[lit-ideas] Re: Tittles--a change of title
- From: Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2008 18:59:43 -0700
I wrote
I'm not sure than a philosopher qua philosopher would be of much
help in explaining how John was able to infer what his grandson,
Keegan, meant, when Keegan used an expression he used to refer to
'the things my mommy flies' in the absence of any such things.
John wrote
Agreed. But wouldn't one take more seriously a philosophical account
that was consistent with the experience than one that was not? Isn't it
a reasonable question to ask which philosophical account fits best with
this or other common experiences?
Here one must do that riskiest of things: narrow things down.
Philosophers seldom give accounts in a contextual vacuum. (Oh, wait;
that's what I'm always accusing them of doing—never mind!) So one would
want to know, in order to get clear about this, from which area of
philosophy one would expect an answer to come. If the question has to do
with how the mind 'works,' philosophers have only the sketchiest of
idea, although Plato, Aristotle, Berkeley, Locke, Hume, and Donald
Davidson have thought they knew. Being reminded of the tripartate
division of the psyche is unlikely to shed light on John's problem,
though. I don't know of any contemporary philosophers working in 'action
theory' or in the philosophy of mind who would have a particular take on
this question. So, I'm no help, I guess.
My first inclination was to say that very many philosophical accounts
with common experiences, although the explanations of common experiences
can be fairly uncommon. Berkeley, e.g., thought that his view of things
(nothing exists except when it's being perceived) was more natural than
what I'd have thought was the commonsense view. Surely, any
philosophical account or theory must be compatible with everyday
experience; that a theory isn't compatible with everyday experience
would be strong evidence against it. Even strict materialists, who
believe that human actions, beliefs, and so on have mechanistic causes
(there's no separate mental stuff—Descartes was just wrong). Yet
materialism is as compatible with John's having made such an inference
as a theory that what we do is explicable only by appealing to
insubstantial Spirit Helpers would be.
That's why I say that as far as I can tell, psychology is much better
suited to explain such things than is philosophy. Yet apparently an
explanation isn't wanted: what's wanted is a sorting of philosophical
accounts into those which are compatible with it and those that aren't.
My answer boils down to: most are and all should be.
John continues
The thing that struck me, though, is that when I said, "I knew what he
meant," it wasn't the result of trial and error as I understand it, a
process that begins when several options are available and which is
correct is unknown. Instead, I instantly interpreted his "Mommy
whoop-whoop" as a specific type of speech act, a request for something
specific. My inference would have been falsified if he had refused to
crawl up into my lap, grabbing my finger and pulling me toward a picture
book or toy instead or, having crawled into my lap, said "No" or burst
into tears when the Sikorsky site appeared on my screen. I would have
been surprised, however, because this was, in fact, the fourth or fifth
time he had done the same thing, with me responding in the same way.
We often make such inferences, confidently, and with a feeling of
'rightness,' and no one is much puzzled by that. It's a familiar
experience. Someone who dowses for water might be confident because the
dowsing stick bends down or vibrates or whatever they do that there was
some underground water at that spot. Is his confidence in the dowsing
stick different from the feeling of confidence one has in more ordinary
cases when one makes a rapid inference without rehearsing the steps that
led to it? I wouldn't know how to sort that out, nor can I think of a
way of sorting out philosophical accounts that are compatible with a
belief in the efficacy of dowsing from those that aren't. I hear
Wittgenstein telling me not to go looking for trouble.
I wrote earlier
_How_ one makes inferences (as opposed to how one makes correct
ones) is a question for psychologists, which lets Walter off the hook.
John replied
If we distinguish between the _how_ of inferences and judgments about
their correctness, how does this affect, for example, discussions of
scientific method, where the _how_ (explicit hypotheses, systematic
search for empirical evidence, replicable experiments, peer review,
etc.) seems to be of the essence?
If the solution to a problem can be found by performing an experiment,
solving an equation, or through some other empirical or mathematical
means, it isn't a philosophical problem. One can find plenty of
philosophers who don't agree with this, however. Of course, philosophy
has no license to tell scientists and mathematicians what they ought to
do. The nature of the scientific method is _philosophically_ still in
dispute, just as the nature of the foundations of mathematics used to
be. I don't keep up with such things, and appeal for support to
Wittgenstein's injunction: 'Don't think, but look!'
This may be all I have to say on the issues here (as I understand them).
So, I thank John for giving this philosopher an opportunity to think
about some things, and wait nervously for help from the North.
Robert Paul
reed.edu
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