[lit-ideas] : Mooreian nonParadoxes
- From: Adriano Palma <Palma@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 07:47:02 +0000
McEvoy D is wholly right on the matter.
One of the idiocies of these debates is that there is a silly burden of proof
distribution.
Let us grant, or admit for discussion’s sake, the all agree (what the attorneys
call the common cause) that there is a conceptual linkage between logic and
modalities. Hence if ‘x is logically possible’ then ‘x is possible tout court.
It is granted equally that conceivability entails possibility (really? Never
mind)
THEN (this is the problem)
The idealist dream (the skeptical hypothesis: if I am sitting, there is no ass
fo mine, no chair, no wall, no universe, etc.) is possibly conceivable etc.
Equally conceivable is the hypothesis that I have an ass, which is reclined on
a chair, in the universe, or one of them (they tell me in physics) etc.
Why should the hypothesis of the chair have the burden of proof demonstratin’
beyond any reasonable doubt that the skeptic/idealist is wrong?
Note that I have no stake in this (I agree with oK in that the forms of
idealisms endorsed in the German tradition [see Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and
others] are fully coherent)
Best
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Donal McEvoy
Sent: 26 May 2015 09:09
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Mooreian Paradoxes
Well, Moore is asking us to consider a few facts and utterances.
i. It is LOGICALLY possible that I SHOULD HAVE BEEN sitting down now.
(i) certainly does entail (ii).
ii. The proposition that I am sitting down now is not self-contradictory.>
Even if we take JLS' word for it and accept Moore was concerned not with
statements of non-normative fact but with 'oughts' or normative statements
(though some may doubt this), and even if we accept that an 'is' cannot be
derived from an 'ought' here (as I do), all this is beside the point - it
remains logically possible that everything is an idealist's dream.
The crux is that this kind of logical possibility is a not a cogent argument
for the view that everything is an idealist's dream. For starters, it is (at
least) equally logically possible that everything is not an idealist's dream -
so these 'logical possibilities' 'cancel out' as arguments against each other.
The other crux is that generally philosophers are led into forms of idealism
because they have adopted a subjectivist epistemology (e.g. knowledge as JTB,
or traditional empiricism) - not because it is a logical possibility. Having
been led into it this way, they become interested in whether they can get out
of it by finding that it is not a logical possibilty.
They try but they can't. (Russell may be a prime example).
Realism turns out to be unavoidably metaphysical and not capable of being
decided by empirical tests or purely logical arguments. For a clearer
understanding of all this, I recommend Popper's "Realism and the Aim of
Science".
Donal
On Tuesday, 26 May 2015, 1:34,
"dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<
mailto:dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>"
<dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<
mailto:dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
We are considering what Alston calls 'armchair philosophising': Moore is
sitting down; Russell is standing up. But do they know it? Or is Alston
dreaming?
In a message dated 5/25/2015 8:14:45 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx<
mailto:omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx> writes: "Well, I don't know how
Moore knew what Russell was sure
about,at most it could be an argument ad hominem. Perhaps more
importantly, could I not say that I am sitting in a dream, or in BIW scenario,
or
whatever ? It's not clear to me that I couldnt say this. Surely if I knew that
I were living in a dream I would go on saying things like 'I am sitting on
a chair', etc."
Well, Moore is asking us to consider a few facts and utterances.
i. It is LOGICALLY possible that I SHOULD HAVE BEEN sitting down now.
(i) certainly does entail (ii).
ii. The proposition that I am sitting down now is not self-contradictory.
But if (ii) did entail
iii. It is logically possible that I AM sitting down now.
it would follow that (i), i.e. .
i. It is logically possible that I should have been sitting down now.
entails (iii):
iii. It is logically possible that I AM sitting down now.
But does it?
We don't think so! Modals are tricky, and I MAY say that "It may be
raining" when I know it IS raining (because if it's raining that's because it
may
be raining, but not vice versa -- cfr. Do you ken John Peele? If you know
John Peele, you can know John Peele, but you can NOT know John Peele, "I
know John Peele" is false).
Certainly, if you look at it, from a conversational point of view, it
would be quite an unnatural thing for Moore, when he knew that he was standing
up, to say the latter ("It is logically possible that I am sitting down
now"), whereas it would be quite natural for Moore to say the former ("It is
logically possible that I SHOULD HAVE BEEN sitting down").
Perhaps we can go further and say that, if Moore said the latter ("It is
logically possible that I am sitting down"), Moore should be saying something
untrue, whereas if Moore said the former ("It is logically possible that I
should have been sitting down") he should be saying something true, as he
should.
Just as if Moore said (iv)
iv. I MIGHT HAVE BEEN sitting down now.
when he knew he was standing up, Moore should be saying something true,
whereas if Moore said
v. I may be sitting down now.
under the same circumstances, Moore should be saying something pretty
false (or "pretty and false" as Geary prefers -- "I dislike the adverbial use
of 'pretty'").
Even the expression
vi. It is logically possible that p.
if you think of it (cfr. Strawson, "Introduction to Logical Theory")
retains the characteristic which belongs to one ordinary use of the more
colloquial expression
vii. It is possible that p.
versus
viii. It is probable that p.
Namely, that it can only be said with truth by an utterer who, ceteris
paribus, does not know that p is not the case.
That is, if Moore were to say, when he knew that he standing up,
iii. It is logically possible that I am sitting down.
Moore should be implicating that Moore does NOT know that he is not. He
would, that is, be implicating something which, again, if Moore did know that
he was not sitting down, is false.
It's all different, I grant, with Russell, who preferred to stand up
_regardless_, and even for Quine, who believed in truth-value gaps, and found
Moore's prose boring (as compared to the scintillating flow of Grice's
idioms!)
Cheers,
Speranza
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