Specter of Reason

I fondly remember last Christmas Eve, when Jason Stanley said Ryle's view of propositions was "idiotic." We were nearing the end of a brisk yet short-lived correspondence, the bulk of which spanned about 30 emails over the preceding 48 hours. I was home in bed, alone and barely mobile, recovering from a herniated disc in my lower back. My wife had taken the kids to her family's house, leaving me glued to my computer, surprised and inspired by Jason's interest in my ideas. My view was (and is) that Jason Stanley and Timothy Williamson (S&W) profoundly misinterpret Ryle in their oft-referenced 2001 paper, "Knowing How." I am not alone in thinking this. The same point is made in a number of published papers, though in a variety of different ways. Still, I couldn't convince Jason that S&W misinterpret Ryle, and he couldn't convince me that they don't. At least we agreed on the distinction I had made between propositionalism and ...

In honor of the esteemed artist, here are some aural and visual moments in the life of Don Van Vliet, who died on Friday. "Bat Chain Puller," live on French TV in 1980: Here's "Electricity" and "Sure 'nuff 'n Yes I Do," live in Cannes, 1968: Now some album cuts. Here's "Moonlight On Vermont" and "Pachuco Cadaver", my two favorite songs from Trout Mask Replica (1969): Here are a few songs from Capt. Beefheart's most underrated album, Bluejeans And Moonbeams (1974), which shows a completely different side of Beefheart. Some say he was selling out, but I think it's one of his best albums. First, here's "Observatory Crest": Allmusic.com says that's one of the two good songs on the album, and says the rest is basically crap. They say the following two songs ("Pompadour Swamp" and "Captain's Holiday") are the worst to bear the Captain...

Conversational Atheist has posted Sam Harris' proposal for grounding moral dictums in the process of scientific discovery. Harris proposes nine "facts" which are supposed to demonstrate the scientific foundations of moral righteousness. I won't comment on all of them, but I have some things to say about a few of them. As I'll explain, I cannot accept at least four of the nine. To start with, for the purposes of this post (and only this post), I'll tentatively accept Fact 1: FACT #1: There are behaviors, intentions, cultural practices, etc. which potentially lead to the worst possible misery for everyone. There are also behaviors, intentions, cultural practices, etc. which do not, and which, in fact, lead to states of wellbeing for many sentient creatures, to the degree that wellbeing is possible in this universe. While I'm not sure there is such a thing as "the worst possible misery for everyone," I don't think this notion is the ...

Sam Harris says the worst imaginable universe is one in which all conscious beings suffer as much as they can and for as long as they can. This is not just categorically bad, but the categorically worst-case scenario. This is supposed to be intuitive. Yet, my intuition tells me we can imagine a worse situation. Imagine planet X populated by as-yet-undiscovered aliens. Now imagine a universe in which all the animals on earth suffer for as long as possible and to the highest possible degree, and in which the aliens on planet X enjoy this suffering greatly. The suffering on earth gives the aliens more pleasure than anything else in their entire history. They celebrate it annually, laughing at and finding joy in documentary films, pictures, and reenactments which graphically depict the unspeakable horrors experienced on earth. My feeling is that this scenario, in which the suffering of some produces great pleasure in others, is less appealing--less morally satisfying--than the scenar...

I just watched a few segments from the recent "The Great Debate" discussion panel on "Can Science Tell Us Right From Wrong?" At the moment, I just have a little to say about Sam Harris' bit . I'm impressed by the lack of an informed and substantive argument in Harris' presentation. He is a very good speaker. He is natural and compelling. And I'm sure he's selling a lot of books. He just doesn't make a good argument. He begins by presenting his view that values reduce to facts about the well-being of conscious creatures; that statements of value are just one variety of factual proposition. He believes that, when I say I like something, or prefer a certain course of action, or believe that such-and-such is good, I am expressing a belief about the well-being of conscious creatures, and that the veracity of such beliefs can be tested against reality using the tools of scientific discovery. He ends by challenging us to act; it is our mo...

It is said that the best way to learn something is to teach it, a truth I'm discovering now as a teacher of American literature. I've been reading Moby Dick with an intensity of interest I can only attribute to the fact that I want to do right by my students and present the material as best I can. It helps that I love Melville's philosophical and narrative exploits, as well as the literary virtuosity of the thing. What is most striking to me, however, is the deeply personal aspect of Melville's story. One of the most fascinating aspects of Moby Dick is the ways in which it is not a novel, but rather a manifesto or, even more, a testament.  In chapter 45, "The Affidavit," Melville suggests the Biblical dimension of his narrative, comparing his descriptions of whales to Moses' descriptions of the plagues of Egypt. The whole point of this chapter is to ground the story of Ahab's mad pursuit of the white whale in historical fact, to establish it as no...

John left a very thoughtful comment on a previous entry about Gettier . Following Donnellan, John presents two possible readings of (1) The man who gets the job has ten coins in his pocket. One reading is called "referential and the other is "attributive." I don't think either one creates a problem for my analysis of Gettier cases, though itdoes force me to clarify and elaborate upon my argument. If we take Smith to be using "The man who gets the job" in the referential sense, then (as John observes) what Smith says is true. It would mean that (1) is semantically equivalent to (2) Jones has ten coins in his pocket (3) The man whom I believe will get the job has ten coins in his pocket (4) The man whom I refer to as "the man who gets the job" has ten coins in his pocket. (2)-(4) are all justified true beliefs held by Smith. Thus, under a referential reading, (1) is a justified true belief held by Smith. However, a fact which John o...

I've got a lot on my plate at the moment--I've just started teaching a high school American Lit course, which I have yet to plan, and I've got a pretty full schedule of ESL students, too, as well as my graduate courses in European Studies, not to mention an idea for a book which I've barely gotten around to outlining, and also my two little ones to care for--so I doubt I'll have time to post much for a while. Here are some ideas I have for upcoming posts, in case anyone wants to check back in a month or two: A critique of Ayaan Hirsi Ali's Nomad , which was monumentally disappointing; An homage to my favorite composer, entitled "Flowers For Prokofiev"; A summation of my previous posts on the zombie and knowledge arguments, as well as my own incompatability argument, entitled "The Price Of Anti-Physicalism." That's TTFN.

Over at Blog & ~Blog , Ben says that the sentence "this sentence is false" (which I will refer to as P), and similar sentences, are meaningless. Ben says that the Liar Paradox (which occurs whenever we try to decide whether P is true or false) disappears once we accept that P is meaningless. I'm not convinced, which is not to say I think the Liar Paradox poses a real problem. I just prefer a different approach. Ben's view is that the predicate "is true" does not add any content to a sentence, and therefore, a sentence which only has "is true" as its predicate cannot be meaningful. While it may be true that "'Snow is white' is true" means the same as "Snow is white," this analysis (called disquotationalism) does not clearly apply to all cases where "is true" is the predicate of a sentence. I think it only applies to cases where "is true" is predicated of a sentence. Thus, we may find semantic eq...

It was about two years ago when I realized that many of my favorite albums were released in 1974, the year I was born. King Crimson's best two albums, Brian Eno's first two solo albums, two of Queen's best albums, my favorite James Brown, Roxy Music and Herbie Hancock. The list goes on. Inspired to learn as much about the music of 1974 as I could. I foraged for months, turning up some wonderful rarities and overlooked classics. To share some of the fruits of that labor, I've compiled a list of notable albums (posted below). (A live version of Brian Eno's "Baby's On Fire," with Eno on vocals and synthesizer, John Cale on piano, Olie Halsall on guitar, Kevin Ayers on bass, and Robert Wyatt on percussion.) If 1974 was not quite the end of a musical era, it was a transformation, an explosion of vast and diverse areas of musical inspiration. Maybe people hadn't come down from the high of th...

Some friends of mine asked me to explain my negative reaction to Christopher Nolan's latest film, Inception . (SPOILER ALERT: I am writing this for people who have already seen the movie.) What I had said was that the film offers neither intrigue nor character development, and that it is neither logical nor realistic. Nolan uses smoke and mirrors to create the illusion of intelligence and insight. He exploits pop psychology and pop philosophy as well as a convoluted set of plot devices to keep audiences both engaged and confused. Apparently, the film works. Many intelligent people are impressed and even willing to dish out the dough to sit through it a second time. Some are performing back-bending feats of post hoc rationalization in order to explain away Inception 's many plot holes and inconsistencies. Others are less impressed. I was happy to have a friend point out this very well-done and humorous commentary on the film's illogical complexity: See mo...