[lit-ideas] Re: The Philosophy of Law
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- Date: Mon, 9 Mar 2015 07:45:07 -0400
McEvoy's application of a problem-solving approach to legal philosophy
draws on Popper's example of Euclid. So rightly now McEvoy tackles this issue
In a message dated 3/8/2015 3:26:25 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
"There are at least two distinct important points that Popper extracts
from a case like Euclid's. One is that "infinity" is a W3 concept that cannot
reduced to anything in W1, including anything in a W1 brain: for any object
in W1 is finite, including a W1 brain, but a finite physical object cannot
provide a physical model for "infinity". From this kind of argument we may
also claim that if we accept the reality of an "infinity" [such as the
infinity of primes or of natural numbers], then we should really accept a W2
and a W3 because "infinity" of this sort cannot be accounted for in W1 terms
where these W1 terms are finite [as is the case of the terms in which we
understand a W1 object like a brain]. [We may also argue that W2 content,
such as a human thinking of "infinity", is also finite; and so W2 'finite'
content cannot provide a mere W2 model for "infinity"; so we should accept
that a human thinking of "infinity" is a case of W2 content that is sourced
from abstract W3 content.] But this was not the point I was using the Euclid
case to illustrate."
OK.
"The point I had in mind was that the existence of primes is built into the
sequence of natural numbers and exists in W3.3 terms prior to their
discovery. And so does the "infinity" of these primes exist as fact to be
discovered etc. So it is the operative effect of W3.3 content that I was
bringing
into play, and I was suggesting that "unavoidable consequences" in a case
like Pilcher also are a form of W3.3. content, for they exist prior to us
recognising them and indeed whether we recognise them or not."
In a way, like the alleged noise that Berkeley never heard.
We are dealing here with the BELIEVED and the BELIEVABLE and THE
UNBELIEVABLE. McEvoy would perhaps used KNOWABLE and UNKNOWN. So there is a
realm
(the third realm in Popper) that contains UNKNOWN items (yet it's part of the
'idea' of objective knowledge) that may, on occasion, become subjective
knowledge.
Similarly, Bishop Berkeley, while in Ireland, is alleged to have said:
"If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make
a sound?"
He was thinking of the convention
esse =df percipi.
Berkeley's language is especially colourful and quotable:
"But, say you, surely there is nothing easier than for me to imagine trees,
for instance, in a park [...] and nobody by to perceive them. [...] The
objects of sense exist only when they are perceived; the trees therefore are
in the garden [...] no longer than while there is somebody by to perceive
them."
William Fossett writes:
"Tease apart the threads [of the natural world] and the pattern vanishes.
The design is in how the cloth-maker arranges the threads: this way and
that, as fashion dictates. [...] To say something is meaningful is to say that
that is how we arrange it so; how we comprehend it to be, and what is
comprehended by you or I may not be by a cat, for example. If a tree falls in
a
park and there is no-one to hand, it is silent and invisible and nameless.
And if we were to vanish, there would be no tree at all; any meaning would
vanish along with us. Other than what the cats make of it all, of course."
In June 1883 in the magazine The Chautauquan, the question was put,
"If a tree were to fall on an island where there were no human beings would
there be any sound?" They then went on to answer the query with, "No.
Sound is the sensation excited in the ear when the air or other medium is set
in motion."
This seems to trigger the conversational implicature that the question is
posed not from a philosophical viewpoint, but from a purely scientific one
-- and further the implicature that both viewpoints are different.
The magazine Scientific American corroborated the technical aspect of this
question, while leaving out the philosophic side, a year later, in 1884,
when they asked the question slightly reworded:
"If a tree were to fall on an uninhabited island, would there be any
sound?"
And gave a more technical answer,
"Sound is vibration, transmitted to our senses through the mechanism of the
ear, and recognized as sound only at our nerve centers. The falling of the
tree or any other disturbance will produce vibration of the air. If there
be no ears to hear, there will be no sound."
Albert Einstein is reported to have asked his fellow physicist and friend
Niels Bohr, one of the founding fathers of quantum mechanics, whether he
realistically believed that
The moon does not exist if nobody is looking at it.
(Perhaps he was being influenced by that popular song, "Smoke gets in your
eyes").
To this Bohr replied that however hard he (Einstein) may try, he would not
be able to prove that it does, thus giving the entire riddle the status of
a kind of an infallible conjecture—one that cannot be either proved or
disproved.
The current phrasing appears to have originated in the 1910 book Physics by
Charles Riborg Mann and George Ransom Twiss. The question
"When a tree falls in a lonely forest, and no animal is near by to hear it,
does it make a sound? Why?"
is posed along with many other questions to quiz readers on the contents of
the chapter, and as such, is posed from a purely physical point of view.
Can something exist without being perceived?
(This may relate to the second point mentioned by McEvoy above -- e.g. an
unavoidable consequence that nobody cared to think about).
— e.g. "is sound only sound if a person hears it?"
The most immediate philosophical topic that the riddle introduces involves
the existence of the tree (and the sound it produces) outside of human
perception. If no one is around to see, hear, touch or smell the tree, how
could it be said to exist? What is it to say that it exists when such an
existence is unknown? Of course, from a scientific viewpoint, it exists.
It is human beings that are able to perceive it.
George Berkeley in the 18th century developed subjective idealism, a
metaphysical theory to respond to these questions, coined famously as "to be is
to be perceived".
Today meta-physicists are split.
According to substance theory, a substance is distinct from its properties,
while according to bundle theory, an object is merely its sense data. The
definition of sound, simplified, is a hearable noise.
The tree will make a sound, even if nobody heard it.
The definition states that sound is a hearable noise.
So the tree could have been heard, though nobody was around to do so.
Knowledge of the unobserved world[edit]
Can we assume the unobserved world functions the same as the observed
world? — e.g., "does observation affect outcome?"
A similar question does not involve whether or not an unobserved event
occurs predictably, like it occurs when it is observed.
The anthropic principle suggests that the observer, just in its existence,
may impose on the reality observed. However, most people, as well as
scientists, assume that the observer doesn't change whether the tree-fall
causes
a sound or not, but this is an impossible claim to prove.
However, many scientists would argue as follows, "A truly unobserved event
is one which realises no effect (imparts no information) on any other
(where 'other' might be e.g., human, sound-recorder or rock), it therefore can
have no legacy in the present (or ongoing) wider physical universe. It may
then be recognized that the unobserved event was absolutely identical to an
event which did not occur at all." (this apparent quote has no attribution
or reference and none can be found online with reasonable effort).
Of course, the fact that the tree is known to have changed state from
'upright' to 'fallen' implies that the event must be observed to ask the
question at all — even if only by the supposed deaf onlooker.
The British philosopher of science Roy Bhaskar, credited with developing
critical realism has argued, in apparent reference to this riddle, that:
If men ceased to exist sound would continue to travel and heavy bodies to
fall to the earth in exactly the same way, though ex hypothesi there would
be no-one to know it.
This existence of an unobserved real is integral to Bhaskar's ontology,
which contends (in opposition to the various strains of positivism which have
dominated both natural and social science in the twentieth century) that
'real structures exist independently of and are often out of phase with the
actual patterns of events'.
In social science we get closer to H. L. A. Hart and his legal philosophy.
This has made his approach popular amongst contemporary Marxists — notably
Alex Callinicos — who postulate the existence of real social forces and
structures which might not always be observable.
What is the difference between what something is, and how it appears? —
e.g., "sound is the variation of pressure that propagates through matter as a
wave."
Perhaps the most important topic the riddle offers is the division between
perception of an object and how an object really is.
If a tree exists outside of perception then there is no way for us to know
that the tree exists.
So then, what do we mean by 'existence', what is the difference between
perception and reality? Also, people may also say, if the tree exists outside
of perception (as common sense would dictate), then it will produce sound
waves.
However, these sound waves will not actually sound like anything. Sound as
it is mechanically understood will occur, but sound as it is understood by
sensation will not occur. So then, how is it known that 'sound as it is
mechanically understood' will occur if that sound is not perceived?
This riddle illustrates John Locke's famous distinction between primary and
secondary qualities.
This distinction outlines which qualities are axiomatically imbibed in an
object, and which qualities are ascribed to the object. That is, a red thing
is not really red (that is, "red" is a secondary quality), a sweet thing
is not really sweet, a sound does not actually sound like anything, but a
round object is round.
As Yogi Berra wondered:
"If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, where are
they?".
Also, if a tree falls in a forest and no-one sees it, what colour is the
tree?
Gary Larson once asked, "If a tree falls in the forest, and hits a mime,
does anyone care?"
But his wife replied, "Yes: _I_ would."
In the Memphis vernacular, it's like if a tree falls in the woods it's
still a tree ain't it?
In Palma's rewrite: if Grice speaks in the forest, and there is no-one
there to hear him, is he still wrong?
------
McEvoy's second point, then, as it applies to LEGAL PHILOSOPHY and Hart's
legal philosophy in particular is an important one. While the legal
philosopher is concerned with existing legal rules (both primary and
secondary), he
has to spend some time (during his seminars) to consider 'logical'
consequences -- or rather his students should! (Hart was _very_ practical).
One
problem is that in Oxford nobody is OBLIGED ('never obligated', Hart would
say: "People misuse 'obligated' for 'obliged') to attend a professor's
lectures. "O, how I miss my parochial seminars where my students CARED! and I
could interact with them face-to-face!".
For legal philosophers spend most of the time in thought-experiments (about
something like Popper's third realm) with his students, and this works
best at the tutorial level, rather than the professorial one.
Cheers,
Speranza
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