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Ratiocination

Where I Stand


I've learned a lot in the last academic year. In some areas of philosophy, the more I learn, the less I know; study pushes me into agnosticism toward the standard list of doctrinal options. But after a year of graduate study in philosophy, here are some things I affirm:

Metaphysics:

  • Quinean meta-ontology: existence is being, and xs exist if and only if there are some of them.
  • Actualism: there aren't any non-actual objects.
  • Theism: one God, three persons.
  • Platonism: properties, propositions, sets, worlds, numbers, states of affairs. These are my friends and I quantify over them on a regular basis.
  • Abstractionism: possible worlds are ways things could be (not the things that are that way), while impossible worlds are ways things couldn't be (not things that couldn't be the way they are).
  • Restricted compositionalism: tables and chairs are zero in number.
  • Physicalism (with respect to human persons): I am my body.
  • Non-presentism: there are things at a temporal distance from me.
  • Endurantism: I last, and I don't have any proper temporal parts.
  • Tenseless quantification: it happens (if only 'in the philosophy room').

Free Will:

  • Incompatibilism with respect to freedom and determinism: if determinism is true, no one can do otherwise.
  • Compatibilism with respect to moral responsibility and determinism: but even if determinism is true, I'm still a person and an apt candidate for the reactive attitudes (praise, blame, and the like).
  • Frankfurtian: moral responsibility doesn't require alternative possibilities.
  • Kantianism: 'ought' implies 'can,' but maybe not a very strong sense of 'can.'
  • Old schoolism: I know what libertarianism is, but I don't know what libertarian free will is.

Epistemology:

  • Externalism about justification: no access, no problem!
  • Knowledge without justification: deontic justification is not a necessary condition of knowledge-level warrant.
  • Infallibilism about knowledge-level warrant: I couldn't be (K-level) warranted in believing a falsehood.
  • Proper-functionalism: knowledge is true belief formed in the right (proper functional) way.

Style and Method:

  • Analytic: clear, concise, precise, these are my goals in writing.
  • Heroes: I strive to write like David Lewis, W.V.O. Quine, Peter van Inwagen, and Trenton Merricks.
  • Chisholmian: define a term by giving truth conditions for an open sentence where it appears.

One must hold most philosophical opinions only tentatively, and this I do for nearly all of the above. But some opinions are more tentative than others; those are the underlined ones.

When I set out to write this post, I didn't expect the list to be this long. But there you have it: a tidy list of 'isms in my research interests. And I'll update tge list in a year or so. Hopefully it will change in that time and thus assure me of some sort of progress. =)

Objections De Jure and De Facto


Alvin Plantinga distinguishes between de jure and de facto objections to Christian belief. De facto objections say that some Christian doctrine is false, while de jure objections say that some Christian doctrine is inappropriate, irrational, or unjustified. Plantinga also famously argues that a successful de jure objection requires a successful de facto objection. The truth of the matter about Christian belief is linked to its epistemic status in at least the following way: if it’s true than it’s warranted.

While this is an interesting defensive maneuver in its own right, I’m interested here in some broader applications. Let’s call it the Truth Connection. It strikes me that many objections to many things can be rebutted a Truth Connection move. Three examples:

After the recent death of Jerry Falwell, Christopher Hitchens (and others) have said many disparaging things about the man. And in response, one hears the objection that such remarks are inappropriate or unjustified given that Falwell is only recently deceased. These objections are de jure; they don’t claim that Hitchens is wrong in his remarks about Falwell, but rather that the remarks are somehow unacceptable for other reasons. It strikes me that Hitchens & Co. can make a defensive move here just like Plantinga's: If Falwell really is as bad a chap as I say he was (that is, if my words expressed truths), then it is permissible, and perhaps even obligatory to give the remarks I did. When a scoundrel dies, there is nothing inappropriate about saying she was a scoundrel. Let’s call a spade a spade.

There was a recent thread on the Leiter Reports about the appropriateness of certain behavioral rules some religious colleges set for their faculty (viz., requiring them to abstain from ‘homosexual behavior’). One commentator noted the Truth Connection and its relevance to the thread (and I don’t think the comment was given sufficient attention). If these colleges are right in the sexual ethics (and more broadly--the worldview) they seem to assume, then they may be also in their rights to impose the rules they do. The two questions are hard to separate.

In a debate a few nights ago, presidential candidate Ron Paul (referring to the 9/11 Commission Report) noted that the attacks of September 11 were blowback from American foreign policy, the consequences of a decade of bombing campaigns in Iraq. Giuliani (and a handful of pundits) objected in several ways, one of which claimed that Paul’s remarks were unpatriotic. The idea here seemed to be another de jure objection, that it is somehow inappropriate to criticize American foreign policy when employing the attacks as an example or item of evidence. I think the Truth Connection move is helpful to Paul. If Paul was right in saying the things he did, then he was also in his rights to so speak.

I like the Truth Connection. In general, I think it’s permissible, justified, and appropriate to assert truths. Not all truths require assertion, of course (some are too mundane, while others spell disaster when asserted), but in general, the ‘but I was right!’ defense strikes me as a good one.

In Defense of the Blockbuster


I rather like movies. And I rather liked this defense of Hollywood Summer Blockbusters in the New York Times:

A good blockbuster, like the recent Bond flick “Casino Royale,” takes you places you might never otherwise go and shows you things you could never do. It brings you into new worlds, offers you new attractions. It takes hold of your body, making you quiver with anxiety, joy, laughter, relief. When great blockbusters sweep you up and away — I’m thinking about watching “The Matrix” for the first time with a few hundred other enraptured souls — they usher you into a realm of communal pleasure. In a culture of entertainment niches, they remind you of what going to the movies can still be like.

There's nothing quite like a cool dark theater, a humid summer afternoon, and an enthusiastic audience. It looks like Summer 2007 will bring these things in force.