The Evolutionary Fallacy
The Mistake
1. People use evolution to make moral claims.
1.1 Normative claims say what people ought to do.
1.2 Normative claims cannot say what we must do.
1.21 Normative claims cannot be descriptive or even constative.
2. But evolution is a historical chain.
2.1 A historical chain says only how things are the way they are.
2.2 A historical chain says nothing about how the future must be.
2.3 A historical chain allows that things could be otherwise, therefore not a descriptive claim.
2.4 A historical chain cannot say how things ought to be, they are devoid of any moral basis.
3. A historical chain is distinctly not a normative claim.
4. Moral claims require a normative basis. (Normative claims are not necessarily moral claims.)
5. Because historical claims cannot be normative claims, historical claims lack the necessary basis to be moral claims.
6. It is a mistake to use evolution to make normative claims.
Against the Claim that History Repeats Itself. (Requires the rejection of hard determinism and deontology. A broad entailment I grant.)
When history repeats itself then an evolutionary chain can be used as evidence to the future and how it will be.
Still there is no normative basis for using historical chains to make normative claims.
Rarely does history truly repeat itself.
We see patterns but never exact replications of occurences.
One such form of the fallacy of evolution is the claim, ‘humans were made to eat meat, therefore it is right for humans to eat meat’.
Let us not suppose there is design to the universe.
For if we suppose that there is, we are so aflicted with a malady of the mind that the illogic of using evolution to make moral claims is far from out greatest concern.
Then we have, ‘humans developed in such a way as to be meat eaters, therefore it is right for humans to eat meat’.
Just because something happened a certain way does not mean that it must have happened a certain way.
Survival of the fittest really means survival of the fittest given the environment into which those surviving were the fittest.
Given a dynamic environment, the fittest are but a mere consequence to the world.
Let us not reify morals.
No normative claim, no moral basis exists for being a mere conseqence of the state of the world.
One cannot say that the fittest are the best or even the best given a particular environment.
The most that can be said has alread been said, that the fittest turned out to be the fittest.
If history is a self replicating pattern then it repeats itself in such that we can drawn inference from prior history.
And again still, this does not lend itself to belief that the universe is one large causal chain.
Again the most that can be said is that the fittest turned out to be the fittest.
The Roles of Inferences in relation to What Is
Instinct is not the same as intuition and neither instinct nor intuition are grounds for moral claims.
Certainly both are a shortcut for operating about the world and they might even be fecund.
They are both inferences of a kind.
They are nonetheless different.
For instinct is a product of biological evolution whereas intuition is a matter of first person empiricism.
Drawing such a line is moot for my purposes because neither is sufficient grounds to make the normative claim one needs in order to make a moral claim.
I see no way to get from “I feel” to “I should” or even further “I must”.
I have discovered that this is Hume’s From Is to Ought Fallacy.
I have discovered that this is Moore’s Naturalistic Fallacy.
The ultimate conclusion: What is cannot be good or bad on the basis of its being. It simply is.
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On Criticism (Work In Progress)
Work in progress: Updated/arranged/filled nightly.
Introduction
This essay is unquestionably the single best piece of work I have to my credit this calendar year. Regrettably it will largely be regarded as a reversion to the stone age. It will probably not even be recognized that I have slaved for hours to simplify and make understandable what will assuredly be misunderstood for its complexity. This is futility- working for an outcome that will not attain.
This essay follows and then builds upon the thinking of Ludwig Wittgenstein. Wittgenstein lived one remarkable life, to say the least. In fact the the text upon which I seek to expand was written while Wittgenstein was imprisoned by the Italians in the Great War. That text is Tractatus-Logico Philosophicus and it remains one of the most powerful works in philosophy.
Right off the bat I suppose everything put forth in the Tractatus. So I accept that the world is facts, that facts are a logical picture, that a logical picture is a thought, and that thoughts are propositions. My first real move is to focus on a particular set of propositions: criticisms. In thinking about criticisms I found that there was much to be explained. It was necessary to give the elementary form of a criticism. Although, I do not present any new logical functions I do take the time to detail several common fallacies that involve criticism. After that there is great care to point out the proper function of criticism. I then reiterate all the resounding metaphysical implications of the Tractatus only I do it with an eye toward criticism. My final claim is that criticism is much more of the world than we realize.
Setting the Stage
Direct References to the Tractatus are denoted by red colored text. The decimal figures are unchanged.
1. The world is everything that is the case.
2. What is the case are facts.
3. The logical picture of facts is the thought.
4. The thought is the significant proposition.
4.001 The totality of propositions is the language.
4.01 The proposition is a picture of reality. The proposition is a model of reality as we think it is.
5. Propositions are truth-functions of elementary propositions.
5.621 The world and life are one.
5.632 The subject does not belong to the world but is a limit to the world.
6. The general form of truth-function is [p, ξ, N(ξ)]. This is the general form of proposition.
6.1 The propositions of logic are tautologies.
6.13 Logic is not a theory but a reflexion on the world. Logic is transcendental.
6.2 The identity of the meaning of two expressions cannot be asserted. For in order to be able to assert anything about their meaning, I must know their meaning, and if I know their meaning, I know whether they mean the same or something different.
6.41 The sense of the world must lie outside the world. In the world everything is as it is and happens as it does happen. In it there is no value — and if there were, it would be of no value. If there is a value which is of value, it must lie outside all happening and being-so. For all happening and being-so is accidental. What makes it non-accidental cannot lie in the world, for otherwise this would again be accidental. It must lie outside the world.
6.42 Hence also there can be no ethical propositions. Propositions cannot express anything higher.
6.421 It is clear that ethics cannot be expressed. Ethics is transcendental. (Ethics and æsthetics are one.)
6.422 The first thought in setting up an ethical law of the form “thou shalt . . .” is: And what if I do not do it? But it is clear that ethics has nothing to do with punishment and reward in the ordinary sense. This question as to the consequences of an action must therefore be irrelevant. At least thse consequences will not be events. For there must be something right in that formulation of the qustion. There must be some sort of ethical reward and ethical punishment, but this must lie in the action itself. (And this is clear also that the reward must be something acceptable, and the punishment something unacceptable.)
6.423 Of the will as the subject of the ethical we cannot speak. And the will as a phenomenon is only of interest to psychology.
6.43 If good or bad willing changes the world, it can only change the limits of the world, not the facts; not the things that can be expressed in language. In brief, the world must thereby become quite another, it must so to speak wax or wane as a whole. The world of the happy is quite another than that of the unhappy.
6.431 As in death, too, the world does not change, but ceases.
6.4311 Death is not an event of life. Death is not lived through. If by eternity is understood not endless temporal duration but timelessness, then he lives eternally who lives in the present. Our life is endless in the way that our visual field is without limit.
6.4312 The temporal immortality of the human soul, that is to say, its eternal survival after death, is not only in no way guaranteed, but this assumption in the first place will not do for us what we always tried to make it do. Is a riddle solved by the fact that I survive for ever? Is this eternal life not as enigmatic as our present one? The solution of the riddle of life in space and time lies outside space and time. (It is not problems of natural science which have to be solved.)
6.432 How the world is, is completely indifferent for what is higher. God does not reveal himself in the world.
6.4321 The facts all belong only to the task and not to its performance.
6.44 Not how the world is, is the mystical, but that it is.
6.45 The contemplation of the world sub specie aeterni is its contemplation as a limited whole. The feeling that the world is a limited whole is the mystical feeling.
6.5 For an answer which cannot be expressed the question too cannot be expressed. The riddle does not exist. If a question can be put at all, then it can also be answered.
6.51 Scepticism is not irrefutable, but palpably senseless, if it would doubt where a question cannot be asked. For doubt can only exist where there is a question; a question only where there is an answer, and this only where something can be said.
6.52 We feel that even if all possible scientific questions be asnwered, the problems of life have still not been touched at all. Of course there is then no question left, and just this is the answer.
6.521 The solution of the problem of life is seen in the vanishing of this problem. (Is not this the reason why men to whom after long doubting the sense of life became clear, could not then say wherein this sense consisted?)
6.522 There is indeed the inexpressible. This shows itself; it is the mystical.
6.53 The right method of philosophy would be this: To say nothing except what can be said, i.e. the propositions of natural science, i.e. something that has nothing to do with philosophy: and then always, when someone else wished to say something metaphysical, to demonstrate to him that he had given no meaning to certain signs in his propositions. This method would be unsatisfying to the other — he would not have the feeling that we were teaching him philosophy — but it would be the only strictly correct method.
6.54 My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.) He must surmount these propositions; then he sees the world rightly.
7. Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent.
My Contribution
Criticism is a specific type of proposition. It takes the form of responding to A with ~A and positing B where B is something to take the place of A or to complement ~A. This is so essential to thought. It is part of the process wherein one accepts A but refuting ~A. All thoughts are criticism.
Notes:
As Russell said, the essential business of language is to assert or deny facts.
Intuition, normative, causation, evolution.
Tautologies.
- Because they can’t take criticism they exist in fake relations. Intimidated by the truth.
- Still, most acknowledge that inspiration must not always come from within.
- Seek things not for their controversy and it can just so happen that those things sought are controversial.
- Every thought is a criticism (LW).
- My melancholy isn’t even melancholy; it’s criticism.
- The world is all criticism because everything is so wrong. Criticism is just a fact about the world.
- Don’t internalize and YOU don’t self-aggrandize.
- Well, logically closed bits seem like the exception (synthetic statements). X=X isn’t criticism.
- They don’t see the real reason and worst yet they can’t. As such the conclusions are not popular and they aren’t even understandable.
- Is there any part of society that can’t be criticized? My tacit approval of modern amenities and medicine? OMG I’m Nozick. If it can’t be criticized it probably can’t be understood.
- Even if the world is all criticism, that’s because it’s experienced from fantasyland.
- Criticism begets fury.
- Just in when in a horror film the villain stalks the innocent, we’re all that oblivious all the time.
- Modern logical fallacies: The mistaken historical basis. It explains how we got there and it explains what has happened before. It doesn’t explain the future. So history might very well repeat itself but in any given instant there are also a ton of nouvelle occurrences as well.
- Vulcans.
- Sometimes it’s enough to have the criticism and not need to express it.
- Academia is where people are best at taking criticism. But still inept.
- You will find that a world of people who are able to take criticism leads to a world of sincere people to whom there is no cost in trusting.
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Relatives
It is just too incredible, too unbelievable, to think that I my relatives are my own. We have practically nothing in common. Even kinship is lacking between us.
Just last week I professed my conscientious consumption. Well, my relatives are unconscionable consumers. I could just say that money has decreasing marginal utility but here are the gory details.
- Sixty dollar haircuts (for guys)
- Motorcycle GPS systems that beam signals to Bluetooth motorcycle helmets
- Cigars that run $200 for a box of four and are stored in a perfect cherry humidor
- Pure-bred Great Danes and a host of farm animals kept about for the sake of having them about
- Adopting thirteen impoverished inner-city children (what a crazy house)
- $70,000 annual homeowner’s association dues
- Three BMWs, and Audi, and an Acura- all for one married couple
- Restaurants where the flower settings cost more than a nice vegan meal should
- Whiskey that’s older than I am
- Guns which are more ‘valuable’ than my college tuition
- Collecting old tractors
- Buffalo hunting trips
- So many ‘outdoorsy’ toys that you get the idea that the outdoors must be a very unexciting place
- Bathrooms that are bigger than the guest house I currently rent
- Pianos that worth more than my rental guest house
And I thought I lived in a deluded bubble off at school. This list makes obvious that someone is oblivious to the state of the world. Do they even know the world is round? There could be worry that I would be domesticated into their fantasyland. But my complete disgust of them makes that worry unfounded.
It’s so disgusting to think that I am related to these people. This is where the absence of kinship is my downfall. There are no special family ties to between them and me. Like anyone else they will go about their lives in ideological stupor. They live as first world lunatics and will die with their greatest possession- ignorance. For me to be surrounded by them is the highest form of discomfort.
If God is absence. If God is the solitude in a man. Hell is then my relatives.
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Conscientious Consumption
To clear things up for myself I’m listing my spending habits that make me such an abnormal consumer. At the same time I try to avoid long, drawn out explanations for these practices because, after all, I know my reasons for them. Know that when looking at an individual’s consumption it is just as important to look to the things they don’t consume as it is to look to the things they do consume.
- Vegan – Most vegan options are more efficient than most non-vegan ones. But not always.
- Not driving – This is a function of driving being too dangerous and too damaging to the environment. The money saved for other things sure doesn’t hurt either.
- Not borrowing – Money in the present isn’t worth more than more money in the future. That speaks to my dysfunctional valuation of money and a hidden aversion to lending.
- Not cycling – As a friend is discovering, this can be an incredibly expensive interest. Up until last summer I biked pretty extensively but now it’s just too dangerous. Ironically that same friend got plowed by a car.
- Not owning a television – Ignore that there’s nothing good to watch on the tele. The idea of using my time to be fed something that is censored around influencing the feeble minded even though I think I’m not so feeble minded. There are much better things to do.
- Not voting – This is just efficient use of time.
- Not going to large venues – This includes not is not limited to theaters, arenas, stadiums,
- Conscientiously objecting to selective services – As an opponent to coercion, I’m against being coerced into the most coercive of institutions.
- Not playing poker – It’s a negative to zero sum game where no wealth is created. I must face the opportunity costs.
- Inexclusive public goods – I enjoy the following but I’m not paying for them because if they weren’t there I wouldn’t be willing to pay for them.
- Public safety.
- Public roads – For most public works that are already paid for I’ll use, but I’m certainly not in favor of building more.
- The countless other innovations brought about by inefficient government.
- Exclusive public goods – First, yes there are exclusive public (those public goods that aren’t pure public goods). Tons of our nations infrastructure, paid for by everyone, is only enjoyed by those who are wealthy enough to enjoy them. Take higher education for example, the poorest of our society will probably not be able to take advantage of going to a state-funded university. Heck, I get reamed for way more than my state university education is worth by paying out of state tuition.
- Public education.
- Financial aid – It’s paltry but if it’s going to go somewhere, it’s probably best that it goes to me.
- Public utilities – I mean those living services like water and garbage collection.
- Parks – In the city these are a necessity.
- Not using certain public goods.
- Public transportation – It’s for mostly same reasons that I don’t drive.
- Parades – These suck.
I’ll stop here. Sure there are tons of other things but I don’t have all night. Looking over the list there are a lot of thing for which I withhold my consumption. This is a real indictment that most spending is just too risky, too wasteful, or too damaging. I can’t wait to finally move out into the wilderness where the only thing I’m actively consuming is internet access and national defense.
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The Tenth Box
Preface
This story was initiated to illustrate how a system stemming from John Rawls’ popular Original Position is fated ultimately to collapse. To this day it is my belief that the Veil of Ignorance fails to take rational actors and turn them into reasonable actors. Therefore Rawls conceives of persons acting under what Nobel laureate Jame Buchanan calls a ‘myth of benevolence’. The myth being that people who clearly act in order to get what they want suddenly spurn all their interests when participating in politics and instead favor acting benevolently.
As I wrote, I learned that I was actually far more concerned with the intricacies of the Original Position and the Veil of Ignorance than I was interested in demonstrating how these ideas were misaligned to Rawls’ famous conclusions. It was not my starting goal to critique Rawls’ premises. I had hoped to accept them all and then show that his argument was uncogent. To my surprise I never needed to claim that the Original position was an untenable position, for it turned out that it was no position at all! This revelation came about when properly formalizing Rawls’ well known concepts into anything concrete rendered practically impossible. In all likelihood I’ve failed in that regard. At the same time I don’t mean to imply his idea is just underdeveloped. I’ve probably failed in this regard as well.
So what started as a political philosophy and economics project subtly evolved into a a problem of conceptual realizability. On a surface level reading that’s not so obvious. And while I detest telling people that anything should be read one way over another, just know that if you read the story and think, ‘hey, that’s not a model of the way the world actually works…’ then you are experiencing precisely the realizability problem I struggled to explicate. All this said it is my sincerely hope that you enjoy my rendition of a problem which I cannot help but regard as the tightest reins on modern political philosophy.
The Tenth Box
As Eva woke up she knew immediately that something wasn’t right. She had gone to sleep in her comfortable bed but she was no longer in it. She sat up to discover that she was seated on a clear glass plate.
This glass plate was a few inches longer than Eva’s height and it was equally as wide. Surrounding the edge of this plate was a tall glass wall capped by a glass ceiling. Eva was in a large glass container.
The transparency of the glass is what initially struck Eva because she immediately perceived that there was something under the glass. Some distance beneath the glass she saw a solid white floor. Her eyes followed the floor but the further she looked she could make out the floor less clearly then when she looked straight down. Eventually she looked around horizontally, taking in a panorama of white. Looking above her there was only more white. Eva was first surrounded by clear glass and then by some indefinite expanse of white.
Suddenly Eva worried that the glass might succumb to her weight. Without thinking she quickly lay back down on the glass so as to disperse her weight on as much surface as she could. There she tried to lay still and, seeing nothing else to do, she began to ponder her situation.
Before she could organize much of a thought, much less even come to rest, she was again in motion. But this time it was not by her own volition. The glass container was moving.
Surrounded by nothing but white, Eva had no reference to determine how fast the container was moving or even what direction the container was moving. But with out a doubt it was moving.
For a second time Eva worried the glass would break. This time she moved her body next to the wall in hope that the wall would support the weight of the glass.
As suddenly as the container began moving it stopped. Eva’s stomach lurched and she thought that she would vomit but she did not.
Again she looked around, expecting to see a lot of white. Her sight realized that expectation but to Eva’s surprise she didn’t she only white. Floating around Eva’s container were nine other containers. In each was a person. Eva simply stared at these other people, her glance resting on one and then another until she had been impressed by all nine. It appeared to Eva that the others were doing exactly the same thing.
Without warning there was a siren. Upon hearing the siren Eva realized that ever she had woke she had been in complete silence. The unpleasant siren made her miss that silence.
After a period the siren ended but taking its place was a soft, airy, neither masculine nor feminine voice. The voice swept through Eva’s entire body. It was like an impossibly voiced whisper that seemed to originate in her head. This voice was the real siren.
You are the inhabitants of the room, says the voice.
You cannot leave the room, but even if you could, you wouldn’t want to. Below you are ten boxes.
Eva looked down. So too did the other nine people. Eva realized they must also be hearing the voice.
The voice didn’t lie. Below her were ten boxes, numbered with big roman numerals starting with number one and ending with number ten. The voice continued.
In these boxes are all the food and drink you need to survive and to live out your lives as you please.
Because there are ten of you there are ten boxes. You each get a box. But while the boxes appear identical, no two are the same. They vary in two ways. First some will open much more easily than others. Second some have much more food and drink than others. You each get your own box and the contents therein are yours and yours alone.
The voice paused, as if too let some revelation hit the persons.
Now the food and drink in each box is finite. You cannot live off the contents of even the richest box forever. For this reason you will be given a new box each day. However your new box will always have the same qualities as your first box. It will be equally as difficult or easy to open and it will contain exactly the same food and drinks.
Once again the voice paused. The silence made Eva uncomfortable and she wished now that the voice would continue. It did.
There is one other thing. That is that you are not obligated to leave your container and pick a box. Reject the container and it will remain waiting for you should you change your mind. Just remain within your glass palace and you will never need food our drink. Your bodily desires will not go unsatiated; they will simply not exist.
Leave your palace and you will have desires. Leave your palace and you cannot return or rid yourself of those desires.
Take caution in acting as each act commits you to a concrete chain events. If you like you may converse with one another. Just remember that your actions are yours to make.
For the last time the voice went silent. This last time Eva didn’t mind it so much.
Eva’s container descended to the ground. Instinctively Eva glanced about the others. Whatever power of levitation held the containers, it was slowly relenting to gravity. As they looked to one another a section of glass in each one of their containers disappear, creating an opening. Seconds later the containers were all firmly planted on the floor.
Now so close to the floor Eva could see that it looked like plaster or some other interior construction material. Whatever it was, it was painted white and Eva couldn’t make out the true color of the floor.
Eva, being by nature an especially deliberate person, lay down and waited to see what others would do – waited to see if others would give her the information she needed to make an informed decision.
It didn’t take long. One man spoke, I’m not staying in this glass prison. I’m taking my box. He waddled over to the open of the container and squeezed through it.
Though Eva didn’t realize it at the time, she was developing names for the nine others. Not having spoken to these nine, the names were determined by physical markers.
She called the first man who left his container Big Burberry for his fat physique and the hideous Burberry shirt he wore. Noting his hefty build, Eva wondered how much the man’s decision to breech into the unknown was driven by some affinity to food which exceeded merely eating to survive.
A plain looking young boy, who would later be named Whiny Whitey for his pale complexion and nasally voice, jumped out of his container.
Big Burberry and Whiny Whitey walked up to the boxes. As they approached Eva realized the boxes were large enough hold Big Burberry.
Wait! Don’t open anything yet, shouted a quirky boy with spiky gelled up hair and a big rounded nose. Eva quickly made a mental note that this was Silly Shark.
Silly Shark had more to say.
If there is variance between the boxes some people are going to get better stuff than others. That’s not fair. I think that we should agree to share the contents of the boxes so that those whose boxes contain the least get the same as those whose boxes contain the most.
That statement sounded intuitively right to Eva, but she still didn’t know if she wanted to pick a box. That was the big question for her.
Evidently that statement sounded right to a lot of others. Athletic Athena, a young woman with a fit build and with hair braided in a ring around her head that resembled olive branches, nodded in agreement. Smiley Spectacles, the cheery petite blonde with eye catching glasses, also seemed to accord with the idea that the contents of the rich boxes should cover the deficiencies of the poorer boxes. Also in accordance was Fuchsia Face, the blush prone teenager boy who also bobbed his head to convey his liking that idea.
Face said, We can call it the Covenant of Protection. Let those who are misfortuned be cared for by the fortuned.
Whiny Whitey didn’t agree.
You have a chance to pick your box right now. If you get a box with little in it, it’s your own fault, he sneered in his awful voice.
Sure you pick the box, but you aren’t picking it with any knowledge of what’s in it, retorted Athletic Athena.
For all practical purposes it’s out of our hands, added Face, blushing as he spoke.
Yeah, chimed in Spectacles, we’re not able see what’s inside we’re just picking blindly. She giggled as she inexplicably always did when she finished speaking.
Big Burberry turned to Whiny Whitey.
It’s not a terrible idea, he said. What if you end up with the bad box?
Whitey looked about to cry but he mustered, Fine we can distribute share the stuff to the benefit of the worse off.
With that Athena, Spectacles and Fuchsia Face all left their glass containers and each walked over to a box of their choosing.
Something about the whole thing made Eva uncomfortable – and it wasn’t the hard glass floor against her bottom. She looked to the three others who remained in their containers for relief or at the very least some sort of assurance.
Insightful Indian, a remarkably well reasoned man who happened to be of clear Indian descent, looked at her and said, If you are unsure of what to do for yourself, you can watch and find out what is in the boxes of those who are about to open their open. Then you can weakly infer a general trend as you what might be waiting for you in your box.
Eva realized that she had the same thought.
In a nearby container was Forever Frowning. An aptly named young woman who might have rivaled Athena on a scale of physical beauty if not for her perpetual expression of depression.
The other person who remained in his container was Haughty Hawk. His gaze was heavy like a hawk’s and it conveyed an arrogant demeanor to anyone who felt it. When Eva looked to Hawk for support he stared at her then he stared at Indian. He said nothing.
The six who had left their glass containers called to the three in the containers, Are you coming?
When it became apparent the Eva, Indian, , Frowning, and Hawk were not coming, the six below began to open their boxes. Eva sat back and watched.
Big Burberry’s took box I was the first to be opened. He just lifted the lid and inside the box was a huge bag of groceries and massive ice chest that looked a lot like a treasure chest. The groceries included tasty foods from all the food groups. In the ice chest was an abundance of teas, juices, wines.
Athena took box VI. Perhaps it was her strength, but the lid on box VI gave way in little time. In it she found slightly few groceries than Burberry and a slightly smaller ice chest of cool refreshments.
Next to Burberry was Shark who had elected for box II. He struggled to open it, but after leveraging his whole weight against the lid he was able to remove it.
Yes! shouted Shark as he peered into his box. Everyone glanced at him as he removed a big bag of groceries and a big ice chest. The contents of his box were identical to Burberry’s.
Whitey had taken box IX and he struggled to get remove the lid. After one minute of trying to lift the lid he sat down next to his box and began to complain.
Mine won’t open. It would just figure that I am stuck with the box that is locked. This is so typical.
Athena walked over to box IX and in an impressive display of strength she lifted the lid and set it against the side of the box.
You might have actually tried, she said, as she grinned at Whitey and clapped her hands one on top of the other. It wasn’t all that heavy.
I’m not as strong as you, he retorted. Seconds later he thanked her for opening his box. When he looked inside the box there was a cereal bowl filled with white rice and a two-liter bottle of drinking water.
Face and Spectacles had picked boxes VII and VIII since they were just down the row from Athena’s. Like Whitey, Face struggled with his box. But after a minute of trying Face’s face was flushed with emotion and that emotion did not lead Face into resignation.
HAUGHhhHH! grunted Face, more loudly than a Williams sister slamming a tennis ball. With that grunt he slid the lid ajar. In the small opening he had made he wedged his foot against the lid of the lid and made a kicking motion. The lid slide a centimeter. Again he kicked; again the lid moved slightly. Face continued to heavy his foot against the lid and bit by bit he opened box VII. When the lid was finally to the side of the box, Face looked as if he was about to have an aneurysm. He sat down to rest without even looking to see what was inside his box and fell asleep.
Meanwhile Spectacles was having difficulty opening box VIII – though she seemed not to notice. She spent ten minutes pressing hands and through them almost all the weight of her petite frame against the lid of her box. In those ten minutes the lid had moved but she had barely created an opening. Athena, returning to her box after having helped Whitey offered to help Spectacles open her box but Spectacles smiled and politely declined; saying she just needed more time to open her box. Two hours later Spectacles optimism proved correct as the box lid was half opened. She reached into the opening she had created and drew a small picnic basket, a small bottle of red wine, and a gallon of milk. Next she began arranging her two drinks and the contents of her basket on the picnic cloth that had come wrapped up along the handle of the basket. Eva thought that Spectacles looked very happy her cache. At the very least, thought Eva, she likes opening boxes more than anybody else.
Spectacles’s box had been the last to be opened. Boxes III, IV, V, and X remained for the four still up in their glass containers. Two of those four, Frowning and Hawk, had seen enough.
That’s not such a terrible lot of boxes, muttered Hawk. I can live with such a prize.
Frowning agreed, I can’t stay cooped up in this glass prison forever. Especially not when I’m perpetually faced with freedom. Let’s go out.
Hawk and Frowning exited their capsules and proceeded to the boxes. Hawk took box III and Frowning took box IV.
Five minutes later Hawk and Frowning were still trying to open their boxes.
Ten minutes later the lid to Frowning’s box suddenly gave way to expose a load of groceries approximately equal to Spectacles’s picnic spread. Hawk continued to struggle with his lid.
An hour later Hawk nearly fell over when his lid suddenly gave in like Frowning’s. Eva was astonished that Hawk didn’t fall over. He was clearly exhausted from an hour of this exertion. In fact Eva thought he looked delirious covered in his own sweat.
Well shit! yelled Hawk.
No one had noticed Hawk’s removing his lid but they all turned abruptly at his exclamation.
What’s upsetting? asked Spectacles in her perfectly sweet and innocent demeanor?
Hawk just pointed inside his box.
Everyone except sleeping Fuchsia Face gathered around box III to see what was the matter. Those who gathered around started to nod in understanding but those gathers obstructed Eva’s view from her container. Her curiosity almost led her to step out and see what was so important. Yet she remained in the glass container.
After a minute Hawk reached into the box and withdrew a small cubical box. The smaller box was marked with the same ‘III” numeral as Hawk’s original box. It was very tiny. Eva couldn’t tell how tiny, again a disadvantage of being over in her container, but it the cube’s sides couldn’t have measured more than an inch longer than the palm of Hawk’s hand.
Maybe the food is really tasty, consoled Spectacles.
Or maybe it’s very nutritious, added Burberry.
I bet it sucks, said Frowning. Shark and Whitey nodded in agreement.
It won’t even open, whimpered Hawk. Well it will, I saw the lid move a smidgen, but it’s going to take some effort to open this quart sized box.
Not to worry, spoke Athena, They have plenty to share with everyone. They got a real fortune in their boxes. As she said this she pointed to Shark and Burberry. In comparing the allotments it was an unassailable fact that Shark and Burberry had the largest one.
I’m really tired, said Shark, I’ll divvy up my stuff tomorrow. Tomorrow I’ll make things fair.
Not one thing that Shark said sounded genuine to Eva. She realized that he had no intention of sharing his loot. In sudden excitement she sent a worried look to Indian.
Indian caught he glance and his jaw clenched. He looked down at the floor, then at the people who had left their containers, then back to Eva. He shook his head in obvious disappointment.
Eva could have dwelt on Indian’s expression but her attention was jerked back to the gathering around Hawk’s box.
Well I’m not sharing is that little shark isn’t sharing, shouted Burberry.
There’s no reason to get upset, Athena said calmly. That statement seem to resonate with about half the group. Hawk, Whitey, Burberry, and Shark had all been stimulated into a frenzy.
Whitey’s nasally voice wasn’t so nasally when he yelled, We agreed to look out for those who got the crappy boxes. I sure as hell got a crappy box, so where’s my help?
Yeah! I’ll need more food as soon as this piece of garbage is open, roared Hawk. With that he tossed his little cube to the ground in frustration. The lid popped off and it miraculously landed with the open side face up. Hawk bent over and picked up the box to examine the contents.
This is worse than I thought, he said as he turned the open side of the box to face the group of bystanders. Eva caught a glimpse of something that looked like a half a head of lettuce, a small packet of grain, and a short cup of murky liquid.
Again, it’s not that bad, supported Athena, who looked to Spectacles for assurance. There is more than enough food between our boxes to feed twice our number. No one will starve, in fact everyone will be well fed.
That’s right. Everything is going to work out just fine as soon as we distribute things justly. It’s the fair thing to do, smiled Spectacles.
Why the yelling? asked a groggy Face as he joined the group.
We’re not not sharing like we talked about, sneered Frowning, we’re reduced to petty excuses from why we can’t just help out the unfortunates.
Face replied quickly, Usually when I make excuses it’s because I’m deceiving myself in one way or another. For myself the best way is to just take some time to think about things; otherwise I’ll just be ruled by emotions.
Eva watched as Shark and Burberry were quick to side with Face’s idea to take some time to think.
But what is there to think about? cried Whitely. Why wait when it’s clear that we need food and they have extra?
No one is going to starve in one day. Let’s talk about it tomorrow, said Face. If we can’t agree on it, we can just vote, who would like to make sure we take the time to make a well reasoned decision on this matter?
Shark, Burberry, Spectacles, and Face raised their hands.
Dissenters?
Athena, Hawk, and Whitey raised their hands.
Everyone looked to Frowning since he obviously hadn’t voted. He just shrugged and said, it’s not my business.
It’s settled then, we can talk about this tomorrow, chided Face.
With that everyone went back to their boxes to pass the time. Those with food ate. Athena and Spectacles shared some food with Hawk and Whitey. Shark and Burberry traded their foodstuffs between one another and when they were finished trading each felt that he had got the better of the other. Neither one noticed Hawk sitting on box III as he scarfed down the generosity of Athena and Spectacles – thought he saw them.
Face really did take time to ruminate on the best course of action.
Eva admired that Face was true to his word but she was still quite worried about the security of those who had opened boxes of scarcity. Eva was certain that Athena, Spectacles, Face, Hawk, Frowning, and Whitey had considered the Covenant of Protection when they decided to leave behind their glasses of safety. Why, wondered Eva, would people renege on the rule that led them to their circumstance? To Eva it seemed that a consequence of entering the covenant was so that when someone actually did get a lousy box, everyone else actually did look out for them.
There are two problems with your thinking, said a voice that sounded very much like the voice that had introduced them to the room.
Eva instinctively looked to Indian but not because she needed confirmation that she wasn’t alone in hearing voices. She looked because she knew that the voice was Indian’s. Her look was met with an intense gaze. Yes, Eva knew it was his voice.
The first problem is that people enter covenant in a non-binding way. They intend to enter the covenant so that they can justify leaving their glass palaces but they do not intend to follow through with the covenants once it has exiled them from their palaces. The second problem is a strict matter of chance. As far as I can tell, it is terrible luck that the fat man and the sharky guy ended up as the lottery winners. Were it anyone else the group might be justified in forcing them to adhere to the covenant. But these two had left set out before the contract was even proposed. They are the adventures of the group who might be excluded from the covenant and by mere chance they found the treasure. What happenstance!
Again Eva thought Indian’s thoughts were remarkably coincidental to her own.
What we do, er, what can I do but wait and see how things develop? she wondered.
I plan to do the same, replied Indian. But if the contract is deferred tomorrow, as I predict it will be, than I will go down and open my box. Everything will be the same tomorrow.
You would swim with the sharks? How can you risk that? Does your glass box make you feel so dead that you must exercise idiocy to feel alive? Did you not see what happened today? Immerse yourself in that and you will feel alive enough to die! Stay in your box. Eva was becoming greatly disturbed.
If tomorrow you are not convinced that it is best to enter the fray ten you have no obligation to do so. But today we saw that people cannot be trusted to care for the needy. We’ve seen it demonstrated and tomorrow it will be reiterated. That is why tomorrow I will go forth, open my box, and share its contents with those who are in need.
But what if that’s what they thought when they decided to venture out? Your daring is a reckless endangerment to your very existence.
My existence goes very well beyond this glass palace. I can see the that at least two people need more than they have received. Their welfare is as much as a part of my reality as the welfare of my own body.
Eva’s brain halted. She realized that she did not have the same thought as Indian. She was utterly unconvinced that she bore any special obligation to anyone but herself.
The next day carried events just as Indian had described. Everyone received exactly the same boxes with exactly the same contents. They even opened them in exactly the same manner. When the group voted again to take a day to think things over, Indian jumped out of his prison and skipped over to box V. He brushed the lid aside but when he reached inside to share, he had only a bowl of rice and a gallon of water to share. Though he ultimately shared his food with Hawk, there was no doubt that the group cast him into the lot with Hawk and Whitey. That day affirmed Eva’s conviction that she should stay in her glass palace.
Indian’s addition to the unfortunates didn’t add any power to that group. Days passed and countless social injustices, inequalities, and evil acts invaded the lives of the nine exiles. And on each day Eva became more and more bored by her situation. To easy her boredom she considered what she would do if she were in the place of the others.
One day she looked outside and saw that the walls of her palace were not longer transparent. Instead they were completely opaque and they looked a lot like ivory.
More days passed but Eva had no way to tell the time. She either slept or did not.
It was when sleeping that Eva became exiled from her ivory palace. She was sleepwalking, a habit she had never done before, when she accidentally crawled out of her palace. The immediacy of her physical desires awoke her. She was hungry, not just hungry, but starving. She made her way to the box, marked with an X, and hoped that it would open easily. Her hope was realized, for as she touched it, the four sides of the box just fell down. All that remained was an incredible spread of provisions. There was more food and drink in Eva’s box than all the other boxes combined. She gorged herself until full and then she ate some more. She was completely sated.
As her strength returned she thought of the others. She thought that she would share all this bounty with them and all their problems would be solved.
Eva woke up harshly, sitting up to find herself in her bed, her head covered by an ivory sheet. Panting quickly and in a light sweat, all the thoughts of her dream evaporated and she leaned back down in ignorance. She pulled down the veil-like sheet and went back to sleep.
Filed under: Egoist, Philosophy, Political, Short Story | 1 Comment
Le Critique
Supposedly I’m acquiescent. Contra the supposition I find that I reveal myself the grandest critic.
Of those agreeable things, I pass over them in silence. Of those things upsetting things, I occasionally express dissent. For this, the wrong reason, I am rightly dubbed a critic.
Yes, foremost be I anything at all, a critic. Yet it is not the critic by which I am espoused. Rather it is passiveness. Nonetheless my critical nature exceeds the capacities of the common man. Still I revel in my passivity. Considering one is to survive the social environment one must assent to play the game. The game is hopscotch whereof those marked squares are the criticisms about the game itself. Amazingly I excel. Daily I possess my criticisms to leave as least in common to others. The hopscotch master, if you will.
A lifetime of feigning being unaffected at a poker table where one is forced to watch his innards ripped from his body and set to the possession of his neighbor, this makes hopscotch a cat’s game.
But why play the game in the first place? In the first place I wouldn’t play. I’m wired for academic skepticism. I’m intrinsically critical and blatant disregard for the rules of hopscotch is a nice thought. But in the second place there is something I want very much in the world: cooperation. For this reason I bite my tongue, become passive, and tolerate what is unnatural. Again, poker is to thank.
Thanks would be unneeded were I less judgmental. All people are judgmental, but my judgmental nature is of a special kind. Having the perspective of a narcissistic, neurotic perfectionist judging isn’t just something I do, judging is me. To not judge is liken to being dead. For me the world isn’t something that you receive, the world is what you experience as an active consciousness.
Inevitably the game will be violated. One cannot will his self into oppression forever. Society is tolerable for a time, it’s not tolerable for life. Tragically, freedom to criticism comes too late for the masses– or is only partially realized.
Already I know I balance a fine scale, giving them respect of silence against giving them respect of criticism. For now silence is the weightier but the scale is in flux. What will happen then, when the passivity is no more?
Society will be scarred at the departure of what was thought to be inextricable. Those receiving criticism will not be be flattered for having been considered, no, they will be too unaccustomed to it to see it for what it is. Criticism will sap their energy. Where the critic once tolerated society, society will not tolerate the critic.
Those offering criticism must be wary that those receiving it not internalize it. The offerers must show that that there is no fault in saying someone got it wrong. It is simply wrong, vacuous any claim against he who holds the wrong. Failure to achieve this results in fighting words and war ensues. This is an incredible cost, so we must ask ourselves, can we be too critical?
There can exist an excess of the critical but it stems not from where most would intuit. To drive criticism through the foundations of the wrong, leaving behind only destruction, is not excessive. Far from it, this is well within the appropriate means of criticism. Whether enjoyment results from criticism matters not in the slightest.
Nor is driving the receivers of criticism into silence a sufficient deterrence to criticism. Nor simply offering mistaken criticism. The true risk of excessive criticism is paid by the critic.
The trap to be avoided by even the most experienced critic is to not deceive one’s self. To be clouded under the multitude of thoughts or over-engaged to endless perspective; these are the lapses a critic must somehow dodge. However the cost of such a lapse is nothing more than coming full circle into silence. It truly is a risk without a real cost; a trap without a real consequence.
Measures exist to ensure the silence stays broken. The critic can place his thoughts into the words of another and rigorously analyze them as if there were not his own. This is a measure of critiquing one’s own criticisms, recognizing that man will always internalize his own beliefs such to fortify them against certain criticisms. In this sense we fail to separate being wrong from being a claim against ourselves. We fail as our own best critics.
Still no one knows us as intimately as we know ourselves. It follows that we have an excellent vantage from which to cast criticisms upon us. This might even be accentuated in regarding others’ misunderstanding of us. We must regulate our criticisms with a keenness intended to maintain the criticism.
So the next time someone mentions their holiday plans and you wish to tell them holidays must be for those who live so miserably that they must upset themselves from their daily lives, criticize your understanding of their perspective but also know that your original criticism might be just what is needed for them not to deceive themselves. Do the same when someone complains about a television show and you retort that they fail to see that all television necessarily takes that form of seeking to distract greatness from being great.
Interacting with others does very much call for silence. It also necessarily invokes criticism in a way that the acquiescent find themselves to be the grandest critics of all.
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What was not Taught
As the sun sets on yet another superb semester I set to think about what was not taught. First I think of the Tractatus…
- The world is everything that is the case.
- What is the case — a fact — is the existence of states of affairs.
- A logical picture of facts is a thought.
- A thought is a proposition with sense.
- A proposition is a truth-function of elementary propositions. (An elementary proposition is a truth function of itself.)
- The general form of truth-function is [p, ξ, N(ξ)]. This is the general form of proposition.
- Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.
My thoughts proceed to a short piece from Russell. For if all problems of philosophy are rendered a poverty of language, it might still be that there is very much for which to live.
Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.
I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy—ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness—that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it, finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what—at last—I have found.
With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.
Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a hated burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.
This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.
I must answer what state of affairs will be my thoughts. Hume answers so that I need not.
‘Tis not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger. ’Tis not contrary for me to chuse my total ruin, to prevent the least uneasiness of an Indian or person wholly unknown to me. ’Tis a little contrary to reason to prefer even my own acknowledg’d lesser good to my greater, and have a more ardent affect for the former than the latter.
Hume rings right. I cannot speak, although I do not always prefer more to less. On many occasions I fail to be homo economicus. Often lacking its appetitive nature, I am led to something very un-Humean.
I live alone, entirely alone. I never speak to anyone, never; I receive nothing, I give nothing… When you live alone you no longer know what it is to tell something: the plausible disappears at the same time as the friends. You let events flow past; suddenly you see people pop up who speak and who go away, you plunge into stories without beginning or end: you make a terrible witness. But in compensation, one misses nothing, no improbability or story, each too tall to be believed in cafes.
People who live in society have learned to see themselves in mirrors as they appear to their friends. Is that why my flesh is naked? You might say – yes you might say, nature without humanity… Things are bad! Things are very bad: I have it, the filth, the Nausea.
I am all alone, but I march like a regiment descending on a city… I am full of anguish: the slightest movement irks me. I can’t imagine what they want with me. Yet I must choose: I surrender to the Passage Gillet, I shall never know what has been reserved for me.
Even Sartre underwent radical metamorphosis. Though he maintained his melancholy he went in a Frenchmen and exited a Great Dane.
A whole book could be written if i wanted to recount how ingenious I have been in fooling people about my way of life.
While I was reading the proofs of Ether/Or and writing the edifying discourses I had almost no time to go out in the street. So I used another method. Every evening, having left home exhausted and eaten at Mini’s, I stopped at the theatre for ten minutes – not a minute more. He’s at the theatre every single night, he hasn’t anything else to do. O you dear gossips, how much I thank you; without you I could never have achieved what I wanted.
I did it also for the sake of my former betrothed. It was my melancholy wish to be scorned if I could, just to serve her, just to help her offer me real resistance. Thus from all sides there was a happy agreement in my soul with regard to weakening my image in this way.
Sadly this is not without a cost. For if as Hume says, I cannot reason to preference, might still I reason what is not preferred, thereby reducing the uncertainty of it all? To try, I find accordance with the insolent German.
It is only by practising mutual restraint and self denial that we can act and talk with other people; and, therefore, if we have to converse at all, it can only be with a feeling of resignation.
For sure resignation pervaded my semester. But it is not thought of resignation, rather, it is a naturalism. Yes, resignation is a naturalizable knowlege.
Ontology recapitulates philology. What’s exists? Everything.
With resignation I look down to discover that I have only shifted about square one. This is what was not thought nor taught.
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First Thoughts of December
The solution to the collective action problem is so simple that many fail to see it all. Act.
In its impending I cannot say that my graduation holds even third rate importance in my life. Though I will do it, it cannot affect me in anything that is to follow.
As the semester ends it is rare that we take note of what was not taught.
The inception of the Western World was accompanied by man conceived of having an intrinsically appetitive nature. What does it mean that the modern homo economicus lacks this appetite? And where do we go from here?
Nothing indicates wealth like unfamiliarity with the concept of breaking a bill.
If you exhibit flat affect then mood changes are more significant. And by mood changes I mean a varying tolerance for fools.
What I learned this semester: I can’t say ‘catch’ or ‘police’.
Intelligence is just knowledge of a special kind, namely, the knowledge of knowledge. Those before me have argued this unsuccessfully.
As it should be, there is scarce overlap in my thoughts and the thoughts of the first world citizen.
Similarly, my preference ordering cannot be transcribed to theirs. Thus they are invalids.
If there is one thing that makes the world a harsh place it is that not all are fit for greatness. Of these countless doubters, know that they do not wish to detract, rather they are unable to see the world in its greatness.
Greatness is demonstrable to the object of greatness alone.
Of those rare few afforded every opportunity for greatness, nearly all will fail.
Think of yourself sitting under a tree without your language. You cannot do this for you cannot even conceive of yourself without your language.
Just as when women are offended by the presence of a more beautiful woman, so too are people offended by the presence of a genius.
Where’s the mystery of it all when in searching all manner of humans I turn up only incompetence?
It is true that I do not see the brutal human rights violates that occur elsewhere in the world. What I do see is people violating themselves, unable to govern themselves, destroying their autonomy.
Somehow the immoral has the power. This is the impervious barrier attacked by all moral philosophy.
The medical model in psychology has gotten so out of hand that if you aren’t parading that ‘abnormal’ is ‘wrong’, then you are abnormal.
People really do passionately specialize in being average.
What other than poker could have shaped my critical nature?
It has come to light that what people intend in consistency is nothing like what I intend in consistency.
Listening to others is the highest form of torture.
It is impossible to have the same experiences but in a different order. On one hand, you, identified as your experiences, would be altered. On the other hand, the basic notion of re-arranging experiences discounts their obvious relations to one another. Where does on experience end and another begin?
Arguments from intuition will never satisfy me. They ignore logic and, as we know, intuition can be very wrong. Intuitive arguments only make sense intuitively. So the problem is that arguments of the intuitive form are intuitive.
Like a starving child the invalid eats the rotten apple of intuition.
I am left to wonder if I would so enjoy being a student if it came to be that I ever needed to study.
Whenever a person cannot make happy another person, it is always a greater claim against the former than against the latter.
To be truly risk adverse is to have seen much suffering in the world. Conversely, to be daring is to have seen much good in the world. The nonsense in all of this is that these dispositions take hold before one has seen much of the any of world.
To be truly risk averse is to bear the perpetual anxiety of possibly breaking your back, possibly breaking your word, or worst of all, possibly breaking your head and living.
In the libertarian sense positive liberties are like giving people clothes for Christmas– complete with the expectation that they will appreciate and wear them.
Toward the things I once held a lack of interest and even a disinterest I now hold an anti-interest.
In our society there is no greater fashion statement than to not wear a watch.
In a greater age the bourgeois denoted the resourceful, mixed strategists of the population. Today the bourgeois is unimaginative, conservative, uninspired, and conventional– but at least they have successfully invaded the population of strategists.
The way my neighbors live, they blur themselves with the religious fanatics of old; people who have committed themselves to an infeasible and unlikely end.
The likely end of the invalid is unpleasant, undesired, and unavoidable.
Everything I want to do I can do at any time. At every time I can do anything I want to do. This is liberty.
Everything I want to do when I’m old I’ll have done.
Not into my third decade I realized the importance of reconciling my current preferences with those of the future me. Perhaps no other realization has been so profound.
Recently there has been an uproar against the property of the Jersey Shore. Those roaring most mightily can do so only because their voices are rested. They fail to see that all television takes this form.
Does the invalid wonder if the FCC would sanction a ‘Santa-isn’t-real’ announcement?
From an evolutionary standpoint, thoughtfulness will be my downfall.
Being great and being carnal are strictly opposites.
As I sit in and write, I know that the real comfort of my life is not all the amenities I enjoy but is instead the time I have spent enjoying them.
In a more lustrous age England wouldn’t have stood for a population six times what it could safely support and France wouldn’t have tolerated a tax six times what it needed to support an unsafe government. The modern age is a dangerous age for greatness.
I’ve a friend who enjoys movies but I must insist that he is rational.
‘Better to have lived’ the saying goes. ’Better to have thought’ I say.
It will always be a great debate; having a wrong opinion against having no opinion at all.
We send our children to school so that they might learn to navigate the world and to produce critical thoughts. In return we are sent adults who become trapped in the world and cannot themselves receive criticism.
A great comedy to be written will be a modern psychologist’s diagnosing the philosophers of yore.
Though it is possible you know the somber me, it is impossible that you know the sober me.
Seeing disagreement between people still invokes an awe that lasts well beyond that disagreement.
The mark of a genius is entertaining yourself against the our time’s mounting pile of entertaining rubbish.
I saw that he was right, and I saw that I could not hope ever again to do fundamental work in philosophy. My impulse was shattered, like a wave dashed to pieces against a breakwater. I became filled with utter despair, and tried to turn to you for consolation. -Bertrand Russell
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On Reference
This is a repost of a school paper.
Synopsis
In linguistics and in philosophy of language the debate surrounding reference is still ongoing. Simply put, questions such as, what is reference, how does reference work, to what do words refer, and what does reference even mean, remain unsettled. These are the questions our report purports to answer. As you will see our group found far more questions than answers. And while our research was inconclusive, it was not unproductive.
Referential Theory of Meaning
The first answer to this set of questions is called the Referential Theory of Meaning. This is the intuitive view that words and sentences mean denote things in the real world. Take for example the following sentence:
1) The chair is dirty.
Under the Referential Theory of Meaning this sentence would refer to the chair and to the chair’s dirtiness.
It really does seem intuitive that expressions such as words and sentences stand for other things. But if they do, how is it that we understand this expression? How can we understand labels that we have never seen before? How can you understand individual words and understand them differently when they are strung together? The conclusion must be that there is meaning (though that’s not to reify meaning). Certainly the Referential Theory of Meaning is a theory about meaning but very quickly we discover three objections which limit this otherwise very intuitive theory of meaning.
The first objection is the objection to referencing nonexistents. As in:
2) Nowhere is there a bathtub with a platypus in it.
If this sentence refers to things, then nowhere must refer to something or more specifically somewhere. But nowhere does not actually refer to anywhere at all! In this problem not all things have referents.
The second objection is the objection of meaningful parts summing to a meaningless whole. Take for example:
3) Blanca, Brian, Cynthia, Gabriella, Nolan.
Each word refers to a person in our group but put together and read as a string of words that list of names is not meaningful. So this problem is that reference alone is insufficient to give us meaning.
Thirdly is the problem of the different meanings from the same referent. Consider the true statement:
4) Jordan is the prettiest girl in the room.
Under referential theory Jordan and the prettiest girl in the room refer to exactly the same thing. However this is not a trivial statement such as:
5) The color red is the color red.
This sentence is not meaningful because the subject and the predicate refer to exactly the same thing. In short we do not want to be committed to saying that Jordan and the prettiest girl in the room have the same meaning even if these descriptions refer to exactly the same thing. It seems quite obvious that Jordan can refer to all kinds of things and the prettiest girl in the room can refer to all kinds of other different things. In sentence 4) there is overlap but that does not mean that the terms have coextensive meanings.
To answer these objections, a linguist must give a deeper account than the Referential Theory of Meaning. That is because it is hardly helpful to say that expressions refer to things and leave it at that— especially in the face of these objections. Our group found several people who were willing to say more.
Russell’s Theory of Descriptions
For much of the twentieth century Russell’s Theory of Descriptions was the hegemonic theory of reference to which all other referential theories answered. As it is the logical basis for all subsequent theories, our group elected to report on it.
Russell’s first move is to refute that referential theory applies to all words. Rather, he says, only nouns, pronouns, definite descriptions, and proper names, actually make reference. Immediately this has the consequence side stepping the notion that meaningful sentences refer to things. Instead only certain pieces of sentences refer to things. Despite his acknowledging this reference this he takes meaning to be derived from something like a proposition and not reference.
Being an English speaking Englishman, Russell saw sentences of the subject-predicate/SVO form to be the most basic kind of sentence. For example:
6) Zara sits quietly.
In this basic sentence Russell makes three claims. First he claims existence; there exists at least one Zara. Next he limits his existential claim; there exists at most one Zara. Finally he says, whoever exists sits quietly. These three claims can be written together to say, there exists exactly one Zara and she sits quietly.
Notice that these claims are really a proposition. This move is the real significance of Russell’s theory; that sentences are really propositions.
Now when faced with the objection of nonexistent referents Russell can reply that the proposition of the sentence is false. In the case of 2) he might say that there is no place referred to by nowhere. Therefore the proposition there exists at least and at most a proposition about nowhere is just a false presupposition because there does not exist any unique nowhere. Still perhaps there is also no bathtub containing a platypus. In this case Russell denies that a bathtub with a platypus in it is a singular term. As a consequence the entire sentence does not fit the subject-predicate form. This is a sensible move because none of the three claims would assert that there is either a bathtub or a platypus.
Russell does not need to respond to the objection of meaningful words making a meaningless sentence because such sentences also do not fit the subject-predicate form. In essence he has conceded that reference does not work for something like 3).
Finally Russell must explain how two things can share a referent yet have different meanings. Because Russell was wowed by the genius of Ludwig Wittgenstein, let us consider the following sentences.
7) Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus was written by Wittgenstein.
Wittgenstein was the most perfect example of genius as traditionally conceived, passionate, profound, intense, and dominating.
Certainly Russell knew 7); he wrote its introduction and he reviewed it as part of Wittgenstein’s doctoral thesis. Russell also knew 8), for he wrote almost precisely these words. But what Russell might not have known at the time of his writing those words was Wittgenstein’s later works, the posthumous On Certainty and Philosophical Investigations, would raise Wittgenstein to an even higher consideration of genius, therefore making false at the time of his writing it. It follows that sentence 7) cannot replace its object with the genitive of object of sentence 8). Nor can sentence replace Wittgenstein with the genitive subject of sentence 7). So sentences 7) and cannot transitively relate and combine to eliminate the middle term as has been done in the next sentence:
9) Tractatus Logico Philosophicus was written by he most perfect example of genius as traditionally conceived, passionate, profound, intense, and dominating.
If 7) and are propositions as Russell says they are, then they should be logical compatible to 9) yet this is obviously not possible. The solution according to Russell is to review his claims. Specifically, there is at least one and no more Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and that is authored by the most perfect example of a genius as traditionally conceived, passionate, profound, intense, and dominating. Russell acknowledges that 9) really looks like a proposition. Yet he claimed that the it was a proposition of the form, Russell believes there is at least one and no more Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and that is authored by the most perfect example of a genius as traditionally conceived, passionate, profound, intense, and dominating. Now that the proposition is a statement of belief, thinks Russell, it can be merely true or false on the grounds of his believing it or not believing it. If a believer believes something without a reference he is not faced with a problem. Someone can believe something is true when it is really false and they can believe something is false when it is really true. In these cases the belief might be false, but the proposition refers to the belief, and not the atoms in the proposition.
Arguments Contra Theory of Descriptions
To this point one might be led to conclude that Russell’s Theory of Descriptions has satisfied objections to the Referential Theory of Language. In reality the Theory of Descriptions opened the door for even more objections and even more theories— each seeking to answer the objections of its predecessor. Our report closes with objections that have ultimately led others to reject Russell’s Theory of Descriptions. The closing also includes the names of several more contemporary theories which readers may pursue in order to further their understanding of this broad topic.
The first criticism comes from P.F. Strawson and it targets the manner by which the Theory of Descriptions answers the problem of reference to nonexistents. How implausible is it, says Strawson, that if told nowhere is there a bathtub with a platypus in it, that you would answer, ‘false’. Strawson sees this as completely implausible, instead favoring that the utterer has simply made a mistake and has fail to refer to anything.
Strawson also criticizes the very heart of the theory when he refutes Russell’s claim that simple sentences claim there is at least and at most one. He believes that a speaker could think that there is one and only one but he does not think that is what we assert. In fairness to Russell, just because something is implied in a sentence does not mean that it is asserted.
Next Strawson points out that many sentences are given in context. Say you point to an unusual sight and say the following:
10) There is platypus in the bathtub.
According to the Theory of Descriptions this sentence would mean there is at least and at most one platypus and it is in the bathtub. Couldn’t there be more platypodes in the bathtub or in other bathtubs? The criticism is basically that many sentences are bound to a context which adds meaning and is ignored by the Theory of Descriptions.
The final objection we present is known as Donnellan’s Distinction. Donnellan puts forth the idea that there are two uses for a definite description: referential use and attributive use. Referential use is when a term is used as a title as with The Holy Roman Empire (which Voltaire famously writes is neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire). Attributive use is when a term is used to express a proposition (e.g. the cat is on the mat). Donnellan goes on to say that Russell uses descriptions as if they are all attributive. Thus he concludes that while we might refer to things through a proposition in many cases, we might also refer to things just as tokens for other things.
Conclusion
Several other theories including, Frege’s Description Theory, Searle’s Cluster Theory of Descriptions, and Kripke’s Causal Historical Theory seek to sooth this growing body of objections. In our research we by no means decided upon a ‘right’ answer. Instead we only wanted to present a brief account of two of the major competing answers to these outstanding questions. Although we cover only these two, we maintain that we endorse neither them nor others. We want to be explicit that these ideas are hardly cutting edge. Russell’s work was done in the early twentieth century; yet discourse continues to this day despite pragmatism’s dominance in contemporary semantics. The Referential Theory of Meaning and the Theory of Descriptions are the foundation to modern semantics. Naturally linguists and lay persons alike can take benefit in understanding how reference has been thought to work. Such an understanding might even lend itself to Quine’s joke, ‘ontology recapitulates philology’ and Nolan’s rebuttal, ‘philology recapitulates ontology’.
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Les Misérables
Far be it for me to take the moral high ground, but are we not the least bit troubled by crass row? Certainly it is appropriate that in French class we find ourselves amongst some of the most miserable human beings we’ll ever know.
So profound is their misery that even a writer, melancholy as I, am only a bystander to les misérables.
Between les misérables six characteristics are commiserable.
Firstly, les misérables are strictly hedonistic. Cast aside your pity of les misérables and see with clarity that they want nothing more from life than pleasure. For them the quality of their existence is judged by their success in produce pleasure in their lives. This first characteristic is the one to drive the subsequent characteristics.
Secondly, les misérables are mean spirited, that is, they are mean for the sake of being mean. That is not to say that meanness is their raison d’être. Rather they are mean because it promotes pleasure in them, and thereby instrumentally advances hedonism. This gives rise to the third characteristic of les misérables.
Thirdly, les misérables suffer from schadenfreude – literally meaning ‘happiness in the misfortune of others.’ Given the first two characteristics of les misérables, hedonism and mean spiritedness, it is easy to see how they might delight in the misfortune of others. Yes, les misérables take much delight in their amusing themselves in this way.
Fourthly, les misérables live in total ignorance of how the world really works. Ignorance is bas-relief to the miserables in precisely the same way that ignorance is said to be bliss. With no reasonable concept of the way of the world they are left with only their mindless repetitions through their few shallow and mistaken beliefs. To put yourself in their shoes imagine that each day you are forced to relive your sixth birthday without recollection of the previous day. This is the magnitude of their ignorance.
Fifthly, les misérables delight in being able to amuse themselves. Amusement is nothing more than irony, which is the feeling one gets by misunderstanding something. The irony in all of this is their humor. No doubt all humor rests in irony; and of their humor we can only say that it is, well, purely humorous. For if they only knew just how much they didn’t know, then they wouldn’t think it was so funny. In fact if they were less ignorant of their ignorance, they wouldn’t be the least bit impressed in their ability to amuse themselves. Now you might think that being around people who amuse themselves and take delight in doing so would be a delightful experience. Yet as anyone who has endured one of our classes knows, it is anything but delightful.
Sixthly and lastly, les misérables place great concern for how they are perceived. Had they even the slightest knowledge of the way the world works then they would know that the judgments of others are nothing to a quality of a human being. But let the fact that this very note upsets them be the demonstration that they are in fact sharply concerned and dully ignorant . I mean that to this note, and consequently to me, the response of the les misérables will be wholly vindicative. I mean – they’re already spiteful, do you really expect a reaction to the contrary?
If you think that my description of les misérables resembles how you might describe a farm animal, pleasure driven and ignorant, then I have grossly understated the repugnance of les misérables. Consider that in our class les misérables were replaced with farm animals and you would find that the class had become a more amicable environment. Now literally the class might smell worse but in the seat of he who is most apt to complain of such things there would be a goat or a pig or a cow.
Pretend there is a baby who takes joy in everything that affirms his limited view of the world and who likewise takes equal joy in thinking any discovery against his limited view of the world is deplorable nonsense. You needn’t have pretended because this is exactly the despicable practice of les misérables.
Maybe it is their self-effacing honesty, where in being ‘honest’ they lie to themselves. Or it maybe it is their complete fixation on the appearance of others. More yet it maybe that you see their incessant speaking for what it is; speaking from someone trapped in small cage of immediacy and limited to observing only the most basic trivialities of the world so as to leave no doubt that they have precluded themselves from glorious intellectual capacities which define humans as the dominant species. Each of these are drivel from the mouths of les misérables. Perhaps this can be summed up as their disconcerting concern for the unconcerning. If you hadn’t already, surely you must now see the smiles of les misérables as sneers of self-righteous contempt. It would be audacious to feign audacity as they do. Such reciprocity is not warranted but this does not lead us to a dead end.
Why would I explain to you les misérables? Wouldn’t you be better off if I hadn’t made you thoroughly conscious of their plight? There is a reason for bringing it to your attention.
In regarding myself, I like to see a tolerant person. Perhaps in the mirror you see a tolerant person as well. If so, our predicament is this; that each time we are tolerant; each time we refrain from saying anything, we let them live in a world where it is reinforced that their behavior is appropriate, in essence leaving them locked in the cage. We allow them to retain their delusions of how the world really works. It follows that the cost of tolerance is perpetual misery for these unfortunate beings. And in spite of our tolerance I suspect we are each so compassionate as to wish to end their suffering much more than we wish to be tolerant and allow it to continue. So while we might regard ourselves as tolerant persons, we cannot, in this case, act as tolerant persons.
We cannot dictate their actions. We have no claim over their lives that could eclipse their claim over their lives. We can only be disgusted by them and react with unilateral intervention. This is the according solution, that we do not leave the confused to their nonplus stupor anymore than we would keep a rope from a child drowning in a well.
Now you might think that disdain ought to make us adverse to the objects of our disdain. Although, just as les misérables fixate on the misfortune of others, so can we too focus on les misérables and give them not the attention that they want but that they require. That they again appear childish has by now that’s become a tired metaphor. Should you believe this semester is a wash, then I would remind you that there could be no mulligans when dealing in the well being of others. So if you take only one thing from this let it be your knowing that when you permit les misérables to be degrading, you promote suffering.
If after all this you think that I have been too critical of in my assessment of les misérables, then I think that you must misunderstand so greatly that you would even misunderstand my criticisms about your misunderstanding. Therefore there is nothing left to say. And if you do understand then there is again nothing left to say. So whereof one cannot speak thereof one must remain silent.
Filed under: Bellyaching, Experience and Input, Ranting | Leave a Comment
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