Do Genuine Miracles Necessitate a Supernatural Explanation? Or: What Did Wittgenstein Really Mean?

I apologize for having been silent so long. I've been working on papers and trying to enjoy the bits of winter break that I have allowed myself.

My wife, our friend Jessica, and I were watching Jessica's Indigo Girls DVD (they are a bluesy girl duo) today. During one of the songs, there was an image of some statue of Mary which was bleeding. Having been raised Catholic, I was not surprised by the image, nor do I doubt that it is genuine. I know of enough reports about miracles, from ghosts to group visions to bleeding statues, that I do not doubt that such things have, indeed, happened. In many cases, large crowds witnessed some particular event and all reported agreeing experiences. These crowds are sometimes public and, therefore, consisting of constituents of many different sections of society. To simply dismiss such varied sources of consistent data seems crazy; just as singular people who believe they have had such experiences seem crazy.

So, let us say that this bleeding statue is genuine. That is, suppose that I have a miraculous experience. What should it mean to a godless person like myself? The standard religious argument against the naturalist is: how do you explain miracles? The standard naturalist response is to prove that there are no miracles. David Hume did most of the work in his naturalist reduction of miracles to events which simply admit no current physical explanation, but might in the future. Today the explanation is merely an updated and sometimes modified Humean reduction.

Should it seem more likely that miracles exist than that miracles do not exist, then the Humean reduction will not work. So, for instance, if a statue is found to be bleeding real human blood and if upon examination the statue is found to be normal in every way, then one should conclude that no scientific explanation can be had. The anomaly is simply too bizarre. Now I have never had such an experience and I do not expect to have such an experience in my lifetime, so there is no personal urgency for me to find an explanation for such an experience. But should I have such an experience, how might I explain it?

First, I will posit that it is a basic feature of human existence that I must find an explanation for any experience that I have. This means that I must somehow produce for myself a reason or description of the causal mechanisms which bring the events which I witness into existence. Or, to put it yet another way, that I ask both "How?" and "Why?" about every aspect of my experience is part of what makes me human. I take this principle as basic without argument, but an argument can be had -- just not here.

Second, I posit the existence of the physical world because common sense dictates that I must.

Third, we also assume that this physical world must be a world that is capable of being explained; that the question "How?" is generally answerable. And science is the answer. These will be my three premises.

Now we see that the religious apologist has required us to explain miracles based on his acceptance of the first premise. So if I respond to the religious apologist's demand, then I also accept the first premise.

So how can we explain the statue? Well, the statue is part of the physical world, as is the blood. Therefore, I should look first at the physical world in which my experience occurs. Because the last two premises are the ones which support most of our physical explanations, this would be the most likely source of explanation in this particular case. Like Hume, I would try to find some scientific explanation that could make blood materialize on the surface of a statue. This, of course, is as ridiculous as turning straw into gold. The physical world simply does not have the ability to construct human blood out of air. The physical world can only construct human blood inside of a human body, which can only come either from other human bodies or from a long process of evolution. It is very difficult for the physical world to create human blood, so the hypothesis that it simply materialized naturally on the surface of the statue is just absurd.

So, if Hume fails us, must we conform to the demands of the religious?

Not so fast. Are we ready to begin positing new beings? That is, should Occam's razor have any sway over us? Well, because naturalists have rejected religion in the first place, one must assume that such naturalists have a reason to do so. This reason is, of course, their acceptance of Occam's razor. Thus, if we respond to the religious apologist's challenge, then we have already assumed Occam's razor, just as we have assumed the first premise. Occam's razor, then, will be our fourth premise.

So before we begin to create new beings (such as gods), let us examine our first and fourth premises. For it was our second and third premises which failed as an explanation earlier.

Our fourth premise, Occam's razor dictates that we are allowed to posit only those entities which are necessary to the explanation of the phenomena. It is a metaprinciple insofar as it regulates the sorts of principles which are admissible. Thus, this principle cannot explain the materialization of blood on the surface of a statue.

So that only leaves the first. Recall that we assumed as a basic feature of human nature that we are compelled to explain the phenomena we experience. But, if we are naturalists, should this first premise not be subsumed under the second and third premises? If humans are purely physical beings, then the compulsion to explain experience can, itself, be explained by scientifically explaining the human brain. But whether this premise is entirely captured by the second and third premises depends on what we mean by "explain". That is, if the act of explanation can also be reduced to an explanation of physical phenomena, only then will we be able to subsume the first premise under the second and third. But this is not so easy. Is it possible for an explanation of the phenomena explain itself? It is explanatory self-reference which we must now address.

So then what is an explanation? An explanation arises when a person observes a similarity within the occurrences of phenomena and seeks to provide a theoretical background for that similarity. An explanation is a rule which we have interpreted from the experiences that we have had. Indeed, it is almost the same concept as Wittgenstein's concept of a "rule". Where Wittgensteinian rules are only grammatical rules, rules governing meaning; the concept of a scientific explanation is a set of rules which govern physical interaction. But, as Wittgenstein suggests, we are limited in the degree to which we can intuit rules. The rule that I follow cannot be demonstrated to be the same rule that you follow, because the only input that I have from you is your behavior. But your behavior can be demonstrated to accord with many different rules (e. g. Kripke's "addition" and "quaddition" example). So human behavior, as a finite set of data, is insufficient to determine the infinite extension of the single rule that it is purported to follow.

Just as scientific theory is underdetermined by the sensory evidence, so behavioral rules are underdetermined by the sensory evidence. So a scientific explanation of how we explain things is underdetermined by the evidence. But the scientific explanation itself is underdetermined by the evidence. Scientific explanations are formulated in languages, which follow grammatical rules. So if the grammatical rules are underdetermined by the evidence (we could all exhibit the same behavior and still secretly be following different rules), then the the language of science is underdetermined by the evidence. And because the explanation of our concept of explanation occurs in the language of science (for it is really an explanation of the brain), the scientific explanation of our act of explanation is doubly underdetermined by the evidence: once when we formulate the language to do science and again when we actually do science. At this point, we will realize that science is supposed to explain the language, which explains the science, which explains the language, and so on ad infinitum. Not only do we have a regress on our hands, but we now have an infinitesimal explanatory capability -- we have underdetermined our explanation into oblivion. Before moving on, I should observe that I believe the preceding is the argument that Quine meant to expound in his "argument from above".

Clearly this is a problem to be avoided. It should be evident by now that explanations of behavior and explanations of physical phenomena are both constructed through the act of inductive reasoning. For in this type of reasoning, we observe a finite set of data and infer from it a rule of infinite extension. That is, we create classes for those events and objects which we observe to be the same in some way. So then what is it for two things to be the same? That is, what counts as criteria for an act of inductive reasoning? We cannot describe a class of beings unless we can know whether the beings fit into the class in the first place. But sameness of anything (sameness of red things is what Wittgenstein considers) still relies on behavioral evidence. I can only know what sorts of things people believe to be red by their behavior -- the things that they point to and call "red". So if I describe red things as being the same in their redness and describe the word "same" behaviorally, then I am stuck in the very same unacceptable regress as with the "explanation" and "rule".

The problem is that we have too many variables and not enough equations. We will never find the solution to a set of three equations which have four variables. Not enough input is given to us to explain the input given. In trying to solve these three equations, we will find ourselves producing solutions of any three variables in terms of the fourth one. This is just what we have tried to do above. We can produce explanations of various different concepts in terms of other concepts that are different from them, but we cannot definitively explain any of these concepts. In trying to do so, we only prove that we have explained away our ability to explain in the first place. Or, as I have said before: all terms are defined in terms which, themselves, require defining.

For Wittgenstein, the problem is that we have not taken enough as basic. Indeed, when you exhibit the behavior that accords with the addition rule which I follow, I find that I believe that you are also following this same addition rule. So if, in any behavior of yours which follows a rule, I take you to be following the same rule that I follow, then I assume that in at least these ways, you are the same as me. For, as Wittgenstein says, this is our life-form. What we must ultimately take as basic, then, is the act of inductive reasoning. We must take it as basic that we are all inclined to infer rules with infinite extension from a finite set of data.

Thus, when I interpret what you mean when you speak, or when I interpret what your body-language suggests, I can be much more certain about whether we mean the same thing, because human beings naturally think in the same way. Of course, this means that there is no guarantee that we could speak with aliens, should we meet them. Or, as Wittgenstein puts it, we would not be able to converse with a lion if the lion could speak -- for they are a different life-form. Because scientific explanations cannot by themselves explain the certainty with which we believe we understand each other, we have chosen to take this certainty as basic. The result is that we no longer have the problem of explaining behavior, as we are inclined to behave in the same way (minimally speaking). We are inclined to devise languages between each other just as we are inclined to mate, to eat, to sleep, etc. But, of course, the animal instincts can be explained through science. Our problem is exclusive to human discourse, because science itself is a human discourse.

But, you might object, if we classify our inclination to reason inductively as a disposition, then it seems as if it would be subject to scientific explanation. That might be true. But we have not yet explained the mechanism by which we are disposed to reason inductively. In other words, not nearly enough is known about the brain to secure an explanation of inductive reasoning. Therefore, our taking this disposition to inductive reasoning as basic cannot, itself, be explained scientifically. Furthermore, if we do not yet have an explanation of the act of inductive reasoning, then we do not yet have good reason to assert that human beings share a life-form. To claim that inductive reasoning can support itself is to put the cart in front of the horse. Thus, the certainty with which we believe we understand each other (as evidenced by the volume of the literature we have written to each other) cannot be supported by the empirical evidence.

Based on the above considerations (thanks to Wittgenstein), I think we have good reason to take our ability to reason inductively as a basic premise of philosophical discourse -- and of discourse simpliciter. In fact, we have good reason to believe that we already do take our ability to reason inductively as basic. But what does this amount to? If inductive reasoning is taken as basic, then we can recognize what is the same; we can categorize these things; we can produce explanations of the differences between categories. In short, we can devise theories about the phenomena that we experience. But the very rules which we follow (addition rather than quaddition) are learned through inductive reasoning. We learn what is red by being shown red things. So our language begins with inductive reasoning and the language-game which we have mastered is nothing more than a theory of meaning.

But is the theory of meaning public or private? Well, we don't always mean the same things. You and I can have a conversation for 10 minutes thinking we are talking about the same thing and never discover that we were actually talking about different things all along. In other words, I can tell you the rule, but unless you actually do understand the language that I use in the same way that I understand it, you will not understand the rule. So if language can admit of multiple adequate understandings -- that is, if two persons can rationally interpret a single sentence in two different ways -- then those two persons mean the sentences in ways which are private. Of course, this doesn't mean that the content of the sentence is private. The whole point of the assumption that we have the same life-form is to secure the public nature of meaning. But the complex set of interlocking rules about appropriate word-usage and the concept of sameness -- i. e. our theory of meaning -- is one that is secured based on the assumption that meaning can be public. Therefore, the certainty that meaning is public is, itself, private. In this way, my theory of meaning may not be known to anyone else, but it is not necessarily private. Nothing that can be said is, itself, private. The only thing about meaning that is private is the certainty that you and I have the ability to understand each other.

But in allowing ourselves to assume the ability to reason inductively -- allowing ourselves to give in to the certainty that meaning is public -- means that we have granted ourselves an ability that we have not granted the rest of the world. The mind is privileged over the material world insofar as it has the ability to explain. But in granting the mind a unique ability, we also grant it basicality. If the human mind were not basic, then the ability would really be an ability that the world has. But the world can only produce human beings who scribble things down and make noises at each other. The physical world, by itself, does not produce meaning. We do.

In other words, we have separated the mind from the matter. Reader beware: I am not trying to verify some sort of complicated soul. Indeed I do not think of the mind as a thing independent of the brain; rather, it seems like an emergent event that only occurs in a healthy human being. Yet, as a naturalist, I must keep in mind that if I want to maintain naturalism, then I must only support the thesis that the mind occurred naturally. There is no reason that a naturalist must also be a monist. Of course this sort of dualism entails that the physical world precedes the mental world both chronologically and logically, for there could not be a mental world without the physical world. But, you might ask, what is the mental world? Well, the mental world is the totality of human communication. It is that which is spoken, written, built, invented, and even that which is imagined. Of course not all of the mental world can be preserved over time. Spoken words, organized events and the like only have meaning for those who remember them. That which is imagined only has meaning for the person who imagines it (though an imagining is, in principle, available to the public both pictorially and linguistically). And as soon as the last person dies, there will be no more meaning because meaning depends on the existence of the minds who think it.

But if the mind is basic in the same way that matter is basic, then we would expect that its complexity rivals that of matter, and that both would require extensive explanation. We might even expect that our explanations are as complicated and intricate as our explanations of matter. Indeed they are: just look at economics, political science and psychology. The very name "social sciences" should suggest to us that mind is distinct from matter, for what else could separate "social science" from "physical science"? One might even include philosophy itself among the social sciences.

Therefore, if the mind is basic in the same way that matter is, then we would expect that there are anomalies in our explanations of the interaction of minds. We would also expect that there is a great deal that we do not know (just as there is a great deal we do not know about the human brain).

Thus, as a naturalist seeking an explanation for the bleeding statue, the second place I would look is to the human mind. Indeed a mechanism is lacking here, and insofar as the mechanism is lacking, the explanation is far from adequate. Nevertheless, it is still absurd to think that human blood could form naturally on the side of a statue. We know enough about the physical world to know that this is impossible. But we know much more about the physical world than we know about our own minds. Therefore, it might be safe for the naturalist to bracket the experience off as being a possible result of the collective effort of human minds.

If the human mind is mostly a mystery to itself, then it should not surprise us if our minds present us with mysterious experiences from time to time.

Keep in mind, though, that we have defined the human mind as a thing which is primarily concerned with meaning, intentions behind actions, reasoning, etc. Thus, if our minds can produce a mysterious physical phenomenon, then the phenomenon must have a meaning. For why else would there be a collective mental effort if that collective effort was not our own minds telling us something?

So then what could the bleeding statue mean? Well, this all depends upon whether the statue is caused to bleed by a single mind or by many minds. And if it is caused to bleed by many minds, then is this collective mental effort, itself, intelligent? To put the matter in a cartoonish way: do all our minds conjoin to form a super-mind? These are all answers that cannot be given based on the premises that I have posited. In any case, I believe that I have provided a sketch of how the naturalist might proceed if presented with an apparently miraculous experience.

Then again, perhaps the bleeding statue is merely a hoax.

-Priam's Pride

On the Existence of Abstract Propositions and a Corresponding "Abstractese"

In the question of the ontological status of propositions, the realist claims that propositions are actually existing abstract entities to which our that-clauses refer. But if this is the case, then they must be in some sort of language -- for if they are not expressed linguistically in abstract-land, then it is hard to imagine how that-clauses could refer to them. That-clauses refer to concepts which seem to be expressed entirely through language. Indeed, what is an expression if not some sentence in some language? So which languageis it? Is it English? Surely not, because then English would be the perfect language: the language of thought. No, surely it is not any language that we now speak because if such a pure and natural language existed it surely would have revealed itself by now.

I am aware that a scientist might, here, complain that the language of nature is mathematics. But, I would respond, mathematics cannot explain itself in its own terms, and this has been proven by Gödel. The basic gist of Gödel's theorem is that no mathematical system can proven from a finite set of axioms, which means that no set of axioms can develop a system in which those axioms themselves are all provable. There is always a further axiom that must be added. And if a mathematical system is not provably true, then, in the multitude of mathematical systems, no one system can be a more appropriate language for absractese than any other.

But, you might say, what about a logical system? For because mathematical systems can be derived from symbolic logic, the natural language must be logic, which is more fundamental than mathematics. But the problem here is that logical language cannot support itself, as Quine, Putnam and Kripke's Wittgenstein have all independently shown. Language cannot explain itself in its own terms -- it cannot account for the experience of meaning that we all seem to have. Nothing like Frege's concept of a "sense" of a word, which is a meaning that is independent from the group of things to which we apply the word, has yet been found within language itself.

Therefore, abstractese must be some language that none of us speak. Let us call this language abstractese. So who speaks the perfect language out of which all propositions are formulated? Who has complete access to proposition-land where abstractese is the language of omniscience? Everyone should know the answer by now: It is God. The semantic realist has found a way to sneak God in through the backdoor. "God must exist," such a realist might claim, "because without him, there is nothing we could mean when we speak!"

It seems appropriate that we call mathematical realism "Platonism." For it was Plato that suggested to us that it wasn't enough for us to believe in an ontology of two substances: mind and matter (though Heraclitus did believe this, to his credit). Rather, he wanted us to believe in a third: the Good, where Forms and Mathematicals and other strange abstracta float freely. This one mistake has sent philosophy reeling for millennia. Plato was the first systematic philosopher who had a system worth mentioning, but it was a system that assumed an unprovable monism. Plato ignored the mind altogether and contrasted the physical world to the abstract. Out of respect for the more mysterious force, Plato decided that the abstract was the primary realm, and the physical was the derived realm. Of course, Christianity found a way to borrow this concept as well, which has provided years upon years of highly nuanced philosophy, otherwise known as "theology". Indeed, it was not until Descartes that we finally remembered that the mind creates its own realm. What Descartes should have mentioned was what Kant ultimately did mention: it is the mental and the physical which represent the real dichotomy. Those who ask what is outside the mind or outside the world are trying to posit things without sufficient cause.

The problem of the reference of words, phrases and entire clauses is the standard point of attack for realists against anti-realists. In this instance, the realist proposes these putatuve abstractese propositions as the objects to which that-clauses refer. But my question is this: if there is only the world and the mind that thinks the world, then why should our thoughts refer to anything but themselves? A thought can only be had mentally, so if the reference of the thought itself is mental, then the thought simply refers to itself. So if we adopt a mental ontology stance for propositions, that-clauses just refer to thoughts. How utterly intuitive!

But is this proof that some object or event named "mind" is the source of meaning? Well, the only proof that mind exists is the experience that a particular mind has. But because the specific content of this experience can only be explained after the fact, its existence is not provable deductively. Thus, the only evidence we have for the existence of the mind is inductive. But this essentially means that the act of inductive reasoning can only be supported inductively.

And here we have our answer. Symbolic logic and mathematics lacked the capability to prove their own premises. That is, deductive reasoning cannot be proven uniquely. But inductive reasoning can. If it is assumed that inductive reasoning leads us closer to the truth, then inductive reasoning can prove that it leads us closer to the truth, without the assistance of any other premise. So we have good reason to believe that abstractese is really the same as mentalese.

-Priam's Pride

The Anti-Realist's Plight or Fictionalism to the Rescue!

It has occurred to me that ontological fictionalism has a unique position in the defense of an anti-Realist (or a-Realist as I prefer to think of myself) position. The anti-Realist makes a career of finding ways to discount the various ontological claims that Realists find themselves making. However, the Realist would be out of a job if he found that his arguments actually convinced the anti-Realist. Indeed, the Realist also makes a career of creating entities to combat the various reductions that anti-Realists always try to get away with. For the anti-Realist, ontological fictionalism represents the ultimate reduction. Let us see why.

These days , the Realist is always a realist about some particular entity because it plays some noun-like role in language. For example, one might be a realists about propositions because we use them as nouns (i.e. they 'refer'). The usual argument is that because the noun is an integral part of some particular discourse, and because the discourse is one we want to preserve philosophically, there must exist a reference for the noun.One such standard argument concludes that numbers and other mathematical entities exist. Now, I don't buy this argument, but that is an explanation we can save for another day. The point is that the Realist has taken it upon himself to declare that all things about which we speak exist. Thus, the only way that the anti-Realist can really gain leverage is to find some noun or class of nouns that we use which uncontroversially fails to refer to an entity. If such a noun or class of nouns could be found (call them "empty nouns"), then the trick is to reduce to an empty noun every other noun which one does not want to refer to any real object. Fictional entities and fictional worlds, then, are the single most promising prospect for assuming the role of the class of empty nouns. If it could be shown that fictional entities and worlds do not, exist at all, then one can hope to reduce other strange entities to fictional beings or worlds. Thus we have all different breeds of fictionalism: modal fictionalism, mathematical fictionalism, semantic fictionalism, etc.

Now what would happen if, in his pursuit of fictionalism, the anti-Realist were to fail to provide the Realist any significant evidence that indicates that fictional entities and worlds do not exist? Well let us first determine what the plight of today's anti-Realist really is. Today's anti-Realist hangs his hat on a Dummett-like or Putnam-like argument which shows that language lacks the ability to escape its own strictures. Perhaps the most convincing anti-Realist argument is the argument Kripke expounds in his interpretation of Wittgenstein. This argument boils down to a rather Quinean claim that all meaning relies on definition and all definitions rely on other definitions. The goal of this method is to show that meaning does not rely on reference because it does not rely on truth-conditions. If principle this can be shown to obtain (and some believe it can), then we can evade the Realist's reference-based ontology.

Unfortunately this anti-Realist tactic of undermining the troubling concept causes just about as many problems as it solves. For if meaning does not rely on reference, then it makes as little sense to say that nouns do not refer as it does to say that they do refer. In other words, the anti-Realist is making claims about a realm that he commands the Realist not to make claims about. He is a hypocrite. Now, some anti-Realists claim that it is enough to simply show that reference is nonsense, and from this fact it is obvious without argument that a noun cannot refer. This objection is not without warrant, but I do not think that many Realists find it convincing.

What the anti-Realist needs, in addition to this skeptical argument, is an empirical coup de gras. Should the anti-Realist find empirical support for his claim that there are no entities beyond thought and experience, then he is home-free, for he has the advantage over the Realist on both the a priori and the a posteriori fronts. So if the anti-Realist cannot find a suitable means of supporting his claim that fictional entities and worlds do not exist, then we will find ourselves in a stalemate: the Realist can now posit an abstract entity (or concrete entity, if we are Lewisians) to counter every anti-Realist reduction. Just so, the anti-Realist can perform a reduction for every abstact entity (or concrete entity) that the Realist cares to posit.

In short, the program of anti-Realism rides on the back of the project of ontological fictionalism. for it is on this project alone that it relies for an empirical advantage to buttress its theoretical stalemate.

-Priam's Pride

Metaethical Fiat and Moral Outrage

An interesting metaethical situation presented itself to me today. It is important to note that I have not yet done any research on metaethics, so these are virgin thoughts. It is likely that many (or possibly even all) of my points have been made by other people somewhere, but I do not know who or where.

Sarah and I went to the Renaissance Festival in Hammond, LA today. As far as Renaissance festivals go, it was quite mediocre, but this is not the point. We and some of our friends had purchased a heaping plate of Mediterranean food and were picking at it by ourselves on a set of wooden bleachers. We were having what counts, by any standards, as a lighthearted adult conversation. Being who we are, we spoke vulgarly at times and with sparse use of swear words for emphasis. As it turned out, a rather typical middle-class family had seated themselves next to us. As soon as I noticed them (and was surprised by their presence), I decided to stop using language that might be deemed inappropriate in front of children. However, I let this decision slip my mind, and incidentally uttered the word "fuck" without thinking about it. The father of the family had, apparently, had enough of our swearing and, with a note of irritation, asked if we could cool it with the "f-bombs". We were done eating, so I asked my friends if they were ready to leave the area.

These are the facts of the situation prior to any ethical judgment. What I wish to do now is explicate the events ethically. Clearly, my decision to stop swearing was an ethical claim that I made upon myself; this much is obvious. Loosely speaking, I probably made the judgment based on an ethics of personal reciprocity: I imagined myself bringing my young kids to a Renaissance Festival and dealing with the burden of them picking up new vocabulary words. It is important to observe that I was not necessitated to make this decision. That is, my ethics could have been different. I could, perhaps, have used an egoist ethics (which one of my friends did). In this case, I would observe that I had paid to attend the Renaissance Festival and had not agreed not to swear. Therefore, I was not ethically bound to not swear. Perhaps other plausible ethical assessments are also possible, but it is enough that there is more than one.

The father's reaction is also important. The father actually made two speech-acts when he asked my to stop dropping F-bombs. One speech-act is the actual request that he made: he was genuinely asking a favor of me. This speech act is not an ethical speech act, because he did not make a claim over me with it. Had this been his only speech act, it would be as benign as if he had asked me to pass the salt, which is generally considered an ethically neutral request. And by any plausible ethics, he would not be wrong to ask me to do so.

The second speech-act that the father made with his single question was moral outrage. His irritation revealed that he had expected that I would come to the ethical conclusion that I would come to and adhere to that conclusion. This irritation that this expectation had produced is evidence that he was holding me to an ethical standard (his own ethical standard) and that he was disappointed that I had failed.

What I find interesting about this contrast is that the father had imposed his ethics upon me before finding out what my ethics was! He did not simply ask if I would stop swearing, and judge from my reaction whether my ethics agreed with his -- that I should stop swearing. If I were adhering strictly to what I had agreed to do, then I might have said no. To elaborate this ethics further, I intend an ethics, here, of egocentrism. Such an ethicist might agree to do things that he was not bound to do by law, but only on the basis that it benefits him. For example, in this case, if I really thought that the children learning swear-words from me would not harm me or my world in any way (especially considering that they will learn them anyway), then I might be well justified in telling him that I would not stop swearing. As a matter of fact, I really do believe that his children learning swear-words from me, in particular, will not affect my world in even the remotest way. I could have been such an ethicist. Nevertheless, he did not pause to find out whether I was an egoist ethicist or a reciprocation ethicist.

Now not only did I make a mistake in forgetting to adhere to my own ethics; he made a mistake in holding me to his own ethics before determining whether such a metaethical claim even made sense. That is, in order for him to be able to ethically make an ethical claim upon me, his ethics must first demand that it is the only legitimate ethics. Naturally, there are many ethical systems which make this claim (many extreme religious systems, for example), but it is difficult to determine whether this appropriate. What we would find, should it be acceptable, metaethically, to demand universal acceptance of one's own ethical system, is that the entire field of metaethics would reduce to fiat. That is, the only metaethical principle is: 'All persons ought to share my ethical system'. Let us call this the Principle of Metaethical Fiat ("Fiat" for short). It is quite clear that such a metaethical move is simply implausible, because it would preclude the possibility of a peaceful plurality of ethical systems: we would always be at each other's throats forcing our own ethics down each other's throats. Therefore, if there exists any further metaethical principle, this additional principle would preclude the Fiat. For if there were any other metaethical principle, then it would be a principle of toleration, but the Fiat is a principle of non-toleration. Therefore, the Principle of Metaethical Fiat is inconsistent with any other metaethical principle.

These considerations on the Fiat entail that this principle is, effectively, a principle that there is no metaethics. If metaethics is determined publicly (and I believe that it is because metaethics is much more useful to the public than to individuals), and there are public contributors to the definition of metaethics who hold any other metaethical principle (and it is obvious that there are), then the Fiat is false. Simply put, if there exists a public metaethics, then the Fiat is false.

Thus, the father was bound by metaethics to discover my ethical system before he could be ethically justified in holding me responsible for having violated an ethical code (the code, that is, not to swear in front of children). He simply assumed that my ethical system was the same as his. This is evidence of a shift of blame. As soon as the father revealed his irritation, he broke his own ethical code just as surely as I broke my own. The most interesting thing about this dual violation is that in pointing out my personal error, he made an error of his own. And his error, as an offense against me, is an error for which I was justified in expressing moral outrage toward him. In fact, he was not justified in his moral outrage, whereas I would have been justified had I been morally outraged. In fact, had I been outraged, I could simply point to the fact that he sat next to us, and that there were plenty of equally comfortable places he could have taken his family. Thus, I could show him that he was presumptuous in expressing moral outrage to me, since he is equally responsible for sneaking up so close to a group of adults. Indeed, adult conversation is not surprising to hear from adults in a casual atmosphere.

But I did not express any outrage at all. Instead I was embarrassed because when he accused me of acting unethicaly, he was accurate in the accusation. In other words, the father was epistemically unjustified in his assessment of my ethics, and because his epistemic misstep factored into his action, he is guilty of epistemic irresponsibility. But despite this guilt on his part, I admitted my own guilt and we left his family because I decided I was likely to forget about the decision against swearing again.

Thinking back on this event, it is quite surprising to me that he was unjustified in being morally outraged, but became morally outraged anyway. One might find it equally surprising, on the other hard, that I was justified in being morally outraged, but did not become morally outraged. I'm not sure why I was so quick to forgive his presumptuousness. I should note that there are often times when I get morally outraged by the presumptuousness of others. Even when someone assumes that I believe something that I actually do believe, I am still prone to moral outrage because of presumptuousness. To the reader, this fact about my own ethical code is rather insignificant, but to me, it is evidence that there is something different about assuming ethical reciprocity.

But is it really a plausible ethics to adopt egoism rather than reciprocity? If moral outrage is the indicator of an ethical claim over others, then I invite the reader to examine her own instances of moral outrage, and determine whether it diminishes when one finds oneself as guilty as the accused. Intuitively, it seems that a person faced with such a fact would be likely to calm down, though this could again me a simply oddity about myself.

In closing, I would like to note that I believe that what I did is what Jesus actually meant by the phrase "Turn the other cheek" (assuming he ever said it). I don't think he was suggesting the slave-ethics that Nietzsche accuses him of. Unfortunately, many of his followers seem to believe that he did suggest this slave-mentality, but that is neither here nor there.

-Priam's Pride

The Nature of Time: Reflections on A-Series and B-Series

I am currently taking a course on contemporary analytic metaphysics. For those who do not know what these three terms mean when used in conjunction, it is the study of the existence claims that current analytic philosophers have made and why. The most recent topic of discussion in the class is the quest 'What is the nature of time?' In reading about the current debate on the topic, I found myself intellectually revolted by the point of departure that modern discussion has taken on the issue. I find it amazing that the debate has been structured in the way it has been for so long. Essentially, I think there is a major problem with the way this issue has been structured, so I have decided to restructure the concept myself.

McTaggart's Argument:

The argument is composed a distinction and three logical steps based on the distinction. The distinction is between two different concepts of time, named A-series and B-series. McTaggart claims that: (1) B-series actually presupposes A-series, (2) A-series entails contradiction, (3) therefore both concepts are meaningless and there is no such thing as time.

The starting point of the debate is an argument formulated by John McTaggart. McTaggart sets up the argument by identifying two conceptions of time. First, there is B-series, which is time as composed of points which either precede or succeed each other. This conception in terms of succession is considered to be a static model in which every point along the dimension of time really exists just as much as any other point. Then there is A-series, which is time as composed of three distinct groupings: past, present and future. However, these groupings change as the future flows through the present into the past. Thus, this is a dynamic conception of time.

With these two distinct conceptions of time in the background, McTaggart observes that time presupposes change. But what does change mean? For Michael Loux, in the metaphysics intro we are reading (Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction, 3rd ed., New York and London: Routledge, 2006), "at the very least change involves a variation in the way things are" (208). This seems to be true, but for whatever reason, McTaggart defines change in a much stronger way. We will, therefore, come back to this weak definition of change later. For McTaggart, change in "the way things are" is determined by the events that take place and how they come to be. Every change is an event, so it is the events that change over the course of time.

If time occurs in events, then events that are no longer happening must cease to be events and new events become. But this fact about time is incompatible with B-series, because the static nature of the conception prevents things from coming into being or ceasing to be. Therefore, if we are to speak temporally when we speak of time as a B-series, the temporal conception must be entirely appropriated from A-series. This is so because the concept of change fundamental to temporality is a dynamic concept of change, not a static one. In B-series, a thing's properties are fixed at every point in space-time, so there is simply no possibility of change. All speech about time, then, is only meaningful in terms of A-series, and B-series treats time in an artificial manner which presupposes A-series.

With step (1) accomplished, Mctaggart moves on to step (2). Because time is composed of the changing of events, it turns out that at some point in their career all events must be all three of past, present and future. This seems like contradiction. A supporter of A-series (an A-theorist) might respond that no event exemplifies all three properties simultaneously, so there is no contradiction. McTaggart, however, anticipates this objection by observing that when we say a thing x has a property P or 'x is p', the tenseless translation of what we are saying is 'in the present x is P'. Similarly, in the future, when x no longer has P, the translation of 'x was P' is 'in the future x is not P'; and in the past 'x will be P' becomes 'in the past, x is not P'. The problem, for McTaggart, every past and future moment was once a present moment, so each moment, past and future ascriptions can be made about x. These ascriptions, when broken down into tenseless language, differ. Therefore, we are ascribing contradictory properties to x.

Given these two steps, McTaggart decides that because his decriptions of time exhaust the possibilities of description of time (or so he thinks), time must not exist.

Evaluation of McTaggart's Argument:

I don't think I have ever seen a worse argument that has received as much attention as McTaggart's has. To be fair, the literature that the argument has produced is almost entirely critical -- no one actually believes that time does not exist except McTaggart. However, most of the responses serve to defend one of either A-series or B-series from attack, which has resulted in the fact that the overarching conception that McTaggart has imposed onto the debate does not receive a criticism. This overarching conception will be my target, and I will consider the claims of A-theory and B-theory as the bear on this goal.

I will accept McTaggart's distinction between A-series and B-series, because I think it is the best thing he wrote on the matter (even though these distinctions do not originate with him). Also, relinquishing these definitions would not mean that I do not take him seriously. What I want to question, first, is his claim that change must be defined in terms of events, because only events change. This claim is very strong and completely unwarranted. As a matter of fact, it commits us to a strange ontology of events. McTaggart, in assuming that time describes the change of events, also assumes the unity and identity of events themselves. That is, McTaggart must take as his most fundamental principle about time the concept that events exist as distinct from each other in a way described by identity. In other words, events can have names.

The assumption that events are fundamentally unified does not need to be made, though. In fact, change can be defined as the differences in spatial configuration that obtain between temporally contiguous moments. That is, change is the mere fact that at different points along the temporal axis, the matter scattered throughout space is arranged differently. The change is a discription of the differences between moments as a smooth function. This concept of change seems to me to be both scientifically sound and deeply intuitive. We often say that a surface changes, for example when I describe the topology of Louisiana, I can observe that the landscape changes from south Louisiana to north Louisiana such that the ground goes from soft and marshy to firm and hilly. This description of change is true even if time does not exist. Therefore, change is not a purely temporal term, and it is inappropriate to define it in terms of events which are purely temporal.

In fact, the difference between these two concepts of change is the difference between A-series and B-series. In A-series, time is conceived as events; and in B-series, time is conceived as a smooth spatial function over the dimension of time. But the differences between A-series and B-series go deeper than this. In fact, both series are a description of the things in time and a description of the context of these things (viz., time itself). For A-series, the things that exist in time are events and objects. Each event and each object has an identity that is maintained as unchanging, while the context is held variable: a single event can be spoken of as past, present or future. The only way that this can work is if events and objects are treated as fixed in the same way that a moving body can be treated as fixed in physics.

It is evident, now, that the reverse will be true of B-series. B-series holds the background dimensions fixed, and the objects and events that occur in this background are treated as varied and changing. Thus, for a B-theorist, when I refer to an object or an event, I am actually referring to a particular configuration of matter in occupying a finite space and a finite time. In other words, the B-theorist will bracket off a piece of space-time and refer to that piece as an event or an object. Here, we find that the physical matter and its dimensions are taken as fundamental, rather than the unitied objects and events that the matter comprises.

Now we must remember that events and objects are complex metaphysical concepts about which there is much debate. However, that debate essentially characterizes them in one of the two ways described above, so this cartoon representation of them will suffice as a sketch. A-theory and B-theory, then, is an extension of the nominalist/realist debate. The realist will typically claim that objects and events are fundamental and that time is inherently tensed and dynamic. The nominalist will typically claim that the concrete particulars that occupy space-time are fundamental and that time is inherently a static dimension. Both conceptions of time want to account for events and objects in time. This means that something must be held static and something must be allowed to vary. For B-theory what is held static is the dimension of time, and the objects and events are allowed to vary (we can take any grouping we want and call it an object or event). For A-theory what is held static is the objects and events, and the dimension of time is allowed to vary (we can refer to the same object or event in different tenses).

Responses to McTaggart's argument should be relatively evident at this point. His reduction of B-series temporality to A-series temporality simply does not work, because we have seen that there is a second perfectly good description of time to be had. His claim that A-theory entails a contradiction also does not succeed. McTaggart has not respected the fact that something must be allowed to vary if change is to be accounted for. He wants objects and events to be held static for A-series, but he also wants to be able to speak about time staticly (i.e. tenselessly). Of course, even if these first two logical steps could be made soundly, his conclusion would still not follow, because he has not exhausted the different conceptions of time. Without doing this, he cannot claim that time does not exist.

I do not find either A-theory or B-theory to be superior to the other. Both of them do a good job of describing time, but both are subject to temporal descriptions that the other has difficulty accounting for. Descriptions of events are very difficult in B-series, because places (where events occur) are difficult to define in sheer materialist terms. Similarly, descriptions of science are very difficult in A-series, because they are conceived in B-series (and probably necessarily so). What this means is that both theories have something to offer concerning time, but which one obtains (if only one does) will depend entirely on the metaphysical debate (concerning event and object identity) which underlies the two conceptions.

It seems to me that we ought to retain both conceptions, because, at least as far as human thought is concerned, they provide two different descriptions of the same thing, and each description states something true. The relevant way in which time is dynamic is that it always appears to be so to a human intelligence. The reason is that awareness is a fundamentally present-tense event. We are never aware of existing except in the present, and in the present, we can contemplate the future and the past, but to occupy the future or the past would be to make them present. Thus, time is dynamic at least for human awareness. Time is also static, however. This is so because scientific description of the world is inherently tenseless. Though it may be that only one theory is true of both the world and the entities that have awareness within it, it may also be that A-series is true of us, and B-series is true of the world.

-Priam's Pride