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Quote of the Day: Schopenhauer on The History of Idealism

Now as, notwithstanding the transitory, isolated nature of our representations with respect to their immediate presence in our consciousness, the Subject nevertheless retains the representation of an all-comprehensive complex of reality, as described above, by means of the function of the Understanding; representations have, on the strength of this antithesis, been viewed, as something quite different when belonging to that complex than when considered with reference to their immediate presence in our consciousness ... This view of matter, which is the ordinary one, is known under the name Realism. On the appearance of modern philosophy, Idealism opposed itself to this Realism and has since been steadily gaining ground. Malebranche [Kenny's note: Malebranche was a Platonist, not an Idealist] and Berkeley were its earliest representatives, and Kant enhanced it to the power of Transcendental Idealism, by which the co-existence of the Empirical Reality of things with their Transcendental Ideality becomes conceivable ... But Realism quite overlooks the fact, that the so-called existence of these real things is absolutely nothing but their being represented (ein Vorgestellt-werden) ... The realist forgets that the Object ceases to be Object apart from its reference to the Subject, and that if we take away that reference, or think it away, we at once do away with all objective existence. Leibnitz [sic], while he clearly felt the Subject to be the necessary condition for the Object, was nevertheless unable to get rid of the thought that objects exist by themselves and independently of all reference whatsoever to the Subject, i.e. independently of being represented. He therefore assumed in the first place a world of objects exactly like the world of representations and running parallel with it, having no direct, but only an outward connection with it by means of a harmonia proestabilitia; - obviously the most superfluous thing possible ... When, however, he wanted to determine more closely the essence of these things existing objectively in themselves, he found himself obliged to declare the Objects in themselves to be Subjects (monades), and by doing so he furnished the most striking proof of the inability of our consciousness, in as far as it is merely cognitive, to find within the limits of the intellect - i.e. of the apparatus by means of which we represent the world - anything beyond Subject and Object; the representer and the represented.

    - Arthur Schopenhauer, On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, tr. Karl Hillebrand, sect. 19

"The Ontological Status of Dreams in Berkeleian Metaphysics"

The Dualist 13 (2006) is finally available online, including my paper "The Ontological Status of Dreams in Berkeleian Metaphysics". Unfortunately, the main index site is still badly broken. Hopefully it will soon be fixed. In the meantime, the direct link to my paper works.

There are some typesetting errors in the PDF (most importantly: footnote numbering is messed up, and some logical symbols are boxed out), and I haven't seen the print version to know if it contains these errors as well. I was never shown any proofs and I also found some spelling errors, and at least one place where a sentence is missing a word. Such is life. But the content is, I hope more interesting than the form, so that's what I will focus on and ask readers to focus on.

I wrote this paper over two and a half years ago, and it's now been just over a year since the paper was accepted, so there are definitely things I would do different if I were writing it today. Most of this is simply the sloppiness, unclarity, and general lack of polish that one expects from a Sophomore philosophy student. However, having just re-read the paper, I think that there is only one place in which these flaws touch the core of the argument, and that is in defining just what the argument is supposed to show. I will try to correct this flaw here, by outlining the general flow of argument as it appears in the published paper and explaining how it ought to differ.

The paper deals with the problem of dreams, given a Berkeleian idealist framework. In particular, it is focused on the question of whether "esse is percipi" places dreams on par with waking life, ontologically. Since, for the Berkeleian, perception defines reality, and dream perceptions are bona fide perceptions, it seems that the answer is yes. However, Berkeley claims (Dialogues 235) that "by whatever method you distinguish things from chimeras on your own scheme, the same, it is evident, will hold also upon mine" (emphasis original). The paper argues that this is in fact true: that is, that a particular solution to the epistemological problem of dreams, drawn from Leibniz's "On the Method of Distinguishing Real From Imaginary Phenomena," succeeds in solving Berkeley's ontological problem of dreams.

The descriptions of the nature of this "ontological problem" and its solution are the critical flaw of the paper. On p. 34, I say that the paper will argue that it is possible for a Berkeleian to draw "an ontological distinction" between dreams and waking life (this is the sentence with the missing word - my draft says "between dream worlds and the actual world"). I go on to talk about an ontology with four "levels" and use the word "real" in scare quotes a lot. Later, in sect. 5, I talk about some things being more or less real than others. I'm no longer entirely sure what the things I actually said mean, but, having studied a bit of W.V.O. Quine and David Lewis in the last year, I think I am prepared to say more accurately what it was that I was trying to say before:

In the famous Quinean formula, "to be is to be the value of a variable." That is, the things that are in the domain of quantification for the universal quantifier are the items of our ontology. However, context often causes the domain of quantification to vary, and, although existence is, as a matter of the way the world is, almost certainly an absolute, black and white sort of thing, "relative existence" enters the picture via language and discursive context.

Given this picture of being, I claim that Berkeley's position (that is, the position I believe to be entailed by his system, although he doesn't discuss the issue) with regard to dream worlds is almost exactly analogous to Lewis's position with regard to non-actual possible worlds: Lewis says that while, strictly speaking, all possible worlds exist, most of the time we restrict our quantifiers to the actual world, and the modal realist has as much reason as anyone for doing this.

I divide Berkeley's world into four "ontological levels:" "The level M of minds, the level RP of 'real' perceptions, the level DP of dreamed or hallucinated perceptions, and the level T of thoughts and volitions" (p. 51). These "ontological levels" are in fact domains of quantification, with every level including the level before it, in addition to the entities it specifies (that is, for instance, DP includes M and RP, but not T - it includes minds and all their perceptions). Strictly speaking, the Berkeleian is going to have to either say that ideas are modes of minds and so M is all that, in metaphysical rigor, exists, or that ideas are bona fide entities and so all of it exists. However, what the paper seeks to show, is that the use of these distinct domains of quantification is well justified by Berkeley's system and, especially, there are good reasons which the Berkeleian can admit - reasons having nothing to do with mind-independent entities - for frequently quantifying over only RP, and saying that those things are "real."

With these thoughts in mind, I present for your consideration, "The Ontological Status of Dreams in Berkeleian Metaphysics". You are encouraged to post your comments and criticisms here.

My Five Favorite Philosophers

Recently, while I was busy with finals, Clarke at Mormon Metaphysics and Johnny-Dee at Fides Quarens Intellectum posted lists of their favorite philosophers. I thought that today I would do the same. I won't get fancy with pictures and stuff, because that's not my style (as you can plainly see if you are looking at this page), but I do have a list, roughly in order (though there were certainly some ties that were hard to break):

1. George Berkeley (12 March 1685 – 14 January 1753). Berkeley is, in my opinion, the most underappreciated philosopher in all of history. Idealism aside, Berkeley is responsible for most of the (in my opinion) best parts of David Hume's philosophy, including most notably the collapse of Locke's distinction between primary and secondary qualities, which led Hume to his 'veil of perception' doctrine (Hume acknowledged Berkeley's influence, though broad overviews of the history of modern philosophy often skip directly from Locke to Hume). Berkeley also, in the 17th century, developed a linguistic theory similar to that of the later Wittgenstein (the theory is in Alciphron 7; on it's resemblence to Wittgenstein, see Anthony Flew, "Was Berkeley a Precursor to Wittgenstein?" originally printed in W. B. Todd, ed., Hume and the Enlightenment, reprinted in David Berman, ed., George Berkeley - Alciphron in Focus). Finally, I previously argued that Berkeley may have been an influence on Kant's epistemology of metaphysics (though I may have overstated the case there, due to liking Berkeley and not knowing Kant very well). Then, of course, there is the fact that I actually believe most of what Berkeley says about metaphysics. Also, Berkeley is one of very few philosophers who, in my view, are capable of writing good philosophy and good literature at the same time. Both the Three Dialogs Between Hylas and Philonous and the Alciphron are exceedingly well written and a pleasure to read. These things earn him the number one place on my list of favorite philosophers.
2. Arthur Schopenhauer (February 22, 1788 – September 21, 1860) - Although Schopenhauer is not a theist, he provides useful thoughts for any idealist to consider. His primary influence on me is the he showed me the essential flaw in Hume's argument against libertarian free will: Hume argues that the world of sense is a 'veil of perception' and we can't see through it to the underlying reality, but he then uses arguments based on looking at the veil of perception in arguing against libertarian free will, despite the fact that we have direct, priveleged epistemic access to the mind, which is the object we are studying. In other words, Schopenhauer has me convinced that philosophy of mind, and especially free will, is a topic which must be studied phenomenologically. I also appreciate about Schopenhauer that his understanding of life reads a lot like Ecclesiastes without the last chapter. I wonder if, had he waited longer to publish or not been too proud to admit having been wrong in a published work, he would have discovered what Solomon discovered in his last chapter and not been remembered as the great pessimist. It's rather sad really. Whatever the case, Schopenhauer is a brillian philosopher and highly deservng of the number 2 spot on my list.
3. G. W. Leibniz (July 1 1646 – November 14, 1716) - Another underappreciated philospher. While Leibniz's total metaphysical system is a bit nutty, he's great for cherry-picking. That is, although his system is very tightly integrated with itself, it is often possible to pull very useful tidbits out of it for incorporation into less nutty systems. He is also just plain fun to read, partially because of his periodic nuttiness.
4. Plato (c. 427–c. 347 BC) - No list of best or favorite western philosophers should lack reference to Plato. Plato is inredibly brilliant, had relatively few shoulders to stand on (though the influences of Parmenides, Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, and Socrates were all, of course, very important), and is also one of the few philosophers capable of writing good literature and good philosophy at once. His dialogs are a pleasure to read. He deals with a huge range of topics and influenced countless future philosophers. His philosophy was a big influence on early Christian thought as well (though, in the west he was, in my view unfortunately, mostly displaced by Aristotle around the tenth century - the Christian east continues to have strong Platonist leanings). His primary influence on me has been in his ethics, which may actually be more Socratic than Platonic, but Plato gets credit for writing them down. Of course, the Bible is the most important source for my ethical understanding, and especially my non-consequentialism, but Plato also played an important role. Plato really has me quite convinced that, even apart from human or divine punishment, one ought to behave morally for the simple reason that, at the end of the day, one has to live with oneself. Being around immoral people is unpleasant, and we can't get away from ourselves. I also more or less buy Plato's tri-partite division of the soul, which I think is roughly equivalent to St. Paul's (in fact, I think it is almost certain that Paul was familiar with at least the Republic and that it influenced his thought patterns).
5. Parmenides (Early 5th century, BC) - One of my favorite facts about the history of philosophy is that the earliest surviving deductively valid argument is found in a work that appeals to divine revelation - the poem of Parmenides! Here also is the first formulation of the logical Law of Non-Contradiction. Parmenides belief that "that which is" is a description picking out and fully describing one particular object, and Plato's later revision adding a realm of 'becoming' between being and not-being has been important to monotheistic theology as well: many accounts, especially those relying on ontological arguments, invovle the claim that God is the being that exists "the most" and this entails all of his other properties. Parmenides, or what's left of him, is also fun to read. I'm not joking or exaggerating when I say that I pray regularly for a complete copy of Parmenides' poem to be found.

You will notice a conspicuous absence of contemporary philosophers here. This is, unfortunately, due to a lack of familiarity on my part. I have read a not inconsiderable amount of contemporary philosophy, but I haven't read enough of any one particular contemporary philosopher to put him on a list of greats like this one. However, I will give honorable mentions to the following contemporary philosophers: Peter van Inwagen, Alvin Plantinga, Roderick Chisholm, William Lane Craig, and Richard Swinburne. The names on that list probably indicate immediately that most of the contemporary philosophy I read is philosophy of religion. I'm hoping to expand my knowledge of contemporary philosophy next semester when I will be taking undergraduate-level philosophy of religion and graduate-level contemporary metaphysics.

With that, I will pass the question on to the rest of you: who are your five favorite philosophers, and why?

My First Academic Journal Paper!

Last night I received word that a paper I wrote entitled "The Ontological Status of Dreams in Berkeleian Metaphysics" has been accepted for publication by The Dualist! The paper argues that the characteristics of dream perceptions by which we, in practice, distinguish them from waking perceptions prevent dream perceptions from functioning as a language in the way Berkeley believes waking perceptions do and thus provide a principled grounding for an ontological distinction between dreams and waking life. The dream characteristics used are based on the four tests proposed by Leibniz in his "On the Method of Distinguishing Real From Imaginary Phenomena." When the journal comes out it will be available online. I'll post a link as soon as it is up (I understand it may be a few months before that happens).

"Theism and Mechanism in Leibniz"

I've just posted a new paper to my writings page, entitled "Theism and Mechanism in Leibniz." This is a topic that I've discussed quite a bit in the past few months, and this may be the end of it for a while.

An earlier version served as a term paper for Professor Karen Detlefsen's undergraduate seminar on Leibniz at Penn last semester. It has undergone slight revision based on her comments. Please feel free to offer any responses or discussion you have in the comments section of this post. Any revisions made will be documented in the comments here as well.

Let's Make Creation Science Not Suck

Nearly a month ago, I posted without commentary a Leibniz quote about materialism and supernaturalism. At the time I was busy with classes and didn't have time to really address the issue I saw the quote raising, but now that finals are over, I'd like to take a minute and look at this.

When I read this quote, I immediately thought of "creation science." Leibniz here describes what he sees as two false extremes: the one is represented today by the likes of Peter Atkins, the Oxford Chemist who insists that in order to properly follow scientific methodology one must believe that the ultimate physical laws of nature are logically necessary (which, let me interject, they obviously are not!) and that there exists nothing beyond the physical. The other extreme is represented by the so-called "creation science" movement (and some, but not all, proponents of intelligent design) who claim that the events of the natural world cannot all be explained by physical laws, and so oppose science. (Other intelligent design people merely intend to say that we ought not to think that the laws themselves are the result of chance, because there seems to be a sort of inherent purposiveness about them; I do personally endorse this position, as does Leibniz.) I have been arguing on this blog for some time that this is bad theology, and I've just recently finished writing a term paper arguing that Leibniz's mechanistic views are motivated primarily by theology - and good theology at that. (I plan to post this paper once I've received feedback from my professor and given it another edit.)

Between these two extremes, Leibniz plots a middle course: "all natural phenomena could be explained mechanically if we understood them well enough, but the principles of mechanics themselves cannot be explained geometrically, since they depend on more sublime principles which show the wisdom of the Author in the order and perfection of his work."

In Discourse on Metaphysics 19 (which I discussed here) and in many other places, Leibniz argues for the use of "final causes" in physics. In particular, he is constantly claiming the Snell would never have discovered his laws of optics had he not considered that God does everything in the most perfect way possible.

Now, to the heading of this post: creation science, as it exists today, is bad for several reasons. Because creation scientists "do not reason with exactness in this matter, and it is easy for [their opponents] to reply to them, they injure religion in trying to render it service, for they merely confirm those in their error who recognize only material principles." Basically, they tend to make Christians look like idiots, and so atheists become all the more certain of their atheism. Creation scientists go around claiming that they are doing "science," but science, by definition, is concerned with "efficient causes" - it wants to find out the physical, not spiritual or metaphysical, reasons for events. And there are physical reasons for events. I continue to hold that it would essentially amount to God making a mistake if he had to break his own physical laws in order to bring about his will miraculously. Rather, the perfect wisdom and infinite power of God should lead us to conclude that he made a world in which his laws hold always, and that he is able to bring about his will, even in those things we consider miraculous, without breaking physical laws. If I am right about this, then the enterprise of science seen as the attempt to explain everything in the physical world by efficient causes is theologically legitimate. Furthermore, I think it is clear that the scientific method is a valid way of seeking truth and in particular of pursuing these kinds of investigations. Creation science, as it now exists, denies this. Instead, it claims that we must look to divine revelation, etc., in order to do science properly, and it often also claims that we should reject the idea that we can explain everything by efficient causes at all. Furthermore, it has been my experience that the people pursuing creation science rarely have sufficient theology/biblical studies backgrounds to make the kind of theological judgments needed for their field. Because of this, when it is accepted by the mainstream of Christianity, it can be theologically damaging as well.

However, I promised in the post title to explain how creation science could not suck, and I intend to do just that. You see, Leibniz was right, I think, in claiming that theists should make use of final causes in their investigations of nature. This cuts two ways: first, when we see that the world is a certain way, when we discover a scientific law or a theory, we should ask, why did God do things this way? Second, there are some cases in which we already have a pretty good idea, either through revelation or through reasoning about the nature of God, what God probably wanted to do with regard to some natural event, or we may know through revelation that some event occurred, and in these cases we can reason backward from the final cause and try to determine the efficient cause, and this may in some cases turn out to be a useful heuristic device in searching for knowledge of natural laws. Note that the aesthetic criteria which mathematicians and physicists increasingly make heuristic use of are of this nature.

However, these things are not science, and it is critical that we recognize this so we are able to communicate with the rest of the world. Michael Behe doesn't get to walk around with his own private definition of theory, and we can't just go around redefining science. If we do, then we won't be able to enter debate with non-Christians, because we won't be speaking the same language.

This is what I suggest we do: first, let's rename this field "theology of nature" (and try not to confuse it with natural theology). Then, let's take some Christians with strong science background (by which I mean, with Ph.Ds in the natural sciences) and send them to school for theology and/or biblical studies and/or philosophy of religion. Then, let's give them appointments in the theology or religious studies departments - not the departments of their scientific fields! - at universities as professors of the theology of nature. Then they can pursue their investigations of final causes, and we can all benefit from the knowledge they gain, and Christians can have a better understanding of the relationship of our faith to modern science. This idea of "theology of nature" is a perfectly legitimate academic pursuit and, Christians must believe, also a legitimate method of pursuing truth. Also, by placing this in the theology department and attracting more competent people to the serious study of it, we may have the effect of making Christianity more rather than less plausible to modern intellectuals.

Note: The title of this post is a reference to Miguel de Icaza's infamous talk, "Let's Make Unix Not Suck".

Quote of the Day

"We know that while there have been, on the one hand, able philosophers who recognized nothing except what is material in the universe, there are, on the other hand, learned and zealous theologians who, shocked at the corpuscular philosophy and not content with checking it's misuse, have felt obliged to maintain tha tthere are phenomena in nature which cannot be explained by mechanical principles; as for example, light, weight, and elastic force. But since they do not reason with exactness in this matter, and it is easy for the corpuscular philosophers to reply to them, they injure religion in trying to render it service, for they merely confirm those in their error who recognize only material principles. The true middle term for satisfying both truth and piety is this: all natural phenomena could be explained mechanically if we understood them well enough, but the principles of mechanics themselves cannot be explained geometrically, since they depend on more sublime principles which show the wisdom of the Author in the order and perfection of his work." - G.W. Leibniz, "Tentanem Anagogicum: An Anagogical Essay in the Investigation of Causes," c. 1696 (tr. Leroy F. Loemaker).

Leibniz on "Efficient" vs. "Final" Causes in Physics: Its Application to God, Science, and Miracles

So I'm taking this class on Leibniz this semester (for those of you who may be unfamiliar, that is Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, the 17th century philosopher/scientist/mathematician, and the "other" discoverer of calculus), and I was reading his Discourse on Metaphysics today and came across this fantastic passage in section 19:

Moreover, it is unreasonable to introduce a supreme intelligence as orderer of things and then, instead of using his wisdom, use only the properties of matter to explain the phenomena. This is as if, in order to account for the conquest of an important place by a great prince, a historian were to claim that it occurred because the small particles of gunpowder, set off by the contact of a spark, escaped with sufficient speed to push a hard and heavy body against the walls of the place, while the little particles that make up the brass of the cannon were so firmly interlaced that this speed did not separate them, instead of showing how the foresight of the conqueror enabled him to choose suitable means and times and how his power overcame all obstacles.

The heading of this section is "The Utility of Final Causes in Physics." Now Leibniz, like me, sees no conflict between an event's being "miraculous" and its being explainable in terms of physics: as in the case of the conqueror, both explanations are correct, but only one is relevant. Leibniz borrows from Aristotle the terminology of "efficient" and "final" causes (Aristotle has two more types of causes, "formal" and "material," which are not relevant here). Today, we use the word "cause" to refer only to what Aristotle and later philosophers, including Leibniz, called the "efficient cause." The "final cause" is the purpose of a thing or event. For instance, the final cause of this post is (in part) to be read.

Now, for anyone who, like Leibniz and like myself, is a theist, the world is full of final causes. There are reasons why things are as they are. God has a design for the world. Leibniz, in this passage, tells us that it would be ridiculous to believe in God and not see final causes throughout the world. He also says, in a nearby section, that it is silly for those who study final causes of things to ridicule those who study their efficient causes, and vice versa. Both explanations are correct, but in a given situation one may be more relevant than another.

A while back, I wrote a post on Christian Naturalism. In it, I argued that Christians should not believe in exceptions to the laws of nature. This then leaves the problem of how to deal with miracles. In that post I said "A miracle is an event in which the 'higher functions' of the divine consciousness, i.e. the part equivalent to the conscious functioning of the human mind, that makes plans and designs regarding human lives and the like, are more apparent than the 'lower functions' which are the laws of nature. To put it more simply (but less precisely) a miracle occurs when the laws of nature conspire together to acheive some intelligent end." (Yes, the "conspire" language was in part a reference to Stephen Hawking's "Chronology Protection Conjecture.") Using the language of Aristotle and Leibniz I can now state this more precisely.

The difference between the "miraculous" and the "mundane" is purely subjective. A miracle is an event in which the "final cause" - the divine purpose behind it (or at least a part of that purpose) - is more readily apparent to the observer than the "efficient cause" - the physical laws which require that the event occurs. In this way, there is no contradiction between belief in the miraculous and naturalism.

A brief note on a related topic: I apply this same doctrine to all miracles, but one in which I have gotten very negative responses is in its application to the revelation of the Christian Scriptures. I believe that these are miraculous in precisely this sense: what came down to us turned out (not by any accident, but by divine purpose) to be the Living Word of God. This does not, however, mean that it was not produced in precisely the same way as any other work of literature. Therefore it is consistent with belief in the inspiration of Scripture to talk about the influence of earlier non-inspired writers (e.g. Plato, Philo of Alexandria, or Heraclitus) on the authors of Scripture, as I often do. I believe that the Scriptures are miraculously inspired, I just don't believe that they were inspired "in a vacuum" as it were, independent of the surrounding thought patterns. Where previous writers were correct, or almost correct, or provided good terminology for discussing a subject, God used their writings to bring it about that the authors of Scripture would write down the Living Word of God.