Electronic Philosopher

Strawson on why Cartesian soul violates the concept of identity

2012-03-01T13:46:00.003Z

To: Anthony L.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Strawson on why Cartesian soul violates the concept of identity
Date: 3 April 2007 10:44

Dear Tony,

Thank you for your email of 27 March, with your University of London Diploma essay in response to the question, 'Strawson says that a Cartesian is committed to thinking that a dualist reduction or analysis of the idea of a person is possible. Explain what Strawson means. Assess his reasons for thinking that such a reduction or analysis is not possible.'

In answer to your question, I can say that this is not one of your best essays, mainly because you have failed to grasp the point of Strawson's argument (2c). However, I do think that giving you a ranking would hinder rather than help you in the exam. Above all else, you need to be sharp. It might turn out that what you thought of as one of your weaker topics has a question which you know that you can write a great essay about - maybe there's a clever point or twist which you have just been thinking about.

Do give yourself plenty of time to evaluate the questions and decide, not simply on the basis of 'what is my best topic' but rather 'have I got anything interesting to say about this?', or, maybe 'How confident do I feel at this moment that I can do the question justice?' You WILL know.

You've missed the point of the essay question. I might as well state this bluntly, as it is not helpful to you otherwise. The point is in Strawson's dictum, 'no entity without identity'. This is a conceptual claim. You have interpreted it as a sceptical challenge ('how do you know that you are one consciousness rather than a thousand?'). However, the point has nothing whatsoever to do with scepticism. The only way that scepticism could arise is if there IS a difference between being one consciousness and being a thousand (at a time or over time). And the point is that there isn't.

The game of dice perfectly illustrates this. We know that causation fails as a criterion of identity because two things acting simultaneously can bring about a single effect. If the point was a sceptical point, then there might be a thousand Steves or one Steve and Jane will never know (never know how all the Steves laugh with one another at her false assumption, or how God laughs while Jane converses with a thousand identical Steves, thinking there is only one).

But the point is not a sceptical point. It is logical. There is no difference, because the qualities of consciousness as such do not have the capacity to identify a unique individual. Only spatial position can do that. That is why there cannot, logically, be an entity whose properties are purely conscious properties.

You seem to imply at one stage that Strawson is unable, using his notion of a single entity, a person, with two kinds of properties to explain the phenomenon of multiple personalities. I don't think that this is correct. In principle, the same human body can, in Strawson's terms, be different persons at different times. However, this possibility does suggest an argument which you could turn back on Strawson. Given that we do want to allow for the logical possibility of multiple personality disorder, what are the defining bounds of a 'person'? Say, Jane is subject to big mood swings. Her new boyfriend Steve notices this and coins two names, 'Janie' and 'Jane'. During these mood swings, 'Janie' tends to forget things that 'Jane' did and vice versa. At what point would this show that we were dealing with two rather than one?

This is similar, in principle, to the question of counting clouds which I may have mentioned in a previous email. If there is no entity without identity, how can there be such a thing as a cloud, given that it is often impossible to say, with any degree of accuracy or confidence, how many clouds you can see in the sky?

Does this show that we have to allow the notion of 'vague objects'? A vague object is an entity with an identity, but it is a vague identity. Does that make sense?

I'm not terribly convinced by your examples of 'analysing' statements about persons into statements about bodies and statements about minds. Obviously, one can make a gesture at doing this as you have done but it is a different matter entirely if the task is to COMPLETELY get rid of any statements about persons. However, this point is more difficult (as Strawson concedes) and doesn't have the same knock-down effect as his 'no entity without identity' claim.

If you understand my objections here, this could still be a good topic for you in the exam. But if you don't, or are not sure, then perhaps it would be best to avoid it.

I won't do with you what Strawson used to do with me (and a lot of other graduate students according to the legend) which is to say, 'I am right, go away and think about it.' I'm not that self-confident.

All the best,

Geoffrey

Existential inquiry into the possibility of knowledge

2012-03-01T13:43:00.002Z

To: Matthew M.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Existential inquiry into the possibility of knowledge
Date: 27 March 2007

Dear Matthew,

Thank you for your email of 15 March, with your second essay for the Possible World Machine, entitled, 'Essay on the Possibility of Knowledge'.

My initial expectation when I saw this title was that you were going to address the challenge of scepticism, perhaps considering the standard sceptical arguments and then looking at various ways in which one might respond to those arguments.

However, you have understood the investigation into the 'possibility of knowledge' in a somewhat different, but no less valid way as essentially an exercise in phenomenological ontology as conducted by Heidegger, or Sartre. 'When we ask if something is possible, this is to question the Being of the thing questioned.' So, the reader will conclude, when we ask if KNOWLEDGE is possible, this is to question the Being of knowledge.

What is it to question the Being of knowledge? You indicate some initial directions, e.g. in terms of the distinction between immediate knowledge and knowledge which is mediated, the ability to remember what one 'knows', and also the distinction between a priori and experiential knowledge.

However, at least so far as Heidegger is concerned, there is a way to connect such an investigation to the concerns of the traditional sceptic, which results (some would argue) in a far more illuminating response to the sceptic than those traditionally given.

Heidegger's description of 'Dasein' in Being and Time may be seen as a fundamental critique of the Cartesian view of knowledge, where the knower is 'given' pure experience and required to reason its way to an acceptable interpretation of that experience. This is the predicament which the traditional sceptic (as demonstrated in Descartes First Meditation) relies on. From the character of my experience, simply as 'given', there is no way to prove that I am looking out of the window at the trees and houses outside, rather than being directly 'fed' experiences by an evil demon. Experience as such does not carry on its 'face' any indication of its ultimate source. Descartes is reduced to the desperate expedient of attempting to argue for the existence of a God 'who would not be a deceiver'.

In a way not dissimilar to the later Wittgenstein, Heidegger rejects this Cartesian picture as fundamentally incoherent. We are Dasein, situated beings, and any question that one might raise about what we know assumes that we exist in a physical context, practically engaged with the things that surround us - other beings, tools, obstacles and so on.

(For the views of the later Wittgenstein, I would recommend the 'Philosophical Investigations', but also, especially, the very last book that he was working on before he died, 'On Certainty' which is also one of his best. In 'On Certainty', Wittgenstein starts from the famous lecture by G.E. Moore, 'The Refutation of Idealism', where Moore held up his hands and said [something to the effect that] 'This is a hand, and this is a hand, therefore I know that an external world exists.')

There may well be questions that one can raise about the claims of science. Just because a theory is presented systematically or is agreed on by a large number of scientists doesn't mean that it can't be wrong, or that there can't be basic flaws in the way that the scientific enterprise is currently handled. But when it comes to the practical foundations of human knowledge, our situation in the world as agents who use the knowledge we gain in order to negotiate a path through our environment the question of the validity of knowledge cannot be meaningfully raised.

But can't it? Isn't this one of the main themes the Matrix films, that we can APPEAR to be fully involved with a physical environment, when in reality our physical environment is merely a pod which contains our body (or disembodied brain) attached to a virtual reality program. This is not Cartesian scepticism, which raises the possibility that there might be no such thing as 'material objects' or 'space' but rather the a more modest - but no less deadly - scepticism which assumes that there is matter and space but questions whether things might be very different from what we take them to be.

I would love to know what Heidegger or Sartre would say about this challenge. So far as I am aware, neither philosopher has said anything on this topic. My best guess is that the response would be very similar to what philosophers in the analytic tradition have said, that the concept of 'knowledge' has to be grasped in essentially a 'third-person' rather than a 'first-person' way. This is sometimes known as the thesis of 'externalism' (you can look this up).

Well done for completing your second essay. I look forward to receiving your next essay in due course.

All the best,

Geoffrey

Epistemology and the closure principle

2012-02-29T12:57:00.001Z

To: Stuart B.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Epistemology and the closure principle
Date: 27 March 2007 11:02

Dear Stuart,

Thank you for your email of 13 March, with your University of London Epistemology essay, in response to the question, 'Is knowledge closed under known implication?'

I came back from Prague at the end of last week but it's take a while for me to get back into the working mood. There was a piece on the CSR Conference on the Czech Radio International Service which includes a short except from my presentation:

http://www.radio.cz/en/article/89393

I was certain that I'd sent you an email while I was away, regarding your question about the Early Greek course, but I can't find it. So, apologies if I am repeating myself.

There's no question of 'memorising a whole pile of relatively meaningless fragments'. You learn what the Presocratics said, just as you learn about any other philosophers, and this is the knowledge that you reproduce in the exam together with the views that you have developed on specific issues, so far as these are relevant to the question. It is not necessary to quote directly.

My advice would be to take account of relative frequency of questions, but also give yourself the chance to get 'into' the Presocratics. Heraclitus and Parmenides (I remember writing this last time) are particularly important for understanding the development of Plato's 'two world' theory. Pythagoras was also an important influence. To me, the Presocratics represent a wealth of material to enjoy - certainly, I enjoyed writing the program. (I believe I have sent you the fifteen units - if I haven't, remind me!)

Is knowledge closed under known implication?

This is another very good essay which would do well in an exam. However, I'm puzzled by the issues raised here.

I am sufficiently persuaded by Dretske's example, and others like it, to conclude that there is a serious incoherence in the concept of 'knowledge that', when understood as something that one possesses, or not, in a particular case, at least from an internalist perspective.

I am looking at the zebras in London Zoo. I have no doubt that they are zebras, my knowledge of zoology is sufficient to guarantee that I could not be mistaking them for black and white striped creatures which are not 'zebras' but closely related to zebras. There are no such creatures, and I know this.

When you ask me, 'How do you know that you are not looking and painted mules?', my first response is, 'How absurd! There's no possible way that London Zoo would allow such a thing.' Then you ask me have I heard the News this morning about an impudent hoaxer who has pulled off the most amazing stunts, including substituting painted zebras for mules at New York Zoo. As it happens, I was in a rush and didn't hear the morning News. Now, I have got to make a judgement: who is doing the hoaxing?

David Lewis, in a paper delivered at the Sheffield Department of Philosophy a few years ago (did I tell you about this in a previous email?) grasped the mettle and accepted that there are things we 'know', according to the JTB model of knowledge, until we are asked certain questions, or so long as those questions do not occur to us to ask.

I find this difficult. How can you 'know' something provided that you are not asked certain questions, or that certain questions don't occur to you? How can knowledge be that fragile?

My take on this would be the one I have expressed before, which seems close to the 'performative' view, at least insofar as it locates the concept of knowledge in the area of our interest in identifying persons who may be regarded as having the 'authority' to judge on this or that matter. 'Knowledge' is primarily a third-person concept. The assumption is that P is true, and we are not questioning how we know this or how confident we are in its truth. The question is rather whether to attribute knowledge (which we simply assume ourselves without question) to another subject whose beliefs agree with ours.

Questions of knowledge are not about what I believe but about what you believe. When it comes to myself, the only relevant question is, Is this true?

Such a view is, effectively, externalism although I don't like using this term because I am not a dogmatic externalist. I believe that the explanation in terms of our interest in 'authority' provides a sufficient rationale for understanding the concept of knowledge in this way.

All the best,

Geoffrey

Substituting 'Cicero' for 'Tully' in statements of belief

2012-02-29T12:45:00.004Z

To: Pearl K.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Substituting 'Cicero' for 'Tully' in statements of belief
Date: 27 March 2007 09:58

Dear Sachiko,

Thank you for your email of 16 March, with your University of London essay in response to the question, 'Given that Cicero is Tully, is it possible for Tom to believe that Cicero was a Roman Orator but not believe that Tully was a Roman Orator? Discuss.'

I came back from Prague at the end of last week but it's take a while for me to get back into the working mood. There was a piece on the CSR Conference on the Czech Radio International Service which includes a short except from my presentation:

http://www.radio.cz/en/article/89393

You have managed to get to grips with the basics of this problem, and present them with a reasonable degree of lucidity.

The only part where I put a question mark was where you said, 'However, it is possible to reduce the syntactically de re belief that 'Someone is such that Tom believes that he was a Roman Orator' into the semantically de dicto belief that 'Tom believes that someone was a Roman Orator', as both report essentially the very same belief and therefore statements such as the de re 6. above do not refute the Fregean claim that names have both sense and reference.'

On the face of it, 'Tom believes that someone was a Roman orator' merely states that Tom believes that there was at least one Roman orator, whereas, 'Someone is such that Tom believes that he was a Roman orator' implies, in addition, that there is a particular individual that Tom's belief is about. So I'm not quite sure what you were saying here.

Let me start by massaging your intuitions a little. Imagine the following conversation:

Bill: 'Did you know that Siss-roe was a Roman orator?'

Tom: 'Who was Siss-roe, I've never heard of him! Can you write the name down?'

Bill: 'There...'

Tom: 'Oh, you mean Siss-uh-roe...'

It seems plain daft to say (out loud) that Tom believes that Siss-uh-roe was a Roman orator but Tom does not believe that Siss-roe was a Roman orator.

Frege's solution is not meant to be applied to every possible case where there is potentially a break down in substitution in opaque contexts. That's the first thing. So now the question is, what is special about the cases where it does apply?

There seem to be two kinds of case, which are quite different in character. Frege's examples, of Hesperus and Phosphorus - or the mountain known from different sides as 'Afla' and 'Ateb' - are not at all common, in fact quite contrived. It is not often that we do find clearly distinct 'modes of presentation' where there is a clear physical or geographical difference between two different 'routes' to an object of reference.

Much more common is the kind of case where we use names like cards in a card index system. Tom has two mental cards marked 'Cicero' and 'Tully'. Information is collated on these two cards in a variety of ways. By some unfortunate accident, peculiar to the idiosyncratic way Tom's beliefs have developed, Tom has somehow failed to spot the duplication. By contrast with Frege's favoured examples, there is very little temptation in this case to posit a 'sense' for the names 'Cicero' and 'Tully'.

However, this would not bother Frege. His solution in this case would be to move from names to descriptions. The best representation of Tom's belief that Cicero was a Roman orator substitutes the description that Tom would most likely use for 'Cicero', whatever that may be. The content of Tom's belief about Cicero can thus be more idiosyncratic than, say, Tom's belief about Hesperus.

We've seen that it would be daft to say that Tom believes that Siss-uh-roe was a Roman orator but does not believe that Siss-roe was a Roman orator. So we are prepared to move a way from the criterion of what sentences Tom would assent to, when asked. The question is how much further we can, or should move.

The two cases above, the Frege case and the card index case suggest the principle that there has to be some substantial breakdown in the knowledge gathering process to justify the refusal to make the substitution. There are many other cases where we don't feel the slightest problem with reporting someone's belief about a person using a name which they themself would not recognize. In other words, in practice, much of our talk of belief is de re rather than de dicto. If one were looking for some sort of justification for this it would be that we are in the knowledge gathering game together, it is a co-operative enterprise.

However, this point focuses our attention on the difference between knowledge and belief. The case can be made (this is for epistemology) that belief is normally knowledge - unless something goes wrong. We are naturally constructed as knowledge gatherers. When the focus is specifically on an idiosyncratic belief, it is because our interest is in explaining the behaviour of an agent. For example, Alice is not afraid of Mack the Knife, the notorious serial murderer because she knows him as Mike the friendly neighbour who helps her carry out the garbage.

So, is it possible for Tom to believe that Cicero was a Roman Orator but not believe that Tully was a Roman Orator? My answer would be, maybe, if there is a sufficiently interesting/ relevant explanation of the breakdown. Otherwise, in normal speech we would not hesitate to make the substitution, in other words, to construe the belief as de re.

All the best,

Geoffrey

Free will problem and the justification for punishment

2012-02-28T15:10:00.002Z

To: David F.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Free will problem and the justification for punishment
Date: 26 March 2007 08:55

Dear David,

Thank you for your email of 12 March, with your first essay for the Possible World Machine, in response to the question, 'In the light of the critique of 'free will', can blame and punishment ever be rationally justified? Consider hard cases, such as brainwashing, crimes of passion, the influence of drugs, medical or psychological conditions etc.'

This is a good attempt to deal with a difficult question. You have distinguished different purposes that punishment might serve under 2. (a)-(d), with the addition of reparation which you later consider as additional option - although I don't see that this would necessarily be an alternative to retribution. Punishment which served the purpose of compensating the victim of a crime could be carried out in the context of a 'no blame' (as you put it) view of punishment.

I am less clear about the consequences that you draw from the distinction between B. which is basically the view of 'compatibilism', that free will is compatible with determinism, and C. the view that given determinism our actions are not free, full stop.

Any system of punishment must recognize the difference between actions which are immediately coerced - the case you give is the gun against the head - and those which are not immediately coerced. If we think of punishment purely in instrumental terms, society does not have to be protected against individuals who do bad actions only when a gun is put against their head, nor would individuals in such a situation be deterred from doing the same thing in similar circumstances.

There is a problem, however, with a purely instrumental view which might not have occurred to you. This was put vividly by F.H. Bradley in his book 'Ethical Studies', where he gives the example of the Master of Hounds who gives his dogs 'a good thrashing' before they go out on a hunt 'just to show who's boss'. Pre-emptive punishment might be very effective indeed at not only preventing offences that might otherwise have occurred but also as a deterrent to others. Yet, only a very small minority would embrace this view. It is not fair to punish someone for something that they might or might not do in the future. But why insist on fairness if our only concept of punishment is instrumental?

But what about blame? In his British Academy lecture, 'Freedom and Resentment' (reprinted in 'Freedom and Resentment and Other Essays') P.F. Strawson argues that the practice of blame is part of our 'reactive attitudes' which are necessary for viewing one another as persons rather than things. This is consistent, Strawson argues, with a compatibilist view. Margaret, in dialogue 2 of the second unit starts from Strawson's position and attempts to explain why we 'argue against' something that someone has already done, and what that could possibly mean.

A purely instrumental view of punishment gives up all talk of blame. But as we have seen, it is not so easy to adopt this view consistently.

The 'hard cases' arise whether one adopts view B. or view C. Either way, we have to find a principled way of deciding whether or not to punish, or whether in some circumstances punishment is to be reduced and by how much. This is assuming, of course, that we accept that punishment must be meted out 'fairly'.

I find this issue very difficult. Patty Hearst, the erstwhile heiress turned bank robber is a famous case where a jury convicted someone who had been brainwashed because they were convinced by the argument that they were dealing with the person standing before them in the dock, the unrepentant member of the 'Symbionnese Liberation Army' - who had originally kidnapped her. The same principle applies to your Muslim extremists.

If someone takes drugs which lead them to murder, then it was their fault that they took the drugs but this is a far lesser offence (unless of course it is widely known that these particular drugs lead one to commit murder). In the famous 'Twinkie defence' in the USA (where else) a man was cleared of murder on the grounds that the packet of Twinkies he had eaten shortly before led to a rapid increase in blood sugar which caused his violent behaviour. No-one can be blamed for eating a packet of biscuits. Subsequent attempts to use this defence have apparently failed, however.

The most difficult issue to deal with, however, is the clear correlation between childhood deprivation or abuse and criminal behaviour. We don't consider these mitigating circumstances, on the principle cited above - that we are dealing with the person as they are now. Yet it still offends our sense of 'fairness'. Thomas Nagel has coined a term for this, 'moral luck'. It is also moral luck which leads one drunk motorist to lose six points after being breathalysed while another equally drunk, equally irresponsible motorist kills a child and ends up in prison. No-one simply gets the punishment they 'deserve' because accidental circumstances contribute to the outcome of an agent's intention.

All the best,

Geoffrey

Hilary Putnam and brains in vats

2012-02-28T15:08:00.002Z

To: Stuart B.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Hilary Putnam and brains in vats
Date: 12 March 2007 13:31

Dear Stuart,

Thank you for your email of 6 March with your latest University of London essay, on Hilary Putnam and the brain in a vat, and the rewrite our your previous essay on the coherentist theory of justification.

You needn't have pulled your hair out over my remark about tracking truth. It is a common complaint levelled against the coherence theory of truth that a maximally coherent set of propositions can still be false. But a coherence theory of justification is not the same as a coherence theory of truth. (I'm aware that I'm not telling you anything you don't already know!)

One's first reaction to the question (and this is something I should have said right at the beginning but didn't) is why should the possibility that a coherent set be false be an objection to coherentism about knowledge, if on the standard tripartite theory one happily accepts the fallibilist concession that the justification which we offer from a proposition might be false? For the coherentist, a coherent set is not logically equivalent to truth, but it is the best way to track truth. That's just how knowledge grows, by adding propositions to a coherent set.

My response to your essay might seem a little oblique, but you will see the point in a minute.

The first point I would make is that Putnam does himself a disservice with the motto, 'meanings are not in the head'. The first question one has to ask is why do we have natural kind terms? As Putnam recognizes, two things are required for meaning, an intention and the requisite causal link. But the reason why a causal link is required is because of the particular nature of the intention that we form when we coin a natural kind term. We are seeking a maximally explanatory theory, attempting to 'cut reality at the joints' to use Plato's phrase. That means that our intention is to capture a salient aspect of the world and link the term to THAT rather than to limit its meaning to whatever set of attributes we can think up.

That is why white gold is still gold, why graphite, diamond and charcoal are all carbon etc. etc.

The interesting question to ask is, Could our intentions be different? Why couldn't we deliberately 'pull in our horns' and refuse to coin any natural kind terms, confining language to nominal concepts? Our capacity for understanding the world would be greatly impoverished. But suppose the world was a lot more recalcitrant to understanding than the actual world is. Maybe in that alternative world attempting to divide things into natural kinds just doesn't get us anywhere.

(As a passing remark, for many, many years Aristotle's natural kinds theory was looked on with scorn by analytical philosophers, as dubious metaphysics - which indeed it was.)

A counter-argument would be that even if we give up natural kind terms, we still have to interact with objects. Giving up a causal theory of reference - or a more sophisticated theory incorporating a causal aspect as in Gareth Evans 'Varieties of Reference' - leaves one teetering on the edge of idealism.

However, the brain in a vat is not an idealist evil demon scenario. The vat-inhabitants believe that there exists a physical world in space and there is a physical world in space. They coin proper names and concepts with the intention of setting up causal links but the intention fails, or rather, catches on to different 'objects' from the ones they intended to catch onto.

In the real world, brains and vats are natural kinds (at least, vats are made of some metal which is a natural kind) but in the virtual world of the vat-dwellers, the objects they identify as 'brains' and 'vats' are not natural kinds. Anything can happen in virtual reality (as computer games amply demonstrate). Even if it doesn't, it might at any moment even though the vat-dwellers do not know this.

I think this is sufficient to show that vat-dwellers do not have false beliefs about brains and vats. With luck, their conditioning has set them up to be capable of conversing about brains and vats were they to be set free and put in living human bodies (this relates to one of your points), so they can truly say, 'We once had false beliefs about brains and vats,' but that is not sufficient to establish that they are were already conversing about brains and vats before they were set free. So I am partly agreeing and partly disagreeing with Putnam.

Your first objection is mistaken, in my view. The first premiss is not the premise of an or-elimination but rather a hypothesis set up for reductio. Assume I am a BIV. Now let's see what follows. What follows (or so Putnam claims) is a contradiction. Therefore, I am not a BIV.

However, your second objection had me stumped for a while. Is it really so easy to rejig the BIV scenario so as to be immune from Putnam's argument? I've already considered the possibility of freeing a vat-dweller. They would soon get along fine with the rest of us. But what about vat-imprisonment? I have my causally acquired knowledge of what brains and vats are, and now continue applying these not realizing that I am no longer in causal contact with the world. For reasons which I have already given, however, I don't think this works. My semantic intentions fail, they do not succeed. I don't have false beliefs about brains and vats. I don't have beliefs, period. I seem to express thoughts but do not.

To meet your third objection, it is sufficient to point out that accidental coincidence is not enough. In the vat-world, a tree can morph into a vat and vice versa at any time, even though for accidental reasons this has never happened so far. Ignorance of that possibility wrecks the semantic intentions of the vat-dwellers.

Having gone to such lengths to defend Putnam, however, I agree with you that his argument does not work as an argument against scepticism. Forget about vat-ish, let's assume a stronger claim than Putnam makes, that vat-dwellers do not 'speak' any 'language' although it seems to them as if they do. They do not express thoughts with a sense and a reference. This is in fact my view.

Now, as a sceptic I say, 'Maybe I'm a brain in a vat.' This is possibly true. If it is true, then I am not saying anything because I can't 'use a language'. So what? That merely makes my sceptical conclusion all the more extreme. Not only do I not know anything, I cannot be certain that my words mean anything. There is no cure for this except a leap of faith. Or, in the words of Wittgenstein, I am not shutting my eyes to doubt: 'They are shut.'

All the best,

Geoffrey

Musical perception and the nature of consciousness

2012-02-27T10:53:00.003Z

To: Reiner L.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Musical perception and the nature of consciousness
Date: 12 March 2007 10:30

Dear Reiner,

Thank you for your email of 5 March, with your second essay for the Associate program on musical perception.

This is not exactly what I expected. Where I thought you were heading is in the direction of a non-reductive understanding of the way the language of music works, both in composition and also in performance; in other words, what a composer grasps and a listener appreciates when he creates a musical composition, and what a performer grasps and a listener appreciates when the performer interprets a musical composition.

The question of ontological dualism doesn't seem to have anything to do with this, and in fact you barely hint at the metaphysical issue. I don't know what Chalmers thinks he means by a 'science of consciousness' but I suspect that he is simply taking a stand on the non-reducibility of psychological explanation. It is not necessary to be an ontological dualist in order to take this stand.

The starting point is that there is more to accounting for experience than everyday folk psychology. Human beings have developed elaborate and subtle methods of aesthetic criticism both in music and the visual arts. The fascinating question is, how far this can be developed into a science.

I do not feel the least bit of embarrassment in talking of 'science' here.

Clearly, from your account, the error made by investigators looking for 'science' is to assume, wrongly, that scientific explanation is essentially reductivist. However, if this was literally true, then there would be no such thing as a science of biology to give just one example.

I don't want to rule out that there might be interesting connections between a science of music and human biology, or even logic and mathematics. No science is completely separate from other sciences. But saying that is not making any claim about reducibility.

Let's start with something I find comparatively easy. I don't recall hearing a recording by Clara Haskill, but don't feel the least difficulty in accepting that to someone who appreciates music the badly recorded performance gives far greater pleasure than a lesser pianist recorded to perfection. You need to know what to listen to.

A Jew's Harp - a device with a metal spring that you place in your mouth and pluck - makes an ugly 'twang, twang' to those who fail to hear the beautiful, faint harmonics which carry the tune. Human beings respond to music at different levels, the greater the knowledge the greater the appreciation. A bad recording is like a dirty window - you can still see through it, and in fact so long as you are concentrating on what you see you are hardly aware that the perception is clouded and obscured.

It seems to me that applying Jackson's 'Fred' example to the phenomenon of perfect pitch is asking the wrong question. Ask yourself how you recognize the face of a friend. Or even, in the case of identical twins, how someone who knows them well is able to tell the twins apart even though there is no identifiable feature that one can point to that indicates which twin is which.

There are two kinds of answer to the question, 'How did you recognize X?' The first answer is, 'I recognized X by identifying that X had the feature Y.' The second answer is, 'I just did,' or, 'I just recognized it straight off.' We are tempted to add something to the second answer because we can't get over the idea that explanations come to an end. (This is familiar territory to readers of the later Wittgenstein - see the opening pages of 'The Blue Book'.) So, for example, in this deluded state we tell ourselves the story that we have an example of X in our minds and when we see an object which we recognize as X, what happens is that we compare the object with the mental sample. But this explanation threatens a vicious regress. How do you recognize your mental sample of X? If you were able to 'just know' that the mental sample was a sample of X, why can't you 'just know' that the object you are looking at is an example of X?

It is true that we do sometimes go through the motions of calling up a picture or experience in our minds before making a judgement. The error consists in thinking that this is something that must always happen, even if we are not aware of it happening.

Similarly, someone with absolute pitch simply recognizes that the note played is a perfect middle C, or that it is slightly above, or slightly below. End of story. Asking, 'What kind of experience is that?' is asking the wrong question. It might have been the case (or maybe is) that someone, somewhere is able to tell perfect pitch because the experience of the note is accompanied by a 'marker' - a fanfare of trumpets or the sound of applause. A film maker attempting to convey this ability might even use such a device to convey to the audience the mystery of the skill. But that does not mean that every successful recognition of perfect pitch has some mystery extra component which the subject themself is unaware of.

So, I remain unconvinced that this example is the key to a non-reductive approach to understanding music. There could not be a bigger difference between the ability to recognize perfect pitch and the ability to recognize the difference between a great or mediocre performance. In the former case, you either can or you can't. In the latter case, there is a lot to SAY. Not necessarily in highly technical language, but rather in terms of pointing to various aspects of the performance, raising questions about the ideas that the performer has in seeking to interpret the composition, or his/her skill in applying those ideas to the performance itself.

The fascinating question, for me, is whether, e.g. musical criticism as it is today is more or less as refined as it could be, or whether there will ever be a musical Newton who creates a new science of musical understanding, as a result of which music criticism is never be the same. What do you think?

All the best,

Geoffrey

Metaphor and knowledge in literature

2012-02-27T10:51:00.001Z

To: Walter F.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Metaphor and knowledge in literature
Date: 9 March 2007 12:11

Dear Walter,

Thank you for your email of 1 March, with your essay for the Associate program, 'Knowledge in Literature'.

My first impression, from reading this, is that you have combined together two completely separate essay topics.

There is the topic of metaphor, and the various theories that have been put forward to explain how metaphor works. Then there is the topic of knowledge through literature, responding to the sceptical challenge that literature is incapable of communicating knowledge which could not have been better conveyed in a more straightforward way.

One way of reading this essay is simply as a report of 'work in progress'. You have taken a lot on board, learned a lot about these two areas, and this is the result of your research to date. That would be absolutely fine, so far as it goes. Eventually, you might hope to produce two essays from this starting point, one on metaphor and one on knowledge in literature.

It occurred to me, however, that there is an interesting philosophical question here in the connection between metaphor and knowledge. More precisely, how is it possible to convey knowledge through metaphor? Surely, anything that can be said using metaphor can be better said in non-metaphorical language?

This seems to parallel Stolnitz's criticisms of the view that literature can be a source of knowledge (although there is no indication whether Stolnitz considers the specific question whether metaphor can be a source of knowledge). Could it be that an answer to the question about metaphor and knowledge might be used as the basis for a response to Stolnitz?

First, is it possible to convey knowledge through metaphor? One work which you haven't referred to is Lakoff and Johnson 'Philosophy in the Flesh' which argues that metaphor is pervasive in language, to the point where it is hardly possible to find any terms which do not have a metaphorical component.

Leaving aside that radical claim, it could still be argued that a significant portion, perhaps the most significant portion of human knowledge arises from conceptual innovation. The capacity to produce and understand metaphors is essential to the human ability to innovate conceptually, and indeed there is no other way to do this. We have to take the understandings that we have and use these - through various methods of metaphorical extension - to create new understandings. In a sense, there are no new ideas under the sun. Everything we discover, every new idea that we form, is based on ideas that we had before.

This presents the startling prospect that one might see the 'creativity' of such thinkers as Newton or Einstein, as the same kind of thing - from a sufficiently lofty perspective - as that of Shakespeare or Jane Austen or Henry James. This is literature as a source of 'new' insights, extending language in ways which could not have been predicted.

Your case for knowledge from or through literature is based on the idea that we can learn 'what it is like' to be in a given situation. Coincidentally, my wife was telling our youngest daughter Francesca, who is nearly 12 that she really ought to read 'Uncle Tom's Cabin'. The book has been wrongly smeared with the 'Uncle Tom' image, while it is in fact a deeply sympathetic and valuable document of a time that has now passed. This is the writer as reporter, picking up on aspects of reality that no-one else has taken the trouble to notice before, and conveying these to the sufficiently sensitive reader.

However, bearing in mind what I have suggested about metaphor, I would question whether this is the only way that knowledge can be conveyed through literature. This seems to emphasise the 'documentary' aspect of literature at the expense of the aspect which 'explores possible worlds' (for want of a better term). Exploring possible worlds is not confined to science fiction, although science fiction writers have undoubtedly contributed to human knowledge by this means.

The documentary author tells us, 'this is how it is' (or 'this is how it was') while the exploratory author tells us, 'this is how things might be'. A novel examining human relationships could belong in either of these categories.

It could also be argued that taking both of these categories together still leaves a large swathe of literature still unaccounted for. I am thinking of authors who indulge in flights of fancy which go well beyond the literal, whether it be literal documentation or literal speculation; literature which is closer to poetry, which exploits the human capacity to be gripped by a story, however improbable, to convey a vision whose meaning cannot be expressed in literal terms.

All the best,

Geoffrey

Objections to knowledge as justified true belief

2012-02-23T12:31:00.002Z

To: Eric G.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Objections to knowledge as justified true belief
Date: 9 March 2007 11:18

Dear Eric,

Thank you for your email of 2 March, with your University of London essay in response to the question, '"Knowing that P is at least a matter of having a belief that P which is both true and justified." Is this an adequate definition of knowledge? If not, how should it be improved.'

This is another well researched answer, which shows a good grasp of the issues.

If an examiner was being picky, they might raise a question over your ready acceptance that knowing that P is 'at least' a matter of having a belief that P'. The case of the nervous schoolboy has been cited as an example where knowledge does not entail belief.

Again, being picky, from the point of view of the logic of the question, 'X is at least a matter of ABC' cannot be an adequate definition, irrespective of X or ABC. A definition must give sufficient as well as necessary conditions. You would get some credit for recognizing this.

I do like the way you have avoided launching straight into the tri-partite account and considered instead the question whether justification is fallible or infallible. This sets the context for this question. However, given this context, it is not so clear that the central motivation for a definition of knowledge is to provide ammunition for someone challenged with 'How do you know?'

'I know because I believe, my belief is true and I have justification for my belief, and etc. etc.' (or, insert any account you like, e.g. Nozick's)? No. This is not how it works. If challenged, you can't appeal to the truth of your belief because that is one of the things being challenged. You are being asked by the challenger to provide a persuasive argument for your case; which might involve citing evidence, proof of your own authority as someone who has the right to make this kind of judgement, or etc.

Plato's interest (in Theaetetus, and also in the Meno) was very different from that of modern epistemologists. In his view, if you don't have a proper 'account', you are liable to be persuaded to give up your belief by dubious counter arguments, the belief has a tendency to 'run away'. It turns out that only philosophy is able to give a sufficient 'account' for its claims. As Plato argues in 'Republic', there is no such thing as empirical 'knowledge'. In other words, it is hard to see 'fallible justification' as having any merit at all from Plato's exacting perspective.

It is worth asking, why do we need a definition of knowledge? Assuming a fallible view of justification, we are clearly not seeking to refute scepticism; that task is conceived as already having been done, or something we can tackle separately. Human fallibility was the centrepiece of the sceptic's case, but we are not too bothered by that.

Knowledge presents a challenge to philosophical analysis. Like 'person' or 'cause' we feel we ought to be able to provide necessary and sufficient conditions, on pain of admitting that we don't really know 'what knowledge is'. It is essential to this exercise that the request for a definition is framed in the third person.

Given this framework, it is not at all clear however to what degree the subject whose knowledge we are considering needs to be aware of what we, from our superior vantage point, are aware of. Hence the clash between internalist and externalist accounts. Is it, in fact necessary for the subject to be able to provide any justification for his/her belief? why isn't truth enough? (provided the route is 'reliable'). This is another reason for questioning the 'at least' claim made in the question.

Another theory which fits the externalist view, apparently originally suggested by Russell (although I don't have the reference), is to require simply the absence of false assumptions. This view has been advocated by Gilbert Harman. Obviously the subject can't demonstrate this. Maybe we can't either. However, from an imaginary God's-eye standpoint, case of knowledge just are cases where there are no false assumptions anywhere along the line that leads to the subject's belief. In other words, belief is naturally knowledge - unless something goes wrong.

Remember, we are not trying to refute the sceptic but merely seeking to give adequate necessary and sufficient conditions. This is the analytical game we have chosen to play.

This kind of exam question is tricky, in that it seems to be fishing for how much you know about this issue. In order to fully answer the question, 'How should it be improved?' it is not enough to give your favourite account or to offer one or two alternatives. It looks like you need to sketch all the theories that have been put forward. I've suggested a couple that you have missed (reliabilism and the no false assumptions theory). I have to confess I didn't fully understand your explanation of Dretske's position. If I was answering the question I probably would have forgotten Dretske, which I suppose shows that one can't be expected to say everything, especially when you've only got one hour.

All the best,

Geoffrey

Primary and secondary qualities and Descartes' case for doubt

2012-02-23T12:27:00.003Z

To: Anthony L.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Primary and secondary qualities and Descartes' case for doubt
Date: 5 March 2007 12:49

Dear Tony,

Thank you for your two emails of 27 February, one resubmitting your essay which you originally tried to send in January, in response to the University of London Modern Philosophy question, ''There is no defensible distinction between primary and secondary qualities'. Explain and discuss,' and the other in response to the UoL Modern Philosophy question, 'What reasons does Descartes give four doubting all his former beliefs? Are they good reasons?'

Primary and secondary qualities

This is a hoary old question which you've had a good go at. You've managed to say most of the things that need to be said. However, there are two issues which you could have given more thought to.

The question is, 'there is no defensible distinction between primary and secondary qualities'. This should tell you something. You are not being asked specifically to examine the views of Locke and Boyle - which would be a perfectly good exam question - but rather make a judgement whether ANY distinction between primary and secondary qualities can be made to work, obviously with reference to Locke and Boyle, but also anything else that might be relevant.

Let's first look at Locke's view. Somewhere in the Essay, Locke remarks that if we had the sense organs of angels we would see the corpuscles of which all matter is composed. (Unfortunately, I have tried fruitlessly to locate the reference, after quoting this to another student who tackled this topic!)

If one were to ask, 'How do angels perceive?' obviously the mechanism is not going to involve the standard story of corpuscles interacting with corpuscles. However, Locke doesn't have to say. Tactile perception would do. Or maybe angels are simply not part of the order of nature. You are right, however, to emphasise that modern science has moved away from this view. The question, however, is what are the consequences for the primary/ secondary qualities distinction? In what sense, if any, does modern science vindicate Locke?

We can ask whether Locke's 'angelic' view is coherent. Is it logically possible that the universe might have been as described by the corpuscular theory? is there anything intrinsically wrong with the corpuscular hypothesis? I don't think there is. It is just false.

However, Locke is clearly wrong if he thinks that this is the ONLY basis on which the primary/ secondary qualities distinction can be drawn.

The next question, therefore, is how one can make this distinction without assuming the corpuscular theory. Is there a way to describe the difference between primary and secondary qualities which encompasses both Locke and modern physics?

In your last section you get close to it but I think you miss the essential point. Let's look at how one would define a typical secondary quality and a typical primary quality.

'An object is yellow if and only if it appears yellow to normal perceivers in normal lighting.'

This, I would claim, is the typical form of a definition of a secondary quality. What is notable is that the term being defined occurs on both sides of the biconditional. To 'appear yellow', subjects must be able to express the judgement, that 'x is yellow'. Agreement in judgements over what is yellow is the condition for the possibility (to express this in pseudo-Kantian terms) of there being objects which are yellow.

'A shape is square if and only if it has four equal sides and one right angle.'

In other words, 'square' is definable in terms which do not use the term 'square' while 'yellow' is not definable in terms which do not use the term 'yellow'.

Drawing the contrast in this way, paradoxically seems the reverse of the Lockean explanation. Locke would say that an object looks square because it IS square, whereas an object looks yellow because XYZ, where 'XYZ' is an explanation couched in terms of the corpuscular theory (or indeed modern physics) which does not mention 'yellow'.

An explanation of why these two ways of drawing the distinction are not inconsistent but in fact perfectly harmonious would be useful. I leave that for you.

Cartesian doubt

The question is what are the reasons Descartes gives for doubting all his former beliefs and are they good reasons, and NOT, what is Descartes' motivation four doubting all his former beliefs and is this motivation soundly based.

It is therefore strictly irrelevant to the question asked whether foundationalism is a good idea, what are the prospects of building the edifice of knowledge from scratch and so on. In an examination, with limited time, you would be better of giving a quick nod to Descartes' motivations, showing the examiner that you are aware that this is not the question being asked. You will lose marks as well as time if you answer a different question from the one being asked.

(Having said that, I can see that 'reasons for doubting all his former beliefs' might be seen as ambiguous. Arguably, it can either mean, 'reasons why all his former beliefs should be doubted', or 'reasons for attempting to put all his former beliefs in doubt'. In the latter case, your remarks about foundationalism would be relevant. Provided that you make it clear that you see an ambiguity in the question, you could get away with including those remarks.)

Essentially, we are looking at Descartes the sceptic and asking how good his sceptical arguments are.

The first thing to note is that 'all his former beliefs' covers a significantly wider range than modern scepticism of the 'evil scientist' variety. Descartes is prepared to be sceptical about the theorems of geometry or truths of arithmetic, he is even prepared to question whether there is such a thing as space.

You say, 'Descartes sometimes seems to be saying that it could be that all his beliefs are false (i.e. he might have no true beliefs at all), and at other times seems only to be saying that any one of his beliefs taken at random might be false. The latter is the conclusion that he eventually comes to, but this would still mean that no belief is indubitable.'

I puzzled over this. 'Some of my beliefs might be false but I don't know which ones' is consistent with most of my beliefs being true. Surely, on this basis I know a great deal which can be expressed in general terms. This is nowhere near sufficient for Descartes' purposes. On the other hand, 'all my beliefs might be false', is close to incoherence, if we consider that most people have 'omega inconsistent' beliefs, i.e. a set of beliefs which contain an unidentified inconsistency.

One could give a lot more space to consideration of mental disorder. At least while we are still in the first Meditation, it is a bit of a mystery why Descartes does not pursue this further. The reason is that it threatens the foundation of his epistemological theory, the notion of clear and distinct ideas. If I am suffering from full-blown paranoid delusions, then any 'evidence' which comes in will be reinterpreted in a way to save the theory. If I can't count on my own rationality, then there really is no way forward from that point.

When Descartes considers the possibility that an evil demon could deceive him even with respect to elementary arithmetical statements, one might well wonder whether we are still in the 'deception' scenario rather than the 'irrational' scenario.

Arguably, all the weight of Descartes' argument falls back on the evil demon scenario.

One needs to distinguish the 'evil demon' and 'evil scientist' hypotheses. With the evil demon, in effect, Descartes is saying that idealism of a Berkeleian variety MIGHT, for all he knows, be true, OR there might exist 'material objects' in 'space', but he cannot tell which of these theories is true on the basis of his experience. But in that case, is he asking an empirical question? Or is Berkeley right in drawing the conclusion that the very notion of a 'material object in space' makes no sense at all?

Recent discussions in epistemology have focused on the 'evil scientist' or 'brain in a vat' scenario. Hilary Putnam objects, in my view unpersuasively, against the argument for scepticism based on the brain in a vat scenario, on the grounds that if I am a brain in a vat then given semantic 'externalism', I cannot have the concept of a 'brain' or a 'vat'. You can get some mileage out of this.

More generally, there is room for discussion about the validity of the general line of sceptical argument:

1) If I know that I am sitting at my desk then I know that it is not the case that XYZ (e.g. XYZ=I am a brain in a vat).

2) Therefore, if I don't know that XYZ then I don't know that I am sitting at my desk.

How persuasive is that inference? See, e.g. the article in the Internet Encyclopedia on 'Epistemic Closure Principles'

http://www.iep.utm.edu/e/epis-clo.htm

Finally, I don't follow your argument for 'iii) Beliefs about how things are in reality are only open to doubt if in some sorts of cases you decide to assume, on the basis of past experience, that once you’ve concluded your belief was wrong, nothing will happen to upset that conclusion.'

First, it is important that Descartes doesn't formulate his evil demon argument in the way that one might formulate an evil scientist argument. 'I might be being deceived by an evil scientist' has content for me because I can imagine what it would be to discover this. Of course my 'discovery' can be wrong, in fact the scenario of 'waking up in a vat' could be the cleverly induced illusion, and my beliefs about my former life largely true. The point is that because there can always be new evidence, the evidence I have up to the present point in time is never enough to settle once and for all which theory is correct, although it might incline me to one theory rather than the other.

The evil demon scenario, by contrast, is not a possibility that I can represent in terms of a possible future experience. Any possible future experience is fully consistent with the evil demon scenario and also with the commonsense materialist scenario.

All the best,

Geoffrey

Fatalism and determinism compared

2012-02-22T12:59:00.002Z

To: Francis W.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Fatalism and determinism compared
Date: 2 March 2007 12:53

Dear Francis,

Thank you for your email of 25 February, with your third essay for the Possible World Machine, in response to the question, 'Compare the theory of fatalism with the thesis of determinism. Is there any way that one could consistently hold a determinist view while denying fatalism, or hold a fatalist view while denying determinism?'

I have to say that I am disappointed in the Stanford Encyclopedia definition of Fatalism. This is the first time I have found myself disagreeing with one of its articles.

What this highlights is that there is a 'wide' and 'narrow' way of understanding Fatalism. The 'wide' understanding includes all the possible ways in which we could feel powerless to have any effect on the future. So this includes belief in causal determinism.

The 'narrow' understanding, however, is the one which I would strictly identify with 'fatalism', which is a view about the nature of truth. According the fatalist, there are truths about the future. The fact that I have not yet taken the philosophy exam, scheduled in two week's time, has no effect on the question whether 'GK passes the exam' is true. Either 'GK passes the exam' is true or it false. I won't know until I get the results, but that is just because I can't see into the future. That statement HAS a truth value whether i know that truth value or not. It had a truth value a million years ago, and it will still have the same truth value in a million years time, when the human race has been annihilated. Truth is truth, it does not alter with time.

I hope you can see where this might be heading.

If 'truth is truth', then it is irrelevant whether determinism holds or not. If it is true that the subatomic particle will go left, then it will go left, irrespective of whether it was caused to go left or not. If it is true that it will go right then it will go right. Of course we won't know until it happens, but the truth is the truth.

This would be an argument for the view that 'one can consistently hod a fatalist view while denying determinism'.

But is it necessary to be a fatalist about truth? The alternative view (which was favoured by the Greek philosopher Aristotle) is that the future is 'open', not 'closed'. There are no facts about the future. A fact is something that only exists when the event in question happens or after it happens. So the statement 'the particle will go left' has no truth value, true or false, until the event happens.

It would be perfectly possible to hold that determinism is true, but still reject the fatalist view of truth. One way to see how this might make a difference is to imagine that the universe HAS always been determinist and IS determinist, but that at some time in the future there will be a cataclysmic event as a result of which the universe will CEASE to be determinist.

That would be an argument for the view that 'one can consistently hold a determinist view while denying fatalism'.

So what?

I you are a fatalist or a determinist, you don't have to be both. Either way, you have a problem reconciling your philosophical belief with your belief in free will. That is the topic for another essay.

There are one or two things more I would like to say about fatalism in response to what you said in your essay.

'Oedipus will kill his father and marry his mother' said the Oracle at Delphi. When he heard this, Oedipus decided that the only safe thing to do was to run away, to get as far away from his father and mother as possible. What he didn't know was that his father and mother weren't who he thought they were. On the road he met a man whom he killed. That man turned out to be his father. He made his home in another city, and married the Queen. It turned out that the Queen was his mother.

In other words, just like the story in unit 2, the Black Box, the Oracle knew what Oedipus was going to do as a result of hearing its prediction, and included that fact in making the prediction. If he hadn't heard the prediction Oedipus would have stayed where he was and his father would have lived.

However, there is an alternative, 'cruder' version of fatalism whereby the Gods, having decided what will happen, arrange things so that the event happens no matter what we do. In this scenario, even if Oedipus had stayed where he was, the Gods would have fixed things so that he killed his father and married his mother.

Crude fatalism is not very interesting unless you believe in the existence of the Greek gods.

The argument, 'I might as well stay home and not go to work because if I am going to get my promotion I will get it no matter what I do' is sometimes known as the 'lazy sophism'. It is not implied by the truth of fatalism. The explanation why it is a 'sophism', i.e. invalid is interesting and you could do some research on the internet to find out why.

All the best,

Geoffrey

Descartes' argument that mind and body are distinct substances

2012-02-22T12:56:00.002Z

To: Pearl K.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Descartes' argument that mind and body are distinct substances
Date: 2 March 2007 12:08

Dear Sachiko,

Thank you for your email of 25 February, with your University of London essay in response to the question, 'Descartes argues that the mind and body are distinct substances. How well does he succeed?'

You have chosen to approach this question by considering Descartes replies to Arnaud's objections to the argument for the view that mind and body are distinct substances.

As in your previous essay, you have shown initiative by looking at the 'Objections and Replies' in addition to the Meditations. However, in the this essay the result has been that you have answered a different question from the one set, namely,

'How well does Descartes respond to Arnaud's criticisms of his argument for the view that mind and body are distinct substances?'

Who knows, this MIGHT come up in the exam. However, this is not the best way to answer the question that you have actually selected.

My view of Arnaud's criticisms is that they are interesting, but relatively 'picky' points. From your account, it seems that Descartes had little difficulty in brushing them aside.

There are more serious objections that could be made to Descartes argument than Arnaud puts forward. But, first, what is Descartes' argument?

I think here you have been hampered somewhat by over-reliance on the wording of the argument in Meditation VI. (OK, this is not THE wording because you are using Bennett's up-to-date version, but I'll let that pass with just a warning that in cases of doubt you should look at the standard translations.)

The key part of the argument is missing from Meditation VI. This is the evil demon scenario which Descartes considers in Meditation I, and the cogito in Meditation II. I don't know of any interpreters of Descartes who would disagree with this. Descartes assumes that the reader has taken the evil demon argument on board, so avoids repeating himself.

So, in place of the three step summary which you give, I would give something like the following:

1. I would still exist in a universe where all that existed was myself and an evil demon who is the direct source of my sense experience.

2. Therefore, I can exist in the absence of anything physical.

3. The essence of an substance S is defined as that without which S cannot exist.

4. Since I can exist in the absence of anything physical, it follows from 3. that no physical property can be part of my essence.

5. God exists, therefore physical things do exist because God is not a deceiver.

6. Therefore my mind/self and my physical body exist as distinct substances.

As it stands, there are more steps that one could insert to bring out all the assumptions - always a good exercise in interpreting a text. You might consider what additional steps are needed to make the argument watertight (or at least as strong as it could be, given that we do not agree with Descartes argument for mind-body dualism).

Where exactly does God fit into this picture? At the end of your essay, you suggest that if God does not exist then this argument would fail. However, it seems that one could construct an argument like 1-6 above which does not depend on the assumption of God's existence. 1-4 are the same. Instead of 'God exists therefore physical things exist', we just say:

5A. Physical things might exist, or then again they might not exist.

6A. If physical things exist then my mind/self and my physical body exist as distinct substances.

Now comes the philosophical work. Leaving the question of the existence of God aside, how good is the argument?

The general form of the argument seems to be: 'I know that A exists but don't know that B exists, therefore it is possible for A to exist in the absence of B.' Is that always true?

I know that there is water in my glass, but I don't know that there is H20 in my glass because (being a philosopher who is totally ignorant of everything else) I don't know that water is H20. Does it follow that it is possible for water to exist in the absence of H20?

What is possible is that there could be a world just like this one where the substance people call 'water' has a different chemical composition. But all that shows is that I don't really know what WATER is. I know that it is transparent, helps to soothe a thirst, you can dissolve sugar in it and so on. But I don't know it's essence. If I did, then I would know that water cannot not be H20, because that's just what water IS.

By contrast, if we take Descartes' line, the essence of my self is fully revealed to introspection. That's just the point about the evil demon scenario. An evil demon could transport you overnight to a world just like this one except that water is not H20 but D20 (deuterium oxide or 'heavy water', actually it's only very slightly heavier). You can't tell the difference, just by looking, between H20 and D20. But the self is different. I can know that my self even if nothing exists apart from me (and the evil demon). Therefore the case of 'self' and the case of 'water' are not analogous.

If you want to pursue this further, have a look at Kripke 'Naming and Necessity' (or have a look for texts which discuss Kripke's argument). Kripke gives an argument in defence of Descartes, or at least attacks the usual attempts that have been made to refute Descartes, so it is very relevant to this essay question. It is conceivable that you could get an examination question on this.

My line of attack would be that Descartes is wrong about what the cogito reveals, and this is why the argument fails and Kripke cannot help.

All the best,

Geoffrey

'The solipsist's world has no more substance than a dream'

2012-02-22T12:54:00.002Z

To: Frank Z.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: 'The solipsist's world has no more substance than a dream'
Date: 1 March 2007 12:32

Dear Frank,

Thank you for your email of 22 February, with your second essay for the Moral Philosophy program, in response to the question, ''The solipsist's world has no more substance than a dream, a story one makes up as one goes along.' - Discuss.'

You have provided an interesting take on the question of solipsism.

In the context of an investigation into ethics, one would expect that the question of solipsism relates to moral questions, and in particular to the question of how we recognize the value of other persons and their claim to have their interests taken into consideration when we act.

As the example of tyrannical political or religious leaders shows, some human individuals seem to have the need to make themselves 'the centre of the universe', effectively turning every other person in their orbit into a mere means for satisfying their desires or lust for power.

This situation is paradoxical as Hegel showed in his discussion of 'Master and Slave' in the Phenomenology of Spirit. The lust for power will not be satisfied with power over mere 'objects'. Power, to be power, has to be recognized as such by real subjects, who tremble at the tyrant's commands. However, by turning other persons into mere 'objects' to be manipulated at will, the tyrant deprives himself of that very power. The result is a predicament which is very much like that of the solipsist. The tyrant is reduced to a demanding child alone with his cupboard full of toys, whose voice no-one hears.

But is the tyrant a true solipsist? This is a crucial question. I want to say that solipsism cannot be true because it is incoherent.

Yes, it is possible that I am, unknowingly, alone in the universe. Imagine that over a period of time, super-intelligent aliens - the only beings that exist in the universe apart from human beings - have been quietly annihilating humans and replacing them with robots. Finally, only one non-robot is left, myself. Then the alien sun explodes, leaving me alone in the universe.

It is therefore an empirical question whether, in fact, other persons exist. However, the metaphysical solipsist claims that all that exists is my own mental state, not as a matter of contingency, but because the very notion of an 'object' which 'exists' apart from my own experience is, the solipsist holds, unintelligible. All I have are my own experiences. Every thought that I think, every action that I perform, takes place in the context of the world of my experience. It is impossible to conceive of there being anything else.

Why is that theory incoherent? The argument against that idea is that the metaphysical solipsist has surreptitiously imported the idea of 'truth' from our non-solipsist, common sense view of the world. In the world of my experience, some beliefs are still 'true' and other beliefs are still 'false'. It is true that in the world of my experience world war II ended in 1945 and false that in the world of my experience Paris is the capital of England. But where are these facts? The are all in my own head. It may seem to me that I am responding to something 'given' when I make these judgements, but in fact nothing is 'given', nothing is 'fixed', I can make any story I like and call it 'true'. That is why 'he solipsist's world has no more substance than a dream, a story one makes up as one goes along'.

So what?

I fully agree with you about the need for an 'element' of solipsism. This is why I reject the argument for morality which simply denies the reality of the subjective view. On the 'anti-solipsist' view which I reject, there is no difference between 'myself' and 'others'. We are all the same from the disinterested point of view. Hence the idea that, whenever we make a moral decision, we should discount ourselves as being in any way 'special' and just consider 'what needs to be done'.

On my view, the element of solipsism is countered by genuine recognition of the authority of the other. This is an asymmetrical rather than a symmetrical relationship. The ultimate, inexplicable truth is that I am GK. But as soon as I consider what is 'true' or 'false', I have to recognize that the very words which I use to express my thoughts only have meaning in relation to others. That is why the world does not collapse into my own dream.

As a consequence of this, I have to recognize that the claims of others are real, and have real moral force. That does not require I suppress myself and sacrifice myself for the good of others, but on the contrary, emphasizes that I have valid claims and other persons also have valid claims, and the moral life is one where one recognizes both.

All the best,

Geoffrey

Aristotle on akrasia and Moore's 'open question' argument

2012-02-21T13:16:00.002Z

To: Pat F.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Aristotle on akrasia and Moore's 'open question' argument
Date: 26 February 2007 14:26

Dear Patrick,

Thank you for your email of 18 February, with your two timed University of London essays, in response to the questions:

'How in Aristotle's view can thought cause action? How on occasion may it fail to cause (correct or expected) action?'

'What force if any is there in Moore's 'open question' argument?'

Aristotle

The reason why Aristotle's discussion of akrasia is so important, is that he wants to salvage as much as possible from the Socratic doctrine that 'virtue is knowledge'. In the end, his view is not that far from Socrates.

The first question we have to answer is how can thought, any thought, cause action? Surely, thinking, 'such and such is the case' is one thing, doing is another.

Consider this example (which will be a bit more plausible when we come to consider akrasia):

1. Eating at least one portion of green veg a day is good for my health, and I want to be healthy.

2. I haven't had my green veg today, there is a portion of green veg on my plate, and I won't be offered any more food until tomorrow.

Therefore... what?

Aristotle wants to say that by contrast with a Universal syllogism, the conclusion of this 'practical' syllogism is an action. If I don't eat the green veg that is on my plate, I am acting inconsistently with the two premisses.

Well, I can think, 'I must eat the green veg.' But why should that thought lead to action? One answer is that, bearing in mind the meaning of 'I must...', to say, 'I must do X' and yet not do X is irrational.

OK, so what's wrong with being irrational? why is it necessary that any of our actions agree with our thoughts? Imagine someone whose actions do not agree with his thoughts. He doesn't do anything that he 'thinks' or 'decides' to do, but instead does a whole load of other things. The we would say that we are simply not dealing with an individual that one could recognize as an agent. It is an essential part of what it is to be an agent that one successfully executes practical syllogisms. The action component is not an extra bit added on, but a necessary part of the package.

I think that at the least what the examiner is looking for in the first part of the question is acknowledgement of this problem - the problem why any thought should issue in action. Aristotle's concept of a practical syllogism embodies the insight I have described above.

Because Aristotle is impressed with the core content of Socrates' view, the last thing he wants to do is allow that an agent can ever be faced with the choice between doing what the practical syllogism says, and simply 'acting out of passion'.

That's why Aristotle goes to some lengths to explain how we can 'know' something but not really KNOW it. For example, I 'know' that I should eat this green veg. My doctor's words to me last week are ringing in my ears ('serious iron deficiency, blah blah...') but faced with the unpalatable greens on my plate, I allow myself to dispute the very proposition I claim to know ('missing veg for one day won't hurt me' etc. etc.).

That is why I would question the second of the two alternatives that you offer at the end of your essay. Overriding passion can prevent a practical syllogism from taking place - as when a person acts out of 'impetuosity' - but when the agent does go through a practical syllogism, but fails to act, the explanation has to be in terms of a failure of his cognitive rather than affective capacity.

Hume famously remarked that reason is a 'slave of the passions', but by saying this he didn't escape the problem of weakness of will as such, as the greens example demonstrates. However, the problem of weakness of will is especially acute for anyone, like Aristotle, who holds that moral actions are dictated by knowledge and reason alone, and do not require an additional 'desire to be moral'.

Moore

I did struggle with this essay, although I won't chop your head off.

Perhaps your idea here is to question the validity of the analytic/ synthetic distinction as Quine does in 'Two Dogmas of Empiricism'. Let's see how this would work. All propositions are synthetic. 'X is good if and only if X increases pleasure' might be sufficiently embedded, in a given web of belief, to behave in every way as if it was an analytic proposition, the very last thing we would give up in the face of recalcitrant experience (like the laws of logic, which for the same reason are not immutable but ultimately capable of being revised - e.g. quantum logic).

In a world where everyone is a hedonist, the good IS pleasure. We don't ask whether pleasure is good because our only notion of good is what promotes pleasure, and no alternative has ever occurred to us.

Imagine a Nietzschean individual comes along and says, 'there is something is ultimately preferable to pleasure, which is overcoming oneself in the struggle to create values'. Maybe he is a lone voice crying in the wilderness, but if so this is only because his audience are too dim-witted to grasp his arguments. The fact that the good=pleasure equation is not questioned does not necessarily imply that it is beyond question.

What about the idea of 'simple concepts'? There is a way to define yellow - arguably the only way to define it - which far from showing that it is 'capable of decomposition ad infinitum' demonstrates why it is 'simple' in Moore's sense.

'An object is yellow if and only if it appears yellow to normal perceivers in normal conditions.'

This crude definition has to go through a lot of fancy refinements until it can be made reasonably secure against objections. But the point is that the term 'yellow' will always occur on both sides of the biconditional. You can't get rid of it. As soon as you start talking about wavelengths of light, you are changing the subject.

The term is 'good' is simple for a different reason. Anything can be good. There is nothing that good things have in common apart from their being good. However, the point of the term 'good' is not to describe an indescribable, in explicable quality which a thing either has or hasn't, but rather to state, to agents who are considering the possibility of different courses of action, 'this is to be preferred', or 'do this'.

In making his claim about 'Good', Moore is talking about the problem first given vivid expression by Hume - the gap between 'is' and 'ought'. This is pleasurable, but is it good? ought I to pursue it?

So let's now look at your water example, which could be interesting.

On twin earth water is XYZ. Therefore, intuitively, a la Putnam, what twin earthers drink, bathe in etc. is not water. It would be pointless to argue whether water IS H20 or XYZ because in referring to 'water' you are not referring to the same thing.

What about 'Good is what leads to happiness'? Let's say this is believed on earth while on twin earth the view is that good is 'overcoming oneself in the struggle to create values'.

Well, it's one thing to say that this is 'believed', but what could make it actually TRUE? In other words, how can this be seen as anything other than a philosophical disagreement about what things are good?

I assume that when, e.g. Nietzsche takes issue with utilitarians, both sides are concerned to persuade us to take a particular courses of action, make particular choices, prefer particular things. I certainly would not wish to rule out the possibility that an argument for a given moral theory could be valid, i.e. in the Aristotelian sense leading from thought to necessary action.

Moore is surely right that it can never be simply a natural 'fact' that such-and-such is good. But I would argue that it is fully consistent to hold this, while also allowing that there can be philosophical considerations which, when followed through, lead to the indisputable conclusion that actions of kind X, and only X, are 'good'.

All the best,

Geoffrey

On a criticism of the coherentist theory of knowledge

2012-02-21T13:12:00.002Z

To: Stuart B.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: On a criticism of the coherentist theory of knowledge
Date: 26 February 2007 12:05

Dear Stuart,

Thank you for your email of 18 February, with your University of London essay in response to the question, ''My beliefs could form a coherent set even if none of them is true, so the coherence account of knowledge must be wrong.' Discuss.'

I liked the way that you related coherentism and foundationalism to ancient scepticism. However, there are two ways of using the sceptical argument as a way to motivate a particular internalist theory.

The first, most obvious way is to describe the theory of knowledge in a way which implies the refutation of the sceptic's arguments. The sceptic has overlooked a possibility, a possibility which the internalist epistemologist emphasises in his theory. Therefore, the theory of knowledge - whichever one it may be - refutes scepticism.

An alternative way is to leave open the question of how the sceptic is ultimately to be dealt with, but use the sceptic's arguments to determine the form of one's account of knowledge. At some point, it has to be recognized that a 'fully' justified belief - a belief justified to the highest possible standards of justification - can still be false, or that a 'fully' coherent set of beliefs - a set which exhibits the maximum attainable degree of coherence - can likewise still be false.

This implies an implicit element of externalism, as we will see later when we look at the 'tracking truth' question. However, it still seems to me legitimate to view these theories as primarily 'internalist' rather than 'externalist'.

In previous communications, I have given my reasons why I think that a more radical approach needs to be taken in order to specifically address the question of scepticism. This is not the same as the retreat to full externalism which claims, implausibly, that there never was a problem in the first place.

So I am sceptical about any epistemological theory which claims that it can defeat the sceptic, simply by tightening up the conditions for knowledge in such a way that scepticism is ruled out.

As in some previous essays, you have succumbed to the temptation to throw in other objections which are not implied by the objection given in the essay title. It may seem impossible to overlook such a potentially important objection as the claim that it is 'unrealistically demanding' to expect us to be aware of the 'totality of our belief-set', or the 'proposed rules of coherence'. There is room for argument here which would no doubt cast considerable illumination on the coherence theory of knowledge. But it is not logically part of the question. So I will just stress again that you must stick to the question at all costs, otherwise you will be marked down.

(Examiners can be very ruthless. They are looking a specific ability - the ability to respond to the challenge set by the question - and not interested in anything else that you know. Also, it is intrinsic to the evaluation of philosophical ability that one shows a just appreciation of the logic of a question. This is the way the game played. I realize, however, that these essays do double duty for you - as practice answers but also revision aids.)

Earlier, you describe 'a pair of additional challenges - ones that are implied by the essay title'. This is justified, although I would try to be much clearer about how they relate to the objection.

Obviously, it is relevant to the question how one defines 'coherence'. But, once again, the difficulty of defining coherence is not the objection we are looking at. You can talk about the difficulty of defining coherence, but only as a necessary stage in the argument which looks at the objection that a coherent set can still be false.

The question whether a coherent set can track truth is relevant because although this is different from the question whether a coherent set can be false, the two questions are closely related. You need to explain the difference. This is not such an easy thing to do, although we have an intuitive idea of what this would mean. Set A is Tom's coherent set because it is true. That is to say, the best explanation of why Tom holds this set assumes that it is true. However, set A can still be false, if we allow the possibility that one of the sceptical hypotheses might be true.

The sceptic will reply that the sceptical hypotheses render any notion of 'best explanation' empty, since this implies a notion of probability, and probability is relative to evidence. If the Matrix scenario is the truth, then all bets are off so far as 'best explanation' is concerned. But we are not trying to refute the sceptic, merely explaining how the coherence theory can allow room for a notion of 'tracking truth'.

I did get the impression - especially towards the end of your essay - that you forgot that there is a difference between the 'truth' objection and the 'tracking truth' objection. So long as we are not looking to refute scepticism, it is acceptable that a coherent set might conceivably be false if one or other of various far-fetched possibilities turns out to be the case, provided we are satisfied that a coherent set is capable in principle of tracking truth.

Anti-realism about truth is a response to scepticism which brings along its own problems, as you describe. However, a bell should have rung for you when you argued that 'the local set of some one individual may be coherent, yet still inconsistent with the broader vision of coherence truth'. The logically adept paranoid gives excellent reasons for his crazy beliefs. The fact that the beliefs in question are false does not diminish our admiration for the clarity and consistency of his arguments - at least up to a point. However, as a matter of fact (which if one allows the sceptical hypotheses could have been otherwise) we are tracking truth and the paranoid isn't. The paranoid's coherent beliefs are not knowledge because they fail the truth condition.

I haven't mentioned your point that coherentism ignores or underplays important differences between kinds of beliefs, e.g. the special role of perceptual beliefs. You do make an effort to relate this to the question, although once again I would have liked to have seen a bit more argument here.

All the best,

Geoffrey

What kind of freedom is worth fighting for?

2012-02-21T13:09:00.002Z

To: Patrick A.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: What kind of freedom is worth fighting for?
Date: 21 February 2007 09:32

Dear Patrick,

Thank you for your email of 12 February with your first essay for the Possible World Machine, with your own title, 'Freedom, fate and freewill - What kind of freedom is worth fighting for?'

This is an interesting essay, although it was not exactly what I had expected!

If you recall, we were discussing the question of free will vs determinism. I suggested that a good question to ask is what kind of 'free will' is 'worth wanting'. What I meant by this is that there is more than one possible definition of 'free will', and one definition might be more interesting or more desirable to us than another.

To take a key example, according to the compatibilist definition of free will, an action is free so long as the actor is not constrained or compelled by external circumstances (such as a gun at one's head) or hindered by internal psychological obstacles (e.g. a panic attack). This kind of 'freedom' is fully compatible with determinism. The fact that a chain of causes and effects can be traced from my birth to the present action of writing this email does not mean that I am being 'constrained' to write it, nor am I under the influence of an abnormal mental condition. I wanted to write to you and I am writing to you. If I had not wanted to write today I would not have written.

But is this kind of 'free will' worth wanting? Isn't there a residual feeling of despair at the very thought that if determinism is true, then every action that we do was already 'taken account of' by the big bang? I might have not written today, had I chosen not to. But given the way the big bang banged, there was no real possibility that I might not have made that choice.

So another form of 'free will' would be defined in opposition to determinism. If determinism is true then we cannot have this kind of 'free will'. Should we be upset at this thought? Is this kind of freedom worth wanting?

The topic of your essay is not 'free will' as this notion figures in the free will vs determinism debate, but rather the question of political freedom. I have no criticism to make of this. In fact, it is a very interesting topic in its own right.

The concept of negative freedom was championed by J.S. Mill in his essay, 'On Liberty'. Mill's argument is that we ought to be free to do anything we choose, so long as our action does not cause harm to anyone else. This freedom is 'negative' because it is defined in terms of a necessary - not causing harm to others.

The concept of positive freedom was developed by G.W.F. Hegel and figures in the philosophies of a number of continental philosophers of this period. The fundamental idea is that to be allowed to do 'whatever you like' is not true freedom. If you say to someone, 'Do whatever you like', but they don't have any clear idea what they want to do, then the poverty of real choices signals a lack of freedom.

The possibility of meaningful choices arises from culture and society, the political order within which individuals pursue their life plan. The idea was given powerful expression by F.H. Bradley in his essay, 'My Station and Its Duties' (in his book Ethical Studies). The lowly gardener who tips his hat at the Lord of the Manor as he drives by is aware of his station and the actions that are appropriate to it. That is his 'positive freedom'.

Critics of the idea of 'positive freedom' point out that it is a recipe for fascism, and even if not taken that far is decidedly undemocratic.

The things that you say in your essay about our 'abilities, limitations and potentials' actually sound much closer to J.S. Mill, where he talks in his essay 'On Liberty' about the value of 'individuality'. It could be argued that it is incorrect to describe Mill's concept of liberty as merely 'negative', because he in fact goes to great lengths to explain WHY it is best to allow people to do whatever they like - try all sorts of 'experiments in living' to quote Mill - because this is the best way to give each human being the opportunity to develop his or her potential.

Supporters of 'positive freedom' would say that there is no need to try 'experiments in living' because the structure of the state already lays out what the possibilities are. Each citizen has his or her function in the 'political organism'. If everybody was allowed to forget their 'station' and do whatever they wanted to do, the state would be destroyed and no-one would be better off in the resulting anarchy and chaos.

There are echoes of this in your essay where you cite Goethe's idea of 'freedom within limits'. It is true that novelty and creativity, whether in the arts or the sciences, presuppose a backdrop which sets the defining problem which gives the artist or thinker a reason to struggle and work. However, I don't think that Mill would deny this. Of course, when we consider our own lives and what we want to do, there are all sorts of structures already laid out. We don't have to invent ourselves from scratch. However, Mill would argue that the survival of society in the face of changing circumstances depends on people who are prepared to 'break the mould', reject assumptions made in the past and go off in a radically new direction.

All the best,

Geoffrey

Aristotle on the mean and the pursuit of happiness

2012-02-16T14:08:00.004Z

To: Pat F.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Aristotle on the mean and the pursuit of happiness
Date: 15 February 2007 13:00

Dear Pat,

Thank you for your email of 8 February, with your two University of London essays on Aristotle, 'Is Aristotle's doctrine of the mean an empty abstraction or a recommendation for mediocrity?' and 'In pursuing his own happiness, is Aristotle's man an egoist?'

Both these essays are quite short for prepared work. In the essays you write for me you should be aiming at 2000-2500 words. However, they are roughly the length you would be able to write in an hour in an examination.

In terms of quality, your arguments are for the most part pertinent. You have said the right things. However, there is still plenty of room for improvement. In terms of marks, both essays would fall in the upper 2nd bracket.

Aristotle's doctrine of the mean

I am not the only one puzzled by Aristotle's doctrine of the mean. I guess the first thing I would be looking for in this essay is a clear statement of the doctrine. You give one example, of courage as a mean between cowardice and rashness, but it would be useful to have some more. A range of examples would give you the opportunity to identify the mechanism that is operating in each case, that enables this kind of judgement tobe made. There is definitely more to say here.

It could be argued that whenever judgement is involved, in any activity not only ethics, we are attempting to reach a 'mean'. For example, my wife tells me to go and buy some potatoes for dinner, and I stand in the shop, adding potatoes to the bag or taking them out until I feel I have the 'right' amount. One pound would definitely not be enough but 20 pounds is too many.

Or I am designing a web page, trying to get the banner at the top to be in proportion to the rest of the page. 50 pixels is definitely too thin, but 500 pixels is too broad.

These were mathematical examples. One could have chosen being appropriately polite to one's bank manager, or wearing enough clothes to keep warm in the cold breeze without sweating, where in both cases it is difficult to quantify mathematically.

The ability to judge the right amount of potatoes, or pixels, or compliments, or clothes, exhibits a 'virtue', albeit not an ethical virtue. There is nothing special about ethical virtue in respect of making a judgement call which strikes a balance.

The claim made by Aristotle is that every ethical decision is a 'balancing judgement call' in this sense. Is that in fact a substantial claim, or is there always a way, logically, to represent an ethical judgement in these terms? If the answer to the latter question is Yes, then why is it not the case that the doctrine of the mean is an empty abstraction? Surely what is important in ethical judgement is what distinguishes it from other, non-ethical judgements and not what it has in common with them.

The question is posed as a dilemma. Suppose that the doctrine of the mean is not just an empty abstraction but makes a substantial claim. Then the worry arises that it can do this only by doing violence to our intuition that some kinds of excellence do not involve a balance but rather going for the maximum. For example, some would disagree that courage always involves a judgement call. Is it overly rash to put oneself in a predicament where one faces certain death? But sometimes this is required, nothing less will win the day.

(I don't think that Aristotle would necessarily disagree with this. He is not committed to saying that extreme acts of 'courage' are mere 'foolhardiness'. If in one's considered judgement nothing less than self-sacrifice is required, then that would not be correctly described as 'foolhardy'.)

The objection is not so much that the doctrine of the mean is a recommendation of mediocrity but rather that Aristotle has described a particular kind of ethical individual as the 'ideal type', ignoring the possibility of other, conflicting paradigms. Aristotle's man is measured in every respect. He never lets himself go. Even the emotions, like anger, are always measured to suit the circumstances. He is always in control. This is admirable, to be sure, but not the only kind of person we admire from an ethical standpoint; not the very definition of what it is to be an 'ethical' man.

This is not a bad essay. You have found a way to incorporate the point about emotions and the fact that there is a mean here too and not just one governing practical judgement, although I missed the argument against the 'Epicurean' view that emotions should always be suppressed when we make moral judgements. This is a very important aspect of Aristotle's ethics, as well as being essential to understanding the doctrine of the mean.

Is Aristotle's man an egoist?

The first thing one is looking for here is a clear statement of what it is to be an 'egoist'.

If 'egoism', as you claim, is 'the hypothesis that morality can be ultimately explained in terms of self-interest...' then the game is up. Aristotle is an egoist, because his arguments do appeal to self-interest. He is describing the 'good life', a life which leads to 'eudaemonia', and anyone convinced by this description will want to be the kind of man that Aristotle describes.

However, one has to distinguish between the 'intention to do X', where X is a particular moral action, and the intention to be the kind of man who would 'intend to do X' in the appropriate circumstances. In other words, the distinction between first-order and second-order intentions. This is a very important distinction in discussions of 'attitude theory' in ethics (and not to be confused with the Catholic doctrine of 'second intention').

An egoist is someone whose first-order intentions always involve an reference to the benefits that will accrue to oneself as a result of doing the action. For example, instead of, 'I will do X because X is the just thing to do', my intention is, e.g., 'I will do X because people will admire me for being a just person'.

The person that Aristotle is appealing to is attracted by the picture of the life that Aristotle represents. Part of this picture is having the appropriate capacities for judgement and emotional dispositions which lead, e.g. to doing acts because they are just. If you are motivated to do the action merely for self-interested reasons then you have failed to acquire the appropriate dispositions.

So while it is true that Aristotle does appeal to self-interest, by marked contrast to a philosopher like Kant who formulates a moral law whose binding character is completely independent of one's desires and interests, it is not correct to say that this is an appeal to egoism.

You do make a very interesting point with regard to the 'Homeric' origin of Aristotle's view of the good life or the good man. This is certainly relevant to the question and I would definitely include it in an essay on this topic.

However, I think that there is a positive way to see this, not just as unfortunate historical baggage that Aristotle was lumbered with but rather from a Nietzschean point of view as a necessary antidote to the Christian 'self-sacrificing' view of ethics. It is very much worth discussing whether pride is a virtue, as Aristotle and Nietzsche claim, or a sin as preached by Christianity. To call this 'egoist' is to beg the question in favour of the Christian view.

What we are looking for, in other words, is an alternative to the dichotomy, 'egoless or egoist'. Aristotle's moral philosophy emphasises self-respect, a justified sense of one's own worth and importance, but not in a crude 'egoist' way.

In terms of Aristotle's doctrine of the mean, a justified sense of one's own worth lies between the bad extremes of diffidence and vanity.

All the best,

Geoffrey

How do you know the author of these words has a mind?

2012-02-16T14:06:00.002Z

To: Louis G.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: How do you know the author of these words has a mind?
Date: 15 February 2007 11:04

Dear Louis,

Thank you for your email of 7 February, with your notes on unit 5 of the Philosophy of Mind program, and your second essay, in response to the question, 'How do you know that the author of these words has a mind?'

When is scepticism about another mind justified? It is a tragic fact about the human condition that we DO entertain scepticism regarding the motives and beliefs of others, and sometimes this scepticism turns out to be well founded.

Human beings exhibit the most remarkable ability to fake, act, pretend. Sometimes people are caught out, and sometimes they take their secrets to the grave.

What we have to rely on, in trying to determine whether a person is being honest with us or not, is not only 'generalisation from our own case', although this has a genuine part to play (as when we ask ourselves, 'What would I do in that situation?') but a host of factors based on our knowledge of that person's previous behaviour, human psychology, possible motives for deception and so on. Think of a police interrogation. Or a lover who doubts whether the person he or she loves is being faithful. Or great actors and actresses and their spellbinding ability to assume a character and personality which is not theirs.

Arguably, this is one of the most pervasive themes of human life.

It is the genius of philosophy, however, to have invented a whole new kind of scepticism. Just to give it a label, I'm going to call this 'metaphysical doubt about other minds', in contrast with 'real doubt about other minds'.

The best way to explain the difference is to consider a situation where we have some reason to question whether a person is being honest with us. 'Do you really love me, or are you just trying to get me into bed?' Of course, sometimes we don't know our own feelings for sure. But let's assume that we have a clear case where a person's words and actions can only be interpreted either as words and deeds of love, or else deliberate deception.

Real doubt can be occasioned by any number of things. As I indicated, there are circumstances which would confirm the doubt or help remove it.

But what about metaphysical doubt? The point about metaphysical doubt is that it has nothing whatsoever to do with a person's words or actions. 'How do I know that you are not a mindless zombie who talks and behaves in every way as someone with a mind would do?' is a question which cannot be answered by any words or actions - by hypothesis. If someone has real doubts about me, I can try to allay those doubts by the things that I do and say. But if someone has metaphysical doubts, then nothing I say or do will make any difference at all.

I am interested in the fact that it is possible to have metaphysical doubts about other minds. I would dispute what you say in paragraph 2 that the problem is 'more challenging for the materialist'. On the contrary, on the hypothesis of materialism, metaphysical doubt about other minds cannot even be entertained. If all the physical requirements are met, then there is no room for the hypothesis that nevertheless 'all is dark inside'. On the other hand, if mind-body dualism is true, then it does seem possible that there could be, e.g. a zombie double of GK who talks and behaves in every way like me. In fact, this is the argument David Chalmers gives in support of dualism, namely, the fact that we can conceive of the logical possibility that I have a zombie double.

Turing's Test is based on the commonsense principle that if something looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck then it is a duck. Of course, we know that this is not true. A child's electronic duck does all of these things. But it doesn't have kidneys, heart, liver etc. If you dissect a duck and find that it has all the correct internal organs, then that's pretty good evidence that it is a duck.

We understand the difference between a 'fake' dialogue, as generated by the famous 'Eliza' program, and a genuine dialogue. But, thinking of the duck analogy, is the capacity for dialogue the only essential trait of intelligence? I am not satisfied that it is. The Chinese Room scenario gives one very good reason for doubt. To be intelligent is not just to generate the appropriate words in the appropriate situations, but to understand the words so generated. It is true hat we can talk about lots of things that we don't fully understand. But generating words none of which one understands is not 'talk' but merely making a noise.

I would argue that an entity cannot have beliefs unless it has desires, and cannot have desires unless it has needs, and the capacity to satisfy those needs through physical agency. This as a conceptual claim about the nature of what it is to be a 'subject'.

Regarding non-human animals, it is again a conceptual question what kinds of feelings or experiences it makes sense to attribute to a given subject. An earth worm cannot feel anguish, although maybe it does 'feel' something when you tread on it. A dog cannot feel despair at the destruction of its life's work, although it might be upset to be deprived of its toy ball. These are conceptual points. If someone said, 'You can never know for sure. Maybe a feeling of anguish is occurring in the earth worm and you would never know,' that is just plain nonsense (albeit a nonsense which dualism encourages).

One interpretation of the question, 'How do you know that the author of these words has a mind?' is in terms of metaphysical doubt, which I talked about earlier. If you are prepared to entertain metaphysical doubt, then it is possible that the author, GK, is in fact a zombie who talks and acts in every way like a human being.

It is also possible to entertain real doubts. There's a site on the internet where you can have fun generating 'post-modern' philosophy essays. A program throws seemingly meaningful words and phrases together in a passable imitation of a philosophy essay. So it is logically possible that for the second set of essay questions, I used one of these programs rather than taking the trouble to compose six essay titles. To someone who had no knowledge at all of philosophy, many philosophical essay titles no doubt do look like gibberish.

When will a computer be able to genuinely produce philosophy? How many years is it likely to be before the Director of Studies of Pathways is a computer running an AI program?

If AI is finally achieved then, as I indicated above, it would have to involve the creation of an intelligent entity which has needs and desires and not merely the capacity for generating words. In that case, there will be nothing to prevent us from saying that it has a mind.

All the best,

Geoffrey

P.F. Strawson's criticisms of Cartesian dualism

2012-02-16T14:03:00.002Z

To: Hakeem G.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: P.F. Strawson's criticisms of Cartesian dualism
Date: 8 February 2007 12:29

Dear Hakeem,

Thank you for your email of 30 January, with your University of London essay in response to the question, 'Explain and assess Strawson's reasons for thinking (i) a Cartesian is committed to thinking that a dualist reduction or analysis of the idea of a person is possible and (ii) that such a reduction or analysis is not possible.'

This is a good essay with which I have few real disagreements.

There's nothing to be embarrassed about in agreeing with a philosopher whose theory or claims you have been asked to critique. You have considered possible objections and responded to them, and you have given a reasonably clear exposition of the view in question. That's all you needed to do.

Of course, I am somewhat biased in my judgement here because I think that Strawson is right, at least in his negative criticisms of Cartesianism.

Elsewhere, in chapter 3 of his book, 'Individuals: an essay in descriptive metaphysics' Strawson argues for a stronger conclusion - that the concept of a person is 'primitive', a view which raises questions about the coherence of materialism as a solution to the mind-body problem. But that is not something you are required to discuss.

It seems uncontentious that a Cartesian is committed to thinking that a dualist reduction or analysis of the idea of a person is possible. However, it would be consistent with Descartes' remark in the Meditations that 'I am not lodged inside my body as a pilot in a ship' to argue that it is in fact essential to having a concept of myelf that I seem to have a body, even if I allow that the evil demon might be deceiving me. In other words, there is room here for a weaker, 'phenomenological' claim that the character of experience is such that an experience disembodiment is inconceivable. Interestingly, don't know of any place where Descartes actually addresses the question of disembodied souls or what their experiences are like. He does remark in Meditation 1 that the soul is not a 'wind or a vapour', pouring cold water on Spirtualist notions of disembodied ghosts made of insubstantial 'ectoplasm'.

A soul has no spatial characteristics, no location, and therefore the only connection that it has to a given body is through mind-body interaction. So, of course, one would not expect to find any other way of referring to souls other than by referring to the bodies of which they are the souls.

In your account of Strawson's argument over identity at a time and identity over time, my feeling was that you allowed yourself to talk too generally. The argument was very clear in your mind when you wrote the essay, but you don't convey it to the reader. I would have thought that exposition requires that you give the argument rather than merely report about it. It can help if you imagine a reader who isn't as knowledgeable as the examiner, who needs to be persuaded that Strawson is right.

In other words: you know what the argument is. Spell it out as persuasively as you can.

I do remember, as a second-year undergraduate student many years ago, not being persuaded by Strawson's worries about identity. My objection was along the lines of Leibniz's identity of indiscernibles. Given that souls are not individuated by any spatial means, their individuation is purely a matter of their mental properties. So why isn't it just logically absurd to imagine, e.g. that there might be two 'GK souls' thinking about what to write to HK and interacting with GK's body in order to make these words appear on the screen? Why isn't that a good objection?

One possible answer would be to point out the difference between this claim, in the context of Cartesian dualism, and the claim made by Leibniz - who originally propounded the identity of indiscernibles - about 'monads' in his monadology.

In Leibniz's theory, monads are all that exist. There is no physical 'matter' as such. That is how he is able to claim that each monad is uniquely identified by its mental properties (the way it 'represents' the rest of the universe). Whereas, in Cartesian dualism, the soul has a causal effect on something outside it, and receives causal input from the same source. Once this mental-physical bridge is introduced, there is nothing to prevent the hypothesis that two (or two hundred) soul substances are transmitting the same instructions to my pineal gland at the same time, or receiving the same visual experiences.

Similarly, there is nothing to prevent the hypothesis of a series of soul substances conveying their states to one another like a line of colliding billiard balls. This is in fact Kant's objection to Cartesian dualism in the Critique of Pure Reason (in 'The Paralogisms of Transcendental Psychology'). So Strawson is not being original in putting forward this argument and wouldn't claim to be.

Interestingly, Strawson shows recognition that Leibniz's theory requires a separate argument in 'Individuals'. This is added evidence that the problem has to do, not just with the notion of 'soul substance' as such, but rather with that notion in the context of an interactionist theory.

All the best,

Geoffrey

Brain in a vat argument for scepticism

2012-02-14T12:57:00.002Z

To: Eric G.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Brain in a vat argument for scepticism
Date: 8 February 2007 09:46

Dear Eric,

Thank you for your email of 29 January, with your University of London essay in response to the question, ''I cannot prove that I am not a brain in a vat. Therefore I do not know anything about the external world.' Discuss.'

This is an excellent piece of work. You report the arguments accurately and express reservations in the right places. Imagining myself as someone coming new to this subject, I feel that I would obtain a good grasp of at least one of the central issues from reading your essay.

Work of this quality in an exam would tend to be pushing for a first. What will make the difference is your ability to articulate your worries, reservations in a clear and meaningful way.

I often have the problem of UoL students sending me essays which do not respond to the actual question, paying particular attention to the way that it is worded. This is really the most important aspect of exam technique. Many of the questions are designed to get you thinking on your feet, upsetting students who have memorised standard essays (something which I never recommend).

In this essay, you have stuck to the question, so there can be no objection on that score. However, an examiner might well be disappointed that you have pushed the issues raised by Putnam to one side as being 'beyond the scope of this essay'. They are patently not beyond the scope of an answer to the question set. Therefore, you should say something about them. You don't have to give equal billing to Putnam and Nozick, you are allowed to some extent to pick and choose the arguments that most grip or interest you, but the examiner wants to know that you fully appreciate the relevance of Putnam's arguments to this question.

I would raise a different point. You express uneasiness about the externalist move, and I think that there is some justification for this. It just seems odd, or at least unconvincing, to offer a 'refutation' of scepticism about knowledge based on a redefinition of 'knowledge'. Intuitively, it is very disturbing to consider the BIV or evil demon scenario. It seems paradoxical to claim that this feeling is merely based on a fallacy or wrong understanding of knowledge.

What is needed is an examination of the concept of knowledge, not in terms of 'necessary and sufficient conditions' but rather in terms of *the point* of having a concept of 'knowledge' in our vocabulary.

It is not obvious (to me) that when an individual considers what is or may be the case, the term 'knowledge' has any contribution to make. Outside, it is snowing. I am concerned with whether the snow will get so bad that the traffic will get snarled up on the way home and I will end up being stuck in a bus for three hours, or face the alternative of walking two miles uphill through snowdrifts. So I switch on local radio, which is giving regular updates on the weather situation. I might or might not be convinced that the information is reliable, but either way my question is not, 'Do I KNOW that the snow will not continue through the day at the present rate?' but simply, 'WILL the snow continue or not?'

Needless to say, the question whether I might be a brain in a vat is completely irrelevant to this. Sceptical doubts are empty when no real practical consequences hang on the outcome.

When, if ever, do we ask ourselves, 'Do I know...?'? I would say, outside the philosophy class room, never.

However, as soon as one moves to the third-person standpoint then there is a very real and practical point in raising questions about what other people 'know'. Primarily, this is because of our interest in the reliability of testimony, and assessing who is or is not to be relied on for information on a given topic. So while, 'Do I know?' is rare, 'Does he know?' is common. When I say, 'My wife knows that the snow will continue,' there are two judgements, the judgement I made on the basis of the radio report and a judgement based on considerations of a broadly Nozickian kind. She heard the radio broadcast too, or saw the BBC weather on TV.

In other words, a complete answer to this question would not only outline the externalist objections to the BIV argument, but would also offer some kind of attempted justification for an externalist approach, heading off the worry that we have escaped the sceptical argument by 'changing the subject' and defining knowledge to be something other than what it in fact is, or what we intuitively take it to be.

All the best,

Geoffrey

Difference between perception and introspection

2012-02-14T12:54:00.003Z

To: Alfred M.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Difference between perception and introspection
Date: 6 February 2007 10:07

Dear Al,

Thank you for your email of 26 January, with your University of London essay in response to the question, 'The only difference between introspection and ordinary perception is that introspection reveals aspects of the subject's psychology while perception reveals features of the external environment.'

You have written a very interesting essay which explores the relation between our capacity for perception and powers of reasoning on the one hand, and our emotional or affective character which determines the features in our environment which appear salient to us at a given moment in time.

Obviously, you have done a lot of reading and thinking about the psychology and physiology of cognition, as well as about the nature of knowledge and perception.

However, it is fair to say that you have missed the point of this question.

Let me try to characterize the problem, in a way which I hope will be gripping to you.

Consider first the nature of introspection. We are not now talking about how one deliberates and forms a plan before action, or how one ratiocinates to a conclusion from given data. The basic act of introspection is to become aware of a mental 'object'. I feel a tickle in my left knee. I remember how hot it was in Turkey last year. I experience a pang of regret that I didn't put my name down for that conference.

The tickle, the memory and the pang have meanings which point beyond themselves. But they also appear simply as events in consciousness. As such, my awareness - of the tickle, or the memory of x surfacing in consciousness, or the pang as it hits me - is unmediated. One is tempted to say that there is a subjective aspect which I cannot be wrong about, irrespective of whatever further facts these mental events might point to. I cannot doubt that I feel a tickle at the moment when I feel it. A moment later, I might decide that it isn't a tickle but a tiny sharp stabbing pain, but then at that very moment the subjective character of my feeling has changed.

In short, the subjective mental events which we introspect have an aspect which seems in some sense self-validating. I cannot doubt that I feel x at the moment when I feel it, because, in some sense, there is no distance between the 'I' and its 'object'.

Now contrast the case of perception. As you note, we can sometimes be deceived. Take your red cat. I seem to see a red cat in the middle of the road outside but when I get closer I realize that it is a lady's brown fur hat. Or, as I sip my tenth bottle of beer, my friend Herbie the pink elephant joins me at the bar.

There is no doubt that something is presented to introspection, but there is room for doubt as to what is really out there in the external world.

Some philosophers have used this argument - known as the 'argument from illusion' - to put the case that whereas in introspection we are 'given' objects directly, perception of objects in the external world is always indirect, an inference from what is given to what is out there. In one of its forms, this view is known as the 'sense datum theory'.

This is a very challenging philosophical problem for the theory of perception. If the sense datum theory is correct, the problem of scepticism looms large. We never really perceive objects in the external world, we merely infer their existence from what is subjectively given.

Reacting against the sense datum theory, some philosophers categorically refuse to accept that in cases of erroneous perception, such as my example of the cat or the elephant, any 'object' is immediately given in consciousness. The whole truth about the subject is that he or she 'seems to perceive a red cat' or 'seems to perceive a pink elephant' and nothing further can be done to analyse that mental state. While other philosophers try to tread the thin line of arguing that although there is no such thing as sense data as conceived by the sense datum theory, nevertheless there is a sense in which there is always a content available to us which allows the possibility of referring to the 'seeming red cat' or 'seeming pink elephant' as actual mental entities.

Now, from what you say in your essay, one would naturally conclude that you do not subscribe to the sense datum theory. You say all the things that a proponent of some form of 'direct realism' about perception would say. What the exam question asks for, however, is an argument for this position. And that you do not give.

The following entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy will be helpful:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/perception-problem/

Or you can find references on this topic by looking up 'sense datum theory' in Google.

All the best,

Geoffrey

Why Descartes needs to prove God's Existence

2012-02-13T13:33:00.003Z

To: Pearl K.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Why Descartes needs to prove God's existence
Date: 1 February 2007 12:05

Dear Sachiko,

Thank you for your email of 25 January with your University of London Modern Philosophy essay in response to the question, 'Why was it important for Descartes to prove the existence of God and how well does he succeed?'

This is an excellent piece of work and represents a big step up from anything you have sent me before. In fact, I can't remember another example of an essay on this topic from any of my students which goes into the 'objections and replies' in the way that you have. Well done for that, and for explaining Descartes arguments, especially the trademark argument, with care and attention to detail.

The question is in two parts. As a matter of strategy, my feeling is that if this occurred in an exam you should try to spend as much time answering the question, 'Why is it important to prove the existence of God?' as you do on the arguments for God's existence.

By coincidence, the current issue (Issue 124) of Philosophy Pathways has a very good article by Alfredo Lucero-Montano which, to my mind, provides an interesting new angle on why God is needed by Descartes.

The usual answer - which is the one which you give - is along the lines of:

1. If there's any chance I am being deceived by an evil demon, then I don't know anything other than the fact that I exist.

2. Only the existence of a non-deceiving God rules out the possibility that I am being deceived by an evil demon.

This logically leaves open the possibility that I'm not being deceived by an evil demon but STILL don't know anything for other reasons. So Descartes has to argue for something stronger, to the effect that not only does the existence of God rule out the possibility that I am being deceived by an evil demon, but also God has so arranged the world that when I use my faculties of judgement and perception responsibly, I am able to gain knowledge. Descartes goes to some lengths to explain how it is that we do sometimes form false judgments, despite this favourable arrangement.

More can be said on this, for example, how it is that our sense of what constitutes a 'good explanation' or what makes an acceptable basis for an inductive generalisation corresponds to the way the world in fact is: i.e. the regularities we respond to are the right regularities for gaining a grip on the laws of nature. This is not something that Descartes explicitly discusses in the Meditations but it is part of what he means by a 'world made by a God who is not a deceiver'.

You do refer to the Cartesian Circle, which pads this answer out somewhat. However, that discussion is an answer to the question how well Descartes succeeds in his attempt to prove the existence of God, rather than the question why he needs God in the first place.

The argument in Alfredo Lucero-Montano's article seems to be that, without God, the cogito is not knowledge of an objective truth but merely a subjective state of certainty. I cannot doubt that I exist. But if the possibility of an evil demon cannot be ruled out, then this state of certainty does not amount to any real knowledge of myself qua thinking substance.

This makes the need to prove the existence of God even more urgent. The notion of a self, or thinking subject is without any metaphysical foundation in the absence of a proof of God's existence. That is a big claim, but it helps us to see what Descartes' response would be to the usual objections raised against the cogito, e.g. that it 'only proves the existence of a subject at this point in time', or 'only proves the existence of the thought, not the thinker'. All Descartes needs is a starting point for his argument for the existence of God, nothing more. That is what the 'cogito' (allegedly) provides. Only when God's existence is established is he able to say, with well-grounded confidence, 'I am a thinking substance'.

Regarding the second argument for the existence of God, the ontological argument, what do you think of the claim that Descartes is not guilty of 'making existence a predicate' because he is concerned with 'necessary existence'?

Forget about the cartesian circle for a moment. It does seem not incredible that someone would say, 'I have a clear idea of God as a being which possesses the property of necessary existence.' Surely, if the idea in question is clear, not self-contradictory or incoherent, then that proves the existence of God. Therefore the ontological argument is valid!

Kant's example of thinking of 50 Thales and 50 existing Thalers - there being no difference between the two thoughts - is irrelevant because the 50 Thalers do not necessarily exist. I might have 50 Thalers in my pocket or not. But a being which possesses the property of necessary existence must exist. It's as simple as that.

So, if you are looking to say everything that needs to be said on this topic, you would have to say something about the dubiousness of Descartes' claim that he does, in fact, have the idea of God that he thinks he has. The objection can't merely be to 'necessary existence' as a concept because we want to say that some things do necessarily exist: numbers and sets, or in general pure abstract objects. If you can coherently think of the concept of the null set or the number 0, then the null set or the number 0 'exist'. So why not God?

All the best,

Geoffrey

Implications of the private language argument

2012-02-13T13:27:00.001Z

To: Daniel H.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Implications of the private language argument
Date: 1 February 2007 10:42

Dear Danny,

Thank you for your email of 24 January, with your second essay for the Philosophy of Language program, in response to the question, 'Discuss the implications of the private language argument.'

This question is primarily about what follows if the private language argument (PLA) is accepted. However, in order to determine just what the PLA claims it is necessary to rehearse the main steps of the argument.

Your essay begins well. You are right to emphasise that Wittgenstein has something very special in mind with the notion of 'privacy'. The essential thing about a private language is that a 'definition' cannot be give of the words in the language; they can only be given meaning through inner 'ostension'; only the person who is in a position to view the 'objects' which the words attach to is able to grasp the meaning.

This is very much how we are tempted to think about our own mental life - as consisting of 'objects' which recur in familiar patterns and combinations. Although aware of the fact that we did not teach ourselves to speak, it does not seem incredible that someone could invent a language whose soul task was to describe one's inner life purely as it appears to the subject alone.

We need to say something more about 'definition'. Wittgenstein means anything at all that would enable one to get an external 'hook' on what the subject is referring to. As an example, he considers the possibility that the subject's blood pressure rises every time he reports an occurrence of S. Now, we have our 'definition'. 'S' is the physical process that occurs which leads to a rise in blood pressure, as well as to the reporting of 'S'. The hypothesis that the language is 'private' rules this out. We are assuming that there is no reliable correlation between the 'inner' and the 'outer', no way to tell whether S is occurring or not other than the subject's ability to recognize S whenever it occurs.

Again, you are correct in describing Wittgenstein's argument about memory. The point here is that in the external world, we are aware of a distinction between 'true' and 'false' memories. Objects and events that we remember leave physical traces; our access to them is not confined essentially to memory alone. Of course, there are many cases where in fact all we have is our memory to go on. I would swear I saw that man before - but there's no way I can prove it. This shows that Wittgenstein's objection is not based on 'verificationism'. He is not saying that all memory claims that cannot be substantiated are meaningless. Rather, the argument is that there can be no coherent concept of a 'reality' where there is no distinction, in principle, between 'true' and 'false' memory.

That is not the whole argument, however. Closely coupled with this is the claim that the name 'S' is not capable of being associated with a 'criterion of identity'. Assume for the moment that memory is not a problem; it remains the case that the subject is free to say when a new object sufficiently 'resembles' the previous object to be called 'S' and when it is sufficiently different to not be called 'S'. In the real world, there are 'rules' which we are able to explain and follow. Correctness or incorrectness in following a rule is not a matter of mere subjective decision but practice.

But what about the implications?

You say that 'Wittgenstein's invention and simultaneous refuting of the argument provides a good platform, essentially that language is a public and socially created concept not held solely in the head of the individual, from which he was able to further expand his ideas of language.'

In other words, the implication of the private language argument is that language is essentially a public phenomenon. This is only the beginning, because we then have to consider what these publicly accessible 'rules' consist in, or what it is that keeps our linguistic usage 'on track'.

However, I want to go back one stage. There is something more immediate, which one could describe as an 'implication' of the PLA.

I remember as a child wondering whether what I see as red other people might see as blue and vice versa, even though we agree on the colour names that we use for things like blood or the sky. One implication - which most find mind-boggling when they first encounter it - is that this speculation is nonsensical. In order to conceive of the possibility that what I see as red you see as blue and vice versa, even though we agree in all our public language colour judgements, it is necessary to coin new terms, 'red GK', 'blue GK', 'red DH', 'blue DH' whose meanings are given purely by ostension, just like the sign 'S'.

If you find yourself wavering at this point, imagine that your 'red DH' and 'blue DH' switch round every second, but you do not notice any change because your memory doesn't record it. This is just a version of the spectrum inversion hypothesis, but substituting 'DH at two different times' for 'DH and GK'.

If you can get over that - and I have to admit that even today my intuitions baulk - then you can see just how profound and indeed shattering the PLA is. Descartes' 'thinking subject' - aware with perfect certainty of itself and its experiences irrespective of whether there exists an objective world or not - is demolished in one fell swoop.

All the best,

Geoffrey

Personal identity and replacement by a superior copy

2012-02-09T13:07:00.002Z

To: Francis W.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Personal identity and replacement by a superior copy
Date: 1 February 2007 09:53

Dear Francis,

Thank you for your email of January 22 with the revised version of your second essay for The Possible World Machine, in response to the following question:

'Imagine you are Michael Harding. As you lie injured on the road, you are told that a brain scanner is going to be used to map your memories and personality, and the information used to program the brain of a new body cloned from one of your own cells. The moment the new 'you' gains consciousness, the old 'you' will be painlessly destroyed. How do you feel about that prospect? – Justify your answer by reference to one of the competing philosophical accounts of the relation between mind and body.'

I enjoyed reading this essay. You have gone for the 'brave' option of dualism, while most of my students thrash about trying to answer this question on the basis of the assumption of physicalism.

Your dualism is not 'epiphenomenal' but 'interactionist'. Epiphenomenal dualism accepts that the brain is the source of all thought and experience, but hold that it somehow 'emits' non-physical consciousness which gives us the illusion that we are in control of our bodies, while in reality a zombie whose brain did not produce or emit consciousness would do and say exactly what we do and say.

The classic dualist view, however, was formulated by Descartes in his 'Meditations on First Philosophy'. What is notable about Descartes' attempt to put dualism on a strong philosophical foundation is his rejection of any notion of the soul as 'ethereal ectoplasm', the stuff that Spiritualists think ghosts are made of. In Descartes' words, the soul is not a 'wind or a vapour'. If there is a soul, Descartes argued, it cannot have any of the attributes of body. In other words, a soul has no length or breadth. It is not located in space. Its connection with a particular body is determined purely through causal interaction. Soul A is the soul of body B if and only if A causally interacts with B. The soul is not 'in' a body, but rather hooks up to it through cause and effect.

The claim that the soul cannot have any spatial attributes follows from Descartes' ingenious argument for mind-body dualism. It is logically conceivable, Descartes argued, that I could be having all the experiences I am now having, even if I was being 'deceived by an evil demon' into thinking that there exists a physical world. It follows that anything physical cannot be part of my 'essence', what it is that makes me, me. As a matter of contingent fact, there is a physical world and I have a physical body, but I would still be me without a body or in a reality which was purely mental, made up by the evil demon.

Now, you ask, 'Can the scanner scan Michael's soul?'. Given the above, the answer must surely be no. Not just because the soul is ethereal or insubstantial but because it has nothing in common with the physical.

However, thought experiments can be changed. Instead of a brain scanner, imagine an evil demon who is able to duplicate souls, or swap souls into different bodies. Imagine that one day your best friend starts acting as if he was someone else entirely. Then, the next day, he is back to normal, then the next day someone else entirely and so on. On the assumption that it is the soul that determines 'who we are', a possible explanation would be that an evil demon was having fun and swapping two souls in one body.

If you accept that, then consider the next thought experiment. There is an evil demon who is swapping your best friend's soul on a daily basis. But you do not notice because the two souls are identical in their mental properties.

Come to think of it, how do you in fact know that the 'soul' that you refer to as 'Francis' or 'myself' is in fact the same soul that hooked up to your body one minute ago? All you have are your present memories. As Bertrand Russell once remarked, there is no way to tell, on the basis of memory, that the Earth was not created five minutes ago and we and our apparent memories along with it.

You offer the traditional 'interactionist' soul theory as an explanation of why human beings are the way they are, and all my remarks are based on the assumption that this is true. But you can see from the way these thought experiments are going that there are serious difficulties with the theory as stated.

We have a perfectly good idea of what it means to say that there are two physically identical bodies, e.g. the two versions of Mike Harding. But that is because different physical objects are (as a matter of logic) located in different places. Space is what enables us to identify physical things uniquely. Attributes alone can never do this because you can always conceive of the possibility of a perfect duplicate.

But what about souls? We said that souls do not have any spatial properties. So it doesn't make sense to suppose that there are two identical souls, one 'here' and one 'there'.

We have a perfectly good idea of what it means to say that one and the same object persists through time, while undergoing changes which do not affect its identity. I have a laptop which was once shiny and now and now has a few scratches, upgraded memory, lots of additional software. But it is the same laptop. It has traced a continuous path through space-time.

But a soul does not trace a path. It's identity is determined purely by what it can 'remember'. Yet we have seen that there is no detectable difference between true memories and false ones.

These difficulties have led philosophers to the conclusion that the concept of a soul, as described, is incoherent because it is impossible to establish conditions for its identity, either at one time, or over time.

It is interesting that a lot of what you say about the 'soul' is in fact believed by Scientologists, who have a fanciful theory that human beings are like 'horses' being 'ridden' by tiny (and therefore undetectable!) physical beings from another planet. This theory, although preposterous, at least has the virtue of not being logically incoherent, because the 'soul' in this case (I've forgotten the name they use for it) is a physical entity.

All the best,

Geoffrey

Scepticism and Nozick's truth tracking definition of knowledge

2012-02-09T13:03:00.003Z

To: Alfred M.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Scepticism and Nozick's truth tracking definition of knowledge
Date: 30 January 2007 12:13

Dear Al,

Thank you for your email of 21 January, with your University of London Epistemology essay in response to the question, ''Because knowledge is tracking the truth, the skeptic can be refuted.' Discuss.'

This is very readable, even admirable, in the care you have taken to describe the limitations of the senses and the human mind - limitations which so impressed the ancient skeptics. However, it is fair to say that you have missed the point of the question.

Had you done more reading in this area, you would have been aware that 'knowledge is tracking the truth' is one of the most influential theses in contemporary epistemology, originating with the philosopher Robert Nozick (see his book 'Philosophical Explanations' OUP).

Nozick's idea is based on an 'externalist' view of knowledge, as something that is primarily evaluated from a third-person point of view. The primary question, for an externalist, is how we evaluate a subject's belief that P, given that we are fully in agreement with the statement that P. The challenge is to define conditions which, added to true belief, are sufficient for knowledge. Paul Gettier's famous one-page paper, 'Is knowledge justified true belief' demonstrated, with some simple and elegant examples, that any attempt to define a notion of 'justification' which, added to truth makes knowledge fails because one can always envisage circumstances where the subject's belief is true, and justified, but fails to be knowledge.

As you show in your essay, 'justification' is never absolute proof. We base our beliefs on limited information. There is always much that we do not know. However, the better our justification, the better our chance that we have identified the truth.

Here's an example derived from Gettier (I am elaborating a bit). Jones sees Brown drive to work every day in a 1950s Chevrolet. At weekends he carefully washes it and polishes the bumpers. He refers to it as 'my' car in conversation (as in, 'my car seems to have a problem with the carburettor'). And so on. Jones forms the very reasonable belief that Brown owns a 1950s Chevrolet. However, it turns out that although this belief is true - Jones does indeed own a 1950s Chevrolet - the Chevrolet that he drives to work each day is not his but his brother's which he is looking after while his brother is away in Japan. Brown's Chevrolet is kept in a garage in his brother's house, 100 miles away.

Whatever example one puts forward, one can always 'cook up' a Gettier counterexample. However, specific you try to make the belief in question, there is always some loophole that can be exploited.

Nozick's idea is simple. If we look at the object of Jones' belief - Brown's ownership of a certain car - consider what would happen if changes were made to that object. Consider, e.g. the counterfactual statement, 'If Brown had owned a Ford, then Jones would have believed that...'. A belief 'tracks' the truth if, and only if, any changes to the 'object' of the belief would be, counterfactually, reflected in corresponding changes in the belief.

However, in order to use Nozick's definition to 'refute' skepticism you have to accept the externalist view of knowledge. And even if you do accept the externalist view, it could be argued that skepticism threatens to come back as soon as you try to tighten up the 'tracking' beyond what we normally consider to be sufficient for everyday purposes.

And there's the rub. In your essay, you give a very good internalist defence of knowledge against the skeptic's attack by emphasising the pragmatic aspect of judgement and knowledge claims. Knowledge is for the sake of action, and what is sufficient to make a claim of truth or a claim of knowledge is what, in general, we are prepared to act upon. This, of course, is not fixed because some situations are more dangerous than others. What would count for 'knowledge' in one context would be insufficient in another where the stakes are higher.

I have a slight quibble about the Pyrrhonists. While the limitation of human faculties - by contrast with those of God - fits Xenophanes, Pyrrho emphasised a different point which is closer to the tradition of the Greek sophists, namely, that it is possible to construct a reasoned argument for any conclusion. You can prove anything, with sufficient ingenuity. Obviously, this trades to some extent on the admitted facts of human limitation, but it emphasises a different aspect - which you do indeed cover when you discuss the capacity for ratiocination. However much we strive to think 'critically', we cannot help taking on board unquestioned assumptions from our society or age. This is something that Xenophanes noticed too, when he remarked that the Ethiopians conceive God as being dark skinned.

All the best,

Geoffrey

Anti-realism and altering the historical 'facts'

2012-02-08T13:01:00.004Z

To: David Y.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Anti-realism and altering the historical 'facts'
Date: 30 January 2007 11:02

Dear David,

Thank you for your email of 20 January, with your third essay for the Metaphysics program, in response to the question, ''If the anti-realist account of truth is correct, then it is possible that at some time in the future those who deny the existence of the Holocaust will be asserting its truth.' - Discuss.'

In the unit which discusses the question of 'changing the past', I distinguish between two possible claims: the claim that, P being the case, if the evidence for P were to be tampered with, then at some time in the future it would not be the case that P; and the claim that it is possible to tamper with evidence with the intention of bringing it about that at some time in the future it is not the case that P.

Both these can be dismissed, using the argument that truth is not time-relative. However, without going back on anything I have said, I do have an uncomfortable feeling about this - as if it is just too easy a way to dismiss what seems to be a very powerful intuition: that nothing in reality is permanent. In the future, there will only be that future. Forget about the time we call 'now'. That isn't even water under the bridge because water under the bridge goes somewhere. In the vision of the anti-realist, the only reality is the view from the bridge.

This worry counts more with the idea of a possible future where 'it would not be the case that P'. I am still (relatively) confident that there is something self-contradictory about the intention to bring it about that in the future it will not be the case that P. The very destruction of evidence implies a consciousness of what it is evidence for which cannot be removed except by an act of double-think.

If the only reality is the view from the bridge - the view from where we stand now - then this could be seen as a defence of the argument that truth is not time-relative. We cannot make assertions 'for' the people who will exist in the future; we can only speak for ourselves. And yet (and this is my problem) we seem to be able to contemplate the possibility of such a future, to picture it in our minds as a possible reality which might well happen. Maybe this is just a paradox one has to live with.

In your essay, you suggest an argument which I don't agree with, but then immediately couple it to the argument given above about the impossibility of changing standpoints. The argument I don't agree with is, 'The existence of the Holocaust is (or would be) undecidable - because the evidence has been destroyed.'

Maybe you didn't mean this, but I did more than once come across the objection (I am recalling arguments over realism vs. anti-realism long ago with fellow graduate students) that the present is what it is BECAUSE of the causal chains that have brought us to this point. The innocent looking field which looks as if no buildings have ever stood there is in fact the site of the concentration camp huts and furnaces, every trace of which has been very carefully removed. The mound over there was actually man made, that's how it came to be the shape that it is. And so on.

The argument has no force with the anti-realist, who simply re-iterates that, even if we assume a deterministic world, the causal chains have no more 'reality' than the material objects which compose them. 'Either the mound is man-made or not,' but there is no answer to the question which possible causal chain is the 'actual' one.

I have reservations about your argument over the pronouncement made by Brigitte Zypries. In just the same way as one takes scrupulous care preserving physical relics in a museum, so it is reasonable to make efforts to counter false propaganda. No clearer case can be given than the current battle over the teaching of Darwin in American schools. The argument against Zypries is not metaphysical but rather the one that was powerfully voiced by J.S. Mill in 'On Liberty', in the section on the 'Freedom of thought and expression'. Maybe you are right that Zypries is tempted by metaphysics to see a 'threat' which is in fact not coherently expressible. But even without the metaphysics, the problem she is combating is very real.

I am not as optimistic as Mill that the 'truth will out', no matter what. Even Mill was prepared to prohibit expression of thought and opinion when this was deliberately intended as an incitement to riot. But passing laws against the expression of certain opinions sets a very dangerous precedent which would have Mill turning in his grave.

All the best,

Geoffrey

What holds the world up?

2012-02-08T12:54:00.002Z

To: Katherine A.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: What holds the world up?
Date: 30 January 2007 09:47

Dear Katherine,

Thank you for your email of 21 January, with your first essay for the Ancient Philosophy program, in response to the question, 'Why does the Earth (appear to) stand still? Discuss this with reference to the theories of Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes.'

This is a very readable essay. You are right to emphasise the importance of the tendency to believe that we are the centre of the cosmos.

I can beat your mother-in-law story: when I first started teaching philosophy, I had a student who believed that the Earth was flat. She was a woman in her 70's and a Quaker. When she was 8, someone had showed her a globe and she thought, 'No way.' And that was that. It provided a very entertaining distraction as each of the other students in turn tried, and failed, to 'prove' that the Earth is round.

Of course, it is just conceivable that she was kidding. But she convinced us that she wasn't.

The question is why does the Earth (appear to) to stand still. I put 'appear to' in brackets to make it clear that we are evaluating explanations of a certain phenomenon which we can all agree about. Whether the Earth moves or not, in reality, is something that one cannot tell just from appearances. Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes all sought to explain how it is that this appearance is veridical, and not an illusion.

But DOES the Earth appear to stand still? This might seem obvious. You give the nice illustration of the donkey. Obviously, if the Earth was a donkey you would be very much aware of its movement. But that idea is absurd: if the Earth is a donkey then how is it that everyone manages to fit on it?

In that case, how would something very, very big - as big as the Earth must be in order for everyone to fit on it - appear to move? What possible experience could be an 'experience of a moving Earth'? In earthquakes, the Earth certainly 'moves', but that is not the same as the experience of moving along, as on a donkey traversing a rocky path. If there is nothing that could count as the experience or appearance of an Earth moving along, then it is arguably incorrect to say that the Earth 'appears' to stand still.

According to Thales, the Earth floats on water. (You refer to 'Thales' water spout' but the idea of a spout is more appropriate for Anaximenes, see below.) How good an explanation is this?

In order to evaluate the explanation, we have to start by assuming something which we know in fact to be false: that it is a universal law that 'things fall down' and that there is one, and only one direction which is 'down'.

Things dropped fall to the Earth because things fall down. But the Earth is not itself falling down because the water supports it. However, the question then arises, why the supporting water does not 'fall down'? In the unit I suggest that Thales' idea was, 'If you go down, it's water all the way.' In other words, there is nothing for the water to fall into, no empty space underneath. There is no textual evidence, however, that Thales considered the supporting ocean to be infinite in extent, which is what it would have to be to 'go down' forever.

The main point of Anaximander's ingenious theory, by contrast, is to question the assumption that 'things always fall down'. What if, falling down is only something that happens where there is an asymmetry of some kind? What if, an Earth positioned precisely in the centre of the cosmos stayed where it was because there is 'no more reason' for it to go one way or another. At the centre of the cosmos there is no difference between 'up' and 'down', everything is the same whichever way you look. That seems to have been his idea.

You say, 'Anaximander was not drawn specifically on what kept the Earth supported in mid air.' However, the point of Anaximander's theory is that the Earth does not need any support, because it has 'no reason' to go one way rather than another. If you like, it is 'supported' by the logic of the 'no more reason' argument.

Anaximenes had an ingenious theory of his own. The earth is supported on air. Logically, he would have to say this if he is following Thales lead and identifying the thing that everything is made of (water, or air) with the thing that supports the Earth. There is only one problem with this: air is not very effective at holding things up. So he hit on the brainwave of a continual powerful updraft of air that supports the Earth in the same way as the steam coming out from a boiling pot is able to lift a heavy iron lid. Hence the deliberately provocative claim that the Earth floats on air 'like a leaf'. It took a tremendous leap of imagination to picture the Earth, from a sufficiently wide perspective, as a mere leaf borne aloft in the wind.

All the best,

Geoffrey

Speculating whether what you see as red I see as green

2012-02-07T13:24:00.003Z

To: Stuart B.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Speculating whether what you see as red I see as green
Date: 26 January 2007 11:20

Dear Stuart,

Thank you for your email of 17 January, with your University of London essay in response to the question, 'Could it be that, though we use the same language to describe them, the things you see as red I see as green and vice versa?'

You say exactly what needs to be said about concepts, that what is in question is 'cognitive economy'. My impression is that Ayn Rand, whom you refer to, would largely agree with contemporary philosophers working in this area, like Saul Kripke and Hilary Putnam.

Your essay has taken me on a trip down memory lane. I answered a version of this question in my B.Phil Epistemology and Metaphysics paper back in 1976, the last examination that I ever sat!

You have produced a first-class piece of work. There is very little I can find to criticise. You show a very good grasp of the issues involved and communicate your understanding clearly and forcefully. However, my initial reaction (which I believe would also be the initial reaction of an examiner) is that you had missed the point of the question by assuming from the start a materialist account of perception.

It is only at the bottom of page three that the core of your answer appears, in the critique of the sense datum theory which distinguishes, e.g. the red of the tomato from the 'colour' of the tomato appearance in your consciousness, thereby raising the possibility that your tomato sense datum has a different subjective colour from mine.

As you will probably guess from previous exchanges, my response to the sense datum theory is to invoke Wittgenstein's private language argument. I like the formulation on p. 207 of the Philosophical Investigations because it is purely dialectical, and depends least (if at all) on Wittgenstein's radical view of language: 'Always get rid of the idea of the private object in this way: assume that it constantly changes, but that you do not notice the change because your memory constantly deceives you.'

In terms of the question about green and red, the dialectical point is simply that 'what I see as green', if understood in the sense that the question requires, can only refer to this very moment in time. One could just as easily ask, 'Could it be that, though at this very moment I use the same language to describe them as I did a moment ago, the things I saw then as red I now see as green and vice versa?'

If someone is so brainwashed by the sense datum theory that they are tempted to say, 'Yes' to this question, then one points out that a descriptive term which is only defined at a single point in time for a single item is meaningless. The only use for 'green' or 'red' in this context is as a Russellian proper name, which conveys nothing about the character of the momentary object that it names. (In wanting to attribute 'colours' to sense data, this is a point that Russell himself missed, cf. the famous exchange with a member of the audience to a lecture he gave on Logical Atomism, where he speculated that a sense datum lasts a short length of time. 'I can keep mine going for a minute or two' (!) The lecture is in the collection edited by Marsh.)

In my essay, I was aiming for more, so, like you, I looked for a hypothesis consistent with materialism in terms of which it might make sense, in some possible world, that, 'the things you see as red I see as green'.

You make a good point when you say, 'Perhaps any given brain’s nerve-pulse strings are idiosyncratic consequences of the developmental and experiential histories of the brain involved.' The force of this is that we can't draw any consequences from physical differences described at that level of particularity. This is one of the lessons of functionalism, which, for all one's reservations about the grand project of AI, still gives a plausible explanation of how different physical systems can embody the same 'content'.

My search took me in a different direction. Remembering the famous experiments with inverting spectacles, I speculated that the same trick might be done for the visible spectrum. (This experiment is still performed today in Psychology courses. Subjects are given spectacles which make everything appear upside down. After not too long a time, the subjects no longer 'notice' that things look any different. Then, when the spectacles are taken away, the world looks topsy-turvy again.)

So, imagine a device was implanted in your brain which made you see the spectrum as inverted. This physical change would be manifested demonstrably in your insistence that the tomato is green and that your front lawn has turned red. After a while, you learn to synchronise your colour judgements with those of other users until it becomes second nature. Perhaps the feeling that the world looks strange leaves after a while, or perhaps not.

Now we can legitimately say that the things you see as green I see as red and vice versa. You see the tomato which prompts you to apply the label 'green' and, remembering your training, pronounce the tomato 'red'. It seems reasonable to suppose that as this becomes easier and easier, nothing changes for you subjectively. So even when you respond immediately with the correct colour judgement, what you see is different from what I see.

We can now take this thought experiment a stage further. (This is where things get a bit hairy.) Instead of an implanted device, let's suppose that the changes are made directly to the cells in your retina, e.g. by substituting a particular chemical or chemicals. The result is the same as before, so we have to say what we said before. But now take this a stage further still, and suppose that these chemical changes are encoded in DNA, so that any infant born with the modified DNA has retinal cells like yours rather than like mine.

However, at this stage, one remembers the point about 'idiosyncratic consequences of the developmental and experiential histories'. We don't want to say that the infant with modified DNA sees colours differently from infants without modified DNA. There is no reason that this particular physical difference has any more significance than any other differences between the brains of infants.

- This is a weird result, isn't it?

All the best,

Geoffrey

Leibniz's theory of monads

2012-02-07T13:19:00.001Z

To: Kathleen C.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Leibniz's theory of monads
Date: 22 January 2007 10:05

Dear Kay,

Thank you for your email of 14 January, with your final essay for the Metaphysics program, in response to the question, 'Sketch the main features of Leibniz's theory of monads, with reference to the problems it was meant to solve. How successful is this theory in solving them?'

No doubt frustrated by the brevity of my account of Leibniz, I am pleased to see that you have done some research of your own.

I wish I had said something about the argument that, given that there 'must' be simples (although your riposte, 'Logically, there is no reason why we should ever reach a "smallest" unity' is pretty strong - Leibniz's 'There must be simples because there are complexes' at the beginning of the Monadology is on the face of it a terrible argument) the objects of our perception cannot be composed of 'extended matter' conceived as a substance, since extension is infinitely divisible.

Later, your question, 'If one unit is unextended how can ten or a thousand have extension?' misses the force of this argument. Monads are unextended because there is no such thing as 'spatial extension'. What we see as 'matter in space' is just a representation in the soul, a representation which is relatively clear compared to lesser monads. That is the point of Leibniz's argument.

Why would Leibniz say that there are an infinite number of 'substances', conceived as monads? As you say, according to Descartes, there are three types of substance, God, material substance and mental substance. However, one may regard a Cartesian soul can be regarded as an individual 'substance' in the Aristotelian sense, i.e. a bearer of attributes defined by its accidental and essential properties. What point, if any, would Leibniz be making in opposition to Descartes? Why can't Leibniz equally say that there are two substances, in the sense of types of substance, God and monads?

You say Leibniz chose not to 'incorporate his creation's choices into the universe through the process of selecting compossibles' but surely he would argue that he does. My choice to write to you today is part of my individual concept, and my individual concept is determined by God's choice of this world, amongst all the possible worlds that he might have chosen to create. The idea that monads are 'generated... by continual fulgurations from the divinity' makes sense only insofar as we conceive of the deity in time - i.e. from our limited point of view - whereas in reality god sees the world sub specie aeternitatis. This view, of monads continually depending on God's creative power is in agreement with Descartes' idea that finite material and mental substances exist only so long as God's creative power maintains them in existence. In that sense, as Spinoza observed, Cartesian souls or material objects are not true 'substances' but more like attributes of the infinite divine substance. Logically, monads are in a similar situation to Descartes' finite substances in that they cannot exist independently of a Deity.

It is possible to have another 'take' on Leibniz's 'perception' which downplays the mental aspect. Instead of seeing the universe as made of independent 'bits' assembled together, Leibniz constructs the universe out of perspectives. You can think of a perspective simply as a relational complex. For example, 'the view from the study window' exists independently of whether any conscious being is currently enjoying that view. If you add up the totality of 'views' or 'perspectives' you get the same result as if you add up the totality of bits (the tree on the left, the tree on the right, the house opposite, the window frame, etc. etc.), because in adding up the bits you also have to describe their spatial relations to one another.

Which reminds me that Russell's big point against Leibniz (in his book on Leibniz) was Leibniz's apparent refusal to recognize the 'reality' of relations, as a result of his insistence that every proposition be reducible to subject-predicate form. But from an ontological perspective, is it so clear that Russell's 'external relations' are easier to comprehend than Leibniz's 'perspectives'?

I am glad that you succeeded in finding something attractive about Leibniz's 'dynamic universe'. You might enjoy dipping into A.N. Whitehead, Russell's collaborator on Principia Mathematica, who takes the 'dynamic perspective' idea much further in his magnum opus 'Process and Reality'.

All the best,

Geoffrey

The challenge for physicalism of J.S. Bach's Vollbracht aria

2012-02-06T14:39:00.002Z

To: Reiner L.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: The challenge for physicalism of J.S. Bach's Vollbracht aria
Date: 17 January 2007 12:05

Dear Reiner,

Thank you for your email of 4 January, with your essay for the Associate Award on J.S. Bach's Vollbracht aria.

I was helped in understanding the issues around the 'well tempered scale' by this web page:

http://www.precisionstrobe.com/apps/pianotemp/temper.html

I found this essay gripping. My initial scepticism over whether emotional states produced by musical experience can be used to raise problems for physicalism - or certain varieties of physicalism - has eroded to some extent.

I very much liked your remark, 'Dennett tries to rescue those who might be tempted to tread that dangerous path before even setting out on his own journey of discovery'. The idea of philosophy as an open-ended journey of discovery, immersing ourselves in the problematic facts rather than taking a principled stand against the direction in which they seem to point, is very attractive.

Brillat-Savarin, in his 1796 work, 'La Physiologie du gout', describes in exquisite and tempting detail the ecstasy that can be induced by a great work of culinary art. An exhibition of Don McCullin's Vietnam War photos, or Rothko's canvases, or reading Anna Karenina (see the excellent paper by Colin Radford ('How Can We Be Moved by the Fate of Anna Karenina?' Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supp. Vol. 49, 67-80), can induce similar profound reactions. Yet in each case, one wants to say, the intrinsic character of the experience is fundamentally different, sui generis.

You might object to my inclusion of cooking on the ground that while a great dish can bring joy, it makes no sense to suppose that a dish might be created which induced deep feelings of sorrow (I suppose, the very last roast Dodo but that induces sorrow for reasons extrinsic to the quality of the cooking). But then, the 'joy', 'sorrow' or other deep emotions induced by the music, the photographs, paintings or the text are mere labels for something which, as you argue, is beyond words.

Suppose we put forward the hypothesis, which is consistent with what you say about the experience of the foetus in the womb, that the experience of certain kinds of sound is intrinsically pleasurable. This arguably puts listening music somewhere in between eating and reading. Perhaps in between these two come the pleasures of sight, such as are aroused by a blue sky or colourful flowers. Such a crude arrangement of the data does not take one very far to understanding but it does suggest, for all its crudity, that more than one thing is going on.

As the copious words spilled in literary or art criticism testify, what makes a work sufficiently 'good' or 'great' to be capable of moving us are complex. A competent musician reading the score of the Vollbracht aria must surely feel something, a sense of powerful aesthetic pleasure, admiration for the composition and so on, but something is still missing - perhaps not as much as those who have to rest content with reading 'La Physiologie du gout' rather than tasting the wonderful dishes that Brillat-Savarin describes - but nevertheless a vital component has been left out; the human emotional and physical reaction to musical sounds assembled in a particular way for a particular purpose.

Why does Segovia's rendition of Rodrigo sound so much better than that of amateur musician Joe Bloggs, who plays all the right notes with no mistakes, taking care to give the correct dynamics? Segovia's version is the only one which fully grasps the 'sense' of the music, while Joe's version is like a book read out by a child who doesn't quite understand what he is reading. But then again, that is only the blank form for an explanation.

This is all a preliminary to what I take to be the central argument of your essay. You put forward the following hypothesis: consider the Vollbracht aria played on the modern 'well-tempered' scale and one of the earlier scales. When played with the 'right feeling', the emotional effect is the same. Yet at the same time, as we have seen, different scales in themselves produce different physical effects. How can this be accounted for, on the assumption that the end result of the process is a physical state of the brain?

This is where one has to be careful to distinguish physicalism as a pure ontological claim, and the question of explanation. Explanations collect together phenomena. Depending on the explanation that one is seeking, the very same phenomena can be collected together in different ways. Functionalism is a program which, as its proponents fully accept, has a long way to go before any really interesting explanations emerge. We can only speculate, in the way that Dennett does, one what might be achieved through diligent research.

The explanation of how we perceive musical scales, or how the combinations of frequencies in a single note have different phenomenal characters, how one performance sounds better than another, or how a piece makes us weep may all be different. Perhaps it is absurdly optimistic to suppose that will ever find the answers to their questions; but those questions are worth asking anyway.

As a philosopher, I am unhappy with the idea that there is anything in this wide universe that *in principle* evades explanation - however things may be in practice. That is why I would not go along with McGinn's line about the mind-body problem. But I am also suspicious of programs and quests which sally forth seeking this or that holy grail.

It is difficult for me to judge where you stand on the question of physicalism and qualia. Nothing that you say seems to me inconsistent with a minimalist, ontological physicalism, yet I gain the impression that you have bigger ambitions. If there was any criticism I would make of this essay it is that I am left feeling unclear about what it is that you are arguing for. If Dennett begs the question, then it is still an open question. If we do not yet understand of how the Vollbracht aria moves the mind, I see no argument in principle why such understanding cannot be achieved. But maybe you see things differently.

I noticed a couple of typos, although I wasn't looking for them:

Your spell checker substituted 'conical' for 'canonical'; and it is 'most teenagers' not 'most teenager'.

Also, there is a published reference to my point about the bat. It can be found in 'Naive Metaphysics' on p. 66 ('It is conceivable that I could periodically change into a bat; then I would know what it was like!'). The context is my argument that what is important is not the general quality of the experience, as Nagel wants to say, but its particularity or thisness, 'the very for-itself of this particular cat'.

Thank you for such a stimulating work.

All the best,

Geoffrey

Descartes 'I am a thinking thing'

2012-02-06T14:36:00.002Z

To: Hakeem G.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Descartes 'I am a thinking thing'
Date: 16 January 2007 11:53

Dear Hakeem,

Thank you for your email of 2 January, with your essay in response to the University of London question, 'Explain and evaluate the argument Descartes gives in the second meditation for the claim that he is a thinking thing.'

This is a good piece of work.

In answer to your question, it can sometimes be hard to distinguish between an exposition of the text and a critique. For example, if the meaning of the text is unclear, the process of exposition might well involve putting objections and replying to those objections, with the aim of identifying the most 'charitable' interpretation (according to the so-called 'principle of charity') which involves selecting the one interpretation from various plausible candidates which makes the strongest case.

Having given your philosopher the strongest case, you can then proceed to demolish it (or give reasons why you accept it). This would be the evaluative part of your essay.

Regarding plagiarism. Your worries about using arguments of other philosophers are unfounded. It is perfectly acceptable to say, 'Strawson objects that so-and-so', or 'Strawson argues that so-and-so'. If you are quoting someone who you have talked to or corresponded with (like me) you can just say, 'It has been put to me in conversation that...' without giving the name of the individual involved.

If you are using a direct quotation, you must use quotation marks. If you are quoting indirectly then you should not use quotation marks. For example, Strawson says, 'No entity without identity' (direct quote); or, according to Strawson we cannot talk about an entity or object unless we are able to provide identity conditions for that object (indirect quote).

Now to your essay.

You need to find a way to identify the essential steps in Descartes' argument, without going to the extreme of paraphrasing or giving a precis of what Descartes actually says, paragraph by paragraph. A good exercise is to try to express the content of the argument in numbered steps. What is the least number of words needed to convey the essence of Descartes' argument for the claim that 'I am a thinking thing'?

I would start the essay by identifying two claims in Descartes' statement: first, the claim that I think, and secondly the claim that I am a 'thing'.

What is thinking? You have said quite a lot about this. According to Descartes, acts of thinking can be separated into a purely mental component and a physical component. For example, sense perception as we normally understand it involves a relation to the physical world, but according to Descartes we can separate this into the 'thinking' component, the pure acts of conscious experience, and the physical component, which is their purported relation to the physical world. And so on.

What is a thing? Descartes has something to say about this: a thing is a 'substance'. A substance is something that persists over time, which has essential properties without which it would not exist, and accidental properties which are different at different times.

In your essay you consider to main lines of objection. The first is well known objection that all that he is entitled to claim, in the face of the hyperbolic doubt generated by the evil demon hypothesis is that I exist now. This is not sufficient to establish that I exist as a substance, because a substance persists through time.

I didn't understand the reply which you offered to this objection, in defence of Descartes. Even as a thinking thing, I do not have to believe everything my memory tells me. For example, at breakfast I remember being chased by a green dragon. Later, playing the dream over in my head, I decide that it wasn't a dragon but a tyrannosaurus rex. So I believe my original memory was false. However, in the face of the hypothesis that the evil demon has brought Descartes into existence one second ago, there is no reply.

Your second objection is interesting. This is that in describing his essential nature as a non-physical thinking 'thing', Descartes in fact relies on physical metaphors and concepts. It is impossible to use the language of a 'substance' without bringing in ideas from the physical world. Another way to put this is that we have no idea of what existing as a 'thinking substance' would be were it not for the fact that our experience is 'as of' a physical world.

My feeling is that Descartes can defend himself against this objection. He can accept that he has no idea of what it would be like to be a thinking substance in the absence of experience. In that case, it would follow that in order to bring about the existence of the thinking substance 'Descartes' it would be necessary for the evil demon to create an apparent 'world'. However, this is fully consistent with the claim that Descartes is in reality a 'thinking substance', which can exist even if this appearance is a mere illusion, albeit a necessary illusion.

All the best,

Geoffrey

Knowledge and having good reasons for one's beliefs

2012-02-02T13:34:00.003Z

To: Stuart B.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Knowledge and having good reasons for one's beliefs
Date: 16 January 2007 11:01

Dear Stuart,

Thank you for your email of 2 January, with your essay on the University of London question, 'Does knowledge involve having good reasons for one's beliefs? What are 'good reasons'?'

This reads like a condensed introduction to epistemology. You demonstrate impressive knowledge of the debates over the definition of knowledge. However, on my understanding of the point of the question, you would be marked down by an examiner on the grounds of relevance.

The trouble stems from your statement, 'It is probably safe to assume that the kind of knowledge intended is intellectual propositional knowledge.' But that is precisely the question being asked, or, rather, one half of it.

It does not go without saying that animals or small children have 'knowledge'. This is something that has to be argued for.

And then, supposing that they do, you would have to argue again for the claim that if an adult A believes that P as a result of the same chain of events or circumstances that would lead us to say that child C 'knows that P', it follows by virtue of those very facts that A 'knows that P'.

'Does knowledge involve having good reasons for one's beliefs' is about propositional knowledge. You can make this explicit in your preliminary remarks. We are not talking about knowledge how or about knowledge of in the sense of acquaintance. This is something that it is safe to assume.

On a prima facie reading, the first part of the question is whether it is acceptable, EVER, to say that A knows that P when A does not have a 'good reason' for believing that P. The second part of the question is, what is a 'good reason'?

The structure of your essay does not have to physically be in two parts, provided that you make it explicit that these are the two questions you are answering, in whatever way you choose to answer them. I would tend towards answering the second question first. You can always revise your answer to the second question in the light of the outcome of your answer to the first question.

Going back to the first part of the question, we can start with the issue of whether knowledge entails belief. If knowledge does not entail belief then it follows a fortiori that knowledge does not entail having good reasons for one's belief.

A proposed counterexample to 'knowledge entails belief' might be the nervous schoolboy who knows that Paris is the capital of France but doesn't believe the answer that is forming on his lips. You might have a critique of this example, or be able to find better examples.

But, then, even if we accept that knowledge does entail belief, does that require having good reasons for that belief? Here, it is appropriate to contrast internalist and externalist approaches. However, you need to find some way to bracket the issues that are not directly relevant to the question that is being asked.

It is not obvious to me that an externalist would necessarily deny that 'good reasons' are logically linked to the concept of knowledge, even if one allows cases of knowledge where the subject does not have good reasons. Would it be possible, for example, for a subject to have knowledge who does not have good reasons for ANY of his beliefs? This is arguably covered by the question: Is it the case that possession of some propositional knowledge involves having good reasons for some of one's beliefs? (where the two occurrences of 'some' bind different variables).

Again, an internalist might be prepared to allow that some forms of knowledge do not require 'reasons' because they are in some sense basic or foundational, while insisting that other forms of knowledge must be based on good reasons. Here, the definition of 'good reason' becomes crucial, because it could be said in reply that knowledge of basic propositions is in some sense 'self-justifying' and therefore a 'good reason' for itself.

It is really crucial, especially when you will have just one hour to answer a question in an exam, to focus your essay precisely on the question set.

There are two things that you need to demonstrate in the exam: that you have good knowledge of the topic in question; and that you are able to respond dialectically to the precise sense of the question, in other words, that you are good on your feet. If you fail on either criterion, then you will lose marks.

All the best,

Geoffrey

Difficulties for a materialist view of the mind

2012-02-02T13:31:00.001Z

To: Louis G.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Difficulties for a materialist view of the mind
Date: 11 January 2007 12:17

Dear Louis,

Thank you for your email of 31 December, with your notes on unit 3 of Possible World Machine, and your first essay, in response to the question, 'What difficulties stand in the way of a materialist view of the mind, according to which thoughts, feelings and sensations are ultimately nothing more than processes in the brain?'

Unit 3

You have chosen to give a survey of the different theories or 'isms' that have been put forward in order to account for the phenomenon of mind. You have covered the majority of the main alternatives. One thing that it is important to note is that the character of the problem changed quite profoundly with Descartes who was the first to introduce the idea of substance dualism, with physical and mental substance having distinct and non-overlapping essential properties.

In some ways, recent philosophy of mind has returned to something like an Aristotelian view, which suggests the possibility of a non-reductive supervenience theory consistent with materialism which rejects the possibility of reducing the self or mind to a 'program' as AI theorists like Dennett believe. The idea is that there is, ultimately, 'nothing but' the physical, but these physical events, in the case of mind, can only be described in mental language. Mental events 'supervene' on physical events, but there is, in principle, no 'translation' between the language of physics and the language of psychology.

Neural networks are one possible model for this alternative approach. However, it is not clear at the present time whether the idea of a neural network will in fact prove sufficient to explain the way the brain works, or whether there are other elements involved such as quantum effects or even, as Thomas Nagel has hypothesised, the possibility of going beyond physics altogether.

That might involve explaining the source of the 'psycho-physical nexus' in a theory which is neither strict materialism nor dualism but closer to Whitehead's panpsychism in holding that every physical event has, in some sense, a mental aspect.

In this difficult area, one should not be too quick to dismiss any proposal.

The Walkabout story is intended to raise questions about materialism. However, the protagonist herself succeeds after some struggle in formulating a response which resists the dualist alternative. The upshot is that no mere experience, however described is sufficient in itself to refute materialism.

How one uses the terms 'soul', 'self' and 'mind' is a matter of theoretical and practical utility, which depends on the particular theory which you happen to favour.

Essay

I want to continue the discussion where your essay leaves off, because I am largely in agreement with the view that there is insufficient evidence at the present time that the explanation of the course of our subjective experiences could be reduced to physics and chemistry.

Without the mental aspect, the psychological angle, the observed brain effects are, in your nice simile, like the track of a pin-ball in a pinball machine, apparently random and chaotic.

However, this is not an argument in principle against the AI approach, which likens thought to the running of a program. That's just how things would be, the AI theorist will say (I am thinking, for example, of Daniel Dennett 'Consciousness Explained'). However, the AI theorist is wrong to claim that this is how things must be. At the present time we just don't know. That is to say, it is an empirical question to which we do not, at the present time, know the answer, whether the brain works like a computer or in some radically different way.

However, that leaves out of the picture the biggest challenge that has been raised to materialism, explaining the phenomenon of qualia. I alluded to Chalmers contribution to the debate in my editor's introduction. It seems that it would be possible for a physically identical zombie version of you to go though the physical processes you describe - such as uttering 'ooh' and 'aah' when the islands come into view, or weeping when the radio is turned on - without there being or happening anything 'inside' apart from the physical and chemical processes occurring in the zombie's brain and nervous system. 'I know from my own case', one feels like saying, 'that there is more to me than the physical!'

The problem with this argument - not necessarily an insuperable problem, but you will have to decide that for yourself - is that by hypothesis the zombie version of you (on Twin Earth) also wrote your essay, describing in pregnant detail the riches of your inner experiences and using this as an argument against materialism.

All the best,

Geoffrey

Morality of pre-emptive attacks and preventive war

2012-02-01T14:02:00.003Z

To: David Gregory
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Essay on Pre-emptive and preventive war
Date: 11 January 2007 11:06

Dear David,

Thank you for your email of 31 December, with your draft essay for the Associate award, 'Moral Justification, Pre-emptive Attacks and Preventive War.'

You have chosen a great topic. But there is still clearly a lot of work to do.

Your discussion of whether it is 'better' to be 'ruled by another country' belongs to an essay on pacifism or the ethical justification of self-defence. It does suggest however that the first thing you need to do in planning out your essay is construct a moral defence of war as such. It does not go without saying that it is either morally necessary, or morally justified to wage war in self-defence. By the same token, it does not go without saying that it is morally wrong to wage war for the self-interested purposes of 'pursuing diplomacy by other means' which is arguably the reason why most wars have been waged in human history.

So the pattern of your argument will be in two stages: first, establish that war is justifiable as a means of self-defence, while also acknowledging that it is not justifiable for any other reason. This is a defensible position, though as I have indicated not only position that it is possible to take.

Secondly, after establishing that war is justified only as a means of self-defence, the question arises whether or how this justification extends to pre-emptive and preventive attacks or wars. (I am assuming that either an attack or a war can be either pre-emptive or preventive: if you don't hold this then you need to make this clear, and give your reasons.)

I can see from your essay that this was your general idea. However, the important point is that the argument over pre-emptive or preventive war may very well depend on the arguments you have used to justify war in self-defence.

What is self-defence? There are other things that a state needs to defend itself against besides invasion by a foreign force. Concerted terrorism is one very timely example, especially given the horrific possibility of terrorists gaining control of nuclear weapons, which seems inevitable given the present state of nuclear proliferation.

Critics of Bush argue that the invasion of Iraq was really 'all about oil' as if that were a conclusive argument against invasion. But is that so, in every possible case? Consider imaginary scenarios: a country which has previously supplied the bulk of another country's energy needs cuts off the supply, knowing full well that the effects will be economically catastrophic. Is that not a case for going to war 'in self-defence'? The answer may be obvious to you, but you need to articulate the reasons.

The philosophical work will consist in clarifying just what is meant by 'self-defence', how far the notion can be reasonably extended, the idea being that 'self-interest' alone does not justify war (contra the 'diplomacy' view) without the additional 'defensive' element.

The other main philosophical element is the question of how one assesses probability. Here, it might be useful to contrast the kinds of consideration which apply to prudential calculation of probabilities to the ethical case. For example, is it prudent to build a bridge which has a probability of collapsing in a severe storm with probability P (for 'P' put in anything you like). It is not enough to observe that in the real world we often have to act on probability, which goes without saying. The question is how there can be a rational calculation of probability in a particular case, whether there is any gap between prudence and morality in this regard, and if so how that gap arises.

There is also a possible issue of how a personal prudential or moral calculation differs from one which affects a large number of people.

Your particular arguments, such as the moral requirement that one exhausts every possible alternative, look OK. But consider the possibility that in an actual case, even when we are clear about the philosophical and ethical principles involved, there may be no way to reach a decision over whether it would be moral to go to war or not. Philosophy has its limits.

All the best for 2007,

Geoffrey

The Logos of Heraclitus

2012-02-01T13:59:00.001Z

To: Namet I.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: The Logos of Heraclitus
Date: 11 January 2007 10:03

Dear Namet Ilahi,

Thank you for your email of 31 December with your essay for the Ancient Philosophy program, in response to the question, 'What is the logos and why did Heraclitus think it was important?'

This is a good general summary of Heraclitus' view of the Logos, which raises several interesting issues.

The first concerns your correct observation that the word 'logos' in Greek is a common term which Heraclitus has taken for a special use or meaning. This raises the problem of how one can tell when Heraclitus is using the term in its common sense and when he is using it in his special sense.

You suggest that in the remark, 'One must follow what is common, but although the logos is common, most men live as if they had a private understanding,' Heraclitus is using the word logos in both the 'common' and 'specific' senses.

I would venture the following very simple hypothesis regarding the logos: Heraclitus has a logos, AN account or theory or explanation. He believes that this is the one true account. Therefore it is, for him, THE logos. Everyone has their own theory, their own view. But in reality there is only one true theory, and that is the one that he has put forward.

That is just what truth is: that which is common for all. The claim that there is 'one truth for all', was later challenged by the Sophist Protagoras as we will see in unit 14. However, for Heraclitus, as for the other Presocratics, truth is absolute not relative.

However, there is something additional in this remark which is not captured merely by the observation that the truth is the same truth for all. And that is the suggestion that the logos, being the very substance of the human mind, is available to those who look into themselves, as Heraclitus did (hence his statement 'I looked into myself', which is rather puzzling at first sight). This suggests something almost mystical, beyond philosophy, the idea that by meditation one can discover the ultimate truth by contemplating the nature of one's own mind or soul.

You say several times that the logos is responsible for 'harmony'. There is a sense in which this is true, if we understand by 'harmony' a state of relative stability, which gives rise to a world of identifiable objects and features. However, it is vitally important for Heraclitus that this stability arises out of a constant struggle, the 'back-stretched connection as in a bow or a lyre'. So this is a radically different kind of harmony from the harmony of agreement, where things - or persons - are working together harmoniously for a common goal.

Apart from questions of precise interpretation, however, there is a deeper issue concerning the importance of the logos. Obviously, any philosopher who puts forward a theory after deep study and reflection thinks that their theory is 'important'. Moreover, Heraclitus demonstrated in numerous ways his fanatical dedication to the cause of philosophy and reason. But it seems to me that there is also a specific reason in Heraclitus' case.

The Logos Heraclitus has put forward is, he claims, the truth. It is important to know the truth. Moreover, the Logos tells us the truth about ultimate things and it is especially important to know the truth about ultimate things. But that goes without saying. There is something else, which we discover when we compare the logos of Heraclitus to the logos (in the common sense) of any of the other Presocratic philosophers: and that is that there simply IS nothing else.

All the other Presocratic Philosophers believed in substance. Their different accounts of the cosmos all agreed on one point: that there is something permanent which is there at all times, the very stuff of reality, even while phenomena shift and change. But that is not so for Heraclitus. Apart from the phenomena there is nothing but the logos, the permanent law governing appearances. This was his great legacy to the history of philosophy.

The interesting question remains whether we should view the theory of a universe in process as a contribution to physics, or to metaphysics. I remark on this in the unit on Heraclitus. Either way, the Logos of Heraclitus acquires a different level of importance.

All the best,

Geoffrey

Philosophical problem of weakness of the will

2012-01-30T13:44:00.002Z

To: Frank Z.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Philosophical problem of weakness of the will
Date: 9 January 2007 13:07

Dear Frank,

Thank you for your email of 29 December, with your first essay for the Moral Philosophy program, in response to the question, ''No-one ever does wrong knowingly.' - Why is that a paradox? Explain the philosophical problem of weakness of the will.'

Thank you for pointing out the similarity between the Socratic maxim and Christ's 'Lord, forgive them for the do not know what they do.' It had never occurred to me to consider this in the light of Socrates' principle that virtue is knowledge.

If I consider what I originally thought was the meaning of Christ's statement on the cross, it would be something along the lines of, 'They don't know WHO I AM.' If the soldiers who nailed Jesus to the cross had known who he was, they would not have done what they did. No-one would knowingly kill the son of God. However, this is lack of factual knowledge, rather than lack of moral knowledge.

That's the first thought. However, it does seem to me on reflection that much of the language of the New Testament reflects the Socratic idea that knowing what is the morally right thing to do and doing it are one and the same. I would suggest that it is not altogether implausible that Jesus knew more than a little of Greek philosophy.

I like what you say here: 'The subtle truth may be hard to accept or even understand. At times, such statements may also seem to be logically impossible.' This is a good point to make. Socrates was not saying something obvious, and he knew this. Plato's 'Republic' describes the arduous journey which the philosopher must take in order to perceive the light of the Good. Everything that we believe from day to day or for practical purposes is just opinion, nothing more, just useful maxims for living in our darkened cave. Knowledge is something very rare and special. Very few people have moral knowledge, most only have moral opinions (which may, nevertheless be true, an important point).

Following this line of thought, only the philosopher does right out of moral knowledge. The majority of us learn the rules of our society (a society which according to Plato would ideally be ruled by philosophers).

However, there remains the wider issue which does not necessarily relate to ethics or morality, as I try to show in unit 2. We regularly 'do wrong' to ourselves, we are 'imprudent'. And this is harder to explain. How is it that an individual can know, e.g., that a certain action would have very bad consequences for him or herself - and yet still do it?

There are two lines of explanation: either doing this action (e.g. accepting the cigarette) is simply irrational, something that we feel mentally compelled to do despite all reason; or, there is a more subtle account to be given in terms of knowledge and self-deception. I incline to the view that one should posit irrationality only as a last resort. For example, in the example of the cigarette, there is an overwhelming desire to smoke, but also the clear memory of what the doctor said ('I predict that with your emphysema if you carry on smoking, you will be on an oxygen machine in two years.') It is madness to smoke. And yet the person does it. At the moment of accepting the cigarette, the subject genuinely believes that 'It is only one cigarette, I can stop any time I like.'

How does this come about? Knowledge is a much more complex thing than we commonly suppose. You can know a fact (e.g. that you have incipient emphysema) and yet not really *know* it, that is, appreciate it for what it is. Or you can know how bad you are at keeping to your resolutions, and yet fool yourself into thinking that in this case you are not 'really' breaking your resolution.

Getting back to morality, I don't accept that 'the truth is morality is egoistic and conditional'. What is true, in my view, is that each person has to make moral judgements for him or herself. There are no general rules, each case must be considered on its merits. History has shown repeatedly how the 'general rules of a particular society' can be wrong (e.g. slavery, human sacrifice). But judging for oneself is not the same as being egotistic.

If there is any objective basis for morality (as I will argue there is) then, just as in the example of Plato's Cave, if you know and appreciate this fact clearly then you cannot act in an egoistic way. Cases where an individual 'yields to temptation' and does something which he or she 'knows' is immoral are like the smoking example: a trick that one plays on oneself, a form of self-deception.

All the best,

Geoffrey

Justifying the law of excluded middle

2012-01-30T13:38:00.004Z

To: Catherine H.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Justifying the law of excluded middle
Date: 9 January 2007 12:19

Dear Catherine,

Thank you for your email of 29 December, with your University of London essay in response to the Logic 2006 paper question 'What kind of justification can be given for the law of excluded middle? Is it convincing?'

Although you clearly felt that your response to the question is inadequate, you have in fact covered the main issues (perhaps guided by the examiners' report!).

The most important point to make is that the law of excluded middle, P or not-P, is NOT the same as the law of bivalence, 'Every proposition has the value true, or the value false.'

The law of excluded middle is a law of logic. The law of bivalence describes a semantic model for a system of logic, in this case classical logic. A seminal essay to read about this is Michael Dummett's British Academy lecture 'The Justification of Deduction' (reproduced in his collection 'Truth and Other Enigmas' Duckworth).

If you haven't already done so, read up in an elementary logic text book (e.g. Guttenplan 'Languages of Logic') about truth tables and the difference between syntax and semantics. A logical system is defined by its syntax, the connectives and the rules governing them. The semantics describes the intended interpretation. Thus the 'truth table' for the connective 'v' (inclusive 'or') is as follows:

P Q P v Q

T T T
T F T
F T T
F F F

In other words 'P v Q' is only false when both P and Q are false.

Applying this to the special case of 'P v -P' (P or not-P) we get:

P P v -P

T T
F T

In this sense, the law of bivalence 'justifies' the law of excluded middle. What the essay asks is whether this justification is convincing.

One obvious objection is that the idea behind the rule, 'P or not-P' just is the idea of bivalence. However, it is not difficult to show that the two notions - excluded middle and bivalence - are in fact distinct.

Consider a statement about the future, 'CH will pass the Logic exam'. On Aristotle's view of 'future contingency' there is no determinate 'fact' about the future, in virtue of which that statement, asserted now, 'has' a determinate truth value. The future doesn't 'exist' yet. However, it remains the case that there is no middle possibility in between 'CH passes the Logic exam' and 'It is not the case that CH passes the logic exam' (as in your example from Russell, note that we are taking care to use 'not' in its primary occurrence). Every possible future history - including a future where the universe is obliterated before the date of the exam - is one in which either 'CH passes the Logic exam' is true or one in which 'It is not the case that CH passes the Logic exam' is true. (But note that we are in fact invoking the law of bivalence for each possible future history.)

The biggest challenges to the law of excluded middle, as you note, are from examples of unverifiable statements - including statements of unrestricted generality - and examples of vague statements. For verifiability, Dummett's essay 'Truth' (also in the above collection) is the place to start. Dummett uses the example of intuitionist mathematics to describe an 'anti-realist' view of the world which sees things 'coming into existence when we probe' rather than existing independently of our knowledge.

In mathematics, classical logic allows one to prove conclusions which are not provable in intuitionist logic. In his essay 'Truth' Dummett gives an example of an attempt to do a similar proof in the case of an empirical proposition. Either Jones, who died never facing a situation which required bravery, was brave or not. Therefore, there is something which existed in Jones by virtue of he possessed bravery or failed to possess bravery. I find this unconvincing. To speculate that 'It is not the case that Jones was brave' (i.e. with 'not' in its primary occurrence) leaves it open whether we are considering that Jones actually possessed an attribute of character inconsistent with bravery, or whether we are merely considering - without any extra assumptions - the absence of the attribute of bravery.

Similarly, in the case of vagueness, Sainsbury's pornography example appears to show that matters of fact can be fallaciously inferred from cases of excluded middle. But this appearance is superficial. Once more, we need to pay heed to whether 'not' is in its primary or secondary occurrence. Either Fred is an adult, or it is not the case that Fred is an adult. However, to derive the unacceptable consequence, one needs the additional premise that if it is not the case that Fred is an adult, then he is a child.

Susan Haack in her book 'Deviant Logics' describes various alternative systems of multi-valued logic which have been put forward for a variety of motives, including the perceived need for a logic which works for vague statements. However, it is not clear that any system of logic, with however many values, solves the problem of vagueness.

All the best,

Geoffrey

Philosophy of language: words and world

2012-01-30T13:37:00.001Z

To: Mark H.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Philosophy of language: words and world
Date: 9 January 2007 10:57

Dear Mark,

Thank you for your email of 28 December with your, 'Internet Blogging on Language and Linguistics', your email of 29 December with the first version of your first essay for the Philosophy of Language program, 'Words and Worlds' and your email of 30 December with the extended version.

A couple of things before I start:

It was A.N. Whitehead (Russell's collaborator on 'Principia Mathematica') who in his magnum opus 'Process and Reality' said 'The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato' (Process and Reality Part II, ch. 1, sec. 1).

The later rather than the early Wittgenstein said that it was his task to 'shew the fly the way out of the fly-bottle' ('Philosophical Investigations' para 309).

-=-

Your essay starts with the question of the logical analysis of vague statements. It is not clear from what you say whether you think that such analysis is either necessary, possible or impossible.

'Defining the concept clearly', admitting the relative nature of the attribute', or (or, 'and so') 'allowing a sliding scale' are all proposed general solutions which do not in fact work.

The utility of vague terms lies precisely in the fact that they do not have precise definitions. Most of the terms in our language are in fact vague, or have a dimension of vagueness.

The relativity of attributes is a different phenomenon from vagueness as such, as is the phenomenon of attributive adjectives. This is shown by the fact that we can produce any number of versions of the Sorites paradox which do not depend on such relativity.

Again, a sliding scale is just another useful way of sorting objects which is itself infected with vagueness. An object is either grey or not grey, warm or cool (it is of course irrelevant to the question of vagueness as such that observations such as these are observer dependent).

Vagueness is a difficult challenge, whichever way you take it: either as a challenge to provide an adequate analysis - to my knowledge this has not yet been done - or as a challenge to provide an alternative model for what is actually achieved in acts of linguistic communication.

As I remarked in an earlier email, Wittgenstein did not accept Russell's characterization of his project in the Tractatus, as 'seeking an ideal language'. This brings his early philosophy closer to his later philosophy, because he always held that our language, as it is, is fully adequate to do what we do with it. The difference - which is profound - is that in the Tractatus he claimed that what we do with language is picture 'facts', or assert 'propositions', while in his later philosophy he described the radically different theory of language games, which you talk about in the second part of your essay.

While both the early and late Wittgenstein 'had great confidence in the ability of everyday language to convey significance', the early Wittgenstein was led to the project of symbolic construction, not as an improvement on ordinary language, but rather in order to reveal the logical structure that actually exists underneath the skin of ordinary language.

The statement you quote from Wittgenstein, 'Like everything metaphysical the harmony between thought and reality is to be found in the grammar of language', is intended as a deflationary claim. There is no metaphysics. There is only grammar, which we mistake for metaphysics. He is not making a claim about the mystical harmony of thought and reality. Wittgenstein's 'mysticism' is reserved for questions of aesthetics and value, our sense of the meaning of life - all questions which escape language, as he defines it.

The claim that 'meaning is socially constructed', therefore the witch persecutors of Salem or the Sharia courts are necessarily in the right cannot be derived from 'meaning is use' without the use of additional, and very questionable premisses. Our ordinary language 'is all right as it is'. We have the resources to seek justification and question belief, even in cases where acceptance of a given word seems to imply acceptance of the belief which it embodies. As Oscar Wilde said in his trial, '"obscenity" is not one of my words' (see my glasshouse notebook 2, page 65). You can refuse to use a word, or deliberately use it with a different meaning (like 'nigger', said by a rapper). But much more is being 'done' than appears on the surface.

However, I would not go so far as to assume that we can say anything, or that there are no limits. There has been discussion recently of the question whether the human mind is incapable of discovering the solution to the mind-body problem, as claimed by Colin McGinn. Might there be limits, which we cannot see? This is the frustrating thing about limits, that you don't see them.

I am not arguing that 'therefore' there are limits, or that any of the limits that have been claimed are limits, but simply that we don't know. We don't know what it would take to create a 'language' that successfully limited thought (as attempted in Orwell's '1984'). Maybe it is ultimately an empirical question, like the fact that some people are just smarter than others. Maybe there is a limit to just how 'smart' we can be - or there again maybe not.

All the best,

Geoffrey

Parallels between theories of space and theories of time

2012-01-26T12:52:00.002Z

To: Gordon F.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Parallels between theories of space and theories of time
Date: 8 January 2007 11:42

Dear Gordon,

Thank you for your email of 26 December, with your final essay for the Possible World Machine, in response to the question, 'What illuminating parallels can be drawn between a philosophical account of the nature of space and a philosophical account of the nature of time?'

So my guess that you were inspired by McTaggart seems to be correct! I take it that, like McTaggart, you are responding to the challenge of creating something analogous to time without temporality as such (the A-series) but more time-like than mere 'spatialised' time (the B-series).

I feel ever more confident that you will read Alexander, Whitehead and McTaggart with great pleasure.

Space and time

I didn't have any particular parallels in mind when I composed this question. An obvious one would be the question of infinity vs finitude explored by Kant in the Antinomies of Pure Reason, in the second part of the Critique of Pure Reason. ('Space is finite' vs 'Space is infinite', 'Time has a beginning' vs 'Time does not have a beginning'.)

However, the theme which emerges for me is much more to do with the lack of parellism between space and time. As I see it, this comes out in two ways:

Richard Swinburne, in his excellent book 'Space and Time' gives an intriguing argument for a disanalogy between the claim that it is logically possible to have an unoccupied space, and the claim that it is logically possible to have a period of time without any events. (I may have mentioned this before, sorry if I'm repeating myself.) The argument goes like this:

Imagine a space containing several objects. Now take the objects away, one by one (don't ask how, just annihilate them - we are investigating logical, not physical possibility). At last, we take away the final object and the space is empty. Now try to put one object back. There is no 'place' to put it because place is logically defined in relation to existing objects.

Now consider time. The universe comes to a halt for one minute. Then it starts up again where it left off. No-one is the wiser. No clue is left. By contrast with space, this is logically possible, because the time when the universe was at a standstill is fixed, determined by its relation to the previous times and the times that came after.

This suggests a disanalogy between time and space, and also suggests a possible reason for claiming that time is capable of 'making boundaries' in a way that space is not.

As you argued, every spatial boundary is a mere transition from one kind of 'stuff' to another. Whereas the mere passage of time is intrinsically 'boundary-making'. That's just an idea - I haven't anything more to say about it.

The second point is for me the more fundamental: McTaggart is wrong. The reality of the A-series cannot be denied on the basis of a mere claim about logical inconsistency. What McTaggart's argument succeeds in showing is that it is impossible, using language (and there is admittedly no other means of expression) to say what the passage of time consists in, no way to express the fact that the time is now: just as there is no way to express the fact that I am I. My conclusion from this is that a complete metaphysical description of reality must acknowledge 'indexicality' as an aspect of what is real. The eternal view cannot capture the nature of time. Time adds something to the world which cannot be seen from a viewpoint sub specie aeternitatis.

This is what I argue in my book 'Naive Metaphysics', although the main emphasis is on 'I' rather than 'now'. In fact, what I am arguing for is the undeniable reality of the 'I-now'. If this leads to inconsistency, then we must embrace inconsistency. That's the price you have to pay for attempting to tell the whole truth rather than just the part that you can conveniently package into a consistent philosophical 'theory'.

You are fortunate indeed to be able to feel that you have a lot of work still to do on your project. I hoped this too when I wrote my book: but instead my metaphysical investigations came to a dead end. The Metaphysics program managed to find more things to say that aren't in the book, but the clash between the objective and subjective worlds - or the world of 'I-now' and the world of 'all that is the case' - is one that I have never succeeded to this day in elaborating on or taking a step further. Maybe I am wrong and McTaggart (or Mellor, see his book 'Real Time') is right. The discovery that this was the case would at least be a spur to further investigation. But I'm not counting on it.

Anyway, I've enjoyed our correspondence on the central questions of philosophy. I have a strong feeling that your thoughts and ideas have developed a lot through our exchanges. I have certainly found your contributions very stimulating.

All the best,

Geoffrey

Parmenides' argument for the proposition 'It is'

2012-01-26T12:48:00.002Z

To: Namet I.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Parmenides' argument for the proposition 'It is'
Date: 8 January 2007 10:43

Dear Namet Ilahi,

Thank you for your email of 24 December, with your essay for the Ancient Philosophy program in response to the question, 'Analyse and give a commentary on Parmenides' argument for the proposition, 'It is'.'

This is an accurate and well judged summary of Parmenides' argument.

However, the big question facing anyone grappling with Parmenides is why he insisted on asserting the exclusive alternative, 'It is and cannot not be' or 'It is not and must not be'.

You tantalisingly offer a one sentence explanation: 'These conclusions are based on the argument that one can never prove the non-existence of something.' In itself, this claim is not altogether implausible, so let's see how it goes. How would you go about proving the non-existence of unicorns? We could conduct a very thorough survey, but there would be no way to be sure that a unicorn had not existed in the dim distant past, and died without leaving a trace. Or, even if we were sure that no unicorns exist or ever existed on Earth, there is still the rest of the universe to explore.

However, the problem does not have to be put in those terms. It is not so difficult to prove the non-existence of a unicorn sitting at this desk typing these words. An observer only has to look. Being a human being is, by definition, inconsistent with being a unicorn. In other words, the fact or facts in virtue of which it is true that there is not a unicorn sitting here are that there is a human being sitting here.

In this sense, it might be claimed that every negative is a necessary negative. It is not necessary that a human being was sitting here. My seat might have been occupied by a unicorn. But as a matter of contingent fact, this not the case. My seat is occupied by a human being. And it follows by logical necessity from this fact that it is not occupied by a unicorn. 'All determination is negation,' as the Medieval principle says.

It might seem that I am labouring this, but we are faced with the hugely puzzling fact that Parmenides refused point blank to accept this account. Why?

In the unit on Parmenides, I try to give a possible explanation. I am not at all confident that it is correct. There are other explanations.

This is the 'game' that Parmenides scholars play, either trying to find the most plausible explanation for a view which they agree is false, or finding some novel interpretation in terms of which Parmenides turns out to be saying something true after all.

For example, it has been claimed (I seem to recall, originally by Karl Popper) that Parmenides is talking about 'the truth' as such. Either there is such a thing as 'the truth' or not. Belief in the existence of 'the truth' is the way of sanity and reason. Disbelief is the way of insanity and chaos. The battle between 'realists' who believe in truth, and 'anti-realists' or 'constructivists' is one of the major themes of 20th century philosophy. However, if this interpretation is correct, it is hard to see why Parmenides thinks it follows that change and differentiation must be excluded from the reality of 'it is'.

And what about the 'third approach'? This is the other intriguing question. You offer the explanation, 'This could happen when two persons discuss an object about whose attributes their knowledge differs - one may know the attributes 'a' to 'm' and the other the attributes 'h' to 'n'.'

I wonder about this. When two people know different things about an object, they don't necessarily disagree - in fact, if we are talking about knowledge then logically this rules out disagreement. If there were any disagreement, e.g. whether or not the object had attribute 'c', then as a matter of logic one of the two people must be wrong. Either the object has 'c' or it doesn't. But in that case, there is no claim, 'it is and is not'. If the object has 'c' then it has 'c' and it is wrong to assert that it does not have 'c'.

What exactly are the alternatives? Let's run through this again:

(a) It is. Parmenides' theory of the One is correct.

(b) It is not. There is no 'One', no 'truth', no 'reality' or however you want to describe it.

(c) What most muddle-headed mortals believe, that some things are 'real' and 'true', but other things are 'not', whatever that means.

To me, this is the especially striking part of Parmenides argument. He seems to be saying, in effect, 'You already half-believe what I'm trying to tell you, but you want to have things both ways. You refuse to accept the full logical consequences.'

What I would like to suggest is that this provides an extra handle on the argument for 'It is'. Whatever that argument may be, it has to be one which identifies something which we already 'half-believe'. All Parmenides is doing is rigorously (so he believes) following through the logical consequences of that belief.

All the best,

Geoffrey

Strawson on freedom and resentment

2012-01-25T13:11:00.001Z

To: Anthony L.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Strawson on freedom and resentment
Date: 22 December 2006 13:04

Dear Tony,

Thank you for your email of 19 December, with your University of London essay in response to the question, 'According to Strawson, what can make it inappropriate to feel resentment towards someone? Is he right to think that belief in determinism would not make it inappropriate?

This is my last response letter before the holidays, and frankly my immediate reaction was, 'my brain hurts'. I don't know if Strawson's theory covers that. Not that I'm in any way resentful and being presented with such a challenging essay. But the point is that the aim of this email is to engage with your argument. How is engaging with someone's argument different from reacting in a determinist way? I hope you can see the relevance here.

In other words, an analogous argument to the one Strawson puts forward can be developed in relation to philosophical discourse. I can engage with your argument. Or I can assume that you are not thinking rationally or are merely exhibiting the symptoms of some kind of brainwashing, and find the best way to 'deal' with you. Interestingly, I don't recall any philosopher arguing that determinism shows that philosophical criticism is not rationally justified! (Richard Dawkins comes close with his theory of memes, but then he's not a 'philosopher'. Then of course there's Marx...)

Regarding your question about preparation, my advice would be to dive into the journals and online discussions or any books that come your way and enjoy the extra time for reading and thinking. Maybe start a philosophical notebook. Don't allow yourself to get stale. Don't let concern over performance in the exam tempt you into overly narrowing your focus. You have a good chance of getting an excellent mark, but on the day there's always an element of luck.

If you're someone who gets nervous in exams then by all means do some practice essays. I never did.

Essay

Regarding the wording of the question, I wonder whether you shouldn't have given more space to developing the cases where resentment is inappropriate (section 2). Is it really so easy to distinguish the two broad classes of case, the one's were resentment just 'is' appropriate and the ones where it just 'isn't'? How does this work? Take the example of someone who is under 'massive emotional strain'. Isn't that precisely where we have to make an extra effort to 'meet' them on a personal level rather than merely 'dealing' with them?

Someone bumps into me by accident in the pub and spills beer on my new shirt. I will make it known in no uncertain terms that the offending individual owes me an apology even if he or she is completely innocent of carelessness (say, they were pushed by someone else). So, here too, the distinction doesn't quite seem to work.

Strawson's account is powerful and subtle. But I would also argue that something vital is missing from Strawson's theory. This is the need to explain the rationality of 'arguing' against something that someone has already done. How can it make sense to say, 'You shouldn't have done that', and go on to explain why, given that we accept that at no point does determinism allow any real possibility the considerations that we put forward might have been taken into account? In other words, we don't just 'feel' something, a sense of resentment or offence, we put a case. What exactly are we doing?

I do think that you are overly hard on Strawson. For example, you accuse him of 'mixing up' factual judgements and value judgements, in talking of cases where resentment doesn't 'fit' (I'm trying to find a neutral term). There's no mystery about how you can derive value statements about reactive attitudes from factual statements about reactive attitudes, if we assume as Strawson does that things are as they ought to be. We do (in fact) deal with one another on an interpersonal level, although there is always the permanent possibility of choosing not to do so. Strawson believes that something is lost (value) whenever we give up interpersonal discourse and make do with 'dealing' with someone.

However, there is room for raising the question whether we should be less resentful than we are, as some philosophers (notably Spinoza) have advocated. Perhaps you wanted to say this, that in assuming that things are as they should, Strawson has neglected the possibility of something better, rather than worse, than 'interpersonal discourse' as he describes it.

I don't think Strawson is confused in his claim that people to whom we take the objective attitude are 'abnormal'. There is no inconsistency in asserting that the majority of cases are 'abnormal' (supposing that CJD becomes rampant) in the same way that had the secret Nazi counterfeiting plan worked, the majority of British bank notes would have been forgeries. It could even happen that as a result of the epidemic you are the only 'normal' person left in the world: a nice subject for a science fiction story.

All the best to you and yours for 2007!

Geoffrey

Berkeley's argument against material objects

2012-01-25T13:08:00.002Z

To: Kathleen C.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Berkeley's argument against material objects
Date: 22 December 2006 11:46

Dear Kate,

Thank you for your email of 19 December, with your fourth essay for the Metaphysics program, in response to the question, 'Critically discuss Bishop Berkeley's argument against the existence of material objects.'

This is a nice, clear summary of Berkeley's position. What I missed, however, was engagement with the argument against matter. Are you persuaded by the argument? Or is it obvious that the argument is false?

Two explanations suggest themselves:

The Locke connection. At the beginning of your essay, you remark that Berkeley, 'took Locke's distinction between the world as it is in itself and the world as we perceive it a step further by denying the existence of matter, the constituent of Locke's "world as it is in itself".'

First, I should remark that the notion of the 'world in itself' sounds much more like Kant than Locke. What Locke does do, in his Essay, is pour scorn on the traditional idea of substance as 'something I know not what' which underlies the primary and secondary properties which we perceive. (Locke gives the example of the primitive belief that the world rests on a tortoise which rests on, etc. etc.) However, Locke has a positive, non-metaphysical account of the ideas of substance and real essence which makes clear that there is no 'metaphysical' claim involved in the assertion, e.g. that a table is an individual 'substance' with primary and secondary qualities, or that wood and water are general types of substance etc.

The traditional view of Berkeley amongst analytic philosophers is that his argument for immaterialism is just a bad argument, and that the only way to understand why he was motivated to put it forward in the first place is because he was reacting to an equally bad theory put forward by Locke. This view has changed, especially with J.L. Mackie's excellent book 'Problems from Locke' (Oxford) which makes the points I've made above.

So, if Berkeley's theory cannot be seen as merely showing the absurd consequences of Locke's position, either it is just rubbish or the argument is better than the traditionalists have claimed. John Foster's book 'The Case for Idealism' (RKP) is evidence that Berkeley's arguments are, once more, being taken seriously - as I try to do in the program.

Second explanation: As you present it, an essential component in Berkeley's theory is the existence of God. Surely, it is a lot easier (at least, for an unbeliever) to believe in matter than to believe in God! Berkeley has taken an idea which is, admittedly, problematic and replaced it by one which is more problematic. But that ignores the fact that Berkeley believes that he has a crushing argument against belief in matter. We have to accept whatever consequences follow from that.

Belief in God is a consequence of Berkeley's theory, not part of the theory itself. Indeed, as you will have discovered from your reading, Berkeley presents his theory as an analysis of statements about the objects of perception in terms of subjunctive conditional statements. 'There is a chair in the study' is translated as, 'If you were to look in the study you would see a chair.' That's just an illustration, in fact it becomes quickly apparent that things are much more complicated than that because every term for a 'substance' that appears in the conditional statements itself requires the same analysis.

There are two arguments against this: the first, general argument, is that we have no idea of 'conditional facts'. If a subjunctive conditional is actually true, there must be some non-conditional facts in virtue of which it is true. This takes us back to God, or something that serves the role of God such as Kantian noumena.

The other argument derives from Kant's refutation of idealism. It is in fact impossible to talk about the non-material entities (sense data) which figure in the conditional analysis. All concepts are necessarily concepts which apply to an external world. As we have seen, this is not enough to refute idealism in the wider sense, but only one version.

What about science? Berkeley was hostile to the corpuscular theory, embraced by Locke, for whom corpuscles represent the 'real essence' of the material objects we perceive. However, arguably, he needn't have been. If he is prepared to allow the investigation into causal relationships between phenomena (as you explain), then it is a perfectly acceptable part of such investigation to employ hypothetico-deductive theories which posit unobservable entities and derive testable consequences. This leaves Berkeley with two alternatives: either to claim that the unobservables exist as ideas in the mind of God - a perfectly reasonable position - or take an instrumentalist or pragmatist view which accepts the usefulness of the corpuscular hypothesis in deriving empirically testable theories.

All the best for the holidays and 2007!

Geoffrey

Gettier on knowledge as justified true belief

2012-01-24T13:53:00.002Z

To: Stuart B.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Gettier on knowledge as justified true belief
Date: 21 December 2006 13:07

Dear Stuart,

Thank you for your email of 14 December, with your University of London essay in response to the question, ''Knowing that P is at least a matter of having a belief that P which is both true and justified.' Is this an adequate definition of knowledge? If not, how should it be improved?'

My first reaction is that it is a bit of a 'trick' question. The correct response is to say that 'A is at least B, C and D' can never be an adequate definition of A because in order to have a definition you need necessary *and* sufficient conditions. That would be my first sentence.

Now the question splits into two parts. Are truth and justification each necessary for knowledge? (discussed in our previous exchange); and are the conditions put forward jointly sufficient as well as severally necessary?

I was momentarily alarmed when you stated, 'this single sentence does not provide an adequate understanding of just what is meant by either 'true' or 'justified',' because it looked as if you were going to base your essay around this point. If the question had said, 'A causing B is at least a matter of A occurring before B in time', it is obviously irrelevant to object that 'the simple sentence offers no guidance as to which notion of 'time' is being referred to.'

However, as you go on to show with your exhaustive survey of responses to Gettier, we are in fact very much concerned with different notions of 'justification', if not of 'truth'.

In a couple of places you allude to examples without describing them. I haven't actually come across the 'assassination' example (or if I did, I have forgotten) so that makes it difficult for me to follow this point. As I may have said before, in an exam you sometimes have to do this because time is so short, but a general rule is that you should at least attempt to describe the example, however briefly. The same applies to your statement, under the heading 'No-False-Inference', 'But like all other proposed Gettier solutions, counter-examples have been offered for this one as well.'

Your decompositional theory is initially interesting and looks to be your own contribution to the debate. Whenever you do this in an essay, it is worth while stating clearly that this is your idea and not something that you have come across - otherwise the only clue to its originality the examiner has is that the idea is unsound! (If your idea is sound and original then that would be in most cases sufficient for a 'first'.)

However, after the initial response, 'this looks interesting', my next thought (following very close behind) about the compositional theory was that it can't work. You can dispose of the 'lazy' Gettier examples which rely on disjunction, but as you yourself appear to note it doesn't stop there. Each new 'reduced' claim is open to new counter-examples and you are pushed back and back until the only things that you can claim are things which you have infallible knowledge of.

The question your theory raises is this. Forget about the explicit logical structure of language, what are the real 'atoms' of knowledge? For example, if I say that the mug is on the table, would an 'atomic' knowledge claim be the precise position of the mug? (but how can one tell just by looking?) or the position within margins of error allowed for in the absence of a ruler? or...?

The compositional theory is still a very good point to make, even if turns out that the objections are insuperable. Just say, 'One might be tempted to think... but...'. There's always a way to turn things around.

Incidentally, my objection to your theory is an example of a philosophical judgement which one makes without necessarily 'thinking things through'. I just 'know' that the theory 'can't work'. But could I be missing something? Suppose it turns out that I'm right (after exhaustively examining all the possibilities). Was my initial judgement a case of philosophical knowledge? (If I'm wrong, tell me. But briefly please!)

Judgement involves a leap. When we judge correctly, and circumstances are appropriate (plug in your favourite theory) then we have knowledge. However, the very fact that there is a leap there is the thing that causes the problems.

My own feeling is that the crucial step is deciding what use we have for a concept of 'knowledge' (cf my previous email). Of course we can claim that Fred has knowledge but be wrong, not because the thing Fred believes is false but because circumstances are such that it would be wrong to describe this as knowledge. If we can never be sure whether Fred has 'knowledge' (or something else, less than knowledge) then the concept of 'knowledge' has no utility. You might as well get rid of it. So any theory must give us a reasonable shot at being able to tell whether Fred 'knows' what he claims to know or not. This is the admittedly pragmatist perspective, I would argue, from which the various proffered alternatives may be judged.

I sympathise with your objections to 'ridiculous complexities'. But I don't think that the allusion to our practice of 'attributing knowledge to animals and pre-intellectual children' is adequate to justify your claim. For me, it would be an open question whether exercises of this kind are ultimately valuable or not. It is really a matter of how one conceives of the point of the activity of 'philosophy'.

All the best,

Geoffrey

Descartes' proof of God in the 3rd Meditation

2012-01-24T13:50:00.002Z

To: Barry T.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Descartes proof of God in the 3rd Meditation
Date: 15 December 2006 11:53

Dear Barry,

Thank you for your email of 10 December, with your University of London essay in response to the question, 'What weaknesses, if any do you find in Descartes' proof of the existence of God in the Third Meditation?'

This is on the whole a very good essay. However, if I was marking this in an exam, I would put a big 'R' (for relevance) in the margin next to the discussion of the Cartesian Circle.

The reason for this is that it is not part of the question of the validity of Descartes' argument for the existence of God, to consider objections to Descartes' strategy of using God as the ultimate guarantee that clear and distinct ideas are indeed true.

There is a danger that you would lose marks, and also lose time. Don't give in to the temptation to give more than the question asks for. (That does not mean you have to give the examiner what he or she expects. It is perfectly possible to surprise the examiner with an answer to the question which they had not anticipated.)

That leaves the causal adequacy principle, and Descartes claim to have a clear and distinct idea of an infinite God.

You say, 'Descartes gives no grounds for rejecting the concept that there could be an indefinitely long chain of ideas.' You are right that he does not offer an explicit argument against this idea. However, it would be within the remit of this essay to look for one. The question is how we decide whether a regress is, or is not vicious.

An analogous question arises in relation to the cosmological argument. Objectors to the cosmological argument point out that there is no logical absurdity about a chain of causes and effects which stretches back infinitely. That may be true. However, someone who puts forward the cosmological argument believes (rightly or wrongly) that the way the world is at the present time is dependent on the way it is at past times, in the way in which, e.g. a link in the chain holding a chandelier is dependent on the links above it. Being infinitely long would not prevent the chandelier from falling to the ground.

In a similar manner, Descartes would argue that making the chain of ideas infinitely long merely defers the question where the idea of God comes from rather than answering it.

At least one twentieth century philosopher has taken Descartes' argument seriously, although not exactly as Descartes intended. Emmanuel Levinas in 'Totality and Infinity' cites Descartes idea of infinity as the model for his argument for the 'otherness of the other' as the ultimate ethical anchoring point for metaphysics. All that we can reason from our own heads is 'thematized' knowledge, or knowledge of the causal order. But such knowledge would never suffice to prove that another person is real, rather than just another 'object' in my world that behaves in various more or less predictable ways.

Another issue, which would not be irrelevant, is the question of our idea of infinity as such. Of course, there is the mathematical definition of an infinite set as one whose members can be put into a 1-1 relation to a proper subset. But this definition is not adequate to explain what it would mean to ask the question, 'Could it be, as a matter of brute contingent fact, that there are an infinite number of physical objects in the universe?' The mathematical notion of infinity is related to a recursive rule. The problem is with contingent or 'brute' infinity, there just happening to be an infinite number of things. (See the excellent book by Adrian Moore, 'The Infinite' RKP.)

So while it is certainly legitimate to question, as you do, whether Descartes really has an idea of an 'infinite God', or merely thinks he has, the problem of where such a 'big' idea comes from is not one that one can escape simply by refusing to allow the coherence of the notion of a deity as such.

Descartes can say this. 'Not everyone thinks they have an idea of God. If you don't think this, then my argument is not going to be of any interest to you. But if you do think that you have an idea of God, then you must either admit that this is a delusion, or you must come up with an adequate explanation of how you were able to acquire this idea.'

The argument that if the idea of God is innate then everyone should have it does not seem to be compelling. You say in that case 'it should be present in every able minded human being'. But that is precisely the point. Most human beings are not 'able minded' in the philosophical sense, even if their minds are fully adequate to meet the demands of daily life. However, by a suitable training in philosophy, one can become better able (as Plato believed when he wrote the Meno) to perceive the ideas that one implicitly has.

All the best,

Geoffrey

Parmenides: why we cannot follow the path of 'it is not'

2012-01-24T13:48:00.002Z

To: James S.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Parmenides: why we cannot follow the path of 'it is not'
Date: 15 December 2006 10:54

Dear James,

Thank you for your email of 8 December, with your University of London essay in response to the question, 'Why does Parmenides hold that it is impossible to follow the path of 'it is not'?'

This is without doubt a first class piece of work. Your argument is clearly laid out and you make excellent use of citations. You have taken great care to explore the various options and made judgements which are, at least, sufficiently justified by the textual evidence to be persuasive.

I am attaching the units on Parmenides from the Pathways Presocratics program. Lacking Greek, I am not able to participate in debates over the precise meanings of Greek terms. However, my gut feeling which I try to justify in these units is that Parmenides argument is more interesting than your final diagnosis - Parmenides' ignorance of first-order predicate calculus - would seem to imply. I am aware that this probably puts me in the minority of students of Parmenides.

The problem that Parmenides is onto, according to my view, is the ontological status of negative facts. As you show, Plato offers a way of parsing some negative statements so that the negation is no longer explicit (although it remains implicit). The temptation - which for example Sartre succumbs to in Being and Nothingness - is to say that reality itself can't have any 'negation' in it so it is we, or 'consciousness', which must supply it. As the medieval principle has it, 'All determination is negation.'

This would account for the consequences which Parmenides draws from 'it is'. Here I think, possibly, you should have said something because one might half agree with the claim that it is not possible to make a negative existential judgement, until one realizes that the consequence Parmenides wishes to draw - which tells us more about what he means by 'it is' than the argument alone - is that there can be no plurality, movement or difference of any kind. How does one get to the One from 'it is'? If you were answering this question in an exam, I think that more explicit reference to this point would be justified.

I like the way you have drawn attention to the 'change of subject' in B2 and B6. In my reading, Parmenides is arguing dialectically. So the very meaning of the argument changes after one has appreciated the significance of the conclusion. 'Take anything you like,' he starts off, 'either it is or it is not'. Then, after working through the argument, we can start again, this time appreciating that there is in fact only one possible subject, the One.

The idea that 'centaur' might be an idea in the mind is not just a red herring, but a serious fallacy. However, it is perfectly possible to employ a first-order sense of 'exists' as a predicate without committing this fallacy. Call this 'eggsists'. Then the statement, 'A eggsists', where 'A' is a proper name, is always true. Nothing wrong with that. The problem comes when one is tempted to explain the statement, 'A does not eggsist' as a statement which takes as its subject the idea of A. In which case the statement is about the idea of A, and not A, and is necessarily false for the same reason as before. (The principle, 'no object, no thought' is emphasised, for example, by Gareth Evans in his account of proper names in 'Varieties of Reference'.)

In what sense does the same thing exist for thought and for being? 'The same thing exists for thought as for being' does not mean that being is the same as thought. It cannot, literally, be the case for Parmenides that 'Being is Being-known', because this applies a predicate to Being which is other than 'is'. In that case, it follows logically that there is, after all, something that Being 'is not'. (I remember long, long ago drawing the incorrect conclusion that 'Being is thought' in an essay I wrote on Parmenides in the first year of my BA!) What Parmenides means is that whatever can be, can be thought, and whatever can be thought, can be. This is the principle you use in your argument, so I cannot accuse you of making the aforementioned error.

So we get back to Frege. How strong is this point, given that it is perfectly possible to use 'exists' (or rather 'eggsists') as a first-order predicate? Is it really true, that without first-order predicate logic we are forced to embrace Parmenides' conclusions?

It is worth noting that the issue of 'negative facts' has appeared sporadically in analytic philosophy. It was raised by Russell. It also appears in the famous Aristotelian Society debate between J.L. Austin and P.F. Strawson in Truth. I would argue that this is the beginning of the slippery slope which can only end in Parmenides' One.

All the best,

Geoffrey

Is knowledge justified true belief?

2012-01-19T13:42:00.003Z

To: Stuart B.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Is knowledge justified true belief?
Date: 8 December 2006 11:15

Dear Stuart,

Thank you for your email of 4 December, with your University of London essay in response to the question, 'Is knowledge justified true belief?'

Significantly, the one line which you have not explored is the 'Gettier counterexamples' (Edmund Gettier 'Is knowledge justified true belief?'). It is possible that this is your intended topic for your follow up essay, so I won't say any more about this.

You may be surprised to hear that the two most recent essays I have received on this question (interestingly, both students are American) both argued the case *against* condition (a). So much for what is 'generally agreed by almost all who ponder the issue'! Their essays were actually quite good. In both cases, the arguments revolved around worries about 'truth' and the threat of scepticism. It is worth while considering how you would respond to someone who argued that a 'better', more useful concept of knowledge would be one which allowed us to (occasionally? frequently?) say that someone 'knew' something that was not, in fact, the case.

Of course, if you just find it impossible to see how anyone could question (a), that might be rather difficult. But there is something to say here, or, at least, I found something to say in responding to the two essays. The strategy I used was to coin a 'new' concept, 'knorridge', which is like 'knowledge' except that in place of the standard three conditions, we have:

1. S believes p

2. S is justified in believing that p

3. S's justification for believing that p is commensurate with a) the degree to which the proposition fits into S's complete world model, b) the perceived importance (to both S and society at large) of the proposition in question, and c) the plausibility of existing counter-claims to p.

(This is the analysis offered by the first of the two Americans I mentioned.) My question was, 'Which is more useful as a concept, knowledge or knorridge?', or, if this does not amount to the same thing, 'Could we, in fact, get by with a concept of knorridge without ever talking about knowledge?' You might like to think how you would respond. (I doubt whether the acceptability of condition (a) is likely to come up as a specific question in the Epistemology exam.)

The case of belief is more widely contested. One stock example is the 'nervous schoolboy' who when asked what is the capital of France, doesn't 'believe' the answer that comes to his lips, even though we would like to say he does really know. If that doesn't convince, then one can look at the question how strongly one has to believe something. For example, one might point out that in ordinary language, we say things like, 'Deep down, you know that I'm right' to someone who doubts, or thinks that he doubts. Later the individual ruefully admits, 'Yes, I did know' (implying that he knew at the time, rather than that he now knows).

I haven't got much to say about your survey of the internalist/ externalist alternatives. This is text book stuff, but well presented.

I can't recall whether a question as simple as this has been used in the UoL Epistemology paper. Usually, exam questions have more of a twist, or are more specific in what they ask for. So if you were to see the simple question, 'Is knowledge justified true belief', a good strategy would be to try to spend equal time on each of the conditions, (a), (b) and (c). In answering (c), however, you would have to say something about Gettier.

It is interesting to explore what follows from an 'evolutionary' conception of knowledge. One paper which you should read on this is Quine's essay, 'Epistemology Naturalized'. In that paper, Quine famously stated, 'There is no First Philosophy'. In other words, philosophers who follow the Cartesian tradition are completely on the wrong track. From a 'naturalized' perspective, the questions Descartes asked cannot even be raised. This is the 'foundational' question for the philosophical discipline of epistemology: are we, in fact, interested in normative issues - such as arguments for scepticism and responses to those arguments - or is the study of epistemology, as Quine claims, continuous with science, in effect a branch of psychology?

From our previous dialogues, I can (maybe) guess your answer to this.

All the best,

Geoffrey

Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus proposition 4.04

2012-01-19T13:35:00.005Z

To: Daniel H.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus proposition 4.04
Date: 8 December 10:05

Dear Danny,

Thank you for your email of 3 December, with your first essay for the Philosophy of Language program, in response to the question, ''A gramophone record, the musical idea, the written notes, and the sound-waves, all stand to one another in the same internal relation to one another of depicting that holds between language and the world' (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus 4.04). Discuss.'

In answer to your question, with this kind of question it is perfectly possible to confine yourself to explaining the remark in the context of the text, in this case the Tractatus. The question does not ask for your critical comments. However it would be within the remit of the question to offer critical comments if you have any (as you do at the end of your essay) or indeed refer to criticisms made by other philosophers, including the later Wittgenstein (who for many purposes can be viewed as 'another philosopher').

Here's a telling remark from the later Wittgenstein:

'What the names in language signify must be indestructible; for it must be possible to describe the state of affairs in which everything destructible is destroyed. And this description will contain words; and what corresponds to these cannot then be destroyed, for otherwise the words would have no meaning.' I must not saw off the branch on which I am sitting. (Philosophical Investigations para 55).

In other words, Wittgenstein is trying to get across what he once thought, but no longer thinks, and the picture in his mind ('I must not saw off the branch') that motivated him to think this. You can imagine this being said with a wry grin.

The idea that the world has indestructible 'substance' was not new. Kant argues for this in the Critique of Pure Reason, not on the basis of a theory of meaning but rather as a condition for the 'possibility of experience', along with the law of determinism. By linking the demand for substance to semantics, Wittgenstein in effect finds an unmetaphysical way to revive a traditional metaphysical doctrine.

However, the idea captured in the gramophone example, as such, does not take us all the way to 'substance'. Additional arguments are needed. The key argument is 2.0211: 'If the world had no substance, then whether a proposition had sense would depend on whether another proposition was true.' (Compare the paragraph from the Investigations.) This argument is actually based on Russell's Theory of Descriptions: 'The present King of France is bald' must make sense even if there is no King of France (Russell's example).

The key word in the gramophone quote is 'internal'. What does 'internal relation' mean in this context and how does it differ from an external relation? (Here again, we have concepts from traditional metaphysics but applied in a new way.) We might try to express this is in terms of 'subjunctive conditional' statements. 'If the crotchet had been one line down, then the tune would have ended on a C instead of an E.' Each possibility of putting the notes at different points on the stave, or giving each note a different value (crotchet, quaver etc.) corresponds to a different tune. There is no combination of crotchets that does not identify a tune, nor is there any tune which can not be represented in this way.

However, this is not yet sufficient to capture the sense of 'internal'. What makes these subjunctive conditional statements true is not a scientific law, which would only give external relations, but the 'law of form' which comes into existence with the recognition of an activity called 'making music'. In other words, we would say that human intention is involved. However, in the austere vision of the Tractatus this would be a mere remark about 'psychology' and not relevant to 'logic'.

The gramophone example describes, as you say, 'musical form'. It is not logical form. So something needs to be said about this too. What is the difference? We are only dealing with 'meaning' and 'propositions' when we make pictures whose form is logical form. Propositions are true or false. The music to Frere Jaques is neither true nor false, although relative to a given purpose it can be the 'wrong music' (e.g. you asked for the music for Ring a Roses, or you played the wrong note).

What about the question of vagueness? This is an issue not with the notion of picturing as such but rather with the simples theory. In defence of Wittgenstein, one could say that he was fully aware of the existence of vague propositions and has a theory to explain it: however vague a statement seems, on the surface, in reality it has a precise meaning. E.g. 'The cup is on the ta table' means, 'Either the cup is at position 1, or at position 2 or...' (and the same for all the possible ways something can be 'the cup').

On the other hand, ethical, aesthetic and religious statements fail according to the picture theory to respect the very notion of 'representing what is the case'. Even if Wittgenstein had not been impressed by Russell's argument, arguably his theory would still have banned these areas of 'discourse' to the realm of the unsayable.

All the best,

Geoffrey

Descartes' argument for scepticism in First Meditation

2012-01-18T12:59:00.002Z

To: Hakeem G.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Descartes' argument for scepticism in First Meditation
Date: 6 December 2006 11:08

Dear Hakeem,

Thank you for your email of 29 November, with your second attempt at your University of London essay, 'What reasons does Descartes give for doubting all his former beliefs? Are they good reasons?

You have produced an excellent piece of work. You have made some very good points, and given clear evidence that you have thought hard about Descartes' argument in the First Meditation.

In particular, I very much liked the argument in paragraph 4: 'In other words, if senses deceive us with respect to the details of things around us they make available for our perception, can they be considered deceptive when they don't present us at all with the sensation of a present object when it is obstructed by another opaque object...'.

I also liked the discussion of dreams, and the point about 'contradictory realities'. In a well known article by the philosopher Anthony Quinton, 'Spaces and Times', the Cartesian thought experiment is taken a stage further. An individual goes to 'sleep' in one world and wakes up in another which is in every respect equally 'real', then returns to the first world by the same method. Would that be proof of the existence of two spatially unrelated spaces?

The only criticism I would make this time is that your essay is mainly an answer to the first part of the essay question, and not the second.

You do offer criticisms of Descartes' argument, as well as suggestions for improvement, and this can be taken as part of an assessment 'whether the reasons Descartes offers are good reasons'. However, a full answer to the question would have to include your own judgement whether, e.g., the evil demon argument IS a good argument. In other words, what is your view?

Do you think that it is logically possible that all your experiences are produced by an evil demon? And, further, if this possibility is granted, do you accept that it follows that you should doubt all your former beliefs?

There is nothing wrong, in principle, when faced with a question like this, with saying, 'Yes, I think they are good reasons.' In that case, the work you have to do for this part of the essay is in considering possible objections - objections which have been raised against, e.g. the evil demon argument - and the reply that you would give to these objections.

Let's look at each of these questions separately.

Do you accept that it is it possible that all your experiences are produced by an evil demon? One way to approach this would be to consider a more 'up to date' version of this argument, as provided by the film 'The Matrix'. What is the difference between an 'evil demon' hypothesis and a Matrix scenario? In the case of the evil demon, I am deceived into thinking that there is such a thing as 'objects in space', whereas in the Matrix scenario, the existence of objects in space is assumed in setting up the thought experiment. But is the idea that there could be a non-spatial reality consisting purely of experience coherent?

The second question is whether admitting this possibility is sufficient to put our beliefs in doubt. Common sense tells us that all sorts of things are 'possible' yet we don't for a minute allow these to cause us to entertain doubts. It is logically possible, for example, that the floor of my office will collapse in the next five seconds. But I'm not allowing myself to lose any time worrying about it! What is the difference between this case and the argument given by Descartes for doubting all his former beliefs?

Descartes would reply that in the case of my office floor, it is possible to rationally assign a probability, based on my general knowledge. Floor collapse without prior warning is something that very rarely happens in a well constructed house. However, probability is relative to evidence. In the case of the evil demon or Matrix scenarios, anything that might count as 'evidence' for a probability judgement is itself put into question.

Some philosophers e.g. Hilary Putnam have argued that even if we accept the coherence of the Matrix scenario (or 'brain in a vat', as Putnam describes it) this cannot be used as a premiss in a sceptical argument, because if I AM in a pod, or a vat, then I am not thinking real thoughts, my words do not have any real reference beyond my own mind. - You an explore this issue further for yourself. My own view is that this line is not ultimately effective against the sceptic.

Obviously, in an exam, you won't have time to write as much as you have written here. I'm telling you that you need to say even more! In a one hour exam, you have to explain yourself more briefly, while covering all the points you want to make. - Later on, you can practise some one hour essay questions.

There's no need to attempt this topic a third time. Try another essay topic, and this time paying particular attention to the exact wording. You have done very well this time.

All the best,

Geoffrey

How does space pose a problem for philosophy?

2012-01-18T12:55:00.002Z

To: Gordon F.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: How does space pose a problem for philosophy?
Date: 28 November 2006 11:04

Dear Gordon,

Thank you for your email of 22 November, with your essay for Possible World Machine, in response to the question, 'In what ways does the nature of space pose a problem for philosophy?'

In your essay, you have posed several ways in which space might be a problem for philosophy.

1. Measurement. You almost get to the point of posing the question here, but not quite. As you observe, certain fundamental physical quantities are interdefinable. As a result of history, we are stuck with a rather awkward number for the length of a meter, but the point is that assuming the constancy of the speed of light, any quantities defined in terms of this will be equally constant.

But suppose someone suggested that, for all we can know through observation and experiment, the actual length of a meter, as defined in terms of the speed of light, is shrinking, correlatively with all other physical quantities defined in terms of the length of a meter. There are two possible responses: (a) the hypothesis is unmeaning (b) the hypothesis is unverifiable. The equivalence of (a) and (b) can only be assumed if you hold a verificationist theory of meaning. Does that mean, if you are not a verificationist, that it is really possible that the universe is expanding or contracting in a way that can never be measured by any instrument? or is the absurdity of this hypothesis an argument in favour of verificationism?

2. The unit on space poses the idea of two or more spatially unrelated 'spaces'. This is similar to, but not the same as the theory put forward by David Lewis according to which every possible world exists in its own space and time, the difference between other possible worlds and the actual world being merely one of local perspective.

The many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics comes somewhere in between, in that the many worlds are a subset of all the possible worlds, namely those that can be reached by considering alternative histories of the universe starting out with 'the' big bang, or those consistent with the actual laws of physics. (These are equivalent only on the assumption that there is a world for every possible variation of the 'big bang' consistent with the laws of physics.)

The objection to Lewis is that he has turned possible worlds in to actual worlds. This ignores the essential difference between possibility and actuality. In terms of ontology, the realm of the possible should be seen as sui generis, not reducible to the actual.

3. The existence of the vacuum is a conundrum as old as philosophy. The Greek atomists defined space as 'non-being', the absolute opposite of being, in defiance of Parmenidean monism. This is not space as we would understand it, however.

If the ultimate constituents of the universe are particulate then there seems no objection in principle to defining a region of space where all particles have been removed. If the ultimate constituents are not particulate, on the other hand, then there is no method in principle of reducing the concentration of material in a given region to zero. But couldn't we just get lucky, anyway? couldn't there be regions completely devoid of material even though we can never know this, because the concentration is so low? Once again, the verification principle looms.

4. In the unit of the Metaphysics program dealing with Kant's 'Refutation of Idealism' I consider the possibility that Kant's argument for the necessity of 'space' only goes so far as establishing the need for a pre-spatial 'matrix' which can be any number of dimensions apart from three. This would be enough for 'objective experience' according to Kant's argument, even if this is not what Kant himself held.

Provided that the subject has a 'theory' of what is external to perception, in relation to which seeming perceptions are capable of being judged veridical or otherwise, one has all the structure necessary to resist the naive idealist view that 'all that exists are my own perceptions'. In effect, however, this is just a more sophisticated version of idealism.

5. Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought that all the problems of infinity - infinitesimals, transfinite numbers etc. - can be raised with time as well as with space. If that is true, then the concept of space as such is not the source of these problems.

All the best,

Geoffrey

Paradox that no-one ever does wrong knowingly

2012-01-17T14:16:00.003Z

To: Yann M.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Paradox that no-one ever does wrong knowingly
Date: 27 November 2006 13:00

Dear Yann,

Thank you for your email of 21 November, with your first essay for the Moral Philosophy program, in response to the question, ''No-one ever does wrong knowingly.' - Why is that a paradox? Explain the philosophical problem of weakness of will.'

It is a good idea to approach this, as you have done, by contrasting Plato and Aristotle. You note that Aristotle criticises the Socratic view because it fails to 'take into account... akrasia', but you don't explain how Aristotle does attempt to take this into account.

Here, would have been a good opportunity to contrast the Socratic/ Platonic view of virtues as essentially cognitive - the soul's knowledge of the Forms of Courage, Temperance and Justice - with Aristotle's psychologically more realistic account of inculcated habits of thought and action. It is not enough to 'know' that courage is good and cowardice bad, one must in addition have these qualities 'drilled in' as a result of repeated practice. Hence the emphasis that Aristotle places on psychological habit.

Although in unit 2 I offer a defence of something closer to the Socratic view, I would fully accept that there is an aspect of 'physical courage' which can only be acquired through repeated physical drill. I mean the kinds of things that elite Paratroops or the Foreign Legion do in training, learning to survive in extreme conditions or to resist brutal interrogation techniques. In an extreme combat situation, many would be prepared to accept at face value what the shell-shocked soldier says later the Court Martial, that he *could not* carry out the order to stand fast in the face of a hail of bullets.

This seems to be different in a crucial way from the example of the cigarette smoker whom you consider. The withdrawal symptoms may be very severe, the social pressure enormous, but still there is a clear choice made. The smoker still has the power to say 'No' even while he or she says 'Yes'.

You refer to Richard Holton, who argues that 'weakness of will is just a tendency we all have to revise our judgements about what is best'. I accept that this works for some cases. In the combat situation, I may have the physical courage to stand and face the bullets, but I decide to run in defiance of my orders, in order to live to fight another day. The cigarette smoker knows the dangers, but decides in this special case to make an exception, in the certain belief that it is only an exception.

You could call this flexibility of judgement rather than weakness. Nietzsche's point in your quote from 'Beyond Good and Evil' is that persons of strong character are necessarily inflexible about certain matters, and this is a good not a bad thing. Even if we generally think that flexibility is an intellectual virtue and inflexibility a vice, it is not always so. There is such a thing as being *too* flexible.

However, it is a sad fact about the human condition that circumstances do arise where we feel anguish at our weakness. This is not explicable simply in terms of 'revision of judgement'. Consider the case of the soldier who has the physical courage to stand. He is fully able to make a decision to stand or run. Moreover, he does not think in this case that 'discretion is the better part of valour'. He has not revised his firm judgement that running would be a cowardly and despicable thing to do. And yet, to his everlasting shame and regret, he runs.

My explanation for this would still be in terms of knowledge. This is the account I give in unit 2. It is not a case of rationally revising one's judgement, nor is it a case of physical inability. It is not the 'will' that is weak, but rather a case of 'bad judgement', failing to keep one's objective steadfastly in view.

You make a point about the difference between the 'agent centred' moral philosophy of the Ancient Greeks, and 'action centred' view of contemporary moral philosophers. In recent times, there has been a strong move back towards 'virtue theory' (e.g. Alasdair MacIntyre's book 'After Virtue'). While I applaud the emphasis on the importance of the virtues, I feel that there is a danger of ignoring the fundamental question - addressed in this program - of the ultimate basis for moral judgements. The problem of weakness of will is a special challenge to any view which attempts to argue for an objective rather than a subjective basis for moral judgements, which would the judgement that 'such-and-such would be wrong' a question of objective knowledge rather than merely exhibiting approved attitudes or behaviour.

All the best,

Geoffrey

Kant's 2nd refutation of idealism

2012-01-17T14:13:00.002Z

To: David Y.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Kant's 2nd refutation of idealism
Date: 27 November 2006 12:03

Dear David,

Thank you for your email of 20 November, with your second essay for the Metaphysics program, in response to the question, 'Give a careful account of the argument of Kant's second Refutation of Idealism'.

You are right to start with Descartes. As Kant makes clear in his preliminary discussion, Descartes is his intended target, the 'problematic idealist' who seeks proof of an external world (by contrast with the 'dogmatic idealist' who regards matter and space as something 'utterly impossible').

I think Kant is a little bit off the mark here. As I argue in the program, Kant's argument does meet the challenge of one kind of 'dogmatic' idealist - the naive subjectivist who refuses to understand what could be meant by 'external objects' because all I can possibly know is my own subjective experience.

The person Kant had in mind as being 'dogmatic', however, was Berkeley. Here, it could be argued that Kant is much closer to Berkeley than he wants us to think (the Refutation is from the Second Edition to the Critique of Pure Reason where Kant was concerned to rebut allegations that he was an 'idealist' like Berkeley). Both Kant and Berkeley reject the idea that space and matter are something 'in themselves'. They differ only in that Berkeley attempted to explain the nature of the noumenal - as 'archetypes in the mind of God'.

But lets stick with Descartes. What we would expect - and what we in fact find - is an argument which goes along the following lines:

1. I know I exist in time as a thinking subject.

2. If I do not perceive objects in space then I cannot have knowledge of my own identity through time as a thinking subject.

Therefore, 3. I do perceive objects in space.

Note that there is no mention, either in my summary or in the original text, of 'other subjects'. This just isn't a topic for Kant. He assumes that anyone can run this argument for themself, and when they do, the upshot is all that is required to escape the clutches of idealism.

Your example of perceiving a Chimera on an unexplored planet would do better as an illustration of what Kant goes on to establish after the refutation of idealism: that all experiential knowledge presupposes the law of causality. In the refutation, causality is implied in the idea of a world whose changes are predictable, but not explicitly alluded to.

I disagree that Kant calls this thing 'space'. By 'thing' Kant means what we would mean, things, like tree or a house. (Later, along with the argument for the law of causality, Kant makes a stronger claim for the permanence of 'substance' - the stuff of which trees and houses etc are ultimately made of.)

(By the way, I don't agree with Mautner's definition of 'noumenon'. To my knowledge, nowhere in the Critique does Kant claim that a noumenon is an 'object of awareness' as such. He denies that we can have any knowledge of noumena, direct or indirect. All we can know is that they must exist. If you like, you can call this an 'intellectual acknowledgement' of the necessity for noumena.)

How exactly does Kant's refutation of idealism work?

This is the hard part. I have a particular interpretation in mind (which goes along similar lines to that of Strawson in his book 'The Bounds of Sense') but it is not necessarily the only possible account of the structure of Kant's argument.

On this interpretation, 'awareness of my own existence as determined in time' should be understood as 'awareness of my own identity through time'. In other words, I am aware that yesterday I did X and the day before yesterday I experienced Y, and so on. The claim is not merely that X was done or that Y was experienced but that I did and experienced these things. This is, after all, what Descartes is claiming when he says in the Discourse, 'I think therefore I am'.

(Why can't the egocentric subjectivist pull in his horns and say, 'X was done and Y was experienced'? Why not just give up the I? The problem is that the identification of a subject is required in order to distinguish between true and false memory.)

Now comes the controversial step: in order for there to be a genuine distinction between what I seem to remember and what actually happened there must be room for a clash between what I predict on the basis of my memory, and my present experiences. There might never be such a clash in practice if the world is perfectly well behaved and never trips me up; the point, however, is that we have to allow logical room for such a clash. For example, I remember digging a hole, but when I visit the spot there is no hole to be seen. Either the hole was filled in, or I have forgotten where I dug the hole, or maybe I just dreamed that I dug a hole.

If my experience is not 'as of' a world of objects in space, any clash between what I seem to remember and my present experiences can be fixed any way I like. What the 'theory' of objects in space supplies is the necessary empirical constraint which prevents the 'fixing' from being merely arbitrary.

There is still the worry why Kant wasn't more explicit about the role of the distinction between 'true' and 'false' memories, but perhaps he just thought that this point was too obvious to need labouring.

As I said before, I don't think that 'other subjects' play a role here. The argument would work perfectly well for a solitary individual who lived his entire life unaware that any other conscious beings existed. Wittgenstein's private language argument gives reasons for possibly questioning that assumption, although this again is controversial.

All the best,

Geoffrey

Are possible worlds really real?

2012-01-16T13:09:00.001Z

To: Francis W.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Are possible worlds really real?
Date: 24 November 2006 12:26

Dear Francis,

Thank you for your email of 19 November, with your first essay for the Possible World Machine, in response to the question, 'Are possible worlds really real?'

You have set about this in the right way, first raising the question, 'What is 'Real'?' and then applying the answer to the specific topic of possible worlds.

Like you, I am a fan of the Matrix and think that the discussion of 'reality' in the film is relevant to this question.

Is Morpheus right, that 'real' is 'simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain'?

The idea is that the signals are intrinsically the same, whether produced by perception of objects outside you, or via wires and electrodes attached to your sleeping body. Either way, you have the capacity to be an 'agent' - manipulating physical objects in the world, or virtual objects in the virtual world. However, Morpheus 'knows' the 'truth' which other inhabitants of the virtual world do not, that they are merely asleep, being used as Duracells.

Or does he?

Morpheus could still be wrong about what he takes to be 'real' - a possibility explored in another film with a similar theme, Existenz. In that film, the main character wakes up - only to discover that he is in another dream. No experience of 'waking up' can prove that you are now in the 'real world' and not still asleep. If you have every had a nightmare where you thought you woke up, you will know what I mean.

The question, 'What is real?' is not equivalent to the question, 'How do we know what is real?' Even if we cannot prove that we are not asleep, we still know what we mean by the term 'real'. This is how scepticism about the external world is possible. The sceptic exploits the fact that we 'know what we mean' but don't know whether the possibility is realized or not.

Descartes raised the same question, but he thought the question through further than Morpheus. We think we know what we mean by 'real' - existing as a physical agent in direct contact with the physical objects which one encounters in experience, rather than asleep in a pod - but how do we know that ANYTHING physical exists? Descartes considered the possibility of a world which is not physical or spatial, where all that exists is me and an Evil Demon who creates dreams of a world of objects in space and time in my non-physical soul. All I know is that I exist, mentally. I do not know that anything physical exists.

In your essay you make the important point that what is 'real' is what 'really effects our actual feeling and our conscious experience'. In other words, in the Descartes scenario, what is real is the evil demon. In the Matrix, what is real is the world where people are kept in pods. 'Real' is the label for whatever causal explanation of our experience is TRUE - even if we do not possess the means to discover with certainty which is the 'true explanation'.

How does this apply to possible worlds?

What your later paragraphs bring out is that there are two ways in which we might apply the term 'real' to possible worlds. Constructed worlds, like the worlds of video games are very 'real' to the persons who experience them, in the sense that they have a powerful causal effect on our experience and indeed the quality of our lives: for example, the youngster who beats someone up after playing a shooter game for several hours. What actually caused this behaviour was not a 'world' but a computer program which simulated a world.

So too, the 'worlds' described by novelists can have an immense effect on a reader, but what actually causes this effect is the thought and the words, rather than an actually existing 'world'.

In this sense, it seems that possible worlds cannot be really 'real'. Possible worlds do not have causal effects on our experience, because what causes the effect is the computer program, or the book.

However, it could be argued in reply that this merely shows that 'having a causal effect on experience' is too narrow a definition of 'real'. Someone who believes in the 'reality' of possible worlds - for example, the American philosopher David Lewis ('Counterfactuals', 'On the Plurality of Worlds') - would argue that if statements about 'What might have been' can be true, then we must believe in the 'reality' of anything whose existence is required to explain - in a logical way - how they can be true. According to Lewis, the only credible analysis of such 'counterfactual' statements involves reference to possible worlds. 'Therefore' possible worlds are real - for just the same reason that if statements about numbers can be true, then numbers are real.

David Lewis thinks that possible worlds are as 'real' as the actual world, the only difference between the actual world and other possible worlds being one of perspective, like the difference between 'then' and 'now' or between 'you' and 'I'.

However, in the unit, the character Lucy suggests a less extravagant alternative to this 'all or nothing' view of the reality of possible worlds:

'Anything we talk about has to be real in some sense or else we couldn’t talk about it. Agreed? For example, Sherlock Holmes is a real character of fiction. He exists in the pages, so to speak, of the books Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle wrote. Now, possible worlds don’t have to be "real" in the way this actual world is real, if you see what I mean, any more than fictional characters are supposed to be actual living people. But these other worlds do have the kind of reality that applies to things of that sort, I mean, the kinds of things that we think about as being possible rather than actual. There’s nothing more to say!'

Is there? - I'm hedging my bets.

All the best,

Geoffrey

Locke on personal identity

2012-01-16T13:06:00.002Z

To: Anthony L.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Locke on personal identity
Date: 21 November 2006 11:09

Dear Tony,

Thank you for your email of 12 November with your University of London Essay in response to the question, 'Outline and evaluate Locke’s account of persons and their identity.'

Locke's account of personal identity is remarkable because of the way he poses the question of identity. He says that personal identity is a 'forensic' concept. This is absolutely crucial. (Yet this word does not even occur in your essay!)

I wonder whether you wouldn't have felt more 'on top' of this subject if you had approached Locke from this point of view, rather than going through all that Locke says about identity in general. However, there is still a lot of good work here, and if the question came up in an exam I am confident that you would do well.

It is OK to struggle with a question. From my experience, papers which struggle tend to score higher marks than those which glibly present the standard 'objections and replies'.

Regarding identity in general, the 'same what' point is important and certainly worth mentioning. You say, 'The horse you see now may not be the same lump of matter as the horse you saw ten years ago, but it might for all that be the same horse.' There was a dispute about 'relative identity' some time ago between Peter Geach ('Reference and Generality') and David Wiggins ('Identity and Spatio-Temporal Continuity' later expanded as 'Sameness and Substance'). Geach cites examples like yours as cases of relative identity. The problem is that this leads to logical contradiction: A=B and not-(A=B).

However, you can retain the point about 'same what' by paying close attention to what is being referred to. Ten years ago, you saw a horse, Nellie, and you also saw a lump of matter. Today, you see Nellie but you do not see that lump of matter. That is because 'Nellie' refers to the horse, not to the lump of matter. Nellie IS a lump of matter, but this 'is' is the 'is' of constitution, not of identity. Hence, no 'relative identity'.

How do we decide criteria of identity? You cite functional considerations (watches), organism (trees), matter (boulder). In each case, the decision is based on our 'interest', the point of the concept of a 'mechanism' or 'organism' or 'lump'. Decisions are not hard and fast. Is a dead tree still the 'same tree'? How much can you chip off a boulder? and so on.

When we come to persons, the question of the point of the concept is paramount. This is Locke's idea. The point of identifying persons is forensic. We are interested in praise and blame, punishment and reward, promises and property.

By attending to what he sees as the point of the concept, Locke is able to formulate his remarkable thought experiment regarding the prince and the pauper. As you correctly point out, he doesn't have to commit himself to physicalism or dualism. Like the identities of artefacts, organisms and lumps it can sometimes be vague or indeterminate whether we have the 'same person' or not. But this in itself is not an objection in principle to using the forensic criterion of 'same consciousness'.

But there are objections. I am the man who married Jane, because I remember saying, 'I do'. However, it is not enough to remember this being said by someone, I must remember MY saying it, which begs the question. You might think that whether I said 'I do' or someone else said it can be represented in memory. But then we have to reckon with the Proust-style example of someone who honestly says, 'I remember 'my' saying 'l love you', but *I* am not (do not feel myself to be) the person who said that.' Or Myra Hindley saying, 'I remember "my" switching on the recording machine as the children were tortured but *I* am not (do not feel myself to be) the one who did that.'

This leads to a distinction which is not marked in ordinary English, between 'I remember X-ing' and 'I "remember" X-ing', where in the latter case I have knowledge via memory but I fail, or refuse to identify myself with the individual who X-ed.

So the objection is not that using memory to define personal identity is 'circular', but rather that memory is necessary but not sufficient. In addition, there must be an act of 'self-identification', which is an attitude which one takes or fails to take towards a past self.

The second line of objection cuts deeper, because it questions Locke's account of memory itself. According to Locke, all it takes for the truth of a memory claim is faithfulness to the events remembered. However, this ignores a necessary condition for knowledge, namely the existence of an underlying causal or material basis for the memory. Otherwise, we have no means to distinguish between memories which truly represent events which happened in the past which are not 'true memories', and memories which truly represent events which happened in the past which are 'true memories'.

All the best,

Geoffrey

Regress problem and foundationalism vs coherentism

2012-01-12T13:51:00.002Z

To: James S.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Regress problem and foundationalism vs coherentism
Date: 21 November 2006 10:06

Dear James,

Thank you for your email of 15 November with your University of London essay, 'The Regress Problem and Foundationalist-Coherentist Debate'.

I have to say straight away that this is an issue which I, personally, find difficult. It seems obvious to me both that:

1. Human knowledge is a complex, holistic structure which displays a large degree of coherence, the larger the circles of mutual justification the harder it is to reject the beliefs and theories which form those circles.

2. There are basic beliefs which in normal circumstances it is unreasonable to question, like 'There is a mug of tea on my desk,' or 'It is sunny today,' or 'I have two hands.'

As you show in your essay, the basic motivation is the desire to defend knowledge claims in the face of sceptical attack. However, if we are giving free reign to the sceptic then any proposal is bound to fail. Coherence fails because of the (alleged) possibility of alternative coherent systems. Foundationalism fails because of the (alleged) possibility that any given basic belief might still be false.

I would therefore question whether it is correct to see a theory of justification as a response to scepticism.

The purpose of a theory of justification is to make the nature of knowledge more perspicuous, to enable us to understand how knowledge relates to perception, testimony, theory etc. The dialectic of scepticism is a separate enterprise. There are various motivations which might lead to scepticism - for example, the belief in 'Cartesian mental events' which can occur just as easily in a dream as in waking experience - and each one has to be met and rebutted, in the Cartesian example by deploying the private language argument.

As an essay, I found this well structured and evidently knowledgeable. However, I sensed a certain 'distance' from the issues themselves. You report that a certain view is held, and that it fails for such-and-such a reason, but the reader is given no insight into what the view is or why it fails. For example, '...although Chisholm attempted to clarify a distinction between certain 'appearance' statements and 'appeared to' statements, he failed to make a clear distinction between the two groups...'. I would like to know more. How did he attempt to clarify the distinction and why did he fail? A couple of sentences would be enough.

On the basis of what you have written, the reader would have a hard time even deciding whether Chisholm is for or against foundationalism, or whether Sellars is for or against coherentism.

I am not sure what an examiner would say. Certainly, in a one hour paper, a student will get credit for doing just what you have done as this is evidence that they have grasped - or at least know about - this piece bit of the argument. However, if this was, say, a submission to the Philosophy Pathways e-journal or an essay submitted for the Associate award I would object on the grounds that it amounts to doing philosophy 'second hand'. You need to rehearse the philosophical arguments, it is not enough to just report on them. I want to see you doing philosophy.

In your final paragraph you say, 'We either must accept the sceptical conclusion of infinite regress, or we must reject the very premise of the regress argument; namely, that knowledge is justified through reference to an internal belief structure which can be presented on request.' I wonder whether it would not have been a better strategy to signal at the start that this was your objective, reminding the reader at each key stage that there is a choice to be made between the internalist and the externalist view?

Another thing that occurred to me is that part of the problem might be that you have tried to squeeze a paper into the essay format. A question on the UoL Epistemology paper would be a lot more focused than the title you have given yourself, which allows you to attempt an appraisal of foundationalism and an appraisal of coherentism - at least two essays, if not more.

However, you obviously have a very good grasp of these issues and I have no doubt on the basis of the work you have sent me so far that you will do very well in the exam.

All the best,

Geoffrey

Descartes: being deceived about 2+3=5

2012-01-12T13:48:00.002Z

To: Hakeem G.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Descartes: being deceived about 2+3=5
Date: 20 November 2006 12:48

Dear Hakeem,

Thank you for your email of 14 November, with your essay in response to the University of London 2004 Introduction to Philosophy question, ''For whether I am awake or asleep, two and three added together are five, and a square cannot have more than four sides. It seems impossible that such transparent truths should incur any suspicion of being false.' How does this claim contribute to the argument of Descartes' First Meditation?'

Your answer is rather short, but correct as far as it goes. In an examination, you have an hour to write your essay. To get a good mark, you should aim to say more. What you have written would probably score in the low 50's - in other words it would scrape a pass.

You correctly point out that Descartes' aim in Meditation 1 is to show that every proposition can be doubted. Having cast doubt on beliefs derived from sense perception, he has to consider propositions like those of arithmetic or geometry which it seems to us that we cannot be wrong about.

How does he do this? Interestingly, he doesn't use the dreaming argument. Why not? We do find ourselves believing all sorts of absurd things in dreams, so even though I might be quite convinced in my dream that seven plus five is fourteen I can still be wrong. OK, but what about one plus one is two - is it possible that even in a dream I could think that the answer is three and not two?

Instead, Descartes considers the possibility that God might still deceive me. Here, is an opportunity for you to look in more detail at the argument Descartes uses.

We do sometimes get arithmetical sums wrong. That shows that God does 'allow' to be wrong sometimes. Is it not conceivable that God might, if he wished, make us wrong all the time? This is an opportunity for you to say whether you think that is a good argument. Is it the always case that, 'If X happens sometimes, then it is logically possible that X might happen all the time'? Think of examples.

Descartes then elaborates on his argument. Someone might argue that it would be against God's 'goodness' to allow us to be wrong about arithmetic all the time. In that case, Descartes says, it doesn't matter whether you say God makes us go wrong, or simply that our error is a result of 'fate or chance or a continuous chain of events'. In other words, it is not necessary to assume any particular cause for our being wrong.

Again, here you might try to think of some examples. When people consent to be guinea pigs of stage show hypnotists, for example, they can be easily 'persuaded' to believe the most absurd things, maybe even that one and one is three.

Have a look again at the very useful commentary that goes with the passage from Descartes in Chapter 1 of 'Reading Philosophy'. You will find plenty of examples there of ways of questioning the text, finding arguments to discuss which are not apparent at a first reading.

This is what this question is asking you to do. There is a short answer to the question: 'Descartes considers necessary truths because he wants to put all beliefs into doubt.' But then you need to go on and ask why he does this? how does he do it? how good are the arguments he uses? are there any good arguments he might have used but didn't?

It would also be relevant to answering this question to consider the phenomenon of 'being wrong' about an arithmetical or geometrical truth. If I told you to add 39305950 plus 393959092, there is a significant possibility that you would get the addition wrong. On the other hand, if I ask you to add 1 plus 1, it seems impossible to imagine how you could be wrong. Then what about 2 plus 1? 5 plus 7? 31 plus 45? At some point what seems unimaginable becomes imaginable - but what point is that? It is absurd to think that there might be a 'cut-off' point where mistakes become possible, yet if there isn't a cut off point, then what?

Although I said above that you gave a 'correct' answer to the question, you need to be aware that there is no single 'correct' response. The examiner wants to see you grappling with the problems and questions raised by Descartes' argument. Anything that you can say that is RELEVANT to the question - even if you are struggling to express yourself or have to admit that you don't fully understand - will make your essay better and earn more marks.

However, I am glad that you have made a start. Well done!

All the best,

Geoffrey

Free will and the justification for blame and punishment

2012-01-11T12:58:00.002Z

To: Catherine C.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Free will and the justification for blame and punishment
Date: 17 November 2006 13:12

Dear Catherine,

Thank you for your email of 9 November, with your first essay for the Possible World Machine, in response to the question, 'In the light of the critique of "free will", can blame and punishment ever be rationally justified?'

This is an interesting essay. But I would agree with you hunch that there is something missing.

You have set things up very well, with some very good and believable examples. In some of these cases, it seems pretty clear that in committing canicide you have performed an action which merits punishment. In other cases, it seems pretty clear that you have performed an action which merits help, or treatment.

Courts of law have to deal with cases like this. Courts are set up for a practical purpose which somehow has to mesh with our ideas of justice. But how sound are these ideas in the light of the critique of the naive or common sense notion of 'free will'?

There are two issues here, which need to be separated. First, there is the all-or-nothing argument that determinism precludes free will. You can agree, or disagree: either way, you are then faced with the necessity of giving an account of the nature of justice and punishment.

On a 'hard' determinist view, punishment is just a way of altering controls. How we choose to alter those controls - either with a spell in prison or a course of treatment in a secure institution - will depend on our view of how amenable the culprit is to persuasion, their capacity to think rationally for themselves.

On a view which refuses to accept that human beings are merely cogs in a causal chain, the very same kinds of question will arise. Some persons demonstrate by their actions that they are capable of rationally deciding for themselves - are responsible for what they do - while others do not.

A move one can make here is to 'bracket' the metaphysical problem of free will and determinism. Whatever view you take on the metaphysical debate, you will still be faced with the same practical problems of knowing when or when not to punish.

(I am over-simplifying somewhat: determinists tend to argue that punishment is never justified and that all punishment is merely a form of 'treatment'. However, there will still be a choice between the best form of such 'treatment'.)

So the essay title is somewhat misleading. The 'light' cast by the critique of free will is not that 'blame and punishment can never be rationally justified', but rather, 'Every action has causal antecedents, and there is no sharp dividing line between the kinds of antecedent conditions which lead to responsible actions, and the kinds of antecedent conditions which lead to actions for which the agent is not responsible.'

In other words, your answer to the question could take the form of looking for some principled way of separating the two broad classes of case. In all probability, it will not be possible to do the separation neatly, but a fuzzy distinction is still a distinction. As demonstrated every day in the courts, there are easy cases and hard cases.

Your examples are sufficiently rich to give us a good purchase on the kinds of consideration that would be relevant. What is a 'fit of rage', road rage for example, or the rage which led to the awful case reported yesterday of a dispute between school children developing into murder by arson? Are we always responsible for our rages, or only sometimes? On what basis would one make a distinction? Likes and dislikes are one thing; the question is whether, for a normally rational person, one accepts that certain extreme provocations are sufficient to 'madden' us, i.e. deprive us of the responsibility for our actions.

Your reference to 'crime passionel' suggests that in France unfaithfulness was (I don't know if it still is) considered such a provocation. An alternative interpretation is that a husband who coldly planned and executed his wife's lover's murder would still be in a position to claim that it was a 'crime of passion'.

Drug dependency, partner abuse, inability to reason clearly each raise thorny issues (you cite the example of the drug addict whose reason is 'blurred' but a simpler example might be someone with a very low IQ).

Another class of cases which you don't consider concerns alleged cases of brainwashing, such as the famous Patty Hearst case. Then there are the less spectacular but more common examples where one person comes under the strong influence of another.

The more we look at the nitty gritty details, the more difficult it seems to make a meaningful distinction. As I've remarked, courts are set up with a practical purpose. Maybe one would be led, ultimately, the view that blame and punishment are never rationally justified - not by some clever metaphysical argument, but just by becoming aware of the depressing reality of cases like these.

You've made a good start, despite your misgivings. I look forward to your next piece of work.

All the best,

Geoffrey

What do Zeno's paradoxes show about motion?

2012-01-11T12:54:00.002Z

To: Dennis T.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: What do Zeno's paradoxes show about motion?
Date: 17 November 2006 12:18

Dear Dennis,

Thank you for your email of 8 November, with your essay in response to the University of London Pre-Socratics and Plato 2005 Examination question, 'What do Zeno's paradoxes show us about the nature of motion?'

I do think that it is an excellent strategy to take with any philosopher whose arguments seem questionable or paradoxical, to attempt to describe a plausible theory or position which the arguments might have been intended to attack. In other words to approach the arguments dialectically.

This is an application of what Donald Davidson calls the 'principle of charity'. There is greater chance of correctly understanding what a philosopher is trying to tell us if we find an interpretation which makes his arguments look gripping rather than mere 'sophisms'.

However, in this case we have to deal with written evidence about Zeno's intentions which must be taken seriously. In Plato's dialogue Parmenides, the character Zeno says about his 'book':

'In reality the book is a sort of defence of Parmenides’ argument against those who try to make fun of it by showing that, if there is a One, many absurd and contradictory consequences follow for his argument. This book is a retort against those who believe in plurality; it pays them back in their own coin, and with something to spare, by seeking to show that, if anyone examines the matter thoroughly, yet more absurd consequences follow from their hypothesis of plurality than from that of the One.'

It is pretty clear from this that Plato's 'Zeno' thinks he is attacking the hypothesis of pluralism as such, and not a particular view about the nature of numbers. You can save your interpretation by saying that Zeno made the false assumption that pluralism can only be accounted for in Pythagorean terms. This makes his arguments still look interesting and so satisfying Russell.

This title of this essay, however, does not focus on the interpretation of Zeno but rather on what his paradoxes 'show us'. So let us look at the question from this point of view.

If you are tempted by a certain view of numbers which looks pretty implausible today - in fact, hard to even imagine - then you will find yourself unable to resist Zeno's logic. Admittedly, it is not difficult for the beginner in maths to feel very perplexed by ideas like the finite sum of an infinite series, or Cantor's definition of an infinite set as one which maps onto a proper subset. As you clearly show, these are the mathematical tools we need to deal with Zeno. But is that all?

Here is a possible theory of motion. There is no such thing as motion because what we perceive as motion is in fact a succession of static states. The paradox of the arrow is no paradox, because the arrow is always 'at rest'. First it is at rest here, then there, then there, until it 'reaches' its target.

One question to ask would be if this describes a logically possible world. Could the laws of physics be sufficiently different from what they are in this world so that no 'motion' actually occurred, although it appeared to? Why not?

Let's have a look at The Dichotomy.

Object A occupies a finite series of static positions until it reaches half way to its destination, and then until it reaches half way again, and so on. There are two possibilities: either there is a unit of position or not. If there is a unit of position then there will be a final 'half-way' point such that only one unit separates this point from the destination. In which case, there is only one more 'jump' to make. No paradox.

On the other hand, if there is not an ultimate unit of position, i.e. if positions equivalent to points on a line - i.e. the series of real numbers - then the 'theory' that motion is a series of static states becomes indistinguishable from the view that motion is real and continuous. Again no paradox.

The problems arise with the hybrid theory which attempts to combine infinite divisibility with the naive idea that we can form the notion of the result of equally dividing an object, or a distance, into parts, conceived as each having a finite size. This becomes apparent in Zeno's arguments against infinite divisibility. Either the smallest parts have finite size, in which case an infinite number of parts produces an object of infinite extent, or the smallest parts have no size, in which case putting any number of parts together produces an object of zero extent.

The final paradox of the moving is interesting in the light of the possible theory that the universe is ultimately composed of a finite number of 'positions', which as we have seen is immune to the first three arguments. I would not agree that the moving rows create a problem for this theory. All you need to do is distinguish absolute and relative position. Absolute motion can only be from one position to the adjacent position. But this happily allows for relative motion which 'jumps' over intermediate positions.

All the best,

Geoffrey

Xenophanes: God in religion and in philosophy

2012-01-10T15:03:00.003Z

To: Namet I.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Xenophanes: God in religion and in philosophy
Date: 17 November 2006 10:47

Dear Namet,

Thank you for your email of 8 November with your essay for units 4-6 of the Ancient Philosophy program, entitled 'God in Religion and in Philosophy'.

Although the ostensible subject of your essay is Xenophanes' views on god and religion, the essay also covers his epistemology.

There are several points I would like to comment on in this interesting essay. I shall use my own numbering.

1. I am not sure how you get the conclusion that according to Xenophanes, 'about other sciences, one could have true knowledge, for instance in medicine.' I accept that this is not an implausible claim, if we understand medicine, not as a theoretical science but rather as a collection of remedies and observations. 'Chewing peppermint leaves helps with indigestion', 'hot wine mixed with honey is good for colds' and so on. In other words, human beings have knowledge of the things within their direct purview. There is no suggestion in Xenophanes of Cartesian doubt about perception. However, as soon as one ascends to questions of theory, only a being who can directly *see* the things that we theorise about is capable of knowledge of those things.

2. Xenophanes point about the Ethiopians and Thracians can be put like this. The credentials for a belief can be doubted whenever we have a plausible or probable explanation of that belief whose validity does not require that the belief is true. Thracians believe that god has red hair, because they have red hair, and not because they have ever seen a red haired god.

However, I don't see how one can draw the conclusion that belief can become knowledge if one adds 'knowledge that one holds the belief'. I hold the belief that a parcel I ordered is coming today. I believe it because I was told this in an email. However, I have sometimes been promised things in emails in the past and been disappointed. So my grounds are not sufficient for a claim to knowledge. The knowledge that I hold the belief does not make the belief knowledge. However, it could be argued that in many cases a necessary step to acquiring knowledge is the realization that one does not yet have it.

3. Some very interesting thoughts about god's mobility. It does seem very ungodlike for the deity to 'twist and turn' in order to acquire knowledge. However, I am not sure that this is the reason. Imagine a god who is a swarm of invisible eyes - like an ant colony - able to traverse the universe at great speed and get into every nook and cranny. That picture is sufficiently different from that of a human being, who is stuck in one point of view. I think that Xenophanes would reply that god does not need 'eyes'. He knows things directly, because he is everywhere. And because he is everywhere, there is no 'place' where god could move.

4. The question of mental 'movement' is more difficult. Later, under the influence of Parmenides and Plato, God would be seen as existing outside time. Only thoughts which occur in time can be said to 'move'. However, a physically 'immobile' god is not necessarily mentally immobile unless one adds the materialist premiss that mental activity is a physical process in a brain, or something that works like a brain. This idea does make an appearance with the atomists, who held that thought and consciousness were nothing more than movements of atoms. The suggestion would be totally foreign to Xenophanes who like Anaximander, Anaximenes, Empedocles, Anaxagoras held that mind is something that exists in addition to matter.

5. I like your criticism of Xenophanes' argument for the proposition that god is uncreated. Greater things can come from lesser. What Xenophanes needs is a much stronger premiss, the kind of thing that is appealed to in the ontological argument for the existence of God. But Xenophanes is quite a distance away from formulating any such notion.

6. Again, some very interesting reflections on the governance and politics of a multiple-god universe. There is more than a passing resemblance here to what Hobbes says in Leviathan about the need for an absolute monarch. Xenophanes can happily accept the idea that there are beings whom we call 'gods' because of their vastly greater powers - he can accept the entire Greek Pantheon, if it wasn't for the fact that the grounds for believing in its existence are so flimsy - because these so-called 'gods' are just limited beings, located in space. The distance between such beings and the one god who is everywhere is as great as the distance of that god from us.

All the best,

Geoffrey

Why be moral?

2012-01-10T15:00:00.002Z

To: Gordon F.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Why be moral?
Date: 7 November 2006 12:40

Dear Gordon,

Thank you for your email of 28 October, with your essay for units 7-9 of Possible World Machine, in response to the question, 'Why be Moral?'

The title of the essay is deliberately ambiguous between, 'Why are people moral?' and 'Why should be people be moral?', or, more particularly, 'Why am I moral?' and 'Why should I be moral?'

I was very glad to get a glimpse into your life and your motivation for taking an interest in this topic. I had a look at your web site (thank you for the link to Pathways!). Although I mentored a student for the Associate Award, Mary Jennings who wrote two of her essays on Heidegger (http://www.philosophypathways.com/essays/#jennings) I find the topic of Heidegger very difficult. But I will go back when I have time and look at your article.

You express scepticism about the prospect of trying to 'justify morality in the way one justifies saying that a mathematical theorem is true'. However, there are two aspects to this question - which you might appreciate given your interest in existentialism. The first aspect is completely general and (unless you believe in the possibility of deriving all morality from Kant's Categorical imperative) leaves open the question, 'Why do A?' or 'Why do B?' where A and B purport to describe actions which are 'moral'. As I would express this, the general question is, 'Why should others count in my deliberations?'

Some would regard this as begging the question whether there are moral duties one owes to oneself (as Kant believed). For example, Kant gives as an example of the categorical imperative, 'You ought to develop your natural talents.' But I wonder whether this is in fact, a purely self-regarding question.

Leaving that aside, I argue in the Moral Philosophy program that no particular moral rules can be derived from general proposition, 'Others should count in my deliberations.'

(My argument for the general proposition is based on a two stage critique of the theory of solipsism, leading to a recognition of the necessary asymmetry between 'I' and the 'other', where recognition of the claims of the other becomes the basis for there being a 'world' for me.)

In the light of this, I would question whether, in fact, you 'decided' to be moral, as such. In a similar way I would question whether anyone decides not to be moral as such.

What you decided was to do, A, B and C (e.g. not lie, not steal, not murder). However, if you had had the opportunity to decide whether or not to do D (which some regard as immoral) you might have said, 'D is OK, I don't see anything wrong with it.' On pain of being a hypocrite, it could be argued you ought to allow others to do D also. I'm not so sure about this, however.

What I am trying to say is that you were already 'moral' when you made the decision. You were prepared to allow others to count in your deliberations. But that still left open a number of different possible future lives. One set of possibilities was what we would describe as the 'moral life', while the other set was not. A third set was maybe on the borderline.

Suppose you had decided on a life of crime. That is not so bad. Four of my Pathways students are - more or less deservedly - behind bars (one is undeservedly on death row in San Quentin). Most criminals are not evil. 'There is honour amongst thieves.' This is not the same as 'deciding not to be moral' in my sense, i.e. never allowing others to count in one's deliberations. In other words, deciding to behave like a psychopath.

Behaving like a psychopath is only possible for a psychopath. For anyone else, even the hardened criminal, there are circumstances which will motivate him/ her to take the interests of another into account.

Hume famously argued that the basis for morality was a sentiment, the feeling of 'natural sympathy'. This would be consistent with your view that some people are naturally inclined to be moral while others are not. Whether this is actually from birth is a moot question, but there is plenty of evidence that some people find it easy to decide to be moral, upright citizens while others just as easily embrace a life of crime, and this tendency seems to be apparent at quite an early age. The ones who go for the life of crime have some 'natural sympathy', if only in an attenuated form.

So, why be moral? I don't think that the question is that easy. I would put it this way. Consider the Godfather, 'I'll make him an offer he can't refuse.' Most people are lucky never to have been made this offer (it has never been made to me). But with a little imagination you can ramp up the example sufficiently to make most 'moral' people question whether on this occasion being moral carried too high a price. But a moral outlook which allows you to opt out when the going gets too tough is not truly 'moral'.

It is in the face of examples like these, that I believe that only a logical argument is a sufficient basis for morality.

All the best,

Geoffrey

Do oysters experience qualia?

2012-01-09T13:54:00.002Z

To: Reiner L.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Do oysters experience qualia?
Cc:
Bcc:
X-Attachments:

Dear Reiner,

Thank you for your email of 28 October, with your essay for the Associate Program in response to the question, 'Can oysters experience qualia?'

The first point to make is that qualia are a philosopher's term of art. A philosopher who says, 'There are no such things as qualia' is not saying the same thing as a philosopher who says, 'There are no such things as feelings'. The former is rejecting what he sees as a false philosophical theory about inner states - inner states as 'private objects' or 'Cartesian mental events' - while accepting the reality of feelings as such. Followers of Wittgenstein would come into this category. The latter - Churchlands, for example - believes that we all are victims of a false philosophical theory, namely folk psychology. We have 'feelings' (in scare quotes) only to the extent that this way of talking is, or appears, indispensable to us because of our pathetically limited knowledge.

However, even the Churchlands would accept that there is a significant difference between flowers - which exhibit an automatic response to sunlight which is akin to the 'reflex arc' in the human nervous system - and, say, bats, where the link between input and output is mediated by information processing. So there would be a legitimate sense in which one could ask, 'Do flowers feel?'. Even if as the Churchlands believe there are really no such things as 'feelings', there is still a point in raising this question, and answering, 'No'.

In these terms, how would one answer the question, 'Do oysters feel'? There are sea creatures which we would classify along with sophisticated plants, for example the sea anemone. If oysters belong in this category, then they don't 'feel'. On the other hand, if oysters are closer to fish, then they do. I actually don't know the answer to that question.

There are philosophers who have been tempted by the theory of 'panpsychism', a metaphysical theory famously put forward by A.N. Whitehead in 'Process and Reality'. You mention Chalmers 'proto-experiences'. To me this seems, in affect, to be giving up on the mind-body problem altogether. If everything has feelings, then this paradoxically vindicates the Churchlands view. With respect to possession of feelings, you and I are no different in principle from a sunflower, or a toaster.

You say, 'Oysters are so alien to us that we have no qualms to swallow them alive, just as crocodiles have no hesitation to tear humans to pieces.' Surely, we would not do this to Martians, however 'different' they appeared to us, provided we were convinced that they were intelligent, conscious subjects. Our attitude to oysters - as to beetles or flies - is partly governed by our inability to 'see' the kinds of behaviour and reactions that one can see in a horse or a chimp, or even a crocodile. This is a kind of irrationality. However, if oysters turned out to be biologically like plants then there would be no basis on which one could mount an objection to 'eating them alive'.

(Which reminds me of a very funny scene in Notting Hill with a dinner guest who refuses to eat carrots which have been 'killed'!)

Leaving the question of oysters to marine biologists, there are still two issues: one concerning the legitimacy of 'qualia' and Nagel's notion of 'what it is like to be x', and the other concerning the contrast between the feelings of bats or oysters, and human beings.

Although you don't consider the latter question, your remark about driving is very relevant here. Dennett in his first book 'Content and Consciousness' distinguished two forms of awareness: the first (awareness1) relates to the ability to make introspective reports about ones feelings. The second (awareness2) relates to the ability to perform actions which are guided by perceptual input. A driver who has reached his destination but can't remember driving there would be a case of awareness2.

In his book 'The Animals Issue', Peter Carruthers develops the idea of two kinds of 'consciousness' - one involving the mastery of language and one which does require language - to argue the controversial case that animal pain isn't really PAIN as we would understand it, because it lacks the necessary self-reflective element.

You are right that, in a sense, we can never know what it is like to be any non-language possessing creature for the very reason that awareness of what an experience is like involves language. Cases like reaching your destination and now knowing how you did so are hardly illuminating ('OK, you admit that it happens sometimes - now imagine what it would be like if it happened always!').

However, there is still a point in saying that choosing bats for his philosophical example rather than cats doesn't get Nagel anywhere. If Nagel did imagine that he could get some mileage of this, then he was wrong.

Do 'most physicists' claim that qualia are identical with brain events? We really need to be clear what we mean by qualia. If you mean, 'private objects' or 'Cartesian mental events' in the sense rejected by Wittgenstein's private language argument (and Dennett) then this variety of identity theory is fatally flawed.

One way to see this which doesn't rely on the private language argument is to point out the conceptual impossibility of distinguishing identity from 1-1 correlation. The 'Australian materialists' such as Smart claim that they are putting identity forward in the spirit of Occam's razor. This is the 'contingent identity' thesis attacked by Kripke in 'Naming and Necessity'. If there is any possible world where the relation is not identity but 1-1 correlation, then there is no possible world where the relation is identity. However hard you push the two things together, they remain two.

On the other hand, functionalism of the Dennett variety rejects qualia. There are true statements about what a subject feels, or believes, these statements being analysed in functional terms. But there are no mental 'objects' which terms that purport to refer to a feeling or belief actually refer to. This is eliminativism, but not of the Churchland variety.

Davidson's argument for token identity belongs here. Identity is the conclusion of the argument, not the premise, as you appear to represent it. If there is psycho-physical causality, and if there are no psychophysical laws, then the only explanation can be one of identity. However, because the identity is only token-token, there is no way, even in principle, of identifying a mental event by looking at someone's brain.

You raise the question of 'epiphenomenalism' in the context of Jackson's argument. The light makes Mary put on her sunglasses. It also causes her to experience a quale of dazzling bright yellow. In Dennett's terms there is a functional role for conscious awareness of one's experiences. In another situation, Mary might put on her sunglasses 'without thinking' as the light gets brighter. There is room for debate over just what this role is, and therefore room for the thesis that, in fact, our conscious awareness pulls no real weight in our decision making. Some research has been done which seems to suggest that many of our decisions are 'made' before we become consciously aware of making them.

What is more interesting from the point of view of the qualia issue is the epiphenomenalism which arises from Chalmers' use of the zombie argument. Physically indistinguishable zombie Mary exclaims, 'Ooh the bright light!' and puts on her sunglasses. But there is nothing mentally happening 'inside'. If that is possible, then the quale of 'dazzling yellow' plays no causal role ever, in principle. There is a much stronger argument against this than the evolutionary one, namely, that by hypothesis zombie Mary can 'agree' with everything that Chalmers says, insisting that she has qualia just as vehemently as non-zombie Mary.

I've written more than I would normally write in response to an essay - and still feel that it isn't enough. I did find this difficult, because you raise so many issues, to the extent that this almost looks like a mini-introduction to the mind-body problem. It would be quite possible to develop all four of your portfolio essays from themes raised here (though I don't know if you want to do this).

All the best,

Geoffrey

Does 'A knows that P' entail that P is true?

2012-01-09T13:50:00.002Z

To: Alfred M.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Does 'A knows that P' entail that P is true?
Date: 1 November 2006 10:28

Dear Al,

Thank you for your email of 25 October, with your first University of London essay for the Epistemology module.

I am somewhat disconcerted that this is the second essay I have received within a month - the other essay also submitted by James, an American student on the University of London External Programme - which questions the widely accepted view that knowledge that P entails that P is true.

Or, at least, I think this is what you are doing. Although you are not writing to a question (in future, this is something I would advise because examiners put a very high value on relevance to the question asked) I would guess the question could be put simply, as, 'Does A knows that P entail that P is true?'

From your essay, I am not sure what answer you would give, when the question is stated in these bald terms. Here are three alternatives:

a) No, because what matters for knowledge is relevance to a personal belief system and not what an external observer from a more lofty viewpoint would 'know'.

b) No, because there is no such thing as truth, but only 'true for A', 'true for B' etc.

c) Yes, because there is no such thing as truth, but only 'true for A', 'true for B' etc.

Although your argument is more persuasive and gripped me more than the one offered by my other student, one criticism of your approach would be that you don't make it clear what your position is. Here is how my other student defined knowledge:

S knows that P if and only if:

1. S believes that P.

2. S is justified in believing that P.

3. S's justification for believing the truth of P is commensurate with a) the degree to which the proposition fits into S's complete world model, b) the perceived importance (to both Sand society at large) of the proposition in question, and c) the plausibility of existing counter-claims to P.

Note how condition 3. replaces the more commonly accepted condition, 'P is true'.

In response, I allowed James his definition - but only as applying to an invented concept which I called 'knorridge'. (This is a common dialectical move in philosophy.) I then posed the question, 'If we have a concept of knorridge, do we still need a concept of knowledge?' (i.e. a concept which has 'P is true' as the third condition). I argued that we did, because there will always be an occasion when we want to signal our disagreement with what a person thinks he 'knows'. (It is significant that when you gave your example of the rich man and the beggar, you put 'knows' is scare quotes - more on this in a minute.)

The question, 'What do I know?' is important. The answer will necessarily be in terms of what I can be confident in believing, my degree of certainty. Sceptical arguments attack the sense of confidence, which we attempt to shore up in various ways. (To take a famous example, Descartes appealed to a veracious God.) However, in order to engage with these issues, all that is needed is the concept of 'knorridge'.

The reason we have a concept of knowledge - as opposed to knorridge - in our vocabulary or conceptual scheme is to enable us to deal with occasions when the question we want to raise is not, 'What do I know?' or 'What do we know?' but rather 'What does he/ she know?' or 'What do they know?' These questions can be just as important, no less relevant to action.

The question, 'What does he know?' need not imply a 'higher' level of consciousness or cognitive ability, let alone God-like knowledge. I 'know' there is a hundred pounds in my wallet because I went to the cash machine last night. What I didn't realize is that my wife removed ten pounds early this morning to pay the window cleaner. At lunch time I buy a round of drinks at the local bar and absent mindedly pay the twenty pound bill with a ten pound note which the barman absent mindedly accepts.

I didn't KNOW that I had a hundred pounds in my wallet, I only thought I knew. I only thought I knew this, irrespective of whether I ever find out the truth or not. There might be a temptation to say, 'In my universe I did have a hundred pounds in my wallet' but now we are going into Schroedinger's cat territory. There are lots of things - myriads of things - that happen all the time outside our knowledge or awareness. We leave the box alone, or we open it to see what's inside. Opening the box does not change the world, only our state of belief or knowledge. This is common sense. I am not saying that there could never be reason to challenge the common sense view - maybe when you delve into theoretical physics - but I am merely pointing out that it is a reasonable starting position.

There is a strong undercurrent of the American Pragmatist tradition in your essay. I am sympathetic to this. The most important point to make in support of that view is that many of our beliefs are not simply factual but evaluative. Our world view is thoroughly 'ideological' in the sense that the features which are salient to us are defined in terms of their importance for action. I take all this on board.

Your example of the judgement, 'lazy' is a case in point. Is the rich man 'right' or 'wrong' to judge that the unemployed man standing on the corner is lazy? From your description, one is inclined to say that he is in fact wrong, because he is unaware of the strenuous efforts that the unemployed man made to get a job, which makes this not such a good example for your case.

However, we can beef this up by considering what it is to be 'lazy'. I have great sympathy for the unjustly accused 'lazy' people of the world who don't see the point of frenetic money grubbing, who love to spend time looking up at the clouds etc. etc. But that's just the view from where I stand. Maybe looking at the way I spend my day, you would say I am lazy.

Again, I am fully with you in rejecting the idea of the 'God-like' perspective. From the Godlike perspective - or Nagel's 'View From Nowhere' - there is no such thing as the human world, but only matter in motion. However, I have argued that interest in knowledge - as opposed to mere knorridge - does not require any assumption that the only 'true' view is the one that God sees.

All the best,

Geoffrey

Frege's puzzle about identity

2012-01-05T13:20:00.001Z

To: Dennis T.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Frege's puzzle about identity
Date: 31 October 2006 09:42

Dear Dennis,

Thank you for your email of 24 October, with your University of London essay in response to the Sample Logic question, 'Does Frege's puzzle about identity show that there is more to the meaning of a proper name than its reference?'

You have given a clear exposition of Frege's argument, illustrated by two of Frege's examples and one of your own, showing that an identity statement can convey factual information.

In 'Sense and Reference' Frege offers an explanation of this, in terms of his distinction between sense and reference. Not only general terms but also proper names have a sense as well as a reference. Identity statements have the potential to convey factual information because the senses of the two terms conjoined by the equals sign are different.

The exam question, however, does not ask, 'What theory did Frege put forward in 'Sense and Reference' to explain the informativeness of identity statements?' but simply, does the puzzle over identity show that there IS more to the meaning of a proper name than its reference?

If there is more to the meaning of a proper name than its reference, then the next step would be to decide what this extra 'something' is, and how it relates to the property of having a reference. Possibly, there may be competing theories about the extra something. However, all you have been asked to do is consider Frege's argument for saying that there is more to the meaning of a proper name than its reference.

In the exam you must pay scrupulous care to the wording of the question. In this case, you are not being asked merely to show your knowledge of Frege's argument in 'Sense and Reference' but rather show that you understand what is at issue in the question what is, or is not part of the meaning of a name.

You say, in your penultimate paragraph, 'There can be little doubt that there is more to the meaning of a proper name than its reference.' In fact, there is plenty of room for doubt on this issue.

As a first step towards showing this, consider what you say about Frege's Aphla-Ateb example. 'Indeed the legends and mythology surrounding the mountain are contained in the name's sense.'

Frege would emphatically NOT agree with this. Prime Minister Tony Blair and I share a favourite philosopher - John Macmurray. When I hear the name Tony Blair mentioned in the context of philosophy, I am reminded of this. But the fact that Tony Blair as an undergraduate was keen on the philosophy of John Macmurray is not part of the sense of the name 'Tony Blair'.

Frege was clear about this. Each of us have more or less private associations with different words. Each of us has different knowledge of someone like Tony Blair. Yet, Frege claims, there is such a thing as THE sense of the name 'Tony Blair'. Sense is what is public, shared, that which gives the word its potential for contributing to the sense of statements in which it occurs. In the case of Aphla and Ateb, the salient feature which gives the two names their different senses is the geographical point of view from which each name has currency.

But is there such a thing as sense, really?

Imagine Mill reading your essay. One possibility might be that he has never considered identity statements and would be totally shocked to discover the 'paradox'. Another possibility is that he would immediately offer what seems, at face value, the most likely explanation: that the meaning of a proper name just is its reference. However, in virtue of having a reference, a proper name becomes a convenient way to sort beliefs, like a card index system. On the card labelled 'Bruce Wayne' a typical inhabitant of Gotham City has a number beliefs. On the card labelled 'Batman' he has other beliefs. It is news to discover that the two cards collate information belonging to one and the same individual.

How would Frege respond to this point? One question to ask is how does a name get attached to an object? What makes a name a name for one object rather than another object? Frege's notion of 'mode of presentation' implies that there is, somehow, a typical situation where you are presented with the object and the sense - by contrast with beliefs which you happen to have about the object - relates to this typical situation.

But why is this needed? Why is Mill wrong? The underlying theme of 'Sense and Reference' is that one of the tasks of the philosophy of language is to account for the facts in virtue of which a name has reference. We can't simply start, as Mill does, with the fact that a name names what it names, taken as a given, and proceed from there.

There is an explanatory gap in Mill's account which needs to be filled. The card-index theory ignores this gap. That's what Frege would say.

You will find these issues fully aired in a book by Gareth Evans 'Varieties of Reference'. Two classic discussions of this problem are by Saul Kripke 'Naming and Necessity' and Michael Dummett in his book 'Frege Philosophy of Language'. However, rather than plough through lots of heavy tomes, my advice would be to look on the internet, in Philosophy Encyclopaedias etc. You will find plenty of discussion of these issues. Meanwhile, I hope that I have given you enough pointers.

However, this is a good first effort, well done!

All the best,

Geoffrey

Why must others count in my deliberations?

2012-01-05T13:18:00.002Z

To: Matthew A.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Why must others count in my deliberations?
Date: 20 October 2006 11:25

Dear Matthew,

Thank you for your email of 12 October, with your essay for units 7-9 of the Moral Philosophy program, in response to the question, 'Why must others count in my deliberations?'

You give an admirably clear statement of the problem. Hume's account of natural sympathy explains why in fact we do allow others to count in our deliberations, but not why they must do so.

Kant offers a vision of two worlds, the phenomenal and the noumenal, where the sheer recognition of the fact that we exist in the noumenal worlds as rational beings is, or is held to be, sufficient to motivate action which accords with the Categorial imperative. The problem, however, is that the content which this gives as a recipe for constructing moral imperatives is insufficient for moral guidance in the world in which we find ourselves, as empirical subjects.

The simplest example would be, the maxim, 'Everyone ought to look after his own interests' is no less justified than the maxim, 'Everyone ought to look after everyone's interests.'

From Kant, you move onto Hare, observing that his theory of moral statements as prescriptions yields an answer to our question, only if one accepts preference utilitarianism, as the only basis for making moral decisions which does not foist one's own preferences upon others.

You say, 'Hare is driven to preference utilitarianism because he lacks a metaphysics that allows him to weigh up the relative merits of my preferences against those of others.' Hare would repudiate any attempt at constructing such a 'metaphysic' on the grounds that it clashes with the one certain principle of his theory: that a judgement, to be moral, must be universalisable. Any attempt to introduce additional content is 'fanaticism', i.e. deviation from the pure principle of universalisability.

From Hare we move to Nagel. This is the most interesting part for me.

In the program, I am not advocating Nagel's theory, although a lot of what is said sounds close to Nagel. For reasons which will become apparent in a moment, call the theory I am opposing to Nagel's the 'asymmetric' theory.

First, the things Nagel and I agree on. In some sense, recognition of the falsity of solipsism is sufficient for recognition that others must count in my deliberations. In his book 'The Possibility of Altruism', Nagel argues that my 'belief in other minds' is an INTERPRETATION of my recognition that others must count in my deliberations. Not only do the two go together, but the former in some sense philosophically illuminates the latter.

To explain what he means, Nagel gives the example of personal identity. The 'interpretation' of prudence, or the belief that my future self must count in my deliberations, is my 'sense of personal identity'. To have a sense of personal identity just is to be motivated by prudential considerations. Someone who was incapable of prudent action would lack a sense of personal identity.

According to this picture, there is something 'in' or 'about' others which is the same as I have - just as in the case of prudence, there is something in or about my future self which is the same as I have now.

The objection is the same in both cases: it is perfectly possible for me, fully recognizing my identity with the GK who will exist in a year's time, to act in spite of 'myself', to deliberately do things which GK one year on will bitterly regret. Similarly, as you point out in the context of discussing Hume, the sadist gains pleasure from torturing his victim only on the condition that he believes that the suffering he causes is 'real'.

This breaks the crucial connection that accounts for the 'must' in 'Others must count in my deliberations'.

Like Nagel's theory, the 'asymmetric' theory starts from the rejection of solipsism. Where it differs is in the recognition of the impossibility of viewing myself and the other as 'two of the same'. The recognition of the reality of my subjective world, contrary to what Nagel claims, is not the belief that 'everyone has a subjective world'. That would in effect be the disinterested view. The point about the subjective world is that you can't 'get out' of it, you are stuck there.

In that case, we need an alternative formula for what is involved in rejecting solipsism. This is where 'recognition of the authority of the other' comes in. Solipsism is false, because it lacks the prerequisites for a concept of truth. Truth necessarily involves a reference to others, an acceptance of the validity of a standpoint other than my own from which my beliefs and actions can be validly judged.

It would be possible, in theory, for a solipsist to have unlimited 'knowledge' of the world, and of the psychological states of others. But even this would not be enough for a concept of truth - for the very reason that it fails to allow room for the validity of another perspective.

But now comes the crucial part. I argued that even if I accept the 'reality' of the other in Nagel's theory, that does not provide me with an 'ought', a reason why I 'must' take the other into account. Mere metaphysical 'belief' does not translate into action.

By contrast, in the asymmetric theory, merely 'believing' this or that can never be enough to prove that I am not a solipsist who uses other persons as 'measuring instruments'. There is no 'belief' that the other is real, no proposition which I can state which conveys the content, 'I reject solipsism'. There is only action which actually takes account of others.

All the best,

Geoffrey

Can truth be defined?

2012-01-04T14:45:00.002Z

To: Gordon F.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Can truth be defined?
Date: 20 October 2006 10:20

Dear Gordon,

Thank you for your email of 13 October with your essay for units 7-9 of the Philosophy of Language program, in response to the question, 'Can truth be defined? - If you think that it can, give a definition and explain its philosophical significance. If you think that it cannot, what conclusions should the philosopher draw from that?'

In terms of comprehensiveness, the definitions of 'truth' and 'true' which you have cited are comparable to the entries in my 1973 copy of the 'Shorter Oxford English Dictionary'. It would be an interesting exercise to correlate them. (It is not inconceivable, given the similarity, that you have a newer edition of the SOED.) The resulting judgement would be that one or other of each definition is more accurate. One wouldn't speak of truth or falsity in this context, unless there was a flagrant misquotation or misattribution, or an incorrect etymology.

As your examples show, good dictionaries should show awareness of philosophical theory where appropriate. However, from the lexicographer's point of view, what philosophers say about 'truth', or 'justice', or 'person', or 'cause' is just more raw material for his/ her report (or, sometimes, recommendation) concerning accepted (or acceptable) usage.

You say in your essay that you have used the method of Dr Johnson and G.E. Moore to prove that '*truth* and *true* can be *defined*, in some sense of *definition*'. (You actually wrote, 'Berkeley' but I know you meant 'Dr Johnson, as it was he who kicked the stone. - this leads to an interesting question about truth: which statement of reported speech is 'true', the one which corrects your verbal slip, or the one which takes you at your precise word?)

However, that is the question at issue: we know already that true and truth can be 'defined' in a dictionary, as words which have usage in the language. The question is whether it is possible to give a philosophical definition.

That leads onto the question, what is a philosophical definition? Amongst analytic philosophers the word 'definition' has a generally accepted technical sense of 'necessary and sufficient conditions'. So, for example, a proposed definition of 'knowledge' would be:

A knows that P if and only if:

1. A believes that P
2. A is justified in believing that P
3. 'P' is true

This definition - if true - can be used to translate - in a non-trivial way - any piece of text which contains the word 'knows' into a piece of text which does not contain the word 'knows', just like any mathematical definition, e.g. the definition of 'equilateral triangle'. Debates over the proposed definition take the form of attempts at disproving the claim for either necessity or sufficiency by giving counterexamples - in the case of knowledge, Paul Gettier's paper, 'Is knowledge justified true belief?' is a notorious example.

So one sense of the essay question would be: can we do THIS with truth?

We can define 'a truth' as a statement/ proposition/ sentence/ judgement which is true (there is no circularity here because the next step is a definition of 'true'). We can pass on defining 'truth' without the substantive.

The next step is to simplify things further by deciding on the 'primary bearer of truth', i.e. what kinds of entities we defining the predicate 'true' over. There is considerable debate about this. One view is that 'true' applies primarily to sentences of a language, that is to say, our definition in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions applies to true and false sentences. But this is getting picky and technical. The big question is, Can this be done? Can the predicate 'true' be defined, non-trivially, in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions?

This is the point where one would consider the various definitions that have been proposed - in terms of correspondence, coherence, practical consequences etc.

Frege, in his paper 'The Thought: A Logical Inquiry' offers a knock-down argument directed at any attempt to define 'true'. The problem is, having given your definition, it then has to be applied to itself. If you say that a proposition is true if and only if it is X, you still have to give the truth conditions for 'being X' or 'not being X', sending you on a vicious regress.

That's one problem. But a larger problem, which your essay strongly hints at, is whether this exercise doesn't miss the point. Maybe philosophers can learn from a closer attention to lexicography. Is it irrelevant, as many analytic philosophers would claim, that an important use of the notion of truth is in the context where we are talking of a person's truthfulness, or being true to someone? (The British philosopher Bernard Williams has written on this, see http://www.pupress.princeton.edu/titles/7328.html for details of his book, 'Truth and Truthfulness'.)

I would like, ideally, to be able to explain ALL the commonly accepted uses of 'truth' and 'true' philosophically, in terms of a core philosophical definition of truth. The definition I would propose is the simplest of all the definitions: You can say that 'P' is true whenever you can say that P. 'True' is the only predicate that you can say this of (that's what makes the definition interesting and not at all trivial).

However, this merely restates the question: accepting that any definition of truth must have the consequence that you can say that 'P' is true whenever you can say that P (this is a simple statement of Tarski's Convention T, in his famous paper on 'The concept of truth in formalized languages'), can we, in fact give a more substantial account?

This needn't be in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions for truth. However, something does urgently need to be said about the POINT of truth. Why are we interested in it? So what, if there is a predicate which applies to any sentence P if and only if you can say P?

Michael Dummett, in his seminal paper 'Truth' (reprinted in 'Truth and Other Enigmas') argues that any philosophical account of truth must explain why truth is something at which we AIM.

As I said, I would like to think that this account of the point of our 'simple' definition of truth could be used to explain, and ultimately justify, all the uses noted in the dictionary. True North, for example, is what is North rather than where the compass needle points. A true friend is someone who is a friend, rather than someone who pretends to be one or who lets you down when the going gets tough, and so on.

All the best,

Geoffrey

On a proposed new definition of knowledge

2012-01-04T14:42:00.003Z

To: James S.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: On a proposed new definition of knowledge
Date: 10 October 2006 10:07

Dear Jim,

Thank you for your email of 3 October, with your University of London Epistemology essay entitled, 'Knowledge and Truth: A Proposed New Definition of Knowledge'.

In your essay you, 'present the provocative claim that the objective truth of a proposition is not necessary for knowledge of that proposition'.

I guess I should know - but unfortunately don't know - whether any philosopher has attempted to defend this claim. Obviously, if you knew of any you would have cited them. (More on this below.)

My first reaction is that 'knowledge' which is not true by definition just isn't what I mean by 'knowledge'. But maybe I'm just a victim of unquestioned dogma, as you claim. How would one resolve this issue?

There is one well tried method. Let's not bicker about the 'accepted' meaning of a word. Define 'knorridge' in the following way:

S knorrs p if and only if:

1. S believes p

2. S is justified in believing that p is true

3. S's justification for believing the truth of p is commensurate with a) the degree to which the proposition fits into S's complete world model, b) the perceived importance (to both Sand society at large) of the proposition in question, and c) the plausibility of existing counter-claims to p.

Let's now consider the story of Green and Brown.

Brown, the practical jokester, boasts to his friends, 'Green thinks he knows that there is an orange on the table, but he's wrong!'

Brown is fully justified in saying that Green doesn't know that there is an orange on the table. He is justified in saying this because he substituted a fake orange.

Of course, we have to allow that Brown could himself be the victim of a deception. Tired and fed up with Brown's antics, Green has slyly substituted the real orange for the fake orange.

Or take this one stage further: Brown sees Green replace the fake orange with a real orange and switches again. It would make a good scene for a comedy film.

My question is: which is the more useful concept, knorridge or knowledge?

We already have concepts which describe how things are from a subject's perspective, or how the world is for that subject: Green believes, thinks, is certain, has every reason to be confident that there is an orange on the table. What is added when we say he knorrs that there is an orange on the table? I don't see that you have provided an adequate answer to this question.

What is added when we say that Green knows that there is an orange on the table is further test: that of our agreement with what Green claims. This is the essence of the 'factive' attitude, the point of having factive concepts in our vocabulary.

If beliefs were evaluated only from the perspective of 'I' or 'we', there would be no good reason for a concept of knowledge in addition to a concept of knorridge, or for factive attitudes. Our primary interest in a proposition or claim is whether we should believe it or not. There isn't any further question one can ask about its 'truth'. Scepticism is a worry, to the extent that it undermines our belief that we have a right to make the claims that we make about the world. This is the kind of scepticism that Descartes indulges in when he entertains the possibility of an evil demon.

There is a point in talking about 'knowledge' rather than 'knorridge' only because I, or we, are also interested in pronouncing judgement on what others believe.

This isn't intended as an answer to scepticism. I am simply describing the place of the concept of 'knowledge' (or factive attitudes generally) in our language.

The case of the comedy film (or fiction generally) is interesting because there is, or can be, an absolute answer to any question we raise - e.g. about the real or fake orange. It was fake if and only if that's what the script says. In the real world, given sufficiently contrived circumstances, any answer we give can, in principle, be overturned. This is the situation that the sceptic exploits. A script has defined boundaries whereas the world has not.

However, switching from knowledge to knorridge doesn't prevent sceptical doubts from arising. When I am gripped by sceptical doubt, my concern is, Do I have the right to make this claim? Do we, in fact, have the right to make any claim about anything? I can make a claim, provided that it is 'justified'. However, an essential part of my judgement about whether I am justified or not is my confidence in my power of judgement. Normally, we do not stop to question our confidence in our powers of judgement. But it is perfectly possible - and this is something that actually happens - that a subject, for whatever psychological reason, loses this confidence.

Your core idea is that there is a 'fact of the matter' whether I knorr that there is an orange on the table or not, a kind of fact, moreover which is accessible in a way that 'objective truths' are not. The problem is that all it takes is a loss of confidence, a change in my psychological state, to overturn this 'fact'. All the sceptic about knorridge seemingly has to do is point this out.

Wittgenstein has an answer to scepticism, which many readers find rather gnomic. To the question, 'But if you are certain, isn't it that you are shutting your eyes in the face of doubt?' He replies, 'They are shut' (Philosophical Investigations Page 224).

If I am confident in my powers of judgement then I am confident. Pointing out that it is conceivable that I might lose this confidence is not providing me with a reason to question my sense of confidence. My eyes are (as a matter of fact) shut. End of discussion.

Despite all I have said, I would like to see further work on your idea. If this view hasn't been broached before (I would have to spend hours searching through the Philosophers Index to be sure) and the argument can be sufficiently toughened up, then it would certainly merit an article in Mind or Philosophical Review.

As far as the University of London Examiners are concerned, provided that you show due awareness of how radical your proposal is, and have some kind of answer to the obvious objections, then you will gain credit rather than be penalised.

All the best,

Geoffrey

Heraclitus and the unity of opposites

2012-01-03T13:32:00.001Z

To: Dennis T.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Heraclitus and the unity of opposites
Date: 29 September 2006 11:27

Dear Dennis,

Thank you for your email of 21 September, with your essay in response to the University of London 2004 Plato and the Presocratics exam question, 'In what sense or senses does Heraclitus believe in the 'unity of opposites'?

This is a clear and well written essay, which offers a concise answer to the question. According to your interpretation, Heraclitus' doctrine of the 'unity of opposites' is intended to convey the 'relativism of different frames of reference'.

As an interpretative theory, his has the advantage of great simplicity and also seems consistent with the evidence. All the examples of 'unity of opposites' cited by Heraclitus can be subsumed under this general description.

Heraclitus has been accused of 'denying the principle of non-contradiction'. Clearly, on your interpretation, this accusation has no basis whatsoever. 'The sea is pure and polluted' is not self-contradictory, when the meaning of the statement is fully unpacked.

The next question to ask, however, is why Heraclitus expended so much effort saying something which seems rather obvious to us.

You hint that the idea of different frames of reference is the forerunner of Einstein's theory of relativity. This is a good reason for being interested in Heraclitus' theory. In a similar way, it is interesting that the Greek atomists the atomic theory. However, just as the motive and reasoning behind Greek atomism - as a reaction to Parmenidean monism - was very different from modern atomic theory, so we might expect that Heraclitus was not really thinking of the kinds of issues that Einstein addressed in his critique of Newtonian mechanics, but was onto something different - something which makes more sense in terms of his own philosophy.

The question is what this could be. While noting the positive strengths of your essay, an examiner would feel that you ought to have pursued this question.

According to Heraclitus the world is an 'everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures'. He also talks of a 'backstretched connection, as in the bow or the lyre'. In Heraclitus vision of the world, there is a fundamental tension between opposites, and it is this tension which is the source of ultimate unity. 'It is wise to agree that all things are one.'

In view of this, I would question whether the interpretation that you have offered could be the last word. We are looking for strife, tension between opposites but all that the theory of relative viewpoints has to offer is, 'one world which can be seen from many viewpoints'. So we have unity, but not the tension.

Here is one possible answer. Heraclitus was not the first to question the idea of 'opposites' existing in their own right. Anaximenes' theory of condensation/ rarefaction effectively demolished the naive theory of 'the hot' and 'the cold', 'the rare' and 'the dense' conceived as entities existing in their own right. All the different qualities that we see are in fact different degrees on a single scale. There is just one stuff, air, which gives rise the differentiated world through a simple, intelligible process.

Heraclitus substitution of 'fire' for 'air' was not just the expression of a preference for a different fundamental 'stuff' but the rejection of the very idea 'stuff' or 'substance' as such. This is, arguably, the point of famous passage about the river. Unceasing change, brought about by the tension of opposites, creates a stable image of a world where we are able to identify rivers, mountains etc.

I described this as 'one possible answer'. The view I have described is the more traditional, Platonic reading of Heraclitus which brings him close to the 20th century philosopher Whitehead's theory of 'process' according to which the fundamental entities of which the world is composed are events rather than things.

This interpretation has the merit of explaining why Heraclitus made the statements that he did about opposites. I am not saying that it is the correct one, but merely citing it as an example.

The general point is that in giving an answer to the question set, you have to consider how the interpretation that you offer relates to a philosopher's views as a whole. If you say that X said ABC, then why did X say that? what point was he making? how does this relate to other things that X said?

A good essay, nonetheless.

All the best,

Geoffrey

Defining truth by a majority vote

2012-01-03T13:29:00.001Z

To: Kate S.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Defining truth by a majority vote
Date: 29 September 2006 09:51

Dear Kate,

Thank you for your first essay for the Metaphysics program, which I received on 23 September, in response to the question, ''A statement is true if, and only if, the majority of persons of sound judgement would assent to its truth.' - How might one criticise this definition of truth using the reality principle?'

It was a pleasure to read this essay. On the basis of this piece of work I would have no hesitation recommending you for entry into a BA Honours course.

Your definition (b) is very similar in form to the account which Hume gives of taste. Hume takes a subjectivist view, aesthetic values are not out there 'in the world' but merely reflect human preferences. However, when applied to works of art, this would have the unwelcome consequence that there are no artistic works which through their intrinsic quality are worthy of appreciation, only what individual people 'like' or 'dislike'. Hume's solution is to define a class of persons of 'good taste' or 'refined sensibility' whose judgements have greater weight in determining whether a work has genuine aesthetic value or not.

There are various things you could say about how one determines whether an individual belongs to this restricted class or not, in terms of his or her knowledge and understanding, without presupposing in a circular way the notion of aesthetic quality. Hume goes to a lot of trouble in doing this. Obviously, it would be no use to define a person of refined sensibility as one who holds that a work has aesthetic quality only when it does indeed have aesthetic quality.

However, when we come to the analogous definition which you offer for truth, there does not appear to be any way to define what it is to be 'knowledgeable or wise' without reference to the concept of truth. It is part of the meaning of 'knowledge' that if X knows that P then P is true. Unless we can help ourselves to the concept of truth, it is hard to see how one can define a useful notion of 'knowledge' or 'wisdom'.

But is this a problem? Is there in fact a circularity here?

Maybe there could be a way to define what it is to be knowledgeable or wise, or have good judgement, in relation to a restricted class of truths, then use this notion to produce a general definition of 'truth'.

Suppose we could do this. Does such a definition necessarily have the consequence that a statement like, 'The earth goes round the sun' will be true at time t1 but false at time t2? In any case what could it possibly mean to say that a statement is true at one time and false at another?

'It is raining' is false today but was true at 10 am yesterday. However, the change of truth value is accounted for by an 'indexical' element. In fact, we are dealing with two different propositions, one of which is false and one which is true. 'The earth goes round the sun' (as normally understood) does not contain an indexical element. Either Galileo was right or he was wrong (discounting issues arising from General Relativity).

There is no coherent way to state such a 'relativised' notion of truth. This is because of the minimum requirement which any definition of truth must meet (on pain of simply not being a definition of TRUTH) that it licenses equivalences of the form, 'The earth goes round the sun' is true if and only if the earth goes round the sun.

'True' is the only predicate which you can apply to any quoted statement which is equivalent to removing the quotes (the 'predicate of disquotation'). Some philosophers have argued that this is all there is to the definition of truth (so-called 'redundancy' theories or 'minimalist' theories). The problem with the minimalist view is that it leaves us with a question that we still want to answer: 'What is it that all true statements have, which false statements lack?' We feel we ought to be able to say something informative about this.

But maybe not.

Applying the reality principle, you are led to the conclusion that truth is independent of human judgement. We can never be sure, when we make a judgement, that our judgement is true. Truth may be 'out there' we can never be sure of reaching it. This is the view of the realist about truth (who we will meet later in the program).

So we are brought back to the notion that truth does, after all, have something to do with agreement in judgments. After all, we use the notion of truth. The notion would not have any use if we could not say when a statement is true or not.

I will refrain from saying any more, because we are already getting deeply into the issues discussed in the program. As you will see, I argue that you don't have to be a realist about truth in order to accept the reality principle. The question is how far off realism one can go without falling foul of that principle.

All the best,

Geoffrey

Significance of philosophical scepticism

2012-01-03T13:27:00.001Z

To: Gordon F.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Significance of philosophical scepticism
Date: 27 September 2006 11:35

Dear Gordon,

Thank you for your email of 21 September, with your essay for the Introduction to Philosophy program, in response to the question, 'Assess the significance of philosophical scepticism'.

I am fully in agreement with you, that if we give up the quest for certainty, and see our judgements and beliefs as provisional that does not lead to the conclusion that 'each of us is trapped in a solipsistic cave'.

I will qualify this statement slightly I don't really see much point in stating that when I move my hand towards the mug of tea on my desk, I am acting 'as if' the statement that there is a mug of tea on my desk is true. I brewed the tea myself, carried the mug upstairs and put it on my desk. Nothing sort of a fully-fledged Matrix scenario could undermine my belief that there is a mug of tea (OK, I have to allow for the possibility that someone substituted some other herbal infusion for the tea bags and didn't tell me) on my desk.

Vaihinger, in 'The Philosophy of 'As If'' is concerned with an idea first canvassed by Hume, that many or most of the concepts which we employ are 'fictions' rather than the literal truth. According to Hume, all I know is my own impressions and ideas. However, following 'human nature' (as Pyrrho advocated) we embrace the fictions which our minds create in order to make sense of our experience. It is as good as true that there is a mug of tea on my desk. Vaihinger extends this idea (I seem to recall, like you it is a long time since I saw the work) in a way which brings him close in some ways to the American Pragmatist tradition.

I would characterize your position not as 'philosophical scepticism' but rather as 'pragmatism.'

In the paragraph from unit 4 which you quoted from, I was considering the claim that it is possible to be a philosophical sceptic by claiming that we don't 'know' anything - while leaving everything else as it is. We can still talk of beliefs, we just can't talk of knowledge. (This is the point of my question about the Queen's speech in Parliament.) This is an incoherent position. The arguments which purport to undermine knowledge claims also undermine the notion that any given belief is more justified than the opposite belief, which in turn leads to the conclusion that no-one every has the right to make an assertion about anything.

Where does one go from there? A pragmatist, or a Humean, would say that what we do not do 'by right', we just do anyway. But this seems to require a difficult act of 'double think'. Amongst the things we 'do' are arguing for or against beliefs, evaluating knowledge claims, saying that this 'is true' or that that 'is false'. Which leads to the suspicion that philosophical scepticism, when fully thought through to its conclusion, amounts to no more than a verbal flourish. 'No-one knows anything, but we still "know" things for all intents and purposes.'

By contrast with 'modern' philosophical sceptics, from the time of Descartes and Hume onwards, Pyrrho saw scepticism as a way of life, not just a philosophical theory. This is what makes him particularly interesting.

Like you, I am happy to accept that talk of 'truth' is just a convenient way of placing emphasis. It is also a tool which enables one to generalize. In order to make the logical point that 'If X knows that P, then P is true', without the use of the term 'true' or a synonym, I would have to list every proposition expressible in the English language. So the term 'true' is rather useful after all.

What is the significance of philosophical scepticism? I think that there is a view which may be called 'sceptical' in a philosophical sense, which is not empty, nor requires the lifestyle of Pyrrho but has significant consequences for our grasp of what it is for there to be such a thing as 'reality'. There is no 'truth as such'. Truth is just a convenient abbreviation, nothing more. What is real, is our situation as agents in a world, who rely on day to day practical judgement. Along with our practical concerns, we also have the leisure to entertain theoretical interests, wonder about the heavens and so on. Such activities would have no significance, however, were it not for the fact that they are conducted by physical agents in a physical world.

All the best,

Geoffrey

Possible worlds and the problem of other minds

2012-01-03T13:23:00.002Z

To: Gordon F.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Possible worlds and the problem of other minds
Date: 21 September 2006 09:23

Dear Gordon,

Thank you for your email of 5 September, with your first essay for units 1-3 the Possible World Machine in response to the question, 'Explore the use of 'possible worlds' in philosophy, illustrating your argument with an example of a problem that involves the notion of possible worlds', and for your email of 20 September, with your essay for units 4-6 in response to the question, 'How do you know that the author of these words has a mind?'

Possible worlds

Your account of 'personal worlds' does not involve any conflict with the distinction drawn in chapter 1 of Naive Metaphysics between the objective world and 'my subjective world'.

As I understand it from your account, the personal world of subject S would be defined as the possible world in which all and only the things that S believes are true. If S's beliefs are 'omega inconsistent' (i.e. there is inconsistency but S is not in a position to identify where the inconsistency lies) then this defines an 'impossible world', but one which S does not recognize to be impossible. Our personal worlds overlap to the extent that we share beliefs.

It is true that we can also talk of the 'world' of the autistic person, or someone who is colour blind, or deaf. In this case there could be a perfect coincidence - as defined in terms of belief - between the worlds of someone who is, e.g. deaf, and someone who is not deaf, yet we would want to say that in an important sense their worlds are profoundly 'different'. If this notion could be sharpened up, this would yield a different kind of personal world - call it a 'perceptual world'.

In your careful account of modality and ideas of possible worlds you don't go so far as to actually describe a philosophical problem which involves the notion of possible worlds. However, the contrast which you draw between 'possible actual worlds' conceived as linguistic entities and possible worlds not so conceived relates to the debate alluded to in unit 1 between those who view possible worlds as 'real' worlds such as David Lewis, and those who define possible worlds in linguistic terms.

Amongst those who take a realist view of possible worlds, Saul Kripke and David Lewis differ on one fundamental issue, namely the question of 'trans-world identity'. Kripke wants to take talk of possible words seriously, and not just reduce possible worlds to a linguistic construct, yet at the same time he insists on the common sense notion that when, e.g. I think about the things that GK might have done yesterday but did not, I am not thinking about a 'counterpart' of myself existing in some other possible world but about MYSELF.

Why 'believe' in possible worlds, if we can do all we want to do, or say all we want to say with your 'possible actual worlds'? Do you have a view on this?

My suspicion is that the question that the linguistic analysis fails to address is the very same question that Lewises account also fails to address, namely the nature of 'the possible' as such. A linguistic entity, or a world in a different time and space, remains stubbornly actual, something that 'exists'. Yet when we turn our minds to the possible, we are precisely aiming at the opposite of this, at a state of affairs that does not exist but might have existed.

Yesterday, I had an important decision to make (whether or not to go ahead with my business consultancy partnership). In time, I will be in a position to express satisfaction with the decision I made, or entertain regrets. The object of my thought - how things might have been had I decided differently - is not something that 'is' but rather something that 'is not', that is the whole point.

The difficulty is finding a way to capture this idea in philosophically illuminating terms, otherwise we have to rest content with saying that the notion of possibility, or possible worlds is 'sui generis'.

Other minds

You point out one a straightforward way of answering the question, 'Does the author of these words have a mind?' which does not raise any difficult philosophical questions. There is no need to give a philosophical analysis of the concept 'mind'. Just say that in our day-to-day lives we meet and converse with people, who express their thoughts, who behave in characteristic ways which imply thinking and deliberating, and these are the kinds of thing we mean by 'having a mind'.

On the other hand, there are children's toys - speaking dolls, or action men which yell 'pass me the ammo!' - to which we would not attribute minds, even though they appear to produce utterances of the kind which under other circumstances we would explain as coming from a subjects with minds.

I have a version of Eliza on my computer, along with a configuration file which you can add to at will. It does not seem too far fetched to suppose that given enough time one could program Eliza to carry out a pretty convincing discussion an any given philosophical topic. Maybe the configuration file would have to be a few (or many) millions of words long, but that kind of thing is child's play given the enormous size of programs being produced for the latest PCs. This would not have been possible in the days when Eliza was first designed because back then processor speeds ran at a comparative snail's pace.

I'm pretty sure that the method you suggest of cribbing questions from the units using software that selected likely statements and turned them into questions could be made work. In that case, the answer to the question is that you can't be sure that the author of the questions has a mind. The questions could have been generated by a computer. It is irrelevant that the software was designed by a human being. The programmer did not need to think of these questions in order to write the program, or indeed know anything about philosophy.

Eliza with a souped-up configuration file looks a likely candidate for the Turing Test. How long she can keep up a convincing philosophical discussion depends on the skill of the questioner. Yet even if the discussion carried on indefinitely, we would be very reluctant to say that Eliza is 'doing the same thing' as we do when we express our thoughts. Because we can see how the trick is done.

Now at last we are driven back to the philosophical question, what is it REALLY to have a mind? It can't just be 'to behave like something with a mind'. In that case, it must have something to do with source of the behaviour. One theory - dualism - says that only subjects with 'souls' have a mind. Anything without a soul is just like a more complicated version of Eliza. One unfortunate consequence of dualism, however, is that no-one can ever know whether anyone else has a mind. I can never know that about you and you can never know that about me.

If you reject dualism, on the other hand, then the challenge is to provide a convincing account of the essential difference between the kind of program that runs on the brain (if we can even call it a 'program') and a giant look-up table like Eliza.

All the best,

Geoffrey

What did Berkeley prove by kicking the stone?

2011-12-29T09:40:00.003Z

To: Walter F.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: What did Berkeley prove by kicking the stone?
Date: 16 September 2006 11:02

Dear Walter,

Thank you for your email of 6 September, with your fifth and final essay for the Metaphysics program, in response to the question, 'I refute it thus' - When he kicked the stone in the church courtyard what was Dr Johnson hoping to prove? Was the demonstration a success?

First of all, congratulations on being (I think I'm right in saying this) the first Pathways student to successfully complete four of the six programs. My report and certificate will be on their way shortly to the Secretary of the ISFP who will forward them to you.

If you still have an appetite for more, there are just two choices, 'The Possible World Machine' and the program on the Presocratic philosophers of Ancient Greece!

You consider three possible interpretations of Dr Johnson's demonstration. 'One possibility is that Johnson regarded religion as a matter of revelation rather than demonstration...'. This would explain his opposition to Berkeley, but not the manner of expressing it. On this view, Johnson aligns himself with the view later argued by Kant in the Critique of Pure Reason, that we must limit the claims of reason 'in order to make room for faith'.

Although Kant does not consider Berkeley's argument for the existence of God when looking at the main proofs offered (Cosmological, Ontological and Teleological), one can reconstruct the argument he would have given from what he says about Leibniz in the 'Amphiboly of the Concepts of Pure Reflection' (one of the more obscure sections of the Critique of Pure Reason). Berkeley's error is in attempting to use empirical concepts to describe the nature of 'things in themselves' - the ultimate reality which accounts for the given facts of perception. We can't meaningfully talk of a 'God' or of objectively existing 'perceptions' in God's 'mind' because once we leave behind the concepts which apply to the world of our experience, there is no way to describe 'noumena' or 'things in themselves'.

The second interpretation is the idea that God is not 'there to fine tune the universe'. There is some justice in the complaint that in holding the 'ideas' of all existing objects in his mind, or presenting perceptions to us at the appropriate time, God has too much work to do. However, in this respect Berkeley's theory is not so distant from Descartes' non-idealist view that in order to 'exist', material objects must be maintained in existence by God's continuous creative power.

The third interpretation is the one which I would give. However, one need to distinguish this carefully from a view which has often been erroneously attributed to Dr Johnson, that somehow kicking a stone proves that the stone is not just an experience. Generations of philosophy students have learned to rebut that argument: If my perception of the stone is just an idea in my mind, then so are my perceptions of my contact with the stone, the sound it makes when it hits my boot, the sharp pain in my toe and so on.

The correct view, as you say, is that the act of kicking the stone emphasises a fundamental feature of our relation to reality - that we are in the world as agents rather than as passive observers. On this view, the error made by idealists (and also by many who claim to be non-idealists) is in viewing visual perception as the paradigm of perception. This sets up the fatal subject-object dichotomy which leads inevitably to idealism in one form or other.

Vision is a 'distance sense'. By making visual perception the paradigm of perception, the subject is placed metaphysically at a 'distance' from the world. By some means or other, the subject is required to find its way back to the world from the 'given' in perception. The argument for idealism is based on the impossibility of achieving this. Instead, the only 'world' that there can be for us is one constructed in some way out of the materials of perception.

The alternative is to view physical action as the paradigm of perception. If one thinks of cases like that of Helen Keller, it is perfectly possible to conceive of a subject with no distance senses at all, whose only connection to the world is through physical agency.

All the best,

Geoffrey

Descartes on the incorrigibility of mental events

2011-12-29T09:39:00.003Z

To: Tony L.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Descartes on the incorrigibility of mental events
Date: 15 September 2006 10:22

Dear Tony,

Thank you for your email of 6 September, with your essay for the University of London Introduction to Philosophy program in response to the question, ''I am now seeing light, hearing a noise, feeling heat. But I am asleep so all this is false. Yet I certainly seem to see, hear, be warmed. This cannot be false' (Descartes). Discuss.'

This is a very thorough examination of the claim, or rather claims which Descartes makes in the above quote. As you observe, there are two main questions: one concerning the 'I' and the other concerning the occurrence of mental events. Let's look at each of these in turn.

As many critics of Descartes have argued, the use of 'I' in the statement, 'I certainly seem to see...' is questionable, insofar as it presupposes an entity with an identity over time. If Descartes is seriously in the business of doubting everything that can be doubted, then it should be perfectly conceivable that the evil demon created him five seconds ago, along with set of false memories concerning 'his' past experiences.

However, we have to distinguish this from the more radical, Humean criticism which rejects the idea that one needs an 'I' as a container or subject of experiences in addition to the experiences themselves. You raise the worry of how one can assign a given experience to one bundle or another. In fact, it seems that the Humean has ample resources to do this. Just define 'co-presence' as a symmetrical, reflexive and transitive relation which can hold between any two perceptions at a given time. It follows that experiences will be neatly partitioned into non-overlapping bundles. Experiences belong to the GK bundle (at a given time) so long as they are co-present with, say, 'this coffee taste' (as I take a sip). So, on this view, one does not need 'I' at all.

Of course, if you were then to ask WHY co-presence must be symmetrical, reflexive and transitive that is a question which Hume does not address - but Kant does (in his notion of the formal 'I think' which 'accompanies all perceptions').

You are not expected to be able to quote from Hume and Kant. However, Strawson in the other reading has something relevant to say. We have seen that it is possible to doubt one's identity over time. In, fact, as Strawson would argue, there is NO DIFFERENCE in the Cartesian picture between identity and non-identity. Imagine that 'I' die at every moment and am replaced by a duplicate 'I'. This is not intended as a sceptical claim, but rather as attacking the very idea of 'identity' as applied to the Cartesian 'I'. (The original source of this criticism is Kant's 'Paralogisms of Transcendental Psychology' from the Critique of Pure Reason'.)

Even worse, there is no coherent meaning, Strawson claims, in the idea that there is one 'I' enjoying these momentary perceptions rather than a thousand 'I's. Take away body, and you take away the only thing that is capable of conferring identity on a subject of experience, either at a time or over time.

What about the perceptions themselves?

As you argue, Descartes draws a contrast between thoughts that can be false, where there is a gap between seeming and reality, and thoughts that can't be false because there is no gap. The question is, Is that a way of being necessarily true?

You cast doubt on this claim, on the ground that even if the experience as such cannot be doubted, as soon as I try to express the experience in words there arises the possibility of making an error, using the wrong words.

However, this still seems to give the Cartesian a last-ditch position which rejects discursive knowledge - there are no indubitable thoughts I can express in words which capture the 'this' of my present experience - yet manages to hold onto the thing that matters most, the hard nugget of metaphysical fact that there is 'this, now'.

Your comment on this position is that it is too slender a foundation on which to build a system of knowledge. Whether that is the case or not, however, the question is whether Descartes is ultimately right, there is a 'something that cannot be doubted'. If there is, then it looks like mind-body dualism (which is advertised in the full title of the Meditations as Descartes' goal) must be true in some form. If there is a 'something' that can exist in the absence of matter, then materialism must be false.

You might like to think about ways of attacking this final defence position of Cartesian philosophy.

I have written something relevant to this. See my paper, 'Truth and subjective knowledge' at http://klempner.freeshell.org/articles/shap.html.

All the best,

Geoffrey

Essay on scepticism and intuition

2011-12-29T09:32:00.003Z

To: James S.
From: Geoffrey Klempner
Subject: Essay on scepticism and intuition
Date: 11 September 2006 10:44

Dear Jim,

Thank you for your email of 4 September, with your essay towards the Associate Award, 'An Intuitive Response to Philosophical Skepticism'.

This is an excellent piece of work which clearly lays out the options from someone seeking a response to the challenge of scepticism (or skepticism - either is acceptable so long as you are consistent!). These are:

1. rejection of the sceptical hypothesis
2. denial of the principle of closure
3. acceptance of the sceptical paradox

However, you have gone further than many students would, and sought to provide a fourth option which is distinct from these three common moves. All credit to you for that. This is the way to get a First.

I have nothing to comment on your analysis of the three options, which is clear and succinct.

I will concentrate on your proposal which on a first look I find very appealing, but at the same time can't help wondering whether this is too easy a 'way out'. But let us see.

Why do we have the word 'know' in our language? what use is it? What am you or G.E. Moore telling me, for example, when you say that you know that you have two hands?

This isn't a question about the analysis of 'know' in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions, but rather looks to the context which gives the concept of knowledge its point.

When I say I am 'certain' that X, I am telling you about my state of belief. It is legitimate, for example, to say I am certain that I am going to win the lottery this Saturday. I had a dream when the lottery angel came to me and told me. Or I feel it in my bones. You can't argue with my state of belief. But if I say I 'know' then you can reasonably ask me what right I have to make this claim. To say that I know is to say, in effect, that 'you can take it from me', i.e. I am an authority so far as the question whether X is concerned. But no-one can have this knowledge about the lottery unless the lottery is fixed and they are in on the scam.

Third-person analyses of the necessary and sufficient conditions for knowledge miss this point, because all you can see from a third-person perspective is that if A 'knows' that X, then X is true. However, our interest in knowledge isn't confined to cases where we are already given the truth of X, and our only interest is deciding whether A satisfies the conditions for knowing that X or not. The central case - so far as the point of a concept of 'knowledge' is concerned - is where we don't know whether X but A claims that he knows. If we accept A's authority to pronounce on this particular question, then we will accept that X is indeed the case.

I know that you have two hands because you told me, and I accept your authority on this point. It is possible (though I haven't checked this) that not all Pathways students have two hands.

From this perspective one can kind of see how one could both hold on to a legitimate concept of 'knowledge' in daily life, while admitting at the same time that from a metaphysical perspective no knowledge claims are justified, no-one has the 'right' to make any statement about anything.

So far so good. However, I am not so sure how much space there is here - despite what you say about making the assumption that we have knowledge 'axiomatic in a theory of knowledge' - between your view and that of Lewis. As it happens, David Lewis gave a paper at the Philosophy Dept at Sheffield a few years ago, where he argued the case for context sensitivity. However, rather than use grand sceptical hypotheses of the 'brain in a vat' variety, he pointed out very ordinary assumptions which we do not think to question when we make knowledge claims.

I have no idea about the level of technical development required to maintain a genuine brain in a vat (Dennett somewhere casts considerable scorn on this idea). However, there are any number scenarios which might indeed be the case, which could be used to undermine many, or most of the knowledge claims that I make.

'I have two hands' is an exception - one of the minority of knowledge claims - in that there is no undermining scenario that one can think of short of the brain in a vat variety. However, I think it would be perfectly proper for me to say that I know that I have a student 'James Smith' who is taking the BA via the University of London External Programme; or that George W. Bush is President of the United States; or that my beige G3 Powermac is worth less than a hundred Pounds.

If you asked me, Do I know that Bush has not been assassinated during the last half hour, obviously I would have to say I don't know. However, by the principle of closure that means I don't know that he IS the President of the United States. Or you could ask me, Do I know that the person who sold me my beige G3 on eBay was not the unwitting girlfriend of an international jewel thief who hid his cache of diamonds underneath the hard drive? In that case I don't know that my G3 is not worth a million Pounds.

What these cases seem to show is that there are things we DO know, on the condition that we are not asked certain awkward questions. This looks like a generalization of your case, but there seems far less - if any - justification for an 'axiomatic' solution.

All the best,

Geoffrey