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Ratiocination

Analytic Philosophy and Nonsense


Readers may remember a post of mine (and lengthy comment thread) some time ago on an essay by Chris Gibson. I’ve thought a good deal about the conversations that emerged from this. This post is one reflection of those reflections.

Analytic philosophy has a long tradition of ‘rooting out nonsense.’ The Vienna Circle’s verification criterion of meaning is one example of this project: attempting to get rid of entire ways of speaking by labeling them, not as a pack of lies, but as, strictly speaking, nonsense. Theology and all the traditional questions of metaphysics and epistemology have been subject to this treatment.

There’s an attitude and style that accompanies this project. Instead of merely disagreeing with the statements of an interlocutor, analytic philosophers will claim that their interlocutor’s statements are gibberish, that they do not even express propositions. I take questions like, what does that even mean? to be paradigmatic instances of the attitude.

There’s something quite healthy about this project. Nonsense is bad: bad for the profession, and bad for those who espouse it. And it is the job of philosophy (and every other discipline) to self-police, I take it, and it doesn’t serve philosophers well to have meaningless statements thrown around carelessly as if they were anything else (true, false, useful, wise, good philosophy). Another positive side-benefit to the project is enhanced clarity of philosophical discourse. No one wants to be accused of spouting nonsense, and this can create social pressures and incentives to be above all else clear and concise in philosophical prose.

And yet, it seems to me that there’s also something manifestly bad about the whole thing.

First, there’s a hubris to the project. It just sounds arrogant to insist that some bit of apparent philosophy is actually nonsense instead. Those who fall to this criticism don’t even have the dignity of being wrong. They are charlatans, and booed of the stage.

Second, the tactic is misused. Some analytic philosophers are quite well known for insisting that they don’t understand what their philosophical opponents even mean in disagreement. It’s clear to everyone else what the interlocutor means—but the thick-headed analyst insists still that the interlocutor’s statements are, strictly speaking, nonsense. This isn’t a good way to make philosophical progress.

Third, it’s up for debate whether there are good standards of meaning. The Vienna Circle’s criterion was famously self-refuting, after all, and it’s not clear to me that others have done any better. Absent such good (clear, consistent, applicable, etc) criteria, I get the sense that some good philosophy might be unfairly abandoned along the way.

Comment Spam


I've been inundated with comment spam as of late; until I figure out a better solution, I'll be moderating all posted comments.

Facts and Values


Some articulations of the fact/value divide represent it as being about valid deductions: what one can validly infer from a set of premises. Slogans run along the lines of 'no oughts from (only) an is, 'no values from (only) facts.'

Proponents of the divide are not hard to find. There's Hume, of course, but see also GE Moore's discussion of the 'naturalistic fallacy' and CS Lewis'The Abolition of Man.

But it seems to me that this articulation of the divide is mistaken. Here's a counterexample to the "you can't get an ought from an is" principle. Let p be a value-laden proposition (say, 'S ought to A'), and assume the existence of a God who believes only truths.

1. For every proposition p, if God believes that p, then p
2. God believes that p
3. Thus, p

On the assumption of 1 and 2, it follows that 'S ought to A.' Notice that neither premises assume the truth of p. The truth of p is deduced instead. Premise 1 follows from our assumption of limited omniscience, and premise 2 is only about the mental states of God. Premise 1 is a fact. Premise 2 is a fact. But the conclusion is more than a mere fact--it is value-laden.

My Buddy


I don't make new friends easily or quickly. INTJs are like that.

But in just a few weeks, something has happened. I've found a new buddy. His name is Patrick. He is fat, nearly blind, dumb as a doornail, and afraid of heights greater than six inches (no joke).

Patrick is a pug. Sometimes, he is like Jabba the Hutt, overweight and self-satisfied. The rest of the time, he is merely bloated with worry.

And yet, we're friends.



The Application Process: More Thoughts


The dust has settled, and, like John, I now feel able to reflect more clearly on the philosophy grad school application process (see this post for further thoughts).

I was admitted at Notre Dame, UC Riverside, U Colorado Boulder, and UC Santa Barbara, waitlisted at NYU, UCLA, and USC, and rejected at Rutgers, Princeton, Cornell, and UC Irvine.

The Personal Statement

Every department requires of its applicant a personal statement. These are supposed to indicate why the applicant wants to do graduate level philosophy, what her areas of interest are, and why she is a good match for the institution.

Many applicants choose to use the personal statement as a place to list accomplishments and awards: a sort of expanded CV-in-prose. I began with this approach, but eventually decided against it for two reasons. First, it appears vain to discuss one's own accomplishments in prose. Far better to have the letter writers do the same thing than to come off as a braggart. Second, such information typically takes up space. A lot of it. And if there is a mortal sin in philosophical writing, it is verbosity.

So the personal statement I opted for took a different route. For all but one of the programs I applied, to, my statement weighed in at under 315 words--one double-spaced page. I began with a stark, brief summary of one puzzle that drives my interest in philosophy, noted my primary areas of philosophical interest, and in some cases, indicated the faculty I hoped to work with.

Letters of Recommendation

Most programs ask for three letters of recommendation, some four. I submitted six. Four are undergraduate philosophy professors at Biola, one at Talbot (Biola's graduate school), and one teaches philosophy at another college (I had the chance to take a class with him some time ago and have maintained contact). Overkill? Perhaps not. Having this many letter writers dovetailed with my above personal statement strategy. I gave my letter writers detailed instructions, designed to focus their comments in particular areas. In the end, the conjunction of all six letters covered everything I wasn't able to in a short personal statement.

Writing Sample

Nothing opened more doors for me than did my writing sample. Last summer, I chose the topic (consequence-style arguments for incompatibilism with respect to causal determinism and free will/moral responsibility) for a few reasons. First, it's at the center of debates that take center-stage in my areas of philosophical interest. Second, it's not in philosophy of religion or any other "ghetto" sub-field of the discipline. That is, general practitioners can find something interesting in free will debates, and that can be exploited. Finally, and most importantly, it's an area of research with room for technical work. Committees keep an eye out for students with a penchent for the detailed, specialized prose and literature usage common in analytic philosophy, and I wanted to catch their attention.

Presentation and Publications

In preparation for graduate study, I spent a lot of energy my junior year trying to get published. It happened. Eventually. But the (three) papers I managed to land in journals were not my best work (ah, the clarity of hindsight!). And the journals they appeared in, while professional and peer-reviewed, were not top-flight ones. I thus did not mention these papers anywhere in my applications except in my CV. I had five conference presentations at the time I applied. At this point, I'm really not sure if they did anything for me. But they couldn't have hurt.

GRE and GPA

I have little to say about this. My GPA (3.9 in and out of philosophy) and GRE scores (710v, 690q, 5.5w) were solid but unremarkable--the sort that do not attract any attention, whether good or bad.

It's That Time of Year


Happy Birthday, Kit-Kat.

A Done Deal


I have just accepted an offer from Notre Dame's Ph.D. program in philosophy. South Bend, Indiana--here I come! =)

Senior Thesis: A Random Update


After a flirtation with Trenton Merricks' Objects and Persons as a senior thesis topic, I have landed again in familiar territory: free will and moral responsibility.

So free will it is. The feedback I recieved at SCP on my first substantial forray into the topic has presented me with a variety of live research programs. Taking up these projects (and into whatever realm they take me) is my senior thesis.

Here's an example of one. At Sean Choi's suggestion, I've spent a lot of time trying to think about the logic of moral responsibility, specifically Agglomeration and what I've taken to calling De-Agglomeration (closure of non-responsibility under conjunction introduction and elimination, respectively). I'm now (nearly) persuaded that De-Agglomeration is invalid when it comes to non-responsibility. Given the relationship between conditionals and conjunctions, this turns out to have interesting consequences for the modal transfer principles typically employed by incompatibilist arguments.

And now, it's time to write up something cogent about all this for presentation this wednesday. And log eight more hours of senior thesis work. When I only have about two free hours between now and then.

I love college!