Dava asked:

Let’s assume I am running the London Marathon… if my feet were bigger would it be over sooner?

Answer by David Robjant

There are some marshalling issues connected with the definition of ‘running’. Overlooking width fitting problems, any athlete with a foot length over 26 miles and 385 yards would not be permitted to compete.

Answer by Geoffrey Klempner

My first reaction to this question was that it is surely a joke. However, on second thoughts there does seem to be a point here about the way we assess the truth of counterfactual conditionals, of the form, ‘If A had been the case then B would have been the case.’

  If all the world was apple pie
  And all the sea was ink
  And all the trees were bread and cheese
  What should we have to drink?

‘If all the world was apple pie…’ is the antecedent of a counterfactual. However, in this case, we have absolutely no idea how to assess its truth or falsity. To cite the analysis of David Lewis (in his book Counterfactuals, 1973) you look at the possible worlds most closely resembling the actual world, except for the fact that ‘all the world is apple pie and all the sea is ink’. Where do you start?!

Counterfactuals are unruly. It’s an idiom that allows you to ask questions, or make statements, where the question of truth or falsity isn’t something merely hidden or difficult to get at, but where the very idea that there ‘is’ an answer, in reality, is absurd. We don’t have to go as extreme as the nursery rhyme case. Do counterfactuals have truth conditions at all? Or are they merely more or less appropriate things to say, given the circumstances?

Keep everything the same and just make my feet one inch longer. I still take the same number of strides, at the same rate. If each stride is, say, one metre, then regardless of the size of my feet, with each stride I advance one metre. However, I do have one advantage, if we assume that one of my feet crosses the finishing line before the rest of me. I could beat my alter ego with one inch shorter feet, by one inch. (This rarely happens in real life, because the athlete’s nose or hand crosses the finish line first.)

So far so good, the problem is that lots of other things would be the case if my feet were longer by one inch. My body would be just that little bit heavier, my running shoes would also be just that little bit heavier, there would be slightly more wind resistance as I moved my feet forward. OK, you say, that’s just a matter of calculation. In principle, there would be answer, say, if we could devise a suitable computer simulation.

But that’s surely not the point of the question. We don’t want to change anything, at all, except foot size. We are not interested in the most likely or ‘similar’ scenario where my feet are larger, only in the effect that foot size has on the outcome of the race, and that effect alone. In short, what we are interested in is a specific causal relationship.

That is a condensed argument for a different analysis of counterfactuals from the one Lewis gives, where the key concept is causality rather than Lewis’s notion of ‘similarity of worlds’. The bad news is that, if we reject Lewis, then we also give up any hope of a reductive analysis of causal statements in terms of counterfactuals.

Olive asked:

How is it possible to cast two shadows at the same time?

Answer by Craig Skinner

This looks like a science (optics) question rather than a philosophy one. But here’s the answer.

First, I presume you mean one object casting two shadows (two objects will obviously cast two shadows, one for each).

The usual way is to have two light sources, each casting a shadow. Thus, earlier tonight, I walked round the block. As I passed a street lamp, it cast my shadow in front of me, and the shadow lengthened as I walked on. As I neared the next lamp, it cast my shadow behind me, so now there were two, one behind and one in front of me. On a moonlit night, I can see three, one cast by each of the two lights, one by moonlight.

Less often, two shadows are cast even though there is only one light source. The usual explanation is that one shadow is cast directly by sunlight, the other by sunlight reflecting off a window. Very rarely, a thin band of dark cloud obscures a strip across the middle of the sun’s disc so that each unobscured bit of the disc acts as a separate light source and two shadows are cast, very slightly apart.

They say vampires casts no shadow. I’m sure this is true (because there are no vampires).

Finally there is a novel called ‘Casting Two Shadows’ which is well reviewed. I haven’t read it. I understand it is about love, honour and sacrifice, but tells us nothing about optics.

Answer by Geoffrey Klempner

In order to answer your question the first thing we need to decide is how you define a ‘shadow’.

A shadow can be a volume of space within which any partly or wholly contained object is described as being ‘in shadow’, or ‘in the shade’. The Earth’s shadow, in this sense, has the shape of a tapering cone, as the light source, the Sun, is larger than the Earth.

More often, we speak of a ‘shadow’ as a two dimensional shape on a surface. It is actually possible, to cast two shadows in this sense with one object and a compact light source, no mirrors, etc.

Let’s say I am walking across a bridge with an iron railing. I see my moving shadow cast by the sun on the iron railing, but I also see, in the distance, the shadow of the bridge on the meadow below, with the iron railing and my shadow. There are two shadows – two ‘two-dimensional shapes on a surface’ – one of which (from my viewpoint) is contained within the other.

However, in the first sense of ‘shadow’ there is only one shadow, i.e. one volume of space where the light from the sun cannot directly reach because I am in the way.

Federico asked:

Why is the nomological deductive model accused of ‘eschewing any account of causality’ when the general laws on which it is based are (apparently) causal ones (‘when the thread is loaded with a weight exceeding that which characterizes the tensile strength of the thread, then it will break’)?

Answer by Craig Skinner

Good question. Gets us into deep waters quickly.

The nomological-deductive model (covering-law model, DN model) of explanation (Hempel and Oppenheim, 1948) is so ‘accused’ because the model was formulated so as to deliberately avoid invoking causality. Hempel was influenced by Hume’s account of causation as constant conjunction without any evident connexion. In Hume’s view, we think we see causation in the world but all we really see is one event (the cause) followed by another (the effect), repeatedly, so that we come to expect the second whenever we see the first; but we never see a connexion between the two; or see how the first necessitates the second. So, in the absence of a good account of causation or causal necessity, Hempel preferred to stick with natural laws, construed as exceptionless regularities, which, along with the particular circumstances, allowed deduction of an outcome, thereby explaining it.

A problem immediately arises. The DN model is insensitive to the direction of explanation. Classical example: we explain the length of the pole’s shadow by reference to the height of the pole (plus the angle of the sun, and the law that light moves in straight lines). But we could equally well explain the pole’s height by reference to the shadow’s length. But of course this latter is no explanation of why a pole is, say, 20 feet tall (for that, we need to look into the habits and intentions of pole makers and buyers, and uses of poles). Ah yes, you say, but the shadow’s length is caused by the height of the pole, whereas the pole’s height is not caused by the shadow’s length. True, but now you have invoked causality, which is disallowed.

As well as this directional symmetry problem, the DN model suffers from:

* the explanatory irrelevance problem. Example: people taking contraceptive pills dont get pregnant; Mr Jones takes contraceptive pills; so Mr Jones doesn’t get pregnant.

* inability to deal with generalizations which are not exceptionless and/or cant plausibly be taken as natural laws (eg smoking causes lung cancer).

* inability to deal with everyday occurrences. Example: a caveman dropping his mammoth bone, shattering his wife’s prized shell, instantly understands her explanation that her ornament is ruined because of him and his carelessness, although neither has the notion of a natural law, far less of the DN model, nor could they or anybody else fit the cavewoman’s explanation into the model, without positing ‘hidden structure’ or ‘implied laws and circumstances’ somehow contained within this everyday explanation.

In view of the problems with the DN model, causal explanatory models were duly formulated. Notably Salmon’s causal-mechanical (mark transmission) model, Lewis’s counterfactual model, Woodward’s manipulative model. All have problems and limitations.

I incline to the manipulative model (A causes B if altering A, leaving all else unchanged, alters B).

First, we dont need the prior notion of a law.

Secondly, it’s in line with scientific and medical practice and research.

Thus, to know if drug A causes blood pressure (BP) to fall, the effect on BP of taking A is compared with the effect of taking a placebo in a patient group (patients and researchers ‘blinded’ as to who’s on what, and order of treatments randomized within the group, so as to factor out confounding variables, leaving only A and not-A as the comparison). We find BP falls when people take A, but not on placebo. Ergo, A causes a fall in BP.

Another example. ‘Smoking causes lung cancer’ is impossible for the D-N model to handle, difficult for some other models, smoking being neither necessary nor sufficient as a cause of lung cancer (most smokers dont get cancer, some people with lung cancer have never smoked). But the manipulationist view says that if we can reduce smoking in the population then lung cancer rates will change. And indeed, reduced smoking has been followed by falling lung cancer rates in Western Europe (but increased smoking has led to soaring lung cancer rates in developing countries)

Thirdly, manipulation is one way in which we acquire the notion of causation. The baby learns that her hand movement caused his drink to spill, the child learns that his shove caused the bully to fall to the ground. So that, whereas Hume (correctly) held that we get the idea of causation by observing succession, he omitted to say that we also learn it by experiencing success.

Note that the ‘manipulation’ doesn’t have to be due to human action or intention. It can occur naturally. Thus a big asteroid impact ‘manipulated’ the earth’s climate 600 million years ago causing the accelerated extinction of the dinosaurs.

Whether we ‘explain’ laws with reference to causality (as you suggest) or ‘explain’ causality with reference to laws, we try to explain the obscure with the equally obscure. So, Hume reduces causation to exceptionless regularity, Hempel adopts this as his notion of a law only to find that he cant come up with criteria which are necessary and sufficient to distinguish a law from an accidental generalization (this latter problem is still with us). On the other hand, we have no agreed account of causality, and often find that in answering a causal question (what causes an apple to fall) we fall back on invoking laws (gravity, spatial curvature).

Understanding causality is very much a work in progress.

Amel asked:

Following on the idea of universal grammar, is there such a thing as universal aesthetic?

Answer by Tony Fahey

Amel, this is question on an issue which interests me very much. Indeed, in a previous edition of the International Society For Philosophers e-journal, Philosophy Pathways, in an article entitled Philosophy, Science, and Consciousness I make a case that, in the same way that Kant argues that the mind possesses a priori, the intuitions of space and time and the concept of causality, and Chomsky a similar case for universal grammar, so too does the mind possess, a priori, what I call, the ‘instinct of equilibrity’. As you will see from the following extract from my article, I now concede that a more appropriate term for this feature would be what you call the ‘universal aesthetic’.

Consciousness privileges us with an awareness of our existence. Intentionality, as a feature of consciousness, privileges us with the wherewithal to contemplate affairs of the world. However, in order to order phenomena, nature, or natural selection, has furnished the mind/brain with another, equally important, feature which I will call the instinct of equilibrity: an innate sense of equilibrium which is essential in the making of judgement calls necessary for our safety and development. It is this essential feature or element that allows us to intuit that which may serve us best in our struggle of the survival of the fittest. It is in virtue of this feature that we recognise those qualities in others that are worth borrowing for our own evolutionary purposes. It is in virtue of this feature that we turn away from that which we feel may affect us negatively, and turn towards that which we feel may benefit us. It is in virtue of this feature that we have developed our sense of beauty, justice, goodness, and truth, and their opposites – qualities indefinable in themselves but essential in establishing an environment in which human beings can live and prosper.

It could be argued that when Keats said that ‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty! – that is all/Ye know and all ye need to know’ it was this sense of balance of which he spoke: at its most refined beauty is truth, and truth is beauty. But it is also justice and goodness; and together they are but manifestations, even interpretations, of the unique feature which I call the ‘instinct of equilibrity’.

As mentioned above, I now concede that a more appropriate term for the ‘instinct of equilibrity’ is that of ‘universal aesthetic’ as suggested by Amel.

Mark asked:

I don’t understand why philosophers sometimes call the mind, the soul. Just like the heart beat is a function or characteristic of the physical heart is not the mind simply a function or characteristic of the physical brain, and once the brain ceases to exist so does the mind?

Answer by Julian Plumley

The Greek word for soul, psuche, comes from the verb ‘to blow’ and literally means something like the ‘breath of life’. It referred to that which animates the body and makes us alive. Simply put, without soul, we would be just so much meat. Soul included everything we would today mean by ‘mind’ . So, for example, Plato’s theory included a rational, thinking part (closest to what we mean by ‘mind’) an emotional part and an appetitive, instinctive part. His theory doubles as psychology and as metaphysics. He uses it to explain our inner conflicts when we make decisions. And he takes the soul to be immaterial and eternal, and separable from the body.

This set the pattern for many different theories of soul put forward at different times. Not all of these have assumed that the soul is immaterial – Aristotle did not think a soul could existed in isolation, but that it was a substance that essentially animated a person’s body. But these theories generally share two assumptions: i. that what they are trying to explain is what makes us a living thing; ii. that the soul is the ground of our personal identity – what makes us an individual subject with its own viewpoint, rather than an object.

Religious groups have adapted the idea of soul to fit in with their belief systems. For example, some Christian theologians fit the soul into a tripartite theory of spirit (pneuma), soul and body. The soul’s functions are usually given as reason (mind), volition (will) and emotion. In addition, it is claimed that the soul (and perhaps also the body) may survive death and be resurrected.

In more recent times, life has been studied scientifically. The old assumptions are no longer the starting point. Firstly, in science there is no one particular thing that makes us alive. We are alive because of all the chemical and biological processes that go on in our bodies. Mind may be distinguished from body and studied under the various cognitive sciences. There are competing theories as to what a mind may be, perhaps a neural net, or maybe more like a computer program. But the methodological assumption of these sciences is that mind is generated by the physical brain, just as a heartbeat is the result of a working heart. This is backed up by observations using various types of scanning technologies that show our neurons working as we think. A consequence is that the mind could not survive the death of the brain.

Secondly, science does not deal with subjects or substances. The scientific assumption is that reality is objective (Searle). As Thomas Nagel pointed out, the methodology of science calls for objectivity, which abstracts away from understanding the subjective standpoint. And if you do turn out to be a computer program, then you are an item of information, not a person: one is a universal, the other is a particular – you cannot be both.

For both these reasons, science has no use for ‘soul’ in its vocabulary. Soul is an answer to questions that science does not ask. So a modern philosopher who talks about ‘soul’ is either: i. using the term in its pre-scientific way (perhaps talking about a historical viewpoint); ii. discussing religious concepts; or iii. dealing with metaphysical problems that are not scientific (although Nagel wonders whether science could be adapted to include them).

As a philosopher, the remaining question is whether you are satisfied with the questions and answers that science can provide. Leaving religion to one side, the question is whether you want to take metaphysics seriously. Science eliminates the metaphysical questions of subjectivity and personal identity, agency and free will. If you can live without these, then you have no need of the concept of the soul.

P.S. You might also like to read a previous ask-a-philosopher answer here: https://askaphilosopher.wordpress.com/2012/01/31/what-is-the-soul-made-of/

www.sumrescogitans.org

Carlos asked:

What is Theism?

Answer by Tony Fahey

Given the confusion that often arises between Theism and Deism, this is a question to which a response is worth considering. Theism is the belief that there is one God, a personal entity with every perfection; creator of the world, manifested in the world, interacting with the world, yet, at the same time, existing separately from the world. It is the theory of the nature of god that is embraced by the majority of religious traditions in the western world. To reiterate, it is the approach that holds that there is a god, or Gods, who stand in some kind of personal or direct relationship with human beings, while at the same time standing removed from the world. In short, Theism is the belief that god is both immanent in the world while also being transcendent.

Deism, on the other hand, rejects the Theist approach. For Deists, following the Aristotelian view of god as the first Mover, reason rather than revelation provides the truth about God’s existence and nature. For Deists, God is understood to be the First Cause and supremely intelligent creator of an ordered universe that obeys the unchangeable divinely ordained laws of reason. For Deists God is seen as the ‘perfect watchmaker’, who created or regulated this mechanism according to the best rational principles, and then, having set the machine in motion, no longer played any role in the affairs of the natural world.

Answer by Eric George

Hi there Carlos, thanks for the question and I can see why you have asked it to begin with, definitions are very important within Philosophy and at times can seem a tad overwhelming with all the ‘ism’s’ and what not, especially within the specific realm of Philosophy of Religion. Let me try to approach your question by first clarifying some misunderstandings, this way, we can attempt to clear the fog-of-ambiguity, before it clouds our searching minds. More than oft, in western-society, when one talks of ‘Theism’ one usually confuses this with Judaeo-Christian Theism (which is Monotheistic in nature) – however, the term Theism in actuality is broader than this, it really means a worldview which is inclusive to one or many spiritual entities or deities. For example; what would be termed as a ‘Theistic Religion’ would be a religion which posits the acknowledgement of one or more deities, and bases its theological implications around such deities (such as ceremonial and ritualistic aspects). In this instance, Theism is dedicated to the belief of, at the very least; one deity.

Deism on the other hand is a far more recent expression of Theism, Deism is actually a form of Theism – where Theism is dedicated to (more than often that is) a personal or interactive deity or group of deities, Deism holds that there exists only a single ‘transcendent being’, a mind prior to the human mind, so to speak. Deism does not posit a personal-relational first cause. But it does indeed posit a first-cause to begin with, whether this cause of origin can be labelled as ‘God’ or not. It has been said that Deism is a religious philosophy, and rightly so, however by ‘religious’ we do not mean this within the context of an ‘organized religious philosophy’ such as a given Religion like Islam, Hinduism or the likes. Rather, we mean that Deism is religious due to its grasp of a metaphysical-first cause explanation of reality and all that it encompasses. Many of the founding fathers of America were Deists.

In conclusion then, we see that Theism is a far more broader term than most realise and that Deism although a tad more specific than Theism, exists actually as an expression and form of Theism, and not the absence of it.