tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20067416.post5101618507851836507..comments2023-12-21T06:35:36.624-05:00Comments on Recursivity: Stanley Fish is a MoronUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger139125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20067416.post-55120641736306822662010-04-14T00:50:19.284-04:002010-04-14T00:50:19.284-04:00Stanley Fish may be a moron, or he might think eve...Stanley Fish may be a moron, or he might think everyone else is!<br />Stanley is that class of literati intellectuals who, on the coat-tails of Boas, Benedict and Mead endorse cultural relativism and with it "truth". The end resault of this thinking, coming as it does from German Philosophical Idealism and Berkleyism is Conceptual Idealism and Incommensurable Paradigms of a shifty kind beloved of American undergrads ignorant of the history of philosophy. It has been said that Americans take old European fallaceous wine and re-bottle it in California.<br />Stuschmoepoohhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07336073174221033319noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20067416.post-81034433547208857092010-04-14T00:40:14.650-04:002010-04-14T00:40:14.650-04:00Re articles by Fish and co., the NYT keeps publish...Re articles by Fish and co., the NYT keeps publishing such low level, irrelevant rubish because there are a heap of people out there in cultural relativism land (see Alan Bloom) who think its great.<br />Stuschmoepoohhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07336073174221033319noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20067416.post-77557691429954106002010-04-13T23:37:49.659-04:002010-04-13T23:37:49.659-04:00Jeffrey Shallit may not be correct. Either Fish is...Jeffrey Shallit may not be correct. Either Fish is a moron or he thinks I am (I and others like me). Stanley Fish belongs to that bunch of literati critics motivated almost entirely by ideology but with a keen sense of which way the wind is blowing and since Boas, Benedict and Mead it has been blowing in the direction of Cultural relativism which leads (they think) to truth relativism and hence to incommensurable paradigms (of a shifty dodgy kind). The essence of reason is an attempt to incorporate the diversity of nature (including human nature) by higher levels of abstraction that can account for diversity. Religion does no such thing. Religion and reason appear equivalent only to those who subscribe to the above Post-xxxx (whatever takes your fancy) that Fish and co love and which is nothing more than argument by foreclosure (Geertz)<br />SchmoepoohAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20067416.post-45299289923605507842010-03-09T20:14:31.374-05:002010-03-09T20:14:31.374-05:00Back to the title of this blog, I cannot agree mor...Back to the title of this blog, I cannot agree more: Stanley Fish is a moron. I also cannot understand why the NYT keeps publishing such low level, irrelevant rubish. Today's (March 9th) Opinionator column is no exception: the moron is asking if we miss Bush. Of course a minority will be crazy enough to miss that other moron, just like one is sure to find a minority that thinks that slugs are delicious.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20067416.post-4047652637802419482010-03-04T06:46:49.251-05:002010-03-04T06:46:49.251-05:00If evolution has programmed us to be cruel and vio...<i>If evolution has programmed us to be cruel and violent, why is it wrong to be cruel and violent?</i><br /><br />As others already pointed out, evolution hasn't <i>just </i> programmed cruelty; it has also programmed an ethical sense and cooperation and the ability to foresee consequences. So it is reasonable to deduce that if one is cruel and violent to others, this increases the probability that one will be treated cruelly and violently in return. <br /><br />What we call "wrong" is part genetic programming, and part societal consensus, based on observation of what works and what doesn't. Not all societies agree on what is "wrong", but there is remarkable agreement among societies on the basics.<br /><br />But we've been over this again and again, so I don't see the point in continuing.Jeffrey Shallithttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12763971505497961430noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20067416.post-4811199429702731902010-03-03T02:25:44.983-05:002010-03-03T02:25:44.983-05:00@Tristam
"If evolution has programmed us to b...@Tristam<br />"If evolution has programmed us to be cruel and violent, why is it wrong to be cruel and violent?"<br /><br />But why say that evolution has programmed us to be cruel and violent in the first place?<br /><br />Some of us are, some of us are not. It's not a given, therefore not part of our "programming". (Which, by the way, is a backwards way of looking at it; "evolution" did not do anything. It is not an entity, just a name for a process. Things happened, as they do in a non-static universe, and things changed over time; when this change produced a variety of living things, we call the process "evolution". There is no goal, no program, no purposing mind.)<br /><br />Still, the result, given that this universe is a violent place, inhospitable to life, is that we had to be aggressive to survive. Some of us use that aggressiveness against our fellow creatures. And we say that it is wrong.<br /><br />Not because there is some rule-maker who made a law against it, but because it makes life more difficult than it already is. And we (most of us) want to survive. That's all it is; what we want to happen, we call "good"; what we don't want, we call "bad".<br /><br />If our wants change, then the states to which we apply those words changes accordingly. Even a cursory reading of history makes that apparent.<br /><br />And, as you say, even from person to person, the words mean different things.<br /><br />"None of these "reasons" is valid for anyone else, unless they happen to share my preferences. History shows that these preferences against torture are far from universal."<br /><br />True. So some would say, in the "right" circumstances, that torture is good and useful. I disagree, simply because my preferences are that my grandkids live in a sane world where they won't be tortured. <br /><br />After all, that too is part of my evolutionary heritage.Susannah Andersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11923063322849781223noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20067416.post-89857695738886136992010-03-02T14:44:39.165-05:002010-03-02T14:44:39.165-05:00Tristram
I do not support torture because I will f...Tristram<br />I do not support torture because I will feel physically uncomfortable. This is not something I want to feel. It may be that your empathy meter is dialed down. If the only reason you do not punch a baby in the face is fear of eternal damnation, then by all means keep up the good work. But not all of us need threat of damnation to prevent us from doing bad, we can imagine, feel, ponder, and choose to do better. It is very simple Tristram, we try not to delude ourselves, and crazy, irrational stories do not provide reasons based on foundations we can trust. I (a person who strives to believe what is true) do not want to punch my baby, torture a human, eat my mother, stone an accused adulterer or kill an apostate; NOT because of fear of eternal damnation (like you), but rather, because these ideas bring bile to my mouth, swarms in my stomach, and stress molecules raging through my body.Nilounoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20067416.post-80449538494916791992010-03-01T22:49:13.760-05:002010-03-01T22:49:13.760-05:00@Wanderin' Weeta and @Nilou:
All "reasons...@Wanderin' Weeta and @Nilou:<br />All "reasons" given so far amount to "I want":<br />I want not to be tortured.<br />I want my grandchildren not to be tortured.<br />I want not to imagine torture.<br /><br />But only I can say what I want and what risks I am willing to take. None of these "reasons" is valid for anyone else, unless they happen to share my preferences. History shows that these preferences against torture are far from universal.<br /><br />So I will ask again, with different words:<br />If evolution has programmed us to be cruel and violent, why is it wrong to be cruel and violent?Tristram Shandynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20067416.post-51602280076981296832010-03-01T18:30:38.397-05:002010-03-01T18:30:38.397-05:00"So what would be a "secular reason"..."So what would be a "secular reason" to call torture wrong?"<br /><br />I feel another's pain, it pains me to imagine torture. Physical discomfort good enough?Nilounoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20067416.post-5002245478466688342010-03-01T17:47:40.779-05:002010-03-01T17:47:40.779-05:00Anonymous (way up at the top):
"How do you ge...Anonymous (way up at the top):<br />"How do you get to the value judgment that torture is wrong?"<br /><br />Amplifying from Jeffrey: "Self-interest. I don't want to be tortured, so it is in my best interest to support a universal ban on torture."<br /><br />Biology. I don't want my grandchildren to be tortured, so it is in my and their best interest to support a universal ban on torture.Susannah Andersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11923063322849781223noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20067416.post-86658927020460611102010-03-01T13:13:48.283-05:002010-03-01T13:13:48.283-05:00@Jeffrey Shallit:
I agree with everything in your ...@Jeffrey Shallit:<br />I agree with everything in your last comment, apart from the bit about deducing the basis of ethical principles. If by "basis" you mean "evolutionary origin," then I do agree that we may be able to deduce their basis. In normal usage, however, "basis" has something to do with "evidence." <br /><br />Evidence that evolution programmed us to believe certain things is not the same thing as evidence that those things are real. This applies to gods and ethical principles. As far as I can tell, we still differ on this point.Tristram Shandynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20067416.post-83484748295063857272010-03-01T12:07:57.663-05:002010-03-01T12:07:57.663-05:00Tristram:
Well, maybe we're not as far apart ...Tristram:<br /><br />Well, maybe we're not as far apart as you seem to think we are. I agree that ethical principles have no independent existence outside our brains. Where we differ seems to be that I think the fact that some principles seem "hard-wired" is significant, and allows us to reason about them and perhaps even deduce their basis, and you don't find it significant. Am I wrong?Jeffrey Shallithttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12763971505497961430noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20067416.post-11579137118070993882010-02-27T17:00:24.067-05:002010-02-27T17:00:24.067-05:00@larryniven:
"is there any way at all for it ...@larryniven:<br /><i>"is there any way at all for it to be good for a society to have the highest (nonzero) number of starving people of any society?"</i><br /><br />You didn't ask me, but I'll answer anyway.<br /><br />The answer is a provisional yes, assuming the meaning of "X is good" to be something like "I like X" or "hooray for X!"<br /><br />If I were a member of Greek society engaged in war with the Trojans, it would be a very good situation if every member of Trojan society were starving.Tristram Shandynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20067416.post-78046028653865322712010-02-27T16:31:30.479-05:002010-02-27T16:31:30.479-05:00RichardW, I'm not sure you understand the word...RichardW, I'm not sure you understand the words you're using. A definition is nothing other than a set of criteria: something is defined to be Thing Type X if it meets criteria 1-n. But anyway...<br /><br />"Of course, some criteria are of more interest to people than are others. People use the criteria that most suit their concerns."<br /><br />Okay - so can you identify a criterion by which I'm a better basketball player than Steve Nash, now that this is your concern? I know you don't know me personally - just take some guesses, I'm patient.<br /><br />"I don't suppose anyone is going to choose 'has most starving people' as their criterion for a good society. All I'm saying is that there is no fact of the matter about which society is better, without a criterion for what constitutes a good society."<br /><br />Um, duh? But you haven't established that there are no criteria for evaluating societies: you've established that <i>people disagree</i> about which criteria to use, which is irrelevant. People disagree about <i>everything</i>, and yet in the midst of that we can still identify truths and falsehoods.<br /><br />"Basketball has a specific objective: winning games. So when we talk about a good basketball player there is an implicit criterion: we are judging by ability to win games. There is no equivalent criterion for societies."<br /><br />Well, now we're getting somewhere. You seem to be a bit confused, though, about <i>the</i> objective of basketball: there is no such thing. For most players, the objective is ostensibly to win - although when I play I try to have fun as well, others might want to show off, some people play just to exercise, and so on. Presumably even some professional players are just in it for the money or to get in record books. So why, again, should I take your word about <i>the</i> purpose of playing basketball? And why do you not even consider those other purposes when evaluating a basketball player?<br /><br />At any rate, I see you've taken a sort of Aristotelian approach to this, what with the whole teleology thing. It's odd, though, that you should focus so strongly on the positive - on having a teleology in hand in order to identify values. I mean, you've already identified a potential disvalue: having the most starving people of any society. (This isn't a particularly well-formed disvalue for a few reasons, but I'm willing to run with it as long as you are.) Even if you don't know <i>anything else</i> about what makes a society good or bad or what societies "are for," just knowing that one disvalue enables you to make accurate evaluations of societies. (Not very <i>informative</i> evaluations, but accurate ones nonetheless.) So maybe this is the question for you to answer: is there any way at all for it to be good for a society to have the highest (nonzero) number of starving people of any society?Elihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03543293341085230171noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20067416.post-38623465606647639772010-02-27T13:54:10.425-05:002010-02-27T13:54:10.425-05:00@Jeffrey Shallit:
This is in contrast with particu...@Jeffrey Shallit:<br /><i>This is in contrast with particular experiences, real or imagined.</i><br /><br />Again, I guess I was not very clear. When I put gods and miracles in my list of imaginative things, I did not mean conceptions of particular gods or miracles. I meant them in the same way that you seem to mean by our "ethical sense." The tendency to believe in gods and miracles, just like the tendency to believe in right and wrong, basically comes down to encoded brain structures. If it were shown that evolution endowed us with a predisposition toward religion, that would not make religion true. Similarly, ethics, good and evil, right and wrong, do not become true just because evolution programmed us to believe and act as if they are true.<br /><br />Belief in the reality of concepts for which there is no evidence is not a bad way to describe religion.Tristram Shandynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20067416.post-66242237241925832252010-02-27T13:34:27.364-05:002010-02-27T13:34:27.364-05:00@Jeffrey Shallit:
You are interpreting my statemen...@Jeffrey Shallit:<br />You are interpreting my statement (there is evidence that axioms describe the real world) in a way that I did not intend. I could have been clearer by stating there is real-world evidence to accept <i>some</i> axioms. I did not mean it to be a statement about all mathematical axioms. For those which have no real-world evidence, there is no basis for accepting or rejecting them.<br /><br />You wrote:<br /><i>"we can't do mathematics without axioms. Are the Peano postulates religious?"</i><br /><br />I guess it depends on what you believe about the Peano postulates. If you are convinced of their truth value, despite a lack of physical evidence, then yes, they constitute religious beliefs for you. If, on the other hand, you simply use the postulates to make mathematical deductions while you remain indifferent to whether they are actually true or false, then no, they are not religious.Tristram Shandynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20067416.post-54644096472012722832010-02-27T12:44:40.775-05:002010-02-27T12:44:40.775-05:00The claim is that ethical principals [sic] are lik...<i>The claim is that ethical principals [sic] are like mathematical axioms.</i><br /><br />No, that's a different claim. I was addressing <i>your claim</i> about how mathematical axioms describe the real world. I guess you have abandoned it, although from the large amount of text devoted to an entirely different topic I can't tell for sure.Jeffrey Shallithttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12763971505497961430noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20067416.post-63542337826269576782010-02-27T12:40:22.049-05:002010-02-27T12:40:22.049-05:00A great many things can "exist" as encod...<i>A great many things can "exist" as encoded brain structures, what I called "imagination" (miracles, gods, stars, clouds, etc.).</i><br /><br />I think you didn't understand my point. Suppose I tell you a description of a miracle; say I say to you that I was drinking a glass of water and it turned to wine. Now, by telling you this, your neurons fire in a certain way so that you have a picture of the "miracle". <br /><br />But this is very different from our ethical sense, which seems to exist regardless of what people describe to you. In other words, evolution has hard-coded some ethical hardware. This is in contrast with particular experiences, real or imagined.Jeffrey Shallithttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12763971505497961430noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20067416.post-46236986150039937182010-02-27T12:26:52.851-05:002010-02-27T12:26:52.851-05:00@Jeffrey Shallit:
I think you're a bit too dis...@Jeffrey Shallit:<br /><i>I think you're a bit too dismissive here. Have you read The Moral Animal? I think ethical principles do have a sort-of-existence in the physical world; namely, as encoded in the structure of our brains.</i><br /><br />A great many things can "exist" as encoded brain structures, what I called "imagination" (miracles, gods, stars, clouds, etc.). When someone conflates imaginative existence with reality <i>without any evidence that his ideas correspond to the natural world</i>, is it not reasonable to call that belief <i>supernatural</i>?<br /><br />I have not read The Moral Animal. Nearly all popular accounts of evolutionary psychology I have read are <i>very</i> confused about the fact/value distinction. What about this one?Tristram Shandynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20067416.post-5661011897097255732010-02-27T12:05:48.181-05:002010-02-27T12:05:48.181-05:00@Jeffrey Shallit:
I think it is really stretching ...@Jeffrey Shallit:<br /><i>I think it is really stretching things to say, as you have claimed, that "there is plenty of observable evidence that [mathematical axioms] describe the real world" when applied to the Axiom of Choice.</i><br /><br />The claim is that ethical principals are like mathematical axioms. This, I think, is far more problematical than the chess/investing analogy. Axioms are absolute givens for any system of logic. They are not debatable within the system itself. Choose different axioms and you get completely different outcomes. Do you really think that "do not harm others" is a statement that has that kind of immutable character?<br /><br /><i>For one thing, it applies to collections of arbitrary cardinality, which is something we don't experience in the real world.</i><br /><br />If there are no real-world consequences to your choice of axioms, then it does not matter how you choose. If you have a conviction that "The Axiom of Choice is True" without any real-world evidence, that sounds an awful lot like religious belief to me. Merely assuming it is true for the purposes of deduction is not religious. If we assume the AC is true or false, we can develop different mathematical constructs. I'm guessing that much the same can be said for axioms of Euclidean geometry. Choosing different axioms may result in more or less useful mathematical constructs as applied to the physical world.<br /><br />The relationship between math and the physical world is a subtle topic. In my opinion, it is a <i>very</i> inadequate analogy for ethical reasoning as applied to personal or societal decisions.Tristram Shandynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20067416.post-36617310809867437282010-02-27T11:19:09.245-05:002010-02-27T11:19:09.245-05:00@Jeffrey Shallit:
Okay, so ethical rules are not l...@Jeffrey Shallit:<br />Okay, so ethical rules are not like chess strategies, because that analogy stopped working for you. They are more like patterns of brain activity, or mathematical axioms, or ...?<br /><br />Before I give up completely on what I thought was a promising area of agreement, let me make one more attempt at explaining why chess strategy and the stock market are, in fact, quite good analogies for ethical decision making. In all three cases (chess, investing, ethics) the individual has a definable goal. In the first two cases the goals are pre-determined: checkmate, and more money. In rational ethics the goal can still be described simply: doing or getting what one wants. What is it about this objective that completely invalidates the whole analogy? I am certainly not claiming that the analogy is perfect. No analogy is perfect. But they are useful tools for discussion.Tristram Shandynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20067416.post-67035541332697697562010-02-27T11:16:17.355-05:002010-02-27T11:16:17.355-05:00Calvinball?
Oh, you mean TEGWAR the exciting game...Calvinball?<br /><br />Oh, you mean TEGWAR the exciting game without any rules (de Niro fans take note)paul01https://www.blogger.com/profile/06306440944379183875noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20067416.post-60349082860007773632010-02-27T11:10:17.178-05:002010-02-27T11:10:17.178-05:00With respect to what people mean when they say &qu...<i>With respect to what people mean when they say "Beethoven was a good composer", I don't think you can always deduce the meaning of an utterance by looking up the definitions of individual words. For example, try looking up the definitions of "break", "a", and "leg" to understand the utterance "Break a leg!"</i><br /><br />Of course, but "good composer" is not a figure of speech, as "break a leg" is. Please pay attention to what I wrote about the difference between the meaning of "good" and criteria for goodness. I think you will find it helpful to read at least the beginning of the article I linked to.<br /><br /><i>If I can manage it, I'll put up a poll to ask people what they think it means.</i><br /><br />What you are likely to get is different views on what criteria to employ, not on the meaning. Unless you are careful to distinguish the two your poll won't achieve anything.Richard Weinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18095903892283146064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20067416.post-83248924427639721992010-02-27T10:02:00.557-05:002010-02-27T10:02:00.557-05:00Do you agree?
No, I don't agree that it is a ...<i>Do you agree?</i><br /><br />No, I don't agree that it is a good analogy. As you say, in your version "I, and no one else, can say what winning is for me." But that's not the case for chess, where winning is clearly defined. I think you're confusing chess with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_and_Hobbes#Calvinball" rel="nofollow">Calvinball</a>.Jeffrey Shallithttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12763971505497961430noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20067416.post-75552693629845857752010-02-27T09:57:32.310-05:002010-02-27T09:57:32.310-05:00Or is there another reason for Joe to change that ...<i>Or is there another reason for Joe to change that does not reduce to his self-interest?</i><br /><br />Yes, I think there is. But haven't we already established that you don't consider the ones I offer as reasons?Jeffrey Shallithttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12763971505497961430noreply@blogger.com