Tenure
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Re:Determinism
2008/11/16 20:35
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Junior Philosopher |
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I've been thinking and discussing this issue further outside the forum and think I may be wrong on certain points and right on others.
Basically, I'm just hung up on this issue of meaning and validity. Not just in the matter of being 'formally valid', but just in terms of simple statements themselves.
A statement, I maintain, can be meaningfully true. That is, a human saying 'There are ten apples' would have meaning, since he is capable of understanding what that means, whilst a chimp wouldn't (actually, a better animal would be a parrot, since they can 'talk').
So I can make a meaningful statement, and it can be true - it can be said to be true.
So, I concede your point and suck up my pride: a statement can be true without it being known.
What I'm hung up on, is whether the utterer of such a statement is SPEAKING truely. That's my problem. We would not call a man 'honest' who speaks truths just by coincidence, just as we wouldn't call someone 'psychic' just because they guessed the correct number of apples.
So one can speak truths without knowing them, but that doesn't make the speaker a truthful speaker, that is, there is no virtue in the method of coming to their statement that makes them truthful.
Are we in agreement then? Sorry to get so trivial about this, these sorts of things do keep me up at night - my life is that interesting. |
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Dan J. Brigham
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Re:Determinism
2008/11/17 09:04
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You've given me a lot to reply to. I guess we could spend ages going over the little points and not get very far, so I'll try to stick to what I see as the main issues and hopefully we can get some resolution in these areas.
I won't bang on about validity anymore, apart from this. If we are concerned with our arguments being tied to reality, then I think the valid/sound distinction is perfectly adequate for this. Why play around with re-defining validity if we have soundness already there to do the work? We're both using different notions of validity, so you're right to say that we'll keep going in circles talking over each other. (I'll say: THIS is valid. Then, you'll say: No, no validity is more than that, THAT wasn't valid. We'll be a loggerheads but won't make progress.)
But it seems to me that your reason for using your notion of validty is so that you can draw a line between arguments that actually apply to the real world and mumbo-jumbo arguments that don't. I agree that this is an important line to draw but think that we can draw it using the concept of soundness, without the need for re-definition of validity.
Anyway, enough already!
I think the issue fundamentally, and most interestingly, revolves around the following stuff:
When something, or someone, utters a staement that is true but accidentally so.
Now, drawing from your examples, I think there are two versions here:
(there might be variations but I think these are the main two)
(1) When a person with language and understanding says a statement but only gets is right by accident.
(2) When a person or animal or object without language or understanding expresses a statement that is true.
Now (2) is a v. interesting topic. There are a lot of questions that pop up. Did the thing (parrot for example) actually expresses a statement or just make a noise? Is it meaningful? Can it be without meaning for the thing but with meaning for us? Have they said something true or not?
I haven't thought about it enough to say anything productive about (2) so I'll keep to (1).
As far as (1) is concerned I'm with you about the distinction between somebody who says a statement that is true by accident and somebody who says a statement that is true with good reason.
Going back to our apples example. Imagine the following: Person A doesn't know how many apples are in there but says "there are 10 apples in there." Person B actually put the apples in there and says "there are 10 apples in there."
Now, person A and person B have both expressed the same proposition. However, I agree with you that there is a huge difference between A and B. A got it right by co-incidence, B because she knew. We could say B was being honest whereas A was just making stuff up and got right this time. Lucky A.
I would say that person A and person B have both expressed a true propostion. But that B knew the proposition was true and A did not.
I think we can differentiate between A and B based on what they know to be true, rather than what is true.
I like what you say about the method of coming to their statements. I'd say that's a great way of differentiating between knowing something and just saying something.
At the heart of the matter I think we agree here. It's just that you go on to use phrases like "speaking truly". Here I think I get what you mean but I think the language your using confuses things a bit.
In one sense A and B have both spoken truly (ie. they both uttered a true statement) but of course in another sense both A and B have not spoken truly (B spoke out of knowledge and A just made it up).
So do you think we're pulling together on this one? |
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Tenure
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Re:Determinism
2008/11/17 09:23
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Junior Philosopher |
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At the heart of the matter I think we agree here. It's just that you go on to use phrases like "speaking truly". Here I think I get what you mean but I think the language your using confuses things a bit.
In one sense A and B have both spoken truly (ie. they both uttered a true statement) but of course in another sense both A and B have not spoken truly (B spoke out of knowledge and A just made it up).
So do you think we're pulling together on this one?
I'd say that's correct. I thought about it some more, and yeah as my previous post stated, I've realised it was all an issue of true statements vs speaking truely.
So, back to determinism then:
My point was that any statement made, that might actually be true, is still just arbitrary to us, if we do not have volition. The reason we are saying things is not because we actually chose this answer to be true over another, but because antecedent factors lead us to making that statement.
Now, there's a fundamental distinction here.
As we've agreed, one can state a true statement which one does not know *in theory*. I say in theory, because we'll never actually know if it is true until we verify it - i.e. until we actually come to know it.
Now, if I want to assert that something is true, like, volition does not exist, then that statement might be true. However, if it is true, what it means is that I cannot verify it as true. My statements are things I have no control over and the fact that they may or may not coincide with reality is, well, purely coincidental.
Verification implies that there is some process of alternatives going on - that one could have uttered one statement, or one could have uttered another, and that one chose, for whatever reason, that one statement as the correct one.
But if determinism is true, there are no alternatives. The fact that I landed on 'Volition exists' or 'Volition does not exist' is the result of antecedent factors, such that when I'm asked, 'Which one is true?', my answer will be meaningless, if Determinism is true, because it will be no more verified than if we had indoctrinated a bunch of kids to believe one or another.
This is why volition is axiomatic. Determinism is a false theory of causality (and that's another argument for another day - and honestly, my understanding of metaphysics is not good enough to give a better refutation than 'it must be false', not out of a fear of the implications, but because it is logically impossible). Any attempt to deny it requires that you deny the very means by which truth-value is ascribed. |
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Tenure
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Re:Determinism
2008/11/17 09:30
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Junior Philosopher |
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I might add, that I'm remember one response - I forget who it was, it might have been Holbach - to this argument is that every creature seems to be fitted for a purpose, and that the human purpose is to be able to validate true statements. As such, our internal mechanism for ascribing truth-value can be purely determined and therefore concur with actual truths we do not yet know, because it is programmed as such. Anyone who fails to notice the truth has faulty programming.
And see, the problem there is, again, truth becomes a purely intrinsic thing. Either you get it, or you don't. It cannot be said why you faltered and said a wrong thing, because 'why' implies that the situation could have been otherwise. So, either you have the ability to recognise truth or you don't - or somehow you divinely gain the skill by 're-programming'.
What this still all ignores is how one knows that the 'truth-sayers' are actually true. They just claim their truth is automatic - but how do we 'know' it's true? What verification can we perform, without going on into an infinite regression of 'because I said so's? |
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