Yesterday I watched most of the five-part mini series on HBO, The Way Down: God, Greed, and the Cult of Gwen Shamblin, 2021. It is the story of Gwen Shamblin Lara (1955-2021), who promoted a diet program within a Christian “Remnant Fellowship.” Here is the trailer:
What do I think about this?
Well, two things. The first is that there were and there still are a slew of preachers who exploit the gullibility of so many people. I can’t tell the mind sets of these evangelists. All I know is that many of them make great fortunes, so that they can afford such jets as a Cessna Citation 501 (in which Gwen Shamblin was killed).
And my take on such preachers is pretty much as portrayed by the character played by Burt Lancaster in the film Elmer Gantry, 1960 (based on Sinclair Lewis’s novel of 1927). Here is a clip from the movie:
My second point is that these gullible people form the great mass of the 84% of the world’s population: The Unenlightened.
Although I am in agreement with Popper on his description of the scientific method and with his striving for an open society, I do have a few disagreements with some of his claims and proposals.
The first one is his general claim that he does not wish to argue over meanings of words. On the other hand, he also does not want to argue at cross purposes. Well, how in the world are you to avoid arguing at cross purposes, unless you clarify what each of you mean by your words. This does not mean arguing which meaning or definition is to be preferred, but it does requires making a clarification of how words are being used.
The second disagreement I have with Popper is over the search for essences. Historically, Popper may be right about the misguided search for “essences” of natural things. A possible explanation for this is a conflation of artifacts with natural things. An artifact — at least in typical cases, such as in the case of tools — is made for a purpose. And the essences of tools are the purposes they serve. Now, thinking by a misconceived analogy, one can ask what purpose does a stone or a bird serve. And by further analogical thinking, since artifacts serve the purposes of man; it can be mythically reasoned that natural things serve the purposes of gods or a God, or that things themselves are animate beings with purposes. So, I agree with Popper that natural things have no essences, but he forgets that artifacts do.
This distinction between natural kinds and artifacts is relevant to the “infamous” Eddington’s two tables problem. Eddington had written “There are duplicates of every object about me — two tables, two chairs, two pens …” (A. Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World, 1958, p. xi). This is a mistake. The word “table” refers to an artifact, and physics does not study artifacts; it studies the materials out of which tables, and artifacts, are made of. A table as a piece of furniture is defined by the purposes it serves. And physics does not study human purposes.
The third disagreement I have with Popper is with his use of the word “rational.” He seems to use the word “rational” as contrasted with the word “irrational.” But there is a broad sense of rational such as when humans are characterized as “rational animals.” This means that humans are capable of acting in rational ways. Being rational, in this sense, includes acting irrationally. To make this clear, consider a cat. A cat cannot act rationally or irrationally, because it can act only a-rationally (or non-rationally). It is Popper’s failure to make a distinction between irrational and a-rational (non-rational) behavior, which causes him to call someone who acts by intuitions as acting irrationally; whereas I would say the person in such situations is acting a-rationally (non-rationally)– like a cat. For example, people who want to experience mystic states or to experience drug highs or who want to “escape from reality,” are not — in my sense — necessarily acting irrationally, but — given their circumstances — may actually –by seeking non-rational states — be acting quite rationally.
The fourth area of disagreement I have with Popper is over his treatment of democracy. His criterion of democracy seems to be concerned with whether there exists in the institution of government a mechanism for removing a leader from office by a popular vote. This to me is a necessary but not a sufficient demand.
The result is that he seems to be indifferent to types of democracies.
In contrast, I want to make three points.
1. Swiss style democracy is superior to all other existing state democracies.
2. There is a distinction between Macro and Micro democracy. Micro democracy is favored by anarchists, and exists currently in Rojava, in the Mexican area controlled by Zapatistas, and in the Mexican town, Cheran.
3. As a social democrat, Popper is for piecemeal engineering rather than for revolution. My position is that if a piecemeal law is passed granting everyone a free access to subsistence land — that will constitute a revolution!
A paradox is a seeming contradiction. But a contradiction is necessarily false. So, the task is to explain the appearance of a contradiction. In a previous blog, I made references to an article by Quine which dealt with paradoxes: “Paradox” — a type of bullshit
While glancing at the index of Karl Popper’s The Open Society and Its Enemies, vol.2, under the heading “paradoxes,” there are a few that have become famous. There are the paradox of freedom, the paradox of tolerance, the paradox of democracy, and others.
In this blog, I want to alert you to a paradox which I previously have not heard of. When listening to its description, it resonated with me as absolutely true. This is the paradox of choice, presented by Barry Schwartz. Here is the video which enlightened me.
If you want to listen to lectures on philosophy, there is a set of lectures given by Hank Green which are as good — if not better — than those given in a college. One reason for their quality is that these lectures have been edited, so they come off as polished presentations. [This can be appreciated by looking at some of the outtakes.]
However, just because these lectures are good or even better of their kind — I mean as lectures; classroom lectures are better in one respect. They allow the audience to ask for clarification and allow for criticism.
And, indeed, these internet lectures need clarifications and are subject to criticism.
I will offer one such criticism of the lecture on compatibilism.
Compatibilism is the thesis that determinism and free will are compatible claims. However, before even offering to clarify what is meant by “free will,” the lecturer moves rather quickly to the question of responsibility. These, as I see it, are distinct issues. By not offering a clarification of “free will,” the lecturer muddles the issue.
Doing something freely (or of one’s free will) is to be contrasted with being forced to do something by another person. This is the kind of freedom which is sought by all human beings, and is dramatically illustrated by Mel Gibson in the movie Braveheart, screaming for freedom:
My primary concern is to stay alive, and I can do this if I am free (from someone) forbidding me from taking up subsistence land.
Imagine a person, Friday, on an island foraging for food. He is free from the commands, whims, and brute force of another person.
Then comes Robinson Crusoe who subdues Friday and shackles him to a tree. Friday is no longer free. He is shackled so his limbs are not free, and he is no longer free from the dictates of Crusoe.
What does this predicament of Friday have to do with whether all of this or any of this situation is determined by natural forces? Whether you are a determinist or an indeterminist in science, is irrelevant to Friday’s plight. In this sense, free will is compatible with both determinism and indeterminism because whether Friday is free from the whims of Crusoe is a different question.
Incidentally, this question of the freedom of some people from the dictates of others (which is at the bottom of the capitalist, socialist, and anarchist debates) is for some reason excluded from these internet lectures.
Responsibility
As to the question of responsibility, one could start with actual legal law. Take a case of one person being accussed of killing another person. In law this is called manslaughter, but whether this manslaughter warrants to be called murder is a complex matter. Even with murder the law makes a distinction of degrees.
There are two very enlightening articles on this topic written by John Austin:
“A Plea for Excuses” and “Three Ways of Spilling Ink.”
Objection to my position
Someone may justifiably object to my criticism by claiming that it is an evasion from the problem as stated. Well, what is the problem as stated? In terms of the Friday/Crusoe situation, the question is whether Friday — before the entry of Crusoe on the scene — acts freely, in some other sense.
OK, I did not address myself to making sense of this question, and if the term “compatibilism” is used as an answer to this question, then when I used the term “compatibilism,” it was to answer a different question. Let us, then distinguish, “compatibilism (1)” for the former, and “compatibilism (2)” for the latter.
Ever since Thomas Malthus, we know that population growth is exponential, while the source of food from using the land is arithmetic. At the site worldmeter, it is reported that the world population in 1800 was 1 billion, in 1930 it became 2 billion, in 1974 it became 4 billion. Currently in 2021, it is nearly 7.9 billion.
The main and imminent danger from overpopulation and its effects is the destruction of the ecosystem. This means a disruption of climate, sea rises, pollution, species extinction.
Another effect is a depletion of resources — primarily food and water. And, as Jared Diamond noticed, the killings in Rwanda were not just due to ethnic hatred, but also due to a scarcity of subsistence land. [See, Jared Diamond, “Malthus in Africa: Rwanda’s Genocide,”Collapse, 2005]
Adding overpopulation and scarcity of resources to war and violence, the result is massive migrations of people into Europe and into the United States.
Today, on facebook, I was reminded of experiments done with mice and rats in overpopulated conditions (with adequate food and water) on behavior patterns which lead to extinction. I remember reading in the Scientific American in 1962, John Calhoun’s article “Population Density and Social Pathology.”
The one that today caught my attention is the experiment of John B. Calhoun; variously called “mouse utopia,” “behavioral sink,” and “universe 25.” Here is the account of the experiment:
I would read a dialectical philosopher. By this I mean a philosopher who has examined the claims and arguments of previous philosophers and has come to his own conclusions. If you had lived at any time up to the 16th century, you should and would have read Aristotle and his commentators, such as Aquinas, Maimonides, and Averroes. But after the discoveries of Galileo in the 17th century there occurred a scientific revolution in physics and astronomy culminating in the work of Newton. And the philosopher to read then was Locke in England, and Descartes in France. The former was an empiricist; the latter a rationalist, whose position was developed by Leibniz. And Hume had presented a major challenge to empiricism. Well, these two strands of empiricism and rationalism were critically examined and readjusted by Immanuel Kant. So, contemporary philosophy (i.e., epistemology and ontology) must now take into account Kant and any advances in science.
So, the question is: which author has competently taken into account this stream of philosophy? My first stab would be to read Bertrand Russell, especially his The History of Western Philosophy (1945). But a second, and an improved reading would be to read everything written by C. D. Broad. Why? Because Russell remained an empiricist, while Broad had absorbed Kant, while still critically having surveyed the history of philosophy. [See my: Philosophical Alternatives from C.D. Broad]
There is an outstanding philosopher — Wilfrid Sellars. [See my: Problems from Wilfrid Sellars] But I would not recommend reading Sellars to a novice because he is too technical. He assumes a knowledge of current technical philosophical literature. He can be appreciated only by professional philosophers. However, several books have now been published with the intention of making him more accessible to a wider audience. Wilfrid Sellars was trying to come to grips with Kantian themes, as have many other Kantian scholars.
One such outstanding Kantian scholar is Robert Paul Wolff, who published his findings in the book Kant’s Theory of Mental Activity (1963). His lectures on Kant, given in 2016, are available on youtube, and I recommend them. Here they are:
Lecture 1
Lecture 2
Lecture 3
Lecture 4
Lecture 5
Lecture 6
Lecture 7
Lecture 8
Lecture
9
As a caveat, I just want to point out that neither Sellars nor Wolff had available to them C. D. Broad’s book: Kant. The reason is that Broad had written out his Kant lectures in 1950-52, and this manuscript was only published by C. Lewy in 1978.
Reflecting on my own learning experience, I do not remember learning much of anything (with exceptions) about controversial matters such as politics, religion, or ethics from listening to lectures. But I have learned more from participating in and listening to dialogues and debates.
Listening to a lecture — given either to a small audience such as in a typical classroom, or to a large audience such as in a public lecture — at best, one learns the opinions of the lecturer; but one does not learn the merits of such opinions unless they are subject to criticism by a person of at least equal competence. I, therefore, recommend that all controversial matters taught in schools be conducted by two competent persons with incompatible positions.
Historically, such an approach was dramatically illustrated by Plato’s dialogues, as well as by Aristotle in some of his writings, and more so by Aquinas in his Summa Theologiae. But these are imaginary or opinionated dialogues. What is needed is to witness real disputes.
As illustrations, let me offer the following debates available on the internet as examples.
The first one is a BBC radio debate between Bertrand Russell and Frederick Copleston in 1948:
Every time I read about Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, I keep thinking that what Kant is describing is a set of problems to be dealt with in building a robot; although, of course, he is talking about human beings.
As I was looking for anyone else who has a similar outlook, I came across the following video:
Recently I was introduced by Jacob Feldman to a video and a corresponding article by Eric Dietrich who poses the question: “Is there progress in philosophy?” And his answer is that there is not.
He does not tell us what philosophy is, though he selects some allegedly philosophical problems and some metaphilosophical positions as examples of unresolvable philosophical disputes.
I want you to listen to him and read his article. Afterwards I will give you my commentary.
The first thing that I would like to say is that his view of philosophy is too narrow or myopic. The broader view is that philosophy is really “philosophizing.” It is an activity whose goal is to resolve disputes and hopefully to come to agreements. This activity is called by Mortimer J. Adler “dialectic.” See his book: Dialectic (1927). A related approach can be called “critical philosophy,” as presented by C.D. Broad in “Critical and Speculative Philosophy,” Contemporary British Philosophy (1924): 77-100.
As with any activity, a critical discussion can be done with various degrees of proficiency. In this sense, there can be progress in the acquisition of such a proficiency.
As to solving problems, I will mention some which have been solved.
The first is the clarification that existence is not a predicate. This solution has been attributed to Kant, but there are better modern expositions. And since this matter is relevant to an argument for God’s existence, see: C. D. Broad, “The Validity of Belief in a Personal God,” Hibbert Journal 24 (1925): 32-48.
The third concerns the problem of a free will and determinism. The solution consists of reframing the problem as contrasting doing something freely with being coerced to do something. This solution is referred as “compatibilism.”
In short, there has been progress in philosophy in discarding superstitions and the cobwebs of language.
Further Commentary:
1. He takes Aristotle as a “paradigm?” philosopher. But is Aristotle a philosopher because he has scientific speculations? Aristotle, qua scientist was wrong about many things. And, Aristotle qua philosopher has also been criticised by other philosophers, and if these other philosophers are correct, then philosophical speculation has indeed advanced.
2. As an example of philosophy not having resolved any philosophical problems, he assumes that as to the question whether there is a God or not, there is no solution. Here he is wrong. The fact that there are people who disagree, what does that show? Can their reasoning be evaluated? Yes, relative to some agreed to standards, such as non-contradiction and compatibility with the findings of science. I pose to you the problem of finding fault with the reasoning of C. D. Broad, “The Validity of Belief in a Personal God,” Hibbert Journal 24 (1925): 32-48.
3. On the assumption that philosophy does not progress, he cites three philosophers who try to answer why this is so: Colin McGinn, Thomas Nagel, and James Sterba. By my lights, the assumption is wrong. But it does not exclude the intractability of some sorts of questions.
“. . . The commonwealth of learning is not at this time without master-builders, whose mighty designs, in advancing the sciences, will leave lasting monuments to the admiration of posterity: but every one must not hope to be a Boyle or a Sydenham; and in an age that produces such masters as the great Huygenius and the incomparable Mr. Newton, with some others of that strain, it is ambition enough to be employed as an under-labourer in clearing the ground a little, and removing some of the rubbish that lies in the way to knowledge;– which certainly had been very much more advanced in the world, if the endeavours of ingenious and industrious men had not been much cumbered with the learned but frivolous use of uncouth, affected, or unintelligible terms, introduced into the sciences, and there made an art of, to that degree that Philosophy, which is nothing but the true knowledge of things, was thought unfit or incapable to be brought into well-bred company and polite conversation. Vague and insignificant forms of speech, and abuse of language, have so long passed for mysteries of science; and hard and misapplied words, with little or no meaning, have, by prescription, such a right to be mistaken for deep learning and height of speculation, that it will not be easy to persuade either those who speak or those who hear them, that they are but the covers of ignorance, and hindrance of true knowledge. To break in upon the sanctuary of vanity and ignorance will be, I suppose, some service to human understanding; though so few are apt to think they deceive or are deceived in the use of words; or that the language of the sect they are of has any faults in it which ought to be examined or corrected, that I hope I shall be pardoned if I have in the Third Book dwelt long on this subject, and endeavoured to make it so plain, that neither the inveterateness of the mischief, nor the prevalency of the fashion, shall be any excuse for those who will not take care about the meaning of their own words, and will not suffer the significancy of their expressions to be inquired into…..”
