Last night I was talking with an old friend of mine, an atheist Jew, who is now in the best relationship of her life with a devout Roman Catholic. We talked about the fact that she was more surprised than he was about the fact that their connection transcends their difference in metaphysics. He sees himself as a devout Roman Catholic; she sees him as a good human being.
This conversation reminded me of an older thought that’s been swirling around in my head for a few weeks: the disunity of reason.
It is widely held by philosophers (that peculiar sub-species!) that reason is unified: that the ideally rational person is one for whom there are no fissures, breaks, ruptures, or discontinuities anywhere in the inferential relations between semantic contents that comprise his or her cognitive grasp of the world (including himself or herself as part of that world).
This is particularly true when it comes to the distinction between “theoretical reason” and “practical reason”. By “theoretical reason” I mean one’s ability to conceptualize the world-as-experienced as more-or-less systematic, and by “practical reason” I mean one’s ability to act in the world according to judgments that are justified by agent-relative and also agent-indifferent reasons (“prudence” and “morality”, respectively).
The whole philosophical tradition from Plato onward assumes that reason is unified, and especially, that theoretical and practical reason are unified — different exercises of the same basic faculty. Some philosophers think of them as closer together than others — for example, Aristotle distinguishes between episteme (knowledge of general principles in science, mathematics, and metaphysics) and phronesis (knowledge of particular situations in virtuous action). But even Aristotle does not doubt that episteme and phronesis are exercises of a single capacity, reason (nous).
However, as we learn more about how our cognitive system is actually structured, we should consider the possibility that reason is not unified at all. If Horst’s Cognitive Pluralism is right, then we should expect that our minds are more like patchworks of domain-specific modules that can reason quite well within those domains but not so well across them.
To Horst’s model I’d add the further conjecture: that we have pretty good reason to associate our capacity for “theoretical reason” (abstract thinking and long-term planning) with the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and also pretty good reason to associate our capacity for “practical reason” (self-control and virtuous conduct) with the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (and especially in its dense interconnections with the limbic system).
But if that conjecture is on the right track, then we would expect to find consistency between theoretical reason and practical reason only to the extent that there are reciprocal interconnections between these regions of prefrontal cortex. And of course there are reciprocal interconnections — but (and this is the important point!) to the extent that these regions are also functionally distinct, then to that same extent reason is disunified.
And as a consequence, metaphysics and ethics may have somewhat less to do with each other than previous philosophers have supposed.
That is how I interpreted this sentence from your original post:
” And logic is a simple but useful method for searching a binary tree.”
But reading it more closely, I can see that it does not necessarily imply a binary search. So my mistake.
ETA: Still, wouldn’t the search require some binary decision at each node (eg grassy versus not grassy, or east versus west).
I checked anyway, and he did:
1859 edition
It still isn’t the point, though.
Glen Davidson
Obviously, I am looking at things in a very different way. And that can make communication difficult.
I agree and have said as much many times.
Truth is necessary for knowledge.
Most here would not hold that truth necessarily exists. I not sure how you can argue that truth necessarily exists given Atheism.
Yet most here would claim to have knowledge of certain things.
What I keep looking for is a justification for that knowledge. No one is willing (or able) to offer that justification.
IOW How can you know stuff in your world view.
In my world view it is very simple
Among other things
1) Truth exists (necessarily)
2) God has the ability to reveal X to me so that I’m justified in believing it.
3) Belief is simply my proper response to that revelation
I’m looking for something similar from your perspective
Can you offer me anything like that?
peace
I never said you needed to do any of those things in order to have knowledge
I believe you all know lots of stuff. For example you all know that God exists
What I argue is that you have no justification for knowledge given your worldview.
So you know but you don’t know that you know.
If you disagree with me all you need to do is offer a justification that is not viciously circular inconsistent or contradictory.
It should not be difficult to do so but apparently no one here has given it much thought 😉
peace
Define educated.
I Wouldn’t call someone educated on a topic unless they can — in debate team style — make the best case for all sides in a dispute.
Possibly an exaggeration, but an educated person should be able to make a strong devil’s advocate case.
I cannot offer you anything like what you offer, because what you offer is, quite literally, nonsense. As in, it makes no sense at all. It barely even makes sense grammatically, let alone otherwise.
Take (1) “truth exists.” I know of all sorts of things that exist: quarks, quasars, and quirks; smiles and miles; diners and dinosaurs. But truth cannot exist, because truth is not an entity or even a feature of an entity.
(2) & (3) are nonsense of a more subtle kind. It makes no sense to say that an infinite (hence infallible) mind can reveal X to a finite (hence fallible mind) so that the fallible mind is justified in believing X. God can disclose with such force or intensity that the finite mind is incapable of doubt, but as Spinoza pointed out in his criticism of Descartes, to be incapable of doubt is not the same as having complete justification. It’s a conflation of a psychological state (being unable to doubt X) with a normative status (being justified in believing X).
Under the influence of sufficient hallucinogens, I am unable to doubt that the walls are melting, but I am not justified in believing that. The God of the presuppositionalists is no different than a big hit of LSD.
The reason why no one here is taking your bait is because no one here thinks that presuppositionalism makes any sense. It’s not even a coherent philosophical position. It is, quite literally, absurd.
1) So why should I care what you have to say?
2) Is it true that we need truth as part of language?
3) How would you know?
peace
I understand. Have a good evening.
peace
If I remember correctly, your (2) was refuted in an earlier discussion. I don’t remember who did so, but I believe the argument went something like:
You are a fallible human.
Any of your beliefs may therefore be incorrect.
If you believe that a god has revealed something to you, there are two possibilities:
a) A god revealed something to you.
b) As a fallible human you incorrectly believe that a god revealed something to you.
Because you are fallible, (b) is always a possibility.
So regardless of the capabilities you posit for your god, you are never justified in being certain that it has revealed anything to you.
As a corollary, it is logically possible that nothing you believe has been revealed to you has actually been revealed to you.
ETA: Ninja’d by Kantian Naturalist, who presented the refutation better and more succinctly than I did.
KN,
High on Jesus.
You are confusing evidence with truth.
It’s fine if it’s vacuous. Tarksi’s definition by schema is best. ‘Snow is white’ is true if and only if snow is white. That’s what truth means. It doesn’t mean evidence or regularity or what smart people think or utility.
Those other things are how we might be able to discover it or what it’s good for.
Justifications for knowledge are about knowing that one knows. As I said, it is not needed for knowledge. It is needed only for knowledge of knowledge. Read the Van Cleve.
By your own definition, we’d need to believe God exists in order to know it. And I think we are a better judge of our own beliefs than you are.
So now I know who Fodor meant when he said:
That’s entirely up to you. But why did you ask if you didn’t care?
It is difficult to have an intelligent discussion of truth, when some folk insist on turning it into self-referential games.
We have a name for that kind of decision. It is called “logic”.
But Tarski was explaining how to define truth for a formal language, where the definition is given in natural language. No, it’s not what “truth” means. Rather, it is what “truth” is defined to mean within that formal language.
The presuppositionalist necessarily presupposes that the presuppositionalist understands the non-presuppositionalist better than the non-presuppositionalist understands him or herself.
Evidence, schmevidence! It’s presuppositions all the way down!
Ok, then for natural languages you can use ‘correspondence with reality’ which is roughly as vacuous. The vacuity is the point.
ETA: and if I’m asked what specific sort of correspondence I mean, I’ll give Tarski’s schema as the best example. Nothing better can be done.
He used to take acid, and now he loves god,
But he’s still got that look in his eyes.
Except, the LSD effects eventually cease.
Presuppositionalism just seems to drag on forever, without ever being fun, eye-opening, or attractive.
Glen Davidson
Fwiw, I don’t think the acid analogy is very good. That’s a chemical that may CAUSE false beliefs. Presuppositionism is a confused doctrine that has provided poor reasons (IMO). Unlike the acid, it can be refuted, but as it makes FMM happy, he only feigns interest in counterarguments–or so it seems to me.
LSD is not addictive in the same way, I don’t think.
We are in agreement.
That why I don’t ask if you know but how you know
peace
I do care because I believe truth does matter and does exist.
What I want to know is why should I care if truth does not matter and does not exist.
peace
It’s not a game it is an attempt to get you to ask yourself the difficult questions about your own presuppositions.
Ask me how I know and I will have no difficulty telling you.
peace
But when I tell you, e.g. ‘because I saw it’ you ask for a justification of my belief that seeing is reliable, and, as said, I can know without knowing that (orhow it’s possible) that I know. That’s the point.
1) You do believe that God exists or you would not be able to function in God’s world
2) Is it true that you are a better judge of your own belief than God or anyone that God chooses to reveal it too?
3) how do you know?
peace
Repeat after me: This is your mind on presuppositionalism.
(IOW, your point will be missed again, or simply labeled as irrelevant or insufficient.)
Glen Davidson
If you are saying you have no reason to believe that you know given your worldview. I would agree.
after all that is the point
peace
I’m not missing his point but I think he might be 😉
peace
Justification does not require certainty.
Perhaps you need to get Walto’s point 😉
peace
The ‘bot awakens!
It’s a small point, but most persons retain complete awareness that the visual hallucinations they experience in response to LSD, regardless how compelling in quality, are just that.
So I guess LSD’s hallucinations are less internalized.
Perhaps hallucination without delusion.
So true. It’s like getting ‘nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah.’
Keep in mind that my comment on truth not mattering, was with respect to the particular question of a non-linguistic organism making decisions.
What presuppositions?
Part of my point is that the presuppositionalist isn’t entitled to distinguish between causes and reasons. One of the many reasons why it is a deeply confused doctrine.
I’m with Neil on this particular point — the Tarskian truth-schema is defined for formal languages. Davidson asserts that it also applies for natural languages, but he doesn’t show that this is the case.
I actually do think that the correspondence dimension of meaning needs to be and can be nicely salvaged, by means of what Sellars calls “picturing” and what Huw Price in his recent stuff calls “e-representations” (“e-” stands for environmental or external — the states of an organisms that systematically co-very with objects in its environment).
My current line of thought that is the real correspondence relation (the adequacy of intellect and reality in rerum natura) obtains between an organism’s neurocomputational states and the affordances in its environment, and not between “language” (let alone “thought” or “intellect”) and “reality”.
I’m sorry, but this is just hilarious.
You forgot this one:
Things that can be put into trees, and things that cannot be put into trees.
You must support that claim or retract it.
Some of them are obviously too busy trying to teach us how to be properly skeptical.
He has much better. He has a quote of himself telling fifth that he must support or retract that claim!
Will this be your home after UD, Mung?
RB,
I think fifth’s periodic botbursts are designed to suppress that still, small voice inside of him saying “Presuppositionalism? Are you frikkin’ kidding me?”
BruceS:
Neil:
Your viewpoints are certainly different, but I haven’t seen any that couldn’t readily be expressed using standard terminology or by providing clear definitions of terms used in a nonstandard way. Your use of nonstandard definitions seems gratuitous to me.
Here’s a case in point. You claim that “computers don’t compute”, which sounds bold and profound — a statement befitting a self-described “heretical philosopher”. But look a bit closer and the profundity evaporates. There are no new ideas there — you’ve simply redefined computation in an idiosyncratic way that excludes the accepted meaning. The redefinition isn’t needed to convey your meaning. It’s gratuitous, not to mention the fact that it also doesn’t work.
A pertinent exchange from that thread:
keiths:
Neil:
keiths:
keiths:
Neil:
keiths: