The Commedia and Canzoniere of Dante Alighieri A New Translation with Notes, Essays and a Biographical Introduction By Dante Alighieri, Edward Hayes Plumptre
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Friday, February 20, 2009
Weinandy on Swinburne
Thomas Weinandy has a scathingly critical review of Swinburne's Was Jesus God? at First Things:
I haven't read the book in question, but if it is anything like his others, I'd probably end up agreeing with Weinandy. Swinburne is not stupid, but what I usually see in his work is a brilliant person developing very dubious arguments at very great length and in very clever ways. Clever development does not make the arguments less dubious (although it perhaps makes them more interesting). Plus he's one of the people behind this horrid Bayesian epistemology that has infected so much of analytic philosophy of religion (leading to yet more brilliant people wasting their time developing dubious arguments in clever ways). I always leave off Swinburne feeling extraordinarily depressed about the future of philosophy of religion; only reading analytic philosophers discussing the Trinity or the Incarnation leaves me more pessimistic. From Weinandy's review, it sounds like Swinburne's book will ever be useful if I ever need a double dose of melancholy.
In this review I have only touched on a few of the most blatantly false or misconceived presuppositions that in Was Jesus God? give rise to spurious issues and erroneous conclusions. There are many more. To write an apology for the faith, one has to know the faith—the faith as it has been traditionally proclaimed and understood through the centuries. Only then is one adequately equipped to give rational arguments for why one should believe it.
I haven't read the book in question, but if it is anything like his others, I'd probably end up agreeing with Weinandy. Swinburne is not stupid, but what I usually see in his work is a brilliant person developing very dubious arguments at very great length and in very clever ways. Clever development does not make the arguments less dubious (although it perhaps makes them more interesting). Plus he's one of the people behind this horrid Bayesian epistemology that has infected so much of analytic philosophy of religion (leading to yet more brilliant people wasting their time developing dubious arguments in clever ways). I always leave off Swinburne feeling extraordinarily depressed about the future of philosophy of religion; only reading analytic philosophers discussing the Trinity or the Incarnation leaves me more pessimistic. From Weinandy's review, it sounds like Swinburne's book will ever be useful if I ever need a double dose of melancholy.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Three Fallacies in Conditional Arguments
Whenever we teach about fallacies involving arguments with conditional propositions, we usually tell students about two: denying the antecedent and affirming the consequent. I would suggest that it would make at least a little bit more sense to identify three, the third being the following:
If p, q
If p, r
Therefore, If q, r.
Why add this one, which (as far as I know) has no name? The reason is that it brings out more clearly an important and often overlooked parallel, namely, that every argument using conditional propositions has a corresponding categorical syllogism using A propositions. This has been something recognized off and on throughout the history of logic. But it was Jevons in the nineteenth century, as far as I am aware, who first recognized that whenever the conditional version of the argument committed the fallacy of affirming the consequent, the corresponding categorical version committed the fallacy of the undistributed middle. Similarly, whenever the conditional argument committed the fallacy of denying the antecedent, the corresponding categorical version committed the fallacy of the illicit process of the major term.
And this is where the third fallacy, above, comes in. For there is a third fallacy having to do with the distribution of terms in a categorical syllogism, namely, illicit process of the minor term. And, as you may have guessed, the above argument is the fallacious conditional argument corresponding to a categorical syllogism that commits that fallacy. As I said, I don't know of any name that goes with it; but when you think about it, it does occur quite a bit in real life. We could call it "false chaining" or something like that.
If p, q
If p, r
Therefore, If q, r.
Why add this one, which (as far as I know) has no name? The reason is that it brings out more clearly an important and often overlooked parallel, namely, that every argument using conditional propositions has a corresponding categorical syllogism using A propositions. This has been something recognized off and on throughout the history of logic. But it was Jevons in the nineteenth century, as far as I am aware, who first recognized that whenever the conditional version of the argument committed the fallacy of affirming the consequent, the corresponding categorical version committed the fallacy of the undistributed middle. Similarly, whenever the conditional argument committed the fallacy of denying the antecedent, the corresponding categorical version committed the fallacy of the illicit process of the major term.
And this is where the third fallacy, above, comes in. For there is a third fallacy having to do with the distribution of terms in a categorical syllogism, namely, illicit process of the minor term. And, as you may have guessed, the above argument is the fallacious conditional argument corresponding to a categorical syllogism that commits that fallacy. As I said, I don't know of any name that goes with it; but when you think about it, it does occur quite a bit in real life. We could call it "false chaining" or something like that.
Whewell on Scientific Laws
An important passage that gives a good summary of Whewell's view of scientific laws:
The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences Founded Upon Their History By William Whewell
The idea, of course, is that general laws like Newton's laws of motion are simply general necessary principles insofar as they take form under certain possible conditions; thus they also need empirical support, in order to rule out other possible conditions. So, for instance, the first law is derived from the axiom that nothing can begin to exist without a cause, and therefore has a sort of derivative necessity to it, and can function as a sort of axiom on its own. But it's not necessary in itself; in order to apply the general causal principle to motion in particular, makes assumptions about motion that need to be confirmed against experience -- for instance, that time, and location, and the like don't in themselves function as causes of motion and rest. In other words, there's a sense in which the general form of the law is just a necessary causal principle, but in order to apply it to the particular field of motion we must go to experience to see what's relevant to a causal explanation of motion. This strikes a nice (and very deliberately intended) balance between granting the law a sort of fundamental and axiomatic character and allowing that it depends on hard-won empirical facts (and could potentially change if more precise accounting of those facts introduced qualifications).
The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences Founded Upon Their History By William Whewell
The idea, of course, is that general laws like Newton's laws of motion are simply general necessary principles insofar as they take form under certain possible conditions; thus they also need empirical support, in order to rule out other possible conditions. So, for instance, the first law is derived from the axiom that nothing can begin to exist without a cause, and therefore has a sort of derivative necessity to it, and can function as a sort of axiom on its own. But it's not necessary in itself; in order to apply the general causal principle to motion in particular, makes assumptions about motion that need to be confirmed against experience -- for instance, that time, and location, and the like don't in themselves function as causes of motion and rest. In other words, there's a sense in which the general form of the law is just a necessary causal principle, but in order to apply it to the particular field of motion we must go to experience to see what's relevant to a causal explanation of motion. This strikes a nice (and very deliberately intended) balance between granting the law a sort of fundamental and axiomatic character and allowing that it depends on hard-won empirical facts (and could potentially change if more precise accounting of those facts introduced qualifications).
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Angelic Painter
Today is the memorial for Blessed Giovanni of Fiesole, better known to the world as Fra Angelico.
It's hard to express in words the art of Il Beato; fortunately, a picture is worth a thousand words.
(Fra Angelico, The Transfiguration, c. 1441, Museo di San Marco)
It's hard to express in words the art of Il Beato; fortunately, a picture is worth a thousand words.
(Fra Angelico, The Transfiguration, c. 1441, Museo di San Marco)
Knowing Each and Knowing All
Hence, even if one prove of each kind of triangle that its angles are equal to two right angles, whether by means of the same or different proofs; still, as long as one treats separately equilateral, scalene, and isosceles, one does not yet know, except sophistically, that triangle has its angles equal to two right angles, nor does one yet know that triangle has this property commensurately and universally, even if there is no other species of triangle but these. For one does not know that triangle as such has this property, nor even that 'all' triangles have it-unless 'all' means 'each taken singly': if 'all' means 'as a whole class', then, though there be none in which one does not recognize this property, one does not know it of 'all triangles'.
Aristotle, Posterior Analytics, I.5. Likewise, one could show that 'able to laugh' or 'tool-using' applies to every kind of human being; this does not show that human beings are defined by these characteristics, even partially. Or to stay in mathematical bounds: defining something by induction does tell you something -- for instance, you can determine in this way each thing that is a natural number. But this doesn't tell you what a natural number is; you learn what counts as a natural number, but even if you've covered them all, you aren't simply by that fact any more enlightened about what it is to be a natural number. The two are closely related, of course, and one can lead to the other, but conflating them is sophistry -- related, I think, to what Aristotle elsewhere calls the sophistical mistake of thinking that to know is to possess knowledge (we can know things, which is an act of acquaintance, without possessing knowledge of them, which is a disposition of being able to draw conclusions based on understanding of the things we know).
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
A Dream a Little Less Inconstant
I've always thought that this is one of Pascal's most lyrical passages. You have to like the touch of humor in the first paragraph, too.
386. If we dreamt the same thing every night, it would affect us as much as the objects we see every day. And if an artisan were sure to dream every night for twelve hours' duration that he was a king, I believe he would be almost as happy as a king, who should dream every night for twelve hours on end that he was an artisan.
If we were to dream every night that we were pursued by enemies and harassed by these painful phantoms, or that we passed every day in different occupations, as in making a voyage, we should suffer almost as much as if it were real, and should fear to sleep, as we fear to wake when we dread in fact to enter on such mishaps. And, indeed, it would cause pretty nearly the same discomforts as the reality.
But since dreams are all different, and each single one is diversified, what is seen in them affects us much less than what we see when awake, because of its continuity, which is not, however, so continuous and level as not to change too; but it changes less abruptly, except rarely, as when we travel, and then we say, "It seems to me I am dreaming." For life is a dream a little less inconstant.
Pascal, Pensées
386. If we dreamt the same thing every night, it would affect us as much as the objects we see every day. And if an artisan were sure to dream every night for twelve hours' duration that he was a king, I believe he would be almost as happy as a king, who should dream every night for twelve hours on end that he was an artisan.
If we were to dream every night that we were pursued by enemies and harassed by these painful phantoms, or that we passed every day in different occupations, as in making a voyage, we should suffer almost as much as if it were real, and should fear to sleep, as we fear to wake when we dread in fact to enter on such mishaps. And, indeed, it would cause pretty nearly the same discomforts as the reality.
But since dreams are all different, and each single one is diversified, what is seen in them affects us much less than what we see when awake, because of its continuity, which is not, however, so continuous and level as not to change too; but it changes less abruptly, except rarely, as when we travel, and then we say, "It seems to me I am dreaming." For life is a dream a little less inconstant.
Pascal, Pensées
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