Tuesday, August 10, 2004
The Ecumenical Leibniz
There is an interesting post at "Reformed Catholicism" (a weblog on ecumenical Calvinism) that looks at Leibniz's reunionism - he attempted to try to find ways for Catholics and Protestants (particularly Lutherans) to reunite through the three works of exposition, deference, and suspension. One very rarely finds any discussion of Leibniz's views (or the views of any other early modern thinker) on this point, which is why I am linking to it.
The Saintly Phenomenologist
Yesterday was the anniversary of the death (at Auschwitz) of philosopher and Catholic saint Edith Stein. You can find a brief summary of her life at "From the Anchor Hold" here.
More on Nussbaum on Disgust
There is an article by Nussbaum in The Chronicle of Higher Education on the issue of disgust in law (thanks to Ektopos for the link). It's interesting but I still found it rather unhelpful. You might remember that when I took up this subject before, I found certain points unconvincing about Nussbaum's Reason interview. She's a bit clearer in this article, but the same points that arose then arise now.
A. On disgust as a shrinking from mortality and animality:
It seems false that shrinking from slime, decay, and bodily wastes is a shrinking from mortality and animality. 1) It appears to be a healthy expression of animality. Slime, decay, and bodily wastes are often not healthy; they can be conducive to disease and infection. As a rough-and-ready way of avoiding contamination (literally!), disgust appears to be a natural expression - which is why we naturally feel it. Disgust in this sense is part of our being animals. 2) It isn't clear that feeling disgust at the idea of playing in your own feces (for instance) is a shrinking from animality and mortality, or that it has any connection at all with our "stake in rising above the merely animal". 3) Disgust in the sense Nussbaum is noting here is closely associated with the desire for cleanliness. While we do say that cleanliness is next to godliness, it seems to me to be completely silly to suggest (which Nussbaum does not suggest, but which I think would be required by Nussbaum's claims here) that a desire to be clean is an attempt not to be animal and mortal.
B. On the asymmetry of disgust and anger
Disgust, too, can be treated as an issue of damage or harm, namely the harm or damage of being contaminated by something unhealthy. Likewise, we can reasonably expect the law to take an interest in lots of forms of disgust - disgust at garbage, disgust at feces. Since this paragraph immediately follows the above paragraph, the "then" in the first sentence means that we are to conclude from the paragraph discussed in (A) that disgust has nothing to do with harm in a way in which the law should take an interest. But the disgust considered in the above paragraph is sanitary disgust, and it is entirely reasonable to expect - even to demand - that the law take an interest in that. Nussbaum has switched, it seems, to an entirely different sort of disgust. This is a constant problem I have with all the arguments by Nussbaum I have seen on this subject: she fails to make distinctions between forms of disgust, and then goes on to use that equivocation to deny parallels between anger and disgust. I'm hoping this is avoided in her book, which I'll be reviewing here when I finally manage to locate a copy. (Note also that she provides no argument here for disgust being different - it is merely asserted.)
C. Disgust at persons vs. disgust at actions
While there isn't any quotable quote on this point, in this article Nussbaum continues to consider only disgust at persons, not disgust at actions. But the two, it seems, need to be considered as rather different. Disgust at the rape of a child is not in the same moral category as disgust at Jews: there is an entirely different patterning of reasons associated with the two.
As I said, I hope eventually to find a copy of her book on this subject and review it here. But, as I said about her Reason interview, I'm not heartened by Nussbaum's article.
A. On disgust as a shrinking from mortality and animality:
Disgust concerns the borders of the body: the possibility that an offensive substance may be incorporated into and debase a person. The core objects of disgust are animals or their secretions above all feces, bodily wastes, and corpses, or creatures who have (or appear to have) related properties (ooziness, sliminess, decay). To put it very briefly, it would appear that disgust embodies a shrinking from animality and mortality, which, if taken in, would contaminate the human being who has a stake in rising above the merely animal.
It seems false that shrinking from slime, decay, and bodily wastes is a shrinking from mortality and animality. 1) It appears to be a healthy expression of animality. Slime, decay, and bodily wastes are often not healthy; they can be conducive to disease and infection. As a rough-and-ready way of avoiding contamination (literally!), disgust appears to be a natural expression - which is why we naturally feel it. Disgust in this sense is part of our being animals. 2) It isn't clear that feeling disgust at the idea of playing in your own feces (for instance) is a shrinking from animality and mortality, or that it has any connection at all with our "stake in rising above the merely animal". 3) Disgust in the sense Nussbaum is noting here is closely associated with the desire for cleanliness. While we do say that cleanliness is next to godliness, it seems to me to be completely silly to suggest (which Nussbaum does not suggest, but which I think would be required by Nussbaum's claims here) that a desire to be clean is an attempt not to be animal and mortal.
B. On the asymmetry of disgust and anger
Disgust is, then, very different from anger and indignation. Anger is about damage or harm. For that reason, it is very closely related to a central function of the legal system, namely, that of protecting citizens from harm, and punishing harms that occur. The reasons underlying a particular case of anger may, of course, be false or distorted; but if they stand up to scrutiny, we can expect the law to take an interest in them, and nobody would dispute the legitimacy of its doing so. Disgust is different. It is by no means clear that feeling grossed out by something gives the disgusted person a set of reasons that plausibly lead to making conduct illegal, especially when we note, as does Rozin, the irrational and associational thinking so often involved in disgust.
Disgust, too, can be treated as an issue of damage or harm, namely the harm or damage of being contaminated by something unhealthy. Likewise, we can reasonably expect the law to take an interest in lots of forms of disgust - disgust at garbage, disgust at feces. Since this paragraph immediately follows the above paragraph, the "then" in the first sentence means that we are to conclude from the paragraph discussed in (A) that disgust has nothing to do with harm in a way in which the law should take an interest. But the disgust considered in the above paragraph is sanitary disgust, and it is entirely reasonable to expect - even to demand - that the law take an interest in that. Nussbaum has switched, it seems, to an entirely different sort of disgust. This is a constant problem I have with all the arguments by Nussbaum I have seen on this subject: she fails to make distinctions between forms of disgust, and then goes on to use that equivocation to deny parallels between anger and disgust. I'm hoping this is avoided in her book, which I'll be reviewing here when I finally manage to locate a copy. (Note also that she provides no argument here for disgust being different - it is merely asserted.)
C. Disgust at persons vs. disgust at actions
While there isn't any quotable quote on this point, in this article Nussbaum continues to consider only disgust at persons, not disgust at actions. But the two, it seems, need to be considered as rather different. Disgust at the rape of a child is not in the same moral category as disgust at Jews: there is an entirely different patterning of reasons associated with the two.
As I said, I hope eventually to find a copy of her book on this subject and review it here. But, as I said about her Reason interview, I'm not heartened by Nussbaum's article.
Monday, August 09, 2004
A Thought on the Holy Trinity, Part I
Let's do a little theology.
Consider the following scenario. You and I are walking along a sandy beach one beautiful day, when we come across a strange black box.
"What is it?" you breathe, puzzled by its strangeness.
"It's a strange black box," I say blandly.
"No," you reply, unable to keep at least a touch of sarcasm out of your voice. "What is it?"
"I don't know," I reply.
In this crude example is found the point of negative theology. We often talk as if there were only one "What" question, with only one answer. There are, however, layers of "What" questions, and layers of answers to them. This helps us understand a famous saying by Aquinas: We cannot know what God is, only that He is. I have dealt with people (unfortunately, if you ever do history of philosophy, you will deal with many such people) who rather sarcastically respond to this with something like the words: "Well, you have to know what a thing is before you can know that it is." And this is, after a fashion, true. But there are layers to what a thing is.
Let's return a moment to our black box. I see that it is black, I see that it is box. I know what it is: a black box. In another sense, I also don't know what it is at all. In a sense, all I know is how the box is related to me: it is visibly black, it is visibly box-like, and that's all I know. I don't know what the box is in itself. I don't, however, need to know what the box is in itself (the deeper answer to a "what" question) in order to show that it exists. All I need is to have some knowledge of the box under some description. Mutatis mutandis, this is what Aquinas is noting about God. We do not know (in this deeper sense) what God is; we only know that He is (under some set of descriptions). The descriptions under which we know God do not capture Him in Himself, but only relative to us in some way (e.g., as Cause, or as Revealer, or whatever).
Here's another saying that belongs to Aquinas: We do not know what God is, but only what He is not. Again, the "what" in question is the deeper "what"; we cannot ever say what God is in Himself - to do so would be an impossible task for any finite creature - but only what He is not (in this deeper sense). The reason we can do this is that we know what God is (under some set of descriptions) and from these some things follow about what God is not (in the deeper sense). This is what is called negative theology. It has traditionally been the key to all good philosophical thought about God. It's hard to find these days.
Consider the doctrine of the Trinity. With negative theology as a restraint on irresponsible speculation, one would always be reminded that we do not, and can never, know what it is like to be God. It is not possible to 'give an account' of the Trinity. We cannot say what the Trinity is, only that it is. We cannot know what the Trinity is, only what it is not. The Church Fathers noted that there are very distant sorts of analogies to the Trinity. The doctrine of the Trinity is this: "The Father is not of anyone, the Son is of the Father, the Spirit is of the Father with the Son; the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God; the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Spirit, the Spirit is not the Father or the Son; yet there are not three Gods, but only one God." Basil recognized that we already recognize something like this in other things. For instance, take Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, three human beings. Paul is human, Silvanus is human, and Timothy is human; Paul is not Silvanus, Silvanus is not Timonthy, Timothy is not Paul or Silvanus; yet there are not three human natures but one human nature in virtue of which they are all called human. Basil does not pretend this is an exact parallel; indeed, if anyone did claim to find such an exact parallel it would be in clear violation of the reasonable restraints of negative theology. The point is that, while the unity-without-confusion of the Three exceeds any other sort of unity-without-confusion that we know, nonetheless we are familiar with this sort of pattern. Some took thoughts like Basil's a bit too literally, and had to be corrected by Gregory of Nyssa, who clarified the difference between Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy on the one hand, and the Father, the Son, and the Spirit on the other. Each person of the Trinity is distinctly a person, but they share their attributes in common according to their distinction as persons. Take willing. What the Father wills, the Son and the Spirit will: their willing is one willing, but as Gregory says in To Ablabius on Not Three Gods, "every operation which extends from God to the Creation, and is named according to our variable conceptions of it, has its origin from the Father, and proceeds through the Son, and is perfected in the Holy Spirit" such that the power of willing is "issuing from the Father as from a spring, brought into operation by the Son, and perfecting its grace by the power of the Spirit." In other words, they will one thing with one will; but the Father wills it as the Origin or Principle of Godhead, the Son wills it as being immediately from the Father, and the Spirit wills it as being from the Father with the Son. This is itself little more than a restatement of the doctrine of the Trinity in terms of willing: having granted the doctrine of the Trinity, we had already implicitly granted this, and our restatement has just clarified one aspect of what we had granted in an obscure and general way.
Now, it has been argued by Richard Cartwright that the following seven claims are, when taken together, inconsistent:
l) The Father is God
2) The Son is God
3) The Holy Spirit is God
4) The Father is not identical with the Son
5) The Father is not identical with the Holy Spirit
6) The Son is not identical with the Holy Spirit.
7) There is one God.
But this is hasty. Where is the inconsistency? To take (1) through (6) all together is consistent with (7); we can see that from the Nyssan's point about willing. (7) can only be inconsistent with (1) through (6) if we assume that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are not identical with each other because they are different Gods. But this is not the doctrine of the Trinity.
This will be found to be a common problem with claims of the doctrine's inconsistency: the set of (1) through (7) can only be proved inconsistent on the assumption that it is. I have no strict proof of this; but it seems to be the case. Cartwright holds that (1) through (6) are a consistent set, and that the set only becomes inconsistent when (7) is added. (4), (5), and (6) share no common term with (7), so cannot conflict with it. (1), (2) and (3) are not, taken together, inconsistent with (7); they lead to the conclusion that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are one God. Let's call this conclusion (C). Put (C) with (4), (5), and (6); the resulting conclusion is that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are one God but that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are not identical to each other. This can only be an inconsistent if non-identity of each to the others means non-unity of divinity. But we (Cartwright and anyone else) have no basis on which to argue such a claim from deeper knowledge of the divine nature, since we don't have special insight into the divine 'inner nature', as we well know through negative theology. And Gregory has given us a statement of the divine unity that seems to allow for both non-identity and unity in a consistent way: the substance is not divided (it is explicitly one) and the persons are not confused. Indeed, if Gregory is right, it seems to follow that, given their relations, the distinctness of the Persons implies that they have one being, one willing, etc.; and that the nature they have in common is had in common in such a way that the persons are necessarily distinct. One might argue that there is some hidden inconsistency here, but again, it couldn't be from any special insight into the divine nature, and it is pointless to complain about the difficult of understanding what it would be like for something to be like this, because we aren't being asked to understand what it would be like for something to be like this - that's the deeper "what" question again (it just keeps sneaking back, doesn't it). Another saying, this time attributed to Augustine: If you understand it, it is not the Trinity. Negative theology again. If you understand it (deeper "what" question), it can't be attributed to God without pretending you know what it is like to be God. The whole point of negative theology is to keep us from such absurdity.
I've put a "Part I" in the title because I will probably discuss this issue more at some point in the future; this is all rather rough.
Consider the following scenario. You and I are walking along a sandy beach one beautiful day, when we come across a strange black box.
"What is it?" you breathe, puzzled by its strangeness.
"It's a strange black box," I say blandly.
"No," you reply, unable to keep at least a touch of sarcasm out of your voice. "What is it?"
"I don't know," I reply.
In this crude example is found the point of negative theology. We often talk as if there were only one "What" question, with only one answer. There are, however, layers of "What" questions, and layers of answers to them. This helps us understand a famous saying by Aquinas: We cannot know what God is, only that He is. I have dealt with people (unfortunately, if you ever do history of philosophy, you will deal with many such people) who rather sarcastically respond to this with something like the words: "Well, you have to know what a thing is before you can know that it is." And this is, after a fashion, true. But there are layers to what a thing is.
Let's return a moment to our black box. I see that it is black, I see that it is box. I know what it is: a black box. In another sense, I also don't know what it is at all. In a sense, all I know is how the box is related to me: it is visibly black, it is visibly box-like, and that's all I know. I don't know what the box is in itself. I don't, however, need to know what the box is in itself (the deeper answer to a "what" question) in order to show that it exists. All I need is to have some knowledge of the box under some description. Mutatis mutandis, this is what Aquinas is noting about God. We do not know (in this deeper sense) what God is; we only know that He is (under some set of descriptions). The descriptions under which we know God do not capture Him in Himself, but only relative to us in some way (e.g., as Cause, or as Revealer, or whatever).
Here's another saying that belongs to Aquinas: We do not know what God is, but only what He is not. Again, the "what" in question is the deeper "what"; we cannot ever say what God is in Himself - to do so would be an impossible task for any finite creature - but only what He is not (in this deeper sense). The reason we can do this is that we know what God is (under some set of descriptions) and from these some things follow about what God is not (in the deeper sense). This is what is called negative theology. It has traditionally been the key to all good philosophical thought about God. It's hard to find these days.
Consider the doctrine of the Trinity. With negative theology as a restraint on irresponsible speculation, one would always be reminded that we do not, and can never, know what it is like to be God. It is not possible to 'give an account' of the Trinity. We cannot say what the Trinity is, only that it is. We cannot know what the Trinity is, only what it is not. The Church Fathers noted that there are very distant sorts of analogies to the Trinity. The doctrine of the Trinity is this: "The Father is not of anyone, the Son is of the Father, the Spirit is of the Father with the Son; the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God; the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Spirit, the Spirit is not the Father or the Son; yet there are not three Gods, but only one God." Basil recognized that we already recognize something like this in other things. For instance, take Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, three human beings. Paul is human, Silvanus is human, and Timothy is human; Paul is not Silvanus, Silvanus is not Timonthy, Timothy is not Paul or Silvanus; yet there are not three human natures but one human nature in virtue of which they are all called human. Basil does not pretend this is an exact parallel; indeed, if anyone did claim to find such an exact parallel it would be in clear violation of the reasonable restraints of negative theology. The point is that, while the unity-without-confusion of the Three exceeds any other sort of unity-without-confusion that we know, nonetheless we are familiar with this sort of pattern. Some took thoughts like Basil's a bit too literally, and had to be corrected by Gregory of Nyssa, who clarified the difference between Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy on the one hand, and the Father, the Son, and the Spirit on the other. Each person of the Trinity is distinctly a person, but they share their attributes in common according to their distinction as persons. Take willing. What the Father wills, the Son and the Spirit will: their willing is one willing, but as Gregory says in To Ablabius on Not Three Gods, "every operation which extends from God to the Creation, and is named according to our variable conceptions of it, has its origin from the Father, and proceeds through the Son, and is perfected in the Holy Spirit" such that the power of willing is "issuing from the Father as from a spring, brought into operation by the Son, and perfecting its grace by the power of the Spirit." In other words, they will one thing with one will; but the Father wills it as the Origin or Principle of Godhead, the Son wills it as being immediately from the Father, and the Spirit wills it as being from the Father with the Son. This is itself little more than a restatement of the doctrine of the Trinity in terms of willing: having granted the doctrine of the Trinity, we had already implicitly granted this, and our restatement has just clarified one aspect of what we had granted in an obscure and general way.
Now, it has been argued by Richard Cartwright that the following seven claims are, when taken together, inconsistent:
l) The Father is God
2) The Son is God
3) The Holy Spirit is God
4) The Father is not identical with the Son
5) The Father is not identical with the Holy Spirit
6) The Son is not identical with the Holy Spirit.
7) There is one God.
But this is hasty. Where is the inconsistency? To take (1) through (6) all together is consistent with (7); we can see that from the Nyssan's point about willing. (7) can only be inconsistent with (1) through (6) if we assume that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are not identical with each other because they are different Gods. But this is not the doctrine of the Trinity.
This will be found to be a common problem with claims of the doctrine's inconsistency: the set of (1) through (7) can only be proved inconsistent on the assumption that it is. I have no strict proof of this; but it seems to be the case. Cartwright holds that (1) through (6) are a consistent set, and that the set only becomes inconsistent when (7) is added. (4), (5), and (6) share no common term with (7), so cannot conflict with it. (1), (2) and (3) are not, taken together, inconsistent with (7); they lead to the conclusion that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are one God. Let's call this conclusion (C). Put (C) with (4), (5), and (6); the resulting conclusion is that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are one God but that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are not identical to each other. This can only be an inconsistent if non-identity of each to the others means non-unity of divinity. But we (Cartwright and anyone else) have no basis on which to argue such a claim from deeper knowledge of the divine nature, since we don't have special insight into the divine 'inner nature', as we well know through negative theology. And Gregory has given us a statement of the divine unity that seems to allow for both non-identity and unity in a consistent way: the substance is not divided (it is explicitly one) and the persons are not confused. Indeed, if Gregory is right, it seems to follow that, given their relations, the distinctness of the Persons implies that they have one being, one willing, etc.; and that the nature they have in common is had in common in such a way that the persons are necessarily distinct. One might argue that there is some hidden inconsistency here, but again, it couldn't be from any special insight into the divine nature, and it is pointless to complain about the difficult of understanding what it would be like for something to be like this, because we aren't being asked to understand what it would be like for something to be like this - that's the deeper "what" question again (it just keeps sneaking back, doesn't it). Another saying, this time attributed to Augustine: If you understand it, it is not the Trinity. Negative theology again. If you understand it (deeper "what" question), it can't be attributed to God without pretending you know what it is like to be God. The whole point of negative theology is to keep us from such absurdity.
I've put a "Part I" in the title because I will probably discuss this issue more at some point in the future; this is all rather rough.
I Learn Something New Every Day
Browsing Claire's Seventeenth Century I came across this link she had posted on Catharine Trotter. I had previously come across Catharine Trotter (a.k.a. Catharine Trotter Cockburn), since she did philosophical work, in particular defending Locke against his critics. There's a selection from her work in Atherton's lovely little anthology, Women Philosophers of the Early Modern Period. What I hadn't known was that she was also a more literary writer, authoring poetry, plays, and novels. Since I always have an interest in the literary side of philosophers, and since I've been intending to look in a bit on her work in particular, I'll have to see if I can find some of them....
The Philosophers of Dawn
From Asimov's The Robots of Dawn ch. 4 (sect. 16):
Fastolfe sighed. "I'm sure Daneel told you what I have maintained at the inquiry--but you want to hear it from my own lips."
"That is right, Dr. Fastolfe."
"Well, then, no one committed the crime. It was a spontaneous event in the positronic flow along the brain paths that set up the mental freeze-out in Jander."
"Is that likely?"
"No, it is not. It is extremely unlikely--but if I did not do it, then that is the only thing that can have happened."
"Might it not be argued that there is a greater chance that you are lying than that a spontaneous mental freeze-out took place?"
"Many do so argue. But I happen to know that I did not do it and that leaves only the spontaneous event as a possibility."
"And you have had me brought here to demonstrate--to prove--that the spontaneous event did, in fact, take place?"
"Yes."
"But how does one go about proving the spontaneous event? Only by proving it, it seems, can I save you, Earth, and myself."
"In order of increasing importance, Mr. Baley?"
Baley looked annoyed. "Well, then, you, me, and Earth."
"I'm afraid," said Fastolfe, "that after considerable thought, I have come to the conclusion that there is no way of obtaining such a proof."
(This is all from p. 83 of the Bantam edition (April 1994).)
What immediately struck me about this passage, which I read over the weekend was the parallel to the early modern discussion of miracles. The basic story is this: Elijah Baley has been called to the planet Aurora to solve a case of roboticide, in which the robot Jander was sent into a "mental freeze-out," i.e., was mentally shut down. Dr. Fastolfe's enemies, and in particular Dr. Amadiro, have whispered about that Dr. Fastolfe did it for political purposes. Dr. Fastolfe maintains his innocence and insists (everyone agrees) that only he, the most eminent living roboticist, would have the ability to shut down Jander intentionally, and that, since he knows he did not do it, it must have occurred spontaneously despite the enormous improbability of doing so. Baley eventually discovers another possibility. (I'll let you read the book to find out - it is, on re-reading, easily the best of Asimov's Elijah Baley novels.)
If we think in terms of miracles rather than spontaneous events, the parallel is this:
* Dr. Amadiro is David Hume, who argues that we can only believe (on testimony, at least) the occurrence of a miracle if it is more improbable that the person who is informing us of the miracle is deceived or dishonest than that the event itself occurred. This, you will notice from the passage above, is much like the campaign against Fastolfe.
* Some have argued that while no miracles occurred, since the standard causes have been eliminated, nothing but a spontaneous event can remain. (Fastolfe.)
* Both these positions agree on a lot of their assumptions. Others, however, like Lady Mary Shepherd, take the Baley solution to the problem of miracles and try to introduce a sort of causal reasoning other than that allowed by the first two into the consideration of the probabilities. Their conclusion: there can be a causal circumstance other than the standard ones that allows for the existence of a genuine miracle.
The parallel is only loose, and wouldn't exist at all, except that Hume puts so much emphasis on probability alone, and so has difficulty distinguishing miracles and spontaneous events in the first place (for which he is roundly criticized by Campbell and Shepherd).
How would one go about proving that a spontaneous event has occurred? This is, I think, a question that could only be answered if we had a clear idea of the 'metaphysical status' of spontaneity (i.e., when we talk about 'spontaneous events' what does this signify about the real world?). And this is a difficult problem. It bears some thought....
Fastolfe sighed. "I'm sure Daneel told you what I have maintained at the inquiry--but you want to hear it from my own lips."
"That is right, Dr. Fastolfe."
"Well, then, no one committed the crime. It was a spontaneous event in the positronic flow along the brain paths that set up the mental freeze-out in Jander."
"Is that likely?"
"No, it is not. It is extremely unlikely--but if I did not do it, then that is the only thing that can have happened."
"Might it not be argued that there is a greater chance that you are lying than that a spontaneous mental freeze-out took place?"
"Many do so argue. But I happen to know that I did not do it and that leaves only the spontaneous event as a possibility."
"And you have had me brought here to demonstrate--to prove--that the spontaneous event did, in fact, take place?"
"Yes."
"But how does one go about proving the spontaneous event? Only by proving it, it seems, can I save you, Earth, and myself."
"In order of increasing importance, Mr. Baley?"
Baley looked annoyed. "Well, then, you, me, and Earth."
"I'm afraid," said Fastolfe, "that after considerable thought, I have come to the conclusion that there is no way of obtaining such a proof."
(This is all from p. 83 of the Bantam edition (April 1994).)
What immediately struck me about this passage, which I read over the weekend was the parallel to the early modern discussion of miracles. The basic story is this: Elijah Baley has been called to the planet Aurora to solve a case of roboticide, in which the robot Jander was sent into a "mental freeze-out," i.e., was mentally shut down. Dr. Fastolfe's enemies, and in particular Dr. Amadiro, have whispered about that Dr. Fastolfe did it for political purposes. Dr. Fastolfe maintains his innocence and insists (everyone agrees) that only he, the most eminent living roboticist, would have the ability to shut down Jander intentionally, and that, since he knows he did not do it, it must have occurred spontaneously despite the enormous improbability of doing so. Baley eventually discovers another possibility. (I'll let you read the book to find out - it is, on re-reading, easily the best of Asimov's Elijah Baley novels.)
If we think in terms of miracles rather than spontaneous events, the parallel is this:
* Dr. Amadiro is David Hume, who argues that we can only believe (on testimony, at least) the occurrence of a miracle if it is more improbable that the person who is informing us of the miracle is deceived or dishonest than that the event itself occurred. This, you will notice from the passage above, is much like the campaign against Fastolfe.
* Some have argued that while no miracles occurred, since the standard causes have been eliminated, nothing but a spontaneous event can remain. (Fastolfe.)
* Both these positions agree on a lot of their assumptions. Others, however, like Lady Mary Shepherd, take the Baley solution to the problem of miracles and try to introduce a sort of causal reasoning other than that allowed by the first two into the consideration of the probabilities. Their conclusion: there can be a causal circumstance other than the standard ones that allows for the existence of a genuine miracle.
The parallel is only loose, and wouldn't exist at all, except that Hume puts so much emphasis on probability alone, and so has difficulty distinguishing miracles and spontaneous events in the first place (for which he is roundly criticized by Campbell and Shepherd).
How would one go about proving that a spontaneous event has occurred? This is, I think, a question that could only be answered if we had a clear idea of the 'metaphysical status' of spontaneity (i.e., when we talk about 'spontaneous events' what does this signify about the real world?). And this is a difficult problem. It bears some thought....
The Village
I went and saw M. Night Shyamalan's The Village this weekend. It was quite good, despite the rather bad reviews it has been given. Lots of the complaints in the reviews were rather unreasonable (Roger Ebert's is particularly silly, and far, far below his usual standard; he apparently thinks a bored tone counts as a critical review). For instance, it is true that much of the dialogue is a bit stilted. It is also clear, and becomes clear in the course of the movie, that this was intentional. It's a bit corny at times, but for the most part doesn't distract from it at all.
Shyamalan has become famous for 'twist' endings. This is a case, I think, of the critics getting a notion into their heads and being unable to part with it. What do we mean by a 'plot twist'? We can mean, for instance just about anything that changes the story in any way. Shyamalan's endings are 'twists' only in the sense that he likes to run a plot with several loose ends that get suddenly tied up in a scene or two. If you want to bring a movie to a good climax, that's what you do; this is why Shyamalan's movies tend to be unusually good: he is a master of building a movie so that, in retrospect, all the prior scenes build up to that scene or scenes. Some of it obviously was building that way, some of it was a bit unexpected; but it was all building to those scenes. This is not 'twist' but ordinary story-telling. Critics, however, have gotten it in their hands that Shyamalan must always have a 'twist' that spins their heads, never quite realizing that the best way to guarantee their heads will never spin is to keep looking for the twist that will spin them. If you constantly are expecting something unexpected, you are bound to be disappointed sometime. But Shyamalan's endings, although they can throw the unexpecting for a loop, are not less good even if one can tell how they will turn out. It is the height of critical stupidity to demand otherwise. But critics stupidly demand it.
The ending of The Village will surprise some; but it is very clear from the movie that any surprise is not the point of the movie. For one thing, the thing the critics keep thinking is the 'surprise' or 'twist' was clearly not the surprise at all - the real surprise is rather subtle. It is also very quietly placed into the movie - nothing has been done to draw attention to it that would distract from the real point of the story, in which hope overcomes fear. Terry Lawson of the Detroit Free press wrote a review in which he said, "All this craftsmanship and a very fine performance by Howard (daughter of director Ron), however, is in the service of a story that unlike Shyamalan's previous films contains no underlying themes or ideas (the loss of faith in "Signs"; the hero-needs-a-villain comic book mythology of "Unbreakable"; the ghostly grief of "The Sixth Sense") to support the scares." No underlying themes or ideas? Even an idiot can tell that the underlying theme of The Village is the overcoming of fear by hope. For people who keep insisting that the movie is too obvious, the critics have missed a lot of rather obvious things. Lou Lemenick at the New York Post Online makes exactly the same point about the scares, for a different reason: The message keeps getting in the way. What message? He makes up a weird political allegory which doesn't fit with the plot or characters at all.
Another prejudice that seems to be getting in the way of critical judgment: the critics were all disappointed that it wasn't as scary as they expected. My view on the matter: so what? Some people will be scared by part of the movie, others will not. It changes nothing. The scare, to the extent there is one, is just the lure; it is not the point of the movie.
This movie is not Shyamalan's strongest work. But it is a good one. It requires seeing past period costumes and unusual diction, and some people don't really feel like doing that in a cinemaplex. That's fine; it's perfectly reasonable. But there's excellent work here that people with a bit more patience should enjoy, if they don't get silly notions in their heads.
Shyamalan has become famous for 'twist' endings. This is a case, I think, of the critics getting a notion into their heads and being unable to part with it. What do we mean by a 'plot twist'? We can mean, for instance just about anything that changes the story in any way. Shyamalan's endings are 'twists' only in the sense that he likes to run a plot with several loose ends that get suddenly tied up in a scene or two. If you want to bring a movie to a good climax, that's what you do; this is why Shyamalan's movies tend to be unusually good: he is a master of building a movie so that, in retrospect, all the prior scenes build up to that scene or scenes. Some of it obviously was building that way, some of it was a bit unexpected; but it was all building to those scenes. This is not 'twist' but ordinary story-telling. Critics, however, have gotten it in their hands that Shyamalan must always have a 'twist' that spins their heads, never quite realizing that the best way to guarantee their heads will never spin is to keep looking for the twist that will spin them. If you constantly are expecting something unexpected, you are bound to be disappointed sometime. But Shyamalan's endings, although they can throw the unexpecting for a loop, are not less good even if one can tell how they will turn out. It is the height of critical stupidity to demand otherwise. But critics stupidly demand it.
The ending of The Village will surprise some; but it is very clear from the movie that any surprise is not the point of the movie. For one thing, the thing the critics keep thinking is the 'surprise' or 'twist' was clearly not the surprise at all - the real surprise is rather subtle. It is also very quietly placed into the movie - nothing has been done to draw attention to it that would distract from the real point of the story, in which hope overcomes fear. Terry Lawson of the Detroit Free press wrote a review in which he said, "All this craftsmanship and a very fine performance by Howard (daughter of director Ron), however, is in the service of a story that unlike Shyamalan's previous films contains no underlying themes or ideas (the loss of faith in "Signs"; the hero-needs-a-villain comic book mythology of "Unbreakable"; the ghostly grief of "The Sixth Sense") to support the scares." No underlying themes or ideas? Even an idiot can tell that the underlying theme of The Village is the overcoming of fear by hope. For people who keep insisting that the movie is too obvious, the critics have missed a lot of rather obvious things. Lou Lemenick at the New York Post Online makes exactly the same point about the scares, for a different reason: The message keeps getting in the way. What message? He makes up a weird political allegory which doesn't fit with the plot or characters at all.
Another prejudice that seems to be getting in the way of critical judgment: the critics were all disappointed that it wasn't as scary as they expected. My view on the matter: so what? Some people will be scared by part of the movie, others will not. It changes nothing. The scare, to the extent there is one, is just the lure; it is not the point of the movie.
This movie is not Shyamalan's strongest work. But it is a good one. It requires seeing past period costumes and unusual diction, and some people don't really feel like doing that in a cinemaplex. That's fine; it's perfectly reasonable. But there's excellent work here that people with a bit more patience should enjoy, if they don't get silly notions in their heads.
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