerated, is that it provides an opportunity for historians to get out there and show what work needs to be done to bring it up to date. (For why I think this is essential for historians, see (4).)

(4) It is very likely that philosophy of history will contribute very little to the doing of history as such. I make this prognostication on the basis of the fact that philosophy of science has contributed relatively little to the doing of science as such, and philosophy of science is a more developed discipline than philosophy of history. This isn't to say that there won't be any such contributions. The ideal, in fact, would be for philosophy of history to have its equivalent of William Whewell, the great nineteenth-century philosopher of science who was responsible for much of the way science organized itself. But Whewells aren't found on every street corner, so we'll probably have to settle for something less. What philosophy of science has in every generation a massive influence on, however, is what society does with science; and there's no reason to think philosophy of history is any different. A problematic approach to philosophy of science (to the extent it becomes accepted) will distort, at least to some extent, the role science has in society, perhaps even to the extent of eventually distorting the practice of science itself. One of the reasons I think this sort of discussion is a good one to have is that historians cannot afford to ignore philosophy of history because, however historians may view philosophy of history, philosophy of history is what in fact mediates between them and everyone else in society; and it is better that (1) it do so explicitly rather than implicitly, critically examined and out in the open rather than unremarked; and (2) historians be clear about what they see as incorrect (and correct) assumptions in a given sort of approach; and (3) any problems, as far as communicating accurately what they are doing, in the way historians are formulating their approaches and conclusions to the public be corrected as soon as possible; the sort of general epistemological issues discussed in Newall's essay may not seem important for the practice of history itself, but they are essential for making sure that historians aren't going around confusing the bejeepers out of the general public. Even if it weren't important for historians what society does with their results (I have difficulty believing it isn't, but if it weren't), society needs them to take an active concern with the philosophy of history. How else will they judge the good historical work from the bad? (I have nightmares about public problems like that biologists have with evolution springing up in disciplines like history.) So we really do need there to be historians out there clarifying what they are actually doing when they are doing history explicitly in the context of issues raised by the philosophy of history. (In comments to this post, Another Damned Medievalist noted that part of what concerns her is that Cantor's book, "somewhat aimed at a popular audience and definitely read by a popular audience, is somewhat misleading" - which I think captures perfectly, for this particular issue, part of why we need historians interacting with these issues generally.)

(5) Newall, if I understand him a-right, takes what might be called an anti-realist stance on history, and I think this is part of what some have objected to. It's not actually surprising that historians tend to historical realism any more than it is surprising that scientists tend to scientific realism. Now, just as scientific anti-realism isn't the claim that scientists are wrong in their basic practice, I don't think Newall can be interpreted as saying that historians are wrong in their basic practice. I am very sympathetic to an anti-realist position when it comes to history (but then, I am very sympathetic to anti-realist positions when it comes to science) but I think I tend to be realist; in part because I don't, on further thought, think history actually has the verisimilitude problem Newall thinks it does. Underdetermination is not sufficient to create this problem, because underdetermination in itself merely introduces vagueness in what our evidences allow us to conclude as true; even given that underdetermination is pervasive, all this means for the realist is that a lot of times our true conclusions will be vague. And in fact, I think it is necessary to be a realist to allow that the evidences the historian faces are traces of the past. A strict historical anti-representationalism, I think, requires that we cease to treat our evidences as traces of the past, and simply regard our treatment of them as 'traces of the past' as something useful - for what, I'm not sure, since history doesn't have the uses science does; so I'm not even sure we can actually formulate a notion of history at all if we are strictly anti-realist about it.

If we can regard our evidences as traces of the past, their being traces of the past will suffice to allow at least a very basic sort of realism, because it isn't necessary for historians to compare their theories with the actual past, since comparing them with the traces of the past insofar as they are actually remnants of the past will suffice. Again, underdetermination will leave us a bit patchy and vague and with some guesswork; but this falls short of an actual anti-realist position. It is much easier for a historian to be a realist than for some scientists to be so because the historian is to an extent an observationalist; verisimilitude problems no more arise for her than they arise for a scientist whose work consists of observing, classifying, and interrelating the behavior of lions in the Serengetti. There is no sharp distinction in such a case between the correspondence of the theory to reality and its coherence with the evidence; the two generally merge, even if there is some slippage in particular cases. The ethologist has a much, much richer data set to work with; but the historian is, at least in great measure, doing exactly the same sort of thing: there is no sharp distinction between correspondence and coherence for the historian, if (again) we allow that historical evidences are traces of the past. This luxury does not arise for mathematical physics, which is the discipline for which verisimilitude problems most convincingly and acutely arise; but history is not particularly like mathematical physics in the way it poses theories about the world.

Now, I agree with much of what Newall says in the course of arguing for anti-representationalism (and even where I disagree, I find his essay excellent because it does a good job of bringing up the philosophical issues). For instance, I agree that historians should primarily be concerned with the organization of evidences - what we might call the topology of the whole set of historical evidence on the given topic. As I've said before, I think this is almost the whole of what historical scholarship actually is. But insofar as we we can regard these evidences as genuinely historical evidences, there is no problem with being realist. And, while my own historical field, history of philosophy, is about the most historiographically-challenged field of history there could conceivably be (I think the way HoP is taught makes it generally weak on the historical side, although there are particular HoP disciplines which go some way to counteract this, particular for certain lines of scholarship on the medieval and ancient period), I nonetheless find that this fits nicely with my own experience. It's virtually impossible for me not to characterize what I do in realist terms, because what I am doing in describing the whole topology of historical evidences is nothing other than developing a more verisimilar account. My interpretation of Hume's Treatise 1.4.2 is more accurate than anything written 20 years ago, and more accurate still than anything written 50 years ago, and more accurate still than anything written 100 years ago, because in drawing in more of the evidences, and more of their interrelations, I am describing with less distortion and more precision the work Hume actually wrote in the 1730s. This requires, again, that I be able to regard the evidences I actually have on hand (editions of Hume) as genuinely being traces of the past; but the only thing that blocks this is skepticism about the past. And there is no more harm in a historian ignoring skepticism about the past than there is harm in a scientist ignoring external world skepticism. Setting aside skepticism about the past, I actually have, in the archives, the remnants of certain elements of the 1730s themselves, and what I am doing is simply discerning what they are. Because of issues with the evidence (massively organized complexity is the primary one for HoP) it's a trickier business than (say) trying to give the best characterizations of traffic patterns on King Street; but it doesn't, I think, have any more problems with verisimilitude. If a realist historian had a description of a complete set of data, he would have what actually happened in precise detail; that historians always lack a perfectly complete set of data just means that their descriptions can never be perfectly precise and will always have to concede things to ambiguity and vagueness. But this is very different from the verisimilitude problem that arises for the mathematical physicist, because the realist mathematical physicist is theorizing not about the data themselves but about what underlies it, which the data indirectly indicate. Therefore the mathematical physicist does not start off with the very thing he is trying to reach; the historian does, albeit in a patchy and occasionally corrupted form. So no verisimilitude problem arises.

God help me, this post has taken me three hours to write!

Selective Obscurantism

From Scott A. Davison's "Craig on the Grounding Objection to Middle Knowledge" in the recent issue of Faith and Philosophy:

"In fact, we are probably never in a position to say with much confidence that any particular action is free (in the Libertarian sense employed by Craig and the Molinists). This is because for all we know, actions that seem to be free might very well have hidden causes."

Davison attributes this point, which he calls an old one, to Dennett among others. It simply will not do, however. I recognized the pattern of the argument at once; one comes across it in external world skepticism, and many other skeptical positions:

We cannot be confident that things that seem X are X because, for all we know, there very well might be something hidden that makes things seem X even though they are really not X.

You can plug anything into X; nothing in the form of this argument makes that impossible. Which means, if we accept this argument in one case, we have to accept it in other cases where we could say "for all we know" there might be these 'hidden causes' that are severing appearance and reality. And they are legion: other minds, external world, any scientific conclusion in any science (this is why Newton famously insisted that we should not make hypotheses - by 'hypothesis' he meant precisely this sort of 'for all we know' postulation of possible hidden causes in order to pre-empt our conclusions from the evidence), the appearance of evidentness in mathematics (because 'for all we know' there might be some hidden cause making it only seem to be the case that 2+2=4), you name it.

One finds this sort of argument, which is a lousy one, used by compatibilists quite a bit. In putting forward these arguments, they are being selectively obscurantist in ways they would be horrified to find in other places. For instance, C. A. Campbell in his Gifford Lectures On Selfhood and Godhood once claimed that we experience the fact that some of our actions are uncaused. Now, I think that this is a claim that is either false or misleading; but the actual argument I have seen compatibilists use against it is precisely a version of the above argument. This, as I said, simply will not do; it is an absurd argument (and ultimately self-defeating, because this argument form can be used against itself). The proper response to it should always be: "Prove to me that these 'hidden causes' actually exist in the relevant cases! Otherwise, you've got no more of an argument here than someone who believes evolution is false because 'for all we know' God just made things seem like evolution is true; or someone who believes that 'I have two hands' is false because 'for all we know' we might live in the Matrix."