tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post5133290300599985188..comments2024-02-20T12:26:24.682-05:00Comments on language goes on holiday: Hume and reasonsDuncan Richterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15708344766825805406noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-50129490357663277332011-12-21T10:35:45.801-05:002011-12-21T10:35:45.801-05:00You're right, Harris's kind of view is not...You're right, Harris's kind of view is not uncommon. But I'm still inclined to think of it as crazy in a <i>Brave New World</i> or <i>Hard Times</i> kind of way. Perhaps wrongly, I tend to think that Mill found out the hard way that Bentham's kind of ethics is literally incompatible with sanity. And I think (without having read much of his work) that Harris is not as good a philosopher as Bentham.Duncan Richterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15708344766825805406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-40886858956303526232011-12-21T10:22:18.167-05:002011-12-21T10:22:18.167-05:00Isn't suggesting that Harris is "crazy&qu...Isn't suggesting that Harris is "crazy" overstating things a bit? He's wrong, as are most people who, being of a naturalist/empiricist bent, look at utilitarianism, see numbers, and think, "well, the theory involves quantification, so it must be right..." I guess this is crazy (maybe <i>Hard Times</i> should be more standardized reading?), but not uncommon...Matthew Pianaltohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16380038537888895216noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-29871427719227745752011-12-21T09:08:19.135-05:002011-12-21T09:08:19.135-05:00Internet philosophers are supposed to be humorousl...Internet philosophers are supposed to be humorously cranky jerks or plain-speakers who don't suffer fools gladly (i.e. not very nice), but I'm not very good at playing that role.<br /><br /><i>If language, on the other hand, doesn't merely pick out things in the world, but plays a more (or perhaps even exclusively) social function, then it seems likely that Hume's observations here are feeble or... peevish or something like it.</i><br /><br />Yes, I think that language does play a social function and does not merely pick out things in the world. Whether this makes Hume's observations feeble or peevish, I'm not sure, but feeble might be close. We learn language in the course of living, interacting with other people, trying to get what we want, and so on. The biological definition of 'mother' is not wrong, and there are engineering meanings of 'male' and 'female' too, but not everything that we might reasonably call the meaning of words like 'mother' is included in this kind of passion-free sense of 'meaning.' And the scientific sense of words is not the primary one but an abstraction from the primary, 'human' sense. Or so it seems to me. (I hope this isn't too obscure.)<br /><br /><i>It seems like you can't go half scientism and half Wittengenstein, in other words; you have to choose, right?</i><br /><br />This certainly sounds right to me. I'm not sure, though, what you have in mind about Harris, because I don't know his work well enough. Do you mean his idea that science can answer ethical questions? I think you do. If we want empirical ethics we should, I think, turn to J.S. Mill rather than Sam Harris. And then we should read Frege on Mill's empiricist philosophy of mathematics. And then read Wittgenstein. But you don't need Wittgenstein or Frege to see how crazy Harris is. <br /><br />But that's not very nice of me to say.Duncan Richterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15708344766825805406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-62569834776231836152011-12-20T23:44:15.374-05:002011-12-20T23:44:15.374-05:00I really appreciate you taking the time to explain...I really appreciate you taking the time to explain your view. It's very refreshing to discuss (what seems like) a disagreement with someone on a blog and feel improved by it, rather than frustrated, which is my typical experience. <br /><br />We've both stated our views without claiming to posses a knock-down argument, so perhaps I can try a different tack:<br /><br />*If language picks out preexisting things in the world ready for the picking, like labels, then it seems like we have to add our passions in order to make "he ran into the burning building because his daughter was in it" intelligible. Surely in everyday discussion it is intelligible without making love for daughter explicit, but that doesn't seem to settle anything between us, since it could be that this habit is just very ingrained, or on the other hand that it's normatively built into language from the beginning. If language, on the other hand, doesn't merely pick out things in the world, but plays a more (or perhaps even exclusively) social function, then it seems likely that Hume's observations here are feeble or... peevish or something like it. Thoughts?<br /><br />*It's becoming fashionable for hard-nosed rationalists (for lack of a better term) like Sam Harris to deny the fact/value distinction. But doesn't one need a somewhat Wittgensteinian view of language in order to make that claim? That is to say, while exalting science for picking out true things and condemning all forms of post-modernism and relativism, isn't it a bit odd to turn around and meld facts and values the way Harris does? It seems like you can't go half scientism and half Wittengenstein, in other words; you have to choose, right?<br /><br />Maybe I'm being vague, but I'm interested in circling the argument to find my bearings. Maybe after I'll just reflect. Thanks again for your time.J. Jeffershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05871211976691907881noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-53798068956613113992011-12-19T09:40:14.852-05:002011-12-19T09:40:14.852-05:00without some unspoken reason added like "peop...<i>without some unspoken reason added like "people love their daughters," I genuinely do not know how the physical facts alone provide the reason.</i><br /><br />I'm a little trepidatious of arguing against Hume and Blackburn, and I'm not sure that I have an argument as such, but here's what I want to say: the physical facts are not the point. A sentence such as "The man ran into the burning building to save his daughter" belongs to a language, or language game, that is not that of physics or disinterested science, at least as I am thinking of it. "Man" here does not mean "male member of the species <i>homo sapiens</i>," and "daughter" does not mean "female offspring of the male." If we extract the implications of words like "man" and "daughter" from the sentence, then , yes, we have to add back in something like reference to passions in order to understand the situation it describes. But, if I can use Wittgensteinian cliche for a while, in the language game that is its home no such extraction or addition is either necessary or useful. <br /><br />My use of the word "analytic" might have been ill-advised, because I don't mean that "This will hurt, therefore I should not do it" or "My daughter is in danger, therefore I must save her" are necessarily good arguments. It's not like "If Socrates is a bachelor then he is unmarried." But I do think that there is more to concepts like <i>man</i> and <i>daughter</i> than might be mentioned in a minimal or technical definition of these terms, and part of this something more is normative. Not in the sense that if x is a man then y, but in something like the sense: if x is a man then, other things being equal (or: normally), y. <br /><br />I don't think it's that we merge our passions into our thoughts about our daughters and pain in a way that causes confusion about the meaning of "daughter" and "pain" unless we carefully separate the passions from the facts, in other words. Pain is a good example, because the definition of it involves reference to its being an <i>unpleasant</i> sensation. And I don't know how to make sense of unpleasantness without some reference to avoidance. So I do think that analytically pain is to be avoided. The kind of example you bring up involving necessary painful surgery shows why I add the "other things being equal" caveat.<br /><br />I'm not sure, as I say, that any of this amounts to an argument, but I hope it makes my position a little clearer.Duncan Richterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15708344766825805406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-47996235872173193602011-12-18T14:06:45.842-05:002011-12-18T14:06:45.842-05:00When I wrote
"And the fact that the painful...When I wrote <br /><br />"And the fact that the painful is to be avoided seems analytic, to me, is because we add our passions to the situation. At least, the facts don't seem to mean, 'run into the building and save your daughter,' not upon reflection, even if that's the it seems in the moment I run into the building."<br /><br />I should have clarified that the impression of obviousness of something like "pain is to be avoided" is that our passions are so ingrained into the way we frequently use the terms that it seems analytic. But the example of necessary surgeries before anesthetic seems to show that the meanings are not tied as tightly as we normally assume. "Pain" is a sensation. Whether it is to be avoided depends, on a lot of things, in my humble opinion.J. Jeffershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05871211976691907881noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-75453184318379226752011-12-18T13:57:55.212-05:002011-12-18T13:57:55.212-05:00"'Because there were carrots in it' i..."'Because there were carrots in it' is not an intelligible reason for running into a burning building, unless I know that the runner really loves carrots. But 'Because my daughter was in it' is a perfectly intelligible reason. And not because we add an unspoken 'And people love their daughters.'"<br /><br />I'm a little trepidatious of arguing against the idea that one's daughter being in a burning building is an intelligible reason to run into it - it's a rhetorically weak position to take - but without some unspoken reason added like "people love their daughters," I genuinely do not know how the physical facts alone provide the reason. My love for my daughter is likely so ingrained that the facts and my love for my daughter don't seem to need separating in the moment, but when I reflect on it, I notice that the physical facts are different from my love for my daughter. <br /><br />And, when you add the parenthetical "other things equal" this seems to open the door for the gap-filling work the passions (or values) do, according to Blackburn (and Hume). <br /><br />If a child in the 18th Century needed surgery to survive, but the surgery would be extremely painful, this seems to show that pain itself does not come packed with the meaning "to be avoided." I know this example is not new to you, so I'm not using it as a knock down argument. But, I'm not sure I understand something being analytic "other things equal." (I'm open to other examples)<br /><br />And the fact that the painful is to be avoided seems analytic, to me, is because we add our passions to the situation. At least, the facts don't seem to mean, "run into the building and save your daughter," not upon reflection, even if that's the it seems in the moment I run into the building. <br /><br />... I'm not sure if I've done anything other than present the opposite opinion from you, rather than provide a reasoned counter argument... It's tough to get one's bearings on this terrain.J. Jeffershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05871211976691907881noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-47675475365200970832011-12-15T10:25:19.402-05:002011-12-15T10:25:19.402-05:00Thanks! I hope so. (But then I would, ... etc.)Thanks! I hope so. (But then I would, ... etc.)Duncan Richterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15708344766825805406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-54313747453635240422011-12-15T08:50:59.258-05:002011-12-15T08:50:59.258-05:00But I suppose I would say that.
Yes, you would......<i>But I suppose I would say that.</i><br /><br />Yes, you would...and you would be right!Matthew Pianaltohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16380038537888895216noreply@blogger.com