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June 29, 2004
Vagueness
I have two (don't ask how) hardback copies of Rosanne Keefe & Peter Smith's Vagueness: A Reader, and wish to sell one of them at $25.00. It's in perfect condition: I never opened this copy. I think that's a fair price? I thought this medium would reach more people interesting in this topic than doing a more public auction. Please contact me, if interested.
Posted by kkukla at 2:14 PM | Comments (1)
June 25, 2004
Film
Mark, Since this was so long, I thought I would just post. Is that cool, or should it go in the comment thread? I�m not very good at blog etiquette. I do analytic metaphysics, but don't expect any serious arguments below: there just ramblings about film, I think. I've watched nearly 2,000 films (I know, my social life is a bit impoverished) and one of the great many things I've learned and am still learning (I watch about...well I shouldn't say) is this: there are no necessary and sufficient conditions for what constitutes a philosophical film as some may suggest.
For any film, a philosopher can find a philosophical element, given their philosophical background. People find existentialism in almost everything. Why? Because most people have some philosophical knowledge of that area: it�s kinda popular. But take for example, Mude Tod, Der (Between Two Worlds, Fritz Lang, 1921) ,an exploration of a possible world where every possibility is simultaneously actual, and whether or not that makes choice impossible -- or, the opposite. So we have some quantum stuff, modality, identity, freewill, dialetheism, etc. Had I not read that area of philosophy, I wouldn't have seen that stuff. My friend watching the film with me, a classics major, pointed out stoical non-assent aspects of the film. I didn't know that! What about the schizophrenic (and I mean clinical!) Frankfurt Cases in Hitchcock�s 1951 Strangers on a Train. Or Subiela�s 1986 film, Man Facing Southeast (where Disney despicably co-opted nearly every scene of that film for the production of KPAX), exploring the line between reality and delusion. (Yes, I am aware there�s a distinction between the concept of film and cinema, partly dependent on the functionality of the medium between the subject and the other -- but I�m not waxing that way.) The point I'm trying to make (if it is one) is that as one�s knowledge of philosophy grows so do the connections in film: this seems like an infinite process, since the domain of both seem endless. Every film has some philosophical content, so it seems futile to systematize. (This is not inconsistent with showing a film in class without some conditions of why it's philosophical -- see below. I do, however, think that philosophy of film classes have more of a problem about their justification, simply because s either doesn't know enough philosophy or s doesn't have clear topics to justify the showing x film under that topic, or both.) I find a film, play a few minutes here and there for my students, then ask, �What is the philosophical content in this film?� (I do this before and after we begin a section: I get interesting results.) Students are usually spot on! I've had several students tell me that they can't stop seeing some philosophical theory in x film (is that brainwashing?), even involving ancient paradoxes!; I�m not sure if that�s a good thing, but for those who know me that�s a victory. But I still need to find a film that involves semantic vagueness!!: that might be a foreign one.) I've always wanted to post a list of films, but thought it would take too much time, especially given my obsessive tendencies. But more importantly, writing a dissertation, teaching, and watching movies, leaves no time to write on movies.
Posted by kkukla at 8:25 PM | Comments (5)
Predictive Prophecy and Counterfactuals
In line with the discussions of time and time travel at my blog and to some degree here also, our own Gnu has a related puzzle using a fun fantasy role-playing kind of example for a philosophical puzzle about conditional predictive prophecy (i.e. predicting what someone will do and then telling him that A will have already happened if he ends up doing P but B will have already happened if he turns out to do Q). I think this case is interesting in terms of its view of time and of the relation of guaranteed prediction to time, but it also has some relevance to how to evaluate counterfactual statements. Read the case first at Gnu's blog, then read on here for my analysis.
The Liche Lord has predicted what Thurvan would do. That means he knew that Thurvan would go to all the rooms. Therefore, assuming he isn't lying, he hasn't placed the sword in the room he said it would be in if Thurvan had chosen not to go to the other rooms. Thurvan was correct to say that the sword is either there or not, but he was wrong to think that it was there independent of his decision. It was there because of what he would do. If Thurvan had chosen otherwise, and the Liche Lord had still set up the same deal, the sword would have been there. But unless he's lying, the sword can't be there as things stand. Given that the Liche Lord can take the shape of any object and enjoys taking people to be his undead slaves, you might expect that what the dwarf sees as the sword is probably the Liche Lord himself waiting to trap him. Of course, the Liche Lord can see the future, so this is probably only the case if the Liche Lord has predicted that the dwarf will take the sword. He may well have predicted that the dwarf would reason through all this and leave without going for the sword, in which case he may have lied and put the sword there anyway. What's great about this is that the sword might really be there but only if he doesn't try to get it, and it's not there if he does. So he can't get it one way or the other. The only way to get the sword would have been to do what the Liche Lord knew he wouldn't do, and that would have been to avoid the other rooms. In working through this, I had a hard time thinking about what the Liche Lord would have done if Thurvan had chosen otherwise, because it may well be that the Liche Lord would not have chosen to set this scenario up at all without the knowledge of Thurvan choosing the way he did. It's hard to think about counterfactual possibilities where the thing that would have been different depends on knowledge of the future in the counterfactual world. According to David Lewis' semantics of counterfactual statements, 'if Thurvan had chosen to go straight to the sword room, the sword would have been there' is unclear to me. Lewis says to go to the nearest possible world where Thurvan goes straight to the sword room, meaning that you should find the world most like the actual world except for that detail and then see what's true. So if we change nothing in the world except that and what changing it will require, what happens? I can think of three kinds of candidate worlds for the closest: 1. My first thought would be to say that if Thurvan had chosen differently, and if you kept as much intact as possible, then the Liche Lord would have predicted differently and as a result put the sword in the chamber to honor his deal. This world holds the Liche Lord's honesty and abilities constant and changes the state of the world for the entire time between the writing of the letter and the present so that the sword has been there all along. 2. Lewis prefers to find a world intrinsically as much like the actual world as possible. That would require keeping the tomb , just as things are in the actual world. But then the Liche Lord would have to have told something false to Thurvan. Either he was lying (2a), or his predictive abilities failed in this one case (2b). I think Lewis has to favor 2b, because even 2a has intrinsic changes with the Liche Lord's beliefs and intents, whereas 2b could be just a surprising failure of his abilities, something like the miracle worlds Lewis discusses in his paper on whether free will requires breaking the laws of nature. 3. Lewis wouldn't like this at all, because it requires even more of a change of the intrinsic state of the world so far than 1, but some might argue that if Thurvan had chosen to take the sword and not go to the other rooms, the Liche Lord would not have set up the case this way at all and wouldn't have given a deal that would mean he'd end up losing. I'm bring this up only to argue against it as a legitimate near possibility. Seeing this as a near possibility of what would happen given Thurvan's choice to go only for the sword assumes something false. It assumes the Liche Lord is predicting what Thurvan would do given that the Liche Lord sets things up a certain way. According to Gnu's setup, the Liche Lord predicts what Thurvan will do, period. He doesn't consider all the possibilities and make things go his way. His ability only tells him what will happen. So this one requires a difference in the intrinsic state of the world and in the abilities of the Liche Lord. 1 has a difference only in the state of the world (and not even as much of a difference), and 2 has a difference in the abilities or intent of the Liche Lord (and not as much of a difference -- either a one-time failure of the same ability rather than a completely different ability or a different motivation rather than a whole change in the nature of his abilities). So I think 1 and 2 are the real options for which world is closest to the actual one Gnu has constructed. This is a particularly vivid example of those who agree with Lewis on nearness of worlds based on intrinsic likeness and what I think is the more commonsense view of nearness of worlds based on preserving the abilities of the Liche Lord that related causally to the future in certain guaranteed ways. Lewis' view is required for those who reduce causality to relations between instrinsic properties of things across time, and my intuitions against his view on this case are therefore intuitions against his reduction of causality to such things. The causal relations between the Liche Lord and the future that he sees are an important part of the structure of the world, and a world seems to me to be much further from the actual one (of the case) if the Liche Lord has to have different abilities or failure of his abilities to keep the world intrinsically as close as possible. Simply changing some more intrinsic facts seems to me to be less of a change.
Posted by Jeremy at 11:10 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
June 24, 2004
Bernard Henri-Levy
The French philosopher, Henri-Levy, authour of War, Evil, and the End of History, will be on Charlie Rose this evening.
Posted by kkukla at 2:27 PM | Comments (1)
June 17, 2004
Philosophy Movies
Jason Brennan, philosophy graduate student at the University of Arizona, has constructed a philosophy movie page. It's TV show episodes that I've mostly used (since you can watch them in a class period), so I don't have much to contribute to his project, but if you have any ideas send them his way. Credit goes to Tyler Cowen at the Volokh Conspiracy for the discovery. Update: Majikthise has some more, with explanations why she thinks hers are among the best philosophical films.
Posted by Jeremy at 3:01 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
June 16, 2004
PEA Soup
Douglas Portmore at CalState Northridge has let me know about a new (primarily ethics) blog that he and others have started up called PEA Soup. The phenomenon grows....
Posted by MarkSteen at 12:28 PM
June 15, 2004
Time Travel and Unexplained Loops
At my blog Parablemania, I registered my endorsement of the "time travel on a fixed timeline" view (which assumes eternalism), and my co-blogger Wink followed up by raising the question of unexplained causal loops (which are internally explained, but nothing explains the whole loop). He thinks this makes backward time travel impossible, because he shares the same view of time but won't accept the pos6isbility of these loops, which should be allowed on that view of time (he thinks). I think the discussion's going to get interesting, because there are a number of different ways you could go with this.
Posted by Jeremy at 12:55 PM | Comments (9)
June 11, 2004
More Philosophy Blogs
David Chalmers has put together a list of all the philosophy blogs he knows about. Apparently there's one more group blog that I didn't know about, Experimental Philosophy. The overriding goal seems to be to apply the results of empirical studies to philosophical issues. One post reports a study concluding that the incompatibilist notion of freedom is in fact not the dominant assumption of the ordinary person and then asks what philosophical consequences we should draw. The other two posts so far seem to be explaining and defending their approach. It's a little disconcerting to see that they don't follow the standard blog format with the most recent entries at the top.
There are a lot of blogs I didn't know about, and Chalmers has nicely divided them among different categories (non-philosophical by a philosopher, group blogs, philosophical by largely non-philosophers, etc.).
Posted by Jeremy at 2:26 PM | Comments (3)
Agent Causation
I've been thinking about free will lately, and I wanted to put into words exactly why I think agent causation makes no sense. One silly response to agent causation is that events cause events, and the notion of an agent causing anything is a category mistake. I haven't seen any argument for that view, so I don't consider it a worthy objection. I do think there's a real problem with the notion of agent causation as a defense of libertarian free will, and van Inwagen seems to agree with me, judging by his chapter on free will in his Metaphysics book. The real problem goes back to the issue of how indeterminism can lead to free will. Lucretius said the swerving atom explains freedom, but it doesn't. How can something totally out of anyone's control explain why I'm free? That then leads me to ask about some questions about the purportedly free choice. Is it caused? If it's totally uncaused, then I didn't have anything to do with it. If it's caused, it better have been caused by something in my control, call that event A. Is A caused or uncaused? It better be caused, or else it's not in my control. In fact, it better be caused by something in my control, or it won't be in my control. Then we need a previous event B that caused it that's in my control, and you can quickly see that B will need to have been caused by C, which also must have been in my control and therefore caused by D, which also... We get an infinite regress.
The standard response from libertarians is to deny the whole setup. My choice wasn't caused by a prior event, but it wasn't uncaused either. It was caused by me. I wasn't caused to cause it, but it wasn't random either. Somehow, mysteriously, my will is uncaused to cause it but it still operating in my control. That's how agent causation is supposed to go. There's still a problem, though. What about the event of my causing it? The event of the choice was caused by me. We still haven't figured out whether the event of its being caused by me is caused. If it's uncaused or caused by something random, I'm not free. If it's caused by prior events, we have the same problem as above. If it's caused by me, then we have to ask whether that causing is also caused by me and whether that causing is also caused be me and so on. Another infinite regress arises. So I think the libertarian has three options: 1. Concede to infinite regress in the first argument and just say that every free choice has an infinite number of preceding events all in my control, none of which has any explanation why it's in my control except for previous ones. This fails to explain why any should be in my control. (This must be asymptotic with no first event but all of which are after a certain point, or else they'd go back before I existed.) 2. Concede to infinite regress in the second argument and say that every choice caused by me is an event also caused by me, which means there is an infinite series of causings by me for every choice I make. This fails to explain why any of those causings is caused by me. (This must be asymptotic with no first event but all of which are after a certain point, or else they'd go back before I existed.) 3. Refuse to admit that there's any event of my causing it. I cause it, but that's not an event. I'm not sure why there would be any motivation for such a view, so it seems terribly ad hoc. Furthermore, there seems to be motivation to resist it. How can something happen without there being an event of its happening? If I cause something, there should be an event of my causing it. I just don't see why there wouldn't be. When van Inwagen considers all this, he declares free will to be a mystery. He says compatibilism has a worse mystery, that we can be predetermined and yet be free. Hard determinism also has a worse mystery, that we can fail to be responsible for our choices (we can hold each other responsible, but there's no moral significance to it). So he accepts the libertarian mystery. My own intuitions are far more willing to accept the compatibilist mystery, since that one at least explains why we'd be responsible if we're predetermined. Our choices are caused by previous events, but they're the right kinds of events. They're events in our own minds, events having to do with our beliefs, desires, values, and character. We act based on who we are. Philosophers as antagonistic toward each other's views as Jonathan Edwards and David Hume (not that they knew of each other) agree on this, and I think they're both right.
Posted by Jeremy at 9:58 AM | Comments (28) | TrackBack
June 10, 2004
New epistemology blog
Jonathan Kvanvig, in addition to being (so far, anyway) the dominant blogger at Prosblogion, has started an epistemology blog called Certain Doubts. So now we've got two topical philosophy blogs. So far this new one is also institutionally based, since all three bloggers are at the same institution, but he says they've got other people lined up to join. Both blogs display some excellent quality in their posts, though Certain Doubts only has a few posts so far. The Rochester and Brown blogs have been working well, and the Syracuse one hasn't (mostly because most everyone who claimed to be interested in it turned out not to be), with Arizona still in the process of developing. The two topical blogs seem to have started out with excellent quality without need for a period of getting going. I think we now have some empirical evidence that Brian Weatherson was right in his suggestion that topical blogs will be the way to go (in addition to the reasons he gave).
Posted by Jeremy at 10:40 AM | Comments (5)
June 9, 2004
A Few Thoughts on Markosian's "Simples, Stuff, and Simple People"
I�ve been meaning to do a long post on Ned Markosian�s "Simples, Stuff, and Simple People" which just came out in the Monist, but haven�t had time. One brief point did, however, come pretty quickly to mind.
Ned sets out several principles about the nature of stuff, simples, common-sense objects, and their relations, and a few seem in tension. The principles that seemed most dubious was principle #(3) that "There cannot be matter[i.e., �stuff�] without objects.", in conjunction with principle #(6) that "Some portions of stuff constitute things, but not every portion of stuff constitutes a thing."
We can get at the tension when we look at Markosian�s analysis of simples. In his paper, "Simples," he states that an x is a simple just in case x is a maximally continuous object, and
x is a maximally continuous object =df x is a spatially continuous object and there is no continuous region of space, R, such that (i) the region of space occupied by x is a proper subset of R, and (ii) every point in R falls within some object or other.
Markosian also rejects the doctrine of arbitrary undetached parts, a contemporary analogue of the �actual parts� theory.
Although Ned doesn�t explicitly state this, it seems to follow from various parts of various works of his that if there are no simples there can be no objects at all (although there can be �portions�, which Ned insists are not objects�this is a major point of contention I�ll take up later).
However, the following scenarios seem possible:
Scenario (1): A world w1 completely filled with homoeomerous matter, or, �gunk�, which stretches off infinitely in all directions. Scenario (2): A world w2 where the only object is a infinitely long gunky cylinder (although it is within an infinitely large 3d space). And so on.
Now, according to (3), there must be objects in each world. And, oddly enough, in both w1 and w2 we find that both are simples according to MaxCon.
Maybe this wouldn�t be so bad if we didn�t have to contend with principle (6), when we look at the test of why some stuff does not constitute a thing. Markosian contends that not all portions of stuff constitute a thing (remember, he rejects DAUP and holds that portions are not things), and the example is the arm-shaped portion of stuff which is part of that continuous portion of stuff which constitutes a simple which is in the shape of a statue. So, it seems that some portion does not constitute a simple if it has no set of endpoints in all three dimensions which are discontinuous with any other portions. So, in order for some portion to constitute a thing it must have some set of endpoints or boundaries. But, in w1 and w2, there are no continuous portions which are discontinuous from any others, and so no thing is constituted by any stuff, and so no thing exists, not even a simple.
Ned needs a patch here (or, I�ve made a mistake, which is quite likely when thinking about infinitely large objects and perhaps thinking about them w/finitary intuitions). It seems he needs to build into MaxCon some kind of caveats about outer bounds along all three dimensions. This will eliminate there being �simples� that have no bounds, but will necessitate him dropping (3) as a principle. It seems, in w1 at least, and if DAUP is true, that there are no objects at all.
Posted by MarkSteen at 10:41 PM | Comments (6)
June 7, 2004
Farewell Tom Holden
It's with sadness that we say farewell to Tom Holden, who is now leaving us to set up camp at UC Santa Barbara. Tom's been a great member of the department during his run here, and has done an excellent job teaching the various Early Modern courses. We just had a fun farewell party yesterday at Ben Bradley's house, and our respect for Tom as a philosopher has not dimished even in light of his extremely, extremely poor basketball skills. As a parting gift, since this is the most I can afford, I'd like to leave a link to Amazon UK where you can pre-order Tom's (self-explanitorily titled) book, The Architecture of Matter: Galileo to Kant. Tom's book developed out of his dissertation (advisor: Simon Blackburn) from Chapel Hill, which has received quite a bit of praise. Happy trails, Tom! We'll miss you.
Posted by MarkSteen at 2:45 PM
Prosblogion
The third Ektopos blog is now online and ready for your careful perusal. Prosblogion is the philosophy of religion blog I was talking about starting a while back. We've got a decent starting group so far, but I'm hoping for a couple more well-known philosophers. The posting frenzy has begun. Jonathan Kvanvig has already contributed a few excellent posts, and David Efird and I have added our own. Mine is a response to the problem facing Leibniz given his endorsement both of the Principle of Sufficient Reason and of the view that some things are contingent, namely God's choice whether to create at all and God's choice to act according to his nature.
Posted by Jeremy at 2:36 PM | Comments (1)
June 5, 2004
Bienvenidos Desert Landscapes
The joyful disease spreads. The University of Arizona grad students (and some faculty) have started up their blog, Desert Landscapes, here. (thanks to Brian Leiter for the link).
It's a clever name, which needs no explanation if you've read "On What There Is" and know anything about Arizona.
This reminds me of a story about Bill Alston (which I heard from another student, I wasn't in this particular class), who, while discussing Quine and ontology, said (in his very lovably crackling tones), "Who prefers desert landscapes? I want to live in a lush garden!" So, when choosing between sparse or profligate ontologies, the question is, Quine's desert, or, Alston's garden?
Posted by MarkSteen at 10:59 AM
June 4, 2004
Sorites in the Senate
The Rough Woodsman presents a battle between Senator Rick Santorum and Senator Barbara Boxer over partial birth abortion. What struck me as hilarious in this exchange was that it's a classic example of a sorites series from one party with the usual resistance to engage in the discussion from the other.
Here's the transcript: Sen. Santorum: Once the baby is born, is completely separated from the mother, you will support that that baby has, in fact, the right to life and cannot be killed? You accept that; right? Sen. Boxer: I don't believe in killing any human being. That is absolutely correct. Nor do you, I am sure. Sen. Santorum: So you would accept the fact that once the baby is separated from the mother, that baby cannot be killed? Sen. Boxer: I support the right -- and I will repeat this, again, because I saw you ask the same question to another senator-- Sen. Santorum: All the person has to do is give me a straight answer, and then it will be very clear to everybody. Sen. Boxer: And what defines "separation"? Define "separation." You answer that question. You define it. Sen. Santorum: Well, let's define that. Okay, let's say the baby is completely separated. In other words, no part of the baby is inside of the mother. Sen. Boxer: You mean the baby has been birthed and is now in its mother's arms? That baby is a human being. Sen. Santorum: Well, I don't know if it's necessarily in its mother's arms. Let's say in the obstetrician's hands. Sen. Boxer: It takes a second, it takes a minute. I had two babies, and within seconds of their birth-- Sen. Santorum: We've had six. Sen. Boxer: Well, you didn't have any. Sen. Santorum: My wife and I had babies together. That's the way we do things in our family. Sen. Boxer: Your wife gave birth. I gave birth. I can tell you, I know when the baby was born. Sen. Santorum: Good! All I am asking you is, once the baby leaves the mother's birth canal and is through the vaginal orifice and is in the hands of the obstetrician, you would agree that you cannot abort, kill the baby? Sen. Boxer: I would say when the baby is born, the baby is born, and would then have every right of every other human being living in this country. And I don't know why this would even be a question, to be honest with you. Sen. Santorum: Because we are talking about a situation here where the baby is almost born. So I ask the question of the senator from California, if the baby was born except for the baby's foot, if the baby's foot was inside the mother but the rest of the baby was outside, could that baby be killed? Sen. Boxer: The baby is born when the baby is born. That is the answer to the question. Sen. Santorum: I am asking you to define for me what that is. Sen. Boxer: I don't think anybody but the senator from Pennsylvania has a question with it. I have never been troubled by this question. You give birth to a baby. The baby is there, and it is born. That is my answer to the question. Sen. Santorum: What we are talking about here with partial birth, as the senator from California knows, is a baby is in the process of being born-- Sen. Boxer: "The process of being born." This is why this conversation makes no sense, because to me it is obvious when a baby is born. To you it isn't obvious. Sen. Santorum: Maybe you can make it obvious to me. So what you are suggesting is if the baby's foot is still inside of the mother, that baby can then still be killed. Sen. Boxer: No, I am not suggesting that in any way! Sen. Santorum: I am asking. Sen. Boxer: I am absolutely not suggesting that. You asked me a question, in essence, when the baby is born. Sen. Santorum: I am asking you again. Can you answer that? Sen. Boxer: I will answer the question when the baby is born. The baby is born when the baby is outside the mother's body. The baby is born. Sen. Santorum: I am not going to put words in your mouth. Sen. Boxer: I hope not. Sen. Santorum: But, again, what you are suggesting is if the baby's toe is inside the mother, you can, in fact, kill that baby. Sen. Boxer: Absolutely not. Sen. Santorum: OK. So if the baby's toe is in, you can't kill the baby. How about if the baby's foot is in? Sen. Boxer: You are the one who is making these statements. Sen. Santorum: We are trying to draw a line here. Sen. Boxer: I am not answering these questions! I am not answering these questions! Both senators reveal some simple-mindedness in this debate. Boxer's position is a fairly bad version of a pro-choice view, i.e. that a fetus isn't a human being immediately before birth and then immediately upon birth is, with no acknowledgement of a process of birth during which the partial-birth abortion procedure would take place (either that or she's an epistemicist frustrated by the fact that explaining her position in the Senate wouldn't exactly be easy, but somehow that seems unlikely). She also doesn't seem aware of the distinction pro-choice philosophers created in the 1970s between being a human being and being a person. Santorum, on the other hand, doesn't seem to show any awareness of more sophisticated positions that could, if their holder were smarter than Boxer, avoid his argument (though admittedly they involve premises she doesn't seem to want to grant, e.g. that a newborn isn't a person either, that whether it's ok to kill something isn't dependent on personhood alone, etc.). How can someone be in the United States Senate as long as these two have and be as unfamiliar such basic arguments in the abortion debate as the points made by Judith Jarvis Thomson?
Posted by Jeremy at 12:59 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack