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    • The Philosopher’s Lexicon: A Map of Distinctions, Part Four

      Posted at 1:00 pm by Michelle Joelle, on October 16, 2015

      Welcome back to The Philosopher’s Lexicon. My primary goal in this series is to explore common philosophical vocabulary, hopefully transforming these words from useless jargon into meaningful terms. My secondary goal is to highlight how contentious some of these terms can be – especially those which seem obvious. These definitions will not be comprehensive by any means, so please feel free to add your own understanding of each term as we go. 

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      As I mentioned last week, the past several entries into The Philosopher’s Lexicon have all been double entries, focused not on one single vocabulary word per post, but on words that come in pairs, special distinctions in how we view and describe reality, thought, and knowledge. But these pairs don’t neatly align with each other, and as such, some cross-over explanation is needed. They way philosophers pick and choose from these distinctions is often key to their view of reality and knowledge.

      Last week, we covered the ways we can think in terms of logical and causal possibility. This week, we’ll move on to analytic and synthetic reasoning. While some repetition is inevitable, I will attempt to work systematically, contextualizing each distinction against the others, and as such each part of this series will be shorter than the last. Since this is the final part of the map, it will be the shortest of all.

      Without further ado, Part Four deals with what these distinctions mean in terms of propositions of analytic and synthetic reasoning.

      In terms of De Dicto/De Re, see Part One of the Map of Distinctions.

      In terms of Ontology and Epistemology, see Part Two of the Map of Distinctions.

      In terms of Logical and Causal Possibility, see Part Three of the Map of Distinctions.

      In terms of a priori and a posteriori knowledge:

      Here there are at least three possibilities I can conceive. The first relies on the weak sense of a priori knowledge; if all we mean by a priori knowledge is knowledge that we hold prior to a particular moment of exploration, as in, knowledge that we learned before the moment we begin to seek new information, then this leaves us with a clear sense of analysis, wherein analytic reasoning need only be a way of organizing existing information. Synthesis is then, self-evidently, a posteriori, as it requires the collection of new data or information.

      If we are to take the stronger versions of a priori and a posteriori knowledge, wherein the terms refer to inherent knowledge and learned knowledge, respectively, the relationship to analysis and synthesis is a bit different. In this case, a priori knowledge would be inherently analytical, and vice verse. No synthetic information from the senses would be required, as it would all be learned a posteriori. Knowledge would not merely be known a priori, but it could be analytically productive of meaningful truths. An example of this would be the ontological argument of Anselm.

      However, if what we mean by a priori knowledge is not a substantive content, but rather an organizing structure, then analysis would require a posteriori synthesis to fill in the variables, else we find ourselves playing around with nothing more than empty axioms and self-referential syllogisms. All meaningful thought would then require a combination of the two: there would be need to be analytical abilities a priori, wherein we plug a posteriori information to create new, synthetic truths. In other words, we would be said to be born with the ability to organize, and then find what needs organizing through experience. In other words still, you could say that we encounter a messy world of data that we have to organize according to our own interior understanding of simplicity. Neither the a priori nor the a posteriori would be meaningful on its own, and analysis and synthesis would be similarly reciprocally intertwined.

      _________________________

      And there it is, the end of the Map of Distinctions. It’s been more fun than I thought it would be. I must confess I thought retreading ground I’d already covered would be a little tedious, but I now imagine I could probably go over all of these terms again in a different way and see new possibilities I’ve overlooked here.

      For now, though, I’m going to return the lexicon back to normal, exploring one just vocabulary word at a time. Tune in next week to see where the lexicon goes next.

      Posted in Series | 0 Comments | Tagged a a priori, a posteriori, analytic truth, definitions, dictionary, lexicon, philosophy, synthetic truth, words
    • The Philosopher’s Lexicon: De Dicto/De re Distinction

      Posted at 1:00 pm by Michelle Joelle, on April 17, 2015

      Welcome back to The Philosopher’s Lexicon. My primary goal in this series is to explore common philosophical vocabulary, hopefully transforming these words from useless jargon into meaningful terms. My secondary goal is to highlight how contentious some of these terms can be – especially those which seem obvious. These definitions will not be comprehensive by any means, so please feel free to add your own understanding of each term as we go. 

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      This week’s entry into the lexicon is the distinction between claims that are made de dicto and claims that are made de re. Literally, a “de dicto” proposition carries its meaning in the words that are said, while a “de re” proposition carries its meaning in the thing that exists behind the words. This is most easily understood in an example. For this, most explanations turn to Quine. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy renders his example thus:

      (1) Ralph believes that someone is a spy.

      This could mean either of the following.

      (2) Ralph believes that there are spies

      or

      (3) Someone is such that Ralph believes that he is a spy.

      The first meaning (2) is what results when the initial statement (1) is taken de dicto. The meaning of the proposition is found literally within the words given, in a self-contained way. The second rendering (3) is referring to some thing out in the world that is being represented by the words in the statement, meaning that what we are looking for is not just the meaning of the words de dicto, but the meaning behind the words, de re. 

      There is, of course, a lot of complexity in working out this sort of ambiguity in our language with logical notation and categorical distinctions, but what is more interesting to me is how this ambiguity plays out not just in our syntax, but in our affirmation of truths, our understanding of the world, and in our beliefs.

      This distinction between de dicto and de re beliefs has been on my mind recently because of a short comment made at a theological ethics talk I attended a few weeks ago. The topic of conversation (very loosely rendered) was whether (and of course, how) the morality of an act depended upon a person’s express belief in its morality de dicto, or upon the alignment of the particular act with an objective moral standard de re.

      This is, of course, a fairly easy dilemma to solve if we’re operating under expressly Abrahamic assumptions. If there is an objective standard of goodness against which all acts must be measured, then clearly that standard will supersede our own human understanding and linguistic representation of it. Moving into an expressly Christian framework, if a person professes to believe in the word of Christ de dicto, but acts in a way that is contrary to all Christian teachings, the acts themselves are still immoral.

      It gets a little more contentious if we shift the model around, however: if a person uses the language wrong and perhaps misunderstands the laws in their express rendering, but follows the spirit – de re – of Christ’s teachings, then she is, for many Christians, still behaving in a moral way. Of course, for many other Christians, both an express belief de dicto and a spiritual enactment of Christ’s teachings de re are important, but it’s generally clear that while de dicto belief is debatable, de re belief is not. Romans 2 gets a little tricky with the language, but drives generally at this point:

      For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.) (Romans 2:12-15, NIV).

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      A great exemplar of the de re form of Christianity that the ethicist who inspired this lexicon entry brought up in the informal discussion that followed her talk can be found in C.S. Lewis’s Narnia tale The Last Battle (spoiler alert, FYI). There is a scene where a man finds himself face to face with Aslan in the afterlife after having spent this life piously praising and praying to another God (Tash). In re, Tash is a cruel and oppressive deity, while Aslan is a good and forgiving figure, but in dicto, the man took his God Tash to be good, loving, and protective. In describing his exchange with Aslan, he says this:

      Then I fell at his feet and thought, Surely this is the hour of death, for the Lion (who is worthy of all honor) will know that I have served Tash all my days and not him… But the Glorious One bent down his golden head and touched my forehead with his tongue and said, Son, thou art welcome. But I said, Alas, Lord, I am no son of thine but a servant of Tash. He answered, Child, all the service thou has done to Tash, I account as service done to me… if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath’s sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him. And if any man do a cruelty in my name, then, though he says the name Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted (Lewis 204,205).

      This same model remains useful if we remove it from a theological context but still maintain an objective standard de re. When it comes to mathematics, a de dicto approach would focus on notation, equations, and formulas, while a strictly de re approach would relegate mathematical language to the role of tool which merely helps us find answers. This probably seems extremely obvious, but in practice we often focus far more on the way mathematics is expressed than on the rational truths being expressed, when in truth, we really need a balance of both. In previous posts on education I’ve called this a “vocabulary-based” approach, but the de dicto/de re distinction is perhaps more precise.

      A great exemplar of this distinction can be found in an anecdote from the essay “He Fixes Radios by Thinking!” from Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!:

      While I was doing all this trigonometry, I didn’t like the symbols for sine, cosine, tangent, and so on. To me, “sin f” looked like s times i times n times f! So I invented another symbol, like a square root sign, that was a sigma with a long arm sticking out of it, and I put the f underneath. For the tangent it was a tau with the top of the tau extended, and for the cosine I made a kind of gamma, but it looked a little bit like the square root sign… I thought my symbols were just as good, if not better, than the regular symbols – it doesn’t make any difference what symbols you use – but I discovered later that it does make a difference. Once when I was explaining something to another kid in high school, without thinking I started to make these symbols, and he said, “What the hell are those?” I realized then that if I’m going to talk to anybody else, I’ll have to use the standard symbols, so I eventually gave up my own symbols (Feynman 24).

      While we can use any symbols or language we want to explain and understand principles de re, we need a common de dicto understanding for communication. Where we often run into problems, mathematically, is that we tend to treat the way that mathematics is expressed as the truth of thing – we spend our time learning nothing but mathematics de dicto and find ourselves with little to no understanding of mathematics de re. I’m sure that the same thing could be said for nearly any subject or course of study. Feynman found this to be the case even in his classes at MIT:

      I often likes to play tricks on people when I was at MIT. One time, in mechanical drawing class, some joker picked up a French curve (a piece of plastic for drawing smooth curves – a curly, funny-looking thing) and said “I wonder if the curves on this thing have some special formula?”

      I thought for a moment and said, “Sure they do. The curves are very special curves. Lemme show ya,” and I picked up my French curve and began to turn it slowly. “The French curve is made so that at the lowest point on each curve, no matter how you turn it, the tangent is horizontal.”

      All the guys in the class were holding their French curve up at different angles, holding their pencil up to it at the lowest point and laying it along, and discovering that, sure enough, the tangent is horizontal. They were all excited by this “discovery” – even though they had already gone through a certain amount of calculus and had already “learned” that the derivative (tangent) of the minimum (lowest point) of any curve is zero (horizontal).  They didn’t put two and two together. They didn’t even know what they “knew”

      I don’t know what’s the matter with people: they don’t learn by understanding; they learn by some other way – by rote, or something. Their knowledge is so fragile! (Feynman 36,37).

      What is clear to me in both the theological and the mathematical examples is that while the re is different, so long as we believe there is some objective external standard of truth to be found, this distinction is absolutely necessary, as collapsing the distinction tends to lead to an erosion of understanding. In religious frameworks we end up focusing on trivial contradictions and minute, seemingly arbitrary details at the expense of the general spirit or message a particular religion is attempting to prioritize. In mathematics, we focus so much on the process that we miss out on the end result. In taking the de dicto meaning of a proposition for the de re, we shift our focus from finding truth to merely affirming agreement.

      Of course, if there is no re that exists outside of our representation in language and symbols, then this distinction naturally falls apart. But while I’m unwilling to stake a claim on the exact nature of what is objectively true de re, I’m committed enough to its existence to find this distinction – and this particular piece of jargon – invaluable.

      Posted in Series | 16 Comments | Tagged academia, C.S. Lewis, de dicto/de re distinction, definitions, dictionary, feynman, lady philosophy, lexicon, logic, mathematics, philosophy, Romans, symbols, syntax, theology
    • The Philosopher’s Lexicon: Argument

      Posted at 12:30 pm by Michelle Joelle, on February 13, 2015

      Welcome back to The Philosopher’s Lexicon. My primary goal in this series is to explore common philosophical vocabulary, hopefully transforming these words from useless jargon into meaningful terms. My secondary goal is to highlight how contentious some of these terms can be – especially those which seem obvious. These definitions will not be comprehensive by any means, so please feel free to add your own understanding of each term as we go. 

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      This week’s entry is “argument”. This is a bit of a broad term, but is one of the most important and widely used in all of philosophy. Regardless of your philosophical orientation (Continental, Analytic, Historical) or branch of focus, you’ll not only deal with arguments, but you’ll spend quite a lot of time talking about them too. It’s the nature of the philosophical beast. We’re going back to root basics today.

      We typically use the word “argument” to imply a disagreement or persuasion. While these are important pieces of the argument puzzle, a more general definition of the word indicates a more general understanding of the process of reasoning. Arguments can lead to the resolution of a dispute, of course, but they can also lead to the discovery of new ideas. Conclusions aren’t always the confirmation or denial of a hypothesis (though they sometimes are), but can also deliver surprise answers you never expected.

      For more on the general nature of argumentation, see T. Edward Damer’s Attacking Faulty Reasoning, A. C. Grayling’s An Introduction to Philosophical Logic, and Paul Tidman and Howard Kahane’s Logic and Philosophy: A Modern Introduction, from which, in addition to an excellent undergraduate course on the subject, my basic knowledge of formal logic comes.

      Effectively, an argument is a line of reasoning that follows premises (initial assumptions and evidence) to their conclusions. This, of course, is the best way to resolve a dispute or persuade someone of a particular conclusion, but it’s also a great way to figure out what you think, to go back and discover your own hidden assumptions by arguing back to your underlying premises, and also to discover what conclusions you unknowingly support as the logical consequences of assumptions you carry.

      The best way to do this (in my opinion) is to put your thoughts into standard form, which is the form into which philosophers recast prose reasoning for the purpose of analysis and assessment. Statements are divided into premises and conclusions, and often implied premises, transitional moves, and sub-conclusions are inserted to clearly explain the flow of premises into each other, and into the conclusion. Example:

      Prose: Since Suzy never lies to people she cares about, you can trust what she says.

      In Standard Form:

      1. Given Premise: Suzy never lies to people she cares about.
      2. Implied: Suzy cares about you.
      3. Conclusion: You can probably trust what she says.

      It can get much more complicated than that when you have transitional conclusions upon which the final conclusion depends, or when you’re not entirely sure where you’re heading, but the principle is the same. When I write academic papers, I spend most of my time organizing my premises to ensure that they flow naturally into each other, to eliminate redundancy, and to identify hidden, or implied premises that need more explanation.

      From there, you can begin to analyze your argument. There are two major types of arguments: deductive and inductive. More nuance can be had here, but more often than not these two categories will be broadly sufficient.

      A deductive argument is one in which the conclusion is explicitly contained within the premises, meaning that you need no additional assumptions or information to determine whether the conclusion is correct or not. Deductive arguments can be judged valid or invalid. A valid argument will be structurally sound, such that if you assume the truth of the premises, the conclusion must necessarily be true. Validity has nothing to do with the truth of the claims being argued except as regards their relationships to each other. There is no grey area in validity – an argument is either fully valid or fully invalid. An example of a valid, yet false, argument:

      1. If Suzy is a human, then she must tell the truth.
      2. Suzy is a human.
      3. Therefore, she must tell the truth.

      Even though the initial premise is false (as there are many humans who do not tell the truth), the argument is still valid, because if we assume the truth of the premises, then the conclusion is inescapable. Now, if we take this valid deductive argument and give it true premises, then it becomes sound. A sound argument must have true premises and be valid in structure. A commonly used example of a sound argument:

      1. If Suzy is a human, then she is mortal.
      2. Suzy is a human.
      3. Therefore, Suzy is mortal.

      It’s not exciting, but it’s sound. It’s important to note that not all deductive arguments with true premises – and even true conclusions – are sound, because validity is equally necessary to the equation. Example of an invalid argument with true premises and conclusions:

      1. If Suzy is a human, then she is mortal.
      2. Suzy is mortal.
      3. Therefore, Suzy is a human.

      All of these elements, including the conclusion, are true, but because the conclusion isn’t necessarily implied solely by the given premises, the argument is not valid, and therefore, not sound. Based on the information given, Suzy could easily be some other mortal being besides a human (I hear aardvarks and water buffalo are also mortal).

      Often the task of determining the soundness of an arguments premises leaves the clear, mathematical world of deductive reasoning behind as we attempt to argue for the truth of some of our initial premises. To determine whether or not our premises are true, we’ll need to make an inductive argument. An inductive argument is an argument wherein the conclusion extends beyond what is given explicitly in the premises. While inductive reasoning is a tricky beast, for now we can say that inductive arguments lead not to the necessity of their conclusions, but to the likelihood and probability of their claims. While there are definitely clear errors to be made, these are errors not of precision (as in the determination of deductive validity) but degree. Example of a weak, poorly reasoned inductive argument:

      1. Every man Suzy has ever seen has had a beard.
      2. Suzy is only a baby, and has seen about three or four men in her life.
      3. Therefore, Suzy believes that if a person is to be a man, then he must have a beard.

      The obvious flaw here is that Suzy is working with an impossibly small sample size, and it is unlikely that she will go on in the world much longer without encountering a clean shaven or naturally clean cheeked man. Now an example of a much better reasoned, and extremely common, inductive argument:

      1. I love every movie made by this particular director.
      2. Therefore, I will love this next new movie she is directing.

      Sometimes this gamble pays off – often, in fact – but occasionally we might find ourselves in for a rough surprise. I know I probably should have considered King Kong more significantly before getting my hopes up for the Hobbit movies, but even if your sample is pure, you can still have no guarantees. Inductive arguments, however strong they are, always leave room for the tiniest bit of doubt because you’re always going beyond what is internally guaranteed by the premises. No matter how likely it is that the sun will rise tomorrow, or how much evidence there is to suggest that we will be here to see it, there is ever the tiniest, slightest, remotest possibility that something might interfere with what appears to be a continuing pattern.

      But of course, that doesn’t mean we can’t trust the results, because some arguments will be as strong as possible, while others will invite more doubt. Scientific theories are just falsifiable enough to allow for new evidence to invite reconsideration, while personal judgements (as when judging when to trust someone, for example) require a rather more significant leap.

      In future installments of the Philosopher’s Lexicon, I will be looking at the tricky nature of inductive reasoning and the establishment of evidence and causality, but for now, it’s enough to know that most of the arguments we make fail to fit neatly into one or other finely drawn category. Often we mix deductive and inductive reasoning without realizing it, as when we persuade ourselves that our friends are trustworthy, that the news anchor is giving us all of the details, or that those three dentists really know more than that fourth one.

      We tear down deductive claims on the grounds that there isn’t any empirical evidence, and reject inductive claims on the grounds that they take too great of a leap, all the while not realizing that we’re mixing categories. We accept our beliefs without examination, and relegate our carefully, yet perhaps unconsciously, considered ideas to intuition. We start with conclusions and look for ways to justify them, coming to conclusions based on preferences and accepting or rejecting the truth of evidence based on whether it fits into our established worldview.

      I think having a more thorough awareness of the nature of argument and the different formats it can take can help us ward against this, so if you ever have the chance to take a course on formal logic or critical thinking, I highly recommend do. This is a case where I think the technical terminology gives us more than it costs to use.

      Check back in two weeks for the next entry into The Philosopher’s Lexicon, and as always, please add what you think needs to be added, and dispute what you find objectionable. The purpose of this series is to present terms as I use them and encounter them in the wild of philosophy (meaning: at coffee shops and conferences), and as such will not be comprehensive.

      Posted in Series | 6 Comments | Tagged argument, definitions, dictionary, lexicon, logic, philosophy, reason, words
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