Our old friend Piercello, whom some of you may remember for his three-factor theory of human nature and his theory of aesthetics, dropped by to ask for some thoughts on a new theory that successful argumentation depends on consensus. It's a short argument if you want to read it.
I have some things to say about it.
1) The kind of argument he is describing is deductive logic. There are other kinds of arguments, but I think they are even more susceptible to the charge he is bringing. Non-logical forms of argument, for example persuasion by appeal to emotion, are even more dependent on 'a consensus about how things should be done' than deduction. I don't actually have to share your feelings -- certainly I don't have to experience them -- to appeal to them. But I do have to understand how you feel in order to frame an argument that will successfully motivate you to action in the way I desire. Induction is already a problematic form of argument, really more a form of guesswork than a proper proof, but that makes it also more subject to consensus about what kinds of guesses we're allowed to make. (Usually: "It's a proper inductive proof if and only if it is based on a random sample from a proper set; if and only if it is repeatable from a number of randomly selected elements from the set," etc. But this still depends on a consensus idea of what 'a proper set' entails, a question that is easy in mathematics or strict logic, but quite hard in practical reality.)
2) Deduction is a limited form of argument, though, because it is incapable of discovering anything. What deduction allows you to do is to prove that since you know X, you also know Y. It's a form of realization, in other words, rather than discovery of new facts about reality. The most classic example of a deductive proof is this one:
Assumption: Socrates is a man.
Assumption: All men are mortal.
∴ Socrates is mortal.
If the assumptions are true, the conclusion follows. The reason it follows isn't actually the one, Piercello, that you're suggesting. It's not that I have chosen a methodology that you agree is valid, based on a standard that you agree is reasonable, which was chosen by method... etc. The reason it follows is that the truth is contained in the assumptions. What the deduction is doing is helping us realize that we know the conclusion because we know the facts in the assumptions. Nothing new is really being added. Something new is being recognized.
Now if your point is rhetorical, it may be that you're correct about the necessity of consensus. In other words, if the argument is that I can only convince you of the conclusion if you agree to the methodology of deductive logic, that might be right. If the point is not rhetorical but logical, however, it is not right. Because deduction is only recognition of the truths I also know from what I already know, the argument is valid whether or not I like it or agree to it.
Notice by the way that the classic syllogism isn't really subject to the third line of attack you mention ("You've cherry-picked your evidence"). Assuming those two assumptions turn out to be factually accurate, the conclusion follows no matter what new assumptions you add to the pot. The only new information that could alter the conclusion is information that invalidates one of the assumptions (e.g., "Socrates is not a man but a god"). Otherwise, the conclusion holds whatever else you add ("All ravens are black"; "Some men are very long-lived"; etc).
There you go.
28 comments:
I encounter incompatibility due to not being of the consensus or world.
It is true some consensus is needed. Mortals and gods share a body, thus invalidating the fixed choices.
This is an unknown unknown. Logic can account for known unknowns but not that.
"Mortals and gods share a body, thus invalidating the fixed choices."
Yes and no. Insofar as they are distinct, the assumption may still hold. In the Voodoo/Vodou tradition, for example, the loa are said to 'ride' the bodies of mortals during possessions. Taking that tradition as true for the sake of argument, we don't nevertheless see a collapse of the distinctions between the 'horse' and the rider into an indiscernible whose identity we might assume. This is because they have discernible and different properties, to include mortality/immortality.
Thanks, Grim.
I'll read this over a few times, and then respond.
Insofar as they are distinct, the assumption may still hold. In the Voodoo/Vodou tradition, for example, the loa are said to 'ride' the bodies of mortals during possessions. Taking that tradition as true for the sake of argument,
I am referring to the logic of your logic train. In that sense, whether the logical premises are true or not is not necessary. Meaning, the Either OR logic construction has a hidden assumption that causality works or at least bifurcated reality. Reality is either 1 or 0, nothing in between.
But if you reveal the hidden assumption/premise, it is that reality cannot be anything other than 1 or 0. Whereas in quantum computers, which is not a theory mind you but an actual computer that computes, they have 1 and 0s and... everything in between going on at the same parallel time/space.
This drives classical physicists mad. And I love it. Because it breaks the human logical mind at times. That is necessary for more knowledge and true wisdom.
The double split experiment, the Michael Moreyson experiment, are all good examples of experimental data that did not fit the presumptions of the status quo. Most people thought Option was A or B. But experimental data showed that it was either A AND B or None of the Above.
So Grim, your logical construct or argument rests upon the Identity Principle. A is A. A cannot be A and B at the same time.
However... that is in itself a premise. Albeit one with many proofs to it.
ssuming those two assumptions turn out to be factually accurate, the conclusion follows no matter what new assumptions you add to the pot.
And that is why the conclusion does not automatically follow. Because of experimental data. The logic is impeccable in mathematical proofs. But it is invalidated by actual experimental data.
Karasu's Crow or the 99th crow is black/white/pink.
we don't nevertheless see a collapse of the distinctions between the 'horse' and the rider into an indiscernible whose identity we might assume.
I raise Fibonacci's Sequence and fractal geometry to that category. A horse is either a horse or a rider. Thus it cannot be both. Other than more edge cases like a human riding a horse, a dog on top of a human, and a dark cat god on top of the dog scenarios.
The category argument I perceive you are making is a derivative of Identity Principle or Law. That there is a horse and a human, and the category assigned to a horse and human is stable and thus hierarchical or at least with a causative relationship of A causing B, B causing C.
But this does not cover all natural phenomenon and patterns. Take for examples fractals. They are representative of the Law of One or Unity. Each part is unified with the whole, but each part is also its own individual branch with different fractal patterns. Snails and other spiral organisms, adhere to the F sequence mathematically. As well as certain golden ratios. This is one point or seed, that generates by a process, fractal or golden ratio, another sequence or seed, that is an extension of the original but also different and unique, while all relates to the origin point of One.
To use an analogy, this would be like if a horse morphs into a man, a man into a horse, and somehow a centaur results. When the categories are broken, then how do you define rider and the ride?
(Piercello here)
Ymar, have you encountered Douglas Hofstadter's ideas on the central role of analogy in human thought, particularly with regard to the fuzzy boundaries of our mental categories? Here's as sample:
https://prelectur.stanford.edu/lecturers/hofstadter/analogy.html
I'm working on my response to Grim, with this bit of Tolkien dancing amusingly through my mind:
"Otherwise he obviously thought the whole thing rather above my head, and said that if I had the cheek to make verses about Earendil in the house of Elrond, it was my affair. I suppose he was right."
Thanks to all!
(Piercello here)
Grim, many thanks.
Regarding (1) deductive/inductive logic,
I agree with everything here, with the following caveat: the precise REASON that “a proper set” is easy to define within mathematics or strict logic, and not out in the wider world, is that mathematics and strict logic exist as closed realms. Each is its own established field, with its own well-specified rules, vocabulary, and definitions, which are already bedded within a longstanding tradition of consensus, and which everyone in those fields agrees to abide by. I think of them as orderly, powerful, well-kept, walled kingdoms that are embedded within a much wider, wilder public landscape of discursive chaos.
For an example of that chaos, see the never-ending online fights over who gets to define “fascism.” I’ll come back to this eventually. For now, I’ll just point out that my eventual aim is to map the dynamical logic of the chaos--if I can find the words to do so!
Regarding the first part of (2), yes. In a purely abstract sense, the power of deductive argument, if lawfully applied within the bounds of consensus, is twofold: it not only reveals “what is true,” but it also removes from further consideration “things which cannot be true.”
However, problems arise when that abstract argument rides out into the discursive chaos to do battle. Outside your own fortified definitional bastions, anything can happen in the discursive chaos: your rhetorical opponents can redefine your abstract lance and armor into irrelevance, and then claim victory on the field, and large numbers of people will believe them. Even the time-honored syllogisim is vulnerable to this sort of chaotic definitional attack.
This is happening, and happening now, because the internet has simultaneously enhanced and shattered the discursive power of narrative control. The narrative fragments are not just innumberable and scattered; they are also hardened, by the ongoing escape of potent persuasive bits of the rhetorical toolkit (in a word, propaganda techniques) into the internet wilds. Who makes the definitions, and who can make them stick?
Yet this same internet dynamic also affords us a more complete view into how people actually think, out beyond the walled kingdoms.
The race is on between danger and opportunity. Can we learn to navigate the chaos before the walls crumble?
What I would like to do may not have a proper place in the philosophical lexicon, as it now stands. I’d like to take the “deductive abstract” method on the one hand, and the “rhetorical persuasion” method on the other, and Venn Diagram them into a “dialectic” fusion of sorts.
Using my fusion of the “Law of Radical Consensus” (zoom out, for consensus) and rational deduction (zoom in, for rigorous results), I’d like to
(1) widen the frame via consensus, creating “the set of all possible narrative fragments;”
(2) mix that with “can, should, and must” practical arguments for doing so (example: “since accelerating technology ensures that no one subset of ‘the set of all possible narrative fragments’ has the power to sweep the field of battle, we need to rediscover how to talk to one another as equals”);
(3) loop back into the fusion strategy, arguing inward from universal, self-evident consensus to deduce hidden universalities in the way in which all possible human beliefs are formed, maintained, experienced, and emotionally defended;
(4) loop back through the strategy again, this time identifying emergent, stable effects that appear at three main levels: within person, between persons, and across populations;
(5) develop a dynamic map of the universal societal physics that result;
(6) make practical, informed suggestions as to where in that space to go, and how to get us there;
(7) simplify the whole thing for easy reference.
But I’m not sure any of that can be done “within the rules,” as it were.
P, i do not know his works.
As for chaos, i tend to like it as most structures in this world is anti divine.
Case in point, the set of axioms agreed on when arguing about when human life starts for fetus. Well, first what is the axiomatic proof for what life is? They do not know. Amd for what a human is? They dont know that one either.
Are children human? If yes, tgen can i confine a human to house arrest without violating their legal rights? Children are human... but they lack legal rights because.... the state also said blacks had no legal rights.
Humanity does not argue about axioms. People prefer to get some work done by agreeing in princible buy hashing the details out in their favor.
Also as for kaos, i produce flat earth theory, trum, and deep state.
Ymar,
That's what is interesting about this, yes? How does one proceed, strategically, if no one is ever going to agree on the content of their most sacred beliefs?
I'd argue, by focusing instead on universalities of process, not content...
Tease out the standing waves that emerge from our similarities, and then float the context of individual beliefs on that strange, but shared, sea.
That way, we can at least come up with some consensus on what engineering/architectural principles will make society itself seaworthy, and yet still capable of handling the inevitability of our different content-based decisions.
We have to know the underlying physics first.
-P
Ymar:
"This drives classical physicists mad. And I love it. Because it breaks the human logical mind at times. That is necessary for more knowledge and true wisdom."
Maybe; but there's something else going on here. It's a curious fact about our universe that order arises out of chaos, apparently merely by changing the scale of observation. The weirdness of superpositions at the quantum level is gone by the time you reach the human scale, where everything is observed and therefore nothing remains in superposition. And at the grand scale, while relativity teaches us that there 'is no fact of the matter' about things like whether two events were or were not simultaneous, that does not suggest chaos. I was taught to graph those kinds of cases. You can't say for sure if it is or isn't "true" that two events were simultaneous, but you can say with mathematical precision exactly which positions of observation from which they were or were not.
There is something about the universe that makes this happen. I've wondered just exactly what it was since I was a child. We wave at it by saying things like 'the law of averages,' but that's just naming the thing rather than explaining it. Why should averages work that way? Why is it the case that an adequate number of random cases should produce any sort of order, let alone the perfect order we see in the grand scale observations?
P:
I don't think deduction works the way it does because of consensus about how to do deduction; nor math. We've had different ways of doing math, for example, ancient Greek geometry or trying to do long division with Roman numerals. The Japanese multiply differently from the way we do it, but the point is that we all get the same answers no matter how we do the problem -- assuming the mathematical system is valid.
The thing that makes it hard to define 'a proper set' in physical reality is that there aren't logical or mathematical objects. Everything we are working with in logic or math is alike throughout; whereas in physical reality, we are really dealing with analogies when we try to create sets and categories. Ymar raises the issue about the pink raven, for example. In fact, if I am speaking logically, the pink raven doesn't falsify the universal claim "For every X, if X is a raven then it is black." One can just as easily stand on the claim, and declare the pink bird to be something other than a raven. The logical category need not admit the mutant exception.
In physical reality, what we have is a bunch of different individuals with unique genes that we are describing as a family under the category of "ravens." But this is not the logical "ravens," who are all alike. It is a collection of individuals that we are treating analogically as a set. And that is why we run into weird exceptions that we do not run into when we are doing strict logic.
Second reply to P:
I see that you are clarifying that you are interested in logic-as-rhetoric, rather than strict logic. As I said in the original post, I think you are on much stronger ground there. I have a dear friend whose approach to moral questions is to 'do what feels right to me,' and to reject what 'feels wrong.' Logical arguments are completely unpersuasive to her because they aren't emotional arguments. Fortunately for me, she also enjoys gambling; I have won a great many wagers from her over the years, and lost none that I can recall. So there's a sense in which deduction can't be persuasive because of an absence of consensus about its value.
But this example also points up the weakness of the claim that consensus is necessary for persuasion. I can't persuade her by the argument, it's true. But I can still win the wagers. We do have an objective standard to which to refer in the events that either do or do not happen. I can predict, for example, that the Mueller report would not find that Trump was in fact a Russian agent; I have reasons for that. She might feel that he definitely is, and be immune to the reasons. But the report comes out sooner or later, and it resolves who was right and who has to pay up.
So rather than trying to frame a consensus about how to think, or what best practices are, another approach -- one more likely to succeed, I think -- is to make predictions and see who comes out right. After a while your opponents may begin to see the value of a system that reliably creates accurate predictions, in the same way that we value physics for its capacity to reliably predict where our rockets will land and so forth. Rather than trying to create a coherent system of rhetoric and then apply it to reality, look to reality early and often as the test of judgments and wagers.
(Piercello)
Grim, fortunately for me, we are in agreement about how and why deduction works. To me this is a good sign; else, I would be furiously reconsidering my own assumptions!
What I am after, I think, is a better method for bringing people of divergent opinions together within a shared set of premises, from which meaningful joint deductive progress can then be made.
One part of that method, and perhaps a baked-in part of the shared premises as well, has got to be some type of accommodation for existing differences in terminology. "Who decides what we are calling things?" is a non-trivial question.
Another part of that method has got to be an emphasis on the right kinds of universalities, the kinds that can exist in the real world.
For instance, rather than searching for equalities in the form of abstract philosophical Identities, which as you correctly point out cannot apply in the real world, I am interested in a methodology that allows us to find "characteristics that are universally (equally) true of all human beings, with no exceptions."
For example, "human conscious attention has hardwired limits."
In theory, then, IF enough of the right sorts of such equalities can be found, THEN the elegant rigor of deductive reasoning can discover the baked-in implications of their simultaneous interaction over time.
Does that clarify anything? I might be trying to assemble a "rhetorical/deductive/rhetorical" methodological sandwich here; but to me, one really important goal is not to lose sight of the deductive core.
Again, I am not sure this counts as philosophy, per se. It feels a bit more like engineering somehow...
Have you read Kant’s Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals? I think you’d find it helpful, since he is also trying to establish human equality in an indisputable and rational way. I find the actual Metaphysics of Morals much more interesting, but the Groundwork is far more widely read. It’s where he lays out his most basic concepts for any discussion of human ethics.
I have not! I shall look it up.
I suppose in my own terms, I am trying to establish a rigid operational floor, from which rational deductions can be carried out in a spirit of consensus. I carry a pretty good map of the deductions in my head, and increasingly on paper; it's just getting _to_ that map that is proving difficult...
On a side note, due to my recent cross-country move, it is just possible that we might be able to see some of the same mountaintops. Not likely, I'll grant, but possible.
P
Order arriving from chaos tends to violate conservation laws. Because a perpetual movement machine does that.
Entropy is recognized. What stumps physics consensus is that life or bio cells, do not obey entropy. Over time the dna sequence should de volve not evolve better. This would be like computers learning to code themselves.
What you see is information from divine planning countering entropy, which can be a kind of opposition to the divine plan. As anti matter oppses matter. Ying vs yang
Positive vs negative. North vs south magnets...
I also do not understand the words about logic used here. I have some idea what p and grim are saying but i am not using language definitions. I am directly reading the thoughts and emotions, then reverse engineering what these posts mean.
It has been a long time since i studied formal greek logic and kant. Instead of using linear logic, i just use my explotable cheats...
The raven example is when elaborated. 20 crows are black
All crows are black
Then the 99th crow is white. This is not a mutation per say or redefinition of crows. Just a new data from future. Logic can prove to x extent ehat is true now given data. But k crow line means it cannot discount unknown unknowns from invalidatinh axioms in the future.
What freaked c physics out is that light changes how it behaves based on presence of observer. This crushes almost all scientism and s fields , except quantum.
J here;
Ymar, P isn't exclusively using language definitions either. He is limited to the format of this page due to text characters.
He is more concerned with bridging the parallels between how humans process information and then convey/share information with others.
I make a mean potato soup. I'm sure each of you would love it if you tried it (granted if you're not allergic to any ingredients). I'm able to replicate the dish time and time again because it has shown to work well for me and my personal tastes. I've had others try it and they ask me for it quite often. In my case, it isn't about the quality of the soup and how it compares to the world of cooking and restaurants, but more so how it engages me with those that try it and give me feedback on it.
Now, if I let you taste it, you might be able to figure out a few things that are in it. You could really only tell me if you like/dislike it at this point.
If I told you what every ingredient was, you might be able to pick out those flavors more astutely. You could then tell me which flavors work and which ones don't, and why that is.
If I told you how I made it, every step and procedure included, you would completely understand what I was doing to arrive at that dish. At this point, you could engage me in a conversation about how you would arrive at soup and what you strive to get out of it when you make it.
To me:
Thinking is cooking.
An idea or belief is the final dish.
Conversations is the taste test that determines how future a future dish can be made.
I know you cook, but I want to know -how- you cook, not so much -what- you cook.
... and I like my soup critiqued just like my ideas.
I've had that analogy stuck in my mind while talking with Piercello in person many times, I just don't think I've ever put it into words...
And all throughout history, people gathered together to share their food with others.
By language definition i refer to p feeling limited by the denotations and connotations of words to the point of adding words together to describe an idea that english does not have worfs for.
For me, this is the case 50% or 95%. It is an unfolding or zip compression.
Also, who is j?
As for soup, the human body has a bio field. This can be seen in piezoelectricity. Bones are partially so.
This field causes quantum manifestation and what used to be wave collapse but more data supports super position and universe as simulation.
Foods are cellular partially. These cells respond to fields. Water transmits field knowledge and data. The human body also has water.
All this added together supports the italian or asian cultural oral tradition that love is the best spice for cooking.
Love or any strongly un mixed positive emotion, transmits to physical cells via physical water linked by inverse square fields.
Classically trained scientists will then attempt to duplicate the effect, by having a resaearcher full of skepticism and disbelief, hold the test beaket and cook. When the results cannot be reproduced, the counter claim is that it is false or cannot be tested.
The reaearcher affected and contaminated the results.
The counter is that observation is necessary and cannot affect reality.
Heisenbergs uncertainty principle, einstein relativity, michael moreson experiment, water emouto data, double slit exp, quantum superposition data. Are all those untestable too?
Watching the scientific elites try to deal with cognitivr dissonance and exploding... it is nice. Must be the southern orneriness popping up
Ymar,
One of the things I am striving to do is express human universals in a manner that is functional, yet independent of mechanism.
I believe this is necessary, because (as you are evidently aware) unsolvable disagreements tend to arise as we get further into the mechanistic weeds.
In the example I gave above, "human conscious attention has hardwired limits," we can say THAT it is equally true of all people (bandwidth, latency, field of vision, and so on), WITHOUT having to wade into WHAT the mechanistic reasons for the limits actually are (rate of neural propagation, etc), and WITHOUT having to argue that everyone's attentional limits are in exactly the same place.
All we need, for purposes of the deductive argument I am setting up, is simply to agree THAT those limits exist. No more.
You could say that I am nailing arbitrary, but robustly practical floorboards over the epistemological rabbit hole, sealing off below a number of very interesting (but currently unsolvable through consensus) loose conceptual ends that do not pertain to the argument I am trying to set up. You wouldn't be wrong.
That is, I don't care whether or not we agree on those very interesting details, because the structural integrity of my deductive argument to follow is not dependent on their agreement.
Then, I can add two more similarly structured concepts, and we can start mapping their interactions, and it's off to the races.
As J has indicated, I am also not thinking in words. My thought process is more about the dynamic evolution of architectures over space and time. Think of how the balanced stresses of a cathedral, the nonlinear dynamics of weather, and the architecture of musical phrase structure are similar, and you'll have the general idea.
That internal thought process (neither visual nor verbal!) reveals certain structural relationships that COULD be put into words, if the words themselves had the right standard connotations. But they don't. So I have to bend a few.
Specifically, I need ways of differentiating the wild, chaotic logic of Nature from the reproducible clarity of Reason, and also of differentiating the wild, chaotic logic of human thought from the narrower special case of rational argument.
Here are the two distinctions I am trying out:
First, a thing is Logical iff it has internally consistent structure, and Rational iff its Logic can be externally measured. Thus, the Rational method of science first presumes, and then attempts to measure, a Logical universe.
Second, Rationality and Conclusions are intrinsic properties of Arguments, but not of Humans; and Thinking and Decisions are intrinsic properties of Humans, but not of Arguments.
These distinctions allow me to crack apart the surface structure and see into what is going on inside.
Grim, you could say that, rather than telling people how TO think, or WHAT they should think, I am interested in mapping how we all DO think (a function of a universal logic that is unbound by rational limits, but describable within them), and inviting them to consider the deductive implications.
Fun stuff! But the translation problem is a bear.
I am not opposed to p s epistemological quest. That is to clarify a few things if i had not made it clear most of my replies here were directed with grim s context in mind.
As for humanity and the rational cs logical universe, i do have a divine revelation on it. People can apply the gambit here as with yeshua
Either yeshua is a nut basket that makes stuff up, or he is as he said he was.
There are other options but for now, this is simpler.
Plato s cave is correct. The ultimate and higher reality is beyond our senses. The local universe is real juzt like the shadows on cave is real.
Logic, ego self, cannot pierce this veil because it is a 4th or rather 5th wall.
All logic works from is the data within this universe. It cannot reach past the memory block or reach another universe.
As for why this is... in order to test eternal.spirits, free will was allowed to test what avatars will choose. But since spirits are not equal, something needs to be here to equalize standards. The forgeting. A mind capable of seeing only the physical universe was installed. Everyone starts off equal. And that was where a problem began.
The veil did not apply to those that refused incarnations or were denied bodies. Satan or an opposing faction to divine high command and the counsel, formed. Their purpose was to test and to serve as the opfor. They retained all their knowledge and wisdom while the kids who incarnated did not. This allowed satan faction to game the rules. Until recently.
Grim,
Perhaps a light may be dawning. I think, after doing some reading here and there, that I am uncertain as what to the definitional boundary condition between your
rhetorical logic (as I understand it, the effort of rational persuasion through logical proof) and
strict logic (again as I understand it, the ability to make abstract, formally symbolic arguments)
might be.
Isn't the first, as I argue below (and, I think, in my linked piece that started this whole discussion) a necessary precondition for the second?
Even internally, at the within-persons level, one has to settle on an internally consistent personal terminology (symbology?) before proceeding with strict logical operations.
And externally, at the between-persons level, a shared framework is also necessary (terminology plus premises; we'll grant the universality of the abstract relational power of deductive logic for now), as a practical matter, in order for strict logical arguments to gain any traction.
My initial scans of Kant's "Groundwork" suggest that, methodologically at least, he is engaged in just this sort of practice: first, he justifies the need for a starting point; next , he rationally/formally characterizes its nature; finally, he deductively reasons forward until meaningful/useful conclusions arise.
So again, even the "Groundwork" seems to be a "rhetorical/strict/rhetorical" methodological sandwich, which is why I am a bit confused about the boundaries.
If the rhetorical framing is a necessary precondition for applying deductive logic of any argument, even internally (as in my symbology point above), then isn't the one necessarily a subset of the other? Have I got the boundaries mapped right?
Anyway, I don't think I agree with Kant's initial divisions (although again, I am not yet sure, and will need to reread several times).
I think that, rather than investigating the _metaphysics_ of morals in an a priori sense (pre-physics), it may be possible to _derive_ morality as a direct, but emergent, consequence of the physics without having to go further back. I think this may be what I am trying to do.
Thanks for hosting this discussion. I am finding it immensely helpful.
Another framing of my boundary question:
If a strict logical argument is purely relational, then does it necessarily become rhetorical the moment it is _about_ something?
And another:
Would I be correct, in the sense of established definitions, to say that my logical approach is "rhetorical AND strict," or is it meant to be "rhetorical OR strict?
Thanks.
I'm delighted to host a discussion like this one. It's an excellent use of our limited time on earth to wrestle with these high questions.
The boundary between strict logic and non-strict logic (including but not limited to rhetorical logic) is bright-line, and indeed already expressed in our discussion. It has to do with what kinds of objects the logic is treating. Strict logic treats logical objects, i.e., objects that are internally consistent throughout.
Objects in strict logic include universals, variables, and constants. Universals are true universals (usually formalized as capital letters these days, like "F"). A constant is an individual (usually 'a, b, c...' from the front of the alphabet); a variable (usually 'x, y, z') is a set of particulars that can range over many individuals, so that you can speak using variables about what it means for particulars to instantiate the universal. So if "F" is "is a raven," then "Fx" is "anything that is a raven," and "Fa" is "a, which is a raven." Expressed in more Platonic terms, "F" is a way of referring to the form of ravenness; Fx refers to all objects that instantiate this form; Fa refers to one particular object that instantiates the form.
However, as Aristotle points out at the beginning of the ethics, we never encounter any of these things in real life. His account of why objects don't perfectly instantiate Platonic forms differs from mine; he thought that practical objects, being made of matter, didn't perfectly instantiate the forms because of the potential necessary for matter which was never quite fully actualized into the pure activity of the form. I've explained that I think the real reason is that we shift from logical objects to analogies between physical objects that really aren't 'alike throughout' in the way that logical objects by their nature are. 1/3
2/3
Note then that Kant is not really doing strict logic at any point in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. Because this is groundwork for a project in the practical world, he is always dealing with ethical objects rather than strict logical objects. Kant is really unhappy with Aristotle's approach, which I mentioned above. What Aristotle says is this (EN 1.3):
"Our discussion will be adequate if it has as much clearness as the subject-matter admits of, for precision is not to be sought for alike in all discussions, any more than in all the products of the crafts. Now fine and just actions, which political science investigates, admit of much variety and fluctuation of opinion, so that they may be thought to exist only by convention, and not by nature. And goods also give rise to a similar fluctuation because they bring harm to many people; for before now men have been undone by reason of their wealth, and others by reason of their courage. We must be content, then, in speaking of such subjects and with such premisses to indicate the truth roughly and in outline, and in speaking about things which are only for the most part true and with premisses of the same kind to reach conclusions that are no better."
Kant does not like the idea that we cannot be precise in our ethical conclusions, and is trying hard to figure out a way around the problem that will allow for clear, precise, rational ethical decision. His move is to reach for universals not as forms, but in terms of generalizing situations to see if you can come to general principles (i.e. what he calls 'universal laws') that govern all different instances of a problem. (It will turn out you really can't, because problems don't instantiate singularly; usually a real ethical dilemma is a nest of different problems, where the general principles are in conflict. But set that aside.)
I recommend Kant because his project seems to me to be allied to yours in important ways. It is definitely not exactly the same, though. You are also wrestling with this issue of how to persuade people to behave in more rational ways. Like Kant, you need to get people to accept standards that are alien or foreign to them currently. Kant's introducing several concepts that are brand new, like the categorical imperative; no one has ever heard this terminology before at the time he's publishing this groundbreaking work. So he has to persuade people (rhetoric) that this is a sensible way to talk, as well as that it can solve some of the problems of ethics (rhetorical logic). 2/3
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Note, though, that he is not really at any point engaged in strict logic. He is trying as hard as he can to find something analogous to a logical object in practical life. The universals he's reaching for with his 'universal laws' aren't logical universals, but broad analogies under which many different practical problems might fall.
As a result, the sandwich you describe isn't quite there. Rather, he is trying to shoehorn analogy into logic as much as can be done. I think Kant believes he's successful, which enables him in the wider Metaphysics of Morals (written many years after the Groundwork, by the way) to declare his conclusions with much more firmness than they have proven to deserve (e.g., that any just society must have a sovereign individual who is immune to the laws; that marriage can only be a union of exactly two persons of the opposite sex, and that absolutely all societies must introduce legal marriage in precisely this form; that masturbation is necessarily worse than suicide; etc).
That said, I also think you can learn the rules of strict logic without in any way adopting the consensus that they are the right way to proceed. Most everyone who engages in the practice seriously, including myself, develops a critique of parts of it. That's one of the most interesting aspects of the study of logic. There is a rhetorical aspect to such criticisms, in that we are trying to persuade each other that our approach to wrestling with the problem we've encountered with the system is better than other methods. But it's not necessary to learning the system; all that you have to do to learn the system is learn it, not consent to it.
The closest thing I think you can say is that you have to learn the rules of a game to play the game. But it's still not rhetoric; it just looks like rhetoric because we typically learn it from someone else. Imagine (here's a Kantian exercise) a man who was somehow born and raised by wolves, but in his adulthood began to try to work out the rules of logic. He might come up with different ways of solving particular problems, just as in math the Japanese have developed a different way of doing multiplication than Westerners. But because strict logic like* math has an objective standard, whatever approaches he developed could be found to be valid or invalid, complete or incomplete, independently of ever discussing them with anyone. The objective standard is provided by logic itself: some approaches to logic work, and some do not.
It's sticky, trying to deal with the hinge between these models -- which can somehow be objectively tested against themselves, that itself a philosophical difficulty -- and the way the models apply to reality. Somehow they do, even though the kinds of objects involved in math/logic are not what we encounter, we can use math and logic predicatively with a lot of success. Why the success is even possible is a problem, given the incompatibility of the kinds of objects involved; why the success applies only imperfectly is another problem.
If I've given you serious problems, though, I'm doing my proper work as a philosopher.
* "like math" is itself problematic philosophically; there's a huge debate as to whether logic is in fact a subset of math, or indeed whether math is actually a subset of logic, or if they are simply similar fields. This is non-resolved after 2,000 years of discussion.
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I'm going to move all of this up the page into an independent post.
The world truly has transitioned to the end game when... grim posts more consecutive max words per comment than ymar.
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