tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-39785329572948867982024-03-04T20:14:32.975-08:00Yet another person's thoughtsIt's a blog. I put my thoughts on it. You read them, and then possibly comment. Or something.Dervine7http://www.blogger.com/profile/12315172050231811971noreply@blogger.comBlogger48125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3978532957294886798.post-84941647758992606242013-05-22T12:46:00.001-07:002013-05-22T12:46:29.013-07:00Div III (Senior Thesis): Justifying Reason<div align="CENTER">
<span style="line-height: 200%;">Introduction</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
Far away there is a nation of people
with a peculiar way of deciding what to believe. In this nation
everyone carries around a pack of tarot cards, which children are
taught from a young age on how to read. When people in this nation
argue with each other, they consult their cards, and demonstrate the
truth of their positions by showing how the cards support them, for
the cards are the highest authority on such matters (even if
sometimes there are disagreements over whether one has actually read
the cards correctly). These people call this practice of consulting
the cards “tarotive logic.”</div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
One day, you encounter a person from
this nation. Without knowledge of their peculiar customs, you get
into a debate with them. (The topic does not matter.) Not noticing
their consultation of the cards (the people of this nation are so
adept at reading the cards that it often looks to outsiders like they
are idly shuffling decks, perhaps as a nervous habit), you become
increasingly perplexed by the arguments this person is making: they
are full of contradictions, non sequiters, and so on. And this person
is equally perplexed by the arguments you are making. <span style="font-style: normal;">Finally,
the two of you try to determine the source of this mutual confusion,
at which point you learn tarotive logic, and they</span><sup><span style="font-style: normal;"><a class="sdfootnoteanc" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3978532957294886798#sdfootnote1sym" name="sdfootnote1anc"><sup>1</sup></a></span></sup><span style="font-style: normal;">
learn of deductive logic. You remark on what a silly method reading
tarot cards is. Offended by your cultural insensitivity, the
tarot-reader retorts that it is </span><i>your</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
method that is bizarre: for example, why would anyone think that from
“if </span><i>p </i><span style="font-style: normal;">then </span><i>q</i><span style="font-style: normal;">”
and </span><i>p</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> you should be
able to infer </span><i>q</i><span style="font-style: normal;">?</span></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 200%;">
* * *</div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: small;">The question of how we
should go about accepting, modifying, or rejecting beliefs is of deep
importance. It is fundamental to philosophy, of course, both in that
there are areas of philosophy specifically concerned with it (some
areas in philosophy of science, metaethics, etc., and of course
epistemology) and in that the rest of philosophy is the systematic
examination of beliefs. It is of practical importance, for what we
believe determines how we act in the world and so, consequently, our
well-being – although many if not most people can go through their
entire life and attain success without ever thinking in any deep way
about how they reason (indeed they are likely to do better than the
philosopher). Where its practical importance really comes to the fore
is in the realm of politics, for what we believe affects our
relations with our fellows and our desires and actions on behalf of
the group and of humanity. And for many it is important on a personal
level, for such people have a deep desire to weed out error and
inconsistency in their beliefs, and if possible learn something true
about the world.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> Yet
one often finds disagreement on precisely this question of how to
determine what to believe. Fallacious lines of reasoning carry
powerful force, and are often viewed by many as being unproblematic.
On the flip side, what rational person hasn't experienced the
frustration of developing an airtight argument, only to have their
argumentative partner reject it? Or to point out the blatant
contradiction in someone's views, only to have that person simply not
care? We say “given that you believe this, you must believe this”
and they reply “why should I?” Psychological research has shown
that people, even highly educated people, consistently reason in
defective ways (Stich pp. 4-9): furthermore, their errors are
</span></span></span></span><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">systematic</span></i></span></span><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.</span></span></span></span><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
And often the fiercest disagreements exist because there is not a
clear agreement on how to reason, in cases as diverse as religion vs.
atheism, philosophy of mind, diverse systems of logic, and of course
the infamous “Science Wars”.</span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"> In
this essay I will explore the question of how we can justify norms of
reason. I will not be answering the question of what the norms of
reason </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>are </i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">or
</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>might be. </i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">I
want to ask the more general question of how we </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>could</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
justify certain norms of reason </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>whatever</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
they may be. Being two levels removed from the question of what we
should in fact believe, this will of course seem to be a rather
abstract discussion, but despite its abstraction it is important. For
even if we disagree in our beliefs, if we agree in the right way to
work out what to believe, we can resolve our disagreement. If,
however, we disagree in how to reason properly about the subject in
dispute we are stuck.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> It
is a long-standing tradition that the possibility of a civilized
society is predicated on rational argumentation. The rules of reason
are the one guide to adjudicate disputes, saving us from mere
rhetorical flourish, force of authority, or violence. The last two we
are particularly concerned with, for reason is what gives us
ammunition against bad authorities, whether they be people or our
entire, mistaken, community, and with reason, we can avoid coming to
blows. Winning an argument through rhetoric proves our verbal
ingenuity, through authority or violence our strength; it is only
through reason that we prove our </span></span></span></span><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">rightness</span></i></span></span><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.</span></span></span></span></div>
<h1 class="western" style="line-height: 200%; page-break-before: always;">
Definitions & Other Preliminaries</h1>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Before we begin, it is, as
always, useful to explain how I will use my terms, as much as I can. </span>
</div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: small;">By “reasoning” I mean
the cognitive activity of updating ones beliefs according to some
intendedly normative style or method that takes as its inputs
previously and currently held beliefs.</span><sup><span style="font-size: small;"><a class="sdfootnoteanc" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3978532957294886798#sdfootnote2sym" name="sdfootnote2anc"><sup>2</sup></a></span></sup><span style="font-size: small;">
While some may want to make a stronger claim that in order to be
“reasoning” the style or method </span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">must
</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>be</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"> normative,
for the purposes of this essay I want a weaker but broader concept
that makes it possible to ask the question of someone's “reasoning”:
“</span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Is</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"> it normative?”
My definition of reasoning includes the examples of “defective”
reasoning one find in psychological research (Stich pp. 4-9); indeed,
it is in line with the definition such research employs, although it
is in some respects broader, as it also includes such bizarre
practices as believing contradictions on Tuesdays (Goldman, p. 60)
and consulting tarot cards, which psychologists (at least those
studying reasoning, as opposed to delusions) are unlikely to show
much interest in.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: small;"> “Norms of reason” I
will use to signify those styles in or methods by which one </span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>ought</i></span><span style="font-size: small;">
to reason</span><sup><span style="font-size: small;"><a class="sdfootnoteanc" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3978532957294886798#sdfootnote3sym" name="sdfootnote3anc"><sup>3</sup></a>.</span></sup><span style="font-size: small;">
They constitute what it is to reason correctly. For the purposes of
this discussion one should not have in mind any particular reasoning
practice (such as logical reasoning) as defining what is normative.
After all, </span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>that</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
reasoning practice might be the very one that is in question and that
must be justified according the the criteria our investigation hopes
to discover.</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"> The reader must instead think
of the norms of reason in the abstract: the correct way of reasoning,
</span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>whatever it may be</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"> These
“norms of reason” are very similar to “J-Rules” as proposed
by A. Goldman, specifically intrapersonal “J-Rules”</span></span><sup><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><a class="sdfootnoteanc" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3978532957294886798#sdfootnote4sym" name="sdfootnote4anc"><sup>4</sup></a></span></span></sup><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">.
Goldman views justification as being a matter of having beliefs that
are permitted by right J-Rules. Goldman describes J-Rules as follows:</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<br />
</div>
<blockquote style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">J-Rules
would expressly permit [or prohibit] certain beliefs, or would
present </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>schemas</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
for belief permission [or prohibition]. For example, a rule might
permit belief in any proposition that has a certain </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>type</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
of relation to other propositions already believed. (p. 74)</span></span></blockquote>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">This
is so similar to my “norms of reason” that the reader may wonder
why I did not choose to simply use Goldman's terminology. The reason
is that I think “justification” </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>may</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
have a broader meaning than Goldman gives to it. I must think it has
a broader meaning, since if all it meant was “forming beliefs in
permitted by the right J-Rules” and “J-Rules” and “norms of
reason” are the same (which I do think they are) then my stated
project would be ask how one can justify the rules of justification,
which is a </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>clearly</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
circular enterprise (as opposed to the only </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>possibly</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
circular enterprise that is justifying norms of reason). This broader
conception of “justification” could include such things as
warrant, agreement, etc.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<a href="" name="_GoBack"></a><span style="font-size: small;"> “Reason”,
used in isolation as a noun, can mean one of two things: a belief
that grounds some process of reasoning, or as a shorthand term for
norms of reason and also that faculty by which we reason in
accordance with the norms. It is the second meaning that the reader
should usually assume when I use the term.</span></div>
<h1 class="western" style="line-height: 200%; page-break-before: always;">
The Justification of Reason Must Be Public</h1>
<h2 class="western" style="line-height: 200%;">
Introduction</h2>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
In this section I will give a sketch of
the argument that we must appeal to intersubjective agreement in
order to determine whether our reasoning practices are correct. That
is, in order for us to be justified in considering our reasoning
practices to be normative it is at least necessary that our peers
recognize them as such: the justification of our reasoning practices
must be public. The question will then be asked: do our peers
recognize certain reasoning practices as normative <i>because</i>
they are justified (according to some further criteria), or does our
peers' recognition of our reasoning practices as normative <i>exhaust</i>
their justification?</div>
<h2 class="western" style="line-height: 200%;">
The Argument</h2>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
Despite the enormity of the conclusions
I will draw from it, the argument that the justification of ones
reasoning practices must be public is in part making a thoroughly
common-sense point; namely, that we can make errors in our reasoning,
and that in order to catch those errors we present our reasoning to
others for criticism. If we are prudent we seek the opinions of a
fairly large number of people (or a small number of people who are
themselves widely trusted), and it's only if they agree that we have
not made an error that we can be justifiably (as opposed to blindly)
confident that we've gotten things right. Of course, there are
various addenda that can be made; for example, it's generally
considered justifiable for us to be confident in our reasoning, even
without checking in with others, if we've already demonstrated skill
in reasoning correctly. But, of course, it's to others that we must
demonstrate this skill. If we consistently can't demonstrate the
correctness of our reasonings to others we become nervous; as Richard
Rorty says (in respect to beliefs):</div>
<blockquote style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
We need the respect of our peers because we cannot trust our own
beliefs, nor maintain our self-respect, unless we are fairly sure
that our conversational interlocutors agree among themselves on such
propositions as “He's not crazy,” “He's one of us,” “He may
have strange beliefs on certain topics, but he's basically sound,”
and so on. (“Universalism and Truth”, p. 15)</blockquote>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
To put this all in another way and more
succinctly: crazy people are as (if not more) certain that they're
reasoning correctly as anyone. How then do we know that we aren't
crazy? Because we've talked to other people (and we try to talk to a
lot of them, so that we don't just end up talking to people as crazy
as we might be) and they don't think we're crazy!<sup><a class="sdfootnoteanc" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3978532957294886798#sdfootnote5sym" name="sdfootnote5anc"><sup>5</sup></a></sup></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
Or, to shift the emphasis somewhat and
put the point <i>even more</i> succinctly: if everyone (or most
people) think you're wrong, you should probably reconsider your
position. </div>
<h2 class="western" style="line-height: 200%;">
The Dilemma</h2>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">So
does the fact that we must justify our reasoning practices publicly
mean that what justifies them </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>just is</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
agreement? </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Does</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
the fact that in order to resolve doubts about the correctness of our
reasoning practices we must appeal to others mean that the norms of
reason are only those reasoning practices that are agreed upon –
and that their being agreed upon exhausts their justification? For it
may only be that we hope others will be better able to notice our
errors – errors that are </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>objectively</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
errors. That is, there </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>is</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
some agreement independent standard for correct reasoning, but we
simply cannot trust ourselves to independently recognize when we are
or are not in accord with it, and so we appeal to the community, in
the belief (hope?) that the perspective of others is likely to
counteract our own errors. And </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>does</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
the fact that to reason correctly is to reason in the way we have
learned mean that to reason correctly just is to reason in the way we
have learned – the way, once again, that is agreed on? After all,
one must learn to do all sorts of things correctly, such as operating
a piece of machinery. Yet certainly the correct way to operate a
piece of machinery is not something that is merely </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>agreed</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
upon: if one gets it wrong, the machine will not work (and someone
may lose some important limb)!</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"> What
we have here really is an example of a Euthyphro-type dilemma. Are
certain reasoning practices normative because our community endorses
them, or does our community endorse them because they are normative?
If our community endorses them because they are normative then there
should be some further justification for them. It is the search for
such a justification that will occupy the next section, up until we
do consider the view that consensus is </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>all
there is</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">.</span></span></div>
<h1 class="western" style="line-height: 200%; page-break-before: always;">
Proposals</h1>
<h2 class="western" style="line-height: 200%;">
Introduction</h2>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
As stated in “Definitions” my norms
of reason are very similar to Goldman's J-Rules. This is useful at
this moment because Goldman provides a list of possible criteria for
the correctness of J-Rules, which helps us get a lay of the land for
possible justifications of the norms of reason. Goldman's list
(adapted for the norms of reason) is as follows:</div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<br />
</div>
<blockquote style="line-height: 200%;">
(C1) The norms of reason are a
system of rules derivable from logic (and probability theory).</blockquote>
<blockquote style="line-height: 200%;">
(C1*) The norms of reason are a
system of rules that would be chosen by someone who believes all
truths about logic (and probability theory), but is ignorant of all
contingent facts.</blockquote>
<blockquote style="line-height: 200%;">
(C2) The norms of reason are
those accepted by players of one's language game.</blockquote>
<blockquote style="line-height: 200%;">
(C2*) The norms of reason are
those accepted by members of one's disciplinary matrix (ala Kuhn)</blockquote>
<blockquote style="line-height: 200%;">
(C2**) The norms of reason are
those accepted by one's peers.</blockquote>
<blockquote style="line-height: 200%;">
(C3) Conformity with the norms
of reason would guarantee a coherent set of beliefs.</blockquote>
<blockquote style="line-height: 200%;">
(C4) The norms of reason permit
doxastic attitudes proportional to the strength of one's evidence.</blockquote>
<blockquote style="line-height: 200%;">
(C5) Conformity with the norms
of reason would maximize the total number of true beliefs a cognizer
would obtain. (p. 66)</blockquote>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
This is a nice list, but let us make it
nicer. First, (C1) and (C1*). While these options make sense in
regards to justification, they are circular for the norms of reason:
logic and probability theory, insofar as they are meaningful, are
reasoning practices. However, <span style="font-style: normal;">this
suggests the option that the norms of reason are </span><i>self-evidently</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
correct. There are two ways that “self-evidence” can be meant.
One is that the norms of reason are </span><i>given</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
(perhaps by God or the order of nature), and we have some sort of
access to them: they can be </span><i>seen</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
to be correct (although maybe not by everybody). The second is that
the norms of reason are analytically correct, that is, are correct in
virtue of the </span><i>meaning</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
of certain terms, such as the logical operators and the term “reason”
itself. I will call these two families of justifications
“Intuitionist” and “Analytic”.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
(C2), (C2*), and (C2**) all say roughly
the same thing (hence Goldman calls them all “C2”), which is that
the norms of reason are those accepted according to the standards of
some community. I will call this family of justifications “Cultural”.</div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">(C3)
begs the question: coherent by what standards? Presumably, by the
standards of some norms of reason: that is, the beliefs are coherent
because they follow from (or at least do not contradict) each other
according to some rules about how one is allowed to get from one
belief to another. Either these norms of reason are external to the
cognizer, in which case they need some other justification, or they
are internal to the cognizer, in which case </span><i>anyone's</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
reasoning practices could be justified, since they lead to coherence
according to their own standards. I do not want to forget the notion
of coherence though, as it will play an important role in the
discussion of analytic justifications.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
(C4) again begs the question:
proportioned to the evidence according to what standard? Why, some
norm of reason. (I also do not see how this option is different from
the “probability theory” referenced in (C1).)</div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
(C5) Is reliabilism, which is a variety
of what I (and Goldman) call “Consequentialism”. The other
variety (which is curiously absent from Goldman's list, although he
does discuss it elsewhere) is pragmatism. So I group reliabilist and
pragmatic justifications in the “Consequentialist” family.</div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">Finally,
there are justifications that appeal to the notion of “Reflective
Equilibrium”. Stich spends much time on these types of
justifications. In reflective equilibrium, our reasoning practices
are justified by being the outcome of balancing our intuitions and
the rules that follow from them. From N. Goodman's </span><i>Fact,
Fiction, and Forecast</i><span style="font-style: normal;">:</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<br />
</div>
<blockquote style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">...rules
and particular inferences alike are justified by being brought into
agreement with each other.</span><i> A rule is amended if it yields
and inference we are unwilling to accept; an inference is rejective
if it violates a rule we are unwilling to amend.</i><span style="font-style: normal;">The
process of justification [of the norms of reason</span><sup><span style="font-style: normal;"><a class="sdfootnoteanc" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3978532957294886798#sdfootnote6sym" name="sdfootnote6anc"><sup>6</sup></a></span></sup><span style="font-style: normal;">]
is the delicate one of making mutual adjustments between rules and
accepted inferences; and in the agreement achieved lies the only
justification needed for either. (p. 66)</span></blockquote>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">This is
different from intuitionist justifications in that, in intuitionist
justifications, the norms of reason are </span><i>given</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
to us by intuition: in reflective equilibrium, they are the outcome
of this process of balancing.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
Potential ultimate justifications of
the norms of reason, then, can be divided into five major categories:</div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<br />
</div>
<ol>
<li><div style="line-height: 200%;">
Analytic: the norms of reason are
what they are by virtue of definitions/meaning.</div>
</li>
<li><div style="line-height: 200%;">
Intuitionist: the norms of reason
can be “seen” to be correct (they are self-evident or Platonic).</div>
</li>
<li><div style="line-height: 200%;">
Reflective Equilibrium: the norms
of reason are the result of achieving a balance between our
intuitions and posited rules.</div>
</li>
<li><div style="line-height: 200%;">
Consequentialist: the norms of
reason are those reasoning practices that tend to produce beliefs
with some sort of valuable quality (truth, pragmatic utility, etc.).</div>
</li>
<li><div style="line-height: 200%;">
Cultural: the norms of reason are
those norms accepted/endorsed/declared by some community.</div>
</li>
</ol>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
In this essay I will focus on three of
these options: Analytic, Consequentialist, and Cultural. While I do
this primarily for interest of space, I also think these are the
three most viable options. While the intuitionist option is often
appealed to in interactions (“Of <i>course</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
it's correct, just </span><i>look</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
at it!”), and is endorsed by some of history's most venerable
philosophers, I think it is plain to see</span><sup><span style="font-style: normal;"><a class="sdfootnoteanc" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3978532957294886798#sdfootnote7sym" name="sdfootnote7anc"><sup>7</sup></a></span></sup><span style="font-style: normal;">
that it will not resolve any disagreements. Reflective equilibrium
(which I </span><i>do</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> think
plays some role in justification, just not any </span><i>ultimate</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
one) faces similar issues, and also shares many of the problems that
analytic justifications will be shown to have. The greatest
difficulty that it faces is that there is no guarantee that
intuitions and rules will balance in the same way for different
people.</span><sup><span style="font-style: normal;"><a class="sdfootnoteanc" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3978532957294886798#sdfootnote8sym" name="sdfootnote8anc"><sup>8</sup></a></span></sup></div>
<h2 class="western" style="line-height: 200%; page-break-before: always;">
Analytic Justifications</h2>
<h3 class="western" style="line-height: 200%;">
Introduction</h3>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
Analytic justifications of the norms of
reason are those that take the norms to be justified by the meaning
of various terms. The terms in question can range from reasoning
terms (“and”, “or”, “if-then”, “implies”, etc.) to
terms such as “justification” and “reason” themselves. I
shall deal first with the analyticity of the norms as a system, that
is, the idea that the norms of reason <i>define</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
what it is to reason correctly. Then I shall move on to the
analyticity of rules of inferences, that is, the view the inferences
the norms of reason allow are allowed because the are correct by
virtue of the terms used. This discussion will not remain pure:
considerations of </span><i>systems</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
will inevitably sneak back in. Finally I will make some passing
remarks on issues of interpretation of alternative reasoning
practices. In all of this discussion the focus will be on inductive
and deductive logic, both because these provide the clearest examples
of how analytic justifications are supposed to work and because they
are the foundation of reasoning in general.</span></div>
<h3 class="western" style="line-height: 200%;">
The Analyticity of the
Norms as a System</h3>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
The general sentiment behind analytic
justifications is expressed nicely in P. F. Strawson's <i>Introduction
to Logical Theory</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, in regards to
inductive and deductive procedures:</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<br />
</div>
<blockquote style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">There
is...a residual philosophical question which enters so largely into
discussion of the subject that it must be discussed...What reason
have we to place reliance on inductive procedures?...If someone asked
what grounds there were for supposing that deductive reasoning was
valid, we might answer that there were in fact no grounds for
supposing that deductive reasoning was always valid; sometimes people
made valid inferences, and sometimes they were guilty of logical
fallacies. If he [sic] said that we had misunderstood his question,
and that what he wanted to know was what grounds there were for
regarding deduction </span><i>in general</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
as a valid method of argument, we should have to answer that his
question was without sense, for to say that an argument, or a form or
method of argument, was valid or invalid would </span><i>imply</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
that it was deductive; the concepts of validity and invalidity had
application only to individual deductive arguments or forms of
deductive argument. Similarly, if a man asked what grounds there were
for thinking it reasonable to hold beliefs arrived at inductively,
one might at first answer that there were good and bad inductive
arguments, that sometimes it was reasonable to hold a belief arrived
at inductively and sometimes it was not. If he, too, said his
question had been misunderstood, that he wanted to know whether
induction in general was a reasonable method of inference, then we
might well think his question senseless in the same way as the
question whether deduction is in general valid; for to call a
particular belief reasonable or unreasonable is to apply inductive
standards, just as to call a particular argument valid or invalid is
to apply deductive standards...(pp. 248-249)</span></blockquote>
<blockquote style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">Let us...show that the demand for a
justification [of induction] is mistaken...Sometimes it is expressed
in the form of a request for proof that induction is a </span><i>reasonable</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
or </span><i>rational</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> procedure,
that we had </span><i>good grounds</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
for placing reliance upon it. Consider the uses of the phrases 'good
grounds', 'justification', 'reasonable', &c. Often we say such
things as 'He has </span><i>every justification</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
for believing that </span><i>p</i><span style="font-style: normal;">';
'I have </span><i>very good reasons </i><span style="font-style: normal;">for
believing it'; 'There are </span><i>good grounds</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
for the view that </span><i>q</i><span style="font-style: normal;">';
'There is </span><i>good evidence</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
that </span><i>r</i><span style="font-style: normal;">'. We often
talk, in such ways as these, of justification, good grounds or
reasons or evidence for certain beliefs. Suppose such a belief such a
belief were one expressible in the form 'Every case of </span><i>f</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
is a case of g'; I think it would be felt to be a satisfactory answer
if he replied: 'Well, in all my wide and varied experience I've come
across innumerable cases of </span><i>f</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
and never a case of </span><i>f</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
which wasn't a case of </span><i>g</i><span style="font-style: normal;">.'
In saying this, he is clearly claiming to have </span><i> inductive</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
support, </span><i>inductive</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
evidence, of a certain kind, for his belief, and he is also giving a
perfectly proper answer to the question, what he meant by saying that
he had ample justification, good grounds, good reasons for his
belief. It is a </span><i>analytic</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
[my emphasis] proposition that it is reasonable to have a degree of
belief in a statement which is proportional to the strength of the
evidence in its favour; and it is an analytic
proposition...that...the evidence for a generalization is strong in
proportion as the number of favourable instances, and the variety of
circumstances in which they have been found, is great. So to ask
whether it is reasonable to place reliance on inductive procedures is
like asking whether it is reasonable to proportion the degree of
one's convictions to the strength of the evidence. Doing this is what
'being reasonable' </span><i>means</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
in such a context.</span></blockquote>
<blockquote style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"> As for the other form in which the
doubt may be expressed, viz., 'Is induction a justified, or
justifiable, procedure?', it emerges in a still less favourable
light. No sense has been given to it, though it is easy to see why it
seems to have a sense. For it is generally proper to inquire </span><i>of
a particular belief</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, whether its
adoption is justified; and, in asking this, we are asking whether
there is good, bad, or any, evidence for it. In applying or
withholding the epithets 'justified', 'well founded', &c., in the
case of specific beliefs, we are appealing to, and applying,
inductive standards. But to what standards are we appealing when we
ask whether the application of inductive standards is justified or
well grounded? If we cannot answer, then no sense has been given to
the question. Compare it with the question: Is the law legal? It
makes perfectly good sense to inquire of a particular action, of an
administrative regulation, or even, in the case of some states, of a
particular enactment of the legislature, whether or not it is legal.
The question is answered by an appeal to a legal system, by the
application of a set of legal...rules or standards. But it makes no
sense to inquire in general whether the law of the land, the legal
system as a whole, is or is not legal. (pp. 256-257)</span></blockquote>
<blockquote style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<br />
</blockquote>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">Strawson's
comments about the legality of the law help us make the essential
distinction between intuitionist (the norms of reason are “given”)
and analytic justifications (even if that is not his main intention).
The statement “the law is legal because it defines </span><i>what
it means</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> for something to be
legal” says nothing about whether the law is </span><i>given</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
to us, saw by God or the natural order. Similarly to say that “the
norms of reason are justified because they define </span><i>what it
means</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> for anything to be
justified” says nothing about whether those norms are </span><i>given</i><span style="font-style: normal;">:
indeed, it is not only irrelevant </span><i>why</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
the norms are what they are – the question of why they are what
they are is </span><i>meaningless</i><span style="font-style: normal;">,
insofar as that question seeks a </span><i>reason</i><span style="font-style: normal;">.
The analogy of the legality of the law is also interesting because of
a more direct connection with the question of the analyticity of the
norms of reason. While it is meaningless to ask whether the law is
legal, it </span><i>is</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
meaningful to ask whether it is </span><i>right</i><span style="font-style: normal;">.
This question will appeal to higher standards than legality: moral
rightness, etc. The rightness of </span><i>these</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
standards can then be defended by appealing to </span><i>still higher</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
standards, and so on and so forth. But when we reach the question of
the rightness of standards of </span><i>reason </i><span style="font-style: normal;">there
are no higher standards to appeal to (as the higher standards we
might hope to appeal to would be appealed to as </span><i>reasons</i><span style="font-style: normal;">),
and all we can hope for is a loop, according to the analytic defense.
As H. Feigl says: “Many analytic philosophers...consider the quest
for a justification of induction as a pseudo problem because, in
their view, this quest comes down to asking 'is it reasonable to be
reasonable?” (1961, p. 212)</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"> Another
way to describe the point of analytic justifications is that they
claim that “one should believe in accordance with the norms of
reason because it is the reasonable thing to do” is, while
circular, not </span><i>viciously</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
so. As H. Siegel says (describing the position of Rescher):</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<br />
</div>
<blockquote style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">[A]
rational defense of rationality is not question begging or viciously
circular; it merely acknowledges, as any serious questioner must,
that seriously asking 'Why be rational?' presupposed a commitment to
rationality, i.e. to deciding the question on the basis of the best
available reasons. Thus the presumption of rationality...does not beg
the question against the sceptic, but rather presupposes that which
the sceptic, and indeed </span><i>any </i><span style="font-style: normal;">
serious inquiry into the question 'Why be rational?', must
presuppose: that the question must be settled on the basis of reasons
if it is to be properly settled, and therefore that all parties to
the debate must presume the potential force of reasons. (p. 28)</span></blockquote>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">To
some extent, I think this analytic defense of the norms of reason is
right, but it only takes us so far. The issue is that analyticity, in
this broad sense, does not discriminate between reasoning practices.
The tarot-readers from the introduction should be quite happy with
the Siegel/Rescher argument exactly as it stands. “Yes,” one can
imagine such a person saying, “the question whether one should be
rational 'must be settled on the basis of reasons and therefore all
parties to the debate must presume the potential force of reasons',
exactly as Siegel says. So, you see, if one is going to have any sort
of debate about what the norms of reason are at all one must accept
that reading tarot cards works!” One could also imagine these
people formulating an argument in support of tarot cards similar to
Strawson's argument in support of induction, although this flight of
fancy is more difficult. For example, are we to allow the
tarot-readers to say “that an argument, or a form or method of
argument, is valid or invalid </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>implies</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
that it is tarotive; the concepts of validity and invalidity have
application only to individual tarotive arguments or to 'forms'</span></span><sup><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><a class="sdfootnoteanc" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3978532957294886798#sdfootnote9sym" name="sdfootnote9anc"><sup>9</sup></a></span></span></sup><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
of tarotive arguments”?</span></span><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
</span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">We
might very well not, instead telling the tarot-card readers that they
have misunderstood the meaning of “valid”: for an argument to be
valid </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>just is</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
for it to have the right deductive form. But it it easy to see how
this could be turned around: the tarot-readers simply reply that, in
fact, </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>we</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
are the ones who misunderstand the meaning of “valid”!</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;"> At
this point we would probably go back and forth a bit, haggling over
the correct meaning of “valid”, until someone pointed out that
what was at issue is that our two communities have different
definitions of “valid”. In fact, the source of the disagreement
is that the same word is being used to mean two different things: we
are using it to mean “having the right deductive form” while they
are using it to mean “having the right tarotive form.” All that
needs to be done is to come up with two different words, so that it
is clear that there is no disagreement. “Vali</span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>d</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">”
we will keep for deductive correctness: tarotive correctness will be
given the name “vali</span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>t</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">”.
But while this does expose our disagreement as merely verbal, it also
exposes the deeper disagreement that is </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>not</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
verbal: why should we prefer valid arguments of valit ones? One
answer may be that valid arguments are truth preserving, while valit
arguments are not (one could imagine that in tarotive logic the true
statement “The cards say </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>p</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">”
implies </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>p</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">,
but </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>p</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
is false). But this merely shows a lack of imagination on our part:
perhaps the tarot-readers have a conception of truth (or “truth”)
that</span></span><span style="color: black;"><i> does</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
make tarotive arguments truth-preserving. Perhaps, for example,
“truth” is whatever the cards say. (One thinks of religious
fundamentalists who take “truth” to be “whatever my holy text
says”, and can therefore refuse to acknowledge “facts” that
contradict the holy text.) What we find is that the answer as to
whether we should prefer vailidity or valitity depends on whether we
want to be classical logicians or tarot-card readers: and any further
attempts at justifying </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>this</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
choice can no longer be analytic, but will instead be reliabilist,
pragmatic, etc.</span></span></div>
<h3 class="western" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 200%;">
The
Analyticity of Inferences</h3>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">We have
covered the view that the norms of reason are analytic because as a
system they define what “reason” is. Now let us look at the
possibility that it is the </span><i>rules of inference allowed</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
by the norms that are analytic, correct by virtue of the meaning of
the terms used. For simplicity, I will consider the analytic validity
of of deductive inferences employing logical connectives: if analytic
justifications fail </span><i>here</i><span style="font-style: normal;">,
it is hard, if not impossible, to see where else they could succeed.</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; line-height: 200%;">
Let us begin with
A. N. Prior's wonderful paper “ Runabout Inference-Ticket”:</div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<br />
</div>
<blockquote style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">It
is sometimes alleged that there are inferences whose validity arises
</span>solely from the meanings of certain expressions occurring in
them. The precise technicalities employed are not important, but let
us say that such inferences,if any such there be, are analytically
valid. One sort of inference which is sometimes said to be in this
sense analytically valid is the passage from a conjunction to either
of its conjuncts, e.g., the inference 'Grass is green and the sky is
blue, therefore grass is green'. The validity of this inference is
said to arise solely from the meaning of the word 'and'. For if we
are asked what is the meaning of the word 'and'...the answer is said
to be completely given by saying that (i) from any pair of statements
P and Q we can infer the statement formed by joining P to Q by 'and'
(which statement we hereafter describe as 'the statementP-and-Q'),
that (ii) from any conjunctives tatement P-and-Q we can infer P, and
(iii) from P-and-Q we can always infer Q. Anyone who has learnt to
perform these inferences knows the meaning of 'and', for there is
simply nothing more to knowing the meaning of 'and' than being able
to perform these inferences.</blockquote>
<blockquote style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
A doubt
might be raised as to whether it is really the case that, for any
pair of statements P and Q, there is always a statement R such that
given P and given Q we can infer R, and given R we can inferP and can
also inferQ. But on the view we are considering such a doubt is
quite misplaced, once we have introduced a word, say the word 'and ',
precisely in order to form a statement R with these properties from
any pair of statements P and Q. The doubt reflects the old
superstitious view that an expression must have some independently
determined meaning before we can discover whether inferences
involving it are valid or invalid. With analytically valid inferences
this just isn't so. (p. 38)</blockquote>
<blockquote style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</blockquote>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
So far so good. The meaning of “and”
is defined by the inferences it allows, and this is true of the
logical connectives in general: therefore, what it is reason
correctly just is to make those inferences that define the the terms.
The question “why, from P and Q, should I infer Q?” is silly in
exactly the way that “why are all bachelors unmarried men?” is
silly.</div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: small;"> But problems arise:</span></div>
<blockquote style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
I want now
to draw attention to a point not generally noticed, namely that in
this sense of 'analytically valid' any statement whatever may be
inferred, in an analytically valid way, from any other. '2 and 2 are
5', for instance, from '2 and 2 are 4'. It is done in two steps,
thus:
</blockquote>
<blockquote style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1in; margin-right: 0.93in; text-align: justify;">
2 and 2 are4.
</blockquote>
<blockquote style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1in; margin-right: 0.93in; text-align: justify;">
Therefore, 2 and 2 are 4 tonk 2 and 2 are 5.
</blockquote>
<blockquote style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1in; margin-right: 0.93in; text-align: justify;">
Therefore, 2 and 2 are 5.
</blockquote>
<blockquote style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1in; margin-right: 0.93in; text-align: justify;">
<br />
</blockquote>
<blockquote style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
There may
well be readers who have not previously encountered this conjunction
'tonk', it being a comparatively recent addition to the language; but
it is the simplest matter in the world to explain what it means. Its
meaning is completely given by the rules that (i) from any statement
P we can infer any statement formed by joining P to any statement Q
by 'tonk' (which compound statement we hereafter describe as 'the
statementP-tonk-Q'), and that (ii) from any 'contonktive' statement
P-tonk-Q we can infer the contained statement Q. <span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">A
doubt might be raised as to whether it is really the case that, for
any pair of statements P and Q, there is always a statement R such
that given P we can infer R, and given R we can infer Q. But this
doubt is of course quite misplaced, now that we have introduced the
word 'tonk' precisely in order to form a statement R with these
properties from any pair of statements P and Q. (pp. 38-39)</span></span></blockquote>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">As
Prior notes, “tonk” is quite useful, for in allowing us to infer
any statement from any other, it “promises to banish </span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>falsch</i></span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">
Spitzfindigkeit</span></i></span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
from Logic for ever [sic].” (p. 39)</span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i> </i></span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Of
course, Prior's paper is a lovely demonstration of philosophical
s</span></span></span><span style="font-style: normal;">arcasm, and we
certainly </span><i>do not</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> want
to be able to infer any statement from any other. But on the face of
it there is nothing wrong with the definition of “tonk”: it is
defined, after all, in exactly the same sort of way as “and”. And
so we can imagine, on telling someone that they have made an
incorrect inference, them replying “not at all. I'm simply a fan of
the 'tonk' connective, and so I can infer whatever I want.”</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"> Although
Prior states his point as being about analytic definitions of the
meaning of logical terms his target can be more accurately described
as </span><i>syntactic</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
definitions of logical terms. As such, there are two possible
responses to Prior. One is to attempt to find syntactic
considerations that would exclude “tonk”. The other is to defend
a </span><i>semantic</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> notion of
the logical connectives, that is, the notion that they are defined by
their truth tables, and the inferences that follow from them follow
because of the truth tables. </span>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; line-height: 200%;">
The syntactic move
is endorsed by Belnap. It goes as follows:</div>
<blockquote style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">It
seems to me that the key to a solution lies in observing that even on
the syhnthetic view, we are not definiting our connective </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>ab
intitio</i></span></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">,</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>
</i></span></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">but
rather in terms of an </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>antecedently</i></span></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
given context of deducibility, concerning which we have some definite
notions. By that I mean that before arriving at the the problem of
characterizing connectives, we have already made some assumptions
about the nature of deducibility. That this is so can be seen
immediately by observing Prior's use of the transitivity of
deducibility in order to secure his ingenious result.But if we not
that we already </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>have</i></span></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
some assumptions about the context of deducibility within which we
are operating, it becomes apparent that by a too careless use of
definitions, it is possible to create a situation in which we are
forced to say things inconsistent with those assumptions. (p. 131)</span></span></span></blockquote>
<div style="font-style: normal; line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: small;">But
as Belnap himself says, this only works if we assume a certain
context of deducibility, certain basic presumptions about how it
operates. As Haack points out systems that employ odd connectives (in
her case a peculiar sort of material conditional) “can hardly be
assumed to be otherwise conventional.” (p. 117)</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"> The
semantic move is the one endorsed by Stevenson.</span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
One can see that this would exclude “tonk” since “tonk” </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>has
</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">no
truth table that would allow one to make semantically valid
inferences: “P-tonk-Q” is true whenever “P” is true, but has
no truth value when “P” is false (and I mean </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>no</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
truth value: it is not “true and false”, “neither true or
false”, or even “uncertain”, unless it is one of these by
stipulation). Semantic definitions also have the advantage of showing
why deductively valid arguments are truth-preserving: </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>of
course</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
</span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>p</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
is going to be true whenever “</span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>p
</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">and</span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>
q</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">”
is true, because “</span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>x</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
and </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>y</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">”
is defined as being true only when </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>x</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
and </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>y</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
have the same truth value and that truth value is “true”. This is
an analytic justification </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>par
excellence. </i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">And
it would be incapable of resolving disputes over what the correct way
to reason is. One can imagine someone saying the following:
“certainly, </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>if</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
you define 'and' the way you have, then the argument '</span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>p</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
and </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>q</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
implies </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>p</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">'
is truth preserving. But I am suspicious of your definition of 'and':
can you please demonstrate to me that '</span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>p</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
and </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>q</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">'
is </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>in fact</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
(by 'in fact' I mean 'independent of your definitions') true whenever
</span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>p</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
is true and </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>q</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
is true?” Of course, this request is silly: there </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>is</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
no “fact of the matter”, independent of our definition, as to
whether “</span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>p</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
and </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>q</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">”
is true whenever </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>p</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
is true and </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>q</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
is true. But this means that if someone disagreed with our definition
there would be nothing we could appeal to to defend it. The case is
analogous to the dispute between the deductive and tarotive reasoners
in regards to “valid/t”.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; line-height: 200%;">
This can be hard to
see in the case of “and”, which seems to have a pretty clear-cut
truth table. Let us then turn to a more tangible disagreement: the
dispute over the meaning of the conditional, that is, “if-then”
statements. Conditionals are at the core of deductive logic, as any
logical inference can be translated into a conditional, where the
inference is valid iff the conditional is tautological: for example,
the inference</div>
<blockquote style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<i>p</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> and q</span></blockquote>
<blockquote style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">therefore </span><i>q</i></blockquote>
<div style="font-style: normal; line-height: 200%;">
which is valid, can
be translated as</div>
<blockquote style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">if
(</span><i>p</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> and </span><i>q</i><span style="font-style: normal;">)
then </span><i>q</i></blockquote>
<div style="font-style: normal; line-height: 200%;">
which is
tautological, and the inference</div>
<blockquote style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>p </i><span style="font-style: normal;">or
</span><i>q</i></blockquote>
<blockquote style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>q</i></blockquote>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
which is invalid, can be translated as</div>
<blockquote style="line-height: 200%;">
if (<i>p </i><span style="font-style: normal;">or
</span><i>q</i><span style="font-style: normal;">) then </span><i>q</i></blockquote>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">which
is not tautological. Yet there is disagreement over what “if-then”
means (Priest, p. 12). In classical logic “if </span><i>p</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
then</span><i> q</i><span style="font-style: normal;">” is
interpreted as “not-</span><i>p</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
or </span><i>q</i><span style="font-style: normal;">”. This means
that “if </span><i>p</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> then </span><i>q</i><span style="font-style: normal;">”
is true in all cases except where </span><i>p</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
is true and </span><i>q</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> is
false. At first glance this seems to capture what “if-then”
means. Yet it may strike some as odd that “if </span><i>p</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
then </span><i>q</i><span style="font-style: normal;">” is true if
it </span><i>just happens</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> to be
the case that, say, both </span><i>p </i><span style="font-style: normal;">and
</span><i>q</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> are true, and even
odder still that it is true if </span><i>p</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
and</span><i> q</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> are both false.
These facts lead to such seemingly strange truths as “If snow is
white then 1+1=2” and “If unicorns exist then dragons also
exist.”</span><sup><span style="font-style: normal;"><a class="sdfootnoteanc" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3978532957294886798#sdfootnote10sym" name="sdfootnote10anc"><sup>10</sup></a></span></sup><span style="font-style: normal;">
There are various responses to these “paradoxes of implication”,
making reference to conversational norms, etc. One can also make
distinctions between material conditionals and
subjunctive/counterfactual conditionals, and point out that in these
examples that distinction is being ignored (for example, when we say
“If unicorns exist then dragons also exist” we actually mean “If
unicorns</span><i> did</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> exist
then dragons </span><i>would</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
also exist”) - although we then run into the problem that we cannot
figure out the logic of subjunctive and counterfactual conditionals.</span><sup><span style="font-style: normal;"><a class="sdfootnoteanc" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3978532957294886798#sdfootnote11sym" name="sdfootnote11anc"><sup>11</sup></a></span></sup><span style="font-style: normal;">
But what justified making this distinction, beyond </span><i>ad hoc</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
considerations of wanting to preserve “not-</span><i>p</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
or </span><i>q</i><span style="font-style: normal;">” as the correct
analysis of “if </span><i>p</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
then </span><i>q</i><span style="font-style: normal;">”?
Furthermore, there are other examples which are more troublesome, for
example, “if (</span><i>p</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> and
</span><i>q</i><span style="font-style: normal;">) then </span><i>r</i><span style="font-style: normal;">”
implies that “(if </span><i>p</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
then </span><i>r</i><span style="font-style: normal;">) or (if </span><i>q</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
then </span><i>r</i><span style="font-style: normal;">)”. This means
that the following inference (from Priest) should be valid:</span></div>
<blockquote style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">If
you close switch </span><i>x</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> and
switch </span><i>y</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> the light
will go on. Hence, it is the case either that if you close switch </span><i>x</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
the light will go on,</span><i> </i><span style="font-style: normal;">or
that if you close switch </span><i>y</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
the light will go on. (p. 14)</span></blockquote>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">As
stated in English this argument seems blatantly </span><i>invalid</i><span style="font-style: normal;">,
as there is a situation in which the premise would be true and the
conclusion false: the light </span><i>only</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
turns on when you close both switches.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"> These
concerns, along with concerns about contradictions, vague truth
values, and so on, have led to the proliferation of “alternative”
logics (as described in Priest). I will not describe this work, and
the arguments for and against classical logic, in detail: the point
is that the work, and the dispute, exists. There is </span><i>disagreement</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
over the way that logic </span><i>should</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
operate.</span><sup><span style="font-style: normal;"><a class="sdfootnoteanc" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3978532957294886798#sdfootnote12sym" name="sdfootnote12anc"><sup>12</sup></a></span></sup><span style="font-style: normal;">
Furthermore, these alternative logics are internally consistent. As
such, analytic considerations cannot choose between them. Something
else must be doing the work: reliability, pragmatic considerations,
consensus, etc.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"> However,
it is important to note that the analytic defense of one's norms of
reason is not exactly </span><i>wrong</i><span style="font-style: normal;">.
There </span><i>is</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> an important
sense in which my reasoning practices are analytic, for the reasons
given by those such as Strawson and Siegel and for another reason
given below. </span>
</div>
<h3 class="western" style="line-height: 200%;">
A Remark on
Interpretation<span style="font-style: normal;">: Are Different
Reasoning Practices Actually Different?</span></h3>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">Let us
reconsider the cases where we and the tarot-readers disagree about
the meaning of “valid”, or where someone understands “if-then”
in a peculiar way. In such situations is it actually the case the the
other people are </span><i>reasoning</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
differently? After all, is it not the case what is at issue is a
misunderstanding, which is cleared up by figuring out in one's own
terms how the other is using </span><i>their</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
terms? But this does not indicate substantial disagreement any more
than the fact that a certain sound might mean one thing in English
and something else in another language indicates substantial
disagreement. It seems possible that what is at issue is not that the
the other people are reasoning differently from us in any substantial
way but that they are </span><i>just</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
using different terminology. </span>
</div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"> For
example, suppose that someone thought the inference from “if </span><i>p</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
then </span><i>q</i><span style="font-style: normal;">” and </span><i>q</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
to </span><i>p</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> was valid. It is
possible that what is at issue is that they understand by “if </span><i>p</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
then </span><i>q</i><span style="font-style: normal;">” what we
would understand by “if </span><i>q</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
then </span><i>p</i><span style="font-style: normal;">”, or perhaps
“</span><i>p</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> iff</span><i> q</i><span style="font-style: normal;">”
if this person also still thinks modus ponens is valid. Of course,
with this new understanding of “if-then” other inferences
employing it would no longer be valid, and if this person thought
they were valid, we would have a real problem. </span>
</div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"> Or
would we? For we could interpret their usage of the </span><i>other</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
symbols in the system. We could even decide that “inference”,
“validity”, and so on, have different meanings for the other
person than they do for us (think of the tarot readers). We could
then seek interpretations for </span><i>these</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
terms. And so we show that, “properly” interpreted, our fellow's
deductive practice is actually perfectly in line with our own. So,
if we want to, we can find </span><i>some</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
interpretation where someone who is reasoning oddly is in fact
reasoning the same way we would, just with an idiosyncratic
understanding of the terms employed.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"> Why
would we want to do this? Because (given a certain theory of
intentional attribution) the intentional content a cognitive states
is characterized by its relationship to other cognitive states. As
such, in order to attribute intentional states to someone </span><i>at
all</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> we must assume that their
cognitive states “hold together” to some degree.</span><sup><span style="font-style: normal;"><a class="sdfootnoteanc" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3978532957294886798#sdfootnote13sym" name="sdfootnote13anc"><sup>13</sup></a></span></sup><span style="font-style: normal;">
And cognitive states “hold together” through inference, that is,
by following and/or not contradicting each other. (Hence my request
that we not forget the notion of coherence.) This point – that
intentional attribution requires that we interpret our subject's
reasoning so it comes out somewhat, mostly, or even completely
correct - is suggested by Quine (pp. 58-59) and developed more fully
by Davidson (p. 324), Dennett (p. 73), and Stich (pp. 29-54)
(although Stich then argues against it), among others. </span>
</div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"> The
other, more direct reason is that the meaning of terms used in
reasoning are (perhaps completely) a function of the role they play
in inference. In fact, this is the same reason as above: to call what
our subject believes “if </span><i>p</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
then </span><i>q</i><span style="font-style: normal;">” or
characterize what they are doing as “inferring”, for example, we
have to be able to interpret their beliefs and reasoning practices as
being in line with our own.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"> One
important thing to note is the Quine, Davidson, and Dennett do not
express this point in the same subjectivist way I have, where what is
important is interpreting the reasoning practices of others according
to our own standards. They instead seem to assume the rules of logic
as basically given. I do not make that assumption, and as such, the
only option left to me is the position that we interpret the
reasoning practices of others according to </span><i>our own</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
standards. Of course, this goes both ways: insofar as the people who
are reasoning oddly can understand what </span><i>we</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
are up to</span><i> they</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> can
interpret </span><i>our</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
reasoning practices according to </span><i>their</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
standards. The point of all this, then, is that insofar as we can
recognize what someone is doing as “reasoning” and “having
beliefs” it is in principle possible for us to find a way to
interpret what their reasoning practices as to so degree similar to
our own. I cannot of course endorse the more radical position that
their reasoning can be interpreted as flawless by our own standards,
for then the entire project of this essay would no longer make any
sense! So instead I will make the less impressive point that insofar
as we can judge another's reasoning practices as being </span><i>different</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
from our own we must be able to interpret </span><i>some</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
aspect of their reasoning practices as being </span><i>the same</i><span style="font-style: normal;">,
for without that anchor of similarity we cannot compare their
reasoning practices with our own </span><i>at all</i><span style="font-style: normal;">.
More generally, the sort of relativism that says that we cannot even
understand viewpoints different from ours is </span><i>wrong</i><span style="font-style: normal;">,
for if we cannot understand someone we cannot identify what they
“have” </span><i>as</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> a
viewpoint. (Putnam 1981, pp. 114-119)</span></div>
<h2 class="western" style="line-height: 200%; page-break-before: always;">
Consequentialist Justifications</h2>
<h3 class="western" style="line-height: 200%;">
Introduction</h3>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
Consequentialist justifications of the
norms of reason are those that say that certain reasoning practices
are justified by their tendency to produce beliefs with some sort of
valuable quality.<sup><a class="sdfootnoteanc" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3978532957294886798#sdfootnote14sym" name="sdfootnote14anc"><sup>14</sup></a></sup>
The word “tendency” here is important: it is not typically
justification if one reasons in some idiosyncratic way that just so
happens to lead to valued type of beliefs in some situation (although
in the case of pragmatism this is not so clear). Conversely, the
norms of reason aren't expected to always lead to the right kind of
beliefs: there may (indeed there are expected to) be situations in
which they fail.</div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
The most common proposed values, and
the ones I will focus on here, are truth (reliabilist) and pragmatic
utility (pragmatic). Of course, these are not the only possible
values: perhaps, for example, the norms of reason are justified by
their tendency to produce beliefs that give one a warm fuzzy feeling,
or beliefs with explanatory power. I do think most of these possible
values other than truth are actually varieties of pragmatic utility,
but I will not discuss this issue in any sort of detail.</div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">There
is also the possible view that the norms are </span><i>intrinsically</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
valuable: following them is a good in and of itself, regardless of
the nature of the beliefs that are produced. It is hard, though, to
see exactly what this would mean. It is distinct from saying that
they are intrinsically </span><i>justified</i><span style="font-style: normal;">,
as would be the case if they are, e.g., self-evident or analytic. The
difficulty is that the norms of reason give us practices and methods,
which cannot be intrinsically valuable in the sense that their
existence is valuable. They must be valuable </span><i>for</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
some person(s) </span><i>following</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
them. For example, following them makes us feel good (no matter what
the consequences). Or perhaps they are somehow beautiful. When
divorced from self-evidence or analyticity and considered as being
</span><i>itself</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> a justification
of the norms, this strikes me as a complete dead-end.</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; line-height: 200%;">
Before we move on,
a note on the connections between reliabilist and pragmatic
justifications. The reliabilist and pragmatic justifications are
often thought to go hand-in-hand: truth is thought to be
pragmatically useful. This can go three ways:
</div>
<ul>
<li><div style="font-style: normal; line-height: 200%;">
it is valuable
to believe what is pragmatically useful, and it is pragmatically
useful to believe truth</div>
</li>
<li><div style="font-style: normal; line-height: 200%;">
it is valuable
to believe what is true, which is additionally pragmatically useful</div>
</li>
<li><div style="line-height: 200%;">
“<span style="font-style: normal;">truth”
</span><i>is</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> pragmatic utility.</span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">It is
important to note that in the first two of these options either truth
or utility is the </span><i>ultimate</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
goal: in the first option, believing truth is a means to believing
what is useful, and in the second, pragmatic utility is a happy
(perhaps necessary) byproduct</span><sup><span style="font-style: normal;">
</span></sup><span style="font-style: normal;">of believing truth.
(There is also the option that the norms of reason are those that
produce beliefs that are true </span><i>and</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
useful, or true </span><i>or</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
useful (where truth and usefulness are independent of each other) –
options that, while intriguing, do not seem to have been much
explored, and will continue to go unexplored in this essay (seeing as
how I reject both reliabilism and pragmatism considered
independently).</span></div>
<h3 class="western" style="line-height: 200%;">
Reliabilist</h3>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Ask
a non-philosopher to justify their reasoning practices and, after you
have convinced them that this is not a silly question, you will
probably get a reliabilist response. Ask a scientist why they trust
the scientific method, and they will tell you that it is because it
gives us our best chance at figuring out how things </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>actually</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
work. Ask a Christian why they seek answers from the Bible, and they
will tell you that it is because it is the true word of God. When
people propose revisions in our reasoning practices the justification
is usually that such revisions will help us better determine </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>the
truth</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">.
One can also find reliabilism underneath the surface of much
philosophy: skepticism about our methods of inquiry, after all, only
makes sense if one is concerned that they do not </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>actually</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
lead us to truth. Reliabilism is deeply embedded in our intuitions
about justification and reason. Yet while reliability may be used to
justify reasoning practices, it fails as an </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>ultimate</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
justification of the norms of reason. In this section I will argue
for why that is the case.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-style: normal;"> </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;">For
my reliabilist account I turn to Alvin I. Goldman's </span><i>Epistemology
and Cognition</i><span style="font-style: normal;">. Many of Goldman's
criticisms of alternative views will be discussed in the context of
those views. For now, let us focus on his positive proposal. This
proposal is given in its final form on page 106:</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<br />
</div>
<blockquote style="font-style: normal; line-height: 200%;">
A J-Rule
(justificatory rule) system R is right if and only if....[they] would
result in a truth ratio of beliefs that meets some specified high
threshold.</blockquote>
<div style="font-style: normal; line-height: 200%;">
J-Rules, we should
remember, are the rules that permit and prohibit certain types of
beliefs given other types of beliefs. Goldman also adds that in order
for someone's beliefs to be justified the J-Rule system they employ
must have secondary justification, that is itself be the result of a
reliable process.</div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"> Goldman
believes that this proposal best captures our intuitions about what
it is for a belief to be justified. </span>This proposal is focused
on what makes a J-Rule system right: my concern is with how norms of
reason are justified. Therefore I adapt his proposal, giving the
following:</div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<br />
</div>
<blockquote style="font-style: normal; line-height: 200%;">
The norms
of reason are justified if and only if they would result in a truth
ratio of beliefs that meets some specified high threshold.</blockquote>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="color: black;">It is important to
note that Goldman's reliabilism is not intended as a </span><span style="color: black;"><i>justification</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
of a J-Rule, but a criteria for what makes a J-Rule system </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>right</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">.
Goldman is very careful to exclude epistemological terms from this
rightness criteria, to avoid circularity. Of course, one can wonder
what exactly “right” means if it does not mean “justified”;
it is odd if it means “true” (perhaps a J-Rule system can be
“true” in the sense that the statements of permission and
prohibition it makes are “true”, a.k.a. “It is true that you
are permitted to form a belief in a scientific theory if that theory
is endorsed by a respected scientist”, but this raises a whole set
of meta-ethical worries). I will not concern myself with this
question, as I am adapting Goldman's discussion for my own purposes,
which are epistemological all the way down: I want to know how </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>we</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
can </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>justify</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
our </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>norms of reason</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">.
This does mean that some of the objections I raise against my
adaptation of Goldman's reliabilism may not hold against Goldman's
reliabilism as he expresses it (although I think for the most part my
objections </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>do </i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">hold
for the latter).</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;"> It
is also worthwhile to note that I am not concerned with what the
ratio of true beliefs should be. In fact, it does not matter much to
my discussion whether the ratio is </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>particularly</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
high or even if the threshold is exact and/or definite. The main
point is the claim that the norms of reason are justified by their
ability to produce truths and avoid falsehoods.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
So we have the position that the norms
of reason are justified if following them produces some high ratio of
true beliefs. As Stich (p. 94) points out, the difficulty with this
position is that it leaves open the question of <i>which</i> world(s)
our reasoning<sup><a class="sdfootnoteanc" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3978532957294886798#sdfootnote15sym" name="sdfootnote15anc"><sup>15</sup></a></sup>
should lead to truth in. The obvious option is that they should lead
to a high ratio of truth in the <i>actual </i>world, or the world in
which the cognizer is operating.<sup><a class="sdfootnoteanc" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3978532957294886798#sdfootnote16sym" name="sdfootnote16anc"><sup>16</sup></a></sup>
But this option quickly runs into difficulties. <span style="color: black;">What
if the world is</span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
being run by a Cartesian demon intent on deceiving us as to reality's
actual nature? (Goldman, p. 110) One can imagine all sorts of ways
our demon does this. Perhaps, for example, the demon systematically
provides us with perceptual information that, were we to follow the
customary reasoning practices, would lead us to beliefs that are the
negative of whatever is actually the case. If this is the world we
live in, then the norms of reason would be to believe the negation of
whatever we would be led to believe by following the customary
reasoning practices. This is just an example: there are all sorts of
ways the demon could be distorting reality, each justifying more or
less bizarre reasoning practices. This demon could even prevent </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>any</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
reasoning practice(s) from being reliable, by arranging things such
that any particular practice that we might choose would lead us to
truth in one and only one (perhaps randomly determined) situation.
For all we know, </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>any of these
descriptions</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
is the way our world </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>actually</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
is: as such, we have no way of knowing whether </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>any</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
reasoning practice is justified! Of course, a skeptic may be quite
happy with this conclusion, but most people are not. If nothing else,
what these considerations show is that even if reliability in the
actual world “justifies” norms of reason in some sense </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>we</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
do not have access to this justification. And as I have stated my
concern is with how </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>we</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
can justify the norms of reason.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;"> These
problems arise when we tie the justification of reason to what is
reliable in the in the actual world, as the actual world may not work
the way we think it does (there may </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>actually</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
be a Cartesian demon). What about possible worlds? Of course,
requiring our reasoning practices to be justified across all possible
worlds is a non-starter: there are all sorts of bizarre ways that a
world might work, with all sorts of bizarre reasoning practices being
consequently justified within it. Even if we take “reliable across
possible worlds” to mean “leading to a large proportion of true
beliefs in all possible worlds considered as a whole” - that is,
leads to a high ratio of true beliefs in a high ratio of possible
worlds – we still run into problems, because of the simple fact
that the number of possible worlds, and the number of possible worlds
that work in any particular way, is indeterminate.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;"> Instead,
what we could try to do is to link the justification of reasoning
practices to their reliability in worlds that work in some sort of
particular way, specifically, in roughly the basic way we </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>presume</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
the world to work. Then, we would have solutions to our problems:
Cartesian demons are out of the picture. I will spend a lot of time
on this proposal, as, despite the fact that it does not work, I do
think that if it did work it would best capture our intuitions in
regards to justification, since it would allow us to avoid universal
skepticism.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;"> Goldman
calls those worlds that work in roughly the basic way we presume our
world to work “normal worlds” (p. 108-109). As Goldman admits,
the normality of a world is quite a vague predicate, but that is not
my major concern. My concern is with the fact that the normality of
worlds is linked with the way we </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>presume</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
our world to work. This sounds subjectivist, which the reliabilist
account was not supposed to be. Goldman argues that it is </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>not</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
subjectivist, as it is still an objective fact as to whether some
reasoning practice is reliable in these normal worlds. I will grant
that the reliability of some reasoning practice is objective in this
sense. But still, a normal world is </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>defined</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
as a world which operates according to the the fundamental physical
regularities </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>we presume</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">,
and these presumptions </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>are</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
subjective. Indeed, they may be different from person to person.
</span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>Whose</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
presumptions define normal worlds? As Stich (p. 95) points out, there
are many ways we could choose to characterize what makes a world
normal, each of which would lead us to decide on a different
reasoning practice as being reliable, and as he points out, there is
no </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>prima facie</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
reason to prefer one characterization to another. Different people
are going to have </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>all sorts</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
of different presumptions about the way the world works: one assumes
that what we are looking for is the </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>right</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
set of presumptions. Right, according to what?</span></span><sup><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><a class="sdfootnoteanc" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3978532957294886798#sdfootnote17sym" name="sdfootnote17anc"><sup>17</sup></a></span></span></sup><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
Not the way the world </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>actually</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
works: then we just have actual-world reliabilism, with all its
problems. The way reason tells us the world works? But then we have a
circularity.</span></span><sup><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><a class="sdfootnoteanc" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3978532957294886798#sdfootnote18sym" name="sdfootnote18anc"><sup>18</sup></a></span></span></sup></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;"> In
fact, I think Goldman's characterization of normal-worlds reliabilism
</span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>does</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
lead to circularity, particularly if one assumes that we can </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>change
</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">(in
a reasoned way) our presumptions about the way the world works.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;"> According
to Goldman, “the fundamental world regularities that define the
class of normal worlds [do not] extend to properties of our cognitive
processes,” and because of this “what we believe about our
cognitive processes in the actual world need not hold in (all) normal
worlds...[the] proposal does not imply that the processes </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>believed</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
to be reliable (in the actual world) </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>are</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
reliable in normal worlds</span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>.”
</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">(p.
108)</span></span><span style="color: black;"><i> </i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">I
will grant that the correctness of our reasoning practices may not be
one of the “fundamental physical regularities” that we presume
about normal worlds. But why do we presume </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>this</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
set of fundamental physical regularities?</span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>
</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Because
they are the ones described by our current science (or whatever
corpus of “knowledge” one puts ones faith in – religion, etc.)?
But </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>science</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
is a reasoning practice, and we discovered these fundamental physical
regularities by engaging in it! More generally, our presumptions
about what the fundamental physical regularities are are going to be
the outcome of </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>some</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
reasoning practice. One senses that we are at the cusp of a
circularity: the correctness of our reasoning practices are
determined by the way that we presume the world to work, but the way
we presume to world to work is the outcome of our reasoning
practices. The situation becomes even worse if we note (as above)
that normal worlds are to be those that accord with not just </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>any</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
presumptions, but the </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>right</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
presumptions.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;"> Can
we tighten this circularity further, so that our belief that our
reasoning practices are correct justifies them, and all it takes for
our reasoning practices to be normative is for us to </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>believe</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
they are? I think we can. This is where I bring in the principle that
we want to be able to </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>change</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
our presumptions in a reasoned way. Yet in Goldman's normal worlds
the fundamental physical regularities of normal worlds match whatever
our </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>current</i></span><sup><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><a class="sdfootnoteanc" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3978532957294886798#sdfootnote19sym" name="sdfootnote19anc"><sup>19</sup></a></span></span></sup><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
presumptions are about the such regularities. As such, it is always
unreasonable to change our presumptions about the way the world
fundamentally works, as our current presumptions define what makes a
normal world and reliability in normal worlds determines the norms of
reason. How then do we make it possible to discover new fundamental
physical regularities? </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>By
presuming </i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">(</span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>pace</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
Goldman)</span></span><span style="color: black;"><i> the correctness of
our reasoning practices as a still more basic fact than those
regularities</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">.
But </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>then</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
normal worlds are those worlds in which the reasoning practices we
assume to be normative </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>are</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
normative. Therefore if our reasoning practices are justified by
being reliable in normal worlds, then our reasoning practices are
justified by our assumption that they are justified!</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;"> Of
course, one could also imagine that the norms of reason and the
fundamental physical regularities are mutually evolving: the norms
lead us to discover and so presume new regularities, which in turn
lead to a change in the norms.</span></span><sup><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><a class="sdfootnoteanc" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3978532957294886798#sdfootnote20sym" name="sdfootnote20anc"><sup>20</sup></a></span></span></sup><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
I actually think this could very well be right; but it has stopped
looking very much like reliabilism, at least not as an </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>ultimate</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
justification for the norms of reason, for in such a situation
whatever the current system of
presumed-physical-regularities-and-norms-of-reason is would be (to
some essential degree) a function of current consensus.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;"> There
is a premise that all the proposals we have considered so far take
for granted, namely, that truth is independent of our means of
accessing it, that is, whether a proposition </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>is</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
true and whether it can be </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>determined
</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">to
be true are completely separate questions. This is what allows for
situations such as the Cartesian demon, which were what led us, along
with Goldman, to consider the normal worlds approach in the first
place. What if, instead, we link truth to our means of accessing it?
That is, what it is for a proposition to be true is for it to be
verified, acceptable to an ideal epistemic community, etc. These are
</span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>internalist</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
conceptions of truth, and what they all have in common is that the
truth of a proposition is its acceptability according to some sort of
standards - norms - of reason. Not much time needs be spent on this,
for if this is our conception of truth then the reliabilist thesis
quickly collapses into vacuity: the norms of reason are justified by
their ability to produce beliefs that are acceptable according to the
norms of reason (Putnam 1982, p. 5).</span></span><sup><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><a class="sdfootnoteanc" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3978532957294886798#sdfootnote21sym" name="sdfootnote21anc"><sup>21</sup></a>
</span></span></sup><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">While
my opinion is that this </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>has</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
to be our conception of truth, not only because otherwise we have no
way of identifying truth, but because of the semantics of truth, this
broad topic will not be discussed in detail here. I do not need to
discuss it, because what this section has shown is that it does not
matter whether or not truth is independent of our means of accessing
it: reliabilism fails either way.</span></span></div>
<h3 class="western" style="line-height: 200%;">
Pragmatic</h3>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
After reliabilism, the second most
popular response one gets to the request to justify reasoning
practices is pragmatism. Scientists of a more instrumentalist bent
will tell you that the value of scientific reasoning is not that it
leads us to truth but that it helps us make predictions, and control
our environment. One hears religious belief justified by the fact
that it helps people get through their lives. In fact, I would not be
surprised if pragmatism is implicitly appealed to by more people more
often than reliabilism, or any other proffered justification of
reason. People reason in whatever way best helps them cope.</div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
“Pragmatism” as a philosophical
tradition is hard to pin down: being used by those such as Stich to
describe the justification of reasoning practices by their utility
and by those such as Rorty to describe the view that justification
comes through agreement. For this discussion I shall discuss
pragmatism as it is understood by Stich. This variety of
philosophical pragmatism has the advantage of also matching up with
the normal meaning of “pragmatism”. In this variety of pragmatism
reasoning is justified by how well it helps the cognizer get
something that they value (Stich, p. 131).
</div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
The difficulty I see with this approach
is that one wonders <i>who</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> is
evaluating how well the reasoning practice does at getting what is
valued. If it is the person employing the reasoning practice then
worries of circularity appear: for one would have to employ one's
reasoning practices in making such an evaluation. However, there are
possible responses to this: for example, Stich, amongst other
replies, makes the interesting suggestion that one might in employing
one reasoning practice determine that another one is better (pp.
146-147). But a problem still remains: for in order to put our trust
in a reasoning practice we also believe that it will </span><i>continue</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
to be successful. And we justify the belief in continued success
through the use of inductive reason. And </span><i>this</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
would need to be justified, and if we attempt to justify it
pragmatically we end up back where we started.</span></div>
<h2 class="western" style="line-height: 200%; page-break-before: always;">
Cultural Justifications</h2>
<h3 class="western" style="line-height: 200%;">
Introduction</h3>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
In this section I will discuss the
possibility, hinted at throughout this essay, that the norms of
reason are justified by consensus, that is, by describing those
reasoning practices endorsed by our community. This is view I call
“Cultural Justification”. Although this is the view that has been
suggested in the rejection of alternatives and although I think there
is much to be said in favor of it, we will ultimately find that it
<i>too </i>fails.</div>
<h3 class="western" style="line-height: 200%;">
Justification by
Consensus</h3>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
As we saw before, in order to be
justified in our reasoning practices we must consult our peers. We
then asked the question whether this is because our peers are likely
to get the norms of reason right or because the endorsement of our
peers is what determines correct norms of reason. We explored various
options for how norms of reason could be justified beyond consensus,
and found them wanting. In the course of these explorations we often
found reasons to suggest a cultural view. The rejection of
alternatives can be considered an argument in favor of the cultural
view. But is there also a positive argument for it?</div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"> There
are, of course, many, particularly those offered by Rorty in his
various writings. I, however, want to offer an “original”
argument. I put “original” in quote, for my argument is really
just a rephrasing of Wittgenstein's arguments against private
language and rule following in terms of reasoning and justification.
Specifically, my argument is an expansion of </span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">§</span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">202,
which reads as follows:</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<br />
</div>
<blockquote style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">...'following
a rule' is a practice. </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>And to </i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">think</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>
one is following a rule is not to follow a rule.</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
And that's why it's not possible to follow a rule 'privately';
otherwise, thinking one was following a rule would be the same thing
as following it. [my italics]</span></span></blockquote>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
Simply replace “following a rule”
with “reasoning correctly” or “justifying ones reasoning
practices” and you have the core points:\</div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<br />
</div>
<blockquote style="font-style: normal; line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: small;">To
think one is reasoning correctly is not to reason correctly. And
that's why it's not possible to reason correctly 'privately';
otherwise, thinking one was reasoning correctly would be the same
thing as reasoning correctly.</span></blockquote>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
and</div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<br />
</div>
<blockquote style="font-style: normal; line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: small;">To
think one is justified (in their reasoning practices) is not to be
justified. And that's why it's not possible to justify a belief/the
norms of reason 'privately'; otherwise, thinking one was justified
would be the same thing as being justified.</span></blockquote>
<div style="font-style: normal; line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: small;">From
this I can construct the following argument:</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><b>THE
JUSTIFICATION OF OUR REASONING PRACTICES MUST BE PUBLIC</b></span></span></div>
<ol>
<li><div style="font-style: normal; line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: small;">If
one could justify their reasoning practices privately, then thinking
that their reasoning practices were justified would be the same
thing as them being justified.</span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="font-style: normal; line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Therefore
thinking one was reasoning correctly would be the same thing as
reasoning correctly.</span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="font-style: normal; line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: small;">But
thinking one is reasoning correctly is not the same thing as
reasoning correctly.</span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="font-style: normal; line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Therefore,
one cannot justify their reasoning practices privately.</span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="font-style: normal; line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Therefore,
one must justify their reasoning practices publicly.</span></div>
</li>
</ol>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: small;">To
clarify:</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"> When
we ask how it is that we can justify our reasoning practices, we are
asking how we can determine whether we are reasoning correctly. To
reason correctly is to reason in accordance with the norms. So the
question is: can we determine that we are reasoning correctly
privately? No. Much as in order to know that we are understand a word
correctly we must see if others agree with our use of it, in order to
know if we are reasoning correctly we must express our reasonings to
others and seek their approval. Moreover, unless we accept a sort of
anarchism about reasoning, we seek their </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>endorsement</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">;
they must not only allow that we may reason in our way, they must
agree that that way is </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>correct</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"> There
are two reasons for this. One is that a justification to oneself does
not do any </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>work</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">.
It is like Wittgenstein's case of the left hand giving the right hand
a gift (</span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">§</span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">268)
or buying several copies of the same newspaper to confirm what it
says (</span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">§</span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">265).
What is at doubt is our ability to think through things correctly –
a doubt that we are trying to resolve by thinking through things! The
second is that what it is to reason correctly is something that we
learn. The analogy is once again with Wittgenstein. As he points out,
we </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>learn</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
how to apply a word correctly – that is one reason why a word like
“pain” cannot refer to some private object. In his example of the
beetle in the box, if everyone learns the word “beetle” without
knowing what is in anyone's box then the word cannot refer to what is
inside the box.</span></span><sup><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><a class="sdfootnoteanc" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3978532957294886798#sdfootnote22sym" name="sdfootnote22anc"><sup>22</sup></a></span></span></sup><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
Similarly, we learn what it is to reason correctly by engaging in
reasoning with others. Therefore it cannot be some fundamentally
private activity. Just as to use the word “pain” correctly </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>just
is</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"> to use it
in a way that others would agree is correct, to reason correctly </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>just
is</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"> to reason
in a way that others would agree is correct.</span></span><sup><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><a class="sdfootnoteanc" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3978532957294886798#sdfootnote23sym" name="sdfootnote23anc"><sup>23</sup></a></span></span></sup></div>
<h3 class="western" style="line-height: 200%;">
Objections</h3>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">I
have stated that the justification on the norms of reason is public,
and it comes through expressing our reasoning to others and having it
endorsed by them. Yet most of our reasoning is never so expressed. In
fact, it is likely that the majority of what any person believes came
about through reasonings that were never tested against the court of
public agreement. So what is going on here? Let us speak for a moment
of justifying </span></span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">beliefs</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">We
do often justify beliefs to ourselves: indeed, this is common,
whereas the practice of justifying our beliefs to others is
relatively rare. But despite its commonness, our ability to justify
beliefs to ourselves is parasitic upon the possibility of our
justifying them to others.</span></span></span><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
</span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">When
we justify beliefs to ourselves it is in some sense in preparation to
justify them to others. We think of arguments we could marshal that
would be convincing to the sort of people we care about convincing.
And we trust that our ability to defend beliefs to an supposed
argumentative partner will translate into the ability to defend
beliefs to a real argumentative partner. But here I point out – in
a very Wittgensteinian fashion (</span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">§§265,
267) – that imagining oneself successfully defending a belief is
not to successfully defend a belief.</span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 200%;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"> This may not seem quite right.
For example, when we justify a result in mathematics, do we really
need to suppose someone other than ourselves who needs convincing? Do
we not simply demonstrate that that result comes from following the
proper rules? Yes, we do demonstrate that – but who is the
demonstration for? As earlier considerations show, it cannot be
merely for ourselves: we may have missed something. If we are
confident in our result, we are confident that that result could be
demonstrated to whoever we feel we should demonstrate it to!</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">The
point of all this is that when we we reason “privately”, if we
are confident in our reasoning, we are likewise confident that we
could defend that reasoning against others. And that confidence is
justified by our evidenced tendency to reason correctly (we will
assume for now). Private reasoning is, in a sense, preparation for
public reasoning. And the correctness of reasoning is dispositional:
even if it never is expressed in a way so that the community may
endorse it, if the community </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">would
have</span></i></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
endorsed it it is normative.</span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Another
objection comes from the question: what constitutes a community? What
if, say, there is </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">one
</span></i></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">other
person who agrees with you? </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">This</span></i></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
cannot justify your reasoning practices: they may be as crazy as you
are! Well, what if we add yet </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">another</span></i></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
person. One can see that this quickly expands into a Sorites-type
problem: just as the grains of sand never become a pile, the group of
people never becomes a community capable of justifying reasoning
practices. Every person added may be just as crazy as the last, yet
at some point it is impossible that they are </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">all</span></i></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
crazy, for they have come to define the standard by which sanity is
measured. So what is this point?</span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> I
do not think an inability to define a point at which a group of
people becomes a justifying community is all that worrying. I think
the comparison to the Sorites cases evidencses why. Despite the
efforts to prove otherwise, piles </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">do</span></i></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
exist, even though one, two, three, or whatever small number of
grains do not constitute a pile; similarly, communities capable of
justifying reasoning practices exist, although an arbitrary but small
number of people may all be wrong. All this shows is that the hope
that there might be some algorithm, a set of rules, that we could use
to make distinctions is misplaced.</span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> This
is connected to perhaps the most common objection against cultural
justifications, which is that everyone could be </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">wrong</span></i></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
This is Goldman's main challenge to cultural justifications (p. 68).
The point is usually made by noting that any arbitrary number of
people have been wrong, so why could not </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">everybody</span></i></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
be wrong? Stated thusly, I think one can see how this is the same
sort of fallacious reasoning one sees in Sorites cases. An analogy
can be made with language: any arbitrary number of people may be
mistaken about the meaning of a certain word, so </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">everybody</span></i></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
can be mistaken about the meaning of a certain word. Furthermore, it
is important to note that when we declare some group of people or
past culture to have all been wrong, we are evaluating their
positions according to the standards of </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">our</span></i></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
culture.</span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> I
promised in the introduction to this section that cultural
justifications of the norms of reason would turn out to fail. I have
fended off various common objections to the cultural view: now is the
time for the objection that resists counter, and so proves fatal the
the cultural view, at least as a theory of </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">ultimate
</span></i></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">justification.</span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> In
</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Reason,
Truth, and History</span></i></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
Hilary Putnam discusses what he calls </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">“</span></i></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">criterial”
conceptions of rationality (p. 110). These are theories of
rationality such as Carnapian positivism, Wittgensteinianism, and my
own theory, that define rationality according to institutionalized
norms. He argues that such theories always undermine rationality. To
do this, he expands an argument made against the positivists. The
positivists claimed that the only statements that are meaningful are
those that are testable by the methods of logic, math, or science.
The difficulty is that according to the positivist criterion of
meaning that very criterion is meaningless: it is not a truth of
logic or mathematics and it cannot be scientifically tested. Putnam
argues that any similar criterial theory is going to fail because the
criteria itself cannot be rationally acceptable. I am not sure what
Putnam's point is here. His attack seems to be on theories of
rationality which link it to publicly institutionalized norms but if
his attack works it works on </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">any
</span></i></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">theory</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">
</span></i></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">of
rationality. It would always be the case that one cannot use a theory
to argue for the theory. Yet Putnam states that the conclusion of his
argument is </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">not</span></i></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
that “rational argumentation and rational justification are
impossible in philosophy” but that “we cannot appeal to </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">public</span></i></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
norms to decide” what is rational. So do we appeal to </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">private</span></i></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
norms? But those are going to be just as incapable of justifying
themselves as </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">public</span></i></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
norms are. Do we simply take our private norms as given?</span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> While
I find it difficult to understand Putnam's point as he expresses it,
it suggests to me what I consider to be the fatal argument against
cultural justifications. The argument springs from the question: how
do we </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">know</span></i></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
that our reasonings are endorsed by the community? If, for example,
we are worried that we might be reasoning incorrectly because we are
crazy, why might not that insanity extend to thinking that the
community agrees with us when the community, in fact, does not? Or
perhaps we are not insane, but there is a massive conspiracy where
everyone is lying to us about whether they agree with our reasonings.</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">
</span></i></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">What
we find is that in attempting to determine whether our reasoning
practices are in fact endorsed by our community we encounter the same
problem we encountered for the reliabilist and pragmatic
justifications: we must employ reasoning in order to determine if our
reasoning practices do in fact obey the criterion of justification.</span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
Finally, there is the issue that the
cultural justification of the norms of reason does not do the work we
wanted it to do: it would not convince someone who disputed our norms
to go along with them. A cognitive rebel is not going to be brought
into line by being made aware of the cultural norms – they are,
after all, a <i>rebel</i><span style="font-style: normal;">. If
anything an attempt at a cultural justification will just strengthen
their resolve. Similarly, cultural justifications would be useless
against the tarot-readers, for </span><i>their</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
culture endorses different norms. The same goes for any of the
communities discussed in the introduction. In </span><i>this</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
respect cultural justifications face the same problems as analytic
ones. And so, despite the fact that attempts to justify reason other
than cultural seemed to tend towards depending on cultural
justifications, cultural justifications share all the problems of the
alternatives.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<br />
</div>
<h1 class="western" style="line-height: 200%; page-break-before: always;">
Conclusion and Further Work</h1>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
And so we come to the rather
disheartening conclusion that none of our attempts to justify reason
are successful. Do we throw up our hands and say that “anything
goes”? I think not. For, as Putnam notes, this sort of anarchical
relativism is self-refuting (1981 pp. 113-121). Are we instead
trapped inside our own understanding of reason, incapable of change?
Again, I think not. For one, there is the empirical fact that we <i>do</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
change our views about what is reasonable, and furthermore that we
proffer </span><i>reasons</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> for
these changes. Secondly, as we have seen the incommensurability
thesis is incorrect: anything that can be counted </span><i>as
reasoning</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> can, in principle, be
understood. The only limits are our willingness to try to understand.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"> This
observation, I think, points to the way out of parochialism. We have
been looking in the wrong place for a way to resolve disputes over
the norms of reason: we sought some </span><i>theory</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
whereby a criterion could be applied that would tell us whether our
reasoning practices were justified. Instead, I would like to propose
that what these explorations we have taken show is that the process
of justifying our reasoning practices to each other is going to be
irreducibly messy. It is going to involve adjusting our presumptions
through mutual understanding and conversation, while acknowledging,
with Putnam, that our concept of reason informs this very
conversation. And this, I would like to suggest, is </span><i>OK</i><span style="font-style: normal;">.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"> Due to
this primacy of </span><i>conversation</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
that I am proposing, I think that the next steps would be to continue
the work of those such as J. Habermas and, instead of worrying about
norms of </span><i>reason</i><span style="font-style: normal;">,
instead focus on norms of </span><i>discourse</i><span style="font-style: normal;">,
that is, how can we talk to each other in a productive way? I want to
caution against too-quick conclusions about what such norms of
discourse may </span><i>be</i><span style="font-style: normal;">: for
example, many would immediately assume that we should advocate
compromise and the preservation of harmonious relationships. While I
do think those goals have their place, I also think there is a place
for the ruthless and uncompromising advocation of opposing
viewpoints. There are other complicated questions: for example,
should we try to listen to the viewpoints of everybody, or of only
some people, perhaps those that play by our rules of discourse? But I
do not think this should discourage us. As I said, this work is
messy, and that is, I think, as it should be. For its messiness is
the result of its immense importance.</span></div>
<h1 class="western" style="line-height: 200%; page-break-before: always;">
Bibliography</h1>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><i>(Not
all entries are cited in the text, but are included for their
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<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<br />
</div>
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<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Brandom,
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<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
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<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">---.
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<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Goldman,
A.I. </span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Epistemology
and Cognition</span></i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 1986.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Habermas, J. </span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>The
Philosophical Discourse of Modernity</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">.
Trans. Frederick Lawrence. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1987.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">---.
</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Postmetaphysical Thinking:
Philosophical Essays</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">.
Trans. Willaim Mark Hohengarten. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1992.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">---.
“Richard Rorty's Pragmatic Turn.” </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Rorty
and His Critics</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">.
Ed. Robert B. Brandom. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2000.
31-55.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Haack,
S. “The Justification of Deduction.” </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Mind</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
85.337 (1976): 112-119.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Hacking,
I. “Language, Truth and Reason.” </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Rationality
and Relativism</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">.
Ed. Martin Hollis & Steven Luks. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing
Ltd., 1982. 21-47.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Hollis,
M. & Lukes, S. Introduction. </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Rationality
and Relativism</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">.
Ed. Hollis, M. & Lukes, S. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd,
1982. 1-20.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">McDowell,
J. “Towards Rehabilitating Objectivity.” </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Rorty
and His Critics</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">.
Ed. Robert B. Brandom. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2000.
107-123.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Priest,
G. </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>An Introduction to Non-Classical
Logic</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">. 2</span></span><sup><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">nd</span></span></sup><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
Ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Prior,
A. N. “The Runabout Inference-Ticket.” </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Analysis</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">,
21.2 (1960): 38-39.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Putnam,
H. </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Realism with a Human Face</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">.
Ed. James Conant. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">---.
“Is Logic Empirical?” </span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Boston
Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. 5</span></i></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
Ed. Robert Cohen & Max Wartosky. Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1968.
216-241.</span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">---.
</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Reason, Truth and History.</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">---.
“Why Reason Can't be Naturalized.” </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Synthese</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">,
52.1, Realism, Part II (1982): 3-23.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">---.
“Richard Rorty on Reality and Justification.” </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Rorty
and His Critics</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">.
Ed. Robert B. Brandom. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2000.
81-87.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Quine,
W.V.O. </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Word and Object</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">.
Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1960.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Ramberg,
B. “Post-Ontological Philosophy of Mind: Rorty versus Davidson.”
</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Rorty and His Critics</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">.
Ed. Robert B. Brandom. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2000.
351-370.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Rorty,
R. “Solidarity or Objectivity?” </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Relativism:
Interpretation and Confrontation</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">.
Ed. Michael Krausz. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press,
1989. 167-183.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">---.
“Putnam and the Relativist Menace.” </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>The
Journal of Philosophy</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
90.9 (1993): 443-461.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">---.
“Is Truth a Goal of Enquiry? Davidson </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>vs.</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
Wright.” </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>The Philosophical Quarterly</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
45.180 (1995): 281-300.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">---.
</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Truth and Progress</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">---.
“Universality and Truth.” </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Rorty and
His Critics</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">.
Ed. Robert B. Brandom. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2000. 1-30.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">---.
“Response to J</span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">ü</span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">rgen
Habermas.” </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Rorty and His Critics</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">.
Ed. Robert B. Brandom. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2000.
56-64.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">---.
“Response to Hilary Putnam.” </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Rorty
and His Critics</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">.
Ed. Robert B. Brandom. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2000.
87-90.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">---.
“Response to Robert Brandom.” </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Rorty
and His Critics</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">.
Ed. Robert B. Brandom. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2000.
183-190.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">---.
“Response</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
to Bj</span></span></span><em><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">ør</span></span></span></span></em><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">n
</span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Ramberg.”
</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Rorty and His Critics</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">.
Ed. Robert B. Brandom. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2000.
370-377.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Searle,
J.R. “Rationality and Realism, What Is at Stake?” </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Daedalus</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
122.4 (1993): 55-83.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Siegel,
H. “Rescher on the Justification of Rationality.” </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Informal
Logic</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"> 14.1
(1992): 23-31.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Stevenson,
J. T. “Roundabout the Runabout Inference-Ticket.” </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Analysis</i></span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">,
21.6 (1961): 124-128.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Strawson,
P. F. </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Introduction
to Logical Theory</i></span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">.
London: Methuen & Co Ltd, 1952.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Stich,
S. </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>The Fragmentation of Reason: Preface
to a Pragmatic Theory of Cognitive Evaluation</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">.
Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1990.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Williams,
M. “Epistemology and the Mirror of Nature.” </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Rorty
and His Critics</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">.
Ed. Robert B. Brandom. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2000.
191-213.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 0.07in; margin-bottom: 0.08in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Wittgenstein,
L. </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Philosophical Investigations</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">.
Trans. G.E.M. Anscombe, P.M.S. Hacker, & Joachim Schulte. 4</span></span><sup><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">th</span></span></sup><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
ed. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2009.</span></span></div>
<div id="sdfootnote1">
<div class="sdfootnote">
<a class="sdfootnotesym" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3978532957294886798#sdfootnote1anc" name="sdfootnote1sym">1</a>In
this essay I will use the singular “they” as a gender-neutral
pronoun in cases where it would not lead to confusion.</div>
</div>
<div id="sdfootnote2">
<div class="sdfootnote">
<a class="sdfootnotesym" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3978532957294886798#sdfootnote2anc" name="sdfootnote2sym">2</a><span style="font-size: x-small;">Reasoning
might </span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">not
necessarily include the </span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>formation</i></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
of beliefs, as beliefs may be formed in all sorts of ways that are
not </span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>reasoning - </i></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">for
example, as the automatic result of perceptual stimuli – although
once those beliefs are formed it </span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>is</i></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
a matter of reasoning of whether they are accepted, rejected, or
modified.</span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"> I say it might not </span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>necessarily</i></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
include such processes as one might very well claim that, for
example in the case of automatic beliefs resulting from perceptual
stimuli, we </span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>infer</i></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
from colored blotches in our visual field that there is, say, a
rhinoceros, and that inference </span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>is</i></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
a case of reasoning. While I do not necessarily agree with this
position, I also do not necessarily disagree with it, and as such
want to leave the question open. (One could argue, in a
Wittgensteinian fashion, that we </span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>assume</i></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
that some reasoning must be going on.)</span></span></div>
<div class="sdfootnote">
<br />
</div>
</div>
<div id="sdfootnote3">
<div class="sdfootnote">
<a class="sdfootnotesym" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3978532957294886798#sdfootnote3anc" name="sdfootnote3sym">3</a>There
may be different norms of reason that regard different kinds of
beliefs: for example, the norms for reasoning about ethics might be
different from the norms for reasoning about science. But as my
discussion concerns not what the norms of reason should be but the
general question of justifying norms of reason <i>whatever </i><span style="font-style: normal;">
they may be I do not think this issue is relevant.</span></div>
<div class="sdfootnote" style="page-break-before: always;">
<br />
</div>
</div>
<div id="sdfootnote4">
<div class="sdfootnote">
<a class="sdfootnotesym" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3978532957294886798#sdfootnote4anc" name="sdfootnote4sym">4</a>Of
course, I think that in some important respect the intrapersonal
depends on the interpersonal.</div>
</div>
<div id="sdfootnote5">
<div class="sdfootnote">
<a class="sdfootnotesym" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3978532957294886798#sdfootnote5anc" name="sdfootnote5sym">5</a>Of
course, it may just be part of our delusion that we <i>think</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
other people don't think we're crazy. A variant of this problem
will, in time, come back to haunt us.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="sdfootnote6">
<div class="sdfootnote">
<a class="sdfootnotesym" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3978532957294886798#sdfootnote6anc" name="sdfootnote6sym">6</a>In
my own case: Goodman in this passage is talking specifically about
deductive inference.</div>
<div class="sdfootnote">
<br />
</div>
</div>
<div id="sdfootnote7">
<div class="sdfootnote">
<a class="sdfootnotesym" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3978532957294886798#sdfootnote7anc" name="sdfootnote7sym">7</a>A
perhaps amusing choice of phrase in this context.</div>
<div class="sdfootnote">
<br />
</div>
</div>
<div id="sdfootnote8">
<div class="sdfootnote">
<a class="sdfootnotesym" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3978532957294886798#sdfootnote8anc" name="sdfootnote8sym">8</a>For
a detailed account of the problems with reflective equilibrium as a
method of justification see Stich (1990), pp. 75-100.</div>
</div>
<div id="sdfootnote9">
<div class="sdfootnote">
<a class="sdfootnotesym" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3978532957294886798#sdfootnote9anc" name="sdfootnote9sym">9</a>By
“forms” our tarot-card reader might mean something like “ways
of laying out the cards, interpreting them, etc.”</div>
</div>
<div id="sdfootnote10">
<div class="sdfootnote">
<a class="sdfootnotesym" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3978532957294886798#sdfootnote10anc" name="sdfootnote10sym">10</a>Even
stranger: true statements are implied by their negations.</div>
<div class="sdfootnote">
<br />
</div>
</div>
<div id="sdfootnote11">
<div class="sdfootnote">
<a class="sdfootnotesym" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3978532957294886798#sdfootnote11anc" name="sdfootnote11sym">11</a>A
real problem, as almost all of our reasoning at some point depends
on them: even deductive inference relies on the notion that if the
premises <i>were</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> true the
conclusion </span><i>would be</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
true, whether they (the premises or conclusion) </span><i>are</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
true or not.</span></div>
<div class="sdfootnote">
<br />
</div>
</div>
<div id="sdfootnote12">
<div class="sdfootnote">
<a class="sdfootnotesym" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3978532957294886798#sdfootnote12anc" name="sdfootnote12sym">12</a>These
disagreements are often about capturing what “if-then” means in
English. But why should we be particularly concerned with what it
means in <i>English</i><span style="font-style: normal;">? Of course,
it is an English word, and if our goal is simply to explicate the
meaning of an English word, then this concern makes sense. But our
goal would seem to be more than that: we want to find the correct</span><i>
logic</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, which should be
</span><i>universal</i><span style="font-style: normal;">. (In
Spanish double-negation is used for emphasis: does this mean that
the should be a Spanish logic where “not-not</span><i> p</i><span style="font-style: normal;">”
does not imply </span><i>p</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, but
instead implies “</span><i>extra</i><span style="font-style: normal;">-not</span><i>
p</i><span style="font-style: normal;">”?)</span></div>
<div class="sdfootnote">
<br />
</div>
</div>
<div id="sdfootnote13">
<div class="sdfootnote">
<a class="sdfootnotesym" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3978532957294886798#sdfootnote13anc" name="sdfootnote13sym">13</a>One
can see in the practice of psychologists investigating “defective”
reasoning that they hope for, if not believe in, the possibility of
making this sort of interpretation (and in a not-too convoluted
way), as they are not content to simply say that their subjects are
reasoning defectively and leave it at that: they seek some
<i>explanation</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> as to why the
reasoning is defective, and proposed explanations usually have the
character of attempting to demonstrate how the defective reasoning
makes sense – that is, </span><i>is </i><span style="font-style: normal;">reasonable
– </span><i>given</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> the way
that our cognitive machinery characterizes the problems it is
presented with. Similarly, one can see this commitment to
interpretation in the practice of anthropologists, who, in the
interest of understanding a culture with seemingly odd reasoning
practices and odd beliefs, try to show how those reasoning practices
and beliefs </span><i>are</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
reasonable </span><i>given</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> the
basic assumptions of the culture.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="sdfootnote14">
<div class="sdfootnote">
<a class="sdfootnotesym" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3978532957294886798#sdfootnote14anc" name="sdfootnote14sym">14</a><span style="font-style: normal;">
An interesting question, which will not be explored here, is whether
it is more important to maximize the number of beliefs of the valued
type or to minimize the number of beliefs of the unvalued type.
William James expressed this as one of the disagreements between him
and Clifford: while the latter was obsessed with avoiding error in
one's beliefs, the former felt that the possibility of believing
truth was worth the risk of being wrong, and furthermore that
refusing to believe truth because of one's concern with avoiding
error would be to do oneself a great disservice.</span></div>
<div class="sdfootnote">
<br />
</div>
</div>
<div id="sdfootnote15">
<div class="sdfootnote">
<a class="sdfootnotesym" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3978532957294886798#sdfootnote15anc" name="sdfootnote15sym">15</a>Stich
of course speaks of “justification”.</div>
<div class="sdfootnote">
<br />
</div>
</div>
<div id="sdfootnote16">
<div class="sdfootnote">
<a class="sdfootnotesym" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3978532957294886798#sdfootnote16anc" name="sdfootnote16sym">16</a>I
will ignore the distinction between “actual world” and “world
in which the cognizer is operating” and simply talk about the
“actual world”, since even though the following discussion
imagines states of the world that (we hope!) do not hold, and so
would describe <i>other </i><span style="font-style: normal;">worlds,</span>
the discussion also imagines that we inhabit one of these worlds,
and so that for us it would <i>actually </i>be the <i>actual </i><span style="font-style: normal;">world.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="sdfootnote17">
<div class="sdfootnote" style="margin-bottom: 0.08in;">
<a class="sdfootnotesym" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3978532957294886798#sdfootnote17anc" name="sdfootnote17sym">17</a>And,
returning to the vagueness problem, how exact does this rightness
need to be? Stich has a field day with this, pointing out that “<i>our</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
concept of justification occupies a small region in a large space of
</span><i>more or less similar concepts</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
[my italics] that can be generated by altering the specification of
[normal worlds].” (p. 95)</span></div>
</div>
<div id="sdfootnote18">
<div class="sdfootnote">
<a class="sdfootnotesym" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3978532957294886798#sdfootnote18anc" name="sdfootnote18sym">18</a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">If
we reject these two options then it seems that the only option we
have left is that the right presumptions are the presumptions we
</span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>agree</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
upon. And so it seems we face the possibility, as we did with
analytic justifications, that, even if reliability justifies the
norms of reason at a lower level, it is consensus gives the </span></span><span style="color: black;"><i>ultimate</i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
justification.</span></span></div>
<div class="sdfootnote">
<br />
</div>
</div>
<div id="sdfootnote19">
<div class="sdfootnote">
<a class="sdfootnotesym" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3978532957294886798#sdfootnote19anc" name="sdfootnote19sym">19</a>One
could dispute this, for example by saying that normal world are
those worlds that obey the fundamental physical regularities we
would presume once we have a final and complete science. But these
may not be the physical regularities the world actually obeys, for
then this position becomes actual-world reliabilism. (The Cartesian
demon could arrange things such that our final and complete science
is still <i>wrong</i>.) So the only reason we would presume those
regularities is that they are the ones that the method of science –
a reasoning practice – will lead us to discover.</div>
<div class="sdfootnote">
<br />
</div>
</div>
<div id="sdfootnote20">
<div class="sdfootnote">
<a class="sdfootnotesym" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3978532957294886798#sdfootnote20anc" name="sdfootnote20sym">20</a>One
thinks of how the discovery of quantum mechanics has led some to
propose a revision in logic. (Putnam 1968)</div>
<div class="sdfootnote">
<br />
</div>
</div>
<div id="sdfootnote21">
<div class="sdfootnote">
<a class="sdfootnotesym" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3978532957294886798#sdfootnote21anc" name="sdfootnote21sym">21</a>It
is interesting how similar this is to the result we got by following
the normal-worlds approach. One wonders whether the normal-worlds
approach is just disguised internalism (or vice-versa).</div>
</div>
<div id="sdfootnote22">
<div class="sdfootnote">
<a class="sdfootnotesym" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3978532957294886798#sdfootnote22anc" name="sdfootnote22sym">22</a><sup><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">§293:
</span></span></span></span></sup><sup><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;">“It
would be quite possible for everyone to have something different in
his box...But what if these people's word “beetle” had a use
nonetheless. - If so, it would not be the name of a thing. The thing
in the box doesn't belong to the language game at all; not even as a
</span></span></sup><sup><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Something</i></span></span></sup><sup><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-style: normal;">:
for the box might even be empty.”</span></span></span></sup></div>
</div>
<br />
<div id="sdfootnote23">
<div class="sdfootnote">
<a class="sdfootnotesym" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3978532957294886798#sdfootnote23anc" name="sdfootnote23sym">23</a><span style="font-size: x-small;">We
see here that there is actually something quite correct in the
analytic defense of the norms of reason. Our norms of reason </span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>are</i></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">
analytic: what it is to reason correctly </span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>just
is</i></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"> to
reason in accordance with them. There just is not anything special
about this analyticity. If we were in some different community some
other set of norms might be analytic.</span></div>
</div>
Dervine7http://www.blogger.com/profile/12315172050231811971noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3978532957294886798.post-53789095574494691522011-09-19T17:26:00.000-07:002011-09-25T21:44:07.992-07:00Some moral propositionsJust a quick attempt to sketch out some moral views:<div><br /></div><div><ul><li>Actions in and of themselves can't be good or bad.</li><li>What makes them good or bad are their consequences/logical implications.</li><li>Actions can be "intrinsically wrong" if they necessarily imply/lead to a bad consequences. For example murder is intrinsically wrong since it necessarily implies the unjustified death of someone.</li><li>Actions can also be "contingently wrong", if, practically, they lead to bad consequences, but don't necessarily. For example, incest is only contingently wrong: in most circumstances it would lead to problems, but it is <i>possible</i> for people to engage in incest without any repercussions.</li><li>A lot of confusion in thinking and discussions about morality come from not properly distinguishing between intrinsically wrong and contingently wrong.</li></ul><div><b>NOTE: I'm seriously rethinking my statements in this post. More to come.</b></div></div>Dervine7http://www.blogger.com/profile/12315172050231811971noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3978532957294886798.post-9751579789887262112011-07-09T16:42:00.000-07:002011-07-09T18:05:46.248-07:00One statement that never ceases to frustrate me is "I'm fine with so and so believing X, I just wish they wouldn't get in everyone's faces about it." For example, "I'm fine with vegetarians, I just wish they wouldn't get in my face about it." Well, it would certainly seem to me that if one believes that killing animals for food is murder they should be getting in <i>everyone's</i> face about it. To stand idly by while people continue to benefit from murder would be gross neglect of one's moral duty, akin to ignoring the Holocaust when you know it to be deeply wrong.<div><br /></div><div>Take another example. "I'm fine with such and such a religious group, I just wish they would stop trying to convert me." Once again, this ignores the fact that, because of the very nature of someone's beliefs, for them to not try to convert you would be to neglect their moral duty. After all, they believe that if you are not converted you will suffer, which means, in fact, that not attempting to convert you would not only be neglecting their moral duty but, specifically, neglecting their moral duty <i>towards you</i>. To not try to convert you would be akin to letting you drown when they had an opportunity to try to rescue you. Similarly, it is absurd to expect the religious to keep their faith separate from their politics: if one believes, for example, that homosexuality is a sin and dangerous to our nation's spiritual well-being, it would be negligent for them to not try to combat it.</div><div><br /></div><div>Now, one can argue whether the killing of animals for meat <i>does</i> constitute murder*, or whether such and such <i>is</i> the path to salvation, or whether homosexuality is a sin. But <i>this</i> is exactly the issue that is at stake: whether or not someone's <i>beliefs</i> themselves are sound.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>*incidentally, I myself am conflicted on this point and, as such, have not become a vegetarian.</div>Dervine7http://www.blogger.com/profile/12315172050231811971noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3978532957294886798.post-80837781752896023332011-06-29T11:33:00.000-07:002011-07-01T12:47:42.487-07:00Born This WaySo one subject that keeps getting discussed in the gay marriage debate is whether or not homosexuality is innate. Gay advocates argue that if it is (and the evidence seems to be that it is), then homosexuals are being discriminated against for something they did not choose.<br />However, it has always seemed to me that this question - of whether homosexuality is innate - is a red herring. In fact, while it's an interesting scientific question, it has <span style="font-style: italic;">no bearing</span> on whether or not homosexuals have the right to engage in their preferred lifestyle.<br />Suppose (as is almost certainly the case) that homosexuality <span style="font-style: italic;">is</span> innate. Why should this give homosexuals the right to engage in their lifestyle? After all, many mental disorders are innate, but that doesn't mean that a psychopath has the right to go out and kill people. Someone who has a mental disorder that causes them to engage in immoral behavior has one of two options: either overcome the disorder, or be removed from society. This is regardless of whether the disorder is curable or not. And one can't say "God made me this way", because God made people with destructive mental disorders too.<br />And what if it isn't innate? Well, neither are most lifestyles people choose. We aren't born, for example, to live a certain religious lifestyle: we choose it (or are forced into it). But as long as lifestyle isn't hurting others, it does not concern them (obviously, there ARE some cases where a lifestyle might be hurting the person engaged in it in a way that is of concern to society as a whole). <span style="font-style: italic;">This</span> is the important point. The question isn't whether one was born homosexual or chose the lifestyle: it's whether people have the right to behave the way they would like as long as it doesn't hurt others (offense doesn't count). This is why I'm an ally.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">* * *<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;">While I'm on the subject of bad arguments for causes I support, let's talk about abortion. I am pro-choice in a fuzzy way: I believe that the abortion of, say, a week-old embryo is completely blameless regardless of circumstances, partial-birth abortions are immoral unless for extreme medical reasons, and the time in between is one big gray fuzzy mess. I discuss my views in detail <a href="http://dervine7.blogspot.com/2009/06/controversy-time-abortion.html">here</a>.<br />So, obviously, I do not agree with the pro-lifers. However, I think the argument that a woman has the right to do what she wants with her body completely misses the point. It is the pro-lifers who are actually talking about what matters in this case: namely, whether the fetus is a human life. My beliefs are that it isn't (until fairly late in its development), and this is why I think abortion is OK. But if it is, then it seems to me that a woman's right to choose becomes questionable at best. It is intuitively likely that one's right to choose what to do with one's body stops at the point that that choice entails killing another human being. We could justify it on utilitarian grounds that the psychological and physical distress of carrying and giving birth to the child outweighs the value of its life (which is how I'd look at it): but even in this case the woman's right to choose is only considered relative to the what the value is of the human to be destroyed.<br /></div></div>Dervine7http://www.blogger.com/profile/12315172050231811971noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3978532957294886798.post-10442235533537345252011-06-17T22:33:00.000-07:002011-07-01T12:47:07.453-07:00Blah blah blahSo, first, I totally failed in regards to the whole "keeping up with this blog" thing. Obviously I tried to pretend that I wasn't failing by posting my papers from college, but...that's cheating. I know this now.<div><br /></div><div>Anyway, I've been thinking about the following:</div><div>Understanding. I may end up doing my Div III (senior dissertation for all you non-Hampshire people) on it. Here's the problem: what does it mean to "understand" something? It is not an intentional state ("intentional state" is a fancy philosophical way of saying "thought", although it specifically refers to thoughts <i>about</i> things in the world: for example, when I think to myself "The Eiffel Tower is in Paris" [as I am wont to do] the thought is <i>about</i> the Eiffel Tower. Beliefs are also intentional states, since if you believe something, you believe something about something [once again, my belief that the Eiffel Tower is in Paris is about the Eiffel Tower]), since it doesn't correspond to anything. I.e. when I say "I understand the theory of relativity" I'm not making a statement about anything out there in the world. So maybe "understanding" is a subjective sensation. But no! We can't be wrong about our subjective sensations. But we can be wrong as to whether we do, in fact, understand something, so it seems. We can think we've understood something without understanding it at all. And is the converse possible? Can we not think we understand something when in fact we do? Why is any of this important? Because it's at the core of almost all arguments. Namely, we have to understand something in order for it to mean anything.</div>Dervine7http://www.blogger.com/profile/12315172050231811971noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3978532957294886798.post-57210683462959406952011-06-02T15:09:00.000-07:002011-07-01T12:46:43.215-07:00Meat n' Stuff<div>So I was think about all the commercials for dog food where they're like "it's made with fresh ingredients" "you're dog knows it's delicious" etc. and they show beautiful images of fresh ingredients. I decided there should be a dog food brand called "Meat n' Stuff", which is exactly that: low quality meat and various nutrients that your dog needs to survive. Here are some slogans I came up with (NSFW):</div><div><br /></div><div>Meat n' Stuff: because your dog doesn't give a fuck</div><div>Meat n' Stuff: because your dog is eating it, not you</div><div>Meat n' Stuff: for crying out loud, your dog likes to eat it's own shit</div>Dervine7http://www.blogger.com/profile/12315172050231811971noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3978532957294886798.post-46443813803382310932011-05-19T15:50:00.000-07:002011-05-19T15:52:21.795-07:00Did I lock the door? The cognitive neuroscience of Obsessive-Compulsive DisorderHampshire College<div>Brain and Cognition</div><div><!--StartFragment--> <h1 align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:200%">Introduction</h1> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is a common disorder that appears in both children and adults. It consists of obsessions, compulsions, or both. Obsessions consist of recurring thoughts or impulses that are intrusive and unwarranted by the environment (but still perceived as originating from the patients own mind, distinguishing them from “though-insertion”), causing distress or anxiety, and compulsions are repetitive behaviors the obsessive-compulsive feels he/she must perform. Compulsions are often related to the obsessions, and are meant to neutralize the distress caused by such obsessions. Some of the most common obsessions include germaphobia, fear of causing harm to oneself or to others, and worrying that important tasks have been left undone, for example being unsure whether one has locked the door, and compulsions include behavior such as hand washing, counting, and checking. The patient is usually aware of the absurdity of their thoughts and actions, but nevertheless feels powerless to stop them (American Psychological Association, 2000).<br /><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>In this paper, I will discuss the neurocognitive findings regarding OCD, particularly as they relate to the SEC/OCD model proposed by Huey et al (2008). I will begin with an overview of some of the brain studies of OCD, moving on to some popular models of the disorder. Finally, I will discuss the SEC/OCD model.</p> <h1 align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:200%">The Brain Regions Implicated in OCD and their Functions</h1> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Despite copious amounts of research, the precise neuropsychology of OCD is uncertain <span style="color:black">(Markarian et al, 2010). </span>Different studies often provide different and even contradictory results. Despite this, there are some generally agreed upon neuroanatomical features of OCD. Specifically, it has been consistently found that obsessive-compulsives reveal anatomical and functional abnormalities in the orbitofrontal cortex and the anterior cingulate cortex, and also the basal ganglia, prefrontal cortex, and thalamus (Markarian et al, 2010; Huey et al, 2008).</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Several studies have reported reduced bilateral orbitofrontal cortex volumes in obsessive-compulsives<span style="color:red">, </span><span style="color:black">and there seems to be a correlation between greater reductions and worse symptoms (Maia, Cooney, & Peterson, 2008)</span>. The orbitofrontal cortex seems to be involved in reward learning and emotions, and the regulation of complex behavior. It has been found that the orbitofrontal cortex responds to reward stimuli, but not when the desire for the stimuli has been satiated. Macaques with orbitofrontal have difficulty learning the reward value of stimuli, and are slow to change their behavior when reward conditions change (Huey et al, 2008).</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>There is evidence of increased anterior cingulate cortex activation in obsessive-compulsives (Fitzgerald et al, 2005). The anterior cingulate cortex is implicated in decision-making. In particular, it acts as a conflict and error detector, responding when there is a discrepancy between expected and actual events. Activation of the anterior cingulate cortex seems to lead to negative emotional states, such as anxiety (Huey et al, 2008).<span style="color:red"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="color:black"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>It has been</span> found that damage to the basal ganglia through infection can lead to obsessive-compulsive symptoms. The basal ganglia seem to play an important role in the generation and regulation of motor activities. Specifically, it has been suggested that the basal ganglia acts as a sort of gate for motor signals, facilitating certain motor actions while suppressing others (Huey et al, 2008).</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>The thalamus shows higher activation in subjects with OCD compared to controls, and has been reported to be larger in obsessive-compulsives <span style="color: black">(Maia, Cooney, & Peterson, 2008; Huey et al, 2008))</span>. The thalamus seems to be a gateway for interactions between brain areas involved in OCD (Huey et al, 2008).</p> <h1 align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:200%">Some Models of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder</h1> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Based on behavioral and neuroanatomical evidence, there have been numerous models proposed for OCD.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal">The Cognitive-Behavioral Model:</b> According to this model, OCD arises from dysfunctional beliefs regarding the importance of thoughts. Almost everyone has had intrusive thoughts that are perceived as inappropriate: for example, the fleeting, unwarranted, and unwanted mental image of stabbing a loved one with a knife. Healthy subjects recognize this as just meaningless junk in the stream of consciousness. However, obsessive-compulsives, according to the cognitive-behavioral model, incorrectly view these thoughts as highly significant—for example, as evidence that one will, in fact, lose control and stab someone. Because of the importance attached to these thoughts, they develop into obsessions, and compulsions arise as a way to attempt to get rid of these unwanted thoughts and/or neutralize the danger associated with such thoughts. These compulsions are then reinforced by the temporary reduction in anxiety they cause and the fact that they prevent the obsessive-compulsive from learning that harmful consequences will not arise as the result of their thoughts (McKay & Abramowitz, 2010). This model has gathered a lot of support (with some exceptions), but does not provide a neuropsychological explanation.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal">The Standard Model:</b> The standard neuroanatomical model of OCD proposes that the disorder arises as a dysfunction of elements of a post-frontal cortex-basal ganglia-thalamic loop. This model is consistent with most of the data collected on the neuroanatomy of OCD and forms the basis of many following models. However, it does not explain the psychological mechanisms of OCD (Huey et al, 2008).</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The “Feeling of Knowing” Model:</b> Szechtman & Woody (2004) propose a model wherein OCD is caused by an inability to create the “feeling of knowing” that a task has been completed. Specifically, they argue that the common symptoms of OCD—washing, checking, fear of causing harm, etc.—are those that evolutionarily would have been related to the security of the organism and its fellows. This need for security leads to the evolution of a security-seeking system. Because there are no external stimuli that indicate the completion of a security-seeking task (for example, there could always a predator that the animal has missed), the completion of such tasks is indicated by an internally generated “feeling of knowing”. Obsessive-compulsives have a deficit in generating this subjective sensation, leading to the odd phenomena in which the obsessive-compulsive is perfectly aware, objectively, that, for example, their hands are perfectly clean, but they do not <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">feel</i> clean, leading to further washing.</p> <h1 align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:200%">The SEC/OCD Model</h1> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Huey et al’s (2008) model of OCD expands on Szechtman &Woody’s model and also on their own earlier work where they propose that complex behaviors with beginnings, middles, and ends are stored in the prefrontal cortex in the form of Structured Event Complexes, of SECs. For example, the knowledge of how to correctly eat dinner at a restaurant—finding a seat, ordering, eating, paying the bill, leaving—would be an SEC. SECs are usually implicitly recalled, and in this respect are similar to procedural memory. SECs are stored when a complex sequence of behavior leads to a reward, in order that such a sequence may be repeated. As evidence of these SECs, patients with damage to the prefrontal cortex have often reported difficulty with ordering and sequencing events and actions.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Just as the completion of an SEC can be rewarding, so too can the inability to complete an SEC can feel punishing. Furthermore, there are SECs that are themselves punishing but which bring about the removal of punishment: for example, few people feel good about doing their taxes, but most are relieved when their taxes are finally done.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>In the SEC/OCD model, it is proposed that the initiation of an SEC is accompanied by a motivational signal, experienced as anxiety encouraging the animal to complete the SEC. In healthy subjects, the completion of the SEC is accompanied by a reward signal. According to the model, obsessive-compulsives have a deficiency in this latter process. Although the SEC is complete, the obsessive-compulsive does not have the sensation that it is done. This leads the anterior cingulate cortex to produce an error signal. The orbitofrontal cortex responds to this error as punishment, leading to a feeling of anxiety. This feeling is unconscious, leading the obsessive-compulsive to attempt to assign an explicit cause to it. This interpretation forms the basis of an obsession. The compulsion is caused by the fact that the completion of an SEC, for example hand washing, gives the obsessive-compulsives only partial relief, so that they feel they must repeat the SEC.<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>In regards to the basal ganglia, Huey et al suggest that just as it facilitates some motor actions while suppressing others, so too does it gate SECs. It is proposed that the basal ganglia sets thresholds for the activation of SECs, and when this threshold is lowered, for example by damage, it can lead to the overactivation of SECs, causing symptoms of OCD.</p> <h1 align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:200%">Conclusion</h1> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%">The cognitive neuroscience of OCD is still in its infancy. Much work is still to be done. However, Huey at al’s model provides a useful paradigm for further work. It shares and integrates elements from many of the previous models: along with expanding on Szechtman & Woody, it provides an explanation of why undue importance would be attached to fleeting thoughts as per the cognitive-behavioral model (the brain is looking for an explicit source of anxiety), and explains the possible psychological mechanisms of OCD that the standard model leaves out.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><o:p> </o:p></p> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span style="font-size:16.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:Arial;mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-font-kerning:16.0pt;mso-ansi-language: EN-US;mso-fareast-language:EN-US"><br /> </span></b> <h1 align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:200%">References</h1> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 6.0pt;line-height:200%;mso-bidi-font-family:Times-Roman">American Psychiatric Association (2000). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental <span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Disorders: DSM-IV-TR, 4th ed Washington, DC: American Psychiatric <span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Association Text Revision.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%">Fitzgerald, K., Welsh, R. C., Gehring, W. J., Abelson, J. L., Himle, J. A., Liberzon, I., & <span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Taylor, S. F. (2005). Error-Related Hyperactivity of the Anterior Cingulate Cortex <span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Biological Psychiatry</i>, 57(3), 287-294.<span style="mso-bidi-font-size:6.0pt; line-height:200%;mso-bidi-font-family:Times-Roman"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%">Huey, E. D., Zahn, R., Krueger, F., Moll, J., Kapogiannis, D., Wassermann, E. M., & <span style="mso-tab-count: 1"> </span>Grafman, J. (2008). A psychological and neuroanatomical model of obsessive-<span style="mso-tab-count: 1"> </span>compulsive disorder. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">The Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences</i>, <span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>20(4), 390-408.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%">Maia, T. V., Cooney, R. E., & Peterson, B. S. (2008). The neural bases of obsessive-<span style="mso-tab-count: 1"> </span>compulsive disorder in children and adults. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Development and Psychopathology</i>, <span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>20(4), 1251-1283.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%">Markarian, Y., Larson, M. J., Aldea, M. A., Baldwin, S. A., Good, D., Berkeljon, A., & ... <span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>McKay, D. (2010). Multiple pathways to functional impairment in obsessive–<span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>compulsive disorder. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Clinical Psychology Review</i>, 30(1), 78-88.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%">McKay, D., Taylor, S., & Abramowitz, J. S. (2010). Obsessive-compulsive disorder. In <span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>D. McKay, J. S. Abramowitz, S. Taylor, D. McKay, J. S. Abramowitz, S. Taylor <span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>(Eds.) , <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Cognitive-behavioral therapy for refractory cases: Turning failure into <span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>success</i> (pp. 89-109). Washington, DC US: American Psychological Association.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%">Szechtman, H., & Woody, E. (2004). Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder as a Disturbance <span style="mso-tab-count: 1"> </span>of Security Motivation. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Psychological Review</i>, 111(1), 111-127.</p> <!--EndFragment--> </div>Dervine7http://www.blogger.com/profile/12315172050231811971noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3978532957294886798.post-81087185880051101172011-05-19T15:47:00.001-07:002011-05-19T15:52:12.877-07:00Epiphenonema: can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em<h1 style="text-align: left;line-height: 200%; " align="center"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; font-size: 16px; ">Hampshire College</span></h1><h1 style="text-align: left;line-height: 200%; " align="center"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; font-size: 16px; "></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; font-size: 16px; ">Philosophy of Mind</span></h1><h1 style="text-align: center; line-height: 200%;" align="center">Introduction</h1> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>Frank Jackson, in his paper “Epiphenomenal Qualia”, argues that we could know all the physical facts about the world, yet we would never know of qualia, and that therefore qualia are not contained in the physical world. Furthermore, he claims that qualia are epiphenomenal: that is, that they are caused by physical processes, but do not have any effect on the physical world. In this paper, I will argue that this claim that qualia are epiphenomenal destroys the Jackson’s first argument, and yet, this same argument does not work <i>without</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> epiphenomenalism. I will conclude by discussing the reasons I think that we should continue to believe a physicalist thesis regarding qualia.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <h1 style="text-align: center; line-height: 200%;" align="center">Epiphenomenalism<o:p></o:p></h1> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>In the second half of his paper, Jackson argues that there is no good reason that one should not accept that qualia might be epiphenomena—caused by physical processes, yet with no causal power <i>whatsoever</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> in the physical world. I do not believe that he establishes the epiphenomenalism as a sound hypothesis.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>Jackson lists three major objections that he feels philosophers often have against epiphenomenalism:<o:p></o:p></p> <ol style="margin-top: 0in;" start="1" type="i"><li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">“It is supposed to be just obvious that the hurtfulness of pain is partly responsible for the subject seeking to avoid pain, saying ‘it hurts’ and so on.”<o:p></o:p></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">“According to natural selection the traits that evolve over time are those conducive to physical survival. We may assume that qualia evolved over time—we have them, the earliest forms of life do no—and so we should expect qualia to be conducive to survival. The objection is that they could hardly help us to survive if they do nothing to the physical world.”<o:p></o:p></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">“…how can a person’s behavior provide any reason for believing he had qualia like mine, or indeed any qualia at all, unless this behavior can be regarded as the <i>outcome</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> of the qualia…And an epiphenomenalist cannot regard behavior, or indeed anything physical, as an outcome of qualia.”<o:p></o:p></span></li></ol> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">The first objection, as Jackson phrases it, is silly, as all arguments resting on “obvious”-ness are, and so his reply to it is not very interesting for our purposes. The second objection betrays a substantial misunderstanding of evolutionary theory, and I think Jackson’s reply to it is correct<a style="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=3978532957294886798&postID=8108718588005110117#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[1]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a>. The third objection, however, is very interesting, and it is in his reply to this objection that Jackson makes the argument that I now wish to deconstruct.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>Jackson’s reply to this third objection is in the form of an analogy, which I will paraphrase. Suppose I read in the <i>New York Times</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> that the mayor of NYC is cutting funding for police. I can reasonably infer that the </span><i>New York Post</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> also reports on this fact, </span><i>even though the</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> New York Times</span><i> and the </i><span style="font-style: normal;">New York Post </span><i>may not have any influence on each other</i><span style="font-style: normal;">. I can do this because I know that the </span><i>New York Times</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> and the </span><i>New York Post</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> both report on issues of interest to New Yorkers, that the </span><i>New York Times</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> reporting that the mayor is cutting funding for police is a good indication that the mayor is, in fact, doing such a thing, that this is an issue of interest to New Yorkers, and that therefore the </span><i>New York Post</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> has also probably reported on this fact. The analogous case for qualia (which Jackson never explicitly lays out) is that given that my nervous system produces both qualia and certain types of behaviors (analogous to how the mayor’s actions “produce” the stories in both the </span><i>New York Times</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> and the </span><i>New York Posts</i><span style="font-style: normal;">), and that your behaviors are similar to mine, I can infer that you have the sort of nervous system that would also produce qualia.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>The difficulty with this argument, as Daniel Dennett (“’Epiphenomenal Qualia?”) points out, comes from the fact that, according to Jackson’s account, qualia have <i>no</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> causal powers in the physical world. Because of this, qualia </span><i>cannot</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> influence my behavior </span><i>in any way</i><a style="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=3978532957294886798&postID=8108718588005110117#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[2]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a>: otherwise what we have is not epiphenomenalism, but interactionist dualism. For this reason, it is impossible for me to know that <i>I myself</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> have qualia, as their existence or non-existence would make no difference to the workings of my brain. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>“Ah,” it may be replied, “but just because qualia do not have any effect on the workings of your <i>brain</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, they may still have an effect on the workings of your </span><i>mind</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, say, your belief that you have qualia.” This is, strictly speaking, a valid move. However, it has troubling consequences: for example (referencing Dennett), if I lost my qualia, I would presumably no longer believe that I had them, but I would still act exactly as if I did. Mental states could no longer be said to influence behavior, as those mental states are potentially influenced by qualia and qualia cannot influence behavior<a style="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=3978532957294886798&postID=8108718588005110117#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[3]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a>. It seems, then, that the epiphenomenalist is left with two options. One, they could say that qualia influence mental states, in which case mental states cannot influence behavior and my mind is completely severed from the physical world, or two—if we want to preserve the influence of mental states on behavior—that qualia do not influence mental states, in which case it is impossible for me to know whether I myself have qualia. The first option is unpalatable (as I will discuss below), yet if the epiphenomenalist takes the second position, he/she must admit that there is no way for me to infer the existence of qualia in others, since I cannot even use myself as an example!<o:p></o:p></span></p> <h1 style="text-align: center; line-height: 200%;" align="center">The Knowledge Argument<o:p></o:p></h1> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>“Alright,” says the epiphenomenalist. “Let us assume your analysis is correct. If qualia have no effect on the physical world, then it is impossible for us to know whether we ourselves have qualia. However, there may be many things that it is impossible for us to know about, but which nevertheless exist. For example, there might be creatures that live beyond—and will always live beyond—the area of the universe that we can observe. It would be impossible for us to ever know about them, yet that does not change their existence.”<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>Against this, many would argue that, in the absence of any sort of evidence, it is useless to speak of some thing’s “existence”. There is a much larger philosophical issue at stake here. Happily, we do not need to discuss this issue now. For if qualia are truly epiphenomenal, then Jackson’s Knowledge Argument—the central part of his paper—completely falls apart.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>This argument is as follows. Imagine that there is a neuroscientist, Mary, who for some reason has been forced to live her whole life inside a black-and-white room<a style="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=3978532957294886798&postID=8108718588005110117#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[4]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a>. Despite this, Mary becomes a specialist in color vision and, eventually, learns everything that it is possible to know about how color vision works: complete descriptions of the physical mechanisms, the functional roles that color perception and various colors play, etc. One day, Mary’s captors decide to let her out of the room. She gets handed a tomato—the fruit of choice for released prisoners—and finds that, despite her omniscience regarding color vision, the color of the tomato is a completely new experience for her. “Aha,” she exclaims, “so this is what ‘red’, the color I know is associated with tomatoes, <i>actually</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> looks like!” She has learned a new fact about color that was not amongst any of the physical facts: what such color is </span><i>like</i><span style="font-style: normal;">. This would seem to imply, then, that this fact about what red is like—the quale associated with red—is not part of the physical world.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>However, this story does not make any sense if we accept that qualia are epiphenomenal. Firstly, if qualia have no influence on the physical world, it cannot be the new quale that caused Mary to make any sort of exclamation. She would have said the same thing, quale or not. This objection does not mean much, though—it can easily be countered that even though we cannot know from her <i>actions</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> whether or not Mary has learned a new fact, it is still the case that her </span><i>subjective experience</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> obviously now includes that fact. Perhaps we can imagine that Mary merely thought about the fact that she now had this new qualia, so we don’t have to worry about its effect on her actions. This does not help, though, as we must now ask whether Mary’s thoughts are reflected in the workings of her brain. I.e., could some sort of neuroscientific Laplace’s Demon, who knows everything about the physical structure of Mary’s brain at any time, be able to tell us what she is thinking? I think Jackson would want the answer to this to be yes. Yet, if it is true that qualia can influence Mary’s thoughts, and that thoughts are reflected by brain states, then one of two options become must be chosen: either qualia can influence brain states, and are therefore not epiphenomenal, or thoughts—and this would seem to include </span><i>all</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> thoughts, not just those specifically about qualia, as any given thought could always have qualia as part of its causal history—are entirely distinct from those brain states, even though they are reflected by them. If we choose this latter option, then the causal relationship between thoughts and brain states, if one exists, must be a one-way street: thoughts are caused by the brain states, but thoughts cannot influence brain states, and are, in fact, epiphenomenal. However, if thoughts are epiphenomenal, then anything that can be influenced by thoughts would have to be epiphenomenal too (otherwise, thoughts could exert some sort of influence on the physical world). This would likely include any mental state Mary might have (thoughts are, after all, quite influential in the mental world). In fact, if the entity called Mary can learn a new fact from experiencing a new quale—Mary can be influenced by qualia—then Mary </span><i>herself</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> must be an epiphenomenon: something caused by the lump of matter that has just been released from its black-and-white room, but with no ability to influence that lump of matter in any way.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <h1 style="text-align: center; line-height: 200%;" align="center">Does the Knowledge Argument work without Epiphenomenal Qualia?<o:p></o:p></h1> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>We have seen that if qualia are truly epiphenomenal, and yet I can learn a new fact from experiencing new qualia, then I myself must be epiphenomenal—otherwise, qualia can influence the physical world through me. While there is no immediately apparent logical reason why this view could not, possibly, be true, I think very few would be willing to accept it. If I am epiphenomenal, then, by definition, I have no power over the physical world—not even my own body. I am merely experiencing the effects of processes over which I have no control. In my mind this consequence is a sort of informal <i>reductio ad absurdum</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, and I think most philosophers would agree<a style="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=3978532957294886798&postID=8108718588005110117#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[5]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a>.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>However, perhaps we have been too concerned with epiphenomena. Perhaps Jackson’s Knowledge Argument still works—perhaps he just made a mistake by attaching epiphenomenal qualia to it. Of course, there are numerous objections to the Knowledge Argument not related to epiphenomenalism: perhaps what Mary learns is not a new fact, but a new mode of knowing some fact—not a “what”, but a “how”, or perhaps, as Dennett points out, our reaction to the Mary story merely reflects that we cannot conceive of what it would mean for Mary to know <i>everything</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> physical that there is to know—perhaps, with that knowledge, she </span><i>would</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> be able to reconstruct the subjective experience of seeing red. According to Dennett’s objection, Jackson is merely begging the question by pre-supposing that knowing all the physical facts will not allow Mary to have the experience. However, I want to take a different tack. I want to argue that, without epiphenomenalism, the Knowledge Argument does not work. Of course, we also just saw that </span><i>with</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> epiphenomenalism the Knowledge Argument doesn’t work. This means that if I’m successful, the Knowledge Argument will have nowhere to go.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>If qualia do exist, but are not epiphenomenal, that is, they <i>do</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> have some sort of influence on the physical world, how does this affect the story of Mary? Let’s go back to before Mary left the room, when she knew everything </span><i>physical</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> there is to know about color vision. If the qualia associated with seeing color have a physical effect, then this effect would have to be included in Mary’s knowledge. This would lead to one of two options: either qualia are non-physical, in which case Mary’s description of the physical mechanism of color vision would have to have some sort of causal hole in it—that is, she could say only that A causes B, and then B causes </span><i>something or other</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, and </span><i>that</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> something or other causes D—or that qualia </span><i>is</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> included in the physical description, in which case Mary would already know the subjective sensation of seeing red before leaving the room. Obviously, the second option leads to physicalism (although it is possible that the physical description might include stuff that we have not yet incorporated into our neuroscience), so it is obviously the first option that anyone who wants to say that qualia are non-physical must choose. This option implies that the physical world is not closed under physical causation—that is, that there are non-physical things that can nevertheless have physical effects. Now, there is no </span><i>prima facie</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> reason why this isn’t a viable option. However, there is also no </span><i>prima facie</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> reason to choose one of the two options over the other (at least, not until one considers the arguments of those such as Dennett). Once again, we are faced with the problem of begging the question: Jackson must pre-suppose that qualia would not be included in a complete physical description. Of course, those who want non-physical qualia could say that the physicalist is also guilty of question begging. The question is empirical.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <h1 style="text-align: center; line-height: 200%;" align="center">Qualia of the Gaps<o:p></o:p></h1> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>The question is empirical, but we must ask: can it, in fact, be answered? We move now to the realm of personal opinion. It seems likely to me that there is no possible empirical evidence that could allow us to choose between the two options until such time as we do find a physicalist description of qualia. That is, there is no way that we could determine whether the causal gap we have encountered—the place where we throw up our hands and say “well, <i>something</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> happens”—is, in principle, impossible to bridge. The question now becomes: what assumption shall we make when we encounter a seeming explanatory gap? Do we assume that it is intrinsically inexplicable, or do we assume that we just don’t know enough, or may not even be smart enough? I think the latter is a much more satisfactory option, as it allows and motivates us to continue searching for an answer. Furthermore, the history of science includes numerous examples of the solution of seemingly insoluble problems, problems that were declared to be permanently insoluble. Physicalism has triumphed in the past, and I believe that we can reasonably assume that it will continue to do so.<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span></p> <h1 style="line-height: 200%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></h1> <div style=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--> <hr align="left" width="33%" size="1"> <!--[endif]--> <div style="" id="ftn1"> <p class="MsoFootnoteText"><a style="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=3978532957294886798&postID=8108718588005110117#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size:10pt;"><span style=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[1]<!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size:10pt;"> Namely, that the fact that some trait exists does not mean that it was evolutionarily selected for. It may, instead, be a necessary byproduct of some other trait that <i>was</i></span><span style="font-size:10pt;"> selected for.<o:p></o:p></span></p> </div> <div style="" id="ftn2"> <p class="MsoFootnoteText"><a style="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=3978532957294886798&postID=8108718588005110117#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size:10pt;"><span style=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[2]<!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a> <span style="font-size:10pt;">To clarify, in all following discussion I assume that epiphenomenalism defines the inability to influence the physical world as a necessary property of qualia instead of a contingent one. I.e., I take it to mean not only that qualia do not happen to influence the physical world, but that they <i>cannot</i></span><span style="font-size:10pt;"> influence the physical world (at least not in our reality).<o:p></o:p></span></p> </div> <div style="" id="ftn3"> <p class="MsoFootnoteText"><a style="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=3978532957294886798&postID=8108718588005110117#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size:10pt;"><span style=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[3]<!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size:10pt;"> At this point a particularly legalistic reader might have begun to object to my characterization of “influence”. “Qualia influence mental states, and mental states influence behavior, but you have failed to show that qualia influence behavior,” that reader may say. To this I would reply: imagine that qualia were taken out of the causal chain. Would this not change the behavior of things further down in the chain? At least one property of influence/causal power is that if in order to give a complete causal account of the behavior of B one must describe the behavior of A, then A influences B.<o:p></o:p></span></p> </div> <div style="" id="ftn4"> <p class="MsoFootnoteText"><a style="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=3978532957294886798&postID=8108718588005110117#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size:10pt;"><span style=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[4]<!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size:10pt;"> We may suppose also that, for whatever reason, she cannot see the colors of her own body.<o:p></o:p></span></p> </div> <div style="" id="ftn5"> <p class="MsoFootnoteText"><a style="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=3978532957294886798&postID=8108718588005110117#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size:10pt;"><span style=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[5]<!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size:10pt;"> It may be objected I am pre-supposing the existence of free-will here, which would be ironic, as I do not believe in free-will. However, I think the objection is unfounded. Even though we may not have control over our <i>volitions</i></span><span style="font-size:10pt;">, it still seems very hard to hold that those volitions do not have the causal powers that we feel they do.<o:p></o:p></span></p> </div> </div> <!--EndFragment-->Dervine7http://www.blogger.com/profile/12315172050231811971noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3978532957294886798.post-74301823496020445992011-05-19T15:42:00.000-07:002011-05-19T15:52:01.114-07:00Extended CognitionHampshire College<div>Philosophy of Mind</div><div><!--StartFragment--> <h1 style="line-height:200%">Introduction</h1> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>In their paper “The extended mind”, Clark & Chalmers argue that the traditional view of cognition and the mind as being “inside the skull” is incorrect. Instead, they argue, cognitive processes—and, indeed, the mind itself—are partially constituted by the surrounding environment. Clark & Chalmers’ position is more than simple externalism—the position that a consideration of external, environmental factors is important in understanding the workings of the mind—it is radical, active externalism, arguing that the external, environmental factors are <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">part of</i> the mind. Clark & Chalmers focus in particular on the ways that belief can be extended. In this paper, I argue that belief is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">not</i> something that can be, as of now<a style="mso-footnote-id:ftn" href="#_ftn1" name="_ftnref" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character:footnote">[1]</span></span></a>, extended, and that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">memory</i> can much more plausibly be considered to be extended, and I propose a criterion by which we could consider something part of the mind. The mind <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">is</i> extended, just not in the particular way Clark & Chalmers argue for.</p> <h1 style="line-height:200%">Clark & Chalmers’ Argument</h1> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>In their paper, Clark & Chalmers spend most of their focus on<i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"> beliefs</i> as an example of extended cognition. Specifically, they introduce us to Otto, a man with Alzheimer’s who has developed a system for keeping track of the various information that he would like to recall: he writes it all down in a notebook, a notebook that is reliably available to him whenever he needs it. When Otto hears that the Museum of Modern Art is having an exhibition he would like to see, and that the MoMA is on 53<sup>rd</sup> St., he writes this information down in his trusty notebook. For all intents and purposes, Clark & Chalmers argue, the content of Otto’s notebook constitutes his standing beliefs about the world. Because beliefs are part of the mind, Otto’s mind extends outside his skull, and, similarly, our own mind can be considered extended, since after all we quite often store information outside ourselves and there is no important difference between our writing stuff down in a notebook and Otto doing the same (except, of course, that we do not have Alzheimer’s).</p> <h1 style="line-height:200%">Beliefs, and Why Otto’s Notebook Doesn’t Contain Them</h1> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%">Clark & Chalmers make a distinction between <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">standing</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">occurrent</i> beliefs, a distinction that is useful to go over before we continue. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Occurrent</i> beliefs are the beliefs that one is conscious of at any given moment: for example, the belief that is now brought to my mind that this essay is due today. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Standing</i> beliefs are those beliefs we have that we may not be consciously aware of at this moment, but which influence our actions and may, at any time, become occurrent. It is not even necessary that we be conscious in order to have standing beliefs: my standing belief that Mars is red exists even when I am in non-REM sleep.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>It is my (occurrent and standing) belief that the contents of Otto’s notebook do <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">not </i>satisfy the definition of standing beliefs and also lack some important properties of such beliefs that are not contained in the definition (though perhaps they should be). Imagine some unfortunate person Alicia, who has sustained brain trauma that has made it very difficult for her to access semantic information about cars. Perhaps she can’t access it at all without some form of rehabilitation<a style="mso-footnote-id: ftn" href="#_ftn2" name="_ftnref" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character:footnote">[2]</span></span></a>. Furthermore, she has no implicit memories regarding cars: she behaves exactly as one who knows nothing about them. However, she does not<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"> lack</i> the information: with appropriate help she can access it without having to relearn it. It is simply impossible for her to access it without significant effort. Does she have any beliefs regarding cars before she is able to access the information? It is apparent that she does not.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>What is it about Alicia’s case that makes it apparent that she lacks beliefs about cars? First, that standing beliefs not only influence our behavior, but that they can do so without us being aware of them. So, for example, I do not have to consciously recall my beliefs about gravity to become concerned when some fragile object falls, even though without such belief that situation would have no reason to concern me (if I have no beliefs regarding gravity, for all I know the object may become safely suspended in midair). Or, for another example, at any particular moment I may act as if there is or isn’t a God without consciously referring to my beliefs on the matter. (Indeed, it seems that quite often the only times we become aware of many of our standing beliefs is when they are challenged in some way: things aren’t where we expected them to be, someone argues against our basic assumptions, etc.) Alicia’s information about cars cannot do this. And the content of Otto’s notebook cannot do this either: it cannot influence Otto’s behavior without him becoming consciously aware of it. Secondly, and on a related note, standing beliefs can, and often do, become occurrent beliefs automatically and/or without our conscious control. For example, when someone mentions the Empire State Building the belief that it is in New York may occur to me, quite without my willing it to. Once again, Alicia’s information about cars cannot do this and, once again, the contents of Otto’s notebook cannot do this: someone mentioning the MoMA would not cause any occurrent beliefs on the matter for Otto, unless he made a willful decision to check.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>There are likely many more important differences between the sorts of things that standing beliefs can do and the sort of things that the contents of Otto’s notebook can do. At least in regards to the two I’ve described, which seem particularly essential, the first by itself is justification for rejecting the description of the contents of Otto’s notebook as “beliefs”, as those contents cannot influence behavior directly.</p> <h1 style="line-height:200%">Memories</h1> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>So while beliefs can’t be plausibly extended, does Clark & Chalmers’ thesis still hold: can the mind be extended? Is there some aspect of our self that reaches out into the world? I believe that memory fits the bill. When Otto writes down information in his notebook, what is contained in the notebook is not beliefs, but memories.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>The distinction between memories and beliefs is perhaps subtle, but it is clear that there is a difference. Memories can do many of the things beliefs do that I described above: they can influence our behavior without us being aware of them, they can be recalled automatically, etc. In the case of memories, however, these properties are not in any way essential. Going back to the case of Alicia, we can ask whether she has memories regarding cars. It is apparent that she does: the memories were there, she just could not access them. What would she be re-accessing otherwise? Memories need be nothing more than the storage of information<a style="mso-footnote-id:ftn" href="#_ftn3" name="_ftnref" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character:footnote">[3]</span></span></a>. (Of course, one could ask whether, without access to information regarding cars, that information, and hence those memories, could be said to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">belong</i> to Alicia. I discuss this question—that of the ownership of memories—later on.)</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span></p> <h1 style="line-height:200%">Otto’s, and Our, Memories</h1> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Memories seem to be much more plausibly extended than beliefs<a style="mso-footnote-id: ftn" href="#_ftn4" name="_ftnref" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character:footnote">[4]</span></span></a>. Information stored outside the body seems to serve the same functional role as memory, for the same reasons Clark & Chalmers argued that such information serves the same function as belief. If we follow Otto around, we will see that where we would commit some information to memory, he writes it down, and where we would consult our memory, he consults his notebook. It is more difficult and effortful, perhaps, for him to access the information in his notebook than it normally is for us to access our memories while in a normal state; however, it is no more difficult for him than it would be for us to access our memories if we were tired, distracted, or had suffered the same sort of brain trauma as Alicia. In fact, even in a normal state the access of our own memories can be difficult: I often find, for instance, that the name of some person is inaccessible to me (despite the fact that I know it) and that I have to perform some sort of effortful memory search to re-access it. There is perhaps a qualitative difference in our memories: whereas my memories “feel” like information that I knew all along, the contents of the notebook would not. But this only reflects the fact that we are accessing the memories through different modalities.<a style="mso-footnote-id:ftn" href="#_ftn5" name="_ftnref" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote">[5]</span></span></a></p> <h1 style="line-height:200%">Who’s Memories?</h1> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>In this discussion, the question may arise: if memories can be stored outside of the body, what makes those memories one person’s instead of another’s? Or, furthermore, what makes some information I’ve written down <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">my memory</i>, instead of just a record of information? I think this is the wrong question to ask. It assumes that my memories are encased in a unitary shell, that one person’s memories cannot be another’s, and that something is either my memory or it isn’t. I propose, instead, as an object of further study, that there is a degree to which a memory can be considered to belong to a particular individual. This degree is determined by a combination of properties, neither of which are necessary in and of themselves, although it <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">is </i>necessary that there be at least one or some combination of them: first, how easily is the information recalled by that particular person, and secondly, how important is the information to the identity of that person? By the first criteria, anything stored “in the head”, which when recalled has the qualitative sense of being “mine”, is indisputably my memory, regardless of how relevant it may be to my identity; and by the second criteria, a record of my life, sealed away so that I even cannot review it, would also constitute my memory. These are the extreme examples—most memories share both properties to some extent. In Otto’s case, the information in his notebook serves as his memory because of its reliability and ease of access, and also because without his notebook he would likely feel that he had lost an important piece of himself.<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"> <a style="mso-footnote-id:ftn" href="#_ftn6" name="_ftnref" title=""><span style="mso-special-character:footnote">[6]</span></a></span></p> <h1 style="line-height:200%">But What of the Mind?</h1> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Perhaps, at this point, the reader will object that while memories may be extended, they are not aspects of the mind; therefore, the mind is not extended. Perhaps the mind is only those operations we perform on our memories; after all, there are many sources of information that the mind draws from in order to function that are not themselves part of the mind—sensory data, for instance, or, if you feel that the senses are part of the mind, the content of that data—and perhaps memory is such a source. To this, I would reply that in my formulation my “mind” is identical with my “self”, and it is our memories that make us who we are: if you remove some memory that is important to my conception of self, I would not longer be the same person, and, therefore, I am not of the same mind. Therefore, memories are part of the mind.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>I think the difficulty lies in thinking of “the mind”: of the self as being one unitary thing, that if extended is extended in its entirety. Instead, I propose as a question for further study that the mind is made up of several different parts. Our conscious awareness is one such part, but our memories are also important. This non-unitary structure explains how outside sources of information can be memories and part of the mind, even though our recall of them is qualitatively different than that of memories stored “in the head”: the conscious aspect of our mind recalls them in different ways. Of course, now we need to ask how we determine <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">what,</i> exactly, can be considered part of the mind. There are many important factors that allow us to think—the beating of our heart, etc. How do we determine which of these should be considered part of the mind? I propose that the factors that are part of our minds are those that contribute functionally to the workings of the mind in such a way that they cannot be replaced without changing the identity of that mind—regardless of whether these factors are inside the head or not.</p> <div style="mso-element:footnote-list"><br /> <hr align="left" size="1" width="33%"> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn"> <p class="MsoFootnoteText"><a style="mso-footnote-id:ftn" href="#_ftnref" name="_ftn1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt"><span style="mso-special-character:footnote">[1]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt"> I don’t consider it at all impossible that beliefs could be extended through the use of neural prosthetics in the future, as long as they satisfy the requirements listed later on in this paper.<o:p></o:p></span></p> </div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn"> <p class="MsoFootnoteText"><a style="mso-footnote-id:ftn" href="#_ftnref" name="_ftn2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt"><span style="mso-special-character:footnote">[2]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt"> That, for the purposes of this thought experiment, does not include relearning the information.<o:p></o:p></span></p> </div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn"> <p class="MsoFootnoteText"><a style="mso-footnote-id:ftn" href="#_ftnref" name="_ftn3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt"><span style="mso-special-character:footnote">[3]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt"> Although one can argue about whether and what certain types of stored information can be considered “memories”. I do not discuss this here.<o:p></o:p></span></p> </div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn"> <p class="MsoFootnoteText"><a style="mso-footnote-id:ftn" href="#_ftnref" name="_ftn4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt"><span style="mso-special-character:footnote">[4]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt"> Furthermore, it seems much more natural to extend them this way: colloquially, we talk about a book of recollections, or a box full of memories, or even of places that remind us of the past as somehow containing the memories themselves (“this house is full of memories”), in a way that we do not for beliefs. While this fact about natural usage of terms does not show that it is in fact wrong to speak of beliefs as being extended (although as seen earlier it seems that it is), it does lend support to that assertion, and it make it even more likely that memories <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">can</i> be plausibly extended, as the idea does not seem too far from our natural intuitions about the use of our terms.<o:p></o:p></span></p> </div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn"> <p class="MsoFootnoteText"><a style="mso-footnote-id:ftn" href="#_ftnref" name="_ftn5" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt"><span style="mso-special-character:footnote">[5]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt"> One objection could be raised related to recent research on memory: it seems that when we recall memories, we re-imagine and rewrite them. Otto does not do this with the contents of his notebook (or, at least, it isn’t necessarily part of the process), therefore the contents are not memories. I would reply by saying that this fact about memory as it happens to work in no way describes an essential property: it could have turned out that the recollection of memories did not work this way, yet we would still call it memory. <o:p></o:p></span></p> </div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn"> <p class="MsoNormal"><a style="mso-footnote-id:ftn" href="#_ftnref" name="_ftn6" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size:10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt"><span style="mso-special-character:footnote">[6]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt"> It is also possible for entities other than individuals to have memories: collective memory is allowed for, if the information is easily accessed by and/or important to the identity of the people as a collective.<o:p></o:p></span></p> </div> </div> <!--EndFragment--> </div>Dervine7http://www.blogger.com/profile/12315172050231811971noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3978532957294886798.post-87343097680770461462011-05-19T15:36:00.000-07:002011-05-19T15:41:09.292-07:00Mind-Brain Identity<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="mso-tab-count:1">Hampshire College</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%">Philosophy of Mind</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>What is identity theory? In this paper, I explain it, and explain why it is flawed, namely, because it does not account for multiple realization.<br /><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Identity theory is the metaphysical doctrine that, while epistemically distinct, brain states and mental states are ontologically identical. By this I mean that mental states and brain states are the same thing: the only difference is in how one perceives, thinks about, and describes this thing. The fact that brain states and mental states are identical is an empirical observation: it is not known <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">a priori</i>. An analogy that will perhaps make this whole idea clearer is the case of lightning, and its identity with electrical discharge. It is known that lightning is electrical discharge; however, the way we perceive, think about, and describe lightning is completely different from the way we perceive, think about, and describe electrical discharge. Furthermore, we would not know that they are the same thing if it had not been experimentally confirmed (ala Benjamin Franklin and his kite). Similarly, evidence from cognitive neuroscience leads to the hypothesis of identity. <span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Identity theory is a reductionist theory; it posits that the description of any higher-level phenomenon can be reduced to a description of lower-level phenomena without a loss of information, i.e., mental states can be reduced to brain states, which, being physical states, are further reducible to the laws of physics.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Identity theory is, furthermore, a theory of type-identity: it claims that any particular mental state type (such as pain) is reducible to a particular brain state type (such as C-fibers firing)—indeed, that it <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">must</i> be that brain state type, just as lighting <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">must</i> be electrical discharge. This is distinguished from token-identity, which claims merely that any instance of some mental state is reducible to some sort of brain state. Type-identities, though not without their difficulties, are much easier to clearly define than token-identities. Take, for example, the claim that “pain is C-fibers firing”. If something is pain, it is C-fibers firing, and if it is C-fibers firing, it is pain—plain and simple. Token identities are fuzzier: for example, what is it about this object in my hand that makes it a mug? If we want strict definitions of our token-identities, we must be able to say that those things, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">and only those things</i>, that satisfy a certain set of criteria (has a handle, holds liquid, etc.) are tokens of a certain type. We must either posit functional types—i.e., that all tokens that are representative of the type X have the particular combination of functions Y, and that all things that have the particular combination of functions Y are X—or physical types—all tokens that are representative of type X share a particular physical trait Y, and all things that share the physical trait Y are X.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>The advantages of a reductionist theory like type-identity theory are apparent: it gives our experience a sort of explanatory, causal, and even ontological coherence and closure. When things are reduced, the method of explanation for any particular phenomenon is no longer different from the method of explanation for any other phenomena: they can both be explained in terms of the same underlying process. Causally, reductionism implies that there are not separate chains of causality for different phenomena, i.e. that there are not mental processes going on according to their own laws of causality separate from the physical processes and their laws of causality. And ontologically, reductionism reduces the number of posited kinds of entities (minds, heat, etc.) down to, potentially, one.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>There is, however, a problem, which may be fatal for identity (or, specifically, type-identity) theory, and, indeed, reductionism in general—multiple realization, i.e., the fact that the same higher-level system can be implemented on entirely different underlying physical systems. For an example, consider an algorithm (a set of rules for how to perform some function). Let’s say the rules of this algorithm are to take an input number and add 2 to it. This algorithm can be run on multiple, almost incomparable physical systems. For example, I can do it in my head, I can do it with a pen and pencil, I can design a contraption out of Tinkertoys to do it, I can create a program on my calculator to do it, it can be done on a Mac, and it can be done on a PC. In fact, there are a potentially infinite number of ways that this one algorithm could be implemented, with nothing physically similar about any of them.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Similarly, there seem to be multiple ways in which a mental event, for example seeing green, can be correlated with brain events—after all, the way that you see green might be quite different from the way I see green. In fact, in order for the description “seeing green” to be useful, it <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">must </i>describe these multiple ways: otherwise, the only thing that could be described as truly seeing green would be me, as everyone’s brain is different and I am the only person with the exactly the physical brain state that I have when seeing green! The case of C-fibers being pain would seem to be easier: C-fibers are, after all, a particular type of neuron shared by us all. But if pain is C-fibers firing, does that mean that a petri dish full of C-fibers and nothing else would experience pain? If there is any conclusion we do not want our theory of mind to entail, it is this. This would be true of any mental event: if one attempts to identify it with some very specific thing (the activities of a type of cell, the presence of a chemical, etc.) one must claim that that thing, all by itself, is the said mental event, a claim which leads to absurdity. Pain, instead, seems to identify with various events interacting amongst different parts of the brain, the specific organization of which is once again going to be less and less similar between any two people. The problem becomes even more difficult when considering the supposed mental lives of non-humans. Monkeys, dogs, reptiles, etc., have brains that are physically more or less different from ours. Identity theory would seem to suggest that these creatures cannot have the same sort of mental events we do<a style="mso-footnote-id:ftn" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.do#_ftn1" name="_ftnref" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character:footnote">[1]</span></span></a>. And these creatures at least are biologically similar to us: what about computers or aliens? </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>In fact, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">everything</i> that has mental states would seem to have to have <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">distinct types</i> of mental states! Our ontologically simple theory has failed us: instead of pain, for example, we now have my pain, your pain, Sue’s pain, dog pain, alien pain, computer pain, etc. Instead of simplifying our ontology, identity theory requires us to posit a new type of mental state for each possible case. This is no good—we would like a theory of mentality that not only explains the nature of mental states we happen to have, but that also has some degree of generalizability, allowing us to say something about the mental states of others in a way that such states can be related to our own. Identity theory has very weak explanatory power in this regard—it would be as if we had a theory of biology that didn’t allow us the make comparisons between different species. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Is there a solution, wherein we can avoid dualism, keep physicalism, and not run into these problems? I believe so, and I believe the answer lies in a sort of functional type-identity theory that I glossed over earlier. Let’s go back to the algorithm: I said that it was the same algorithm regardless of the physical implementation: but what makes this the case? It is that the algorithm is performing the same function. Similarly, a mental event is a sort of function processing information in a certain way. While there may be difficulties with this theory, it seems to me to be one worth pursuing. </p> <div style="mso-element:footnote-list"><br /><hr align="left" size="1" width="33%"> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn"> <p class="MsoFootnoteText"><a style="mso-footnote-id:ftn" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.do#_ftnref" name="_ftn1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character:footnote">[1]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;"> I must qualify this statement, because identity theory has, occasionally, done the exact opposite. If we identify pain with C-fibers firing, and another creature has C-fibers, then they feel pain: we can therefore infer that animals such as, say, cows experience the same kind of pain we do, as the physiology is quite similar. This argument, unfortunately, does not hold under scrutiny, since, as said earlier, pain identifies the interaction of several parts of the brain which is going to be very different between us and other creatures.</span></p></div></div>Dervine7http://www.blogger.com/profile/12315172050231811971noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3978532957294886798.post-61036855187561438082011-05-19T15:34:00.000-07:002011-05-19T15:35:36.603-07:00Logic and MathematicsHampshire College<div>Low-Tech Comupting</div><div><br /></div><div><!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Mathematics and logic are, firstly, systems whose original purpose for existence is the same: to provide a system for more effectively operating within our world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Both, as they began, did so through a codification of common sense. They quantified our experience and defined what operations we could apply to those quantities so that we could systematically find facts of which we were previously unaware. The distinction between the two was in what they attempted to quantify: mathematics was primarily concerned with objects in the world, such as money, land, and later the laws of physics, whereas logic was primarily concerned with concepts in the mind, such as propositions and categories (although those concepts often related to objects).</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>However, despite their different foci, logic and mathematics were based on a common method: deduction, that is, a system of rules which you can apply in such a way as to arrive at a conclusion which is both new and necessarily true (pg. 99). As such, it was almost inevitable that the two would meet. One of the earliest examples of this meeting is probably Euclid’s “Elements” (pg. 324), but the true synthesis came with the work of Boole and Frege, where it was shown that logic could be dealt with mathematically, and that one could attempt to build mathematics on a logical foundation (pg. 329-330).</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>The question now raises itself: is mathematics a branch of logic or logic a branch of mathematics? The logicists such as Frege and Russell believed the first, intuitionists believed the latter (pg. 328). I believe both are wrong. Just as philosophy is not a branch of logic, but instead logic is the method by which we do philosophy, so too is mathematics not a branch of logic—logic is the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">method</i> by which we do mathematics, in the construction of theorems and proofs. Because of this, though, logic cannot be considered a branch of mathematics: while it is a mathematical system that works in a way particular unto itself and distinct from other areas of mathematics, it nevertheless permeates the entire structure of the enterprise. If mathematics is a tree with branches, logic is how the tree grows.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>However, it is here that we run into our difficulty. Because while logic is how the tree grows, logic won’t necessarily make it grow the way we want. Logic and mathematics both have the same problem that the way that they allow us to systematically analyze the world by turning that world into symbols, which are then manipulated according to a strict set of rules. This is formalism, which attempts to avoid errors due to flaws in human intuition by making logic and math completely devoid of meaning. But as long as the symbols, statements, and rules aren’t mutually inconsistent, you can come up with whatever rules you like and make whatever statements you like. Yet, only some of these rules and statements will give you a system that provides an accurate description of the world—which is, after all, the original purpose of mathematics and logic. The test of a logical or mathematical system’s truth would seem to be, then, concurrence with the actual world, with experience. But if this is the case, then why should we try so hard to logically prove that, for example, 1+1=2, as was done in 300 pages by Russell and Whitehead? To do so is to use a system whose truth is based on experience to prove something that according to experience we <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">already</i> know to be true!</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>I must admit that I don’t know the answer, and furthermore don’t know enough about mathematics to even know whether I’m asking the right questions. I can say, however, that I have a very strong conviction that we should attempt to prove as much as we can by starting with the least and most simple and obvious assumptions. I suppose this really is the maxim of all work in philosophy, mathematics, and science, which has allowed those fields to flourish: to not take anything for granted, unless one absolutely has to. </p> <!--EndFragment--> </div>Dervine7http://www.blogger.com/profile/12315172050231811971noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3978532957294886798.post-39391258623282041602011-04-03T21:33:00.000-07:002011-05-19T15:31:54.605-07:00Agnosticism does not existOK, so this argument makes some people angry, so follow me:<br /><br /><ol><li>In the literature, there are usually two varieties of Atheism that are distinguished from each other: weak (negative) atheism and strong (positive) atheism. Weak atheism is the lack of belief in the existence of God: weak atheists feel that those who believe in God carry the burden of evidence. Strong atheism is the belief that God does not exist: strong atheists feel that the evidence points to God not existing. (Note that a lack of belief in X does not necessarily entail a belief in Not X.)</li><li>One cannot both believe that God exists and not believe that God exists. They can, however, believe neither.<br /></li><li>Now, an agnostic is, according to Merriam Webster, "<span class="ssens">one who is not committed to believing in either the existence or the nonexistence of God or a god". Agnostics do not believe that God exists, nor do they believe that God does not exist.</span></li><li><span class="ssens">Therefore, by 2 and the definition of agnosticism, agnostics do not believe that God exists.</span></li><li><span class="ssens">Therefore, by 4 and the definition of weak atheism, agnostics are weak atheists.</span></li></ol>Now, there are people who would probably consider themselves religious agnostics: they believe in God but think there's room for doubt. But in this case they ARE "committed to believing in...the existence of...God or a god."<br /><br />So in summary: one can either believe that God exists, or not believe that God exists (although the latter does not entail believing that God does NOT exist). Because agnostics do not hold any particular attitude about God's existence, they do not believe that God exists. Therefore they are weak atheists.<br /><br />Note on "belief" and "knowledge": "agnosticism" strictly means "not knowing". So strictly speaking, religious people and atheists could be agnostic, even though they have <span style="font-style: italic;">beliefs</span> on the matter, if they do not feel that they<span style="font-style: italic;"> know </span>whether god exists. However, the term has come to mean not believing anything one way or the other (as can be seen in the definition). With this meaning, my argument holds.Dervine7http://www.blogger.com/profile/12315172050231811971noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3978532957294886798.post-87839484420888674782011-02-22T22:31:00.000-08:002011-02-22T23:25:14.599-08:00Why did I think this post was a good idea?So I decided it would be worthwhile to check out the stats on my blog.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >Search Keywords that got people here:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">All Time</span><br /><ol><li>dervine7.blogspot.com</li><li>peter benzi</li><li>sandra pettinico</li><li>taliesin nyala</li><li>"richard wayne lee" or "lee, richard wayne" strained bedfellows</li><li>nvcc homeschool pdf connecticut</li><li>patricia pallis</li><li>peter benzi nvcc</li><li>petr benzi</li><li>"douglas hofstadter" utilitarianism</li></ol>All pretty predicatble. Stuff I've mentioned in my posts (especially the teachers I mentioned in my <a href="http://http://dervine7.blogspot.com/2010/06/commencement-speech.html">commencement speech</a>). It's mildly interesting that 2 people apparently got to my blog looking for the article by Richard Wayne Lee that I <a href="http://dervine7.blogspot.com/2009/12/this-is-paper-i-wrote-for-my-english.html">cited</a>. But who is this Taliesin Nyala? Turns out that she's an Alum of <a href="http://hampshire.edu">Hampshire</a>, and she shows up on my page because I follow the <a href="http://blog.hampshire.edu/cbd/">Culture, Brain, and Development</a><a href="http://blog.hampshire.edu/cbd/"> blog</a>. Which makes these next keyword stats very confusing...<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Past Month</span><br /><ol><li>dervine7.blogspot.com</li><li>"taliesin nyala"</li><li>agent hujinikabolokov</li><li>religious humanism strained bedfellows pagans</li><li>taliesin nyala how pleasure works</li><li>taliesin nyala naked</li><li>taliesin nyala sex</li></ol>Your guess is as good as mine. Especially as if you search those last two the only website you get that has ALL those words in it is <span style="font-style: italic;">mine</span>! ("naked" appears in my blog post about the <a href="http://dervine7.blogspot.com/2009/08/new-testament-politics.html">sayings of Jesus</a>, and "sex" appears in my favorite quotations)<br /><br />(By the way, Agent Hujinikabolokov is from <a href="http://sleeptalkinman.blogspot.com">Sleep Talkin' Man</a>.)<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Referring Sites<span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br />Actually, never mind. This wasn't a terribly interesting blog post to begin with and now it's 2:24AM. Except for <a href="http://uupdates.net">uupdates.net</a></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"> and Facebook, the referring sites just a bunch of referral spam (I'm guessing porn), which is mildly depressing. From Russia, it seems. Although I have been getting a lot more views from Facebook recently, which means my friends are looking at this blog, which is cool!</span></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"> Speaking of Russia, that spam makes it so that they are one of the top countries to view this blog.</span></span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">So there you go.</span></span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></span></span></span><br /></span>Dervine7http://www.blogger.com/profile/12315172050231811971noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3978532957294886798.post-38650654738843298092011-02-17T19:14:00.000-08:002011-02-17T19:22:54.245-08:00EXCITING DEVELOPMENTS!I'm going to start trying to post regularly! I'm sure that for all of you guys who check this blog regularly only to be disappointed by the lack of, well, blogging, this will once again fill your lives with meaning...<br /><br />OK, so the title of this blog is hyperbolic. Which leads to the second development, which is that I realized my blog was distinctly serious and formal. Which is odd, because I have a distinct lack of seriousness and formality. So, more silliness.<br /><br /><br /><br />So......yeah. That's the story.Dervine7http://www.blogger.com/profile/12315172050231811971noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3978532957294886798.post-3357053182720085402011-02-16T18:39:00.000-08:002011-02-16T18:42:46.427-08:00Doodled this during a class...<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-pEOglsxrghiSk13jqPSVYPi7os7bxB6edNzNZwIuqDe_BPoFyGfRdG-mTfVPIJukiL4O4fpx7pehgNfP5SkpRjNnxnwoHfgjGP0cizoFsG22ykl32xkM3Ihkjp0Qxscxq9KgslsWgnA/s1600/3_circle_venn.gif"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 306px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-pEOglsxrghiSk13jqPSVYPi7os7bxB6edNzNZwIuqDe_BPoFyGfRdG-mTfVPIJukiL4O4fpx7pehgNfP5SkpRjNnxnwoHfgjGP0cizoFsG22ykl32xkM3Ihkjp0Qxscxq9KgslsWgnA/s320/3_circle_venn.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5574482963348841442" /></a>Dervine7http://www.blogger.com/profile/12315172050231811971noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3978532957294886798.post-12314689182245974972011-02-16T16:23:00.000-08:002011-05-19T15:42:22.657-07:00The Turing TestHampshire College<br />Philosophy of Mind<br /><br /> The Turing Test involves the following procedure: a person, the interrogator, is talking to both a machine, designed to imitate a human, and to an actual human. (The communication is entirely through text.) The interrogator’s job is to determine what is the human and what is the machine. If no interrogator can determine which is which, the machine is judged to be thinking. Is this accurate? In this paper, I will argue that it is, because we can only judge thought based on behavior, and if the behavior of the machine is identical to a human’s but the machine is not thinking, we must doubt the existence of human thought.<br /><br /> When discussing the Turing Test, it is important to make a distinction between what we can measure and the “inner nature”, so to speak, of that which we are measuring. The discussion then involves two questions: by what criteria are we to judge something as thinking, and is that thing, in fact, thinking?<br /><br /> In regards to the first question, let’s begin with considering the method that we, in fact, employ, before moving on to the method we ought to employ. I.e., how is it that we naturally determine that some particular thing in our environment is thinking? A first answer to this question might be that we ascribe thought to other members of the human race, and nothing else. This will not do, however, as we often say that certain humans lack thought: definitely if they are brain dead, for instance, and more controversially if they are mentally handicapped or a child. And although there are no non-controversial examples of non-humans thinking in our experience, we nevertheless have no problem imagining that non-human beings, such as extraterrestrials—that have no genetic or physiological resemblance to us (or, in some cases, no physiology at all)—could nevertheless think. Also, it seems that we often ascribe thought to non-human animals of which we do have experience, i.e., “the dog is thinking about where to hide its bone”. Perhaps in this later case we use “thinking” as a figure of speech, a sort of shortcut for “acting as if they are thinking”. But why then do we not say that when we talk of other humans “thinking” we are using the same shortcut? After all, we do not perceive thoughts (except for our own)—we perceive their manifestations, the acting-as-ifs. For those who need to be convinced of this fact, consider the following thought experiment.<br /><br /> Suppose that someone had been rendered completely incapable of moving any part of his/her body, either through nerve damage or some sort of outside force: furthermore, the parts of his/her nervous system that we believe are responsible for thought have been hidden from us in some way (perhaps encased in some material which is opaque to any sort of scan), so that we cannot determine whether they are active or damaged. (We could also suppose that there has been no damage to the nerves carrying signals to their brain, if this supposition is deemed necessary.) It is undeniable that this person could be thinking: victims of temporary paralysis can describe the experiences and thoughts they had while they were paralyzed. But it would be completely impossible for us determine whether this person is, in fact, thinking.<br /><br /> So how do we naturally determine whether other things in our environment are thinking? The examples given of brain-dead individuals and aliens make it apparent that this judgment is not ultimately made on the basis of belonging to a certain species, human. It may be initially made on that basis—we probably have an instinctual tendency to ascribe thought to any other human we meet and ascribe a lack of thought to any non human (for example, on encountering a brain-dead individual we might assume he/she is aware until we find out their condition, or in meeting a sufficiently strange alien we might assume it’s just a non-thinking creature until we learn more about it)—but it isn’t ultimately made on it. Instead, we make this judgment based on whether the thing behaves in a way that appears to indicate thought.[1] Furthermore, the example in the thought experiment above makes it clear that this is the only way that we can make this judgment; and, pragmatically, it is the way that we ought to make this judgment. This means that for a machine that passes the Turing Test we should judge it to be thinking: it is behaving exactly like a human, human’s think, therefore it is behaving in the sort of way that indicates thought—and if from these facts we do not infer that machine is thinking, then we are holding it to a different standard than the other things about which we make such judgments.<br /><br /> Now we move on to the second question. Does our judgment, made for pragmatic reasons, reflect actual reality? Is the machine, in fact, thinking?<br /><br /> It is useful now to define exactly what we mean by “thinking”. Turing’s definition[2] is that the sort of thing that thinks is the sort of thing that passes the Turing Test, a definition which is useful for him as a computer scientist interested in what computers can do but not very useful for philosophers of mind, as the definition makes it tautological that a machine which passes the Turing Test is thinking. For our purposes, I propose the following definition: something is thinking when the part of it responsible for thought is manipulating models of the world (which are not physical models), and when it has a subjective, qualitative awareness of the models and manipulations that it is performing on them. The first part of the definition comes from the fact that one of the things that distinguishes thought from non-thought is that while the latter consists of observably deterministic responses to force and/or stimulus and in solving problems purely by trial and error behavior (randomly producing behavior until something works), the former consists of considering the best course of behavior before doing anything, and this consideration is made by the thinking thing modeling the situation and then running through the possible solutions, noting what those different solutions do within the model—observationally, this means that something that acts as if it thinks can look at a puzzle and then proceed to quickly (relative to trial-and-error) perform the solution. This is how we, who are thinking things, behave, and it is a major part of the acting-as-if by which we judge that other things are thinking. However, the second part of this definition is important, as there are many things that manipulate models of the world that may not be thinking: any computer would fall under this category. The second part of the definition is more essential to our question, as we are making the distinction between what we can measure and the “inner nature” of that which we are measuring. Because of this, it is important to specify that the subjective awareness be qualitative, i.e., that there is something that “it is like”, so to speak, for the thing to be aware of what it’s doing—as computers can monitor and analyze their own internal processes and still not be considered to be thinking.<br /><br /> However, the fact that computers can do this might mean that there is something “it is like” and we just do not realize it. For this reason I will not ask the general question about what sorts of computers could think, but the specific question of whether the sort of computer that can pass the Turing Test thinks; I’m concerned with whether passing the Turing Test is sufficient for allowing us to infer thought, not whether it is necessary.[3]<br /><br /> We are now ready to answer the question: is the machine that passes the Turing Test thinking? We have shown that if we are to judge whether it is thinking the way that we judge whether other things are thinking, we must judge it to be thinking. And based on the facts considered so far, I believe that our judgment would be accurate. The machine that passes the Turing Test is the machine that perfectly imitates human behavior. If it is not, in fact, thinking, then humans that pass the Turing Test would not have to be thinking either. Thinking would not have any explanatory force or necessary connection to behavior, and we therefore would have no reason to assume its existence. Furthermore, it could be argued that if the machine is not thinking, humans must not be thinking, as we have a case of two things that are behaving in an identical manner and therefore it would seem that any phenomenon produced by one must be produced by the other (even if the phenomenon looks different: for example the same program run on my Mac plays music, whereas if it were run on a mechanical computer it does not). If the machine that passes the Turing Test is not thinking, then solipsism becomes a truly viable option: and this, I think, is a conclusion no reasonable person wants to accept.<br /><br /><br /><br /> <br /><br />[1] One who objects to this assertion might bring this up the case of the paralyzed patient who, while not exhibiting any behavior, nevertheless exhibits certain brain activity from which we infer that he/she is thinking. However, the only reason that we can make this inference is that that sort of activity is normally associated with thought-exhibiting behavior: if we had not observed such a correlation, we would not know what, if anything, the brain activity indicated. We can also imagine that a neurological (or whatever word we’d use for the study of the part of the alien involved in cognition) examination of a thinking alien might reveal completely different sorts of activity. Therefore, my assertion can be easily extended to say that, in cases where we cannot make judgments based on behavior, we can infer thought if the thing we’re dealing with exhibits some observable phenomena that is normally correlated with thought-exhibiting behavior amongst examples of that thing (if examples of that thing engage in thought-exhibiting behavior).<br /><br />[2] “Computing Machinery and Intelligence”, pg. 3<br /><br />[3] Indeed, it is not necessary: our paralyzed patient from the earlier thought experiment would not pass it, although he/she is thinking. It is also possibly that a beings with a higher level of thought than our own would fail it: the sorts of things they might say might appear to us to be total gibberish.Dervine7http://www.blogger.com/profile/12315172050231811971noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3978532957294886798.post-8527036314361517672011-02-16T16:16:00.000-08:002011-02-16T16:31:04.902-08:00ProofHampshire College<br />Low-Tech Computing<br /><br />Prove: there are as many even numbers as there are natural numbers.<br /><br />Proof: any even number can be divided by 2 and the result is one unique natural number, and any natural number can be multiplied by 2 and the result is an even number. Therefore, every even number has a corresponding natural number and there are no natural numbers that do not have a corresponding even number. If there were not as many even numbers as there are natural numbers, then there would have to be some natural number that could not be multiplied by 2 to get an even number, or an even number that, when divided by 2, produced more than one natural number. Neither of these are the case. Therefore, there are as many even numbers as there are natural numbers. ☺Dervine7http://www.blogger.com/profile/12315172050231811971noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3978532957294886798.post-1926259589055954652011-02-16T16:09:00.000-08:002011-02-16T16:30:22.334-08:00Analysis "They're Made of Meat"Hampshire College<br />Philosophy of Mind<br /><br /> <a href="http://www.terrybisson.com/page6/page6.html">Terry Bisson’s “They’re Made of Meat”</a> raises the dual issues of the seeming disconnect between our physical baseness and our mental capacities, and of human chauvinism. In regards to the first question, we are made to see the seeming absurdity in modern cognitive neuroscience, in that “meat”, the same stuff that constitutes a hamburger, is understood to give rise to the mental life that we value so much. It is interesting, however, that the other, normal, non-meat creatures that the narrators discuss are also physical beings, although of a different sort than the “meat” on earth. Therefore, intelligence is still ultimately based in physical processes, such as the dynamics of an electron plasma. Because of this, “Meat” does not in fact suggest that the mind cannot be the result of physical processes, unless it makes that suggestion through the irony of having beings whose minds arise from physical processes alien to us finding the physical processes that our minds arise from bizarre.<br /> This brings us the second issue, that of human chauvinism. We, humans, assume that if we find intelligent beings elsewhere in the universe, they will be, fundamentally, the same as us. (There are even those, such as John Searle in his essay “Minds, Brains, and Programs”, who seem to suggest [however vaguely] that mental processes can only arise from the sort of physical processes that happen in the human brain.) The story’s challenge to human chauvinism only goes so far, however, as the minds of the narrators and the non-meat beings they encounter still seem to work the same way as our own, just with a different underlying physical structure (which brings up a whole new set of issues and questions about the relationship between the mind and the physical to be discussed at some other time). Indeed, their minds are similar enough to our own that contact is possible, and while it seems we might not find them if we were looking for extraterrestrial biology similar to our own, it still seems that we would recognize their activities as carrying the stamp of intelligence (the situation is the same for the narrators of the story in regards to us: they could recognize the radio signals we produce as coming from intelligent beings). As such, “Meat” does not really confront us with the possibility of minds that are unrecognizable to us as such; we are not presented with odd situations such as Jupiter having a subjective life that arises out of the dynamics of its atmosphere, or a light bulb experiencing being on or off, or the interactions of the entire human race producing a mind of which we are as unaware and incapable of understanding as individual neurons are of our own minds. Of course, this would be an extraordinarily difficult story to write; and it would be similarly difficult, possibly even impossible, for us as humans to find such minds. And so, while being careful not to look only for physical life that is like our own, in regards to extraterrestrial intelligence we would have to rely on a sort of Turing Test: are the sorts of things it’s doing the sort of things we do? If so, then regardless of how exactly it works, we would seem to have discovered a mind elsewhere in the universe.Dervine7http://www.blogger.com/profile/12315172050231811971noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3978532957294886798.post-60944101945981861472011-02-16T15:58:00.000-08:002011-02-16T16:30:56.199-08:00Personal PronounsHampshire College
Psychology of Language
Introduction
Consider the following statement: “You asked me to go to the store to pick up some eggs for grandma. I picked them up for her.” For a normal adult speaker of English, this sentence is completely comprehensible; furthermore, it is a statement that would be easily and naturally produced. However, imagine that you are an alien with no understanding of English. Your English-speaking companion makes this statement, helpfully pointing at you when she says “you”, herself when she says “me” and “I”, and grandma when she says “her”. After a few conversations like this, you think you have gotten the hang of English. Walking up to your companion (who is sick at home) after giving grandma a ride, you proudly state: “You drove grandma to the store. Her picked up some eggs for her. Oh! Are I sick? You hope me get better!”
From a theoretical standpoint, pronouns should be hard, and it is remarkable children can use them properly. When using pronouns, one must decide what
1. person & gender to use (are you talking about yourself [1st Person]: “I/me/my/mine”; to someone else [2nd Person]: “you/your/yours”; or about someone else entirely [3rd Person]: “he/him/his/she/her/hers/it/its”? In regards to 3rd Person, is the referent a person [“he/she”] or an object [“it’], and is it male or female?)
and what
2. case to use (what function does the pronoun have in the sentence? Is the sentence about something the referent does [Nominative, Subjective]: “I/you/he/she/it”; something that is being done to the referent [Objective]: “me/you/her/him/it”; describing something as the property of the referent [Adjectival Genitive] or naming it as such [Nominal Genitive]: “my/your/his/her/its” or “mine/your/his/hers/its”; or something the referent is doing to itself [Reflexive]: “myself/yourself/himself/herself/itself”)
and whether you are talking about one person or thing or more than one person or thing. You must also realize that although you can freely interchange 3P pronouns and names, it is not acceptable to refer to yourself or the person you are talking to by name (Chiat, 1986).
The issues that will be focused on in this paper are those related to shifting reference, pronoun reversal, and the use of names or pronouns amongst typically developing children and children with autism.
Shifting reference
Most words name things: more importantly, they always name the same thing. A table is a table, Mr. Jones is Mr. Jones, the teacher is the teacher, regardless of whether you are talking, your friend is talking, you are reading a book, etc. One thing might have multiple names, or one name might signify multiple things, but the meaning of the name does not change depending on who is speaking (Clark 1978; Fay and Schuler, 1980; Ricard et al., 1999). Children learning a language must comprehend, through some means, that the person the words “you”, “I”, or “me” refer to changes depending on who is speaking to whom (Bates, 1990; Chiat, 1986; Clark, 1978; Ricard, Girouard, and Gouin-Decarie, 1999). How do children understand these rules? This question has intrigued psycholinguists for some time in regards to the light in might show on the connections between language, the conceptions of self and other, and theory of mind. Charney (1980) noted three ways in which children might understand pronouns: speech-role referring, person referring, and person-in-speech-role-referring. In a role-referring understanding, the child correctly understands the pronouns to refer to different members of the discourse depending on who is speaking. This understanding requires that the child have some sort of non-egocentrism, allowing it to take the point of view of others. In a person-referring understanding, the child understands the pronouns as a sort of name (see below). In a person-in-speech-role understanding, the child learns the pronouns most relevant to itself. The child understands pronouns in relation to the child’s own speech roles, i.e., it understands that “I” refers to it when it is speaking, but may not understand that “I” refers to others when they are speaking. This last theory is the one Charney supports.
Pronoun use by typically developing children
A natural assumption would be that children, on hearing themselves referred to as “you” and their parents referring to themselves as “I”, would assume that these terms are a type of name (Clark, 1976): our alien in the introduction made precisely this type of error. The child would assume that it is “you” and either its parent or adults in general are “I”. This phenomenon has been referred to as “pronoun reversal” (although “nonreversal” might be a more accurate term [Fay and Schuler, 1980; Fay, 1982], as the error in fact stems from the child not reversing pronouns to accommodate speaker roles). Interestingly, pronoun errors of this type are rare; even more interestingly, despite their rarity they are still found amongst typically developing children, often enough to be well documented in the literature (Clark 1978; Cruttenden, 1977; Chiat, 1986). According to Bates “it is quite common at age twenty to twenty-four months for a child to say ‘carry you/hold you/help you’ to mean ‘carry me/hold me/help me’” (1990). Cooley (1908) noted in a diary study that his third daughter would use “she” and “I” to refer to herself from the age of 1;11-2;3, such as in the statement “I carry you”, expressing the desire to be carried. Inconsistent reversals were also noted, such as “I want to take a walk with me”. Chiat (1981) performed a case study in 3 sessions with the subject, Matthew. The sessions took place at ages 2;4.16, 2;4.24, and 2;5.11, and Matthew’s comprehension and production were tested, the latter naturalistically in the 2nd session and with some attempts to elicit pronouns in the third. In the second session, Matthew’s use of 1P pronouns was usually correct, but he almost never used the correct pronoun for the addressee, as in the examples “I cry”=you’ll cry. This was particularly true in possessive contexts, such as “That my umbrella”=that’s your umbrella. 2P pronouns were used to refer to himself, as in “You’ll cry”=I’ll cry. Also, pronouns were occasionally inconsistent, with both the correct and incorrect forms used in a single utterance, similarly to Cooley’s observations. In the 3rd session, reversals of pronouns in regards to the addressee were still present, but had become rare, with Matthew often correcting himself. Despite these errors in production, Matthew’s performance on tests of comprehension was perfect. In a cross-sectional and longitudinal study by Loveland (1984) a correlation was found between mastery of different spatial points of view and pronoun errors, with some reversal errors observed amongst those children who did not understand different points of view. These errors often happened in contexts where the child was asked a question and repeated the pronoun used, e.g. “What do I have?” “I have cup”. Errors in comprehension were noted. Jordan (1989), in a comparison of autistic, typical, and mentally handicapped children, noted errors made by a few of the typical children in comprehension and production, with two typical children misunderstanding “you” as referring to the speaker and 3 children making errors in the production of “you”, one of them also making an error in the production of “me”. Oshima-Takane’s (1992) case study followed a pronoun reversing child, David, from age 1;11-2;10. The data they collected were his performance on comprehension tasks, 45-minute to 2 hour samples of his speech, and information from interviews with his mother and babysitter. At age 1;11 David’s mother had noticed that he was making consistent pronominal errors. At that time, he would use 1P pronouns to refer to the addressee 94% of the time and 2P pronouns to refer to himself 100% of the time. By the age of 2;10 his errors had almost completely disappeared. However, the development of the correct use of 1P and 2P pronouns was significantly different: while the error rate for 1P pronouns declined regularly between the 2;4-2;10, the error rate for 2P pronouns remained pretty much constant until 2;8, dropping dramatically between 2;8 and 2;10. In regards to comprehension, up until 2;4 he understood “you” as referring to himself even when he wasn’t the one being addressed. Oshima-Takane attributed David’s errors to a lack of experience with people using pronouns when talking to each other and not to him, making it difficult for him to generalize. Fraiberg and Adelson (1977) noted that blind children, capable in all other respects, often reversed pronouns well into their 5th year, which she attributed to the difficulties of forming a concept of self without the visual modality. And, in perhaps the most striking example of pronoun reversal, a deaf child was noted to make reversal errors in pointing, even interpreting all “you” signs as referring to herself (Bates 1990)!
However, as stated before, pronoun errors are exceedingly rare amongst typically developing children (Huxley, 1970; Charney, 1980). Much more commonly, children will use names instead of pronouns. This might reflect a confusion about pronouns that causes the child to avoid them altogether, as evidenced by the fact that children who use names master pronouns more quickly when they begin to use them (Bates, 1990)—suggesting these children were using the time to work out what pronouns actually mean. It might also be caused by the fact that the nominal style is what the child often hears, as parents will often use names in order to effectively get the child’s attention (Chiat, 1986; Bates, 1990). Interestingly, there seems to be a distinction in the child’s use of names vs. pronouns when they use both, where the name refers to the physical body and the 1P pronoun to the self as an actor (Cooley, 1908).
Autism and personal pronouns
Whereas pronoun reversal is rare amongst typically developing children, amongst autistic children it is common enough that it is often considered pathognomic of the disorder (Jordan, 1989; Hobson, 1990). As Kanner wrote (qtd. in Lee et. Al., 1994):
Personal pronouns are repeated just as heard, with no change to suit the altered situation. The child, once told by his mother “Now I will give you your milk,” expresses the desire for milk in exactly the same words. Consequently, he comes to speak of himself always as “you,” and of the person addressed as “I”.
What Kanner described here is the phenomenon of echolalia, where the autistic child associates statements with the situation as they, the child, perceive it, and not with the parent’s mental state or intentions (Charney, 1981; Hobson, 1990). It is also possible that the child’s errors may be traced to their difficulties in gestural behavior and joint attention (Fay and Schuler, 1980).
Autistic difficulties with pronouns are well documented in the literature (Fay and Schuler, 1980). Jordan (1989) found that while errors were rare amongst typical and mentally handicapped children, 9 out of the 11 autistic children made the maximum number of possible errors in the experiment in the production of both 1P and 2P pronouns. 3 of these children made pronoun reversals. The autistic children were also much more likely to use a name instead of “you”, while their results for names vs. pronouns in referring to themselves were more scattered. One child used her name 3 times and the experimenter’s names 7 times for “you”, with the numbers being reversed for “me”, indicating confusion about identity. Lee et al. (1994) found, in preparation for their study, that teachers reported several cases of pronoun reversal amongst autistic students, such as the student who told a teacher on return from sick leave “I’m better now”. Lee et al. (1994), in comparing autistic children with other mentally disabled children, found a tendency amongst autistic children to use proper names instead of the pronouns “I”, “me”, and “you”, that was not found amongst the other children. There was also a tendency to use the pronoun “I” instead of “me”. There were however no significant cases of pronoun reversal, although two autistic subjects did respond to the question “who can see X?” with the response “I can’t” as opposed to “you can”. Strangely, though, one of the subjects who had performed capably throughout the experiment said, on leaving, “Thank you for seeing you, Tony”. Lee et al. interpreted these results to a lack of a sense of “me-ness” or “you-ness”: the autistic subjects, according to their interpretation, lacked the sense of self (and other) as actor that Cooley (1908) had described. This also could explain why those autistic subjects who performed well could still experience occasional lapses, and their use of names for pictures of themselves and others.
Proposal for future studies
The fact that pronominal errors are rare amongst typically developing children means that systematic, large-scale experiments have rarely been done. Most information on personal pronoun difficulties has come, instead, from detailed case studies. Strangely, though, I did not encounter such case studies in regards to autistic children. I propose that such a study be performed, testing both production and comprehension. Diary studies such as Cooley’s (1908) would also be insightful. This would allow for a comparison between the pronoun use of otherwise typically developing children with pronominal errors and autistic children with pronominal errors. As the cognitive reasons for the errors made by autistic children are fairly easily understood but the cognitive reasons that some children should reverse pronouns when they have the same capabilities as their peers are not, such a comparison could shed light on the latter. For example, it could distinguish whether the reasons for pronoun errors amongst typically developing children are primarily cognitive or based on abnormal experience of pronoun use (as Oshima-Takane [1992]) suggests. It would also give a more in depth understanding of autistic pronouns.
References
Bates, E. (1990). Language about me and you: pronominal reference and the emerging
concept of self. In, D. Cicchetti and M. Beeghly (Eds.), The Self in transition:
infancy to childhood (165-182). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Charney, R. (1980). Speech roles and the development of personal pronouns. Journal of Child Language, 7, 509-528.
Charney, R. (1981). Pronoun errors in autistic children-support for a social explanation. British Joumal of Disorders of Communication, 15(1), 39-43.
Chiat, S. (1981). If I were you and you were me-the analysis of pronouns in a pronoun- reversing child. Journal of Child Language, 9, 359-379.
Chiat, S. (1986). Personal pronouns. In, P. Fletcher and M. Garman (Eds.), Language acquisition: studies in first language acquisition, 2nd Ed. (339-355). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Clark, E. (1978). From gesture to word: on the natural history of deixis in language acquisition. In, J. Bruner and A. Garton (Eds.), Human growth & development: Wolfson College Lectures, 1976 (85-120). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Cooley, C. H. (1908). A study of the early use of self-words by a child. The Psychological Review, 15(6), 339-57.
Cruttenden, A. (1977). The acquisition of personal pronouns and language 'simplification'.
Language and Speech, 20(3), 191-197.
Fay, W.H., & Schuler, A. L. (1980). Emerging language in autistic children. Baltimore: University Park Press.
Fraiberg, S. & Adelson, E. (1977). Self-representation in language and play. In, S. Fraiberg, Insights from the blind (248-270). New York: Basic Books, Inc.
Hobson, R. P. (1990). On the origins of self and the case of autism. Development and Psychopathology, 2, 163-181.
Huxley, R. (1970). The development of the correct use of subject personal pronouns in two children. In, G. B. Flores d'Arcais & W. J. M. Levelt (Eds.), Advances in psycholinguistics. New York: American Elsevier Publishing Company, Inc.
Jordan, R. R. (1989). An experimental comparison of the understanding and use of speaker-addressee personal pronouns in autistic children. British Journal of Disorders of Communication, 24, 169-179.
Lee, A., Hobson, R., & Chiat, S. (1994). I, you, me, and autism: An experimental study.
Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 24(2), 155-176.
Loveland, K. A. (1984). Learning about points of view- spatial perspective and the acquisition of 'I/you'. Journal of Child Language, 11, 535-556.
Oshima-Takane, Y. (1992). Analysis of pronominal errors-a case study. Journal of Child Language, 19, 11-131.
Ricard, M., Girouard, C. P., & Gouin-Decarie, T. (1999). Personal pronouns and perspective taking in toddlers. Journal of Child Language, 26, 681-697.Dervine7http://www.blogger.com/profile/12315172050231811971noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3978532957294886798.post-86818463264664928042010-11-27T10:58:00.000-08:002011-02-16T16:30:15.537-08:00This is a project I'm doing for my "Freewill and Determinism" class at college. I'm trying to get the opinions of non-philosophers (as well as philosophers). Please check it out and send it around! Thanks! (if the quiz doesn't appear, please visit <a href="http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/F3GJK2Z">this link</a>.<br /><br /><div id="surveyMonkeyInfo"><div><script src="http://www.surveymonkey.com/jsEmbed.aspx?sm=qJo67_2f1dDw4d2D1wZXyHGA_3d_3d"> </script></div>Create your <a href="http://www.surveymonkey.com/">free online surveys</a> with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.</div>Dervine7http://www.blogger.com/profile/12315172050231811971noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3978532957294886798.post-56208122277915130422010-06-03T13:36:00.000-07:002010-09-06T10:20:09.427-07:00Commencement SpeechThis is a speech I gave as the Distinguished Student when I got my Associates Degree:<br /><br />Hello teachers, staff, fellow students, and parents and friends of fellow students. I’d like to thank my parents, P and E, for my existence and their love support, along with my grandmother B, who did so much to foster my intellectual development, and my grandparents C and C, all of whom provided me with so much love, knowledge, and support, and who I can’t leave out since they are sitting in the audience. I’d also like to give a shout out to my brother, M, and all my friends. And thank you, faculty and staff of NVCC, President Daisy Cocco De Filippis and Dean Mitch Holmes, for giving me this education, and this honor. I must admit I feel vaguely like Obama accepting the Nobel Peace Prize: I’m not entirely sure why I should have been chosen over any other student, and I’d like to take a moment to acknowledge all my fellow students who have worked and continue to work hard, both inside and out of class. <br /> So, I should probably tell you all a bit about myself. I was homeschooled since the beginning of my education: I never went to public or private school. Mostly unschooled, I was free to pursue whatever I was interested in, although my parents certainly required that I learn certain subjects that may not interest me as much as others. But it wasn’t hard: I loved gathering information. I would wake up in the morning to a pile of assignments on the table: when I was done, my schoolday was done, which could take as little as a few hours or as much as several days. If I needed help, I would ask them.<br /> However, there was a point where my parents could no longer help me the way they had, specifically in math. They reached a point where they were only giving me the odd-numbered questions out of textbooks, since those were the ones that had answers in the back. So when I was thirteen I started taking classes here, well, not here, but at NVCC. We chose NVCC not only because of the beautiful campus and the caring, professional atmosphere we felt from the staff, but also because of the school’s adept system for dealing with homeschoolers. I was not to be treated any differently from any other student: teachers didn’t even have to know my age (fortunately, at thirteen, I could pass for much older than I was). I only took College Algebra the first semester, but after that I started taking other classes that appeared interesting, and even though I still considered myself homeschooled, my education pretty much entirely took place at NVCC.<br /> Perhaps it is just my own temperament, but I have had no bad classes at NVCC that I can think of. A couple weren’t excellent, but none were terrible. Most all of the teachers I have had cared about teaching, and were often thrilled to have a student as talkative and interested in the material as I was. This is probably a good time to mention some of the teachers who meant a lot to me. I almost feel bad about doing so: if I had a could without boring you, I’d mention every single teacher I had. But there are a few that come to mind: Sandra Pettinico and Anthony Prushnicki, the teachers I alternated between during my four semesters of trig and calculus, both clear, fun, and engaging, and the latter the most hilariously curmudgeony person I’ve known. Students of higher level Calculus definitely constitute something of an exclusive club, and my relationship with my fellow students and these two teachers probably constitute my closest and most favorite times in the classroom. Patricia Pallis, my English 102 teacher who through her love of my work helped me realize my abilities as a writer. Peter Benzi, my physics II teacher, with his dry humor and his intelligence. Richard Gard, head of the music department, who’s, well, you have to know him, and Kirsten Peterson, my infinitely patient one-on-one music composition teacher. Christine Mangone, head of the theater department, who I’ve never taken a class with come to think of it but who has been a wonderful, patient, caring director in the two shows I’ve done with her. And I’ll also add two teachers who aren’t at the school anymore: Mark Priest, my Music Theory II teacher, and Ed Wierzbicki, my Acting I and II teacher.<br /> NVCC has prepared me for the rest of my education. It allowed me to explore my interests at an early age, which I certainly did to, some might say, excess: I have after all been a nearly full-time (I was usually a few hours short) student here for 5 years, and only got the last two requirements for a Liberal Arts degree out of the way this last semester. I have made friends, and even those friendships that didn’t last beyond the end of classes were some of the closest relationships with other human beings I’ve ever experience. I’ve had the opportunity to be in numerous shows, which is wonderful, since I never got that through school. This school has been my life for five years: it’s going to be hard for me to leave, although I take comfort in the fact that, being a student in both the theater and music departments, I’m just going to keep coming back, whether I want to or not. On the last day, I bought a large french-fries at the caf, and ate every single one, ‘cause as I’m sure you’re all aware, those things are ridiculous, and I may never have them again. I’m going to miss the friends who are still here. All in all, I’m going to miss this place.<br /> So what now? I’ll continue learning. I have always felt that knowledge is an end of its own. We are, as human beings, incredibly lucky to be able to understand the world around us, and to take it’s materials and create something new. We are, as Carl Sagan said, a way for the cosmos to know itself. I have always felt that with these abilities that we are, as humans, lucky enough to have comes a responsibility, and responsibility to understand, to think, to create. Doing otherwise, we are turning our back on the universe that created us, and provides us with life and infinite mysteries to be discovered and explored. There is, I think, to much beauty in knowing to not know. However, not all are going to be interested in, or even capable of, this pursuit of knowledge. But if we are to learn more, we, as a species, must survive, and this survival is the responsibility of all. We must feed eachother, care for eachother, entertain eachother, understand eachother. As Carl Sagan also said, if you disagree with another human, let him be. In the entire universe you will not find another like him. I would add that if another human needs your help, help them, for once again, they’re like no other. This would be my message to all.<br /> Thank you.Dervine7http://www.blogger.com/profile/12315172050231811971noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3978532957294886798.post-80448653564642475112010-03-07T11:20:00.000-08:002010-09-06T10:20:44.242-07:00Sermon for Church: The Symphony of Sciencecontent="text/html; charset=utf-8"> <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:officedocumentsettings> <o:allowpng/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:trackmoves>false</w:TrackMoves> <w:trackformatting/> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:drawinggridhorizontalspacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing> <w:drawinggridverticalspacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing> <w:displayhorizontaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:displayverticaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> <w:dontautofitconstrainedtables/> <w:dontvertalignintxbx/> </w:Compatibility> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="276"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--> <style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Cambria; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style> <!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} </style> <![endif]--> <!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I did a paper last semester on Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. <span style=""> </span>As I continued to write the paper late into the night, what began as a last-minute attempt to squeeze out the minimum of 5 pages turned into a 10 page monster. I blame Beethoven. There were so many little things to pick up on, so many elegant ways in which everything fit together, in which the entire piece was planned. For some, perhaps, this would reduce the joy of the music. Not for me. For me, every time I hear that piece, it will mean even more to me. Understanding it makes it even more sublime.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Music has a peculiar power of the human spirit. It can make us feel things in ways nothing else can. Especially words. The most inane poetry can reach us deeply if made into music. I mean, really, “in the desert you can remember your name, ‘cause there ain’t no one for to give you no pain”? Because of its power, music has often been the vessel for important messages, that can resonate with you in entirely new ways. Such was the case when I first saw one of the videos of <a href="http://symphonyofscience.com">“The Symphony of Science”</a>. I have always had a deep sense that there’s something profoundly spiritual about a scientific understanding of the natural world, yet when I watched “The Unbroken Thread” it hit me powerfully. It probably helped that it was near midnight. But also the words of scientists expressing their deep reverence for the universe, put to music, had a stunning effect.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">This reverence is one I share. People have commented that the language I and those such as Carl Sagan use to describe our feelings about the universe are suspiciously similar to that used by religious people to describe their experience of god. They are absolutely right. The difference is that we take God out of the picture. Why can’t we admire the universe not because we view it as the work of God, but because it is simply something worth being admired? I feel that the natural, material world is so full of mysteries and beauty that it is almost a waste to concern ourselves with spirits and angels and gods. This is the hypothesis I’d like to put before you: that there is nothing beyond the natural, material world. No spirits, no gods, no karma, no qi. I call it a hypothesis because I honestly do not know enough to say for certain that such phenomena do not exist. But I want to show why, for me, they are unnecessary for filling the spiritual need.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Let’s start close to home. Really close to home, in fact. Let’s start in our heads. Put your fists together like this. Your brain is slightly lager than this. An utterly insignificant lump of jelly, when you get down to it. Yet there’s something bizarre about this lump of jelly: it contains you. Everything about you. All your memories, the maps of where you’ve been, your personality, your perception of me. It contains our ideas. If you are an artist, it produces your creations. If you are a writer, it is capable of inventing and keeping track of entire worlds, worlds with other personalities in them, vast fantasy landscapes contained within this small lump of matter. Think about it. Really think about it.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Think about how, when you look at the night sky, you are looking at the source of every particle in your body. Every ancient particle. You are made out of matter that has existed since nearly the beginning of time. You are constantly exchanging that matter with the universe around you. At a subatomic level, there is nothing, really, separating you and the rest of the universe. Think about how the little dots you see are stars many, many times, sometimes thousands of times larger than our earth, which is so huge we cannot even perceive it as round. Some ofwhat you see are galaxies, which are collections of billions of these starts, which look close together in a picture, but are really light-years apart. A light year is about 6 trillion miles.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Think about each individual cell in your body. The complex machinery, honed over years of evolution. And we can’t even see them. We are made of trillions of them. Think about all the other intricate machines that constitute life. (give examples)</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Think about the pebble you kick down the street. How that pebble is also made of particles that have been around for nearly eternity. How it’s made of minerals that were forged in the collision of dust particles and rocks that created our earth, burped up from the inside of our earth, and hewed by billions of years of geology.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Think about a rainbow. How it is a product of photons produced by nuclear fusion deep within the sun, which take thousands of years to push their way to it’s surface, finally escaping and zipping across millions of miles of space, before colliding with water droplets in the atmosphere and getting refracted into all sorts of different wavelengths, then traveling through the air to your eyes, where the hit your retina and produce electrical sensations that travel to your brain and are perceived as color, and then spread out and activate your capacity for pleasure, for memory, for imagining the entire cosmic play I just described.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Some people are scared to think about it. For some reason, they believe that to understand beauty is to kill it. Those such as John Keats accuse Isaac Newton of unweaving the rainbow by explaining it. Why should discovering the intricate, elegant laws that underlie the world make it any less beautiful? If an artist attempts to portray the meaning of a rainbow, it is beauty: if a scientist attempts the same thing, it is somehow ugly. If someone can appreciate the wonder and beauty of a scientific worldview, they are somehow seen as a little weird: a nerd, an egghead. So many people don’t want to hear about the fascinating underpinnings of everything they experience, about the new ideas that scientists are constantly coming up with. The scientist is often the fool on the hill who sees the world going round, but who no one wants to listen to. I must admit, I am not entirely sure why. Because while people may think that because I live in a world understood it must be dull or dry, nothing could be further from the truth. I live in a world that constantly amazes and fascinates me. I am never without a source of stimulation if I want it: not when I can consider the mysteries of my brain, not when I can look at the sky and imagine space stretching out into infinity, with pricks of light that are galaxies incomprehensibly huge, not when I can feel my connection with everything around me. Not when I can look at the familiar as though it was unfamiliar, as something new and exciting. Science let’s us look a little more deeply into things. It isn’t a methodology or collection of facts. It’s an attitude. It’s an appreciation that beauty understood is even more beautiful. To understand the symphony of science is only to make it more sublime.</p> <!--EndFragment-->Dervine7http://www.blogger.com/profile/12315172050231811971noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3978532957294886798.post-82811453435432584392009-12-12T15:21:00.000-08:002010-09-06T10:20:52.991-07:00More Ally Stuff: UgandaUganda is considering legislation that would make homosexuality illegal, give life sentences to those who engage in homosexuality, and the death penalty to those who do it multiple times or have AIDS:<br /><br /><a href="http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Uganda_introduces_anti-homosexual_legislation">http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Uganda_introduces_anti-homosexual_legislation</a><br /><a href="http://wthrockmorton.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/anti-homosexuality-bill-2009.pdf">http://wthrockmorton.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/anti-homosexuality-bill-2009.pdf</a>Dervine7http://www.blogger.com/profile/12315172050231811971noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3978532957294886798.post-20019039888797379252009-12-07T20:51:00.000-08:002009-12-07T20:57:05.498-08:00English Paper: Unitarian Universalism<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >This is a paper I wrote for my English class. A lot of the works cited are websites, by the way.<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >I have an interesting, if not nowadays unusual, religious background, although the “conclusion” of my spiritual journey is not usual. My family was never religiously homogenous. My mother was once very Christian, though of the liberal, Congregationalist variety. My father has never been particularly religious (though never atheistic): he’s too independently minded for that. When we moved down to Connecticut, <span style=""> </span>we became chronic church-hoppers, rarely staying in one place for more than a year or so before we gradually stopped going (my father never went); and then, after a period of sleeping in on Sunday mornings, my mother would feel the need and find some other church. I gradually became less and less religious, and eventually found myself in the middle ground between Atheism and Agnosticism, which is where I remain. My mom also gradually became less religious at a rate which was parallel to, but behind, my own. My brother has always been and is pretty much where I was and am, although more laid back than myself. Where this all ended up—the religiously diverse family, the church-hopping, our own spiritual progressions—was with a family that had some vaguely religious sentiments, with varying degrees amongst its members, and yet still wanted to share our lives with a community.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><span style=""> </span>My religious beliefs were, as I said, atheistic/agnostic, with a prominent strain of philosophical universalism<a style="" href="file:///Users/Devmorg/Desktop/Devin%20Morse.htm#_ftn1" name="_ftnref" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[1]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a>: I felt all points of view, if not correct, did at least have something to offer. I also discovered, when happening upon the Wikipedia entry on the subject, that I was a Humanist. Overall, like many people, I was already a Unitarian Universalist—but I didn’t know it.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><span style=""> </span>I don’t remember exactly the order of the events that brought us to the church we attend. One such event was that my grandmother, who lives with us, began going. Another is that we read some columns in the Religion section of the newspaper by the minister of the church about such topics as gay marriage, and her sentiments resonated with us. The end result of it was, my mother, my brother, and I attended the church for awhile, with my brother and me hooked pretty much instantly and my mother taking a bit longer, uncertain at first about the lack of a specifically God and/or Christianity orientation. Eventually we also managed to bring our dad along. Once he started coming regularly, there was no turning back: this was the first church (since the one we went to when we lived in Maine, which my dad had attended for the community and the music) we could attend as a family. We quickly became close with the minister’s family. We had found a religious home.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><span style=""> </span>We became deeply involved in the congregation very quickly, to the extent that the old curmudgeons one find in any church complained that we were “doing everything.” Our entire family is very musical, so we became a staple of the congregation’s musical life (incidentally, it was partly through the church’s musical program that we managed to get our father to come). I got very involved in the Youth Group, and after the minister’s son, who had kept things going, left, I became the de facto leader of the group, holding it together and working to build it into something more than it was at the time. My mother and I were nominated and approved as members of the board (me as the Youth Liaison)—necessitating, incidentally, a suspension of the bylaws as we had not been members for the specified period of time. In numerous ways, our coming to the church was coincidental with a new period of change in the congregation—which had been, quite frankly, troubled—and we were there as part of all that was happening (for all I know, we helped cause it). Anyways, the church has become a staple of our lives and something with which we are deeply involved.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><span style=""> </span>Perhaps you, reader, are wondering at this point what Unitarian Universalism is. Unitarian Universalism can be hard to understand, even for many Unitarian Universalists. If someone asks us what we believe, we are hard pressed to give an answer. This is because we are not held together so much by a common set of beliefs—although there are some common beliefs we profess to share—as by common goals: to grow spiritually and philosophically and help each other do the same, to provide community, and to do what we can to improve, or at least help, humanity, the world. And the two beliefs I feel are central to our faith are that every person should have the ability to judge for him or herself what is truth, and the value and dignity of every person. We acknowledge and respect the many religious and philosophical sources of our faith.<a style="" href="file:///Users/Devmorg/Desktop/Devin%20Morse.htm#_ftn2" name="_ftnref" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[2]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >Beyond that, there are many beliefs within even my own congregation: we have Humanists, Agnostics, Christians (although most would not ascribe to a belief in the resurrection), Pagans, Wiccans, Jews, Atheists, Buddhists, and many belief systems that don’t have a name because they were developed by the person who holds them. Politically we are pretty much overwhelmingly liberal, yet there are a few in our congregation who are conservatives, even staunch conservatives. However, almost all of us are critically-minded, individualistic, spiritual, and philosophically universalist.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><span style=""> </span>For me personally, being a Unitarian Universalist helps me be individualistic about my beliefs by, perhaps paradoxically, providing me with a community. I can have a measure of security when standing up for my own beliefs. I have somewhere to go on Sunday morning where I can feel I belong, where I am surrounded by like-minded, understanding people. The Youth Group has become one of those few places where I feel I completely fit in, where I can be entirely myself.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><span style=""> </span>Unitarian Universalism gives me the opportunity to share my spirituality and spiritual experiences with others. This brings me to yet another aspect of Unitarian Universalism that is of great importance: we do not believe one has to believe in God, gods, and afterlife, or even a “spiritual realm” to be <i style="">spiritual</i>—to have spiritual experiences, to experience ecstasy in the wonders of the world. One can believe in any of these things, but one does not have to.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><span style=""> </span>Being surrounded by people of many different viewpoints and backgrounds has <span style=""> </span>enriched my own understanding. I am constantly given opportunities to absorb points of view that I can either absorb into my philosophically universalist framework; or confront, in the process of with I develop a greater understanding of my own views.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span>Being a Unitarian Universalist gives me something to be committed to. I am committed to Unitarian Universalism. I am committed to spreading its message, not to convince people to join us, but to reach out to people, like me, who were already Unitarian Universalists before they had even heard of such a thing. I am Atheist, Humanist, Rationalist, and many other <i style="">-ist</i>s. But first and foremost, I am Unitarian Universalist.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; line-height: normal;" align="center"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" >Part 2<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" ><span style=""> </span>When asked to explain Unitarian Universalism, many UUs begin with the history of our religion. Part of the reason stems from a difficulty in formulating exactly what UU is, as ours is a non-creedal religion. Yet I think that taking a historical perspective in explaining UU is valid in and of itself, as, because of our lack of creed, we are an evolving faith. It’s therefore inaccurate to try to state exactly what we are: a fuller knowledge comes in describing how we got where we are today. Also, by describing our background to those unfamiliar with our faith, we convey a sense of history, and tie ourselves to the stream of religious thought.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" ><span style=""> </span>Our history begins with two decidedly Christian religious movements: Unitarianism and Universalism. Both took root in the United States, and these American varieties were responses to Calvinism (which holds the doctrine of the absolute sovereignty of God, including the doctrine that humans are predestined to go to either Heaven or Hell). Unitarianism was usually the religion of the urban elites, whereas the appeal of Universalism was more populist and rural; one expression I’ve heard is that Unitarianism was a religion of the head, while Universalism was a religion of the heart. Unitarianism is usually acknowledged as the major force in our history, so it is with it that I will begin.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" >Theological Unitarianism is the belief in God as one being, with a rejection of the Trinity. Jesus is viewed as either a very special human with supreme moral authority, or as a supernatural being separate, subservient to, and created by God. There is usually an emphasis on rationality, critical thinking and reading, concern for the matters of this world instead of the next, and freedom of thought in regards to religious matters. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" >There were precedents to Unitarianism in the earliest forms of Christianity: in fact, Unitarians believed that they were restoring the original concept of Jesus, before it had been corrupted by Trinitarianism. The Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke, so called because they describe the same events) and the early letters of Paul, for example, are vague on the question of Jesus’ divinity, and seem to claim that God declared him his son either when he was baptized or because he was such an exemplary human being (Armstrong; personal interpretation). Early Christians had heated arguments about the nature of Jesus in relation to God, with several different theologies put forth, and the question was not decided until the establishment of the Nicene Creed in 325, and even after that it simmered for 50 years, until the revisions to the Creed made in 381. This Creed was a rejection of Arianism, based on the theology put forth by Arius which held that Jesus was a special type of being and God’s greatest creation, but separate from God himself. After the final establishment of the Nicene Creed, Unitarianism went almost entirely extinct <span style="">(Fisher)</span>.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" >Then Gutenberg invented the printing press.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" >The Bible was no longer the sole property of the clergy; and when people read the Bible for themselves, they found that many of the teachings of the Church had no Biblical basis. It was also during this time that Martin Luther set the Protestant Reformation in motion, influencing Henry VIII of England and the French legal scholar John Calvin, developer of Calvinism. Because of these related developments, Protestant sects began appearing and splitting off from each other everywhere, led by those who read the Bible for themselves and were emboldened by the Reformation to disseminate their ideas. One such man who read the Bible for himself was a Spanish doctor by the name of Miguel De Servet, also known as Servetus, who through his readings came to the conclusion that there was no Biblical basis for the doctrine of the Trinity, and published a book defending this interpretation, “On the Errors of the Trinity.” This work forced Servetus to go into hiding, where he was eventually found and executed in Geneva, Switzerland, on the orders of John Calvin. However, he had influenced a number of people with his ideas, amongst them a fellow physician Giorgio Biandrotta, who himself influenced other Italians and a Hungarian minister by the name of Ferenc David. David set up a Unitarian church in Transylvania, and converted that country’s king, John Sigisimund. Instead of using this opportunity to have his church declared the national religion of Transylvania, David convinced the king to declare freedom of conscience in religious matters. This was one of the first countries in Christian history to officially declare religious liberty. Unlike Arianism, this Unitarianism declared that Jesus was a man, though of a special sort; it also tended to reject the concepts of Original Sin and, by logical extension, Vicarious Atonement (that Jesus died as payment for our sins). Sadly, after Sigisimund died, David was sent to prison for heresy, where he also died. However, the Church he founded is still a major denomination in Transylvania <span style="">(Fisher; Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations, “Unitarianism”)</span>.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" >By the 18<sup>th</sup> century, many intellectuals were reading the Bible and coming to Unitarian conclusions, including the philosopher John Locke, the physicist, mathematician, and scholar Isaac Newton, who devoted much of his later life to Biblical analysis, and Joseph Priestly <w:sdt citation="t" id="6963236"><span><!--[if supportFields]><span style="'mso-element:field-begin'"></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>CITATION Fis04 \l 1033 <span style="'mso-element:field-separator'"></span><![endif]--><span style="">(Fisher)</span><!--[if supportFields]><span style="'mso-element:field-end'"></span><![endif]--></span></w:sdt></span>, an English polymath and theologian who “discovered” air, had a major effect on both English and American Unitarianism, and was a close friend of Benjamin Franklin’s <span style="">(Johnson; Robinson 21-23)</span>.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" >While in England Unitarianism remained mostly below the surface, in America, specifically Boston, it became one of the leading liberal religious movements. This Unitarianism began as a reactionary movement against the Great Awakening, a religious movement which was extremely Calvinistic, fundamentalist, and emphasized extreme and irrational religious experience. Against this movement stood those, like Charles Chauncy, that emphasized human free will, critical thinking, above all, rationality in religious matters. This movement simmered until the 1810s, when a remarkable preacher by the name of William Ellery Channing began preaching and writing from a liberal religious viewpoint, and came to a head when he delivered the sermon “Unitarian Christianity” in 1819. This sermon embraced the term <i style="">Unitarian</i>, originally a derogatory term used by the more conservatively religious, and set the stage for the formation of a denomination. Churches began to split between the Unitarians and the Puritans, and one such split in a congregation in Dedham, Massachusetts gave a major boost to the growth of Unitarianism. In an important turn of events, the Unitarian faction of that congregation won the church building and property, which set a precedent allowing other such Unitarian splinter groups to gain control of the Church buildings <span style="">(Fisher; Robinson 3-5, 9-37; Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations, “Unitarianism”)</span>. Amongst those who were Unitarian or admired Unitarianism were such Founding Fathers as John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, the latter, though never officially a Unitarian, stating “I trust there is not a young man <i style="">now living </i>in the United States who will not die a Unitarian” <span style="">(qtd. in Robinson 23)</span>.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" >Unitarianism produced its own rebellion, Transcendentalism. Associated with such figures as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Theodore Parker, and Henry David Thoreau, this movement emphasized intuitive experience of the divine in nature. Jesus was demythologized to an extent beyond that of even the most extreme liberality. It was this individualist and anti-establishment movement that would set the stage for the Humanism of later years <span style="">(Fisher; Robinson 5, 75-83)</span>. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" >Unitarians became deeply involved in the Abolitionist movements and the Union cause. This cause helped to unite the Unitarians, and Henry W. Bellows, who did much work in the abolitionist and Union cause, saw this as an opportunity to establish Unitarianism as a national denomination, forming the National Conference of Unitarian Churches in 1865. While these attempts to organize Unitarianism were successful, uniting so many individualists and free-thinkers was not easy. These dissidents (successfully) fought any establishment of an official creed by the NCUC (the constitution of the organization, while stating common beliefs of Unitarians, stated that “nothing in this constitution is to be construed as an authoritative test” <span style="">[qtd. in Robinson 122]</span>) and even formed their own organization, the Free Religious Association, which was a prominent breeding ground for Secular Humanism <span style="">(Fisher; Robinson 5-7, 83-122)</span>.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" >The first half of the twentieth century saw a vigorous debate between the Humanists and the more traditionally religious in Unitarianism about the importance of God, with the Humanists ultimately coming out on top, although the traditional Humanist image of the goodness and progress of man was challenged by the two World Wars <span style="">(Fisher; Robinson 7-8, 143-157)</span>. It was also during WWII that the modern symbol of Unitarian Universalism, the Flaming Chalice, was developed. It was originally the symbol of the Unitarian Service Committee, which assisted those escaping Nazi persecution <span style="">(Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations, “Our Symbol”)</span>. Unitarians were deeply involved in women’s suffrage, the formation of the United Nations, and the early Civil Rights movement.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" >We come now to the time of the merger, so let’s first explore the history of Universalism. Theological Universalism is the belief in universal salvation—that a loving God would not send anyone to eternal hell. In some versions of Universalism, hell does exist, but it is only temporary, a place where one becomes cleansed through suffering so that he/she can enter heaven. The Universalists were traditionally more theologically homogenous and more orthodox—they believed in Biblical authority and Christ’s divinity and atonement—than the Unitarians, although they too eventually drifted away from a Christian emphasis.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" >Like Unitarianism, Universalism has precedents in the Christianity of Biblical times, and Universalists also believed that they were restoring the original teachings of Christ and the early church fathers. Once again, there is Biblical evidence to support their claims. Some early Christians who held Universalist views were St. Clement of Alexandria, who wrote “</span><a name="patristic"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" >[s]o He saves all; but some He converts by penalties, others who follow Him of their own will, and in accordance with the worthiness of His honor, that every knee may be bent to Him of celestial, terrestrial and infernal things (Phil. 2:10</span></a><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" >)” <span style="">(qtd. by Christian Universalist Association)</span>, and his student St. Origen <span style="">(Christian Universalist Association)</span>.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" >During the Reformation, various sects that held more or less Universalist views sprung up in Europe, including the Anabaptists, Moravians, and Quakers <w:sdt citation="t" id="6963257"><span><!--[if supportFields]><span style="'mso-element:field-begin'"></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>CITATION Chr08 \l 1033 <span style="'mso-element:field-separator'"></span><![endif]--><span style="">(Christian Universalist Association)</span><!--[if supportFields]><span style="'mso-element:field-end'"></span><![endif]--></span></w:sdt></span>. However, Universalism did not really come into its own until a series of English Universalists, such as John Murray and Hosea Ballou, brought their beliefs to America in the 1700s. It is interesting how these Universalists turned Calvinism on its head: essentially, it held that ALL people were “predestined” to go to heaven. The Universalists fought against the system of tax support for churches, part of a rebellious tendency that was a defining feature of their history, and were very active in prison reform and Abolition. They were the first denomination, in 1863, to ordain a female minister, Olympia Brown (who incidentally was a former minister of the church I attend, the Unitarian Universalist Church of Greater Bridgeport). In the early 20<sup>th</sup> century, this emphasis on social action and a new interpretation of the meaning of “Universalism” began to shift the denomination away from a Christian outlook, though this shift was slower than it was amongst the Unitarians. This new interpretation of the name of the faith emphasized the universality of religion instead of any particular theological position <span style="">(Christian Universalist Association; Robinson 3-7, 47-73, 123-141; Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations, “Universalism”)</span>.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" >The idea of a merger of the two denominations had been floating around since the 19<sup>th</sup> century. However, theological and class differences (as stated earlier, the Unitarians tended to be much more rich and influential) made this infeasible, as did the fear amongst Universalists that they would be subsumed by the more powerful and influential Unitarians. By the 60s, however, the denominations had grown very close in theology and outlook, and in 1961 they were merged, forming the Unitarian Universalist Association<a style="" href="file:///Users/Devmorg/Desktop/Devin%20Morse.htm#_ftn3" name="_ftnref" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[3]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> <sup><w:sdt citation="t" id="6963262"><span><!--[if supportFields]><span style="'vertical-align:baseline'"><span style="'mso-element:field-begin'"></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>CITATION Rob85 \p 168-174 \l 1033<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><span style="'mso-element:field-separator'"></span></span><![endif]--><span style="vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="">(Robinson 168-174)</span></span><!--[if supportFields]><span style="'vertical-align:baseline'"><span style="'mso-element:field-end'"></span></span><![endif]--></span></w:sdt></sup></span>. The emphasis in the early days of Unitarian Universalism, and one of the motivations behind the merger, was social action. UUs were extremely active in the Civil Rights movement (a number of UU ministers were killed for their efforts), gay rights and feminism. There has been an ongoing debate within UU about its role in politics and pacifism <span style="">(Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations, “Unitarian Universalism”)</span>.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" >In the 1980s, UUs worked to clarify their spiritual views, resulting in the formulation of our Seven Principles and the Sources of our faith:<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in 0.1pt 0.5in; text-align: justify; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" >We, the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association, covenant to affirm and promote<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in 0.1pt 0.5in; text-align: justify; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" ><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <ul style="margin-top: 0in;" type="disc"><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; text-align: justify; line-height: normal;color:black;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >The inherent worth and dignity of every person;<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; text-align: justify; line-height: normal;color:black;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; text-align: justify; line-height: normal;color:black;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; text-align: justify; line-height: normal;color:black;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; text-align: justify; line-height: normal;color:black;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large;<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; text-align: justify; line-height: normal;color:black;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >The goal of world community with peace, liberty and justice for all;<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; text-align: justify; line-height: normal;color:black;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.<o:p></o:p></span></li></ul> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in 0.1pt 0.5in; text-align: justify; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" ><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in 0.1pt 0.5in; text-align: justify; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" >The living tradition which we share draws from many sources:<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in 0.1pt 0.5in; text-align: justify; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" ><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <ul style="margin-top: 0in;" type="disc"><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; text-align: justify; line-height: normal;color:black;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces which create and uphold life;<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; text-align: justify; line-height: normal;color:black;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >Words and deeds of prophetic women and men which challenge us to confront powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion and the transforming power of love;<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; text-align: justify; line-height: normal;color:black;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >Wisdom from the world's religions which inspires us in our ethical and spiritual life;<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; text-align: justify; line-height: normal;color:black;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >Jewish and Christian teachings which call us to respond to God's love by loving our neighbors as ourselves;<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; text-align: justify; line-height: normal;color:black;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >Humanist teachings which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason and the results of science, and warn us against idolatries of the mind and spirit;<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; text-align: justify; line-height: normal;color:black;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >Spiritual teachings of Earth-centered traditions which celebrate the sacred circle of life and instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature.<o:p></o:p></span></li></ul> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in 0.1pt 0.5in; text-align: justify; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" >Grateful for the religious pluralism which enriches and ennobles our faith, we are inspired to deepen our understanding and expand our vision. As free congregations we enter into this covenant, promising to one another our mutual trust and support. <span style="">(Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations, “Our Principles”)</span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in 0.1pt 0.5in; text-align: justify; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" ><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" >From its merger, UU has been fraught with spiritual difficulties, unsure of its status as a Christian organization<a style="" href="file:///Users/Devmorg/Desktop/Devin%20Morse.htm#_ftn4" name="_ftnref" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[4]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a>, or even one that acknowledged the importance of “God”. Soon, though, the movement was dominated by the Secular Humanism it had inherited from its Unitarian side. However, because of its inclusive nature, UU has embraced many of the New Age spiritual movements of the century, often providing the environment these religious movements needed in order to grow. Humanists have reacted with alarm to the increasingly spiritual emphasis and irrationality they feel the denomination has been embracing over the past 20 or so years, including groups that accept beliefs in magic, tarot readings, visions, etc. Some feel we are becoming the religion that we are often dismissively characterized as, a religion where one can believe whatever they want, and no one is allowed to criticize anyone else’s beliefs. A related issue is to try to determine what exactly it is that holds our denomination together. A firestorm erupted when our latest president, William Sinkford, implored that the UUA “reclaim the holy”, and described the UU mission in explicitly religious and God-affirming terms. Once again, the Humanists, Atheists, and Agnostics feel that they are being left out in the cold on the wave of a trendy new spiritualism <span style="">(Eckstrom; Haught; Higgins; Lee)</span>.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" >For a church with such a history of involvement in Civil Rights and social equity, and which so values multiculturalism, UU faces the fact that it is overwhelmingly white and rich, not only in numbers but also in culture. There is tension over how far we want to go to reach out to ethnic and poor groups, how the needs of those groups should be faced within our congregations, and other such issues <span style="">(“Racial, multicultural tensions still best Unitarian Universalists”)</span>.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" >Possibly the biggest challenge for modern UU, and indeed the challenge that contains all of the other challenges, is growth. UU is a religion of people who have left other religions or grew up with no religion at all: not many of our members were raised UU. Unfortunately, many of those people define themselves as UU but are not official members: 629,000 adults as of 2001, four times as many as were in official church rolls<w:sdt citation="t" id="5534866"><span><!--[if supportFields]><span style="'mso-element:"></span> CITATION Dar01 \l 1033 <span style="'mso-element:field-separator'"></span><![endif]--><span style="">(Dart)</span><!--[if supportFields]><span style="'mso-element:field-end'"></span><![endif]--></span></w:sdt></span>.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" >However, beyond these people who identify themselves as UUs but aren’t in any official relationship with the UU congregations, there are the possibly vast number of people who “were Unitarian Universalists all along and never knew it”, to quote a popular phrase amongst new UUs. And it is in reaching out to these potential members that we face our greatest challenge, a challenge that incorporates our lack of an official creed, the debate between Humanism and Spiritualism, and our struggles with multiculturalism. It was in an effort to reach out that President Sinkford asked that the holy be incorporated into our principles<w:sdt citation="t" id="5534867"><span><!--[if supportFields]><span style="'mso-element:field-begin'"></span> CITATION Eck03 \l 1033 <span style="'mso-element:field-separator'"></span><![endif]--><span style="">(Eckstrom)</span><!--[if supportFields]><span style="'mso-element:field-end'"></span><![endif]--></span></w:sdt></span>. How much are we willing to adjust our culture to bring in those who aren’t white and wealthy? How far are we willing to stretch to accept people of more unusual beliefs, or more traditional beliefs that go against the Humanism that has dominated out movement?<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" >It is my belief that in order to survive we have to focus on the goals that I feel are central to UU, as described in Part 1: to grow spiritually and philosophically and to help others do the same, to provide community, and to do what we can to improve, or at least help, humanity and the world. I believe that to grow spiritually and philosophically one has to accept criticism of one’s own beliefs and to allow those beliefs to be held up to the light of reason; I also believe helping others to do the same involves offering that criticism. I think that this would allow the Humanists and Spiritualists to live together respectfully while preventing us from being a religion of believing anything one wants.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" >Of course, we can’t sit in discussion groups all day discussing our beliefs. We also need to act in the world. An effort to do such not only keeps us strong and healthy, but also increases our visibility. And visibility is, I think, our biggest problem. People simply do not know that we exist. We are, I think, too careful about seeming overbearing that we do not evangelize as we should. I don’t mean evangelize to try to convince people to come to us. I mean evangelize simply to “spread the good news”, to inform people who may want to be a UU if they only knew about and understood us. UUs themselves need to be more visible. I’ve been told that there are UU politicians who do not have their names appear on the public church rolls, that keep their religion secret. There are numerous UU actors, musicians, writers, thinkers, and historical figures (some already mentioned here) that we never hear about: or, if it is mentioned that they are UU, it is only in passing<a style="" href="file:///Users/Devmorg/Desktop/Devin%20Morse.htm#_ftn5" name="_ftnref" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[5]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a>.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" >I think our message is too important to be kept in the dark, away from those who may need it. That’s why I proudly say that I am a Unitarian Universalist, and try to educate others on what we’re about. Perhaps this assignment has helped me to do just that.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" ><br /></span> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; line-height: normal;" align="center"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" >Works Cited</span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" ><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoBibliography" style="line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" >Armstrong, Karen. <u>A History of God</u>. New York: Ballantine Books, 1994.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoBibliography" style="line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" >Christian Universalist Association. <u>The History of Universalism</u>. 17 December 2008. 3 <span style=""> </span>December 2009. <http: org="" articles="" html="">.<o:p></o:p></http:></span></p> <p class="MsoBibliography" style="line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" >Dart, John. “Churchgoers from elsewhere. (Surveys: 'UUSIM' Unique).” <u>The Christian Century</u>. <span style=""> </span>5 December 2001:8(2).</span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" > Academic OneFile. Web. 20 Oct. 2009</span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" ><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoBibliography" style="line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" >Doerr, Ed. “Humanism and unitarian universalism.” <u>The Humanist</u>. March-April 1998: 37(2).</span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" > <span style=""> </span>Academic OneFile. Web. 20 Oct. 2009</span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" ><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoBibliography" style="line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" >Eckstrom, Kevin. “UUs asked to reclaim 'the holy'. (News).” <u>The Christian Century</u>. 14 June <span style=""> </span>2003: 13.</span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" > Academic OneFile. Web. 20 Oct. 2009</span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" ><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoBibliography" style="line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" >Fisher, Chris. <u>A Brief History of Unitarian Christianity</u>. 31 August 2004. American Unitarian <span style=""> </span>Conference. 3 December 2009. <http: org="" html="">.<o:p></o:p></http:></span></p> <p class="MsoBibliography" style="line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" >Haught, James A. “The Unitarian Quandary: Is religious humanism running the humanist <span style=""> </span>religion?” <u>Free Inquiry</u>. Fall 2002: 48(2).</span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" > Academic OneFile. Web. 20 Oct. 2009</span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" ><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoBibliography" style="line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" >Higgins, Richard. “A Heated Debate Flares in Unitarian Universalism.” <u>The New York Times</u>. <span style=""> </span>17 May 2003: B6. </span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" >Academic OneFile. Web. 20 Oct. 2009</span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" ><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoBibliography" style="line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" >Johnson, Steven. Interview with Stephen Colbert. <u>The Colbert Report</u>. Comedy Central. 5 March <span style=""> </span>2009.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoBibliography" style="line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" >Lee, Richard Wayne. “Strained bedfellows: pagans, new agers, and "starchy humanists" in <span style=""> </span>Unitarian Universalism.” <u>Sociology of Religion</u> 56.n4 (1995): 379(18).</span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" > Academic <span style=""> </span>OneFile. Web. 20 Oct. 2009</span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" ><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoBibliography" style="line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" >Lewis, Jone Johnson. <u>Famous UUs</u>. 11 Novemeber 2006. 7 December 2009 <span style=""> </span><http: com="">.</http:></span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" > Academic OneFile. Web. 20 Oct. 2009</span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" ><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoBibliography" style="line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" >“Racial, multicultural tensions still best Unitarian Universalists.(News).” <u>The Christian Century</u>. <span style=""> </span>24 July 2007: 16. </span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" >Academic OneFile. Web. 20 Oct. 2009</span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" ><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoBibliography" style="line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" >Robinson, David. <u>The Unitarians and the Universalists</u>. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1985.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoBibliography" style="line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" >Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations. <u>Our Principles</u>. 18 November 2009. 3 <span style=""> </span>December <span style=""> </span>2009. <http: org="" visitors="" shtml="">.<o:p></o:p></http:></span></p> <p class="MsoBibliography" style="line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" >—. <u>Our Symbol: the Flaming Chalice</u>. 25 November 2009. 3 December 2009. <span style=""> </span><http: org="" visitors="" shtml="">.<o:p></o:p></http:></span></p> <p class="MsoBibliography" style="line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" >—. <u>Unitarian Universalism</u>. 25 November 2009. 3 December 2009. <span style=""> </span><http: org="" visitors="" ourhistory="" shtml="">.<o:p></o:p></http:></span></p> <p class="MsoBibliography" style="line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" >—. <u>Unitarianism</u>. 25 November 2009. 3 December 2009. <span style=""> </span><http: org="" visitors="" ourhistory="" shtml="">.<o:p></o:p></http:></span></p> <p class="MsoBibliography" style="line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" >—. <u>Universalism</u>. 25 November 2009. 3 December 2009. <span style=""> </span><http: org="" visitors="" ourhistory="" shtml="">.<o:p></o:p></http:></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" ><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;color:black;" ><span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><br /><hr size="1" width="33%" align="left"> <!--[endif]--> <div style="" id="ftn"> <p class="MsoFootnoteText"><a style="" href="file:///Users/Devmorg/Desktop/Devin%20Morse.htm#_ftnref" name="_ftn1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=";font-family:";" ><span style=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[1]<!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span style=";font-family:";" > Different from the historical Christian Universalism which was incorporated into Unitarian Universalism.<o:p></o:p></span></p> </div> <div style="" id="ftn"> <p class="MsoFootnoteText"><a style="" href="file:///Users/Devmorg/Desktop/Devin%20Morse.htm#_ftnref" name="_ftn2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=";font-family:";" ><span style=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[2]<!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span style=";font-family:";" > Our goals, beliefs, and sources are encapsulated in the “Seven Principles” (notice: <i style="">Principles</i>, not rules) and “Sources of our Faith” developed by the Unitarian Universalist Association. My statements are my own interpretation of what Unitarian Universalism is all about.<o:p></o:p></span></p> </div> <div style="" id="ftn"> <p class="MsoFootnoteText"><a style="" href="file:///Users/Devmorg/Desktop/Devin%20Morse.htm#_ftnref" name="_ftn3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=";font-family:";" ><span style=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[3]<!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span style=";font-family:";" > However, organizations continued and continue to exist which are specifically Unitarian or Universalist, and more explicitly Christian, such as the American Unitarian Conference and the Christian Universalist Association that I cite.<o:p></o:p></span></p> </div> <div style="" id="ftn"> <p class="MsoFootnoteText"><a style="" href="file:///Users/Devmorg/Desktop/Devin%20Morse.htm#_ftnref" name="_ftn4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=";font-family:";" ><span style=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[4]<!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span style=";font-family:";" > There is an organization within the UUA for UUs of a Christian outlook, the Unitarian Universalist Christian Fellowship (UUFC).<o:p></o:p></span></p> </div> <a style="" href="file:///Users/Devmorg/Desktop/Devin%20Morse.htm#_ftnref" name="_ftn5" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=";font-family:";" ><span style=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[5]<!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span style=";font-family:";" > </span><span style=";font-family:";" >Ray Bradbury, Christopher Reeve, Pete Seeger, Kurt Vonnegut, are just some of the names of contemporary UUs; Millard Fillmore, William Taft, Adlai Stevenson, Louisa May Alcott, P.T. Barnum (a former member of my own church), Ambrose Bierce, e. e. cummings, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Beatrix Potter, Carl Sandberg, Frank Lloyd Wright, Clara Barton, and a sizable number of our Founding Fathers are a few of the names of Unitarians and/or Universalists one finds in history (Lewis).</span>Dervine7http://www.blogger.com/profile/12315172050231811971noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3978532957294886798.post-53252016344534782862009-11-03T22:21:00.000-08:002010-09-06T10:21:10.293-07:00SadAlright, no high-minded philosophy for this post. Maybe later, on this subject, but not right now. It is 1:22 AM, and it seems pretty much certain that marriage rights for all people were rejected in Maine. :(Dervine7http://www.blogger.com/profile/12315172050231811971noreply@blogger.com9