The wrong and right of Dr Faustus

Very often people want to know what the purpose of something is.

So when Faustus wakes from his scholastic slumber to discover that all his bookish wisdom is but nothing if not able to transform reality he, in that moment, becomes a pragmatist about knowledge. This epiphany has, naturally, dire consequences for him. Why, one wonders. And we wonder thus because maybe we are innately conditioned to think that real value can only be defined as the sort of value an object, action or person has in and for itself; as opposed to when we think of things as valuable in relation to their function. This is when we are corrupting what value essentially is.

However, Faustus, despite his intelligence and education, becomes obsessessed with the thought of using his wisdom for a greater (not as in divine but rather as in more effective) end. This is the first indication of his slide into evil. Just that sentiment in itself.

The fact that he then makes a deal with the devil, unlimited power in exchange for his soul, to put into action his scholastic knowledge is only the second move towards his demise. The third being, naturally, his lust for Helen of Troy, whom he conjures up in response to a sort of 'dare'. He was, after all, just a man. And maybe Marlowe is clever here. Is not Faustus' love for Helen what ingratiates him to us, in the end? Is this not why we cringe to think of him burning for an eternity in hell?

So, when Faustus asks for and then insists that he becomes supremely effective in the base world of ordinary man, he steps out of the virtue of the ivory tower into the moral quagmire of a more visceral reality. Ah, the ancient Greek duality lives on, dear Reader! But Faustus learns to take risks, he falls in love and he destroys himself in the end.

So when, if ever, dear Reader, is power illicit?

A tiny bit of philosophy: Abstractions

Are notions of objective knowledge and truth really any more tenable than relativist and constructivist notions of such things?

A brief critique of Boghossian’s Fear of Knowledge

This paper could be construed, in part, as a critique of Paul Boghossian’s Fear of Knowledge. It will give both accolades where this is due as well as elaborate on certain fundamental disagreements with his primary conclusion.

It seems obvious that the social construction of knowledge about issues such as, for instance, the origins of matter must lead to a priori inconsistent ‘truths’ about an event that can surely not be a matter of opinion. Boghossian, therefore, has my sympathies in his pursuit to expose the deep fallacies of epistemic relativism. And ‘equal validity’ just cannot, as Boghossian wisely argues, effectively resist the accusation of the overt irrationality of holding that many beliefs could be true about, what seems to be accepted by all as, only one event.
However, on account of the difficulties of locating an absolute system of thought by which to judge which relative and specific conceptual network, or system of rules, is the correct one by which to, then, judge which beliefs are actually true, it becomes indeed hard to side step the relativist challenge. And the relativist succeeds, thus, to lock us into a somewhat sceptical quagmire. Or a ‘norm-circularity’, according to Boghossian.
The suggestion with this paper is that Boghossian would have done better to have ended his project with a counter argument which looks more like a sceptical position, rather than proceed to argue in favour of some sort of defence for knowledge based in the real possibility of objectively located knowledge and truth. Since, in doing the latter, he finds himself in an awkward position of having to resort to attacking a straw-man; weak and strong constructivism.
But winning ground here, which, naturally, he does very easily, unfortunately, does not get him to where he claims it does: that it seems to be intuitively true ‘that there is a way things are which is independent of human opinion, and that we are capable of arriving at belief about how things are that is objectively reasonable, binding on anyone capable of appreciating the relevant evidence regardless of their social or cultural perspective’.

A response: Is the internet making us stupid?

Dear Reader

On having been recently exposed, by a very astute and wonderful person, to a beautifully written (I cannot dream to compete) article in The Economist, I have decided to air my views. For your benefit; the article claims that it is a falsely held belief that our levels of intelligence have declined with the rise in internet usage.

Before I deliver my critique it would please me to give credit where credit is due. The article is, as already mentioned, exceptionally well articulated. Not enough can be said to give gratitude to the author for this feature. Then, N.V. (which is the only reference I can find to the author's name), is also very careful to give the opponents' views proper and generous representation. Great effort is made to illucidate the many points in favour of why the internet is a contributing factor to the decline in intelligence. N.V. also offers the reader the strongest case for the other side of the debate which, naturally, would make his victory all the more respectable and sweeter. The author alludes to the fact that the eloquence of founders of Facebook and Twitter may, very well, fare badly when compared with that of decently educated Victorians and Georgians. N.V. mentiones Carr's recent investigations into the decline of intelliegnce in America. The author boldly exposes how badly American children fare in reading, mathematics and science in OECD rankings in the world- particularly for an English speaking and developed country. I think that N.V. then states that the real reasons for this failure is known and accepted but the 'corrective measures' remain 'politically intractable'. I am, however, unclear as to whether the suggestion is that there are reasons for this decline in intelligence, but that the internet is being scapegoated because the 'real' reasons for, or problems giving rise to this phenomenon, are not solvable or that the phenomenon seems to have been misunderstood and, subsequently, misrepresented altogether. I think the author is making a case for a new type of intelligence: If intelligence is a function of a relationship between adaptability and changing environments, then a new generation's seeming lack of intelligence is merely a manifestation of a new type of thinking, suited to new environmental pressures. And these include the excessive availability of huge quantities of inferior quality information. The suggestion: that most of the older generation are measuring intelligence by outmoded and irrelevant standards. Pure sentimentality.

And it is precisely here where my primary complaint lies. It is not entirely clear to me whether N.V. is acknowledging that there is a decline in intelligence, but that it is not attributable to internet usage, or whether the author is claiming that there is no decline in intelligence at all? If the latter, then it seems fair to suggest that, in the event of there not being a decline in intelligence at all, we need not worry about tracking the causes, do we? However, taking the OECD rankings to be of some significance, let us assume that there are, according to those callibrations, the decline which N.V. either is or is not acknowledging.

Thus, we must, I hope you agree, continue from the premise that there is, indeed, some sort of ailment lurking in the intelligence of American youths, at least. But it is here that the thinking of N.V. does a loop, making it not unlike a little circular argument. The author then focusses attentions on debunking, very eloquently and impressively systematically, all the commonly held reasons for the drop in intelligence, but then does the extraordinary leap to concluding that there, for this reason, is no decline in intelligence.

N.V. needs to decide whether the evidence showing a decline in intelligence is being contested to start with, or whether he or she would like to contest some specific beliefs about the reasons therefore.

However, I am happy to assume that all the debunking is done on solid ground: So, the brain is wired for its potential intelligence before children are even able to use a computer. That Kindles (electronic books) have been extremely well received by society and that this must surely be an indication that people are, in fact, reading. And that people spend much less time on the internet than is suspected. However, if the author is correct, then surely the only conclusion that can be drawn from the evidence faced with (that there is a decline in intelligence and that people are reading more and spending less time on the internet than supected) is that if there were a lack of reading and an increase in internet usage these factors could not be blamed for the drop in intelligence. But what cannot be assumed is that, because the usual reasons given for the drop intelligence do not stand their ground that, therefore, the drop in intelligence does not exist.

Secondly, it is being acknowledged, herewith, that N.V. might be merely claiming that the 'decline in intelligence' is not a real decline but rather a change in type of intelligence. But this, to me, seems like side stepping the issue entirely. The accusors, of whom I consider myself one, are not claiming that the adaptation of society to changing circumstances is problematic. Nor is their chagrin directed at this, if this even be the case. The sort of intelligence which they are lamenting the loss of is the sort which has genuinely and quite evidently declined, and the suggestion is merely that this be a pity as it is a type of intelligence which man can well do with. Yes, it may be 'bookish' and analytical, but this type of intelligence is surely not mutually exclusive with the development of a new type of intelligence directed at current 'survival'.

My thinking is that the availability of expedient and bad quality information definitely has something to do with a general demotivation towards thinking of the kind which is an inch wide and miles deep- analysis. But I must concede this one point to the author: the hard and fast causal relationship attributed to the increase in internet information and a decline in an 'intelligence' is unsubstantiated and, therefore, a little ambitious. However, deeply critical and analytical thinking, in my view, is central to the continuing rationality of man, as well as scientific thinking and technological development we so deeply value as a species. So, the preservation of analytical thinking is not only important as a thing of beauty in its own right, but also as a means to an end.

An Experiment to do with Advertising, dear Reader.

Escher Art. Things being more than the sum of their parts.

Literature.

The Theatre. A world according to Tom Stoppard.

Should one even contemplate dining without Miles Davis?

Lessons of a classical kind. Willful Pandora into her Box.

More books. And maybe a continuous book fare?

Cinema Paradiso. For the admiration of Plot comprised of pictures.

Conversations about Lesson 7: A comment on a comment

Dear Reader

This post I have published in response to a comment to my last post. So, if you take a genuine interest in following the conversation please read that post (Lesson 7) first and then also read the comment by Anonymous. After that it will be reasonably safe to continue herewith.

Anonymous, regarding your very sophisticated desire to draw a distinction between meaning and determinacy, by challenging whether it is true that assertions need to be determinate to be meaningful (in the strict sense of the word, of course) I respond thus: By way of example you have given the possibility of observation influencing, on a sub-atomic level, the length of a piece of string. If I understand correctly, this would then alter the very thing being observed and therefore, in a nearly ironic way, making observation (verification) both the vehicle for meaning and simultaneously the underminer of meaning, because it changes that which is observed.

I would have to agree that in the strictest and most technical sense this sub-atomic change, if such a thing even does happen, may at first seem to pose a conundrum for semantic theory if it is verificationist by nature. However, my suggestion is this: The conundrum is more one for the scientists; who presumably are looking for exact descriptions for the objects and phenomena of the real world. Things changing on a sub-atomic level matters for a scientist, but does it matter for a linguist? Even for a verificationist linguist? When we look at linguistic behaviour, we must concede that most of referencing to the world happens on a supra-atomic level (unless we are intentionally making reference to actual sub-atomic structure and behaviour, of course). This would certainly be the case with an assertion about a piece of string which goes, "This piece of string exists". Such an assertion, I think you will agree, does not make refernce to the identity of a piece of string on a sub-atomic level. So, if there is a piece of string which can provide the truth conditions for the above statement, at the moment of speaking, then that is all that counts for a normal speaker. However, if a scientist says that "This piece of string exists" and on attempting to test such a hypothesis finds that, on every testing, the atoms are diminished, then my heart goes out to her. She is dealing either with an issue of identity (Is it still the same piece of string?) or she is dealing with a new phenomena (Do things change when observed?). But how will she ever know? It's a scientific problem but not a linguistic one. The study of science and language must come apart, you see.

But where semantic theory must stay true to verification is in the way that if an assertion is indeterminate (if there cannot exist knowable truth conditions for it) then it must deem the assertion meaningless- as in contentless. However, we should not get too concerned with the term meaningless either. It is not intended as grimly as it may come across.

And, dear and most beloved Anonymous, what to say about the repeatability of verification/falsification? Your questions are challenging, indeed. Let it just suffice to say that, according to something like a verificationist theory of meaning the meaning of assertions are best measured in the moment of articulation. Verification theory is problematic when it tries to comment of assertions made about the past or future, of course. This in itself, even without the possible non-repeatability of verification, poses a problem. Just verb tenses alone pose a problem. And I think the non-repeatability of verification (if and when this be the case) holds similar, but not exactly symmetrical problems, for the semantic theorist. The best way to address your question (and you ask this with the best of them, I assure you) would be to see 'meaning making' as a linguistic activity with overwhelmingly temporally based qualities.

Perception as context bound (so exceedingly astute as always, Anonymous): We know that Locke too made much of the fact that perception is conceptually loaded and that there simply is no overarching objective view point by which we can know the world around us. In other words, in the case of linguistic theory, an objective viewing of conditions which would make our assertions true. The bearer of the content of our language. We do seem to be compelled to accept that we simply cannot prove or demonstrate (except maybe by way of deduction, but this will not solve the problem will it?) that we have unbiased access to matters of fact. And this, undoubtedly, does not bode well for the verificationist. But I think this problem is sidestepped, and not just with the practice of some Sophistry, by remebering that we are busy with a meta-discourse here. In other words, we are attempting to lay out the principles for how meaning is imported into language. The task is not to actually import the meaning but to suggest that the content of our assertions, particularly if the assertions are making literal refernce to a world of mind independent objects and properties, is best seen as derived from the world to which it is making reference. This seems a priori true. If we are making reference to an objectively existing world the the content of our referncing assertions should be derived from such a world and we, in principle, we should at the very least expect to have access to the world we so gibly make reference to. If it turns out that Locke, and yourself dearest Anonymous, are right about possibly not having access to an independently existing world then this should not alter the requirements for meaning, I think. It merely says that most of what we do when we speak is misguided. But we should not lower the bar for meaning just because we cannot know whether we are able to achieve it.

Ah, the contstructivists. What to say about such a group of deserters? I ask this: Is it good and right to resort to saying that reality consists entirely as an extension of the human (and other thinking things') mind because one feels a bit despondent of the possibility of knowing an independently existing reality? To each his own, I suppose. My suggestion is that we remain agnostics about the existence of an external world. For the very reasons that yourself and John Locke mention in the previous question. And, constructivists being what they are, are not always very clear or very unified (but the latter should not be held against them- even though the first should) about what is they advocate. So, I caution the reader here: Some constructivists maintain that there are matters of fact which exist independently of our minds, but as we have no access to these (and this seems a priori true) such facts are irrelevant. And some say that there simply is (as in does not exists at all) matters of fact beyond what has been constructed by our minds. You will, I hope, agree that these are two different stand points, with enormously different further entailments. My comment to the first standpoint is that those matters of fact beyond our grasp are only irrelevant if completely ignored- in other words, not ever made reference to. But we know that this simply is not the case, which makes them very relevant and extremely problematic too. To the second standpoint I answer thus: Who knows? But I think it unlikely.

Once again, most admired Anonymous, your conversation is awesome- in the strictest sense of the word.

And so we reach the end of this. Till later.

Lesson 7: An argument for epistemically constrained truth

The first task at hand is to create a firm distinction between truth and matters of fact. Without this distinction the argument will fail.

Let us take truth to be the status that a sentence, or more specifically an assertion, has when it has accurately denoted a certain, and intended, state of affairs in the world. So an assertion is, by virtue of either achieving or not in a certain way, either true or false. This makes the the metaphysics of truth or falsity similar to that of a measurement, maybe. A meter does not exist as an object in its own right. It can only be understood as the property of an object, e.g. a piece of string being a meter long. Meter lengths presuppose something which can be that length. In the same way truth presupposes something which can be true (or false). Truth and falsity cannot exist as objects on their own. And the correct objects for having the property of being either true or false are assertions.

Matters of fact are states of affairs in the world. Matters of fact are the objects and the properties of such objects which make up reality as it is, whether we are realist or contructivists about this reality. Matters of fact are the chairs, tables, planets and Platonic Forms which make up reality. Matters of fact are also the the way these things are, such as tables and chairs being made of wood or plastic and belonging to the class of things called 'furniture'. It is a matter of fact that planets are round and have orbits and moons of their own. Matters of fact form the content (referents) of our assertions, whether true or not. I think most will agree that it is fully posible that there exist matter of fact of which we have no knowledge at any given moment in time. There must be planets we do not know about. Maybe Plato was right about Forms.

Now, dear reader, how do 'truth' and 'matters of fact' relate to each other. Remember 'truth' is the status that an assertion can have it meets certain criteria, and 'matters of fact' is the content of an assertion- what it is making reference to. The relationhip is that an assertion is 'true' if it has correctly denoted the intended 'matters of fact'. We have agreed that the existence of matter of fact are not contrained by our knowledge thereof. Things do exist without us knowing of such things. However, can the same be said about 'truth'? Can truth trancend knowledge?

If there were to be a piece of string floating about in the ether. But this piece of string was not visible to the ordinary senses of man. Let us imagine that a claim is being made that that piece of string is a meter long. It has the property of being a meter long. But that it cannot, due to its extraordinary extra-sensory nature, be tracked nor measured. How would you regard claims that this piece of string is a meter long? You might, like me, dear reader, think that 'meter', being an artificial construct entirely dependent on human endeavours and concepts, is better utilised as a practical, determinable property of objects, rather than understood as an hypothetical property which a piece of string may or may not have. You may think, why even bother to state that something is a meter long when it is immeasurable? There is nothing a priori wrong with doing this, of course, because it is possible that, completely by chance, the state of affairs which need to exist in the world which would render the claim true does exists. But making claims that something is meter long knowing full well that it cannot be meaured does seem, at least, a little platitudinous and, at most, an entirely meaningless way of looking at the concept of 'meter'.

My suggestion is that 'truth' should be treated, as with the concept of 'meter', as a practical and workable, and therefore knowable, property of assertions as 'meter' is a measurable property of pieces of string. It is commonly accepted by most philosophers that to assert is to state as true. But if this is done with the full knowledge that the truth status of an assertion can never be determined (known), this must make asserting, in cases which are not constrained by knowledge, a vacuous activity.

So, above is my reason for why 'truth' is better understood as constrained by knowledge. Do you agree? Next time we look at what the realists and anti-realists say about this.

Lesson 6: The beginnings of an argument for why truth should be evidentially constrained.

Now, it is true, and anyone would be a fool for not conceding, that there must be things out there that are not known to the human mind. For one, time and the history of human enquiry, both formal and informal, have proven this to be so. If one were to be reasonable it would seem quite feasible to assume that there must be more such facts that will be discovered in the furture, and that when these are to be discovered they are found to have existed long before the event of their discovery. The Earth being flat we take to be such a discovery. And we assume that the Earth did not only become flat when it was found to be so (but, naturally, we cannot be completely sure about this either). The Earth was flat preceding the knowledge of this fact. In other words, the metaphysics preceded the epistemology of this state of affairs.

Taking the assertion, "The earth is flat", to have meaning according to the logical positivists based on the fact that it can be shown to be either contingently true or false.

Now, what would happen if someone quite brilliant suggested that they are willing to concede that certain statements have no meaning according the criteria for meaning forwarded by the positivists, but would like to maintian that truth can nevertheless be evidence transcendent. Their reason for this being that there simply are certain things which are, at any given moment in time, beyong human cognition and recognition. This entails that all assertions about the world, despite the truth conditions for these assertions being unavailable to human perception and comprehension, are either true or false. It is after all the state of affairs in the world which either make the assertions true or false and not our subjective opinions.

However, the proponents of evidence transcendent truth are forced to conclude, if truth conditions are what import meaning to assertions, and these conditions are unavailable to human cognition, that meaning is imported independently of speakers knowing what they are speaking of. In other words, if truth is sometimes evidence transcendent, and meaning presupposes truth conditions, then meaning is sometimes transcendent of human comprehension and understanding. So, meaning is not a human activity as it is not constrained by human knowledge but rather yielded by the world out there. In short, meaning, sometimes, comes from somewhere else. Presumably, from the same place as truth comes from.

I leave you here for now, but with this difficult question about meaning. Can the meaning which our assertions carry be imported by facts in the world which we have no access to? Because, if the answer to this question is affrimative, this would have to entail that the source of language (the human mind) is independent to the source of meaning (the world).