I want to make a distinction between two similar concepts. Mere hypocrisy would be when someone believes something but does not act in accordance with that belief. In contrast to that, I want to propose another category where someone says she believes something, but her actions are so discordant with that belief, that we either think that she doesn't even believe what she says she does, or we think that if she believes it, she doesn't really think it's important, despite her insistence to the contrary. We may not know what her motives are, but we do not think her motives include a genuine belief of what she says she believes and a genuine concern for it. This strikes me as much worse than hypocrisy. Perhaps we can just call these people liars. So while a hypocrite can believe p and think it's important even though she does not act in accordance with p (at least on some occasions), a liar either does not even believe p or doesn't care about p, all the while pretending to believe and care about it, and trying to get other people to act in accordance with p.
First case: Say someone believes that pornography is morally wrong, but breaks down on occasion and views it. That person would be acting hypocritically. Now say that person is the head of an anti-porn organization that wants to make pornography illegal. You may disagree, and it would probably depend on further circumstances, but I would still consider such a person to be a mere hypocrite, although this case is significantly worse than the first. She could certainly still believe that pornography is morally wrong, but insofar as she occasionally breaks down and views it, she is not in a position to tell the rest of us not to view it. Her own actions contradict her words. A recovering alcoholic who has been clean and sober for fifteen years can lecture us on the evils of alcohol, but someone who still gets drunk doesn't get to.
But now say that the head of the anti-porn organization is a porn star herself. I would no longer say she's merely a hypocrite, I would say she is a liar. I'd say either she doesn't actually believe that pornography is terribly harmful in the first place, or she just doesn't care. If she did believe that it is wrong and important, she wouldn't be doing what she's doing. I wouldn't know why she's heading up an anti-porn organization, but her actions would preclude her reasons being what she says they are.
Second case: Let's say President Trump announces that he wants to push Congress to make adultery illegal (and just in case it's not clear, I'm making this up). Say he argues that adultery is not only a terrible thing to do, one of the most immoral acts one could commit, it also violates the most important and sacred contract any of us will ever enter into -- all of which is true. And since breaking lesser contracts carries legal repercussions, breaking your marriage vows should as well. He references numerous studies showing that adultery has an enormous negative impact on social cohesion.
Now say it comes out that he is a serial adulterer himself: he has a mistress in every city, he's practically the patron saint of adultery. He might try to explain this away somehow, but that's not relevant for this thought experiment. All I'm asking is this: Would you believe that he really thinks adultery is a terrible thing to do? That it's really one of the most immoral acts one could commit? That it really violates the most important and sacred contract that he has ever entered into? I know what my answer would be: No, he does not really believe these things. If he did believe them, if he really believed them, he wouldn't be doing what he's doing. Sure, he's advocating for a law to make it illegal, but the reasons he's giving for it aren't his reasons. I don't know what his real reasons would be, but I'd suspect that enacting such a law would give him certain powers over certain people in an underhanded way. I would think he probably had some loophole in place that would allow him to continue doing whatever he wanted, probably the people of his social set too, while the law would apply to us lower class schmoes. To everything he says about the evils of adultery (which I agree with), I would respond, "But he doesn't believe that himself." I wouldn't be accusing him of mere hypocrisy, but of being a liar, of actually disbelieving that what he says is true and important.
Third case: Say a celebrity gives a speech about manmade climate change and about how we all need to lower our carbon footprint, and air travel is one of the biggest contributors to atmospheric CO2. This celebrity gives speeches like this numerous times a year, maybe even makes a documentary to advocate it. But the celebrity has his own private jet and leads a life of luxury (and hence, waste) that gives him a much higher carbon footprint than the rest of us. Regardless of his attempts to justify his lifestyle, I would ask the same question: Do you think this celebrity really believes what he is saying about climate change is true and important? And again, my answer would be: No. If he really believed these things, he wouldn't be doing what he's doing. He's not merely a hypocrite, he's a liar. And this case is not hypothetical like the above examples are. I'm thinking of Leonardo Dicaprio. I am arguing that Leonardo Dicaprio does not believe manmade climate change is true and important. He is a liar. And obviously it applies just as much to all of the other celebrities who are flying all over the world all the time while giving interviews about how they recycle and drive electric cars. Even if they fly commercial, they're still doing it a lot more than the rest of us who only fly a few times a year (if that) -- not to mention that they're doing it in first class which gives them a much larger carbon footprint per flight than us less important people who have to squeeze into the cattle car section.
To be clear, I don't begrudge them this lifestyle, but I do resent them telling me that I need to lower my carbon footprint while they live this lifestyle. It's like someone screaming at the top of her lungs, and right in my face, that I'm whispering too loudly. Once more, I'm not accusing them of merely being hypocrites but of being liars, of actually disbelieving that climate change is true and important. Whatever laws they're hoping to enact, there would of course be loopholes allowing them to continue their lives of luxury. If a celebrity could only fly a few times per year, they couldn't make a living, they couldn't retain their status as celebrities. So you can bet the family farm that whatever restrictions they're advocating for will have a clause that makes an exception for the important people like them.
Fourth case: Say a politician tries to enact legislation to lower our carbon footprints. But of course this politician lives a pampered life and flies all the time, maybe he's even important enough to fly in a private jet (provided by the taxpayers of course). He flies all over the world, constantly. Does he really believe climate change is true and important? Of course not. And like celebrities, the case here is not hypothetical but actual. I'm thinking of John Kerry, who, towards the end of his sojourn as Secretary of State flew to Antarctica, purportedly in order to investigate climate change but really because it was on his bucket list. That one trip put more CO2 into the atmosphere than fifty average Americans do in a year total. Anyone who really believed climate change is real and important would not make such a trip -- anymore than someone who thought pornography was so harmful that it should be made illegal would be a porn star. And also like celebrities, we can multiply politicians here as well. Al Gore kind of fits into both categories. He flies all over the world as much as any politician or celebrity, and his house uses as much electricity per month as the average American house uses per year.
Again, I don't begrudge them this: their jobs require them to travel all over the world, and while they could reduce it to some extent, I'd rather our leaders operated under the assumption that they don't need to keep an eye on their air miles. What I resent is that they want to make and enforce laws to prevent Johnny Q. Public from flying a few times a year in planes carrying hundreds of people while the political class are exempted so they can continue living, and flying, in luxury. If Al Gore really believed manmade climate change is real and important, he wouldn't be doing that. If John Kerry really believed manmade climate change is real and important, he wouldn't have the United States military fly him in a large plane to Antarctica. Since they are doing these things, I conclude that Al Gore and John Kerry don't really believe manmade climate change is real and important. They are liars. What are their real reasons for their claims to the contrary? I neither know nor care, but I suspect it would involve money, power, or both. All I know for sure is that it's not because they think it's true and important.
Bear in mind that I'm not challenging manmade climate change myself, or that it's important, perhaps important enough to enact legislation. I'm not suggesting that I don't believe it's true and important, Nor am I suggesting that the average person can't advocate for laws lowering our collective carbon footprint. I'm just arguing that these celebrities and politicians don't believe climate change is true and important. Their actions belie their words so dramatically, they cannot be seen as mere hypocrites but as liars.
Fortunately, I have a solution. Have all these celebrities and all these politicians limit their carbon footprints to that of the average American for ten years. If that doesn't affect the global production of CO2, then they can start lecturing us.
Friday, June 2, 2017
Tuesday, May 23, 2017
Quote of the Day
He scrambled through and rose to his feet. The air was cold but not bitterly so, and it seemed a little rough at the back of his throat. He gazed about him, and the very intensity of his desire to take in the new world at a glance defeated itself. he saw nothing but colours -- colours that refused to form themselves into things. Moreover, he knew nothing yet well enough to see it: you cannot see things till you know roughly what they are. His first impression was of a bright, pale world -- a water-colour world out of child's paint-box: a moment later he recognized the flat belt of light blue as a sheet of water, or of something like water, which came nearly to his feet. They were on the shore of a lake or river.
...
On one side the water extended a long way -- about a quarter of a mile, he thought, but perspective was still difficult in the strange world. On the others side it was much narrower, not wider than fifteen feet perhaps, and seemed to be flowing over a shallow -- broken and swirling water that made a softer and more hissing sound than water on Earth; and where it washed the hither bank -- the pinkish-white vegetation went down to the very brink -- there was a bubbling and sparkling which suggested effervescence. He tried hard, in such stolen glances as the work allowed him, to make out something of the farther shore. A mass of something purple, so huge that he took it for a heather-covered mountain, was his first impression: on the other side, beyond the larger water, there was something of the same kind. But there, he could see over the top of it. Beyond were strange upright shapes of whitish green: too jagged and irregular for buildings, too thin and steep for mountains. Beyond and above these again was the rose-coloured cloud-like mass. It might really be a cloud, but it was very solid-looking and did not seem to have moved since he first set eyes on it from the manhole. It looked like the top of a gigantic red cauliflower -- or like a huge bowl of red soapsuds -- and it was exquisitely beautiful in tint and shape.
Baffled by this, he turned his attention to the nearer shore beyond the shallows. The purple mass looked for a moment like a plump of organ-pipes, then like a stack of rolls of cloth set up on end, then like a forest of gigantic umbrellas blown inside out. It was in faint motion. Suddenly his eyes mastered the object. The purple stuff was vegetation: more precisely it was vegetables, vegetables about twice the height of English elms, but apparently soft and flimsy. The stalks -- one could hardly call them trunks -- rose smooth and round, and surprisingly thin, for about forty feet: above that, the huge plants opened into a sheaf-like development, not of branches but of leaves, leaves large as lifeboats but nearly transparent. The whole thing corresponded roughly to his idea of a submarine forest: the plants, at once so large and so frail, seemed to need water to support them, and he wondered that they could hang int he air. Lower down, between the stems, he saw the vivid purple twilight, mottled with paler sunshine, which made up the internal scenery of the wood.
C.S. Lewis
Out of the Silent Planet
Jim's comments: "Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind." So wrote Kant in the Critique of Pure Reason (A52/B76). And I guarantee you, C.S. Lewis had that phrase (or at least Kant's theory of judgment) in mind when he wrote the above passage. "You cannot see things till you know roughly what they are" is basically saying the same thing as "intuitions without concepts are blind." Lewis then spends some time fleshing this out by his character's inability to "see" what is right before his eyes. Until he has the category of "vegetation" he was unable to make sense of what his senses were telling him. (And it's interesting that he describes that as "his eyes mastered the object"). This whole passage is a subtle critique of empiricism, that the mind can be a blank slate upon which our senses write. Lewis is pointing out, along with Kant, that there have to be concepts already in the mind (or at least categories for Kant) in order to comprehend what our senses perceive. Anyone who wants to teach a course on philosophy in science-fiction should spend some time on this passage and what follows, since the problem comes up more than once.
I'm reminded of a time that I was at a small party at someone's house, and I fell asleep on the floor. I awoke to something being placed on my tongue (apparently my mouth had fallen open) and laughter around me. Perhaps indicating my future as a philosopher, I decided to see if I could figure out what it was on my tongue without looking at it. But there was a problem: it hurt. Or it seemed to, and then I immediately thought, "No it doesn't." And then "Yes it does," and then back-and-forth several times. I remember being amazed that I couldn't tell if I was in pain or not just by the feel. Shouldn't you be able to know something like that? It seemed like it was a while, but I'm sure it was just a few seconds before I reached up and took a tissue out of my mouth which had mint toothpaste on it. The mintiness was sharp and I hadn't been able to tell whether or not it hurt.
So three points about this: 1) it seemed that I had to know what it was before I could process the information my senses were relaying to me. I wonder if I could have figured it out if I'd waited longer though. Perhaps babies really are born as blank slates, but they obtain Kant's categories or concepts at some point naturally without anything else already in the mind, it just takes a while before it connects. Maybe there's a point where the amount of information becomes so great that the mind finally clicks and starts forming concepts or starts processing it according to Kant's categories. But this is highly speculative. On the face of it, it seems to create an enormous problem for empiricism.
2) This says nothing against the first part of Kant's statement, that "Thoughts without content are empty". You still need the information provided by the senses in order for your thoughts to be about anything. Abstracting some kind of knowledge without any sensory input -- as Descartes tried to do with his cogito and Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna) tried to do with his "flying man" -- is highly questionable. As the ancient and medieval Aristotelians said, nothing is in the intellect that was not first in the senses. We need the empiricist’s sense data in order to have something to apply the categories to; but we need the rationalist’s a priori categories in order to understand the sense data.
3) Whether or not you're in pain is generally considered one of the few things that you can't be mistaken about. And here I have a case from personal experience where I literally couldn't tell if I was in pain. So it suggests there are no indubitable beliefs. Very interesting.
Finally, let me just say that I'm reading Out of the Silent Planet to my son, and we found online someone's illustrations of the first several chapters that looked like it would be a great graphic novel (although the sorns don't look creepy enough). You can see them all here, or you can start with the first page here, and then click the left arrow button to go through them. Well worth it.
...
On one side the water extended a long way -- about a quarter of a mile, he thought, but perspective was still difficult in the strange world. On the others side it was much narrower, not wider than fifteen feet perhaps, and seemed to be flowing over a shallow -- broken and swirling water that made a softer and more hissing sound than water on Earth; and where it washed the hither bank -- the pinkish-white vegetation went down to the very brink -- there was a bubbling and sparkling which suggested effervescence. He tried hard, in such stolen glances as the work allowed him, to make out something of the farther shore. A mass of something purple, so huge that he took it for a heather-covered mountain, was his first impression: on the other side, beyond the larger water, there was something of the same kind. But there, he could see over the top of it. Beyond were strange upright shapes of whitish green: too jagged and irregular for buildings, too thin and steep for mountains. Beyond and above these again was the rose-coloured cloud-like mass. It might really be a cloud, but it was very solid-looking and did not seem to have moved since he first set eyes on it from the manhole. It looked like the top of a gigantic red cauliflower -- or like a huge bowl of red soapsuds -- and it was exquisitely beautiful in tint and shape.
Baffled by this, he turned his attention to the nearer shore beyond the shallows. The purple mass looked for a moment like a plump of organ-pipes, then like a stack of rolls of cloth set up on end, then like a forest of gigantic umbrellas blown inside out. It was in faint motion. Suddenly his eyes mastered the object. The purple stuff was vegetation: more precisely it was vegetables, vegetables about twice the height of English elms, but apparently soft and flimsy. The stalks -- one could hardly call them trunks -- rose smooth and round, and surprisingly thin, for about forty feet: above that, the huge plants opened into a sheaf-like development, not of branches but of leaves, leaves large as lifeboats but nearly transparent. The whole thing corresponded roughly to his idea of a submarine forest: the plants, at once so large and so frail, seemed to need water to support them, and he wondered that they could hang int he air. Lower down, between the stems, he saw the vivid purple twilight, mottled with paler sunshine, which made up the internal scenery of the wood.
C.S. Lewis
Out of the Silent Planet
Jim's comments: "Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind." So wrote Kant in the Critique of Pure Reason (A52/B76). And I guarantee you, C.S. Lewis had that phrase (or at least Kant's theory of judgment) in mind when he wrote the above passage. "You cannot see things till you know roughly what they are" is basically saying the same thing as "intuitions without concepts are blind." Lewis then spends some time fleshing this out by his character's inability to "see" what is right before his eyes. Until he has the category of "vegetation" he was unable to make sense of what his senses were telling him. (And it's interesting that he describes that as "his eyes mastered the object"). This whole passage is a subtle critique of empiricism, that the mind can be a blank slate upon which our senses write. Lewis is pointing out, along with Kant, that there have to be concepts already in the mind (or at least categories for Kant) in order to comprehend what our senses perceive. Anyone who wants to teach a course on philosophy in science-fiction should spend some time on this passage and what follows, since the problem comes up more than once.
I'm reminded of a time that I was at a small party at someone's house, and I fell asleep on the floor. I awoke to something being placed on my tongue (apparently my mouth had fallen open) and laughter around me. Perhaps indicating my future as a philosopher, I decided to see if I could figure out what it was on my tongue without looking at it. But there was a problem: it hurt. Or it seemed to, and then I immediately thought, "No it doesn't." And then "Yes it does," and then back-and-forth several times. I remember being amazed that I couldn't tell if I was in pain or not just by the feel. Shouldn't you be able to know something like that? It seemed like it was a while, but I'm sure it was just a few seconds before I reached up and took a tissue out of my mouth which had mint toothpaste on it. The mintiness was sharp and I hadn't been able to tell whether or not it hurt.
So three points about this: 1) it seemed that I had to know what it was before I could process the information my senses were relaying to me. I wonder if I could have figured it out if I'd waited longer though. Perhaps babies really are born as blank slates, but they obtain Kant's categories or concepts at some point naturally without anything else already in the mind, it just takes a while before it connects. Maybe there's a point where the amount of information becomes so great that the mind finally clicks and starts forming concepts or starts processing it according to Kant's categories. But this is highly speculative. On the face of it, it seems to create an enormous problem for empiricism.
2) This says nothing against the first part of Kant's statement, that "Thoughts without content are empty". You still need the information provided by the senses in order for your thoughts to be about anything. Abstracting some kind of knowledge without any sensory input -- as Descartes tried to do with his cogito and Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna) tried to do with his "flying man" -- is highly questionable. As the ancient and medieval Aristotelians said, nothing is in the intellect that was not first in the senses. We need the empiricist’s sense data in order to have something to apply the categories to; but we need the rationalist’s a priori categories in order to understand the sense data.
3) Whether or not you're in pain is generally considered one of the few things that you can't be mistaken about. And here I have a case from personal experience where I literally couldn't tell if I was in pain. So it suggests there are no indubitable beliefs. Very interesting.
Finally, let me just say that I'm reading Out of the Silent Planet to my son, and we found online someone's illustrations of the first several chapters that looked like it would be a great graphic novel (although the sorns don't look creepy enough). You can see them all here, or you can start with the first page here, and then click the left arrow button to go through them. Well worth it.
Tuesday, May 16, 2017
Is there a reason why we can't just land somewhere?
Robert Zubrin has an article on NASA's Worst Plan Yet, the plan to build a space station in orbit around the Moon.
I don't really know enough about this to justify having an opinion, but I have one nonetheless: I agree with Zubrin. As he says in that article, there was some hope that President Trump would push for a return to the Moon within four years, and landing on Mars within eight. I think we should set up permanently occupied stations in both places, rotating crews in and out whenever it's appropriate and feasible (for Mars it would have to be when it's in opposition with the Earth). Moreover, this would generate a great deal of industry and technological advancement, which would obviously involve a lot of job creation.
I recently watched this video that tours the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station...
...and I thought, "Wouldn't it be awesome to have something that extensive on Mars?" I know it's not realistic. The reason spacecraft and space stations have so little ... well ... space inside is because you have to fill it with breathable air, which they have at the South Pole but don't in space or on Mars. You could probably have something that converts the much thinner Martian atmosphere into breathable air, but that would be a huge expense, and the less space inside that you need to fill with air, the cheaper it would be. But, man. Wouldn't it be awesome?
We do not need a lunar-orbiting station to go to the Moon. We do not need such a station to go to Mars. We do not need it to go to near-Earth asteroids. We do not need it to go anywhere. Nor can we accomplish anything in such a station that we cannot do in the Earth-orbiting International Space Station, except to expose human subjects to irradiation ... If the goal is to build a Moon base, it should be built on the surface of the Moon. That is where the science is, that is where the shielding material is, and that is where the resources to make propellant and other useful things are to be found. ... In contrast, there is nothing at all in lunar orbit: nothing to use, nothing to explore, nothing to do. ... Explaining his winning strategy for war with Austria, Napoleon Bonaparte once said, “If you want to take Vienna, take Vienna.” Well, if you want to go to the Moon, you should go to the Moon. You don’t go 99 percent of the way there and then hang out in orbit where you can do nothing.
I don't really know enough about this to justify having an opinion, but I have one nonetheless: I agree with Zubrin. As he says in that article, there was some hope that President Trump would push for a return to the Moon within four years, and landing on Mars within eight. I think we should set up permanently occupied stations in both places, rotating crews in and out whenever it's appropriate and feasible (for Mars it would have to be when it's in opposition with the Earth). Moreover, this would generate a great deal of industry and technological advancement, which would obviously involve a lot of job creation.
I recently watched this video that tours the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station...
...and I thought, "Wouldn't it be awesome to have something that extensive on Mars?" I know it's not realistic. The reason spacecraft and space stations have so little ... well ... space inside is because you have to fill it with breathable air, which they have at the South Pole but don't in space or on Mars. You could probably have something that converts the much thinner Martian atmosphere into breathable air, but that would be a huge expense, and the less space inside that you need to fill with air, the cheaper it would be. But, man. Wouldn't it be awesome?
Saturday, May 13, 2017
Quote of the Day
There is so much loneliness all around us. I once found myself in London with several days on my hands while waiting for a charter flight back to the United States. A great deal of my time was spent in Westminster Cathedral (not Westminster Abbey) in meditation and prayer. In the abbey one senses the great past -- the majestic history of the English people and of God's dealings with them. In the cathedral, by contrast, which is some distance up from the abbey toward Victoria Station, there is a divine presence beyond all national histories. Something about the vast, obscure interior of that building impresses me with the nearness of God.
In front of the cathedral is a square with benches, some tables, and off to one side a religious bookstore and a McDonald's -- golden McArches and all. Here street people of London come to sleep safely in the morning sun, if it is shining, and to glean scraps of haute cuisine left by those who dine with McDonald.
I recall watching one woman on a number of occasions as she slept -- with children and pigeons flocking around her. She was blond, a little heavyset and about middle-aged. While she showed the marks of street life, she looked very much like many a wife at the center of a happy family. And I thought, Whose daughter is she? Whose sister, or mother, or neighbor or classmate? And here she is -- alone, alone, alone!"
A similar but even more profound feeling had come over me when our first child was born. I realized painfully that this incredibly beautiful little creature we had brought into the world was utterly separate from me and that nothing I could do would shelter him from his aloneness in the face of time, brutal events, the meanness of other human beings, his own wrong choices, the decay of his own body and, finally, death.
It is simply not within human capacity to care effectively for others in the depths of their life and being or even to be with them in finality -- no matter how much we may care about them. If we could only really be with them, that would almost be enough, we think. But we cannot, at least not in a way that would satisfy us. For all of us the words of the old song are true: "You must go there by yourself."
That would be the last word on the subject but for God. He is able to penetrate and intertwine himself within the fibers of the human self in such a way that those who are enveloped in his loving companionship will never be alone. This surely is the meaning of the great affirmation at the end of Romans 8:
Even our anguish over those dear to us can be completely put to rest when we see they are living in the presence from which nothing can separate them. The final and complete blessing and ultimate good, the summum bonum of humankind, comes to those with lives absorbed in the Way of Christ -- life in the presence of God. The completely adequate word of faith in all our sorrows and all our joys is "Immanuel, God with us!" Thus we sing:
"In your presence," the psalmist says, "there is fullness of joy; in your right hand are pleasures forevermore" (Ps 16:11). Even in the valley of the shadow of death there is nothing to fear. Why? Because "you are with me" (Ps 23:4).
On the other hand the fact that only God can take away our aloneness by his presence explains why the ultimate suffering and punishment is separation from the presence of God. The psalmist cries out in terror, "Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me" (Ps 51:11).
Dallas Willard
Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God
In front of the cathedral is a square with benches, some tables, and off to one side a religious bookstore and a McDonald's -- golden McArches and all. Here street people of London come to sleep safely in the morning sun, if it is shining, and to glean scraps of haute cuisine left by those who dine with McDonald.
I recall watching one woman on a number of occasions as she slept -- with children and pigeons flocking around her. She was blond, a little heavyset and about middle-aged. While she showed the marks of street life, she looked very much like many a wife at the center of a happy family. And I thought, Whose daughter is she? Whose sister, or mother, or neighbor or classmate? And here she is -- alone, alone, alone!"
A similar but even more profound feeling had come over me when our first child was born. I realized painfully that this incredibly beautiful little creature we had brought into the world was utterly separate from me and that nothing I could do would shelter him from his aloneness in the face of time, brutal events, the meanness of other human beings, his own wrong choices, the decay of his own body and, finally, death.
It is simply not within human capacity to care effectively for others in the depths of their life and being or even to be with them in finality -- no matter how much we may care about them. If we could only really be with them, that would almost be enough, we think. But we cannot, at least not in a way that would satisfy us. For all of us the words of the old song are true: "You must go there by yourself."
That would be the last word on the subject but for God. He is able to penetrate and intertwine himself within the fibers of the human self in such a way that those who are enveloped in his loving companionship will never be alone. This surely is the meaning of the great affirmation at the end of Romans 8:
Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? . . . No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor power, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (vv. 35, 37-39)
Even our anguish over those dear to us can be completely put to rest when we see they are living in the presence from which nothing can separate them. The final and complete blessing and ultimate good, the summum bonum of humankind, comes to those with lives absorbed in the Way of Christ -- life in the presence of God. The completely adequate word of faith in all our sorrows and all our joys is "Immanuel, God with us!" Thus we sing:
Where'er Thou art may we remain;
Where'er Thou goest may we go;
With Thee, O Lord, no grief is pain,
Away from Thee all joy is woe.
Oh may we in each holy tide,
Each solemn season, dwell with Thee!
Content if only by Thy side
In life or death we still may be.
"In your presence," the psalmist says, "there is fullness of joy; in your right hand are pleasures forevermore" (Ps 16:11). Even in the valley of the shadow of death there is nothing to fear. Why? Because "you are with me" (Ps 23:4).
On the other hand the fact that only God can take away our aloneness by his presence explains why the ultimate suffering and punishment is separation from the presence of God. The psalmist cries out in terror, "Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me" (Ps 51:11).
Dallas Willard
Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God
Tuesday, May 9, 2017
Recent acquisitions
I purchased some of them, the others were given to me, either by the publishers to consider using in classes, or by a friend/benefactor of mine.
Nonfiction:
Matthew W. Bates, The Birth of the Trinity: Jesus, God, and Spirit in New Testament and Early Christian Interpretations of the Old Testament
Patricia S. Churchland, Touching a Nerve: Our Brains, Our Selves
Jack S. Crumley II, Introducing Philosophy: Knowledge and Reality
Christopher M. Graney, Setting Aside All Authority: Giovanni Battista Riccioli and the Science against Copernicus in the Age of Galileo
Gilbert Harman, Thought
Maralee Harrell, What Is the Argument? An Introduction to Philosophical Argument and Analysis
Mary Beth Ingham and Mechthild Dreyer, The Philosophical Vision of John Duns Scotus: An Introduction
Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God, with Spiritual Maxims
Michael Martin, Atheism: A Philosophical Justification
Joshua M. Moritz, Science and Religion: Beyond Warfare and Toward Understanding
Ted Peters, God in Cosmic History: Where Science and History Meet Religion
Eric Priest, ed., Reason and Wonder: Why Science and Faith Need Each Other
Barry Stroud, The Significance of Philosophical Scepticism
Roger Trigg, Beyond Matter: Why Science Needs Metaphysics
Peter Unger, Ignorance: A Case for Scepticism
Peter Unger, Philosophical Relativity
Dallas Willard, The Allure of Gentleness: Defending the Faith in the Manner of Jesus
Fiction:
H.P. Lovecraft, The Complete Fiction of H.P. Lovecraft
Robert Silverberg, ed., The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, volume 1
Nonfiction:
Matthew W. Bates, The Birth of the Trinity: Jesus, God, and Spirit in New Testament and Early Christian Interpretations of the Old Testament
Patricia S. Churchland, Touching a Nerve: Our Brains, Our Selves
Jack S. Crumley II, Introducing Philosophy: Knowledge and Reality
Christopher M. Graney, Setting Aside All Authority: Giovanni Battista Riccioli and the Science against Copernicus in the Age of Galileo
Gilbert Harman, Thought
Maralee Harrell, What Is the Argument? An Introduction to Philosophical Argument and Analysis
Mary Beth Ingham and Mechthild Dreyer, The Philosophical Vision of John Duns Scotus: An Introduction
Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God, with Spiritual Maxims
Michael Martin, Atheism: A Philosophical Justification
Joshua M. Moritz, Science and Religion: Beyond Warfare and Toward Understanding
Ted Peters, God in Cosmic History: Where Science and History Meet Religion
Eric Priest, ed., Reason and Wonder: Why Science and Faith Need Each Other
Barry Stroud, The Significance of Philosophical Scepticism
Roger Trigg, Beyond Matter: Why Science Needs Metaphysics
Peter Unger, Ignorance: A Case for Scepticism
Peter Unger, Philosophical Relativity
Dallas Willard, The Allure of Gentleness: Defending the Faith in the Manner of Jesus
Fiction:
H.P. Lovecraft, The Complete Fiction of H.P. Lovecraft
Robert Silverberg, ed., The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, volume 1
Saturday, May 6, 2017
I really hope there's no cosmic significance to this
So there's a "game" of sorts that if you click on the first link in the main text of any Wikipedia article, and then click the first link of the post that it leads to, etc., eventually it always leads you to "Philosophy". I thought this provided some weak support for the importance of philosophy and therefore weak justification of my decision to become a philosopher. So I tried it.
For the first entry (which I've since forgotten) I clicked on the phonetic pronunciation rather than the first link in the body of the text. I realized this was an error, but it led me to Help: IPA for English page which then led me to "International Phonetic Alphabet" and then "Alphabet". This then led me to "Letter (alphabet)" to "Grapheme" to "Linguistics" to "Science" to "Knowledge" (getting close) to "Fact" to "Experience" to "Knowledge"... Wait, "Knowledge" again?
So, yeah, I got stuck in a circle that never leads to "Philosophy". "Knowledge" leads to "Fact", "Fact" leads to "Experience", and "Experience" leads right back to "Knowledge". Fortunately, I can take some small comfort in this, as I'm an epistemologist; maybe it's a good sign. Unfortunately, I tend towards foundationalism instead of coherentism, so if it's a sign, it's a frustrating one.
For the first entry (which I've since forgotten) I clicked on the phonetic pronunciation rather than the first link in the body of the text. I realized this was an error, but it led me to Help: IPA for English page which then led me to "International Phonetic Alphabet" and then "Alphabet". This then led me to "Letter (alphabet)" to "Grapheme" to "Linguistics" to "Science" to "Knowledge" (getting close) to "Fact" to "Experience" to "Knowledge"... Wait, "Knowledge" again?
So, yeah, I got stuck in a circle that never leads to "Philosophy". "Knowledge" leads to "Fact", "Fact" leads to "Experience", and "Experience" leads right back to "Knowledge". Fortunately, I can take some small comfort in this, as I'm an epistemologist; maybe it's a good sign. Unfortunately, I tend towards foundationalism instead of coherentism, so if it's a sign, it's a frustrating one.
Friday, May 5, 2017
Wednesday, May 3, 2017
The elephant in the classroom
OK, there's another controversy in the ranks of professional philosophy, but it's about a subject I have no expertise in. Rebecca Tuvel, an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Rhodes College published an essay in Hypatia, which, although they merely claim to be a journal of feminist philosophy, is really the journal of feminist philosophy. Her essay, which went through the usual peer review process, is entitled "In Defense of Transracialism". I read it, although, as I said, I have no expertise here. Roughly she argues that transracialism (the idea that someone can appropriately identify as a member of a different ethnicity than her ancestry indicates) is defensible for approximately the same reasons that transgenderism (the idea that someone can appropriately identify as a member of a different gender than her genetic makeup indicates) is. Moreover, any objections one might raise to transracialism would apply mutatis mutandis to transgenderism. Tuvel is clearly an advocate for transgenderism -- which apparently is not the correct term anymore, but I'm unable to find the right one, so apologies to anyone offended by my use of it -- and so is presenting these claims from a sympathetic position.
Out came the knives. A group of feminist philosophers wrote an open letter to Hypatia demanding they retract Tuvel's essay and apologize for it, which Hypatia promptly did. However, others have been deeply offended at this, as it amounts to a demonization of a junior scholar by the higher-ups. Think of it from her position: judging from her entry at philpapers, this is only the third essay Tuvel has published (as well as two book reviews), but the second published in Hypatia. She received her copy of the journal and probably thrilled to see her name in print. Then she was singled out by just that group of academics she was hoping this essay would appeal to, and had her hard work disparaged as not academically serious and immoral. I mean, how devastating would that be? (Having said that, I'm even more junior than her as I'm just a lowly adjunct. Nevertheless, I've published significantly more than her in about the same period of time.) You can read accounts of the story at Daily Nous and New York Magazine, both of which are pretty critical of the letter writers and Hypatia.
However, it seems to me that everyone, or at least the intelligentsia, is ignoring the elephant in the room. Tuvel essentially presented a modus ponens argument:
Tuvel's primary focus is on demonstrating the first premise. The second premise she takes as given. But this leaves it open to a point that G.E. Moore made. Moore didn't like skeptical arguments like that he might just be a brain in a vat being stimulated to think he was a philosopher at Cambridge. The idea here is that, since my experiences would be the same whether they were really happening or whether I was a brain in a vat, then I don't know for certain that I'm not a brain in a vat, since there's no test I can perform to adjudicate between these two possibilities. Any test I could think up would be just as explicable under the brain-in-vat theory. But if that's the case, then I can't know the most elementary things about my body, like that the hand I'm holding up in front of my face is really there and is really my hand. The argument was essentially:
This, like Tuvel's argument, is in modus ponens form. But then Moore argued that one man's modus ponens is another man's modus tollens. Once the first premise is granted, we can just as easily argue:
So you see where I'm going with this. Once Tuvel has demonstrated the first premise, one could just as easily argue the modus tollens to her modus ponens:
And that, I believe, is what her critics are freaking out about. While Tuvel was trying to present a modus ponens argument, it can just as easily be turned around into a modus tollens argument. And that's a problem because most of the people who accept transgenderism do not accept transracialism. More that that, transracialism is seen as absurd by hoi polloi. By claiming that the arguments against it apply just as well to transgenderism, Tuvel has essentially given away the store. She has given the great unwashed a reason to reject the propriety of transgenderism, she has revealed that the emperor has no clothes. The vast majority of people just don't accept that you can choose to become another race by virtue of how you feel. But then consistency would require them to say the same thing about gender.
So there are three possible responses to this. 1) Bite the bullet and accept both transracialism and transgenderism, which is what Tuvel was trying to recommend. 2) Reject both transracialism and transgenderism, which is probably what most people would do, or at least most people outside of academia. 3) Reject Tuvel's case that the two stand or fall together. The problem with this is that by arguing for the first premise, Tuvel has placed the burden of proof on her interlocutors. They must explain why the arguments against transracialism don't apply to transgenderism, and why the reasons for accepting transgenderism don't apply to transracialism. Please note that I'm not indicating which conclusion I tend towards, I'm just analyzing what I take the issue to be.
Out came the knives. A group of feminist philosophers wrote an open letter to Hypatia demanding they retract Tuvel's essay and apologize for it, which Hypatia promptly did. However, others have been deeply offended at this, as it amounts to a demonization of a junior scholar by the higher-ups. Think of it from her position: judging from her entry at philpapers, this is only the third essay Tuvel has published (as well as two book reviews), but the second published in Hypatia. She received her copy of the journal and probably thrilled to see her name in print. Then she was singled out by just that group of academics she was hoping this essay would appeal to, and had her hard work disparaged as not academically serious and immoral. I mean, how devastating would that be? (Having said that, I'm even more junior than her as I'm just a lowly adjunct. Nevertheless, I've published significantly more than her in about the same period of time.) You can read accounts of the story at Daily Nous and New York Magazine, both of which are pretty critical of the letter writers and Hypatia.
However, it seems to me that everyone, or at least the intelligentsia, is ignoring the elephant in the room. Tuvel essentially presented a modus ponens argument:
If transgenderism is appropriate, then transracialism is appropriate.
Transgenderism is appropriate.
Therefore, transracialism is appropriate.
Tuvel's primary focus is on demonstrating the first premise. The second premise she takes as given. But this leaves it open to a point that G.E. Moore made. Moore didn't like skeptical arguments like that he might just be a brain in a vat being stimulated to think he was a philosopher at Cambridge. The idea here is that, since my experiences would be the same whether they were really happening or whether I was a brain in a vat, then I don't know for certain that I'm not a brain in a vat, since there's no test I can perform to adjudicate between these two possibilities. Any test I could think up would be just as explicable under the brain-in-vat theory. But if that's the case, then I can't know the most elementary things about my body, like that the hand I'm holding up in front of my face is really there and is really my hand. The argument was essentially:
If I don't know that I'm not a brain in a vat, then I don't know that this is my hand.
I don't know that I'm not a brain in a vat.
Therefore, I don't know that this is my hand.
This, like Tuvel's argument, is in modus ponens form. But then Moore argued that one man's modus ponens is another man's modus tollens. Once the first premise is granted, we can just as easily argue:
If I don't know that I'm not a brain in a vat, then I don't know that this is my hand.
I do know that this is my hand.
Therefore, I do know that I'm not a brain in a vat.
So you see where I'm going with this. Once Tuvel has demonstrated the first premise, one could just as easily argue the modus tollens to her modus ponens:
If transgenderism is appropriate, then transracialism is appropriate.
Transracialism is not appropriate.
Therefore, transgenderism is not appropriate.
And that, I believe, is what her critics are freaking out about. While Tuvel was trying to present a modus ponens argument, it can just as easily be turned around into a modus tollens argument. And that's a problem because most of the people who accept transgenderism do not accept transracialism. More that that, transracialism is seen as absurd by hoi polloi. By claiming that the arguments against it apply just as well to transgenderism, Tuvel has essentially given away the store. She has given the great unwashed a reason to reject the propriety of transgenderism, she has revealed that the emperor has no clothes. The vast majority of people just don't accept that you can choose to become another race by virtue of how you feel. But then consistency would require them to say the same thing about gender.
So there are three possible responses to this. 1) Bite the bullet and accept both transracialism and transgenderism, which is what Tuvel was trying to recommend. 2) Reject both transracialism and transgenderism, which is probably what most people would do, or at least most people outside of academia. 3) Reject Tuvel's case that the two stand or fall together. The problem with this is that by arguing for the first premise, Tuvel has placed the burden of proof on her interlocutors. They must explain why the arguments against transracialism don't apply to transgenderism, and why the reasons for accepting transgenderism don't apply to transracialism. Please note that I'm not indicating which conclusion I tend towards, I'm just analyzing what I take the issue to be.
Sunday, April 30, 2017
Quote of the Day
Testimony is the source of an enormously large proportion of our most important beliefs; it is testimony and learning from others that makes possible intellectual achievement and culture; testimony is the very foundation of civilization. The Enlightenment looked down its rationalistic nose at testimony and tradition, comparing them invidiously with science; but, without learning by testimony, clearly, science would be impossible. Newton stood on the shoulders of giants; indeed, every scientist must stand on the testimonial shoulders of others. Nearly all of what we know of the history of humanity or the structure of the universe we know by virtue of testimony; but it is also by virtue of testimony that I know such homelier items as what my name is and that I live in Indiana. You visit Armidale: you believe that it is indeed Armidale you are in, and that Armidale is in New South Wales. I have never visited Armidale and indeed have never ventured beyond the borders of Königsberg; but you rely upon testimony for your knowledge of those items as much as I do. You are also dependent upon testimony for your knowledge that New South Wales is in Australia (a fact you perhaps learned from a map or encyclopedia) and that there is such a nation as Australia.
Sigmund Freud, that Enlightenment figure born out of due time, offers an account of religious belief that, oddly enough, includes testimony as a special case: "Religious ideas are teachings and assertions about facts and conditions of external (or internal) reality which tell one something one has not discovered for oneself and which lay claim to one's belief." (Obviously testimony involves "teachings and assertions about facts and conditions of external [or internal] reality which tell one something one has not discovered for oneself and which lay claim to one's belief.") He immediately goes on to contradict this account of 'religious ideas' by claiming that what distinguishes religious ideas from testimony is that what you learn by way of testimony you can always check or verify for yourself, thus finding out whether what you were told is true.
But surely this is Enlightenment optimism run amuck. Can I really discover, in a way independent of testimony, that in the fifth century B.C. there was a war between the Athenians and Spartans? Can I discover in this way that Plato was a philosopher? Or that the woman I take to be my mother really was? Or that I was given the name I think I was? Or that there is such a country as Australia? Indeed, the mayor of Armidale himself depends upon testimony for his knowledge that it is Armidale of which he is the mayor; and though a lifelong resident of Australia, he too depends upon testimony for his knowledge that Australia is the continent of which Armidale is a tiny part. You say: perhaps he just to himself: "Armidale is a part of _______," where the blank is to be filled by his own name of the land he sees around him, land on which Armidale is obviously to be found. But if _______ is his name for Australia and is bestowed or introduced by way of the description 'the land around here' or 'the land I now see', the proposition he expresses by 'Armidale is a part of _______' is not the one we expressed by 'Armidale is in Australia."To express the same or an equivalent proposition, his sentence would have to contain a name of Australia; and it is not easy to acquire a name of Australia on one's own. He might try to name Australia by picking it out with a definite description: 'the continent of which where I stand is a part' or 'the country to which this land belongs'; but of course it is only by testimony that he knows there is such a continent or country, or indeed any continents or countries at all.
We are therefore dependent upon testimony for most of what we know. Further, it is likely that most of our beliefs are such that the very possibility of our forming them is dependent upon testimony. For if there were no such thing as testimony, as a source of belief, then, in all likelihood, there would be nothing but the most rudimentary sorts of language. I don't mean to endorse Wittgenstein's enigmatic suggestions to the effect that it is impossible (in something like the broadly logical sense) that any person have a private language; that is as may be. (And the way it may be, I think, is at best inconclusive.) But it seems likely, as a matter of contingent fact, that language and testimony are mutually dependent phenomena in such a way that apart from testimony, there would be no language. And without the resources conferred by language we should have been unable to form any but a small proportion of the beliefs we do in fact hold.
Alvin Plantinga
Warrant and Proper Function
Jim's comments: Sometimes my students are skeptical of whether you could know something simply on the basis of testimony. I think this is understandable: it seems that the person who believes something on the testimony of someone else has not come into direct contact with the truth of the claim, but only, at best, indirect contact. The intuition is that she doesn't believe the claim because it is true, but only because the other person is trustworthy or something. I think this is mistaken, and in the future I may have them read this passage by Plantinga.
Sigmund Freud, that Enlightenment figure born out of due time, offers an account of religious belief that, oddly enough, includes testimony as a special case: "Religious ideas are teachings and assertions about facts and conditions of external (or internal) reality which tell one something one has not discovered for oneself and which lay claim to one's belief." (Obviously testimony involves "teachings and assertions about facts and conditions of external [or internal] reality which tell one something one has not discovered for oneself and which lay claim to one's belief.") He immediately goes on to contradict this account of 'religious ideas' by claiming that what distinguishes religious ideas from testimony is that what you learn by way of testimony you can always check or verify for yourself, thus finding out whether what you were told is true.
But surely this is Enlightenment optimism run amuck. Can I really discover, in a way independent of testimony, that in the fifth century B.C. there was a war between the Athenians and Spartans? Can I discover in this way that Plato was a philosopher? Or that the woman I take to be my mother really was? Or that I was given the name I think I was? Or that there is such a country as Australia? Indeed, the mayor of Armidale himself depends upon testimony for his knowledge that it is Armidale of which he is the mayor; and though a lifelong resident of Australia, he too depends upon testimony for his knowledge that Australia is the continent of which Armidale is a tiny part. You say: perhaps he just to himself: "Armidale is a part of _______," where the blank is to be filled by his own name of the land he sees around him, land on which Armidale is obviously to be found. But if _______ is his name for Australia and is bestowed or introduced by way of the description 'the land around here' or 'the land I now see', the proposition he expresses by 'Armidale is a part of _______' is not the one we expressed by 'Armidale is in Australia."To express the same or an equivalent proposition, his sentence would have to contain a name of Australia; and it is not easy to acquire a name of Australia on one's own. He might try to name Australia by picking it out with a definite description: 'the continent of which where I stand is a part' or 'the country to which this land belongs'; but of course it is only by testimony that he knows there is such a continent or country, or indeed any continents or countries at all.
We are therefore dependent upon testimony for most of what we know. Further, it is likely that most of our beliefs are such that the very possibility of our forming them is dependent upon testimony. For if there were no such thing as testimony, as a source of belief, then, in all likelihood, there would be nothing but the most rudimentary sorts of language. I don't mean to endorse Wittgenstein's enigmatic suggestions to the effect that it is impossible (in something like the broadly logical sense) that any person have a private language; that is as may be. (And the way it may be, I think, is at best inconclusive.) But it seems likely, as a matter of contingent fact, that language and testimony are mutually dependent phenomena in such a way that apart from testimony, there would be no language. And without the resources conferred by language we should have been unable to form any but a small proportion of the beliefs we do in fact hold.
Alvin Plantinga
Warrant and Proper Function
Jim's comments: Sometimes my students are skeptical of whether you could know something simply on the basis of testimony. I think this is understandable: it seems that the person who believes something on the testimony of someone else has not come into direct contact with the truth of the claim, but only, at best, indirect contact. The intuition is that she doesn't believe the claim because it is true, but only because the other person is trustworthy or something. I think this is mistaken, and in the future I may have them read this passage by Plantinga.
Saturday, April 29, 2017
The old oldest person and the new oldest person
I'm a couple weeks late on this, but I knew I would have to write about the death of Emma Morano, the last woman who was born in the 1800s: November 1899 in particular. She passed away over Easter weekend. A lot of the reports claimed she was the last person born in the 19th century, but the year 1900 was the last year of the 19th century, and the current oldest person in the world was born in March of that year. Of course, I understand the significance of the odometer rolling over: having someone alive who was born in a year beginning with a one-eight just seems like a bigger deal that someone with a one-nine. Nevertheless, we have two people still around who were born in 1900, the last year of the 19th century. And there's another interesting thing about the newest oldest person: she's from Jamaica, where she was born, and which was part of the British Empire at the time. So she's the last person alive who was a subject of Queen Victoria. Wow.
Tuesday, April 18, 2017
Concord Sonata
I studied music and developed an appreciation for nontonal music. It's an acquired taste and it wilts if I don't feed it. But whenever I want to get back into it, I listen to The Concord Sonata by Charles Ives. I don't know why, but I'm always able to enjoy it. I understand if you don't like it, or even if you loathe it. Like I said, I can't explain why I find this piece so attractive, so listenable. I love the performance below, but there's another performance on YouTube that tracks the sheet music here. That's just to the first movement, the other movements are separate videos.
Friday, April 14, 2017
Time-travelling to see Jesus can be hazardous
For your Good Friday reading, I respectfully submit "Let's Go to Golgotha!" by Garry Kilworth.
Saturday, April 8, 2017
Feser on Kim
Ed Feser comments on Jaegwon Kim's supervenience and attempted solving of the mind-body problem from Physicalism, or Something Near Enough. I've read it, but didn't remember Kim's use of Jonathan Edwards's occasionalism which is what Feser addresses. That just means I have to read it again, which I am happy to do. Kim is a master. Good stuff.
Looking back at the last few posts, I guess I could have collected them together as a linkfest. Oh well.
Looking back at the last few posts, I guess I could have collected them together as a linkfest. Oh well.
Friday, April 7, 2017
History and myth
Here's a six year old article on Four Myths about the Crusades. The myths in question are: 1) The crusades represented an unprovoked attack by Western Christians on the Muslim world; 2) Western Christians went on crusade because their greed led them to plunder Muslims in order to get rich; 3) Crusaders were a cynical lot who did not really believe their own religious propaganda; rather, they had ulterior, materialistic motives; and 4) the crusades taught Muslims to hate and attack Christians.
Tuesday, April 4, 2017
Link
Here's a great short story by Robert Silverburg entitled "Enter a Soldier. Later: Enter Another". The second soldier is Socrates. I feel enriched after reading it.
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