This is amusing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7M-cmNdiFuI
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Monday, June 30, 2008
Trying
According to Albritton, a philosopher who believes that our wills are perfectly free with no restrictions whatsoever("There is no such thing as an unfree will"), in order to try something, there has to be a likelihood of success. We can't "try" to jump over a building when we're not Superman or try to do 50 push-ups when we never work out. Both Devon Belcher and Shiralee Brindell, a married couple of philosophy instructors at CU, believe in some circumstances, there's nothing you can physically do that would actually count as "trying." In some cases, sadly there may end up being a vast disconnect between the will and the action.
Pride
PRIDE
Cannot refer to:
-a logically private object/something that is exclusively your own
-something that is a public object or achievement. For example, we cannot feel pride about the ocean, because it is not our achievement.
Why do we feel pride for our country? We have very little control over it. We just live here. We do not own it, and we are not responsible for most of its accomplishments.
Mental attitudes that are internally related to their objects may include pride, fear and dismay. For instance, we cannot have fear without a sense of incumbent danger.
Perhaps there are no "private words," or at least there are not according to Wittgenstein's Private Language Argument.
So long as we are somehow responsible for something, we may feel pride about it.
There is a distinction between "pride" and "wanting to congratulate." Wanting to congratulate can have a larger scope, possibly encompassing humankind.
Why is Pride one of the 7 deadly sins anyway?
Cannot refer to:
-a logically private object/something that is exclusively your own
-something that is a public object or achievement. For example, we cannot feel pride about the ocean, because it is not our achievement.
Why do we feel pride for our country? We have very little control over it. We just live here. We do not own it, and we are not responsible for most of its accomplishments.
Mental attitudes that are internally related to their objects may include pride, fear and dismay. For instance, we cannot have fear without a sense of incumbent danger.
Perhaps there are no "private words," or at least there are not according to Wittgenstein's Private Language Argument.
So long as we are somehow responsible for something, we may feel pride about it.
There is a distinction between "pride" and "wanting to congratulate." Wanting to congratulate can have a larger scope, possibly encompassing humankind.
Why is Pride one of the 7 deadly sins anyway?
Saturday, May 03, 2008
Male Feminism According to Kahane, Kimmel, and Myself
While David J. Kahane’s article Male Feminism as Oxymoron did not say that men couldn’t be feminists, it labeled the identity of male feminist as “rife with contradictions” (Kahane 231). So while male feminism may be a little bit oxymoronic, hope remains. I think that male feminists do exist, and they exist in more shades than Kahane lies out in his epistemological article. Kahane himself notes four types of male feminists, but I would like to elaborate on one type I constructed myself while reading this article: the conversationalist.
Most men I know would fall into this category. The conversationalist is open to being enlightened about feminism and oppression, but does not seek out this information on his own accord. While it is interesting and engaging for him to discuss such matters, and he often does so open-mindedly, he does not have a full understanding of the gravity of the situation, a point that Kahane made well in his article. The conversationalist might get involved in an activist feminist movement, but only if it were easy to do. The conversationalist would also recognize the basic dynamics of a feminist problem, but not the deeper elements of that same problem. As Kahane writes, the conversationalist would be happy to enjoy the rewards that come from shallow feminism. In this case, the rewards could include an inward pat on the back and outward appreciation from his feminist friends and girlfriends.
Another main point I want to make is that men ought not to be eliminated from feminism, and I think that Kahane, though male, risks alienating men out of feminist discussion and activism altogether. This would be a horrible occurrence, because as Michael S. Kimmel writes in his article Who’s Afraid of Men Doing Feminism?, “Profeminist men are…necessary but not sufficient elements in feminism’s eventual success” (Kimmel 68). Besides, I am a standpoint epistemologist. I believe that all standpoints ought to be taken into account and combined when one is trying to reach an objective reality. This includes the standpoint of the feminist, both female and male, as well as the non-feminist, both male and female. In my opinion, males ought to be welcomed into the world of feminism. How are men and women going to change any sex-based discrimination if we don’t ally together into a larger force?
Most men I know would fall into this category. The conversationalist is open to being enlightened about feminism and oppression, but does not seek out this information on his own accord. While it is interesting and engaging for him to discuss such matters, and he often does so open-mindedly, he does not have a full understanding of the gravity of the situation, a point that Kahane made well in his article. The conversationalist might get involved in an activist feminist movement, but only if it were easy to do. The conversationalist would also recognize the basic dynamics of a feminist problem, but not the deeper elements of that same problem. As Kahane writes, the conversationalist would be happy to enjoy the rewards that come from shallow feminism. In this case, the rewards could include an inward pat on the back and outward appreciation from his feminist friends and girlfriends.
Another main point I want to make is that men ought not to be eliminated from feminism, and I think that Kahane, though male, risks alienating men out of feminist discussion and activism altogether. This would be a horrible occurrence, because as Michael S. Kimmel writes in his article Who’s Afraid of Men Doing Feminism?, “Profeminist men are…necessary but not sufficient elements in feminism’s eventual success” (Kimmel 68). Besides, I am a standpoint epistemologist. I believe that all standpoints ought to be taken into account and combined when one is trying to reach an objective reality. This includes the standpoint of the feminist, both female and male, as well as the non-feminist, both male and female. In my opinion, males ought to be welcomed into the world of feminism. How are men and women going to change any sex-based discrimination if we don’t ally together into a larger force?
Before reading these articles and others in the genres of feminist epistemology and male views on feminism, I never realized the full breadth of concerns regarding the notion of male feminists. There are livid arguments against feminist males, put forth by groups such as “the angry-white-men-in-training” and the patriarchy-baiter (Kimmel 59 and 60). Being a feminist does not make anyone “less of a real man,” nor does it make anyone a femi-Nazi (Kimmel 60). These are common misconceptions, however. I think that some men, probably more than would like to admit, and men who are not of the “angry-white-men-in-training” variety, still covertly think that the act of calling themselves a feminist or standing up for women in anti-feminist contexts would make them look wussy or like less of a man. How do we change this? I don’t think Kahane or Kimmel gave a response to this question, and unfortunately, right now I cannot think of an adequate response, either.
On a different note, I find it interesting that Kimmel thinks that “For men to support feminism…means acknowledging men’s experience of powerlessness…while placing it within a context of men’s aggregate power” (Kimmel 64). I didn’t understand Kimmel’s point that men live in “a place of entitlement unfulfilled,” and because of this he claims that when presented with feminism, men feel “like they will be forced to give up their sense of entitlement [without fulfilling it]” (Kimmel 65). I would like to collect male perspectives on this subject to see if this is an accurate assessment of the situation.
I believe that everyone ought to be a feminist. To me, believing in feminism means believing that when it comes to the sexes, they are equally matched and accordingly, deserve equal rights. I mean this in the sense that man and woman ought to be given equal opportunities in every sphere.
Additionally, I believe that we ought to address “women’s issues” as well as “men’s issues.” Women’s issues rightfully deserve more time, because women are not in charge nor are they entitled, and because there are more patriarchal societal problems that are aimed at women than men. Kimmel and Kahane name a few of them: sexual harassment, date rape, sexist comments, and the list of problems continues. However, men's issues are often overlooked in our society due to their pure nature: many of the issues themselves have as their deepest components the overlooking of such notions as emotions and the power-without-fulfillment paradox.
I would like to congratulate both Kahane and Kimmel for writing well-thought out and impassioned articles on this subject. It makes me want to rejoice that some men care this much about these very important issues. I loved Kahane’s idea of “a flyer headed, ‘So You’re a Male Feminist Professor?’ followed by a checklist” (Kahane 230). Additionally, I thought his four types of male feminist knowledge were very astutely observed.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Agnosticism and Atheism in The Seventh Seal
Antonious Block is the questioning agnostic. He wishes for there to be a God, but there is no evidence displayed to him that either God or Satan exists, and for him this is eternally frustrating. For him, God is a necessity in order for him to be able to have a meaningful life, and if God was conclusively proven to not exist, then there would be despair and angst and definitely no hope. Life gets emptier for him as he becomes more and more certain that God does not exist. There are very few scenes where things for him have meaning (i.e., the scene where he eats strawberries with Mary and Joseph and their baby).
Meanwhile, the Squire Jons is the already-despairing atheist. Jons has more bitterness in him than Antonious does (at first). With statements like “Love is the blackest of plagues,” Jons broods sulkily, presumably affected by what he assumes to be the truth (i.e., that God does not exist).
Personally, I am a questioning agnostic, and thus I relate more closely to Antonious Block than Jons. I find this more congenial because I believe that despite how much we try, God can never be proven, we can never fully understand It, and I look for evidence in the world, even though I fully know there will never be an answer that I deem to make me believe one way or the other, though I do not despair as Block does.
Meanwhile, the Squire Jons is the already-despairing atheist. Jons has more bitterness in him than Antonious does (at first). With statements like “Love is the blackest of plagues,” Jons broods sulkily, presumably affected by what he assumes to be the truth (i.e., that God does not exist).
Personally, I am a questioning agnostic, and thus I relate more closely to Antonious Block than Jons. I find this more congenial because I believe that despite how much we try, God can never be proven, we can never fully understand It, and I look for evidence in the world, even though I fully know there will never be an answer that I deem to make me believe one way or the other, though I do not despair as Block does.
Slavery Reparations
*Criticisms of David Boonin's Argument for Slave Reparations:*
-Why such a distinction between private and public acts?
-Regardless of whether these acts were private or public, they were committed long in the past, and not by the people who are expected to make reparations. This is unable to be changed. People are not responsible for past acts not committed by themselves.
-Some people's relations were not involved in the slave trade at all & therefore shouldn't have to pay anything
-Some people's relations were not in the U.S. at the time of the slave trade & plantations & therefore shouldn't have to pay anything
-What about all of the other wronged groups over the years? Native Americans, women, minorities, etc. Ought reparations be made to these groups as well?
-Can't prove P3 conclusively
-Car case/slave reparations analogy not analogous enough to make me believe it's equivalent
-Why such a distinction between private and public acts?
-Regardless of whether these acts were private or public, they were committed long in the past, and not by the people who are expected to make reparations. This is unable to be changed. People are not responsible for past acts not committed by themselves.
-Some people's relations were not involved in the slave trade at all & therefore shouldn't have to pay anything
-Some people's relations were not in the U.S. at the time of the slave trade & plantations & therefore shouldn't have to pay anything
-What about all of the other wronged groups over the years? Native Americans, women, minorities, etc. Ought reparations be made to these groups as well?
-Can't prove P3 conclusively
-Car case/slave reparations analogy not analogous enough to make me believe it's equivalent
Parent License?
I think most of the holes in Lafollette's argument on mandatory licensing for parenthood spring up in the implications.
-People would probably be wrongfully punished by not getting the license even if they deserve it because they didn't meet Lafollette's criteria
-Having and raising kids I think of as practically a "natural right," and licensing would take this away
-What degree of competence? (LP 2) What tests? Many parents start out knowing next to nothing (scary, but true), but they learn as they go on. Would you really restrict someone from being a mother or a father because they aren't sure how many degrees to add/subtract when you take the temperature of a baby?
-Many people may have "shady" backgrounds or a history of drug use, but people CAN change (their behaviors, if nothing else), and parenting is something that has the ability to make that happen. But my guess is, if there were a parenting "test," a lot of people would fail over something they no longer have any control over - or never had any control over in the first place(like their backgrounds or a single incident).
-What exactly would be the conditions of this "test"? How could it even be mostly fair?
-People would probably be wrongfully punished by not getting the license even if they deserve it because they didn't meet Lafollette's criteria
-Having and raising kids I think of as practically a "natural right," and licensing would take this away
-What degree of competence? (LP 2) What tests? Many parents start out knowing next to nothing (scary, but true), but they learn as they go on. Would you really restrict someone from being a mother or a father because they aren't sure how many degrees to add/subtract when you take the temperature of a baby?
-Many people may have "shady" backgrounds or a history of drug use, but people CAN change (their behaviors, if nothing else), and parenting is something that has the ability to make that happen. But my guess is, if there were a parenting "test," a lot of people would fail over something they no longer have any control over - or never had any control over in the first place(like their backgrounds or a single incident).
-What exactly would be the conditions of this "test"? How could it even be mostly fair?
On Nietzsche's Perspectivalism: A Debate
*This color signifies Ben Kegley (a friend of Wes Morriston)'s interpretation of Nietzsche's Perspectivalism. This color signifies Wes Morriston (my former Existentialism professor)'s Responses to Kegley's interpretation, and considerations of whether the doctrine of Perspectivalism is likely to be true*
In regards to Nietzsche statement that there are no truths, I would like to offer the following defense. First, I believe this is an example of Nietzsche using rhetoric that is perhaps more extreme than his claim. I believe Nietzsche is trying to draw our attention to a metaphysical supposition that stands behind Christianity and all similar ethoses. That supposition is that there are eternal, objective, mind-independent truths.
Let's try a really simple example. Once upon at time, dinosaurs roamed the earth. Right? This is a perfectly "objective" truth in the the following sense. Anybody who says or thinks that dinosaurs did not roam the earth is simply mistaken. In one important way, it's not a "mind-dependent" truth, since the existence of dinosaurs in no way depended on the existence minds capable of thinking about dinosaurs. Is it an "eternal" truth? Well, since dinosaurs have existed, it will always be true that they existed. (I'll leave it to others to worry about whether it was true before dinosaurs existed.) I take it that - even on Ben's comparatively benign interpretation of his words - Nietzsche would reject all of the above claims, but they seem pretty reasonable to me. So what's the big problem with the "metaphysical supposition" that there are at least some "eternal, objective, mind-independent truths"?
His replacement for this notion is perspectivism; however, I believe Nietzsche's perspectivism is deeper than mere relativism. Although, Nietzsche would agree that different perspectives exist among humans, especially between a person belonging to the master class and a slave, he also wants to draw attention to the fact that human existence itself is a perspective, a perspective that we all share, however by no means the only possible perspective.
So, then, even the existence of human beings is perspective-relative? Am I understanding this correctly? If so, then I want to ask, "Relative to whose perspective?" Given the use of the word "we", it appears that Ben's Nietzsche wants to say that "human existence" is relative to our perspective. But who or what is this "we" such that "we all share" this perspective? Not "human beings", apparently. "Human being" is a perspective-relative notion, and "we" might have had a different perspective and not thought of ourselves as human beings at all. So I ask again, who or what is the "we" who has and imposes alternative perspectives? It would be very interesting to hear how else "we" might have "conceptualized" ourselves. What alternative perspective might "we" have adopted such that "we" are not humans? Would such a perspective deserve to be taken seriously? Or would those who adopted it simply be insane humans?
Nietzsche wants to reground all of our endeavors in human existence and earthly life. Therefore, to him the notion of a mind-independent truth is incomprehensible.
Suppose we grant that there is no God and no hereafter, and that planet earth is our true and only home. How is it supposed to follow that all truth is mind-dependent? Even the truth that there is no God looks like a glaring exception to this claim. I mean: How could the non-existence of God possibly depend on the existence of your mind or mine? Gosh, now that I think of it, if God really doesn't exist, then the non-existence of God would be a wonderful example of an eternal truth! And what about Nietzsche's claim that everything is "necessary"? Is that not supposed to be an objective and eternal truth? Or is it just one way (among other possible ways) of looking at things? A way that Nietzsche finds particularly exhilarating, of course. But one that is not true in any further sense?Let me put this another way. If I deny that everything is necessary (as I am inclined to do), have I made a mistake? Or have I simply adopted a "perspective" different from Nietzsche's? Hmm... This leads to another interesting question. Could we have adopted perspectives other than the ones that we have adopted? Not, it seems, if everything is necessary! So why isn't the claim that we have a choice of perspectives inconsistent with Nietzsche's own view that everything is necessary? Or does logical inconsistency just not matter here? (I'm not altogether sure what rules are in force in the particular game Nietzsche is playing.)
Nietzsche believes that all of our concepts are directly derived from and bound by our human experiences, including our notions of truth and falsity. For example, his critique of causality is meant to elucidate the fact that causality only appears to us only in virtue of how we perceive the world not due to some all-governing principle such as the principle of sufficient reason. He writes in Gay Science 110 "an intellect that saw cause and effect as a continuum, not as we do, as arbitrary division and dismemberment - that saw the stream of the event, would reject the concept of cause and effect and deny all determinedness"
Suppose that cause and effect are not discrete events - that the causal process is indeed a continuum. I'm not an expert on causation, but that doesn't sound implausible to me. At least in certain cases. A simple question occurs to me, however - one that is highly relevant in the context of the present discussion. Is this way of looking at things closer to the truth about causation in those cases? Or is it just one more "perspective"? . . . In what follows, I'll be moving a bit beyond what Ben actually wrote about Nietzsche's view. But I think that my brief description of perspectivalism is at least consistent with everything Ben said about Nietzsche's view. I also think - but don't hold me to this! - that it's consistent with a lot of what Nietzsche actually says.As I understand this doctrine, then, it claims two things. (1) There is no objective truth about things as they are independently of whatever perspective we have adopted. (2) What we experience (and what we declare to be "true") is a function of the way we interact with what we "see" and "interpret" from within that perspective.A brief word of explanation about (2). Without something like (2), the view would amount to little more than the claim that we make everything up from scratch. Now God might be able to do that. :-) But (a) God isn't supposed to exist, and (b) I don't think we want to attribute such powers to ourselves! So the "we make the world from scratch" view is surely not a serious contender - not as the correct view about ourselves and the world, and probably not as Nietzsche interpretation. That's why I think that something that does the job (2) is supposed to do is a required addition to any halfway plausible version of the perspectivalist position. Even with the addition of (2), however, I have three very general worries.1. If there are no mind-independent facts about what things are like independently of our perspective(s), then it's hard to see how the application of a perspective in any particular case can be other than arbitrary. Let's assume, for example, that "hammer" and "bird" are mind-dependent concepts that belong to the perspective through which we see things. Your perspective alone can't explain why you see a hammer and not a bird in a particular case. There must be something there that resists the one interpretation and is amenable to the other. But of course this "something" couldn't resist either interpretation unless it had some features of its own independently of us and the perspective "we" have adopted. It follows that there must be at lease some objective truths about mind-independent reality. (Even if it's sometimes really hard to know what they are.) (Another way to put this point would be to say that (1) prevents (2) from doing the job it was supposed to do.)2. As I've already indicated, I'm puzzled about the identity of the "subject" who views things from one perspective but might have viewed them from another. We seem to be talking about this subject in a way that is independent of any particular perspective. But apparently we aren't just talking about human beings here (since, as noted above, "human being" is merely a category within one possible perspective). But if "we" are not human beings, then who or what are "we"? Brahman? The Absolute? God? (Oops! I forgot. God is dead.)3. It's not clear to me what the criterion for adopting one perspective as opposed to another is supposed to be. I thought Nietzsche's view was that the more "vital", "life-affirming", "will to power enhancing" perspective was the one to go for. But then we'd have to worry about what that means (Vital for whom? Whose life are we supposed be be "affirming"?) Once we're clear about the nature of the advantages a perspective may possess (or lack), we still have the question whether it's really true that one perspective has more of these important advantages than another. What if each of two incompatible perspectives claimed them for itself? Would there not have to be a fact of the matter about whether either of them really did have these advantages? No? Then it seems that we have no perspective-independent criterion, and the choice of perspective is completely arbitrary. Surely that can't be what Nietzsche wants to say!....To avoid possible misunderstanding, I want to make it clear that I'm not saying that the notion of "a perspective" is never useful or applicable. I am not even denying that some "truths" may be perspective-relative. I merely claim two things. (a) There must be some truths that are not perspective-relative in this way. And (b) the very fact that a particular proposition is true "in" or "from" a particular perspective is itself an objective fact.I want to correct one thing I said in class yesterday. No, I don't really think that "objective truth" is the only kind of truth there is. I don't mind if someone wants to use the word "true" in some other way, and I acknowledge that "true within a perspective" is a locution that can make perfectly good sense. I don't even think there is an "objective fact of the matter" about every question that we can ask. (A trivial example: there is no objective fact of the matter about whether spinach is "tasty". It is however, an objective fact that some people like it and some people don't. A less trivial example... There may be no objective fact of the matter about what Nietzsche meant by saying that there is no truth. It is, however, an objective fact that scholars disagree about what he meant. ) What I do think is (a) that what I'm calling "objective truth" is the fundamental sense of truth, and (b) that it's unavoidable, and probably presupposed by all other senses of "true".The word for the day... You just can't avoid objective truth. Even Mr. "truth is subjectivity" (Johannes Climacus) knew that!
In regards to Nietzsche statement that there are no truths, I would like to offer the following defense. First, I believe this is an example of Nietzsche using rhetoric that is perhaps more extreme than his claim. I believe Nietzsche is trying to draw our attention to a metaphysical supposition that stands behind Christianity and all similar ethoses. That supposition is that there are eternal, objective, mind-independent truths.
Let's try a really simple example. Once upon at time, dinosaurs roamed the earth. Right? This is a perfectly "objective" truth in the the following sense. Anybody who says or thinks that dinosaurs did not roam the earth is simply mistaken. In one important way, it's not a "mind-dependent" truth, since the existence of dinosaurs in no way depended on the existence minds capable of thinking about dinosaurs. Is it an "eternal" truth? Well, since dinosaurs have existed, it will always be true that they existed. (I'll leave it to others to worry about whether it was true before dinosaurs existed.) I take it that - even on Ben's comparatively benign interpretation of his words - Nietzsche would reject all of the above claims, but they seem pretty reasonable to me. So what's the big problem with the "metaphysical supposition" that there are at least some "eternal, objective, mind-independent truths"?
His replacement for this notion is perspectivism; however, I believe Nietzsche's perspectivism is deeper than mere relativism. Although, Nietzsche would agree that different perspectives exist among humans, especially between a person belonging to the master class and a slave, he also wants to draw attention to the fact that human existence itself is a perspective, a perspective that we all share, however by no means the only possible perspective.
So, then, even the existence of human beings is perspective-relative? Am I understanding this correctly? If so, then I want to ask, "Relative to whose perspective?" Given the use of the word "we", it appears that Ben's Nietzsche wants to say that "human existence" is relative to our perspective. But who or what is this "we" such that "we all share" this perspective? Not "human beings", apparently. "Human being" is a perspective-relative notion, and "we" might have had a different perspective and not thought of ourselves as human beings at all. So I ask again, who or what is the "we" who has and imposes alternative perspectives? It would be very interesting to hear how else "we" might have "conceptualized" ourselves. What alternative perspective might "we" have adopted such that "we" are not humans? Would such a perspective deserve to be taken seriously? Or would those who adopted it simply be insane humans?
Nietzsche wants to reground all of our endeavors in human existence and earthly life. Therefore, to him the notion of a mind-independent truth is incomprehensible.
Suppose we grant that there is no God and no hereafter, and that planet earth is our true and only home. How is it supposed to follow that all truth is mind-dependent? Even the truth that there is no God looks like a glaring exception to this claim. I mean: How could the non-existence of God possibly depend on the existence of your mind or mine? Gosh, now that I think of it, if God really doesn't exist, then the non-existence of God would be a wonderful example of an eternal truth! And what about Nietzsche's claim that everything is "necessary"? Is that not supposed to be an objective and eternal truth? Or is it just one way (among other possible ways) of looking at things? A way that Nietzsche finds particularly exhilarating, of course. But one that is not true in any further sense?Let me put this another way. If I deny that everything is necessary (as I am inclined to do), have I made a mistake? Or have I simply adopted a "perspective" different from Nietzsche's? Hmm... This leads to another interesting question. Could we have adopted perspectives other than the ones that we have adopted? Not, it seems, if everything is necessary! So why isn't the claim that we have a choice of perspectives inconsistent with Nietzsche's own view that everything is necessary? Or does logical inconsistency just not matter here? (I'm not altogether sure what rules are in force in the particular game Nietzsche is playing.)
Nietzsche believes that all of our concepts are directly derived from and bound by our human experiences, including our notions of truth and falsity. For example, his critique of causality is meant to elucidate the fact that causality only appears to us only in virtue of how we perceive the world not due to some all-governing principle such as the principle of sufficient reason. He writes in Gay Science 110 "an intellect that saw cause and effect as a continuum, not as we do, as arbitrary division and dismemberment - that saw the stream of the event, would reject the concept of cause and effect and deny all determinedness"
Suppose that cause and effect are not discrete events - that the causal process is indeed a continuum. I'm not an expert on causation, but that doesn't sound implausible to me. At least in certain cases. A simple question occurs to me, however - one that is highly relevant in the context of the present discussion. Is this way of looking at things closer to the truth about causation in those cases? Or is it just one more "perspective"? . . . In what follows, I'll be moving a bit beyond what Ben actually wrote about Nietzsche's view. But I think that my brief description of perspectivalism is at least consistent with everything Ben said about Nietzsche's view. I also think - but don't hold me to this! - that it's consistent with a lot of what Nietzsche actually says.As I understand this doctrine, then, it claims two things. (1) There is no objective truth about things as they are independently of whatever perspective we have adopted. (2) What we experience (and what we declare to be "true") is a function of the way we interact with what we "see" and "interpret" from within that perspective.A brief word of explanation about (2). Without something like (2), the view would amount to little more than the claim that we make everything up from scratch. Now God might be able to do that. :-) But (a) God isn't supposed to exist, and (b) I don't think we want to attribute such powers to ourselves! So the "we make the world from scratch" view is surely not a serious contender - not as the correct view about ourselves and the world, and probably not as Nietzsche interpretation. That's why I think that something that does the job (2) is supposed to do is a required addition to any halfway plausible version of the perspectivalist position. Even with the addition of (2), however, I have three very general worries.1. If there are no mind-independent facts about what things are like independently of our perspective(s), then it's hard to see how the application of a perspective in any particular case can be other than arbitrary. Let's assume, for example, that "hammer" and "bird" are mind-dependent concepts that belong to the perspective through which we see things. Your perspective alone can't explain why you see a hammer and not a bird in a particular case. There must be something there that resists the one interpretation and is amenable to the other. But of course this "something" couldn't resist either interpretation unless it had some features of its own independently of us and the perspective "we" have adopted. It follows that there must be at lease some objective truths about mind-independent reality. (Even if it's sometimes really hard to know what they are.) (Another way to put this point would be to say that (1) prevents (2) from doing the job it was supposed to do.)2. As I've already indicated, I'm puzzled about the identity of the "subject" who views things from one perspective but might have viewed them from another. We seem to be talking about this subject in a way that is independent of any particular perspective. But apparently we aren't just talking about human beings here (since, as noted above, "human being" is merely a category within one possible perspective). But if "we" are not human beings, then who or what are "we"? Brahman? The Absolute? God? (Oops! I forgot. God is dead.)3. It's not clear to me what the criterion for adopting one perspective as opposed to another is supposed to be. I thought Nietzsche's view was that the more "vital", "life-affirming", "will to power enhancing" perspective was the one to go for. But then we'd have to worry about what that means (Vital for whom? Whose life are we supposed be be "affirming"?) Once we're clear about the nature of the advantages a perspective may possess (or lack), we still have the question whether it's really true that one perspective has more of these important advantages than another. What if each of two incompatible perspectives claimed them for itself? Would there not have to be a fact of the matter about whether either of them really did have these advantages? No? Then it seems that we have no perspective-independent criterion, and the choice of perspective is completely arbitrary. Surely that can't be what Nietzsche wants to say!....To avoid possible misunderstanding, I want to make it clear that I'm not saying that the notion of "a perspective" is never useful or applicable. I am not even denying that some "truths" may be perspective-relative. I merely claim two things. (a) There must be some truths that are not perspective-relative in this way. And (b) the very fact that a particular proposition is true "in" or "from" a particular perspective is itself an objective fact.I want to correct one thing I said in class yesterday. No, I don't really think that "objective truth" is the only kind of truth there is. I don't mind if someone wants to use the word "true" in some other way, and I acknowledge that "true within a perspective" is a locution that can make perfectly good sense. I don't even think there is an "objective fact of the matter" about every question that we can ask. (A trivial example: there is no objective fact of the matter about whether spinach is "tasty". It is however, an objective fact that some people like it and some people don't. A less trivial example... There may be no objective fact of the matter about what Nietzsche meant by saying that there is no truth. It is, however, an objective fact that scholars disagree about what he meant. ) What I do think is (a) that what I'm calling "objective truth" is the fundamental sense of truth, and (b) that it's unavoidable, and probably presupposed by all other senses of "true".The word for the day... You just can't avoid objective truth. Even Mr. "truth is subjectivity" (Johannes Climacus) knew that!
The Free Will Question
*I recently discovered this in my "Letters Saved" folder and simply had to publish it in my philosophy & thoughts blog:*
"Many many thanks to those 33 amazingly cool people who replied to my questions about their advising experiences. Your comments & responses were extremely helpful.
On the free will question, you may be interested to know that the final tally was as follows:
Free will: 16
Hard determinism: 6
Compatibilism: 5 (I was one of these Compatibilists)
Confusion: 5
Ergle: 1
I myself have been working on a new argument for believing in free will which goes as follows:
1) Decide to believe in free will & then take a sip of beer.
2) Decide to believe in hard determinism & then take a sip of beer.
3) Decide to believe in compatibilism & then take a sip of beer.
4) Remain confused or ergled about free will & then take a sip of beer. I think you'll find that your beer tastes MUCH better if you believe in freewill. Therefore we have good reason to believe in free will. QED."
-Robert Hanna, CU Philosophy Department
"Many many thanks to those 33 amazingly cool people who replied to my questions about their advising experiences. Your comments & responses were extremely helpful.
On the free will question, you may be interested to know that the final tally was as follows:
Free will: 16
Hard determinism: 6
Compatibilism: 5 (I was one of these Compatibilists)
Confusion: 5
Ergle: 1
I myself have been working on a new argument for believing in free will which goes as follows:
1) Decide to believe in free will & then take a sip of beer.
2) Decide to believe in hard determinism & then take a sip of beer.
3) Decide to believe in compatibilism & then take a sip of beer.
4) Remain confused or ergled about free will & then take a sip of beer. I think you'll find that your beer tastes MUCH better if you believe in freewill. Therefore we have good reason to believe in free will. QED."
-Robert Hanna, CU Philosophy Department
Saturday, March 01, 2008
Mad Genius?
Is there a connection between madness and genius? Does creativity have a dark flip side to it? According to Psychology Today, those who consider themselves to be creative are more likely to endorse this stereotype (April '08 issue).
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