tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-100249872024-03-10T07:24:04.736+13:00Prior KnowledgeA philosophy group blog for New Zealanders.Richard Y Chappellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comBlogger16125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10024987.post-1130759348215097542005-10-31T21:19:00.000+13:002005-11-01T16:12:29.456+13:00Philosophers' Carnival XXIWelcome to the 21st <a href="http://philosophycarnival.blogspot.com/">Philosophers' Carnival</a>! For those who have just tuned in, the carnival aims to showcase some of the top philosophy posts of the last three weeks from around the blogosphere. There were a lot of entries this time around, so I've broken them up into categories...<br /><br /><b>Religion and Naturalism</b><br /><br />Mathetes brings a refreshingly practical slant to abstract questions of <a href="http://katamatheten.blogspot.com/2005/10/god-and-time.html">God and Time</a>:<br /><blockquote>This paper sets out to prove that the man on the street, who has no other source of hope for a better future but God, should hold on to his hope if God is atemporal, but should put his hope elsewhere if God is not.</blockquote>He makes some questionable assumptions along the way, but it should make for some interesting discussion in the comments section.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/263/369/1600/witchstars.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/263/369/200/witchstars.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>Kenny Pearce, in <a href="http://blog.kennypearce.net/archives/000124.html">Leibniz on "Efficient" vs. "Final" Causes in Physics</a>, lucidly explains how this Aristotelian distinction can be used to differentiate between the "mundane" and the "miraculous" without asserting that there are exceptions to the laws of nature.<br /><br />Meanwhile, Warren Platts speculates about <a href="http://philbio.typepad.com/philosophy_of_biology/2005/10/finalism_in_a_d.html">Finalism in a Darwinian World</a>. He argues that if advanced civilizations could trigger their own 'big bang' to create a whole new universe, then this could enable the evolution of, well, <i>evolution itself</i>:<br /><blockquote>[I]f entire universes are units of selection, and if universes that generate intelligent life produce more offspring universes than lifeless universes, then a progressive and purposeful (in the same sense that eyes are purposeful) evolutionary process that’s almost guaranteed to produce intelligent life and culture is just what a Darwinian would expect.</blockquote><br />Tiberius and Gaius Speaking offers <a href="http://gracchus.typepad.com/gracchus/2005/10/an_inductive_ar.html">An Inductive argument from faith that God does not exist</a>. He argues that the prevalence of "faith-based arguments" inductively supports the claim that it is reasonable to believe God does not exist. I'm not sure how compelling the argument is, but you've got to admire the sheer cheek of it!<br /><br />Matt at Daily Phil argues in favour of <a href="http://philosophy2.ucsd.edu/dailyphil/index.php/2005/10/12/antecedent-naturalism/">Antecedent Naturalism</a>, according to which we take as our starting point the following three principles:<br /><blockquote>1. <i>Unity</i> - There is only one world in which everything resides...<br />2. <i>Realism</i> - Nature goes beyond (our) conceptualization / cognitive activity.<br />3. <i>Continuity</i> - Experience is an engagement with the real elements of nature.</blockquote><br /><b>Truth and Fiction</b><br /><br />Clark Goble discusses <a href="http://www.libertypages.com/clark/10628.html">Heidegger and Truth</a>, explaining that "Heidegger accepts our commonsense notion of correspondence. He just rejects as empty or at best unhelpful the <i>theory of truth</i> that is called correspondence."<br /><br />Over in Fake Barn Country, Jonathan Ichikawa writes about <a href="http://blogs.brown.edu/other/philosophy/2005/10/shaun_nichols_on_embedded_fict.html">Embedded Fictions and Iterative Imaginings</a>:<br /><blockquote>We sometimes, but not always, have blunted affective engagement with iterated fictions -- fictional fictions. What explains the difference? I suggest that it has to do with an interest in imagining what's true in the fiction.</blockquote><br /><b>Consciousness</b><br /><img style="float:right; margin:0 10px 10px 0;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/263/369/320/3bats.gif" border="0" alt="" /><br />Uriah of Desert Landscapes writes about <a href="http://www.arizonaphilosophy.com/?p=163">Dainton on the Phenomenal Self</a>, defending the conception of the phenomenal self as a “bare locus of apprehension” against Dainton's objection that without any content to apprehend, being such a 'bare locus' would be subjectively indistinguishable from not-existence. A commentator suggests the slogan: "Phenomenal contents and a subject of experience — you can’t have one without the other."<br /><br /><a href="http://ceeandcee.blogspot.com/2005/10/general-consciousness-again.html">Consciousness and Culture</a> suggests that the adaptive function of conscious awareness is<br /><blockquote>[to introduce] a gap or distance between stimulus and response, which makes the stimulus available but not determinate. And this in turn allows for an exceptionally flexible form of behavioral control... [This view implies that] the mechanism of consciousness must have two main components -- two sides of the gap, so to speak -- one of which "presents" the environmental stimuli in some structured manner, while the other "apprehends" such presentations in some "loosely coupled" manner.</blockquote><br /><b>Ethics and Society</b><br /><br />Will Wilkinson at <a href="http://www.willwilkinson.net/flybottle/archives/2005/10/more_on_choice.html">The Fly Bottle</a> has a fascinating post suggesting that:<br /><blockquote>Maybe the way to maintain a sense of freedom when in chains is also a way to manage agoraphobic hyperventilation in the unbounded consumer paradise.</blockquote><br />Don't miss Jason Kuznicki <a href="http://positiveliberty.com/2005/10/on-nurturing-as-the-true-purpose-of-marriage.html">On Nurturing as the True Purpose of Marriage</a>:<br /><blockquote>Here I argue that the reason for marriage is neither solely to produce children, nor to seek romantic fulfillment, nor merely to contract with the government for rights or benefits. I propose another model, arguing that it explains the institution of marriage much better than the common reasons given for it in the same-sex marriage debate.</blockquote><br />Jim Sias at <a href="http://commonsensephilosophy.blogsome.com/2005/10/12/on-the-reliability-of-our-moral-intuitions/">common sense philosophy</a> defends our moral intuitions against Singer's charge of inconsistency. Sias shows how the coherence of two apparently conflicting intuitions can be restored by taking care to generalize them under the appropriate principle. <br /><br />In <a href="http://rightreason.ektopos.com/archives/2005/10/blackburn_ansco.html">Blackburn, Anscombe, and Natural Law</a>, Edward Feser critiques Simon Blackburn's recent review of the new collection of G.E.M. Anscombe essays. There's also some fun discussion in the comments questioning the plausibility of natural law theory.<br /><br />The Sharpener raises the question: <a href="http://www.thesharpener.net/?p=171">Why don't we use torture?</a><br /><blockquote>Not because of the low effectiveness rate of torture — but because torture fundamentally breaches human rights, including but not exclusively the presumption of innocence.</blockquote><br />On my other blog, a short post quoting Nick Bostrom on the "urgent, screaming moral imperative" of anti-aging research provoked some <a href="http://pixnaps.blogspot.com/2005/10/stop-clock.html#comments">interesting comments</a>, from a range of perspectives, on such issues as how to assess the value of a life, and whether death is bad for you. Feel free to join the discussion!<br /><br /><B>Meta-philosophy</b>:<br /><br />In the delightfully titled <a href="http://bengal-ng.missouri.edu/~kvanvigj/certain_doubts/?p=453">Characterizing a Fogbank: What Is Postmodernism, and Why Do I Take Such a Dim View of it?</a> Keith DeRose follows through on the title's promise with a post as interesting as it is long. The thriving comments thread is well worth a skim too.<br /><br />Brian Weatherson quotes and discusses <a href="http://tar.weatherson.net/archives/004545.html">Soames on History</a>, contrasting philosophically relevant history of philosophy vs. history-for-history's-sake history of philosophy. (The critical discussion in the comments section is also very interesting.)<br /><br /><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0px;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/263/369/320/mirror.jpg" border="0" alt="" />Fluid Imagination, in <a href="http://fluidimagination.com/blog/index.php/archives/kyle/value-added-philosophy">Value Added Philosophy</a>, first offers an abstract of Richard Rorty's <i>Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature</i> and then a critical response -- suggesting that Rorty's concept of edifying philosophy is ill-served by his hermeneutical program and that a better method might focus on "creation" instead of "translation".<br /><br />Another critique of the book is found over at <a href="http://derbis.org/alex/2005/10/25/normal-discourse-in-philosophy/">Strictly Speaking</a>, specifically targeting Rorty's use of Wittgenstein's views of philosophical discourse.<br /><br /><b>New Blogs</b><br /><br />To quickly introduce a couple of blogs you might not have come across before: The Atheist Ethicist celebrates his <a href="http://atheistethicist.blogspot.com/2005/10/50th-post.html">50th post</a> by offering "a sampling of some of the issues that I have written about in my first fifty days."<br /><br />In the <a href="http://motmhg.blogspot.com/2005/10/introduction.html">introductory post</a> of "Mapping Out the Moral High Ground", Reuben invites topic suggestions and general discussion of his novel approach to life's problems:<br /><blockquote>Each week or so I will ask a question concerning some aspect of my lifestyle. After it has been discussed and a conclusion reached I shall alter my life style accordingly.</blockquote>(I understand Reuben is currently flat out finishing his Honours research project. But be sure to check back in a couple of weeks.)<br /><br />That's it for this edition of the carnival, I do hope you've enjoyed it. Many thanks to all those who made the effort of submitting a post. If others would like to find out how they can contribute in future, check out the <a href="http://philosophycarnival.blogspot.com/">Philosophers' Carnival homepage</a>.Richard Y Chappellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10024987.post-1129451391125453152005-10-16T21:19:00.000+13:002007-02-06T12:48:55.217+13:00Philosophy for KidsI've previously posted on <a href="http://pixnaps.blogspot.com/2005/08/teaching-values.html">my own blog</a> about <a href="http://pixnaps.blogspot.com/2005/05/teaching-kids-philosophy.html">teaching kids philosophy</a>. But it seems appropriate to raise the issue here too. Here are three relevant articles:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.theage.com.au/news/education-news/its-the-thought-that-counts/2005/06/18/1118869107172.html?oneclick=true">One</a> discusses Harvard's <a href="http://www.pz.harvard.edu/Research/Research.htm">Project Zero</a>, which I think sounds very interesting:<br /><blockquote>Up to 70 per cent of Project Zero's work involves schools. One of its projects - known as "<a href="http://www.pz.harvard.edu/Research/VisThink.htm">visible thinking</a>" - gives teachers strategies to encourage deep thinking among students.<br /><br />"We would like schoolchildren to learn to think and learn in a stronger way," Professor Perkins says. "One simple problem with thinking is that it's invisible. So the basic philosophy of this initiative is to make thinking more visible in classrooms so that children can see their own thinking and teachers can see it at work so they can get a hold of it and improve it."</blockquote><br />For the utilitarians among us, <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/leicestershire/4098910.stm">another</a> confirmed that a philosophy for children programme "was making a real difference to academic results and had resulted in children behaving in a less aggressive and more mature way."<br /><br />The <a href="http://www.cleveland.com/living/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/living/1124541017314660.xml&coll=2">third</a> contains much of interest. For those who doubt whether kids are ready for philosophy:<br /><blockquote>Gareth Matthews was in Japan last year talking to fifth-graders about perfect happiness. He read them a story he had written about a child absorbed in the satisfaction of scratching an insect bite. Could this define perfect happiness?<br /><br />"Scratching an insect bite and enjoying it so much that at the moment you don't enjoy anything else is only one petal on the flower of happiness," one child said.<br /><br />Matthews, a philosophy professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, was impressed. "Adults are not generally aware of the fact that children are capable of raising interesting philosophical questions and pursuing interesting philosophical issues," he said.</blockquote><br />It continues:<br /><blockquote>Mount Holyoke College philosophy professor Thomas Wartenberg teaches a course called "Philosophy for Children." College students help develop questions based on picture books and then lead discussions for second- and fifth-graders at Jackson Street Elementary School in Northampton, Mass. Out of the adventures of storybook characters come such questions as "What is courage?" Lively discussions develop around the topics of beauty, truth, justice and reality.<br /><br />Under Wartenberg's supervision, college students help grade-schoolers create a "community of inquiry" in which children learn the crucial elements of a philosophical discussion. He tells children, "You have to listen carefully and think hard and then make up your mind. If you can't defend your answer, you have to think some more."</blockquote><br />This sounds like really fun and worthwhile stuff. I wonder if there'd be any chance of a similar programme being developed here at Canterbury?<br /><br /><i>Recommended Links</i>:<ul><li>The <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/children/">Stanford encyclopedia entry</a> on children and philosophy.</li><li><a href="http://www.p4c.org.nz/">Philosophy for Children</a> (NZ)</li></ul><br /><br /><b>Update [Feb 07]:</b> More <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/6330631.stm">here</a>:<br /><blockquote>New research from Dundee University suggests learning philosophy raises children's IQ by up to 6.5 points and improves their emotional intelligence.</blockquote>Richard Y Chappellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10024987.post-1128659193856906432005-10-07T17:23:00.000+13:002005-10-07T17:26:33.863+13:00Outfoxing Plagiarists<a href="http://www.arizonaphilosophy.com/?p=161">Uriah Kriegel</a> has some clever advice for fighting plagiarism:<br /><blockquote>Every assignment I give is a two part assignment. The first part is to read your institution’s academic code of honesty plagiarism section. The second part is to write a paper. Failure to fulfil one of the two parts is failure to do the assignment, therefore deserving of a failing grade.<br /><br />What this does is neutralize the “I didn’t know it was plagiarism” line. A student who didn’t know it was plagiarism did not fulfil the first part of the assignment and therefore fails.</blockquote>Richard Y Chappellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10024987.post-1126779108798642082005-09-15T21:27:00.000+12:002005-09-15T22:11:48.806+12:00Affirmative Action at TPM<a href="http://www.philosophersnet.com/magazine/article.php?id=960">The Philosophers' Magazine</a> has an interesting and well-argued article up on the topic of affirmative action, written by our very own Simon Clarke. <a href="http://www.philosophersnet.com/magazine/article.php?id=960">Go read it</a>!<br /><br />After rejecting three common justifications for affirmative action, Simon offers a variant of the 'role-model' argument:<br /><blockquote>Racial minorities should be given some advantages, even if the beneficiaries of those policies come from the wealthy middle class and even if they are not the ones who can specifically be said to have suffered racial discrimination in the past. They should receive such advantages in order to achieve the conditions for real equality of opportunity. People need to know that they can achieve goals in society. Sending that message helps encourage the belief that opportunities really are open to them, that the rooms that may have once held them captive have been unlocked. It helps bring about real equality of opportunity.</blockquote><br />I very much agree with Simon about the importance of people <i>recognizing</i> that opportunities are available to them. When a teacher at Aranui high school asked a student where he thought he'd be in five years time, the student answered, straightforwardly, "Prison." That's where all his older male relatives were, so he didn't see any other options as being genuinely open to him. These social circumstances are tragic, and it would certainly be desirable to change them.<br /><br />But would Simon's idea really help? It assumes that impoverished Maori will identify with wealthy and successful people of the same race. But is this assumption true? Will seeing the success of upper-class Maori really make the Maori in Aranui think such options are open to <i>them</i>, so long as the real circumstances of <i>the people they know</i> are unchanged? It strikes me as pretty implausible to think that seeing a bunch of rich strangers - even Maori rich strangers - is going to have that sort of impact. We need more widespread, low-level, <i>local</i> reforms to the social structure. Of course, I haven't a clue how to achieve that, or whether it's even possible to achieve through outside intervention. If affirmative action could be shown to have this sort of impact, then that could provide a solid justification for it. But until then, I'm skeptical.Richard Y Chappellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10024987.post-1124630122585289402005-08-22T01:14:00.000+12:002005-08-26T20:58:03.510+12:00The Truth is finally here<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/8097/1425/1600/noodledoodle_bg3b.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/8097/1425/200/noodledoodle_bg3b.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div align="left">Pastafarianism or <a href="http://www.venganza.org/">Flying Spaghetti Monsterism</a> draws on overwhelming observable evidence in order to back its claim that evolution has had, and continues to have, a guiding hand. Due to the irreducible complexity of elements of the natural world, science must consider the possibility that the universe was designed by a greater intelligence. </div><p>This is Bobby Henderson's counter-theory to both Darwinian evolution and Christianity. As the case for intelligent design to be taught in schools is increasingly heard in the USA, FSM has seized the opportunity to be heard. FSM seeks to be taught alonside both evolution and Christian intelligent design theory. The argument goes, all those in favour of free speech should allow FSM to be taught in schools. To do otherwise is to be arbitrary and biased. The message of His Greatness the Noodly Splendor should be heard! </p>Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11526313151401532148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10024987.post-1118311650132299982005-06-09T21:23:00.000+12:002005-06-09T22:07:30.146+12:00Coercive Moral PaternalismThings have been awfully quiet around here recently. I hope others get around to contributing something at some point. Anyway, I've long been meaning to write about the interesting seminar on Paternalism & Trust that Simon Clarke gave a couple of months back. It was centred around Raz's anti-paternalist catch-22:<br /><blockquote>P1. Coercive paternalism is justified only if the paternalist is someone reasonably trusted by the coerced.<br /><br />P2. A person subjected to coercive moral paternalism cannot reasonably trust the government.<br /><br />Therefore,<br />C. Coercive moral paternalism is not justified.</blockquote><br />Simon was basically arguing that P2 needs to be modified to recognize that trust comes in degrees, so although paternalism undermines trust, this might be counterbalanced by other "trustworthiness-enhancing conditions of government". An interesting point came out in discussion (from Philip, I think), that the perceived legitimacy of compulsory voting might support this thesis. Voting increases trust in the government by involving one in the democratic process, which may explain why this particular case of coercive paternalism is more acceptable than most.<br /><br />Anyway, I was wanting to discuss a slightly different issue. It seems to me that the distinction between moral and non-moral paternalism is not entirely clear-cut. Simon defined coercive moral paternalism (CMP) as "use of threats to prevent a person from following their way of life for their own good", e.g. laws against drugs, prostitution, pornography, gambling, etc. Typical examples of <i>non-moral</i> paternalism, by contrast, would be seat-belt and cycle-helmet laws.<br /><br />I take it the idea is that moral paternalism goes against the person's own values, whereas non-moral paternalism does not. But do the examples really show a difference in kind? Someone might really dislike helmets, or not want to mess up his carefully styled hair whenever he cycles. To force him to wear a helmet anyway would thus seem to be a case of forcing values upon him that he does not share. (You might say that it's to protect his health, which he surely values. But this would extend to banning drugs, which was supposed to be a form of <i>moral</i> paternalism. More generally, everyone values their own well-being, and <i>all</i> paternalism is aimed at promoting <i>that</i>.) Granted, cycle-helmet laws are less intrusive than drug laws, they impose values which are less important to people - less central to their lives - but this seems merely a difference of degree rather than kind.<br /><br />The alternative is to say that non-moral paternalism is when the person would, upon (perhaps idealized) reflection, come to agree with the paternalist and endorse the coerced action. But that barely seems to be <i>paternalism</i> any more. (It strikes me as quite unobjectionable.) It's more like a self-imposed law to help one overcome weakness of will and such. Perhaps seatbelt laws really do play this role for most people, but there would be exceptions. This definition would mean that the helmet-hating cyclist mentioned above (for example) actually suffered from <i>moral</i> rather than non-moral paternalism. But perhaps that's not so implausible?<br /><br />Anyway, given this new definition, CMP might be self-defeating -- at least according to a subjectivist conception of well-being. If a person's good is what they would reflectively endorse, and CMP promotes ends that a person would <i>not</i> reflectively endorse, then CMP is (by definition) <I>not</i> to that person's good!<br /><br />But one thing Simon said suggests he thinks that CMP is not always unjustified:<br /><blockquote>Coercion can be justified if used by friends or others whose good intentions are not in doubt. This reflects the nature of <i>trust</i>. Government forcing me into art galleries undermines my appreciation of art, but being forced by a close friend who I trust does not.</blockquote><br />But does the friend really engage in CMP, or is it actually a case of <i>non-moral</i> paternalism? Perhaps we assume that our friend shares our values, so that his judgment is indicative of what our <i>own</i> values commit us to, or what we would reflectively endorse. That seems a possible alternative explanation, anyway. I'd be curious to hear what others think.<br /><br />One final (and somewhat hasty) point: P1 strikes me as pretty implausible. The strongest argument against paternalism comes from the value of autonomy, of course. But if we set that aside, surely the only other grounds for opposing it are utilitarian. If we set aside autonomy, then coercive paternalism is justified iff it actually succeeds in making the target better-off. Trust is only relevant insofar as it affects whether the paternalism will be successful. If you can truly (successfully) improve my life, what does it matter whether I trust you?Richard Y Chappellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10024987.post-1112858548307374052005-04-12T15:24:00.000+12:002005-04-12T15:28:13.320+12:00Bats, Consciousness and SimulationI've been meaning to write about the interesting talk Doug Campbell gave on our Cass trip. I can only half-remember it now, but I'd better get something down before the other half disappears too...<br /><br />Anyway, Doug was talking about Nagel's famous Bat argument. He reconstructs it as follows:<br /><blockquote>A1: Any sufficiently intelligent creature can in principle grasp any physical fact by adopting an objective perspective (e.g. through science).<br /><br />A2: There are facts about what it is like to be a bat that can be grasped only by a creature that is capable of adopting a bat-like subjective perspective.<br /><br />A3: It is not the case that any sufficiently intelligent creature can adopt a bat-like subjective perspective; so<br />–<br />A4: The physical facts do not exhaust the facts. (From A1, A2, and A3.)</blockquote><br />His response was to highlight two distinct methods of learning facts: <i>theory</i> and <i>simulation</i>. If you want to know what each button on a VCR does, you might take it apart, carefully examine the wiring, and develop a technical theory of how it works. Alternatively, if you have another VCR of the same make and model, you might simply try pressing the buttons on this other VCR and see what happens. An assumption of similarity would allow you to carry over the results to your original VCR. In effect, you learnt about it through simulating its processes on another (similar enough) machine.<br /><br />Next, suppose we want to know how other people are likely to behave. It would be very difficult to devise a fully-fledged theory of human psychology. Fortunately, we don't need a complex theory because - as with the VCR example - we have a similar 'model' at hand that we can experiment with: ourselves! Doug pointed out that consciousness allows us to learn about the behaviour of other people through simulation. We imagine how we would react in a particular situation, and - on the assumption that we are relevantly similar to the target - we conclude that they would likely react in a similar way. Moreover, Doug suggested that simulation is how we learn "what it is like" from some other perspective. I'm a bit unsure on this point, but I think he may even go so far as to suggest that the process of simulation <i>just is</i> "what it is like" -- i.e. facts about qualia may be identified with facts about simulation?<br /><br />Now we get to the bit I had difficulty following: relating this point to the bat argument. Bats are far too different from us, so we lack the capacity to accurately simulate their behaviour. But what follows from this? If I recall correctly, I think Doug was wanting to use his point about simulation to deny premise A2 (or was it A3?), but I'm not sure how that works.<br /><br />There's one crucial question in particular that I'm not sure about. We have these facts about "what it is like", that we can learn about through simulation. So far so good. My question is: are those facts <i>only</i> learnable through simulation? Or is it also possible, at least in principle, to devise a <i>theory</i> of consciousness that would yield facts about what it is like to be a bat?<br /><br />If such a theory is possible, then A2 is false. But it doesn't seem that such a theory is possible -- that's the whole problem with consciousness; it seems inherently subjective. Alternatively, if qualia facts are only learnable through simulation, then it seems we should be denying A1. That is, assuming we hold such facts to still be <i>physical</i> facts. I'm not sure how plausible that is either though!<br /><br />I've probably misunderstood the argument somewhere along the line, so if anyone can clarify things for me, please do so!Richard Y Chappellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10024987.post-1112158508794603622005-03-30T16:48:00.000+12:002005-04-08T13:59:54.990+12:00Blogger ProblemsA quick warning to my fellow contributors: the Blogger system is notoriously unreliable, and has a nasty habit of eating your posts rather than publishing them. The cost of a free service, I suppose. Anyway, I strongly recommend copying your post to the clipboard (press ctrl-A then ctrl-C in the text editor) before pressing the 'publish' button. That way if something goes wrong, you can just 'paste' your work back in again, rather than having to start from scratch.<br /><br /><b>Update:</b> Blogger's new <a href="http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=1125">recover post</a> feature might also help out here.Richard Y Chappellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10024987.post-1111632600770942862005-03-24T14:45:00.000+12:002005-03-24T14:50:00.770+12:00IdentityThis time a question. Is there anything more fundamental than identity? It seems to me that, at least from our epistemic situation, the most fundamental thing is identity; without identity then all that follows cannot not make any sense.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10024987.post-1111399261803763292005-03-21T21:30:00.000+12:002005-03-21T22:01:01.803+12:00Immaterial PhysicalismThis is an idea I had some time last year and as there are no current posts on the blog I thought I might share it with you. No doubt no one will agree with it but I am looking forward to hearing why.<br /><br />Basically the view arises from the following two considerations: (1) The materialist claim is that everything is extended. The essence of extension is that it is dividable. There exist some things which are not dividable, such as gravity and other fields. (I should also note that there is a tradition of existence being connected to oneness, if something can be divided then it does not have oneness and thus does not exist, all that exists are the parts that make it up). Thus we have the immaterial half of the thesis. (2) Plain old physicalism; the physical facts exhaust the facts. It just so happens that the physical picture contains some non-extended things. I would like to argue that in fact all physical things are essentially non-extended and that it is the combination of an infinitude of non-extended things that any extended things arise.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10024987.post-1111291592795546652005-03-20T15:56:00.000+12:002005-03-20T16:06:32.796+12:00Name Change?I have, for the moment, changed the name of this blog from <b>Splitting Atoms</b> [explanation <a href="http://nzphilosophy.blogspot.com/2005/03/introduction.html">here</a>] to <b>Prior Knowledge</b> (partly in honour of <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/prior/">Arthur Prior</a>).<br /><br />The new name seems more obviously relevant to philosophy. Which do you guys prefer? Or do you have any alternative suggestions?Richard Y Chappellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10024987.post-1110936053816568622005-03-16T14:15:00.000+13:002005-03-16T17:48:34.163+13:00Tuesday Seminar: Deontic ReasonsI think this website could serve as a useful forum to discuss issues that arise in Canterbury's <a href="http://www.phil.canterbury.ac.nz/research/phil/index.shtml">weekly seminars</a>. The main post could give a brief overview of the main argument, followed by an open discussion in the comments section.<br /><br />Yesterday's research seminar was led by <a href="http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~jwallace/">Prof. R. Jay Wallace</a> (visiting from the University of California, Berkeley), and discussed the deontic structure of morality.<br /><br />The full paper is <a href="http://philosophy.berkeley.edu/%7Ejwallace/papers/pdf/Deonticstructure.pdf">available online</a>, so I'll just quote the abstract here:<br /><blockquote>Normative reasons apparently come in different varieties. Some are attractive or aspirational, recommending actions in a way that leaves the agent some scope to ignore their claims; other reasons - including those at the center of morality - seem peremptory, demanding compliance in a way that the agent has no discretion to ignore. This paper offers an interpretation of the distinction between what I call aspirational and deontic normativity, paying special attention to the moral realm. I suggest that deontic reasons are grounded in principles that specify reciprocal normative claims, structuring our relationships to other agents. Some conceptions of morality seem much better suited than others to accommodate this distinctive kind of deontic normativity, a thesis I defend by contrasting consequentialist and contractualist approaches.</blockquote><br />To illustrate the distinction, Prof. Wallace offered some example scenarios. Suppose that an agent has decisive reason to spend their evening at the cinema - it is a better option for them than any of the available alternatives. The agent might recognise this, but legimately choose to ignore this reason and stay home instead. Such reasons, which an agent has discretion to discount, may be called 'aspirational' reasons. It seems that we have no such discretion in the case of other ('deontic') reasons. If we have a debt to repay, or a friend in need, these provide reasons that we cannot legitimately ignore. What explains this difference?<br /><br />Wallace points out that deontic structure is not the same thing as conclusive weight. We have (ex hypothesi) conclusive reason to go to the movie, but we nevertheless have discretion to ignore this reason, conclusive or not. Conversely, we might have a deontic reason which is overridden by more powerful considerations. Imagine a medical emergency arises which takes priority over repaying your debt. We are not at liberty to <i>ignore</i> the reasons that arise from our indebtedness; we must recognise their force even as we judge that they are nevertheless <i>overpowered</i> (but not negated) by other reasons.<br /><br />After dispensing with various other accounts of the distinction, Wallace suggests that the answer may be found by considering the interpersonal context of deliberation as giving rise to <b>reciprocal normativity</b>, which has two key features:<br /><blockquote>(a) The consideration that grounds my reasons gives someone else a special <b>claim</b> or <b>entitlement</b> to performance on my part.<br /><br />(b) The consideration that grounds my reasons renders someone else specially vulnerable to being <b>wronged </b>or <b>injured </b>in the case of nonperformance on my part.</blockquote><br />He then goes on to explicate this in terms of a 'relational' or contractualist conception of morality, which appeals to those general principles that all might reasonably agree on (as being necessary to a functioning society):<br /><blockquote>If I discount or neglect my moral reason not to harm someone, for example... I will not merely have acted wrongly, by the terms of a normative standard that applies to my own conduct, but wronged the person I have harmed, insofar as my action will not be justifiable to that person on grounds that it would be reasonable for the person to accept.</blockquote><br />Now, I agree that the social considerations make for the most plausible explanation of the aspirational/deontic divide. But I'm not sure if this can be adequately spelled out in contractualist terms, particularly in cases of 'overriding considerations'. Overriding considerations (such as medical emergencies) seem the sort of thing that all could reasonably accept in terms of the general principles of the Social Contract. So my failure to repay my debtor in case of emergency is something that <i>will</i> be justifiable to him. Nevertheless, as noted earlier, the reasons arising from my indebtedness still retain their force even when (justifiably) overriden. So appeals to social justification cannot explain the resilience of deontic force.<br /><br />(To be clear: there is still a sense in which you've failed your obligation to the debtor and he has a legimate grievance, so the explanation of reciprocal normativity holds strong. But the legitimacy of your <i>action</i>, in accordance with general social principles, is not in question. This makes me think that appealing to the general principles of the social contract might be an inadequate explication of reciprocal normativity.)<br /><br />Some other issues that might be worth further discussion:<br />1) Could we dispense with the aspirational/deontic distinction? (What would be the consequences of doing so?)<br />2) To what extent does it mirror the distinction between self- vs. other-regarding actions (as in, e.g., <a href="http://pixnaps.blogspot.com/2004/06/on-liberty.html">J.S. Mill's harm principle</a>)?<br />3) Is Wallace right that consequentialist conceptions of morality cannot account for the a/d distinction?<br />4) Is he right that contractualist conceptions <i>can</i> account for it?<br /><br />Feel free to raise any other issues that I've missed...Richard Y Chappellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10024987.post-1110878080212058942005-03-15T22:09:00.000+13:002005-03-15T22:14:40.216+13:00Philosophers' CarnivalThe eleventh <a href="http://philosophycarnival.blogspot.com/">Philosophers' Carnival</a> is coming up next Monday. For those who are new to such things, a "carnival" is a showcase of posts from a wide range of blogs. The carnival "host" also offers a brief description or excerpt from each submitted entry, along with a link which readers can follow to read the whole thing if it catches their interest. The <i>Philosophers' Carnival</i> is a project I started up in August of last year, which serves to showcase specifically <i>philosophical</i> posts from around the net, and is held every three weeks. Full details can be found on the <a href="http://philosophycarnival.blogspot.com/">carnival homepage</a>. (I encourage you to click through and view some of the past carnivals - there are a lot of interesting posts on offer!)<br /><br />Anyway, it'd be cool to include a post from this blog in the upcoming carnival. Self-nominations are very much encouraged - just fill out the online <a href="http://philosophycarnival.blogspot.com/#submission">submission form</a> with the details of your post. We're allowed one submission per author, so there's no restriction on how many of us may submit posts to the carnival. If you haven't written a post yet, but would like to write one for the carnival, you've got until the end of the week to do so!Richard Y Chappellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10024987.post-1105176334068558692005-03-10T17:36:00.000+13:002005-10-20T16:00:10.450+13:00Introduction<b>What is this site?</b><br /><br />This is a group blog for Kiwi philosophers and students. Others are most welcome to join the discussion in comments, of course! If you're new to this stuff, the best way to get an idea of what philosophy group blogs are all about is to see them in action. Dave Chalmers has compiled a <a href="http://consc.net/weblogs.html">list of philosophical weblogs</a>, for your browsing convenience.<br /><br /><i>Info for New Zealanders...</i><br /><br /><b>Why should I blog?</b><br /><br />If you follow some of the links, you'll no doubt develop your own ideas about what is (and isn't) worthwhile about philosophy blogging. (It's also something I've written a bit about, <a href="http://pixnaps.blogspot.com/2004/09/academic-blogging.html">here</a>.)<br /><br />One major purpose of this site is to facilitate communication between philosophers. I assume I don't need to convince my target audience of the value of philosophical banter! Individual aims may vary: some might seek feedback on a new idea, others might prefer to explore or explicate old ones, while others yet might want to discuss a 'meta' issue relating to the teaching of philosophy, and so forth.<br /><br /><b>How does it work?</b><br /><br />If you're a New Zealand philosopher or philosophy student, and would like to contribute to this blog, simply <a href="mailto:r.chappell@gmail.com">email me</a> (r.chappell@gmail.com) and I'll add you to the team. Once you're registered with Blogger.com, you can start posting whenever (and whatever) you like. It's entirely free, and very simple to use.Richard Y Chappellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10024987.post-1110362993996821502005-03-09T22:15:00.000+13:002005-03-09T23:10:54.266+13:00Russell's Robust Sense of RealityThis is something I have on my mind, mostly because I have to give a presentation on it on Monday, but also because it is very interesting.<br /><br />Bertrand Russell (An introduction to philosophical mathematics, p.169) writes:<br /><blockquote>It is argued, e.g. by Meinong, that we can speak about “the golden mountain,” “the round square,” and so on; we can make true propositions of which these are the subjects; hence they must have some kind of logical being, since otherwise the propositions in which they occur would be meaningless. In such theories, it seems to me, there is a failure of that feeling for reality which ought to be preserved even in the most abstract studies. Logic, I should maintain, must no more admit a unicorn than zoology can; for logic is concerned with the real world just as truly as zoology, though with its more abstract and general features.</blockquote><br />In this quote it appears that Russell is asserting that there is a strong bond between ontological commitments and formal logic. It seems far more plausible that the function of formal logic is merely a method for evaluating inferences. Any connection between logic and ontology is purely contingent. As Crittenden comments <blockquote>logic should be neutral between different positions: a system of logic which was available to logicians of a particular philosophical persuasion only would hardly qualify as a logic.</blockquote> Having said all that I still agree with Russell about his robust sense of reality. Guess I haven’t thought things through or something, but I’m in it for the discussion anyway. (this is my first post so if I've failed at some unspoken rules with blogs then please inform me and i'll attempt to conform in the future)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10024987.post-1106893683992442722005-01-28T17:16:00.000+13:002005-02-03T14:04:55.550+13:00Ideal DecisionsTo get the ball rolling, <a href="http://pixnaps.blogspot.com/2005/01/ideal-decisions.html">here</a>'s something I just posted to my other blog. It's nothing too amazing, but perhaps it will encourage others to post something better :)
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<br />Peter Railton ('Moral Realism' in <i>Facts, Values, and Norms</i>, p.12) writes:
<br /><blockquote>Suppose that one desires X, but wonders whether X really is part of one's good. This puzzlement typically arises because one feels that one knows too little about X, oneself, or one's world, or because one senses that one is not being adequately rational or reflective in assessing the information one has...</blockquote>
<br />I think it's plausible that <a href="http://pixnaps.blogspot.com/2004/04/ideal-agent-theories.html">ideal agent theories</a> identify our self-interest. That is, the choice I would make if I were ideally rational and fully informed, etc., is probably the choice that is best for me. But it may be helpful to raise a variant of the old Euthyphro dilemma, and ask: <i>Is X in my best interests because my idealized self would choose it, or would he choose it because it is in my best interests?</i>
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<br />I think the answer is clearly the latter. But that then suggests that the reason why I should X is not just that my ideal self would choose it. Rather, the real reason must be whatever was <i>behind</i> my ideal self's choice. My (normative) reasons are his (descriptive) reasons, in other words.
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<br />So I'm now wondering: <i>what would those reasons be?</i> In particular, I wonder whether they would simply reduce to the <a href="http://pixnaps.blogspot.com/2004/12/flourishing.html">desire-fulfillment theory of self-interest</a> that I've previously advocated. That is, what's good for us is for our strongest desires to be fulfilled in objective fact. The 'ideal agent' heuristic just serves to rule out any subjective mistakes we might make, such as falsely believing that Y would fulfill our desires.
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<br />Do you agree with this reduction, or do you think your idealized self might want you to value strikingly different things from what you do in fact value?
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<br />From my <a href="http://pixnaps.blogspot.com/2004/04/ideal-agent-theories.html">earlier post</a> on ideal agent theories:
<br /><blockquote>One way to think of this would be to consider A as temporarily gaining full cognitive powers (i.e. turning into A+), and being frozen in a moment of time until he makes a decision, whilst knowing that the moment the decision is made, he will be turned back into A. This ensures that A+ has motivation to seek what is in A's genuine interest, even in those cases when the apparent interests of A and A+ would otherwise diverge.</blockquote>
<br />Can you imagine being in A+'s position here, and choosing to do something <i>other</i> than what would best fulfill A's desires? I'm not sure I can. [Recall that A+ is perfectly rational.] I just don't know what it would be for something entirely undesired (nor indirectly fulfilling other desires) to be in A's "interests". But those who don't subscribe to a <a href="http://pixnaps.blogspot.com/2004/08/desire-fulfillment.html">desire-fulfillment</a> theory of value must be imagining something like this. So I'd very much like to hear what it is.Richard Y Chappellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.com2