Kant and Extraterrestrial Life

"If it were possible to settle by any sort of experience whether there are inhabitants of at least some of the planets that we see, I might well bet everything that I have on it. Hence I say that it is not merely an opinion but a strong belief (on the correctness of which I would wager many advantages in life) that there are also inhabitants of other worlds."

-Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason A825/B853

Discussion of Forthcoming Term Paper

For my proseminar paper, I'm thinking of drawing parallels between the generality problem for reliabilist theories of justification and the problem of action description in Kantian ethics, and I'm going to suggest that proposed solutions to the latter can be adapted to address the former.

Briefly, the generality problem for reliabilism is this: according to that theory, a belief-forming process confers justification on a belief token that is produced by that process only insofar as the process is reliable. But the degree to which a belief-forming process can be described as reliable seems to depend in part on the level of generality used in describing the process. For example, take the case of a belief "There is a tree outside my window" that is the result of a process of visual sense perception (for simplicity's sake I'll only consider the visual aspect of the seeing, and exclude other relevant processes such as the application of the concept 'tree'). If we describe this process as "visual sense perception" simpliciter, then it seems as though the process is not very reliable (compare e.g. my seeing the tree at night and without the aid of my glasses with my seeing the tree in the day with my glasses on), but if we describe the process in a very fine-grained way (perhaps so fine as to ensure that only that particular act of seeing fulfills the description) then the reliability of the process will be much higher. The problem is to give a criterion for determining whether and to what degree a process is reliable in a non-ad hoc way.

Briefly, the problem of action description in Kantian ethics is this: if we try to act in accordance with the categorical imperative (specifically, the universal law formulation), then whether an action is permissible seems to depend in some respect on the level of generality used to describe it. Take the paradigmatic case of the person who is questioned by the Gestapo and who lies about hiding Jews: if we describe the action as "lying" simpliciter, then it seems clearly wrong, since we could not consistently will that everyone lie. But, if we describe the action as "lying to an evil person in order to save the lives of innocent people", then it seems like we could consistently will such an action (I'm ignoring some potentially salient features of the example for the sake of simplicity, but I think the general idea is clear).

In both cases, we are presented with the problem of determining the appropriate level of generality to use in describing an action, as well as the implications that such a description has on justification (epistemic in one case and moral in the other). Thus, I think it is reasonable to suppose that progress in finding a solution to one problem can be applied to finding a solution to the other.

Kant's Factory of Thought: a Metaphor

In an attempt to understand Kant's account of the formation of judgments, I developed a drawing that uses a factory as a metaphor for the mind. I intended the drawing to be fairly uncontroversial with regard to the interpretation of Kant's view that it presents, but I should say that precisely locating the transcendental unity of the apperception in the metaphor proved to be difficult.

Kant and Mathematics

This is an excerpt from a paper in which I argue that in the first Critique Kant does not give good reasons for thinking that the truths of mathematics are synthetic a priori.

Mathematical judgments, Kant states, are an example of synthetic a priori judgments (A 10/B 14). Judgments such as “5 + 7 = 12” and “a straight line is the shortest distance between two points” are a priori, since they are both necessary and universal. However, according to Kant they are also synthetic. He states that the concept “twelve” cannot be arrived at solely by examining the concepts of “five,” “seven,” and “addition,” and the concept “shortest distance between two points” cannot be found in the concept “straight line” (B 16). In both cases, Kant argues, we must appeal to an intuition in order to the truth of the judgment. When we add five and seven, we must have recourse to calculating aids such as our fingers, or the visualization of discrete points, etc. (B 15). And in the case of the straight line or other geometrical truths, we must have recourse to intuitions in order to arrive at the correct answer.

But what exactly does Kant mean by appealing to an intuition in this context? As he explains at A 19/B 33, by “intuition” he is specifically referring to the means by which a cognition relates to an object when the mind is presented with that object. In the case of mathematical truths, it is these kinds of intuitions (e.g. the processes of counting or of constructing a geometric figure, cf. Dicker (2004) 27) that allow us to see the truth or falsehood of our judgments, rather than an examination of the concepts involved (Guyer (2006) 61). So an intuition is something over and above the particular concepts involved in a judgment.

In the case of the straight line being the shortest distance between two points, Kant states that the concept of straight “contains nothing of quantity, but only a quality” (B 16), and concludes that this judgment is synthetic. However, a closer examination of the concept “straight line” will reveal the judgment to be analytic. Euclid defines a line as “breadthless length” (Elements I def. 1), and a straight line as “a line which lies evenly with the points on itself (Elements I def. 4); in other words, a straight line is a magnitude in one dimension “which represents the extension equal with (the distances separating) the points on it” (Heath (1956) 166). In addition, Kant’s contemporary Legendre followed Archimedes in simply defined a straight line as the shortest distance between two points (Heath (1956) 169). So the judgment that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points turns out to be analytic after all.

In the case of “5 + 7 = 12,” Kant states that the concept “twelve” cannot be arrived at simply by examining the concepts “five,” “seven,” and “addition,” but requires a process of counting. But it does not seem to me that the process of counting “goes beyond” (B 15) the concepts of the particular numbers and the concept of addition, but that it makes explicit what is already contained in the concepts involved. The concepts “five” and “seven” surely include the concept “magnitude,” and the combination of two particular magnitudes must yield another particular magnitude; in this case, the magnitude that we happen to denote by the concept “twelve.” It seems that e.g. when we represent the concept “five” to ourselves, we unavoidably do so by imagining a certain number of distinct objects (even if those objects are components of another object, as if for instance we represent “five” by visualizing a pie with five slices). I suggest that what Kant calls an “intuition” in this and in similar cases of counting is nothing more than the act of examining the concept of a particular number. That we require this kind of representation in order to perform calculations should be understood as an indication of the genesis of our concepts of numbers (or perhaps an indication of the limits of our particular cognitive capabilities), rather than a proof that mathematical knowledge must be arrived at with the aid of intuitions that go beyond the concepts involved.

Not Getting It

Socrates is my hero. That probably goes for most philosophers. I was a bit surprised at the degree of grief I suffered at reading student essays in which a sizable portion only understand argument as a rhetorical method of persuasion among others. In essay after essay, students failed to get that Socrates is not trying to win in the Apology through rhetoric - he has the option of doing so, but considers it shameful. Maybe it's too much to expect that the students actually read the Apology and noted the importation message of the dialogue that non-rational persuasion is different from persuasion by reason.

Grading is my main interaction with the students (as TA), so I won't have much chance to try to get them to really get Socrates. But it's early in the course and it is (mostly) their first course in philosophy, so after reading more Plato, maybe they'll get it. But if nothing else, I've gotten one of the student errors I want to make sure I address when it's my turn to teach Plato/Socrates to undergraduates.

On Authenticity

A former classmate of mine, Matthew Anderson, recently written an article which raises the issue of authenticity. I'm going to take a stab at the subject, but I honestly haven't thought in great detail about the subject, and this is perhaps my first stab at it. Hopefully I'll better understand how authenticity, if a virtue of any sort fits into the ordinary network of duties, values, and virtues after further thought. But here goes - Anderson writes:

Fewer words find more frequent use among young evangelicals than “authentic.” Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee resonated with young evangelicals for the same reason: they appeared authentic in their positions and their mindsets... And while authenticity has a political dimension, it is also a social virtue. Young evangelicals frequently decry the inauthenticity of the mega-church and individualistic evangelical tradition, where people put on a happy face and “played church.” Experiencing “real life together” is the pursuit of the new evangelical small group, where “real life” is always “messy.” Authenticity in social settings is frequently an excuse for sharing sins and problems within a group of people who doubtlessly share the same sins and problems.

Anderson has as his target an issue among a certain group of people, and I don't doubt that he's right about it. My experience has been that this is far from an issue among evangelicals alone. It's a common theme in movies and when I've had deeper conversations with undergraduates and peers outside the academy, it's not infrequently something that comes up. If anything, I suspect that it's currency among evangelicals today has to do with osmosis from the rest of our culture. I suppose that there's an interesting history to the concept - I suspect that it's currency derives from trickle-down existentialism, but I'm far from positive about that - and it really deserves study.

I'm often inclined to get a bit restless when talk of "authenticity" or "being real" comes up. One of the reasons is the nebulousness of the term. I'm never quite sure what qualifies as being authentic. However, there does appear to be some genuine value to authenticity liable both to inflation and deflation.

The sense of the term I have in mind is that one is authentic if one acts honestly. One fails to be authentic if one talks about traditional values but belies those values by the hookers one is secretly meeting with on the side. One fails to be authentic if one hides feelings or desires because of how it will be perceived (being closeted is a failure of authenticity). Part of the concept appears to have to do with not realizing one's desires for the sake of appearance and part of it has to do with publicly speaking of high standards, but actually acting according to a set of lower standards. In brief, one doesn't act honestly. One intentionally acts in a way so that you communicate to others that you are a kind of person that you aren't.

Here's where it's important not to deflate the value of authenticity. The complement of authenticity is a kind of social fraud. Fraud undercuts human relationships extremely effectively, and I'm told that non-familial relationships are paramount for my generation and those following it. Given that virtuous friendships are of great value to having a flourishing life and that social fraud seems to undercut that value, there's something pretty important about authenticity. It may be that if there are such things as "intrinsic goods" of practices (in MacIntyre's), that authenticity is an important precondition for realizing whatever goods are intrinsic to the practice of friendship. Dante seemed to realize this in his placing fraud at the very deepest level of hell. Subverting relationships generated the worst sins in Dante's taxonomy.

However, there's also reason to think that the value of authenticity is often overblown. Firstly, authenticity seems to be mainly a precondition for having other values. If I'm socially honest, then I can participate in enriching relationships with others in a way that I might not otherwise have done. However, authenticity in the sense I'm concerned with is without much value if the person doesn't have many virtues. Authenticity is in some sense a bit cheap. After all, I can be fully authentic without many of the other virtues. An authentic rascal is still a rascal. If he's not authentic, then he's a hypocritical rascal, but removing the hypocrisy doesn't make him less than a rascal. And there does seem to be a bit of a problem here for people like me who are moral realists of some sort or another with authenticity. Authenticity is sometimes the only virtue that undergrads appear to think isn't relative or subjective. In such cases, I get the impression that one can be taken to be socially virtuous so long as one is honest about how deeply bereft one is of other virtues (paradoxically, I suppose that there's a kind of inauthenticity in this).

If the other virtues are whittled away so that only authenticity remains, then one is poor indeed. But, it's also true that adding authenticity to other valuable traits is, as Dante seemed aware of, a precondition for certain sorts of social moral goods.

Ancient Greek Paleontology

This blog is not dead, only dormant.

It's always interesting when something about fossils shows up in antiquity. I was reading some fragments about Xenophanes (b. abt. 570 B.C.) and the following showed up:

He believes that earth is being mixed into the sea and over time it is being dissolved by the moisture saying that he has the following kinds of proofs, that sea shells are found in the middle of the earth and in mountains, and the impressions of a fish and seals have been found at Syracuse in the quarries, and the impression of a laurel leaf in the depth of the stone in Paros, and on Malta flat shapes of all marine life. He says that these things occurred when all things were covered with mud long ago and the impressions were dried in the mud.

- Hippolytus, Refutation (from Cohen, Curd, Reeve, Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy)

What's interesting here is that Xenophanes knew about fossils, had a vaguely correct notion of what they were (impressions of ancient plants and animals), and used them to formulate theories about prehistory and certain sorts of natural processes. His suppositions were wildly inaccurate, but it was a good early start for paleontology. Additionally, though the "proofs" cited appear to all be hearsay, they do accord with certain kinds of fossils. I wonder whether these were known via rumors passed about in the marketplace or if there were (since it was the dawn of natural science and philosophy in Greece - a self-conscious effort to collect this kind of information among those involved). 

I wonder if there are a) earlier reports of fossils in antiquity and b) if Xenophanes was the first to draw paleontological sorts of conclusions from them. May we rightly call Xenophanes the first paleontologist?

-Bill

Gettiered Development

Once one gets familiar with the Gettier problem, one finds it all over the place. Occasionally, one finds it in popular media, like TV. I happened to find what seems to me a very good case of it in the sitcom Arrested Development.

Unfortunately, if one's not familiar with the show, the clip may require some background. The Bluth family is a wealthy family fallen on hard times. George Bluth is on the lam, while his wife Lucille is living with his twin brother Oscar (distinguishable from his fugitive brother by his head of gray hair). Buster, who is actually the son of an illicit liaison between Lucille and Oscar (but does not know this) has been signed up for the Army by Lucille when challenged by a Michael Moore lookalike to do so, and is about to be deployed to Iraq. George has come to see Buster (since he too believes that Buster is his son), wearing a wig as a disguise so that he won't be arrested on sight. The key things to note is that Oscar is Buster's father, and George appears to be Oscar.

Buster believes, on the word of George, whom he takes to be Oscar, that Oscar is his father. His belief is true. His belief also appears to be justified. He sees a man that looks just like Oscar, testifying to him that he is his father. 

It seems pretty obvious that at this point, Buster doesn't actually know that Oscar's his father, but he has a justified true belief that he is.