[lit-ideas] Re: the first lines are the argument referred by
- From: "Walter C. Okshevsky" <wokshevs@xxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, Julie Krueger <juliereneb@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 4 Nov 2011 16:50:48 -0230
Interesting. Julie, could you share with us something about the source of the
need you refer to below? I'm intrigued because I take it that most people who
argue for a living - i.e., philosophers, lawyers, politicians, economists,
priests, school principals, housewives - have only the most rudimentary formal
understanding of symbolic logic, if any. Yet they somehow manage to get by on a
day to day basis. Nor do I see many of these professionals enrolling in my
symbolic logic or critical thinking courses. What makes you so special?
Walter O
MUN
P.S. Re your question, vide *A concise introduction to logic* by Patrick Hurley.
Much better than the age-old standard of Copi's *Logic* text that most hippies
and boomers were subjected to in the bad old days.
P.P.S. I wouldn't be surprised, however, if you found yourself better served by
a very good text on critical thinking written by one Stephen Toulmin, entitled
... OMG, I'm experiencing teenage brain syndrome .... Does anyone remember that
classic by Toulmin? (It must be good since I and Habermas both endorse it.)
Quoting Julie Krueger <juliereneb@xxxxxxxxx>:
> Can someone refer me to a site to the basics of (or beginning) symbolic
> logic? My Dad was heavily into it and as a child we played Woof N Proof,
> and he taught me alot about symbolic logic, but then that was (I don't want
> to count how many) decades ago. I definitely need to brush up.
>
> Julie Krueger
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, Nov 4, 2011 at 6:38 AM, Adriano Palma <Palma@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > the argument is a straight application of identity (in either
> > formulation you like, for informal purposes take it as a 2nd order one)
> >
> > 1. x=y then , for all properties/predicates P(y) IFF P(x) ? [I use the
> > strongest for simplicity]
> >
> > 2. {from 1, by contrap} if P(y) & not-P(x), THEN y isn't identical to x
> > 3. apply to "x is a thought" and "y is a brain state", conclude y isn't
> > identical to x
> >
> > qed
> >
> > that is the argument
> >
> >
> > >>> Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx> 11/4/2011 1:31 PM >>>
> > *From:* Adriano Palma <Palma@xxxxxxxxxx>
> > **
> >
> > >it seems essentially correct (up to and excluding physics) Descartes
> > does have a real argument (see e.g. J. Perry on pre-conceived naturalism)
> >
> > This is not enough to key me into what that "real argument" is? Or even
> > whether "real" here means valid - or something less?
> >
> > >most of what you say is rather well known
> >
> > Is this to imply it is therefore uncontroversial (or just that we've all
> > heard it all [or nearly all] before)? If "uncontroversial" that would seem
> > remarkable in this field.
> >
> > It seems unlikely that some of Popper's key points were anything like
> > accepted (never mind uncontroversial) at the time of his writing, and
> afair
> > at least one academic review of TSAIB took it as defending Cartesian
> > Dualism. A subsequent introductory text like Colin McGinn's "The Character
> > of Mind", which attempts to reflect contemporary thinking (though Popper
> is
> > not found important enough to bear consideration in this field), seems to
> > take it that dualism implies a Cartesian mental 'substance' [though, and
> > hardly consistently, McGinn does not assume a physical monism equally
> > implies a Cartesian physical substance] and that the problem of causation
> > is at the root of the problems of dualism. These are both contra Popper's
> > contentions that dualism need not imply a mental 'substance' and that
> > problems of causation do not afford a strong argument against dualism as
> > problems of causation attend understanding even the interaction of
> > different kinds of physical entity [e.g. physical monism].
> >
> > > (I myself did not notice the Rylean claim that Descartes is original and
> > new in his dualism, do you have a quote somewhere supporting the claim you
> > made?)
> >
> > Here I would suggest that it is perhaps "rather well known" that
> > Descartes' specific account of dualism was "original and new". This
> > leaves open, of course, whether Descartes was "original and new in his
> > dualism" in the sense of being anything like the first dualist, rather
> than
> > merely the first Cartesian. He wasn't, says Popper, anything like the
> first
> > dualist.
> >
> > This leaves open what Ryle thought. I have no "The Concept of Mind" to
> > hand, so will confine myself to amplifying what Popper says vis-a-vis
> Ryle,
> > which admittedly falls short of claiming that Ryle claims Descartes was
> the
> > first dualist of any stripe. Ryle does, however, refer expressly to the
> > "Cartesian myth" and sees this as a "fairly new fangled legend" [Ryle at
> > p.77 of The Physical Basis of Mind]. The "Cartesian myth" Ryle rejects is
> > actually, according to Popper, the "popular ancient legend" of the psycheas
> a shade that may survive the body - a legend that Descartes in fact,
> > says Popper, "most clearly rejected".
> >
> > Ryle has 16 page references in the TSAIB's "Index of Names", and there is
> > a whole section, P5-30, titled "The Ghost in the Machine", where Popper
> > refers to "Gilbert Ryle's views in his most remarkable book, The Concept
> > of Mind."
> >
> > Now, in my view, it is useful to see Popper's comments on Ryle as
> > indicating that Ryle's position is, in Popper's view, something of a fudge
> > as to the actual metaphysics at stake, a fudge that Popper's own specific
> > theory of World 12&3 is designed to avoid. For example, Popper writes
> > that,"Taking Ryle's book as a whole, there seems to be a general tendency
> > to deny the existence of most subjective conscious experiences, and a
> > suggestion that they should be replaced by sheer physical states - by
> > dispositional states, by dispositions to behave. However, there are many
> > places in Ryle's book in which it is admitted that we may genuinely feel
> these
> > states." [Possible fudge, as to whether these feels are sheer
> physicalstates]. And while Ryle notes that the general trend of The
> > Concept of Mind "will undoubtedly, and harmlessly, be stigmatized as
> > 'behaviourist'" [p.327], Popper comments (drily imo), "Yet Ryle is
> > decidedly not a materialist (in the sense of the principle of
> physicalism).
> > Of course, he is no dualist; but he is definitely not a physicalist or
> > monist." So what is he? Something of a metaphysical fudger perhaps, and
> > perhaps because his school of thought still subscribes to the
> > anti-metaphysical stance of the empiricist/positivistic tradition from
> > which it emerged (and to which it remains indebted, as is indicated by
> > Ryle's views on self-knowledge and self-observation, which for Popper
> > retain the imprint of flawed positivistic thinking in line with the
> > traditional empiricism we can trace back to Locke and Hume, where all
> > knowledge is derived from sense-based observation). This kind of fudge is
> > indicated again by the following quotation from Ryle, which, depending on
> > taste, might seem the height of philosophical good sense or simply
> > high-sounding evasiveness of the underlying metaphysical issues: "Man need
> > not be degraded to a machine by being denied to be a ghost in a
> > machine...There has yet to be ventured the hazardous leap to the
> hypothesis
> > that perhaps he is a man." Some might reply that the supposedly hazardous
> > hypothesis that "Man...is a man" is 'rather well known' (and not much
> > disputed), and this hypothesis does not tell us (but simply fudges) to
> what
> > extent man is a machine or what is the extent and character of the
> > non-machinistic aspects of man.
> >
> > Ryle, like many in the Oxford School, may be characterised as a
> > 'metaphysical flat-earther' : the world is metaphysically flat, not
> layered
> > and differentiated with different metaphysical dimensions. Being 'flat',
> it
> > is what it is, and there is no need to give it some specific metaphysical
> > character (as if there were some other metaphysical dimension it could be
> > contrasted with) - rather we should guard against views that try to impute
> > some specific metaphysical character to it (for example, views like
> > Popper's theory of World123). This kind of anti-metaphysical stance can be
> > traced at least as far back as Hume and was given later currency in the
> > dogmas of sense and nonsense proposed by the Logical Positivists and the
> > early Wittgenstein. In a less explicit form it still held sway in the
> > school of Ordinary Language Philosophy or Oxford school and also in the
> > later Wittgenstein.
> >
> > Despite this fudge, Ryle is clear on one thing, says Popper: "[Ryle] also
> > explicitly declares (p.328) 'that the two-worlds story is a myth'.
> > (Presumably, the three-worlds story is even worse)." [TSAIB p.104].
> >
> > Popper later observes [TSAIB p.116], "We learn to distinguish between
> > bodies and minds. (This is not, as has been argued especially by Gilbert
> > Ryle, a philosopher's invention. It is as old as the memory of
> > mankind..)....Even the theory of the brain as the seat of the mind is at
> > least 2,500 years old."
> >
> > Popper's criticism of Ryle here is amplified at P5 section 44, "A Problem
> > To Be Solved By What Follows", which deserves better than parsing:
> > "One of my main aims in writing on the ancient history of the mind-body
> > problem is to show the baselessness of the doctrine that this problem is
> > nothing but part of a modern ideology and that it was unknown in
> antiquity.
> > This doctrine has a propagandist bias. It is suggested that a man who has
> > not been brainwashed by a dualist religion or philosophy would naturally
> > accept materialism. It is asserted that ancient philosophy was materialist
> > - an assertion which, though misleading, contains a grain of truth; and it
> > is suggested that those of us who are interested in the mind, and in the
> > mind-body problem, have been brainwashed by Descartes and his followers.
> > Something like this is suggested in the brilliant and valuable Concept
> > of Mind by Gilbert Ryle...and it is even more strongly suggested in a
> > broadcast in which Ryle speaks of 'the legend of the two theatres' which
> he
> > describes as a 'fairly new-fangled legend'. He also says that 'For the
> > general terms in which scientists..have set their problems of mind and
> > body, we philosophers have been chiefly to blame'. For 'we philosophers'
> > one must read here 'Descartes and the post-Cartesian philosophers'.
> > Views like this are not only to be found in an outstanding philosopher
> > (and student of Plato and Aristotle) such as Ryle, but they are
> > widespread".
> >
> > Popper goes on to list points he wishes to argue that "indicate a very
> > different view from the one which seems so widespread at present."
> > "(1) Dualism in the form of the story of the ghost in the machine (or,
> > better, of the ghost in the body) is as old as any historical or
> > archaeological evidence reaches, though it is unlikely that prior to the
> > atomists the body was regarded as a machine.
> > (2) All thinkers of whom we know enough to say anything definite on their
> > position, up to and including Descartes, were dualist interactionists.
> > (3) This dualism is very marked, in spite of the fact that certain
> > tendencies inherent in human language (which originally was, apparently,
> > appropriate only for the description of material things and their
> > properties) seem to make us inclined to speak of minds or souls or spirits
> > as if they were a peculiar (gas-like) kind of body.
> > (4) The discovery of the moral world leads to the realization of the
> > special character of mind. This is so in Homer...Democritus...Socrates.
> > (5) In the thought of the atomists, one finds materialism, interactionism,
> > and also the recognition of the special moral character of the mind; but
> > they did not, I think, draw the consequences of their own moral contrast
> > between mind and matter.
> > (6) The Pythagoreans, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle tried to transcend the
> > 'materialist' way of talking about the mind: they recognised the
> non-material
> > character of the psyche and tried to make sense of this new conception.
> > An important speech attributed to Socrates by Plato in the Phaedo deals
> > explicitly with the moral explanation of human action in terms of ends,
> and
> > decisions, and contrasts this with the explanation of human behaviour in
> > terms of physiological processes.
> > (7) Alternatives to interactionism arose only after Descartes. They arose
> > because of the special difficulties of Descartes' elaborate interactionism
> > and its clash with his theory of causation in physics.
> > ...(8) We know that, but we do not know how, mind and body interact; but
> > this is not surprising since we have really no definite idea of how
> > physical things interact. Nor do we know how mental events interact,
> unless
> > we believe in a theory of mental events and their interaction that is
> > almost certainly false: in associationism. The theory of the association
> of
> > ideas is a theory which treats mental events or processes like things
> > (ideas, pictures) and their interaction as due to something like
> attractive
> > force. Associationism is therefore probably just one of those materialist
> > metaphors which we almost always use when trying to speak about mental
> > events."
> >
> > It seems then that, at least at the time of his writing, Popper's views
> > were against certain widespread views and that Ryle did seem to think that
> > dualism was a kind of philosopher's make-believe, with Descartes as its
> > main (modern) author [hence the "Cartesian myth"].
> >
> > Donal
> > England
> >
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