[lit-ideas] Re: Conscious after the fact?
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2008 14:29:19 +0000 (GMT)
--- On Mon, 30/6/08, wokshevs@xxxxxx <wokshevs@xxxxxx> wrote:
> DM:
> >
> > That is, they must be the results of
> "compulsions" and the "unconscious" in
> > which case this undermines their rational objectivity:
> that is, as rational
> > claims they are self-refuting.
>
> ------------> I believe Donal is missing a word or two
> in that remark, or
> perhaps has a word or two too many therein, but I think I
> understand what he
> means. Yes, I agree with what I think he states.
Maybe missing a comma after "unconscious" above.
> DM:
> > But that a claim is rationally self-refuting,
> > though a severe weakness, does not mean the claim is
> self-contradictory or
> > false. The claim of "compulsion" or
> determinism may imply that the claim
> > itself is the result of compulsion or is determined:
> while this undermines
> > its status as a claim based on reason, it does not
> show the claim is false.
>
> --------------> True. Some irrational claims are true;
> some rational claims are
> false. (An important point both philosophically and
> educationally. I'll take
> the kid who thinks straight but often gets it wrong over
> the other one who is
> always right but can't think straight.)
Hmm, I'm not so sure there are many of examples of straight-thinkers who "often
get it wrong" and still less that there are many people who "can't think
straight" but who are "always right". And if they were "always right" I might
rely on them, however wonky their reasoning.
The issue here is not the same as the difference between, say, someone who gets
the answer wrong to mathematical questions but uses proper and sophisticated
mathematical reasoning and someone who is "always right" about the answers but
derives them by rolling a ten-sided dice. The problem is that, if everything we
say is a result of compulsion or determined, then the claim this is the
rational position must itself be made as a result of compulsion - and it seems
problematic to say that what is the necessary upshot of some compulsion may be
also the product of rational evaluation (not that some philosopher or other has
not tried to square this apparent circle).
Now it gets confusing..
> DM:
> > Therefore, I think the last comment goes too far.
> >
> > > As
> > > such, you exclude
> > > yourself from the forum of public reason.
>
> -------------> On DM's terms, yes.
Here I am unsure what Walter thinks "yes" assents to: taking my "terms", the
only thing positive that can be said is that it does go too far to say that
someone who uses a self-defeating argument therefore excludes themselves - or,
better, should be regarded as excluded - "from the forum of public reason". I
suggest that while they may exclude themselves by this kind of argument
(claiming their determinism need not be rational as according to itself it
cannot be rational but merely itself determined), they may not (maintaining
their position is both determined and rational); whatever stance they take on
this, I suggest that their position is still capable of rational evaluation.
Walter comments:-
>He is eminently
> consistent, yet wrong.
Who? Walter? Me? The person who maintains our positions are the result of
compulsion, including their own position on this issue?
>The
> putative falsity of my conclusion - or even the actual
> falsity of my
> conclusion - does not indite me on charges of
> irrationality.
This is I understand in itself, but not quite how it fits in here.
>Of course, my
> conclusion is quite correct.
Whose conclusion? Walter's? And what conclusion - that self-refuting arguments
put their proponents outside the "forum of public reason" (or of rational
discussion and evaluation)?
The following is also to me unclear in its import..
> (Not that that in itself
> establishes the
> rationality of my argument. I, too honour the virtue of
> consistency.)
Likewise this is unclear to me:-
> A caveat: One needs to differentiate between "being
> irrational/rational" and
> having one's arguments assessed as
> "rational/irrational." To satisfy the
> requirements of either is not necessarily to satisfy the
> requirements of the
> other (or both). Doxalogical truth vs. propositional
> truth.
That said, Walter apparently finds the following unclear whereas I (having
perhaps had the advantage of writing it) do not:-
> DM:
> > It is true such a position perhaps denies itself any
> rational basis; but that
> > does not mean it is exempt from rational evaluation
> (such as Walter's); and
> > as such it may have a place inside the
> "forum" even though it perhaps denies
> > there is a "forum of public reason" -
> particularly because it may not be
> > false (a person may believe they are acting freely
> though we know they act
> > under the influence/compulsion of drugs) and may have
> a degree of truth.
The point made above about "a degree of truth" is that, even if it is false
that we act fully on 'compulsion', we may act much more under some form of
compulsion than we are aware or are willing to admit: and this possibility is
so serious that a (quasi-)deterministic account of action and experience should
be taken seriously in any rational discussion. The other point made is that
even "full-on" or 'hard' determinism (a la Laplace's Demon) deserves rational
consideration, even if it is a position that tends to or does negate the
existence of 'rational evaluation': it is too facile to exclude it from the
"forum" using the argument that it is a position that undermines the idea of
rational evaluation, even if this argument is valid as far as it goes.
That we might use the apparent techniques of rational evaluation, to conclude
that rational evaluation is illusory, may be paradoxical and so forth - but
that would not mean the conclusion is perforce false.
Donal
Not a determinist
But willing to listen to determinists, especially any who can tell me where
I've mislaid my pen
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