Remarks on culture and religion

I want to recapitulate here and expand on some points I made elsewhere in partial response to a piece written by Daniel Kaufman entitled "Remarks on religion".

First of all, I should explain that I am not much interested in talking about religion in religious or strictly philosophical terms. Philosophical discussions about the existence of God, free will, etc. strike me as fundamentally theological in nature even if an atheistic line is being pursued (as it often is). I have the same feeling about much of philosophical ethics. It has its roots in (moral) theology and religious disputation – and it shows!

It is worth noting that many religious people – including intelligent ones – have been hostile to theology and the ready application of philosophical methods to religious questions. Blaise Pascal, for example, distinguished between the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (his God) and "the God of the philosophers" (as he scornfully put it). He satirized the casuistry of the Jesuits of his day and the trivialization of morality and the hypocrisy which it entailed.

I am sympathetic to Pascal's point of view but, since I am not religious, my rejection of theology is based on different grounds from his and is more thoroughgoing. I simply do not see theology as a serious or viable area of study.

In earlier times, of course, theology (or divinity) was widely seen as a high-status discipline: the queen of the sciences, no less. And, in the Christian West, philosophy derived its scholarly status from theology of which it was seen to be an integral part, as well as from ancient Greek and Roman thinkers many of whose ideas had been incorporated into medieval and Renaissance thought. Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics were especially influential.

Two broad areas which developed within this theological matrix did become viable secular fields of study: natural philosophy (or what we now generally call science); and logic. Mathematics had regressed in Roman and medieval times and only began to flourish again in the 17th century with the rise of modern science.

I realize all this is broad-brush and oversimplified but it should help explain my general attitude to philosophy and religion and, with respect to the latter, my tendency to focus on the historical, cultural and psychological side of things.

Dan had contrasted the evangelical and Pentecostal Christians of the Bible Belt with two Jewish Hasidic sects:

"When I first moved to the Bible Belt, I was surprised by the level of confidence people had in their particular brand of evangelical or Pentecostal Christianity (some of them brands I’d never even heard of until that point) and used to think that the best thing for them would be to live in a Lubavitch or Satmar community for a few weeks, where it would become quickly evident that there were people far more religiously committed and more rigorous in their religious lifestyles than they are."

Unlike these Jewish groups, evangelicals and Pentecostals profess and proclaim (in Kaufman’s words) their own “extraordinary and intense religious faith” whilst behaving in other respects “pretty much like everyone else.”

The main criticism here is being directed at a particular group of Christians and I can't really comment on its appropriateness. I do have the sense, however, that the tenor of these passages may betray a lack awareness of the standard Christian view of what religious commitment is at its core and what it entails. Whatever it is, it is decidedly not about outward forms and observances; and it is not in the least competitive. The very notion of "religious lifestyle" is alien to the standard Christian view as I understand it.

I have no direct knowledge of "Bible Belt" Christians, nor of the Jewish groups mentioned. Regarding the latter, Chabad-Lubavitch and Satmar are rival, Brooklyn-based Hasidic sects originating in Russia and Hungary respectively. They differ, amongst other things, in terms of their attitudes to outreach and proselytizing within the wider Jewish community [Chabad is active in such activity but Satmar is not]; and in terms of their attitudes to Zionism and the state of Israel [Satmar remains staunchly anti-Zionist].

Dan talks about the “self-deception” or “psychic indolence” involved in seeing ancient religious texts as embodying eternal truths “about the nature and operation of the universe and everything and everyone in it” rather than in more realistic terms. He characterizes sacred texts as “fascinating and often lurid elements from the eclectic, messy, often ugly history of human development.” Fair comment.

I would have thought that one way US evangelical Christians differ from, say, Jewish ultra-Orthodox or extremist Islamic groups, is in their relative openness to the modern world, to ordinary life.

Mixing faith-based and modern views necessarily involves inconsistencies. But compartmentalization of one kind or another is a universal feature of our brains. Some of the greatest scientists bracketed out their religious beliefs in rather crude ways or aligned themselves with extreme and anti-rational ideologies or political movements. Though most of us manage to avoid such extremes, the logical aspect of our thinking is always in an awkward or ambiguous relationship with more emotional aspects of thought – including those that relate to existential anxieties, to attachments and aversions, to religion, politics, self-image and identity.

The final issue I raised was that of cultural and religious identity. In the course of his discussion, Dan explicitly acknowledged his Jewish lineage as well as the essentially secular Jewish culture in which he was raised. For his parents – and for himself, apparently – ancestral religious practices continued to be meaningful in the absence of belief.

For me there is a tension here, a potential problem. I realize that Judaism is not creed-based or doctrinal in the way many Christian groupings are, but beliefs are still important. It seems to me that if a member of a religious (or even a political) group stops believing the central doctrines of the group, he or she ceases to be, in a real and fundamental sense, a part of that group, even if there is little change in outward behaviour. What was deeply motivated is now merely "going through the motions." This phrase says it all.

I see that people brought up within a particular religious group or sect or denomination will continue to share a common cultural background but if they have left the sect or ceased believing its fundamental tenets their sense of themselves – and of their relationship to the group – changes. Their sense of identification with the group is necessarily reduced and qualified. This is why defining Jewishness largely in terms of the religious tradition (in terms, that is, of Judaism) is obviously a problem for non-religious Jews. When scriptures lose their special status and come to be seen solely in historical or literary terms, when prayers and rituals are no longer expressions of religious experience but mere nostalgic forms or reassuring customs, they gradually but inexorably lose their power to command attention and motivate religious practice. They become museum pieces. They die.

Religious Jews, of course, are committed to maintaining not just the rituals and practices but also the beliefs that shaped and motivated these practices. So the tension I speak of here does not apply to them. (The problems of inconsistency and compartmentalization alluded to above may apply, however.)

My preference is to see group affiliations in personal and individual terms, simply in terms of sets of shared and overlapping cultural elements and personal values. And, to the extent that Jewishness is seen in this way (i.e. as an evolving element within various disparate cultures rather than in terms of direct links with an ancient, Hebrew-speaking population and the religious practices and beliefs of that population), existential questions about cultural survival simply will not arise.

Distorting history

Bharath Vallabha used to be a regular contributor to The Electric Agora. He returned recently with a piece about how, in his view, some of the central and most polarizing debates of post-World War 2 academic philosophy were the product of a misreading of intellectual history. Both Gilbert Ryle and Richard Rorty were extremely influential and both gave a false picture of Descartes' thought and the Cartesian tradition more generally.

Here is Bharath on Rorty and Ryle and how his own views have changed:

[Rorty] went from being a Princeton philosophy professor and president of the APA to basically decamping to literature departments. He was right about problems with the direction of analytic philosophy, but it was a mistake to connect that criticism to Descartes et al.. Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature is no more a careful study of Descartes than Ryle’s Concept of Mind was... I think Rorty was reading a lot of what was wrong with analytic philosophy back into early modern philosophers. This kind of reading back led to Rorty being polarizing, because he was lumping together 300 years of thinkers in a way that divorced them from their historical context.

To be honest this is a new thought for me. For longest time I was on the side of Rorty and Ryle against early modern philosophy of mind and as it carried over into analytic philosophy... Rorty’s book says more about Rorty’s struggle with professional philosophy than it does about Descartes and Kant. It seems strange to me now that there is some special conception of mind common to Descartes to Nagel even given the vast differences in context of what being a philosopher is between them. My thought is if we let go of this kind of generalizing over centuries to tell who the good guys are and who the bad guys, would be easier to listen to each other – in ways for example Rorty and his Princeton colleagues couldn’t do. And in ways current traditionalists and social justice warriors now can’t, because both are wedded to historical generalizations.

On binary thinking:

Resentationalism versus Pragmatism, and fitting historical figures into those categories, forces a binary choice at every turn, in the present and in the reading of the past. There is then no way to rethink the terms of the debate. However, if one sees historical figures with new eyes and with greater openness to historical context, new, more productive conversations are possible.

I agree with this entirely. Like Bharath, I favour more historically-oriented approaches. And I too have only recently come to realize the extent to which Ryle was misrepresenting Descartes. Rorty distorted history also. He was worse than Ryle, in my opinion, because he let politics intrude into his professional work, and also because of his anti-science bias.

Despite his criticisms, Bharath made it clear that he values the writings of Rorty and Ryle (if not the work of their followers). I am less positive. Though I give credit to both Ryle and Rorty for their stylistic power and the thought-provoking nature of their best work, my reservations outweigh my sympathies.

I share Ryle's secular outlook and his commitment to an apolitical approach to academic work. But, in my opinion, any attempt to carve out a sacrosanct space, distinct from the sciences, for an academic philosophy of mind is fatally flawed.

In terms of general outlook, however, I am definitely further away from Rorty than I am from Ryle. I am close to the former on one matter only, as far as I can tell. I am sympathetic to his disillusionment with and drift away from academic philosophy.

Rorty's roots were in literature (his father was a poet) and I understand that he took comfort in his final illness reading the likes of Swinburne rather than philosophical works. (Martin Heidegger – another master of historical distortion – followed a similar trajectory.)

Scholarship and activism

David Ottlinger has (as I see it) sound intuitions about the nature of postmodernism and other unfortunate intellectual fads and fashions but, as a committed Kantian, he inhabits a very different intellectual world from the one I inhabit. Given his Kantian assumptions, it is no surprise that he has very different views from mine concerning what philosophy and serious scholarship more generally is or should be. He recently wrote a piece claiming that "all philosophy is activist philosophy."

He mentions, amongst others, the Utilitarians: "Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill were not just writing about prison reform. They wanted to reform actual prisons. English prisons. On Fleet Street. Will anyone raise their hands and say that their works are unphilosophical? Or unscholarly?"

Certainly much of the writing of Bentham and Mill is philosophical (encompassing social philosophy, philosophy of law, etc., etc.). This work may plausibly be deemed "scholarly". But there are different senses of the term "scholarship" and its cognates.

This definition of scholarship (Collins English Dictionary) picks out what I see as essential: "Serious academic study and the knowledge that is obtained from it." Unlike science, scholarship is text based. But, like science, it is all about research, about building a body of soundly-based knowledge. It is not (primarily) about changing the world. This distinction (between knowledge and understanding on the one hand and social action on the other) matters.

Ottlinger writes:

Even at their most abstract, most philosophers want to change the world. I have always assumed that Christine Korsgaard actually wants to build the kingdom of ends. Axel Honneth actually wants us to recognize one another.

Philosophers are indeed often most concerned with normative questions, and often this is associated with a desire to change the world in particular ways.

My point is simply that there is a tension between such approaches and traditional, secular notions of scholarship. What scholars (as people) value or want is irrelevant to judging the value of their work as scholarship.

Much writing – old and new
– which is classed today as philosophy is decidedly not scholarship (at least in certain well-accepted senses of the term). This does not necessarily mean that it has no value, of course.

Without his scholarly training, Nietzsche would not have been Nietzsche, and you could say that he was a "scholarly" writer. But the work for which he is known is not scholarship.

Here Ottlinger sets out his views concerning what ("in part") philosophy is:

Even when they don’t have consequences that would dictate changes in our material circumstances or our politics, philosophical ideas matter. They shape our attitudes and values. Two people can be sitting staring at a book, occasionally turning the page, yet only one of them is reading. In the same way two people can be going through the same lives, working the same jobs, having the same sort of families but yet have deeply different inner experiences. They might be leading totally different interior lives. One might be rich and fulfilling, the other barren and empty. Philosophy deals, in part, with these kinds of differences.

The emphasis – as with religion – is on the "inner life". This aspect complements the previously-discussed activist aspect, presumably.

Like David Ottlinger, I am interested in values, but I don't see them as being accessible or amenable to reason (and, by extension, scholarship) in quite the way he does.

Anti-naturalism in philosophy (III)

The role and raison d'être of academic philosophy in today's world is far from clear: there is certainly no consensus amongst philosophers regarding what philosophy is or is for. I personally would like to see the discipline become less insular and more engaged with the sciences, and there have been some encouraging moves in this direction. On the whole, however, I think that you would have to say that the discipline has become less rather than more science-friendly or science-oriented over the last fifty or sixty years.

What concerns me here is the general question of metaphysical or religious motivation. Generally the logical empiricists, who dominated analytic philosophy in the mid-20th century, were not well disposed towards traditional metaphysics or religion. But the general climate of opinion within academic philosophy has changed quite a bit since then.

There are (and always have been) overtly religious philosophers, of course. But I am not concerned with them so much as with apparently non-religious (or even atheistic) philosophers who nonetheless seem very uncomfortable with a straightforwardly naturalistic view of the world.

Take John McDowell. I am not aware that he has any particular religious affiliation, and yet there is something about his approach which seems almost hostile to science and I have trouble trying to figure out what on earth is driving it. It must be more than just a desire to defend his professional turf, I feel sure.

Starting about the 24 minute mark in this interview, McDowell defends himself against accusations by Tyler Burge (who is not featured here) that his approach betrays ignorance of the relevant science, but his defense is not entirely convincing.

Note his curiously unscientific discussion about recognizing Bill Clinton's face (43-45 min.): no reference at all is made to brain processes (and much is known about these sorts of processes). Note also some fairly dismissive remarks about science in general and cognitive science in particular. "What [cognitive science] does," he says (more than once), "is just fine" – but it has little to contribute to telling us about how we can know things, apparently! *

Though he concedes that in order for his views to be acceptable they must be compatible with the relevant science (of perception and cognition, etc.), McDowell's view of the world is clearly not driven by science (which he shows little interest in). He certainly does not have what the logical positivists dubbed a scientific worldview. In fact, he seems to espouse a form of Kantian idealism. He himself notes that he came over time to recognize the importance of Kant's transcendental perspective; and, though this topic is not raised here, McDowell is a defender of moral realism.

The only way I can make sense of an intelligent and obviously serious thinker going on at such length and in such detail about the distinction between the perceived and the seemingly perceived etc. is that something more than just an apparently trivial semantic point about the meaning of the word 'know' and its cognates is (perceived to be) at stake here. What is being obliquely presented and defended in all of this is a particular metaphysic, a fundamentally anti-physicalist, anti-empiricist and possibly anti-naturalist way of seeing the world.

Terms like physicalism and naturalism are awkward to define, but what this philosopher and many like him are claiming is that there is more to fundamental reality than what the various sciences and mathematics can describe or access – and that the philosopher (through pure thought, apparently) has access to it.

This sort of thinking strikes me as being very much in the same category as priestly mystification. And indeed many of today's philosophers, whose discipline in the Western tradition grew out of schools of divinity, could be seen to be competing to fill the same general intellectual, social and economic space as was once occupied (almost exclusively) by clerics.

One last point. When I talk of priestly mystification I don't mean to imply that it necessarily involved or involves deliberate deception or hypocrisy. In many (perhaps in most) cases, the perpetrators are 'true believers' in the doctrines they are promoting.



* In order to understand this discussion fully one would need to read certain texts, by Wilfred Sellars in particular. Sellars was a 20th-century philosopher who is often appealed to by those who seek to make a space for philosophy, a philosophy which is respectful of but distinct from science, in today's intellectual landscape. Daniel Kaufman, with whom I have had some dealings (at Scientia Salon, Apophenia and, more recently, at The Electric Agora), is a great promoter of Sellars' work. The interviewer on this video is also a Sellarsian. But not the interviewee, I would say. For McDowell, Sellars' view of the world is too reductionistic or scientistic apparently and, though he appeals to some of Sellars' ideas (like 'the Myth of the Given'), he "averts his gaze" (a strange – and revealing – phrase) from other aspects of Sellars' thought.

Anti-naturalism in philosophy (II)

Here are a few more notes on the debate between Paul Horwich and Timothy Williamson which I discussed briefly in my previous post on this site.

In the video, Horwich defends his view, based on his reading of Wittgenstein, that much of what goes on under the name of (analytic) philosophy is "irrational". (Williamson calls a spade a bloody shovel and interprets him as saying that it is "rubbish".)

Horwich starts talking about 39 minutes into the video, and a brief statement of his position starts at about the 42-minute mark. His key contention is that the common philosophical supposition that abductive reasoning from intuitive data can reveal fundamental regularities (more or less as science can be seen to reveal fundamental regularities which underlie empirical data) is simply false.

He summarizes the basic argument he makes for his position in five points. Here is my summary of his summary:

1) Our concepts (I assume he means linguistically-based concepts) tend to be messy. They evolved to deal with a wide range of real-world contingencies and are used in a bewildering variety of ways. The intuitive data upon which philosophical reasoning is based is inextricably bound up with such concepts. In fact, many of the key concepts with which philosophers have traditionally been concerned are particularly prone to conflicting understandings and interpretations.

2) Via conjectured theoretical entities, models, etc., the various sciences have developed effective ways of dealing with messy empirical data to arrive at (often) elegant and relatively simple theories which reveal fundamental regularities.

3) The currently dominant strand of analytic philosophy also seeks elegance and simplicity, but any simplicity obtained is generally obtained "on the cheap" by finding a simple regularity that fits most of the (intuitive) data, and counting intuitions or interpretations which do not fit the theory as mistaken or incorrect.

4) This is a distortion of the scientific method.

5) Not all philosophers make this mistake, but a beautifully simple theory will rarely be obtainable. Almost inevitably there will be a profusion of alternative theories and no prospect of convergence. Competing theories of ethics are an obvious example.


My response...

Horwich is basically correct about the problems of philosophy as a theoretical discipline. And I believe his views on this more or less accurately reflect Wittgenstein's views.

But there are a couple of aspects of Horwich's thinking with which I am uncomfortable. Interestingly, these features are also the very features of Wittgenstein's thinking that I reject.

First, the 'scientism' issue. (Horwich uses the word.) Now, it seems to me that the term can used in at least two ways, one quite focussed, the other broader and stronger.

In the narrower sense, the term is used to highlight the inappropriate application of scientific methods or approaches. Horwich, for example, sees philosophy as inappropriately imitating science. I agree with him. This sort of thing happens and it would be better if it didn't. Philosophy (however we understand it) is not science. (Similarly, social science is not physics.)

But 'scientism' also has a broader meaning. On this view, a scientistic outlook involves having a high regard for science coupled with skepticism about other ways of gaining (anything other than commonsense and practical) knowledge.

This broader sense of 'scientism' (which I would embrace) marks a divide between profoundly different views of the world; and, because there is no agreement on basic assumptions across the divide, there is no way of satisfactorily dealing with such differences via philosophical or ordinary reasoning and argument. One set of assumptions or presuppositions will lead to certain philosophical opinions and lines of argument; another set will lead elsewhere.

Closely related to this scientism issue is the question of naturalism. Horwich rejects naturalism, which he sees as the view that every property, object and fact is naturalistic.

Mathematics is often said to involve objects, etc. which exist but do not exist in time and space. If so, then naturalism (as Horwich defines it) is incorrect. This leaves the door open for the similarly real existence of moral properties, for instance.

I haven't looked yet at Horwich's views on ethics. But I am aware of Wittgenstein's (religion-based?) views on these matters.


I am not going to try to deal here with Timothy Williamson's point of view. To do so would mean addressing topics like the dreaded Barcan formula (which was mentioned by Horwich in the video, by the way). The Barcan formula is an axiom (or schema) of quantified modal logic first stated by Ruth Barcan (who became Ruth Barcan Marcus) the acceptance of which apparently enhances and simplifies the workings of formal systems of quantified modal logic. Williamson defends the Barcan formula as being in some sense 'true', and, despite the fact that there is no general agreement on its informal interpretation, seeks to draw metaphysical conclusions from it – something along the lines that everything exists, but some things as actual objects and some as possible objects. This sort of thinking strikes me as being more in line with medieval scholasticism than with modern scientific thinking (and indeed in his writings Williamson refers to Avicenna, claiming that he informally anticipated both the Barcan formula and its converse).

There have been big advances in formal logic over the last century or so, and it would not be surprising if such advances allowed us to see certain general ideas in logic and traditional metaphysics in a new light, validating some old approaches as insightful or prescient and undermining others. But what Williamson is doing strikes me as going well beyond such modest, historical commentary. Though he equivocates about naturalism in this discussion with Horwich, backing away from Horwich's claim that he, like Horwich, is opposed to a naturalistic view of the world, he does seem, in effect, to be rejecting a modern, scientific outlook and attempting to resurrect something like traditional metaphysics.

I am not saying his motivations are religious: they may be entirely intellectual. The realm of formal logic, like the realm of mathematics, has its attractions: it can appear very appealing, especially when contrasted with the messiness and general unsatisfactoriness of mundane reality.

Horwich accepts the messiness, however, and here I am very much on his side.

Anti-naturalism in philosophy (I)

[Revised version]

To each his own. It is not for me to adjudicate on other people's activities – so long as they are not harmful or wasteful of public resources.

In these respects, academic philosophy occupies a grey area. It is dependent on public funds, though its requirements are relatively modest compared to some other disciplines. And it can be used (and often is) as a vehicle for promoting certain metaphysical, religious or ideological views, activities which will generally be seen as good by those who share the perspectives in question but harmful by others.

I have been following up recently on certain philosophical thinkers and trying to assess whether or not my initial judgements about the worthwhileness of their work were justified. (Of course, it's not just individual thinkers I am concerned with but also with the discipline.)

There are two issues here which need to be distinguished: worthwhileness (which relates to the wastefulness question raised in the first paragraph), and the issue of using the platform provided by a teaching position in academic philosophy to promote an ideologically-motivated agenda. The latter, I believe, is inappropriate and unprofessional and betrays the trust which society places in its publicly-funded or subsidized teachers. I will ignore here the most common (and objectionable) kind of bias – involving the promotion of partisan political views – and focus on the more subtle question of general metaphysical and religious attitudes.

I have to say that philosophy as it has generally been practised over recent decades does not look attractive to me: the general philosophical culture has been just too hostile to what is seen as 'scientism', and I have felt that the few who shared my views and who participated in the philosophical culture were only serving to give it unwarranted credibility (as token figures, perhaps).

Moreover, I can't imagine that Patricia Churchland's career path, for example, or even that of Daniel Dennett would be possible today. They learned their science along the way, more or less informally. Things are changing, especially with the advent of younger thinkers (such as the neo-empiricist Jesse Prinz or Edouard Machery) who are breaking down the barriers – and blurring the distinction – between philosophy and science.

But amongst those still committed to their discipline as independent and autonomous I am coming across more and more philosophers with a religious agenda. Even many apparently atheistic philosophers seem to be critical of naturalism. I just can't make sense of this except as a quasi-religious or (in some sense) ideological position. It may be that such a position is a necessary (but not a sufficient) condition for seeing philosophy as an autonomous and coherent academic discipline.

Note that both figures in the video debate embedded below share an anti-naturalistic outlook (though Timothy Williamson equivocates somewhat on this question). Note also the dramatic way Williamson sets up the debate – claiming that what Paul Horwich is saying, in effect, is that philosophy as normally practised is essentially just rubbish. Most academic philosophers spend their time addressing pseudo-problems while others spend their time pointing this out. On this reckoning, we should just pull the plug on the whole enterprise.

Williamson is an apparently skeptical but metaphysically-inclined logician. I respect his formal logical expertise but not his judgement in applying formal logical methods to theoretical and metaphysical questions. This general tradition of thinking, which owes not a little to Saul Kripke's work, has always struck me (I may be wrong) as profoundly misguided when it moves in a metaphysical direction, though it does have useful applications in semantics and other areas. I suspect that much of it – to the extent that it is not just game-playing – is ultimately motivated by a desire to undermine a naturalistic (or to develop a non-naturalistic) view of the world. Kripke, for example, has strong religious beliefs, and the orientation of his theoretical work is arguably related to these. It is no secret that many of today's logicians and philosophers (religiously inclined or not) are antagonistic to science.

The philosophy of language (so-called) seems to be more firmly rooted in 19th-century metaphysics than in modern linguistics. Furthermore, Wittgenstein's and other philosophers' compelling insights into what natural language is, how it works and how it can lead us astray seem to have been ignored or forgotten (except by the likes of Horwich, definitely in a minority these days).

Formal languages and approaches are valuable for their practical applications and for what they can teach us both about the nature of natural language and about thinking. But, like ordinary-language-based approaches, they can be deployed in very unproductive ways.


I will look more closely at what Williamson and Horwich are saying in my next post.

On semi-hidden agendas and the misuse of Gödel's theorems

An old friend of mine, a philosophy PhD with a background in literature and theology, told me that it was the work of Kurt Gödel which had drawn her to philosophy. She, like many others (including myself at one stage), saw his famous theorems as vindicating a non-reductionist and perhaps even religious view of the world.

I don't think this view is correct. A mythic narrative has been built up around Gödel's work which needs to be treated with great skepticism. Certainly his work could be seen to have decisively undermined one aspect of the so-called Hilbert program, but what reason was there to think it likely that a formalized version of arithmetic could be complete or have the necessary resources to prove itself consistent in the first place? And why does this matter so much anyway (except perhaps to mathematicians who might have been seeking a certain kind of certainty or security or self-containedness for (fundamental parts of) their discipline)?

I concede that there are many deep and interesting questions which work by Gödel and others (Turing, Church, Post, et al.) opens up in metamathematics, computer science and other areas. But I question its relevance (or at least its direct applicability) to general human questions.

I say these things to give a sense of my general stance and it is not my intention here to elaborate or defend a comprehensive point of view. Rather, I just want to sketch out my reaction to some posts at Scientia Salon by Marko Vojinovic whose PhD is in theoretical physics but whose interests appear to be largely philosophical. In January a two-part essay of his appeared which uses Gödel's work in what I see as an inappropriate way. [Part I here and Part II here].

Initially I was going to write a more harshly anti-Vojinovic piece but, rereading the pieces and some comments and responses I have tempered my original views somewhat. On a personal level, I think I would like Vojinovic. He writes well and engages readily with his critics, often in a disarming way. He is clearly intelligent and knowledgeable and interested in interesting things.

Nonetheless it remains crystal clear that he has a (not particularly hidden) agenda. In fact his contributions to SciSal (including comments on posts by others) could be seen to provide (further) evidence in support of points I have made in the past about (sometimes hidden) ideological or religious agendas lying behind much philosophical discourse.

The basic pattern is a common one. One has a fundamental view of how things are which one has arrived at for unknown, obscure or unknowable reasons, and one deploys one's intellect and knowledge of science, maths, logic, etc. (i.e. one's expertise) to make a case for or defend the plausibility of one's intuitively held views.

On one level, this sounds fine. And it is fine. Conjectures and refutations. Popper et al.. We can't escape it. Much of science and philosophy and ordinary argument is like this, and that's okay.

But there's a continuum involved (or a multitude of personal continua). My point is that if religion and maybe some other kinds of ideological commitment are too strongly involved the whole process becomes problematic.

Certain aspects of my own personal history give me an insight into these issues. I used to be religious and, just like Duhem (a classic case if ever there was one), I felt that I had an epistemic head start on others because I knew that the true theories of science etc. had to be compatible with my beliefs and, plainly, many popular theories and interpretations were not. Moreover, I was strongly motivated to argue my case (for obvious reasons). I even saw a career in academia (in philosophy, for example) as a possible way of promoting these ideas (and doing good, because the ideas were good and true).

When you are getting too close to the apologetics end of the continuum, expertise is deployed merely to serve the argument. And, as every high-school debater knows, any intelligent person can make a plausible-seeming case for any half-plausible proposition. In the light of these facts and, given the overwhelming amount of stuff out there which might call for our attention, lines just have to be drawn.

It's a personal thing, where one draws the line. I would exclude Pierre Duhem but include Popper (say) – despite the latter's belief in an essential truth underlying religion and his commitment to (something very like) Cartesian dualism – in my personal list of thinkers worth reading for not purely historical reasons.

So where does Marko Vojinovic's work lie on this continuum which runs from careful, exploratory argument to polemics and apologetics? His writing (at least at Scientia Salon) tends to the latter end of the spectrum, I would say. The essays are certainly tendentious.

In a September article at SciSal, he argued against determinism but his argument relied on so many contested assumptions that, even if his reasoning was valid, the soundness of the argument was far from assured. Vojinovic also claimed somewhat surprisingly – and very revealingly – that his conclusions "open[ed] the door for the compatibility between the laws of physics on one side, and a whole plethora of concepts like free will, strong emergence, qualia, even religion – on the other. But these are all topics for some other articles..."

Then, early in January, the two-part essay on reductionism and emergence appeared, with even more extravagant claims in the final paragraph, claims which one sympathetic commenter interpreted as "a tactical error".

Here is the final paragraph in its entirety:

"Giving up the idea of reductionism essentially amounts to accepting strong emergence as a fundamental property of Nature — a physical system might display behavior that is more than the behavior of the sum of its parts. Proponents of reductionism might find this at odds with their favorite ideology (physicalism, naturalism, atheism, etc.), but there are actual examples of strong emergence in Nature, the arrow of time being the most prominent one. It would be interesting to see how many people would actually agree to change their minds when faced with this kind of approach, as giving up reductionism generally weakens the arguments that a physicalist may have against dualism, a naturalist against the supernatural, an atheist against religion, etc. Philosophy teaches one to keep an open mind, while science teaches one to appreciate the seriousness of experimental evidence. When these two combine to demonstrate that certain parts of a physicalist/naturalist/atheist belief system are just unfounded prejudices, even downright wrong, it would be interesting to see how many people will actually give them up. After all, these are precisely the people who boast about both open-mindedness and the scientific method, and invoke them to criticize dualists/supernaturalists/theists. Now they are challenged with giving up one of their cherished beliefs, and I would like to see how truly open-minded and scientific they can be in such a situation."

Overall it seems clear that Vojinovic's philosophico-religious preoccupations have led him to deploy some very idiosyncratic definitions of key words and to make false (or at least very misleading) claims, claims which he has sometimes backed away from when challenged in the comments section – like the claim that his concerns were ontological rather than merely epistemic. (How can Gödel's work be used to make ontological claims if it is all about what we can know and what we can prove within the context of a formal system?)

I agree with those who call into question Vojinovic's use of Gödel's work (and in general the appropriateness of applying Gödel's ideas to scientific theories) and who talk about the red herrings, etc. which the author's use of Gödel has generated.* Gödel's results are specifically about what we can know and prove within certain strictly formal contexts, i.e. it's not about normal scientific thinking. You can axiomatise certain theories, sure, but such formal structures are entirely provisional from a scientific point of view and subservient in the end to empirical considerations.

In his enthusiasm to make his case, Vojinovic even appears to misrepresent Gödel's basic claims. He writes in a comment: "The moral of the [sic] Gödel’s theorem is that there is a difference between truth and provability, in a given axiomatic system. … Gödel’s theorem establishes the existence of statements that are (a) unprovable within a given axiomatic system, and (b) also “true” in that axiomatic system, given any notion of truth the axiomatic system may be compatible with."

"No," replies one commenter, "there is only one notion of truth in an axiomatic system. That is, provability from the axioms. Yes, there are unprovable statements in ZF [Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory (in effect, first-order logic enhanced to encompass arithmetic: Gödel's original paper referred to Russell and Whitehead's system)]. Such a statement will be either undecidable or provably false. An undecidable statement is true in some models of ZF, and false in others. Gödel proved the existence of undecidable statements in ZF, assuming consistency of ZF. Those statements have a metaphysical interpretation in which they are true, but they are certainly not true in ZF, as Gödel proved that there are models of ZF in which they are false."

Conclusion: "Almost everything Marko says about Gödel is wrong."

Hyperbole perhaps. But the main point is that Vojinovic overreaches by trying to apply Gödel's findings to a hypothetical axiomatised 'final theory'. Science is never about certainty in the way logic or pure mathematics is about certainty – and doesn't aspire to this kind of certainly. This simple fact, I think, undercuts Vojinovic's whole argument.

Sure, the validity of arguments on scientific questions matters, but the primary focus is not on validity (as it is in logic, etc.) but on soundness. The axioms, in other words, must all be 'true' – and this is something we can never affirm with absolute confidence. They are always going to be provisional and revisable (in the face of new evidence); and the formal system or theoretical context in which they are embedded is likewise always going to be provisional, even if it functions successfully as – and so is thought to represent – a 'final theory'.



* "... Marko wants to prove that Weinberg’s reductionism is wrong. There are several problems. If Goldbach’s conjecture turns out to be undecidable, then why would that have any physical implications? And if it did, then some physical experiment ought to decide it, thereby eliminating the issue as any impediment to reductionism. So there is no actual connection between Gödel and reductionism, except to confuse readers with red herrings." [From Part II comment thread.]

Dial M for Metaphysics

I had to laugh when I saw this advertisement for a kind of New Age one stop shop. You can certainly imagine people paying these folks to get hypnotic help to give up smoking or lose weight, or access other services like counselling or massage or even astrological guidance. But I just couldn't figure out why anyone would want to consult a metaphysician.

Of course, what these people mean by 'metaphysics' is very different from what academic philosophers mean by it. The term has long been appropriated by New Age types. What you might find in the metaphysics section of a bookshop, for example, would bear no relation to what academic philosophers mean by the term.

In fact, the very word 'philosophy' is becoming problematic. People have all sorts of notions of what philosophy might be, but few of them mesh with how academic philosophers see their discipline. And even academic views of philosophy tend to diverge alarmingly between different schools of thought and traditions and even between individuals.

I recently tweeted [@englmark] the above photo with a comment to the effect that the appropriation of such words by others may indicate that academic philosophy is losing the battle for the very terms which have traditionally defined it. This prompted the philosopher Massimo Pigliucci to come in and suggest that science and the sciences face similar problems. He cited so-called 'creation science' and the use (or misuse) by mystics of quantum physics.

But neither example is a complete appropriation and both merely represent attempts to use the prestige and respectability of science to promote religiously-driven points of view.

Unlike Massimo, I think that confusion over terms like 'metaphysics' and 'philosophy' may be indicative of more general problems facing the discipline, and that academic philosophy has suffered a significant loss of status in recent decades – especially in scientific and secular circles. (An essay of mine published earlier this month at Scientia Salon dealt with some of these issues.)

Philistines and epigones

In my previous post I referred to Colin McGinn's suggestion in an essay published last year by the New York Times that academic philosophers should be designated as 'onticists' and their discipline as 'ontics' or 'ontic science', linking this strange episode to my concerns about the status, viability and worthwhileness of philosophy.

Masochist that I am, I have reread both McGinn's original piece and his reply to his critics, and I'd like to make a few comments on my understanding of his point of view.

Essentially, McGinn helps me make my case that philosophy – however it is designated – is no longer a viable discipline.

The first point to make is that his view of philosophy (and its continuing relevance and value) derives from underlying assumptions, some of which are not made explicit.

I will leave aside his ideological (ethical and political) commitments, though they are arguably relevant (at least indirectly) to his view of philosophy. I may do a piece at Conservative Tendency some time on these matters. For now, I will just mention that, influenced by Peter Singer, McGinn appears to have radical views about vegetarianism and animal rights.

Although he is an atheist, McGinn is well-known for defending a mysterian position; that is, he believes that traditional philosophical problems like consciousness and free will are real problems which no scientific developments will solve. They are, and will remain, specifically philosophical problems (and probably unsolvable due to the limitations of our brains).

In the original piece, he describes philosophy (or ontics) as having as its primary concern "the general nature of being". He quotes a dictionary definition of philosophy as "the study of the fundamental nature of reality, knowledge and existence".

He continues, saying that we can simplify [hah!] this definition "by observing that all three cited areas are types of being: objective reality obviously is, but so is knowledge, and so also are meaning, consciousness, value and proof, for example. These are simply things that are."

"So," he concludes, "we study the fundamental nature of what is – being."

My response is to question the coherence and worthwhileness of this project. While reflective and speculative thinking which is tied closely to a specific discipline, and which grows naturally out of research findings in that discipline, is truly important and often vital for future epistemic progress, the vague and general and medieval-sounding notions put forward by McGinn are confused, unconvincing, hollow and self-serving.

I note also that, as part of his rhetorical pitch, McGinn is assuming the high cultural ground in accusing scientists who lack an interest in these matters of philistinism.

Which is rather ironical when you consider some of his name-change ruminations, which sound philistine or worse to me. 'Ontics' is his preferred choice, but McGinn also mentions some possible alternatives, including (can you believe it?) 'beology', 'beological science' and 'beotics' (all presumably based on the verb 'to be'). I find it hard to believe that a cultured, intelligent and highly educated man could even have half-suggested anything so utterly stupid and childish as this. No wonder philosophers are losing respect.

In his second essay on the topic – his reply to his critics – McGinn confirms that he is defending a more or less traditional view of philosophy, with metaphysics at its core. He writes: "My conception of philosophy is broadly Aristotelian: the subject consists of the search for the essences of things by means of a priori methods... The things whose essential nature is sought range from space, time and matter, to necessity, causation and laws, to consciousness, free will and perception, to truth, goodness and beauty."

McGinn may well be an anti-theist, but I perceive here an anti-scientific perspective also, and perhaps even, in some sense, a religious one. It is worth noting in this context that McGinn was influenced by the rationalist philosopher, Thomas Nagel, whose long-standing anti-physicalism seems to be evolving into an anti-scientific if not religious stance. [I may have a closer look at Nagel, and other philosophers who have moved in a similar direction (such as Saul Kripke, who also influenced McGinn), in a future post or posts.]

I have said in the past that I see philosophy as being essentially parasitic on religion – in the sense that it only thrives in an intellectual environment in which religious (or similar) views also thrive, whereas a physicalist outlook (which I would suggest most educated people take for granted these days) has no need – and no place – for philosophy.

I don't want to get involved here in defining exactly what I mean by physicalism, and certainly not in mounting a defense of the position. In fact, my argument here is not that physicalism is true; rather, I am arguing merely that a commitment to physicalism is not conducive to having a high regard for philosophy, whereas having a (in some sense) religious view of the world is.

For the purposes of my argument, physicalism might be understood simply as an updated version of good old-fashioned materialism – which is no longer viable because matter is no longer seen by physicists as the fundamental stuff the universe is made of.

Physicalists look to physics and the other sciences for our best understanding of the universe and ourselves (who constitute, of course, a small but possibly quite important part of that universe).

They reject (or see no reason to accept) religious ideas; likewise any notion of a spiritual realm.

And they generally defend their beliefs by referring to empirical evidence.

Mathematics is the only area, in my opinion, which has plausible claims to constitute an area of non-empirical knowledge.

But McGinn's talk about philosophy's a priori approach takes us far beyond the constrained and disciplined methods of mathematics; back, in fact, to a pre-modern view of the world. Indeed, as we have seen, he even compares his approach to Aristotle's.

Which, in my opinion, does Aristotle – who was a great thinker with naturalistic tendencies, a proto-scientist in fact – a grave injustice.

If Aristotle knew the science that we know, he would not be Aristotle. And if Aristotle were transported to our time, I have no doubt that he would be far more interested in talking to biologists and physicists than to philosophers.

In fact, I can readily imagine him, with his aristocratic background and passion for understanding living creatures, getting on rather well with the almost aristocratic Richard Dawkins.

On the other hand, he would be very likely to give short shrift to the putatively Aristotelian Colin McGinn and his unscientific philosophical friends.

The fading of philosophy

Last year, the well-known and respected philosopher Colin McGinn suggested that we replace the term 'philosophy' with 'ontics' to designate the area that academic philosophers – or 'onticists' – are engaged in. But, in my view, philosophy's problems are deep and long-term, and such talk of rebranding the discipline on the part of a leading practitioner only serves to underscore its parlous state.

My suggestion is not that we replace the term, but that we de-emphasize it, recognizing that it has gradually lost any substantive meaning as the designation for a stand-alone discipline.

When, in the early 20th century, metaphysics in general and philosophical idealism in particular fell out of favor, philosophy itself (of which metaphysics had traditionally been seen as the core) began to suffer a crisis of confidence and a fall in status. This trend was exacerbated as psychology and other social sciences established their scientific credentials, and severed their links with philosophy.

It's no wonder that the very existence of philosophy as an academic discipline began to be called into question, and, in the post-World War 2 period, it was seen by a significant number of its practitioners as being limited to serving a clarificatory function with respect to the sciences. It was seen as a handmaid to science in a similar way that, in the medieval period, it had been seen as a handmaid to theology.

Since the post-War period, things have gotten more complicated. There have been attempts to revive a more traditional and general role for philosophy, but, in my view, these attempts are fundamentally ill-conceived.

I would be happy to explain my case in detail to anyone who might be interested (a small and shrinking section of the population, I suspect), but for now will just say that I don't see whence such a discipline derives its authority.

Science derives its authority from established procedures generally referred to as 'the scientific method' which ensure that, to a large degree at any rate, human bias is filtered out: scientific findings are objective, and so authoritative. Mathematics incorporates similar procedures which allow results to be objectively assessed.

But nothing like this happens in philosophy. And, consequently, there is no convergence of opinion and slow building of a body of genuine knowledge such as occurs in the sciences.

This is not to say that science can play the role that religion played, that scientific knowledge can provide certitude, solace and a sense of purpose. It can't.

Nor can 'philosophy' of course. No discipline can.

There is – and always will be – a place, however, for reflective thinking. My point is simply that it doesn't constitute – and nor is it encompassed by – a single academic field or discipline.

Meta-thinking will always occur within and about the various physical, social, and historical sciences, and other disciplines, such as mathematics and logic. Such thinking can still be usefully described as the philosophy of physics, of biology, of history, of logic or whatever.

But reflective – and value-based – thinking about human life in general is more problematic. We all do it, but it does not – it cannot – be systematized. I have written before about my reservations about philosophical ethics, which I don't see as a viable area of research, or as something that constitutes a distinct and authoritative intellectual discipline.

What about reasoning in general (considered from a normative and pedagogical perspective)? Isn't this an area in which philosophers can claim expertise? Perhaps.

I do see a need to develop and promote logical thinking and skills related to reasoning and argument. But, though this is an area which philosophers are claiming as their own, I don't see it as necessarily being connected to philosophy at all.

In a recent discussion on a comment thread at Rationally Speaking, Paul M. Paolini argued (against me) that in areas beyond the scope of science and mathematics (like normative ethics) we have a stark choice between philosophy on the one hand and dogmatism or chance on the other. I made the point in response that defining philosophy in terms of rationality was inappropriate. Rationality is clearly a broader concept than philosophy, and there are many non-philosophical ways of dealing with general questions of human life and value which are compatible with reason.

In fact, ordinary educated discussion and deliberation may allow more scope for valuable, experience-based intuitive insight than the often stale, flat and superficially complex reasoning style of professional philosophers.

The careful use of language and sophisticated reasoning skills have traditionally been taught, directly and indirectly, in a variety of academic and intellectual contexts and subject areas. No knowledge of philosophy or philosophical logic is required to think and reason and argue well (which is not to say that a knowledge of informal and formal logic may not be useful).

On the question of logic, it is well to bear in mind that the crisp and complex grammars of ordinary human languages encapsulate the fundamental logical principles upon which formal logical systems are built. And ordinary language use is predicated on an understanding of these principles.

Philosophy and philosophers don't have a monopoly on reasoning or the teaching of reasoning, in other words, even if, historically, much cataloguing of logical fallacies and so on was done by philosophers.

Modern approaches will, of course, incorporate (but need not be restricted to) the findings of research in various branches of psychology concerning our brains' inbuilt biases of perception and reasoning.

Regarding the broader, more ambitious questions with which philosophy has traditionally dealt, we need to recognize that many of these questions are unanswerable, either because they are conceptually confused or because they are beyond the scope of current science (and perhaps also beyond our intellectual capacity).

It helps however – at least in my experience – to cultivate a sensitivity to, and a critical interest in, the fundamental media of our understanding: above all, ordinary language and its implicit logic; but also, if possible, mathematics and other formal systems.

The goal, as I see it, is clarity with respect to what we know, coupled with an awareness of the vastness of our ignorance and the need to remain alert to the possibility of new – and unexpected – perspectives.

Science, philosophy, ideology

Previously I have discussed* the implications of studies which indicate that a person's basic political (and religious) orientation is influenced greatly by genetic and early developmental factors. We generally only engage in political or religious debate because we have strong ideological or religious convictions, and those convictions set the general tone and direction of our contributions. Rationality comes in only later - to help us elaborate and defend that general position which feels so true to us (but strangely not to our antagonists).

These facts (as I take them to be) are rather inconvenient. It takes all the fun out of argument if one feels obliged to be skeptical towards one's own deeply felt convictions!

But on the plus side, it allows one (I believe) better to understand what is really going in much ideological, religious and philosophical debate.

In my previous post on this site, I touched on these issues, suggesting that platonists and anti-platonists in the philosophy of mathematics may be caught up in a debate which is superficially rational but ultimately driven by non-rational factors - deep convictions similar to religious or political convictions.

If progress is to be made in any of these areas, I think there has to be an acceptance that we are less rational than we would like to think; and so we need to depend more on scientific methods (which incorporate mechanisms to counter individual biases etc.), and less on convictions (or the elaborate arguments which we have built upon them).

A boring conclusion, I know. Especially for those of us who have strong convictions and a taste for argument and debate about the big questions.

Within the (rather ill-defined) area of philosophy, history certainly seems to indicate that arguments and debates are most fruitful (albeit somewhat constrained) when the dividing line between philosophy and science is blurred or non-existent, and most pointless and futile whenever philosophy is disengaged from science.

I recognize, however, that we are inveterately ideological creatures**, and there will always be a role for those who can identify, articulate and criticize the ideological frameworks we inevitably create and seek to live by.

Could this be what will replace the bits of philosophy which are not swallowed up by the various sciences: the scientifically-informed critique of ideologies?


* For example, here and here.

** There are problems with the term 'ideology', I know. I am using it in a very broad sense to mean something like a system of beliefs involving values and prompting certain forms of action, often in concert with others who share the ideology and sometimes in opposition to those who don't. It may be that I would do better to speak of us being inveterately tribal. 'Ideology' may be just the intellectual's (way of rationalizing) tribalism.

Matthew Hutson and magical thinking

Massimo Pigliucci recently wrote a critique of an article by Matthew Hutson in which Hutson previews his forthcoming book on superstition and magical thinking. Hutson checks in in the comments section to respond to Pigliucci's criticisms, and I am much impressed by what he has to say (and the charming way he says it).

In particular I am interested in his comments about our inability fully to comprehend our mortality.

Here is the paragraph in question:

[Y]ou ... take issue with my claim that "without [magical thinking], the existential angst of realizing we're just impermanent clusters of molecules with no ultimate purpose would overwhelm us." We cannot fully grasp our material, temporary nature. If you try to picture what it will be like to be dead, for example, you're still picturing something that it is like to be. Further, we are intuitively Cartesian dualists. And so we have this sense that our consciousness (or "soul") continues beyond death. Granted, no one can be sure how we would feel if we *could* fully grasp death, but there's plenty of research showing that we have strong defense mechanisms to deny our mortality--by believing we are creating transcendent meaning with our lives, for example. I see the denial of death as a form of magical thinking.

The pugnacious Pigliucci claims, by the way, that he can conceive of his future non-existence perfectly well! But I find Hutson's account both of how the brain works and of how we might reasonably deal with our ingrained irrationality to be more plausible than Pigliucci's.

In contrast to Pigliucci, Hutson sees value in 'magical thinking' on pragmatic grounds. But his pragmatism is not the semi-religious Pragmatism of (for example) William James but rather (it seems) just a recognition that our brains have certain quirks which, though irrational, can help us get through life more successfully, and simply recognizing this reality and going with the flow to some extent is not such a bad thing.

He seems to be quite as non-religious as Pigliucci, but has a more nuanced response to the irrational elements in our nature.

Hutson's general approach may point to a satisfactory way of answering some of the questions I have been addressing lately on this site.

I have been wanting to come to some sort of conclusion about whether there is any value in (the more sophisticated) religious points of view, and about the implications of limited knowledge. My default position is to reject all religious claims but, given the limitations of our scientific knowledge, it seems sensible to acknowledge that mysteries abound.

But can we, I wonder, make any progress at all in coming to terms with this realm of mystery? Are the sorts of approaches that, say, someone like Martin Heidegger made to questions of existence and being (taking inspiration from the pre-Socratics) of any value at all? Or is this sort of thing just self-indulgent, pseudo-religious rambling?

My provisional answer is that Heidegger was struggling with real and important issues – like facing mortality – but he got carried away with his own rhetoric and a belief in the power of his own intuition (his fanciful etymologies are a good example of this).

There are, of course, many styles of 'doing philosophy', but I think it safe to say that most philosophers place too much credence in the power of our unaided minds to see the truth of things.

I'm not sure that we need the likes of Heidegger or Sandel (to whom Pigliucci appeals) or Pigliucci himself. Too often, in my view, philosophers are driven by a hidden religious, semi-religious or political agenda.

In fairness, though, if that (say) religious agenda reflected important aspects of reality, then any philosophizing based upon it would have to be taken seriously.

But, in the absence (as I see it) of any good reason to accept any particular religious or moral-metaphysical doctrine or point of view, one must find knowledge and wisdom where one can.

And, fortunately, there is little doubt that the perspectives put forward by scientifically-grounded writers like Matthew Hutson can be very valuable in helping us resolve problems once deemed exclusively philosophical or religious.

Possible worlds and possible worlds

I have trouble seeing philosophy as an intellectual discipline. The gist of my thinking is that 'philosophy' is a word which has changed its meaning quite dramatically over the centuries as various sciences have split off from it and I'm not sure that it has much meaning left.

If one has a theological view of the world, philosophy's position will not be threatened as it can resume (or continue) its traditional role as a secular complement to theological discourse. But if one denies that there are truths we can intuit or know by non-empirical, non-deductive means, then, arguably, there is no place for a non-scientific intellectual discipline (unless it be seen as an art form or as a kind of game).

Of course, the study of formal deductive systems, logical or mathematical, is non-empirical, but it is continuous with science.

All that is left of philosophy for someone who rejects claims to substantive intuitive knowledge of a religious or moral kind are reflections on the various intellectual disciplines (physical, social and historical sciences, mathematics, logic, etc.). Such meta-thinking is best carried out (I would presume) by the practitioners of the various intellectual disciplines rather than by outsiders (whether or not they are designated as 'philosophers').

I do recognize, however, that much pure and applied work in certain disciplines (logic, mathematics, psychology and linguistics come to mind) draws strongly on philosophical traditions of thought, and raises issues which previously have been addressed by philosophers. An example of such work is the attempt (drawing on theoretical work in logic and mathematics as well as linguistics) to model the processes of natural language.

Computational linguistics clearly has great practical and commercial importance at the moment, but it can also be seen as a project the relative success [or failure!] of which has implications for the way we see human language – and ourselves.

My reading of the current state of play is that the formal approaches which followed in the wake of Chomsky's early attempts to give an explicit analysis of the syntax of ordinary language have not delivered as expected, just as early work in the field of artificial intelligence produced very disappointing results. Both of these research projects underestimated the importance of contextual factors and real world knowledge which is inevitably a part of intelligent human functioning and communication. Formal systems need in some way to be integrated into this real world context, but, even if they are, it is still possible that many important aspects of language and communication will remain out of reach. I am thinking in particular of aspects of language use which depend on social awareness, a sense of the sorts of things that people with autism spectrum disorders have trouble dealing with, including subtleties of tone and style.

There is a huge body of theoretical work in the syntax and semantics of natural language which shows, if nothing else, that there are countless ways of conceptualizing and formalizing (at least aspects of) natural language. In the light of this profusion, the key question – it seems to me – is not which theoretical approaches are true (whatever that might mean) but which are useful.*

We may want to postulate possible worlds and use set theory to model the semantics of natural language, including complex noun phrases and verb tenses and auxiliaries. But sets and 'possible worlds' are only one way (albeit a possibly enlightening one) of representing the way, for example, words like 'must' or 'could' or 'should' work. No claim need be made that such possible worlds exist. They are merely useful fictions.

Physicists, of course, also talk about other possible worlds, parallel universes and so on, but they are making ontological claims. Their concern is primarily with how the world (or the multiverse) is rather than with formal systems, though they use formal systems to model the operations of nature (as linguists may use formal systems to model the operations of natural language).

But the possible worlds of logicians and linguists are – notwithstanding some outlandish claims by certain logicians – merely formal constructs, to be judged entirely by their usefulness. The other worlds of the physicist may well prove in fact to be 'out there' – to exist in the normal sense of the word, though they may be inaccessible to us.

I am aware that the question of what existence consists in is a traditional philosophical one, but is it a serious or potentially productive question? I think not. Most of the confusions can be resolved simply by accepting that we use words like 'exist' in various ways.

The one area which does seem to raise important issues is mathematics. Just as there are possible worlds and possible worlds (the 'worlds' of the logician and the worlds of the physicist), so there are formal systems and formal systems, and, as we move from, say, the first-order predicate calculus to formal systems which can encompass arithmetic we cross a kind of threshold. Mathematics needs to be clearly distinguished from logic. But this is a topic for another time.



* This is not to say that the exercise of trying to create formal representations of natural languages may not reveal interesting things about natural language and provide new, more concise, more explanatory ways of understanding aspects of the grammar of those languages than traditional grammars provided. But, although such rarefied goals are not pointless, nor are they the sorts of goals for which society is likely to provide support. Traditional grammarians were, after all, essentially pedagogues and their grammars were pedagogical aids.

Patricia Churchland

There are a number of contemporary thinkers whose views I especially respect. Patricia Churchland is one of them (and I'll be mentioning others in subsequent posts).

In this interview, Churchland discusses her motivations and her general views on science, philosophy and the human brain. The point of view she is putting forward would be characterized - and condemned - as scientism by many, but it seems to me eminently sensible and not extreme in any way.

I was particularly interested in what she had to say about possible world semantics - namely, that she used to think it interesting, and now sees it as "utterly uninteresting". In other remarks, she dismisses much of the work which defines the core of contemporary (analytic) philosophy as being of little value.

The post I am currently writing (and which I will put up soon) is in part about these issues.