[lit-ideas] hume
- From: palma <palmaadriano@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2014 11:34:26 +0200
who wasn't an imbecile about the cleopatra's nose case, woudl re-assert
his contempt for french mystics
On Mon, Apr 14, 2014 at 11:24 AM, <Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> Bury speaks of Cleopatra's nose.
> Carr speaks of historical determinism. And Berlin of historical
> inevitability.
> But we should elucidate if all counter-factual utterances are pieces of
> fallacious argumentation.
> Into the bargain, we could examine when we assert some necessity to a
> historical event (as when some historians speak of the 'imperious
> necessity' to
> expand the territory by the Ancient Romans) and how weak can a historical
> claim be made that does not then dwell on mere contingencies and
> accidentals...
>
> In a message dated 4/14/2014 4:59:35 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, palmaa
> driano@xxxxxxxxx writes:
> "Occasionally, someone may consider whether David Hume was wrong. Consider
> the idea of causation as conjunction (which is not *exactly* what Hume had
> in mind, but so be it.) There is no necessity in the laws of physics (or
> history). Hence assume, for the sake of argument, that there is a
> time-limit
> to the life-span of human cells, then there is entropy, Dasein's boredom,
> the curse of finitude, pick what you like. Now _IF_ there is a time-llimit
> (assume it is in the range of 199-399 years) everyone will die within the
> 399th year from her birth. This Humean view claims that it is POSSIBLE
> that
> she does not die. And anyone tell me which modality is the possibility
> involved? Note that it must NOT be the case that 'death by the 399th
> year' is a
> natural, nomic metaphyisical etc. necessity, since there are no
> necessity.... says doctor Hume.
>
> Well, yes, there is Humanism and Humeanism.
>
> I wonder what he would say about Cleopatra's Nose. The example comes
> originally from Pascal. But Pascal does not develop it: He merely states as
> CAUSE:
>
> Cleopatra's nose
>
> or rather the fact that
>
> Cleopatra's nose was short enough (or long enough, I never know) to cast a
> fascination on Marc'Antonio. The
>
> EFFECT
>
> is the raise of the Roman Empire.
>
> --- (after the defeat of Antonio in the Battle of Actium by Ocativan aka
> Augusto -- and Egypt becoming a Roman province).
>
> Pascal as I say, does not complete the conditional or causation-claim. "If
> Cleopatra's nose had been a trifle shorter, the face of the world would be
> other" -- I think his original wording in the French Pensées is.
>
> So it IS a bit convoluted, but since it applies to the Roman Empire I
> thought it was appropriate. Also because it was an obsession with E. C.
> Carr
> whose philosophy of history L. Helm was considering. Carr (a Humean?
> Hardly --
> more like an Anti-Humean) calls it "the crux of Cleopatra's Nose" or the
> "Cleopatra's Nose Problem".
>
> But it was Irishman J. B. Bury who had made the point back in 1916, during
> the Great War, in a RPA paper -- Rational Press Association. Bury, the
> historian of the Roman Empire.
>
> I think he refers to the 'famous dictum' by Pascal.
>
> There are various versions of the expanded conditional/causation
> claim/counterfactual utterance. One:
>
> "If Cleopatra's nose had not been beautiful, Octavius would not have
> founded the Roman Empire."
>
> Another:
>
> "The cause of the foundation of the Roman Empire was the length of
> Cleopatra's nose."
>
> Hume DID write a "History of England", so it may do to revise how he used
> 'cause' there, if at all. He was also pro-American during the Revolution,
> so
> he may have something to say about intentions and volitions pro and
> against mercantilism (the cause the 'decline' of the first British Empire
> in that
> stretch of the New World).
>
> For the record, I have found two further publications that make use of the
> phrase "Cleopatra's Nose". One is an essay co-authored by
>
> Voight,
> "Shortening Cleopatra's nose: the fallacy of counter-factual
> argumentation."
>
> which I think is rather brilliant as titles go since 'shortening' is indeed
> what we need. It's the intervention on the part of the counterfactual
> historian, as observation is said to be manipulative intervention in
> quantum
> physics, say. The fact that the subtitle to Voight's essay makes
> reference to
> 'the fallacy of counter-factual argumentation' should NOT lead us to think
> that ALL non-indicative conditionals are fallacious.
>
> They may not be truth-functional (which is Grice's point in "Indicative
> Conditionals") and thus beyond his interest in implicature to save a
> truth-functional account of logical operators -- but that's another story.
> People
> (including J. L. Mackie) seem to use them!
>
> Incidentally, Trevor-Rope (in "Fly in the Fly Bottle") criticises Carr
> ("it's a bad book"). And the reason why it's bad is that it ridicules the
> opponents -- and Trevor-Rope choses the example of Cleopatra's Nose as a
> case in
> point. He was pretty brilliant, that Trevor-Rope. He says he is REVIEWING
> Carr's book, and I'm sure there are myriad other references to Cleopatra's
> nose. Perhaps what we need is a more or less exact expanded formulation
> and
> a FORMALISATION using the horse-shoe ('if') of logicians, perhaps aided by
> possible-world semantics (alla Kripke or Lewis), since it does touch on
> the necessary/essential vs. contingent/accidental. It also touches on the
> idea (criticised by Popper) of 'laws' or generalisations in history
> (there are
> no such).
>
> Thus, while an intention on the part of Romans to expand the limits of
> their territory may be said to be the cause of the raise of the Roman
> Empire --
> since this is generalisable? -- we can hardly generalise that noses of the
> right size that Egyptian queens have cast a fascination on Roman generals.
>
> The other essay I have come across is entitled:
>
> "Cleopatra's nose and enlightenment historiography"
>
> which should perhaps cover Hume's period.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Speranza
>
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palma
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