What do we want from answers?

Steve asked:

What do we want from answers?

Answer by Eric George

What is given to us by answers and to which what we as human beings desire from answers, is of course; truth. Herein however, lays before us an even deeper question – ‘But what is truth?’ Truth, it could be said, is what is ultimately correct and objective (and therefore by nature not subjective).

By objectivity (that which is ‘objective’) we mean a fact concerning something which is completely autonomous of personal opinion, in other words – something concerning given reality which is or would be true whether one person in the world or no one in the world believes it to be true or not. And of course this follows that by subjectivity (that which is ‘subjective’) we mean to be an opinion based belief, this belief being true or not has nothing necessarily to do with someone believing that particular belief.

For example, suppose there exists a room of ten people where nine of the ten people do not believe the existence of gravity to be true (despite them all not floating around in mid-air), the tenth person however does indeed believe in the existence of gravity to be real. Now, just because the majority of persons in the room hold a belief which denies the existence of gravity does not mean at all that they are correct – on the contrary, in this scenario, it is the minority of one person who holds the belief that gravity is objectively true, that is correct.

So answers naturally follow questions (or at least try to ‘catch’ questions upon following), and questions are formulated by human beings who wish to interpret or unveil reality for what it really is, to explain what essentially is. In that, logic and rationality were not invented subjectively, they were discovered objectively as the blueprints of explanation, discourse and understanding.

We ask questions about reality and all that it encompasses in order to ascertain truth by answers to these questions. Now, permit me to clarify something here, of course just like most things in life not everything is so ‘black & white’, especially when dealing with the very nature ‘answers’. That is, not all answers are true since an answer to a question or inquiry could very well be false, so opinionated answers although they could be true (an opinion based upon objective truth is merely an extension of the fact itself, rather than a deviation from it) are probably more often than not, simply untrue.

Because for all opinionated answers to be true, this would mean that every or any single opinion held by any person in the world could all be true at the same time, which would going back to our scenario, make all ten people correct despite the nine being objectively wrong. Truth therefore, by definition is exclusive – and answers which seek to fulfil corresponding questions must be objectively true, wholly apart from opinion and totally binding across all planes irrespective of cultural or social conditions.

 

Which of these statements did Plato hold?

Jenny asked:

All of the following statements pertain to Platonic philosophy EXCEPT

1. the road to knowledge goes through the Socratic dialectic
2. one arrives at knowledge through sense experience
3. the Good is the highest Form
4. the world of opinion is not to be trusted

Answer by Peter Jones

Hello Jenny.

Okay. I will do your test for you.

All philosophical statements pertain to Platonic philosophy. It is the whole idea of philosophy that all statements should pertain to each other. I presume you (or whoever set your test paper) meant something other than ‘pertain’.

You may have some difficulty in establishing exactly what the phrase ‘Platonic philosophy’ means, and it may depend on who you ask. I doubt, however, that Plato or any other philosopher in their right mind would endorse all of these statements. The first is false, since a dialectic intellectual process produces good and bad theories, not knowledge. The second is false for well-known Cartesian reasons. The third sounds a rather like Plato, but I do not know exactly what it means and neither do you. The last one is a tautology. On the whole, therefore, I would say it hardly matters what Plato would have thought about these statements. What you think about them would be much more important.

 

Answer by Geoffrey Klempner

Your teacher expects you to say that the answer is 2. If that’s all you wanted to know then you don’t need to read any further.

He/ she wants you to say this because in the Republic (analogy of the Line) Plato says that sense experience cannot give episteme (translated as ‘knowledge’) but only doxa (translated as ‘opinion’).

How do we know that we mean the same thing by ‘knowledge’ that Plato meant? That’s one question you could ask your teacher.

Another question you could ask is why, if ‘the road to knowledge goes through the Socratic dialectic’, all of the Socratic dialogues end inconclusively, not with ‘knowledge’ but with the admission that we don’t know what virtue, or courage, or temperance or etc. are – but at least now we know that we don’t know. How does that help?

Is the Good the highest Form? Plato describes it as the ‘light’ by means of which our minds are able to perceive the Forms (story of the Cave). That would seem to make the Good something rather different from ‘just’ being the highest Form. The light by means of which I perceive one particular mountain to be the highest mountain isn’t a mountain. It isn’t the same kind of thing.

Some opinions are true. Even Plato acknowledged that. Someone who seriously made the attempt ‘not to trust’ any of his/ her opinions would be in a very sorry state (this is in effect Pyrrhonian scepticism). Plato recognized that as long as we have to get around the world (for example, find the road to Larissa, Meno) we have an interest in distinguishing trustworthy beliefs from untrustworthy guesses.

 

Kant on why one should not make a false promise

Sam asked:

What is the reasoning by which the first formulation of Kant’s categorical imperative supposedly disallows making a false promise?

Answer by Martin Jenkins

In his Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morality [1785], Immanuel Kant introduces and elaborates the morality of the Categorical Imperative. He provides various examples such as the one concerning Promising.

A person is in financial difficulty and needs money. S/he hopes to acquire the money by borrowing it on the basis of a promise to pay it back. S/he has no intention of paying it back. What is the morality of this? Is it right or wrong? Responses may be that ‘You ought to repay it as no-one will believe you in the future and you won’t be loaned money when you might need it.’ In other words, the motive for keeping the promise is self-interest. Yet this approach could hide many ulterior motives – not any that could be objectively and compellingly good.

If based on self-interest, all the person is really concerned about is him/herself, not the person who loans the money nor the rightness or wrongness of keeping/not keeping the promise. Perhaps the person wants to keep the promise for now so s/he can borrow an even larger sum in the future and then renege on the promise. S/he will honour the promise not because s/he believes in the act of promising; s/he keeps the promise as s/he wants to enhance their reputation as an upstanding citizen. S/he might repay the debt as the lender is a close friend who s/he does not want to offend out of affection. S/he might keep the promise out of love for their kneecaps – fear of failing to repay the debt – and not out of respect for the act and nature of promising.

It is objections like these that makes Kant dissatisfied with existing morality. Promising is kept not because it is right to keep it but, on the grounds of extraneous motives, inclinations, desires or perceived consequences. He terms this approach that of Hypothetical Imperatives. As Jean-Paul Sartre noted – the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Likewise, any means can justify the good ends or consequences.

To avoid the Hypothetical Imperative based on motives and consequences, there needs to be an objective principle or criteria by which the thinking being can decide upon right or wrong courses of action and, which is thereby free from the grounds of motivation, empirical consequences and passions. Courses of action are decided by the Will dutifully adhering to a law. This law is ‘I am never to act otherwise than so I could also will my maxim should become a universal law’. Right or wrong is dependent upon Reason deciding whether the maxim could be universalised or not. Note that it is not about acting from motives, feelings or perceived consequences be they good or bad. So with having the intention of making a promising and failing to keep it Kant responds:

“How would it be if my maxim were a universal law? Then I see at once that it could never hold as a universal law of nature but would necessarily contradict itself. For suppose it to be a universal law that everyone, when he thinks himself in difficulty, should be able to promise whatever he pleases with the purpose of not keeping it, the promise itself would become impossible as well as the end one might have in view of it, since no one would consider that anything was promised to him and would ridicule all such statements as vain pretences.”

To promise with the intention of reneging the promise undermines and contradicts the act of promising. Promising per se, would a priori, as concluded by Reason, become intrinsically inoperable. Hence, promising with the intention to renege the promise undermines the very act of nature promising thereby preventing it from becoming universalised. Yet isn’t there an element of consequentialism here? For Kant writes that ‘no would consider that anything was promised to him and would ridicule all such statements as vain pretences’? No, the deciding factor is that it judged by Reason as a priori inconsistent as defined by the reflexive criteria of the Moral Law itself-with respect to its internal logic alone. Empirical consequences are irrelevant.

Whilst this is a tribute to the genius of Kant, is it feasible?

Kant works on an Enlightenment model of what is is to be a human being – namely Rational. Reason is to be employed in most areas of human activity. With the Categorical Imperative it appears that acting detachedly following the pure conclusions of Reason relegates what others may consider to be ‘human’ creating instead, what would be a logical automaton. Firstly, as consequences are deemed irrelevant, the human being is merely following the orders of Reason. Lying for instance, is outlawed even if it could save hundreds of lives. This could be objected to.

Secondly, is Kant’s emphasis, even superfetation of Reason a convincing model for human beings? His underlying premise of what it is to be human (I.e. a Rational being) allowing the conclusion of the Categorical Imperative can be challenged. Finally, Kant’s conception of the human being is atomistic and innatist. It’s essential identity both particular and universal, arises from an innateness planted within by Nature. What is within is Reason. This allows the Categorical Imperative to function. Alternatively, what a human being is, including its moral norms and practices, is collectively acquired from ‘without’, from society. We must look therefore at the broader panoramic of society and its dynamics to link certain ideas (including moral codes and practices) with definite states, stages of a society?

 

Analyzing Descartes’ ontological argument for the existence of God

Rachel asked:

Explain in detail any one of Descartes’ three arguments for god’s existence in the meditation. Is the argument valid? is it sound? Analyze and explain in detail.

Answer by Tony Fahey

Hi Rachel, as far as I know, and of course I may be wrong, there are only two arguments for God’s existence in Descartes’ Meditations. The first appears the third mediation, and the other in the fifth. However, since you are only interested in one let us look at the argument of the fifth meditation which is known as the ontological argument. This is an a priori argument for the existence of God. That is that evidence is not based on empirical evidence, but on analysis of the concept of God.

According to Descartes each of us possesses the idea of a perfect entity. Inherent in that idea is the fact that a perfect entity must exist – because, as Anselm had said, a perfect entity can only be perfect if it has existence. Neither could we conceive of a perfect entity if there was no such thing. We are imperfect, said Descartes, so the idea of perfection cannot come from us. Descartes reasons that the idea of a perfect being must have been placed in him by a really existing perfect being – God. That God exists was therefore as self-evident to Descartes as that a thinking being must exist.

Descartes believed that the idea of God was innate; it was something we are born with. The more self-evident a thing is to one’s reason, the more certain it is that it exists. From this he concluded that he was a thinking being and that there exists a perfect entity, God. With this as his departure point, Descartes lays out his theory of dualism. With regard to all the ideas we have concerning outer reality, there is possibility that we are deceived. We think we have a body but we may be dreaming; we cannot be certain that we have a body. Descartes believed his body and the non-conscious natural world was non-essential, that is, contingent. It is important to realise that Descartes is not saying that the material world does not exist, but that its existence is radically unlike that of the mind. His body is not part of his essence, therefore, if his body ceased to exist, his mind would not cease to be all that it is. In other words, Descartes would continue to be Descartes even if he had no body.

There are two kinds of reality – two substances – says Descartes. One is thought, or mind, the other is extension, or matter. The mind is purely conscious and occupies no room in space and therefore cannot be subdivided into smaller and smaller parts. Matter, on the other hand has no consciousness. Descartes maintained that both mind and matter originate from God, because only God exists independently of anything else. Although both substances come from God, they are independent of each other. Thought is independent of matter and conversely, the material processes are independent of thought.

One of the main problems with Descartes’ ontological arguments is one that was identified by the monk Guanilo when the same argument was advanced by his contemporary Anselm circa 1093. According to Gaunilo, the ontological argument would imply that anything, no matter how fictitious or chimerical, which was thought in the mind, would have to exist in reality. To prove his point he uses the example of an ‘island more blessed than any other, a perfect island… greater than which nothing greater can be conceived’. Given Anselm’s ‘proof’, he argues, if one can conceive of such an island in this way, then it follows that such an island must exist in reality as well as in the mind – this, of course, is absurd.

 

Answer by Geoffrey Klempner

There is a way of seeing the ontological argument as being valid but not sound. A being like God, being perfect in every way, cannot contingently exist. That seems reasonable. A perfect island can never be THAT perfect. We can imagine some universe where there is a perfect island and another universe where there isn’t a perfect island. But IF we can conceive of God as God, that is to say, having the attributes of perfection attributed to Him by Anselm and Descartes, then God, IF he exists in any possible world must exist in all possible worlds.

That’s a valid argument for the existence of God, from the assumption that the conception of God is not incoherent or self-contradictory. But that’s an assumption which a critic of the ontological argument would question.

 

Was Hegel a scientologist?

Bob asked:

Should Hegel be removed from all formal academic philosophical course of study? Hegel was just ‘signing for his supper’; i.e. making up theories he could not prove or even observe. Hegel’s ‘Weltgeist is effected in history through the mediation of various Volksgeister (‘Folk Spirits’)’. That’s speculation, and out of the boundaries of philosophy. In conclusion, Hegel has the same philosophical credibility as L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology. Hubbard has theories about spirits too, just like Hegel. What are your thoughts?

Answer by Jürgen Lawrenz

By golly, Bob, I think you’ve made a major discovery here! Suddenly I realise that, together with many Hegel readers over two centuries, I’ve been hoodwinked. Fancy you finding out about the Volksgeister – astonishing! You’re so right that this is beyond the pall of philosophy. In fact, when you think about it, it’s an insult to philosophy. It is one reason, I’m sorry I have to admit it, why I never read Hubbard. I don’t believe in ghosts – ooops, ‘spirits’. Now I’m really keen now to read your detailed commentary on the ‘Phenomenology’ where you demonstrate with your impeccable logic how Hegel, in his embarrassment with the Volksgeister, kept improvising from chapter to chapter until the whole things became the incredible Geisterphantasmagoria we now have and which the professors are silly enough to think is worth reading. And I hope you’ve got a publisher ready for your paper. The world has waited long enough for someone to stand up to Hegel and call a spade a spade!

 

Defining informational content

Jonathan asked:

A piece of information (a message, a story, a recipe, a formula) can be encoded in a great number of different media and symbolic systems. It can for example be written in different languages, or in morse or binary code, or numerical symbols; written on paper, stored on a disk drive, or carved in stone. In each representation, the same meaning is conveyed. So my question is, what is it that stays the same, and what changes?

Answer by Helier Robinson

A concept is a combination of word and the meaning of that word. In you question the word is changing and the meaning is remaining the same. Note that the meaning of ‘meaning’ is debatable: some philosophers claim that some meanings are abstract ideas, while others deny the possibility of abstract ideas. I suspect that some people can discover abstract ideas introspectively (mathematicians, for example) and others cannot; hence the debate. Note also that a statement (which is a grammatically correct sentence which is either true or false) is a similar combination: this time of sentence and proposition; and a proposition is a compound meaning.

 

Answer by Geoffrey Klempner

There are cases where there is a clear 1-1 correlation, defined by a rule, between a piece of information ‘encoded in different media’, as you put it. Wittgenstein in Tractatus 4.04 gives the example of a piece of music, where the sound waves, grooves in the gramophone record, and notes on the page have a common musical content. But even looking at this simple case raises problems. In what way does a CD capture the ‘same’ information as vinyl? Collectors of old 33 LP records will tell you that something is ‘lost’ in the translation to digital.

In this context one might also consider W.V.O. Quine’s famous scepticism about the analytic-synthetic distinction in his essay ‘Two Dogmas of Empiricism’. Whether two propositions ‘mean’ the same thing isn’t something isn’t something we just ‘know’ a priori by some mystical intuition. It is always an empirical question whether two words or sentences ‘mean’ the same thing. The only exception being where we explicitly stipulate the meaning of a term – but even here there is a defeasible claim to the effect that the term in question really has a meaning (think of ‘phlogiston’ or ‘witch’).