That Initial Impulse

A common focus among my posts on this blog is that of the need for a ground (or substrate), broadly construed, upon which other concepts or items may be "built". Indeed, the name of this blog itself indicates as much; part of its meaning comes from a statement of Wittgenstein's in On Certainty: "Doubt rests upon that which is beyond doubt."

In epistemology, we want a fundamental, solid basis for knowledge: the indubitable, or the undoubtable. Analogously, in metaphysics, we have the need for something that sit in the spot of "prime mover": an uncaused cause (causa sui), the First Cause, God. In ethics, we need to know what can possibly justify objective moral imperatives when every value judgment is, apparently, subjective. (To refer to this notion of a "first thing" in general, I will use the general term "ultimate ground".)

In a digression, I note that these problems are not what typically occupy philosophers as professionals. I don't mean that the whole of each field in philosophy drives only toward finding an ultimate ground. Rather, while a philosopher's personal sense of ultimate grounds or justifications may be upset when she first begins studying skepticism and/or thinking critically about her own experience, usually this problem is eventually settled or ignored in favor of "higher level" concerns later on. There may be good reason for that: once you cover the basics, is there a lot else to say? And there is certainly no shortage of richer philosophical veins to mine elsewhere, once you accept something as given, like, "We do have knowledge of some sort, even if it is not and cannot be 'perfect'", or "Ethical systems can be evaluated in some kind of objective way", etc. Yes, maybe the skeptics are right that nothing meets their impeccably high standards, but that doesn't suddenly render thought, learning, and acting useless.

My main point--which may end up taking less time to say than the above digression--is that there is an analogous apparent absence within our psyches with respect to personal agency. At least, within my psyche: perhaps the rest of you are different. Anyhow, when I introspect, I notice a distinction between mental activity that feels constitutive of me as an individual person, and that which seems more incidental (or "accidental", if you like). For example, the thoughts I hold now, the ones inspiring these very words, fit the former category. The sensations from external (and some internal) stimuli that I experience at every moment fit the latter category, e.g., my experience of a glowing screen upon which words appear.

Now, the thing that strikes me as highly peculiar is the palpable lack of an ultimate ground in all of this. For incidental experiences, that makes sense: most or all of them originate from outside of me, so I can safely presume that any such ground lies "out there" as well. But when it comes to constitutive (we might also say integral) mental activity, I have a very strong sense of personal agency and thus responsibility; that is to say, I subjectively feel like "I" am the origin of such things. When I make a decision, any kind of conscious decision, I feel like I am a mini prime mover (c.f. Chisholm on free will and unmoved movers). But, in fact, under scrutiny, I can find no ultimate ground within me for decision nor motivation. Even though I feel in control of myself, even though I feel that I am the "first" in a chain of causality or what-have-you, closer inspection reveals no such basis within me.

And that strikes me as unusual.

Hunting Contradictions

In the context of time (temporality), change may be characterized by a fact or state of affairs holding at some time t which does not hold at some other time t'. That is to say, at t=0, proposition P is true; but at t+1, P is not true. From this, we may say time "allows" a contradiction (P&~P) to exist by spreading it out: the conflicting natures of P and ~P may coexist as long as they are "side by side" and not in the "same place", temporally.

With the above scare-quotes, I meant to emphasize the use of spatial metaphor in characterizing time; and this leads directly to the other pathway toward contradiction. A proposition and its contrary may exist simultaneously if they are separated from one another spatially; and this is such a natural part of existence that we hardly ever think of it. Expressed more intuitively, this simply means that things are different, when you look around yourself. The universe is not 100% homogeneous. Expressed a bit more formally, we say that (P&~P) can obtain at one and the same time t, if P and ~P occur respectively in different spatial regions.

In short, I am saying that contradictions are apparently possible when they are separated by space or time; that is, when they do not share identical space-time coordinates.

A counter question, however, is whether these are really "contradictions" if specified precisely enough. Suppose one says, "The space-time point (x,y,z,t) is [tense-lessly] filled (by some entity)".* If one pose against it the statement, "The space-time point (x,y,z,t) is empty", there is nowhere left "to go" in order to escape contradiction. To allow contradictions, according to my foregoing claims, one proposition must vary in time or space from another; but since we have exactly specified identical space-time coordinates, the contradiction is impossible. (This follows, at least in spirit, Quine's comments on temporal logic.)

* I seem to recall that some philosopher or other popularized the use of several tense-less terms and syntaxes, but I have no idea who it was or what the details of it are, now. I would be much obliged if anyone could point me in the right direction.

So, in response to the above question, I actually must agree: if we prevent them from "colliding", contradictions aren't really contradictions after all. This is trivially true, and hardly new information, but I like to think I have presented a slightly different framework for thinking about the matter.

A more interesting question might be, "Does this apply to all propositions?" I think the answer must be an assured "No", because not all propositions have to do with space-time per se, and thus this avenue of approach is not available. For example, "1=1" seems to be a general claim, without reference to any particulars, and it is hard to see how we could situate such a claim in the above schemes.

I think we can fairly safely conclude that a "robust" or fully specified contradiction is impossible, simply by definition; but we may be led to wonder whether there aren't other "channels" beyond the four of space-time which one might slide along to allow apparent contradictions. It strikes me that, should we ever somehow encounter a "real life contradiction" or paradox (whatever that would be like), we could, and likely would, posit a new channel of metaphorical space in which the contradictory elements could be separated. (We may speak of these as "dimensions", but I am cautious of using that word thanks to its abuse by overly enthusiastic New Age sorts and science fiction writers.)

A Somewhat Angsty Phenomenological Take on Reality

What is real? "Real" is that which imposes metaphysical order on all of our capacities (faculties) without our consent; and it is that which, furthermore, has the power to end our consciousness permanently.

I admit, it's not a terribly clear characterization.

Perhaps a simpler way to say it is, "From the personal perspective, the bare minimum of identifiably objective reality consists of that which is not amenable to change through our actions."

Still a problematic assertion. After all, I can never control another being's thoughts the way I can control my own--do we say that those thoughts are part of objective reality? Are their personal sensations a part as well?

I would say not, although the fact of their having those sensations is obviously an objective fact. It is the representational content of their sensations that may not map perfectly onto reality, e.g. when they are dreaming, imagining, or hallucinating. (That is to say, their experiences at a given moment may not be veridical.)

More confusingly, it might seem that we can change many things that we normally think of as objective. E.g., it is an objective fact that the brick wall over there is red (which we may translate to language that makes less use of second-order properties: "the wall over there reflects a majority of light with such and such a wavelength", for example). But, I can change that fact through my personal actions, by painting it green. So was it never an objective fact that the wall was red, after all?

Not exactly. I'm trying to get at something a little more fundamental. While it is true that you can change an object's color by painting it, you nevertheless cannot violate the laws of physics nor logic in doing so. With that in mind, what I'm saying seems to be this: the fundamental "building blocks" of reality, from a personal perspective, are impossibilities, which is to say, invariants.

Hmmm....

This is still a very problematic description.

Science/Philosophy discussion on PF

Looks to be a very fascinating discussion about science and philosophy shaping up on the Philosophy Forums. At least, fascinating for my tastes, since I'm perennially interested in the question of what use philosophy really is these days compared to science.

Anyway, the thread starts out by directing several questions to John Searle (who is actually a member of the forums, although I suspect far too busy to be very active). Searle himself did give one response, but since then the thread's been drawing other participants; nonetheless, so far it has been a high caliber and well-reasoned discussion, by my estimation.

Here's a sample to whet your appetite, from the original poster (HamishMacSporran)'s response to Searle's own response:

... [M]any scientists take the view that the scientific revolution was made possible not by an accumulation of philosophical analysis, but instead by a rejection of the existing philosophical systems in favour of a new experimental method. From this point of view, scientists don't need philsophers [sic] to do their groundwork for them, but should instead ignore their clever arguments and focus on doing experiments. Hence the motto of the Royal Society, "Take nobody's word for it".

...

You [Searle] also raise the issue of computationalism within cognitive science, and your arguments against it. Whatever their merits, these arguments have not led to a conclusive rejection of computationalism. Dennett, for example, continues to deny your conclusions are valid, and the mind as a computer program metaphor continues to be common currency among cognitive scientists.

To many scientists this is just another symptom of philosophy's malaise: nothing ever gets resolved. That's why, instead of arguing for another thousand years about whether universals exist, they believe they need to focus on questions that can be definitively answered by experiment, with some even claiming that questions outside this domain are meaningless.

Does the computationalist hypothesis really have any experimental implications for cognitive scientists? What effects would you expect your arguments to have on a cognitive scientists research program? Are there benefits of philosophical dispute even in the case that no definite conclusion is reached?

Philosophy as counter-productive in a therapeutic sense?

From Irvin D. Yalom's Existential Psychotherapy:

As nature abhors a vacuum, we humans abhor uncertainty. One of the tasks of the therapist is to increase the patient's sense of certainty and mastery. It is a matter of no small importance that one be able to explain and order the events in our lives into some coherent and predictable pattern. To name something, to locate its place in a causal sequence, is to begin to experience it as under our control. No longer, then, is our internal experience or behavior frightening, alien or out of control; instead, we behave (or have a particular inner experience) because of something we can name or identify. The '"because" offers one mastery (or a sense of mastery that phenomenologically is tantamount to mastery). [pp. 189-190]

Does the study of philosophy, I wonder, run counter to that need we have for certainty? Or on the contrary, does it perhaps assist it? After all, though philosophy does not provide us with cut-and-dry answers, and its study exacerbates our awareness of the human's dismal epistemic and existential plight, nonetheless any sort of rational investigation (of which philosophy purports to be the discipline par excellance) will invariably encompass the latter part of Yalom's quote, viz., the bit about "naming" and explaining/ordering events.

The Ancients make for a good example here: reducing the physical world's phenomena to a limited number of substances--e.g. fire/change for Heraclitus, water for Thales, air for Anaximenes, all four elements for Empedocles--allows the more succinct and manageable comprehension of that world. Rational reductionism of all shades and hues affords a better sense of psychological certainty, and consequently an increased feeling of "mastery". Science, as the eventual granddaughter of this impulse, performs the same function, although our methods have since grown much more mathematical and empirical.

But by no means ought we think this strategy unique to science and philosophy. Human mythology is cross-culturally rife with proposed explanations for phenomena ("just so" stories). Tellingly, many of them explicitly exalt the importance of words and naming in the development of humanity. For current Euro-American culture, most obviously we see Adam's naming of the beasts in Genesis. Sigmund Freud asserted that religion attempts to reconcile our needs for control against the volatile chaos of nature: if the natural world is controlled utterly by a superior being who acts as a father for us, we are thus assured that there is order lurking behind ostensible chaos; and, more importantly, it is an order with our own best interests in mind (eventually, that is. Because God's will is inscrutable and ineffable, we must accept that bad things will happen to us in the now). Finally, it is an order which is not set forever in stone, but an order which may be bargained with and appealed to, since it is ruled fundamentally by a person of sorts, not by a blind, unintelligent, and uncaring force. (The "Communication/Negotiation" section of my post "The Immutability of Vicissitudes, Part 1" addresses this too.)

It may in fact be fruitful to analyze the scientific thirst for knowledge in light of psychoanalytical need for control, and I am positive that I'm not the first to suggest this. We might say that science-lust is an extension of Freud's interpretation of religion: science serves similar psychological needs, although it requires a deep paradigm shift as well. The scientific Weltanschauung does not privilege humanity by pretending that the universe operates in humanity's best interest, nor does it offer us a kindly father-figure. However, it does give us an explanation--an understanding of order inherent behind the horrible confusions nature presents us with; and it supplies us, through understanding, with a means to combat our own helplessness.

Thus, science may be seen nearly as an outgrowth of religion (more properly, the religious impulse); but it is one that replaces an anthropomorphic epistemology with a mechanical epistemology. As Quine said of physical objects and gods,

Both sorts of entities enter our conception only as cultural posits. The myth of physical objects is epistemologically superior to most in that it has proved more efficacious than other myths as a device for working a manageable structure into the flux of experience. ["Two Dogmas of Empiricism"]

That is to say, we put forth the common understanding of physical objects (as opposed to the skeptic's or the idealist's) as an explanation for our collected observations in the same way that, and for similar reasons as, our ancestors put forth gods. However, gods are not very good explanations and they do not enable us to do things the way that believing in the reality of physical objects do; hence their (physical objects') epistemic superiority.

Though we cannot appeal to a God anymore, science does furnish us with a means to control nature ourselves, which is something that religion and mythology could never adequately supply. From this we get the term "playing God" and our species' tradition of shunning technological progress for the power it takes away from God. Now, the contemporary existentially-minded human finds herself sitting down in God's throne after having killed Him, and she finds herself terrified by the loneliness, the lack of direction, and the growing awareness that, if God had ever existed, He wouldn't have been any better off than she is now.

So, all respect due to Boethius, is philosophy actually a consolation? Cautiously, I say that it can be; but I hasten to add that stopping there is woefully (and willfully?) near-sighted. Rational inquiry enables us to satisfy some of the needs Yalom detailed above in a similar capacity that religion has served past-ly. Unfortunately, we no sooner find a good reason to believe something than we recognize that there can be no absolute certainty (in a broad sense). Naming (and, these days, quantifying) the surrounding world is a valuable ability, but the relentless and open-eyed pursuit of exhaustive naming schemes leads one to the conclusion that such things are impossible--and that certainty is more so.

(It seems to me that Mark Z. Danielewski deals with these themes among others in his novel House of Leaves, although I may not be able to say exactly how.)

Link Dump

So here are some blog entries (or whatever) I have recently found interesting.

At Theoretical Atlas, Jeffrey Morton recounts a talk given by Gregory Chaitin where Chaitin urges us to create a more rigorous "theoretical biology". Something where we could prove interesting theorems about evolutionary models, for example.

At (Blog&~Blog), Ben Burgis writes a bit about Graham Priest's Sylvan's Box story and the (im)plausibility of drawing conclusions about "real life" logic from the logic that exists in fiction.

Alan Rhoda discusses the Law of Excluded Middle in the context of propositions about the future, responding to an example supplied by David Hunt.

This is a somewhat older paper (1997) by Allen F. Randall entitled "Quantum Phenomenology". He attempts something of an updated version of Descartes' cogito (maybe mixed with Kant's transcendental project), attempting to logically derive the principles of quantum mechanics from the basic awareness of experiential existence (my phrase, not Randall's). Randall claims, "Far from being "bizarre" and "weird", as is usually thought, the strangest paradoxes of quantum theory turn out to be just what one ought to expect of a rational universe." I admit, I've only read the first part of this paper, but it's still a very fascinating idea.

At Mixing Memory, Chris reports on several studies where unpleasant stimuli (such as foul odors, messy/sloppy workspaces, disgusting video footage) harshen the severity of people's moral judgments.

"Following From" Addendum

Ah, this is a perfect example of why I should actually read philosophical work that has already been done on subjects that I wonder about.

My last post, Following From, concerned itself (loosely, and among other things) with the nature of metaphysical laws. However, I uncritically assumed a view analogous to the regularity theory of laws of nature--as opposed to the necessitarian theory. That is, I took it for granted that laws (though of course I have in mind metaphysical laws, not just those in the physical world) are simply descriptions of behavior rather than forces which "govern" or "command" objects to act in particular ways.

Yet, while I took the regularity view for granted, I speculated about what it is that "causes" or "makes" things behave the way they do, while at the same time rejecting the necessitarian view which would--we hope--give just that kind of explanation. Now, this isn't really a solution to whatever problem I had in mind, because I would still be inclined to ask of necessitarians, "But what, in turn, makes necessitarian laws hold the sway they do?", thus leading us obnoxiously into a typical infinite regress. But my point is that if I'd already been aware of these existing philosophical positions, and read at least a modicum about them, I would have had a basis from which to work when asking my own questions--it may not have furnished me with answers right off the bat, but I believe that marking this distinction has helped to clarify the matter in my mind.

Following From

[I wish that I had the interest/dedication to actually pursue these thoughts more rigorously by studying existent philosophical work on the topic, but alas.]

Consider a state governed by absolutely no physical or metaphysical laws. Does this mean anything can happen? Or for "something to happen", does that require that there be something to guide or direct "happenings"?

Natural laws, of course, probably don't "guide" action by any means. They're simply descriptions of how phenomena behave. But... how do phenomena "know" how to behave? What makes them behave in a particular way versus some other way?

I suppose I'm inquiring about how causation works in general--what exactly goes on when some observed or postulated event (which we call the antecedent) is supposed to cause, or in some way be responsible for, another event (the consequent). (As a side note, "event" is too loose of a term. Really, I suppose I mean "states of affairs" or "sets of circumstances" that obtain at a certain point in time. But event is a bit quicker to write, and most of the discussion examples that I can think of are events in the more standard sense too.)

If nothing else, we can at least say that human minds (and thus what we call rational thought) work best thinking under the following paradigm: to understand how/why a circumstance came to be, the circumstance must have followed from, or been enabled by, a pre-existing framework. {{And it is this necessity of thought unchecked that Kant rebukes in his Critique. The search for the unconditioned condition--a final explanation--the prime mover--God--is an attempt to step outside of the infinite regress that otherwise results, and thus to give us a circumstance which needs no further explanation. Kant (perhaps rightfully) claims that reason oversteps its justifiable boundaries when it tries to make this move.}} This paradigm seems to have served us fairly faithfully so far, but we cannot nonetheless discount the possibility that this fundamental "strategy" of thought might be flawed. {{As you will notice, the current topic is regrettably plagued by difficulty (impossibility?) of discussion. Like many other areas of philosophy, we are trying to grapple with notions that extend into the core of our most basic assumptions, and even trying to think about them will be difficult, much less to question their "accuracy".}}

What, however, does any of this mean? The ideas I suggest now may be completely nonsensical, possibly incoherent as well. And surely there is nothing to be gained by indulging nonsense.

I believe the question ties into (is enrooted in?) regress and the problem of finding first causes. Which in its own way mirrors the confusing interrelationship between objectivity and subjectivity.

Why Do People Do Bad Things?

A question that has troubled humankind for as long as we've been able to formulate it, no doubt.

Let us consider a moral agent, Agent Q. (Not 007, no.)
Q commits an immoral act B (B for bad. Or maybe for /b/.).

Possibilities:

1. Q performs B because she doesn't know any better. She may have no conception or understanding of morality, or at least not the required kind of morality at hand here. Perhaps she is an animal or mindless drone and not a moral agent at all.
   
2. Q performs B but does not believe it is wrong. This is basically a variation of 2, only now I assume Q does understand why other people might think B is wrong, yet she disagrees. Maybe she's Nietzsche.
   
3. Q believes that B is wrong, yet she wants to benefit from B (in whatever way she does) badly enough to overcome any moral hestitations. She could be Judas, I suppose.
   
4. Q believes that B is wrong and does not think that B's selfish good will outweigh the evil it entails. Somehow, Q performs B nonetheless. Q now seems to be conflicted – was this a lapse of will (akrasia?) How do we account for what has happened? Did Q choose to do B? Why, when she knows that it's wrong?
   
5. Q had no genuine control over her actions.
   

The real one we're concerned with is naturally number 4. Why do I do (or does anyone) do that which disagrees with her own judgment?

Are we simply animals? Do we have impossible standards?
What gives here.

Review of "Two Dogmas"

(Gasp, who could have imagined I'd ever do something that approximates real philosophy on this blog?)

Quine's paper on the analytic/synthetic divide, "Two Dogmas of Empiricism", has always bugged me--chiefly because it feels very important to me, yet I have a bloody devil of a time understanding it. And it certainly is a seminal work for the twentieth century, so it can't hurt to improve my understanding of it a little.

To that end, I'm making a rough outline for what I understand Quine to be doing in the darned piece. That is, I'm going to peruse "Two Dogmas" on a paragraph-by-paragraph basis and try to give a feel for how the pieces fit together in his overall argument. It seems to me that the hardest parts of this essay are keeping track of where you are and identifying how his specific strategies function, so I'll endeavor to make that clear. Critiquing may also occur at a few points.

Anyway, tally ho! Onward!

Quine's "Two Dogmas of Empiricism"

Quine formally divides his paper into six sections, but I think of the big picture as dividing into three larger "macro sections": first, the preface where Quine gives context and explains what he means by analyticity (intro remarks and §1); second, the parts where he considers methods for understanding analytic statements but rejects them as inadequate (§§2, 3, and 4); and finally, the remaining parts where he studies the ramifications for empiricism (§§5 and 6). For my purposes, I'm most interested in §§1-4 (the first two "macro sections"), and I'm going to completely ignore the remainder.

1. Background for Analyticity
Here, Quine paints a basic backdrop for the concept "analytic" and "synthetic": Kant's characterization, the Humean and Aristotelian precursors, intension/extension, Carnap's take on analyticity, blah blah blah. As I see it, a lot of this may be dismissed as irrelevant to his actual argument except insofar as it makes sure we're all on the same page when he uses these terms. (Much like the beginning of any other philosophical paper). Quine considers a few different interpretations or conceptions of these things I don't care to describe, then rejects a few for reasons I don't care to get into. The important points to take away from this section are

1. Analytic statements are true either by virtue of their being simple logical truths or by virtue of their using synonyms. (Example of logical truth: "All unmarried men are unmarried"; example of synonymous truth: "All bachelors are unmarried").
   
2. Logical analytic truths are unproblematic; Quine's got no beef with them. This "synonymy" business, however, needs further explication.
3. Synonymy cannot be explained away by referring to analogous logically true analytic statements, because any such account presupposes the notion of synonymy itself.
   

A further note on point 1: the key way to recognize logically true analytic statements, as opposed to synonymously true ones, is that the former may be directly formulated as tautologies which truth relies on their syntactic form, while the latter may not. To wit, "All unmarried men are unmarried" may be translated to ∀x:(Ux & Mx)->Ux, where U means "is unmarried" and M means "is a man"; this proposition is tautologically true no matter what we substitute for U, M, or x. However, to formulate "All bachelors are unmarried", we would have to write ∀x:Bx->Ux, where B means "is a bachelor", which is not a tautological truth. (Quine does not state this in precisely the same manner, but this is my construal of "a statement which is true and remains true under all reinterpretations of its components other than the logical particles" (pp.22-23)).

An obvious reply might be, "What if we add a premise which states that "Bx <-> (Ux & Mx)"? Quine seems to think that this move presupposes synonymy itself, and thus we cannot use it. I'm a bit skeptical about that response, and I wish he would give more argument against it, but we'll see what he says in later sections.

Anyway, Quine's basic strategy from now 'till §5 is to investigate possible explanations for synonymy, but then to reject each, more or less because they always rely on an unclear or circular definition.


§§2, 3, AND 4 TO COME LATER. ...Possibly in separate posts.


---------------------
Reference:

Quine, W.V.O. 1961. "Two dogmas of empiricism". In From A Logical Point of View, 20-46. New York: Harper Torchbooks.

(Also available online for free.)

Hegelian Precursor to Derrida

If we cannot indeed make true statements about the whole (because they inevitably lead to an incomplete thesis-antithesis-synthesis triad, which in turn becomes a leg of a new triad...), then yes, I think Derrida's theory of deconstruction--wherein all statements undermine themselves--follows more naturally.

Note, by the way, that I know next to nothing about both Hegel and Derrida here. But anyway.

My objection to deconstructionism hitherto has been similar to my complaints about extreme skepticism generally: by attempting to demolish all foundations, one must necessarily presuppose a new foundation from which to do that demolishing. In other words, the statement "all propositions undermine themselves" necessarily undermines itself, rendering it false. Discussing that with a lit-theory friend of mine, he laughed and called that a beautiful part of the theory; to him, it "shows" the theory in operation on itself. It bothers me, however, since it leaves us left with a paradox and/or a jumble of contradiction.


Parallels

We can view the deconstruction of "All propositions undermine themselves" as analogous to the eternal war between a skeptic and a dogmatist, or an unraveling of the Liar's paradox. To wit, each valid step may be succeeded by a contradictory, equally valid step in the argument. E.g.,

(1) All propositions undermine themselves.

(2) "All propositions undermine themselves" undermines itself, by (1). Ergo, (1) is false.

(3) If (1) is false, then there can be propositions which do not undermine themselves after all. In which case, (2)'s reasoning is incorrect, because (1) might be one of those propositions, and so (1) might be true. Since (1) was given as an initial premise, we should then consider (1) true.

(4) (3)'s conclusion is a proposition which, by (1), undermines itself. Hence (3) must be false, and if (3) is false, then (1) is not true after all.

...etc, etc. This may be argued back and forth as long as we like without resolution.

[Note again: as said before, I know crap-all about Derrida. I have no idea if genuine deconstructions follow the form I just gave, and at the moment am too lazy to verify. Hooray, I'm a bad scholar. You caught me, want a prize?]

Just as with the Liar's Paradox,

(5) This statement (5) is false.

(6) Because (5) is false, (5)'s negation, "This statement (5) is true", must be true. Hence (5) is true.

(7) Since (5) is true, we know that the proposition "(5) is false" is true. Thus, (6)'s conclusion is false, because (5) is not true after all.

(8) Yet, if (5) is false, then its proposition "(5) is false" is false itself, meaning that (5) is really true. That means (7)'s conclusion is falses.

... etc. Clearly, an infinite succession of licitly derived contradictions. I'm trying to make a point about steps directly contradicting the directly previous step, but that's probably confusing, and under an ordinary analysis it is not necessary, so let me show a more intuitive route which is equivalent:

(9) (9) is false.

(10) Because (9) is false, "(9) is false" is false. Thus (9) is true.

(11) But if (9) is true, then "(9) is false" is true. And that means (9) is really false.

(12) If (9) is false, the same reasoning as from (10) shows that (9) is true.

(13) But if (9) is true, then the same reasoning as from (11) shows that (9) is false.

(14) The same reasoning from (10) and (12) shows that (9) is true.

(15) The same reasoning from (11) and (13) shows that...

The main difference is that I'm not spelling out the contradiction of the last step so much as just reasserting either (10) or (11) to refute the last conclusion. Which is really the same thing, so why am I making a fuss about it? The Lord only knows. Really, the smart thing to do is to stop as soon as you've found a contradiction in the argument (since otherwise we run into problems with explosion), but I'm trying to make the analogy to Hegel more explicit.


And speaking of whom, back to Hegel.

Suppose we call the assertion that "The Liar's Paradox statement is true" our thesis, and "The Liar's Paradox statement is false" our antithesis. Clearly, we can always reason toward thesis or antithesis, successfully proving or disproving each conclusion however many times we like, without ever reaching a final resolution. To Hegel, I believe, we should then realize the futility of this exercise, at which point we need to step outside of the system and create a synthesis between thesis and antithesis. Being a Hegelian neophyte, I don't know what the synthesis should be in this case, but it might be something like, "The Liar's paradox is both true and false" or it is"partially true, partially false," or "true at one time, false at another," or some other means of effecting reconciliation.

Now, the fun part about Hegel is that he says the new synthesis, whatever it is, now becomes the thesis or antithesis of a new thesis-antithesis-synthesis triad, which will need its own extra-dichotomous resolution. And we approach (but never reach?) truth through an infinite chain of these triads--reminiscent of Kant's moral progression, where practical reason must postulate an infinity of time (or lifespans?) through which we imperfect beings aspire toward perfection.

Now, where this is relevant more specifically to my thoughts, is that an infinite chain of dialectical syntheses reminds me very strongly of the warring double-helix Ouruborus I mentioned earlier. It seems to me wishful thinking on Hegel's part to claim that the addition of a synthesis makes a new kind of "progression" or development. Rather, the chain of triads fighting with each other is precisely ismorphic to the chain of contradicting (10)s and (11)s I outlined above, the simply unending contradiction. So, either the Liar's Paradox and Derrida's deconstruction already exemplify Hegel's described growth, or there exists simply no progression to speak of either way.

Hegel's syntheses are attempts to establish a new "groundless ground" or self-supporting justification in each controversy. By my thinking, however, this is not progression, since the new synthesis remains just as much a part of the very system it attempted to escape. This is just like trying to defuse Gödel's incompleteness theorem by adding axioms to a formal system; it doesn't matter how many or what axioms you introduce: by the very nature of the system at hand, you will leave yourself open to a new version of the incompleteness theorem. (Unless you reduce your system's axioms to a point where they express less than you originally wanted.)

Now, we might be able to argue that there's a kind of progression/development/growth/whatever here anyway, but I'm not going to investigate further at this point. It may explain (in part) the impossibility of halting philosophical inquiry.

By now, it's beginning to seem to me, naively, that the history of thought is little more than a horribly convoluted deception, an intriciate illusion, contrived to hide the fact that all we've been doing is saying "Nuh-uh!" and "Yeah-huh!" to each other for the last two thousand years.

Silly children.

Skepticism and the Root of All Things

Vancouver Philosopher at The Chasm makes the following point about Heidegger:

Heidegger's denial about a fundamental unifying characteristic to philosophy is foolish. When we employ such skepticism about the reality of the ground/central concept, we only wind up grounding such skepticism in denial. The very act of denial becomes its own ground, and this strategy winds up being self-defeating in the end. Instead, we shouldn't think of various philosophical systems as themselves foolhardy in establishing a ground or framework. We should interrogate the framework or ground on its own merits.

This follows my own thoughts about skepticism regarding truth: we cannot sensibly make a statement like "There is no truth" without simultaneously undermining that statement by implying that it itself is true. For skepticism to assert a meaningful proposition (that is, a proposition which supplies us with genuine information), the skepticism itself must be grounded in something. And if the brand of skepticism at hand denies the existence or reliability of all grounds, it necessarily denies its own conclusions. Hence, as Vancouver Philosopher says, denial becomes its own ground, and it invariably ends up defeating itself.

Similarly, skepticism about our epistemic relation to truth undermines itself as well. Suppose our skeptic offers us "an irrefutable argument" that, whether there exist truths or not, we simply cannot possess knowledge of them. E.g., all claims must be justified by other claims, and there are no unjustified, self-supported claims; ergo all claims are unjustified/unacceptable. And yet, if we accept the skeptic's conclusion, we (presumably) have now acquired a new bit of knowledge, viz., the knowledge that "All knowledge is impossible", or "We possess no knowledge"! Wait, how did that happen? How do we know this when we can't know anything? Again the skeptical conclusion undermines itself; it presupposes its own new ground from which to criticize the whole of another position, yet in doing so creates and relies upon that which it seeks to demolish.

Similar arguments apply to skepticism toward the legitimacy of reason generally.


Roots

The essential problem, as I see it, is that the skeptic must engage the opponent on her own territory, so to speak, and using her own tools. This makes strategic sense, since otherwise why should the anti-skeptic (let's say "dogmatist") accept whatever point the skeptic tries to make? Unfortunately, this is a rigged game for the extreme skeptic: when playing by the dogmatist's rules, there is simply no way to "win" or "break outside" the system, because every attempt to do so places you right back into a new system. (This all ties into the Liar's Paradox, Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem, and the Halting Problem; I don't know how to make this more explicit yet, but see Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter for related discussion).

Now, life isn't exactly a bed of roses for the dogmatist, either, since she can never really answer the skeptic's demands for an "unmoved mover" in the realm of logic, so to speak. But it's fascinating to imagine the two positions, intertwined together as an infinity of recursive, dialectic contradiction. The skeptic asserts, "You know nothing"; the dogmatist responds, "Then I must know that I know nothing"; the skeptic rejoins, "But to know that, you must presuppose other principles for which you have no justification either!"; and the dogmatist counters, "But in order to know that I need those principles, surely I must know that I need them, so I do know something after all!", and so on ad infinitum. Or ad nauseam, take your pick. The two warring sides endlessly wrap around each other, neither overcoming the other--perhaps like twin strands of intertwined DNA which end up consuming their own tails as an involuted Ouroborus?

But let's not get ahead of ourselves, nor lost in mystical/metaphorical speculation. The key here is that we could apparently resolve the tension if we could ever find a groundless ground. What I call a "groundless ground" shows up in many places: as Aristotle's "prime mover," as Aquinas' "uncaused cause," as the idea of a necessary entity or fact in general, as a self-caused being, as that which needs no justification, as a "primitive fact," as Kant's description of "the unconditioned." To find such a ground and look out from it would yield the fabled view from nowhere, the view sub specie aeternitatis, the God's-eye view. This perspective, and none other, would be satisfactorily "outside of the system" to satisfy both skeptic and dogmatist. (Hopefully.)

It's no surprise, then, that my description of the clash above mirrors Kant's Antinomies of Pure Reason, where my "dogmatism" would map on to the rationalist understanding of metaphysics, and skepticism to the empiricist understanding. Roughly, anyhow. To be more precise, Kant thought that both rationalist and empiricist sought a "groundless ground" (the "unconditioned"), but they sought it from different starting premises; whereas my dogmatist/skeptic divide does not show both sides seeking an unconditioned ground so much as the denial that there is such a thing on the skeptical side. So take the comparison with a grain of salt--I'd have more to say about justifying my analogy/mapping, but I'm running out of motivation at this point.

Because It's So True

A quote from www.friesian.com:

In the Twentieth Century, philosophy was like a confused and clumsy person who repeatedly tries to commit suicide, but keeps failing, though with the addition of debilitating damage at each attempt.