Williamson’s Argument against an Epistemological Conception of Analyticity

So, I’m about halfway through Timothy Williamson’s The Philosophy of Philosophy (POP). From what I’ve heard, POP has gotten a lot of people talking, because Williamson is largely attempting to come to the defense of traditional “armchair” philosophy. Williamson isn’t explicitly anti-X-phi (Experimental Philosophy), but he does think that armchair philosophy is still as important as ever. At the halfway point, I think I agree with his general thesis, though I disagree with some minor points, one of which is the subject of this post.

In chapter 4, Williamson argues against the idea that “failure to assent [to an analytic truth] is not merely good evidence of failure to understand; it is constitutive of such failure.” To prove his point, he wants to argue that a competent speaker of a language can reject analytic truths. He decides to use one of the simplest types of analytic case out there, “Every vixen is a vixen.” If he can show that even a competent user of the English language can reject this statement, then he will have proved his point.

There is a lot more going on in this chapter, but most of it centers around this argument. An epistemological conception of analyticity will say something along the lines of:
(ECA) “A statement (or thought) p is analytic iff anyone who truly understands p will assent to it.” Williamson considers a lot of subtle ways the defender of an epistemological conception may change it to avoid his objections, but I don’t think that’s important to my present point.

On pp85-99, Williamson discusses at length his two examples of competent speakers who reject “Every vixen is a vixen” [henceforth (V)]. The first example is Peter: Peter takes universal quantification to be existentially committing, and thus, (V) is only true if vixens actually exist. Furthermore, Peter happens to subscribe to a conspiracy theory whereby vixens, in fact, do not exist. A crazy belief, sure, but certainly it doesn’t make him linguistically incompetent. In all other respects, Peter is a competent native speaker of the English language.* Nevertheless, because Peter believes there are no vixens, he rejects (V) because he thinks it assumes that there are vixens. So (ECA) fails.

I think this first case fails, for two reasons. First, if there is a fact of the matter about the analyticity of (V), which Williamson presumes, then Peter is either wrong, and incompetently using the word “every” as a universal quantifier which is existentially committing, or right, and the vast majority of people are wrong. If there is no fact of the matter, then statements in natural language have no truth-conditions, so of course (EPA) fails, along with any other account of the truth-conditions of sentences (or statements, thoughts, etc.) of a natural language such as English.

The Peter problem is one that only arises in natural language, which ought to tip us off to the fact that it is a problem of the vagueness and ambiguity within natural language, not with (ECA) or analyticity itself. For Peter could not competently deny (V) within a logical system like basic, elementary predicate logic. The denial of (V) would result in a contradiction. Peter could construct his own system which didn’t interpret universal quantifiers in such a way, but then it would just be a different system, a different language, and incommensurate with the elementary predicate logic which Hurley and Copi made us love (or hate).

Williamson’s second example is the case of Stephen. Stephen “believes that borderline cases for vague terms constitute truth-value gaps.” (pg87) When a borderline case for a vague term comes up, Stephen recognizes it as “indeterminate,” rather than true or false. Stephen rejects (V) because there are borderline cases of vixens (Evolutionary ancestors of foxes, for example), call them x. For cases like x, “x is a vixen” is indeterminate, and therefore (V) is indeterminate. Stephen is, despite his views (which may, in fact, be accurate), a competent speaker of English. He understands (V), but does not assent to it.

The Stephen case can be answered on similar lines. Williamson takes all cases of things to be determinately vixen or not vixen—there is no middle ground. If he is right, then Stephen does not understand “Every vixen is a vixen,” because he doesn’t understand the meaning of “vixen” as being strictly determinate. Sure, Stephen may be competent in the sense of “getting by,” but if there really is a fact of the matter as to whether the statement is true or not, and Williamson is right about that fact, Stephen does not properly grasp what a “vixen” is.

On the other hand, Stephen may be right, that “vixen” is a vague term, and that there are things which are indeterminate as to whether they are vixens. If this is the case, then it is Williamson who doesn’t really grasp (V) (as well as, perhaps, most of us, because most people intuitively assent to (V)). Williamson believes there are necessary and sufficient conditions, which, though unknowable by us in totality, can pick out determinately which x’s are vixens and which not. But what are these necessary and sufficient conditions, if not part of the semantics of the word? So the dispute between someone like Stephen and Williamson is over the meaning of “vixen.” And if there is a fact of the matter, one of them is wrong, and one of them doesn’t properly understand (V).

But surely, Williamson will respond, Stephen, Peter, and I are all competent speakers of the English language. This is a sleight of hand—-by “competent,” Williamson means that they can communicate in all everyday affairs without making wildly false statements.* Well sure they can! But that doesn’t mean they infallibly grasp the meanings of words and logical operators in the language. If someone had a system to add numbers which gave outputs identical to ours except in the case of 7+5 it said 13, we wouldn’t say they understood what “+” means even though they were reliable in most circumstances (think Kripkenstein). When Williamson discusses Stephen and Peter’s competence, what he needs is semantic competence, but all he has is pragmatic, functional competence. And their semantic competence is obviously skewed, since they are giving improper truth values to basic sentences (or we are giving improper truth values to basic sentences, but the point is that someone must be right).
One final note—Williamson considers the objection that perhaps Stephen and Peter are using the words in (V) in a non-standard way, and thus are just constructing a semantics independent of standard English. His response is that “Peter and Stephen are emphatic that they intend their words to be understood as words of our common language, with their standard English senses.” (pp89) But this objection just looks to me like a straw-man. Of course Williamson’s response is accurate—Peter and Stephen think they are accurately describing standard English. But they are wrong (ex hypothesi). So much for the worse for their analyses. This isn’t an issue, because the defender of (ECA) can just say that Stephen and Peter lack semantic competence, despite the fact that they have what Williamson seems to think is important, functional competence.

*Actually, in Peter's case, this seems implausible, since Peter will not be able to assent to statements like "All unicorns have one horn."

Beating Singer at His Own Game

Peter Singer is one of very few living philosophers who are known in the mainstream--I have seen him on the Morning Show, the Colbert Report, and a BBC news special.
Its probably a toss-up whether he is more known for his animal rights stuff or his ending world poverty stuff, but he is extremely prominent in both areas.
Recently, Singer has published a book entitled "The Life You Can Save". This book is written for a popular audience, and it basically makes the same case Singer has been making since his 1972 "Famine, Affluence, and Morality": that we (individuals as well as governments) should be giving A LOT more money to charities, to end world poverty and unnecessary deaths from things that, frankly, people shouldn't die from-- diarrhea, cholera, etc. etc. Even the poor in affluent countries like the U.S. are much better off than the poor in third-world countries, and proximity should have no independent effect on our obligations.
I generally agree with Singer's project, as well as most of his others (that is, I am a utilitarian who isn't afraid to follow those principles to their conclusion.)

Here, I want to focus on one of his most famous arguments. This is an argument that gets discussed in Intro to Ethics courses all over. Briefly, it is this:

"if it is in our power to prevent something very bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything morally significant, we ought, morally, to do it. An application of this principle would be as follows: if I am walking past a shallow pond and see a child drowning in it, I ought to wade in and pull the child out. This will mean getting my clothes muddy, but this is insignificant, while the death of the child would presumably be a very bad thing...the principle takes, firstly, no account of proximity or distance. It makes no moral difference whether the person I can help is a neighbor's child ten yards from me or a Bengali whose name I shall never know, ten thousand miles away. Secondly, the principle makes no distinction between cases in which I am the only person who could possibly do anything and cases in which I am just one among millions in the same position." (Famine, Affluence, and Morality)

Its the example of the child drowning that gets me. I actually think it is an apt analogy--if you can save a child's life by donating $75 to Oxfam, that is just as good as saving a child's life that is drowning in a wading pool right in front of you. That's okay with me. Sure, you might ruin your suit. But saving a child's life is much more valuable than a suit, even a nice one.

But there is an issue here, if we are sticking strictly to our utilitarian calculus (which Singer wants to do). Let's assume, for sake of example, that a child in Africa's minor ailment can be cured with a $75 donation to Oxfam, allowing him to live a productive and full life. Next, let's assume that the suit I am wearing has a resale value of, say, $300. I notice the child drowning in front of me. Here we are, in the same situation which Singer gives above, but with the added detail about the suit's cost. So, it seems we should save the child in front of us--most people would even say its pretty obvious we ought to do that. But let's say I don't have time to take off my suit. If this is so, then, by utilitarian lights, I ought not save the child! Why? Because I can save the lives of 4 children by leaving, selling the suit, and donating the money to Oxfam. The lives of 4 are greater than the life of one, and proximity makes no difference.
This looks to be just another formulation of the trolley problem, or the forced organ-donor example. But it is especially interesting because what Singer says in his work on poverty seems to imply he has to be ok with this counterintuitive conclusion.
Anyone have any way of getting out of this? It sure seems like there ought to be one; that is, I think Singer's argument is cogent--so something fishy must be going on here.

The Terminator Argument for Determinism

Ok, so I saw Terminator: Salvation (a.k.a. Terminator 4) today. It has its moments of greatness, in between sections of mediocrity.
Anyway, there was one thing in the movie which made me think--and I'm pretty sure it was supposed to...the film didn't have a lot of brains behind it for the most part, but this may be one exception.
I saw, within the plot, an argument that might be used to shift the burden of proof onto the libertarian in the free will/determinist debate.
But let me preface this:
SPOILER ALERT



Ok, hopefully you have stopped reading if you plan on seeing the movie and haven't yet.

One of the characters in the film is named Marcus Wright. He learns in the movie that he is a cyborg--a human/machine hybrid, created by Skynet (if any of this doesn't make sense because you aren't familiar with the Terminator series, go to wikipedia.) Marcus sees himself as being completely human; he is, in fact, not even aware that he is a cyborg until about half way through. So, presumably, his judgment and actions appear to himself as autonomous.
However, later on, after Marcus helps get John Connor into the headquarters of Skynet, the main CPU at Skynet reveals that bringing John Connor was Marcus' programmed mission, and that Marcus has executed his mission perfectly, though he was unaware that he was doing so.
This all seems to make sense, in the moment. After all, it is an American action movie, one ought not think too hard in the heat of the moment.
But, if one could accept (and, even better, to argue for) that the case of Marcus Wright is logically coherent, as well as in principle physically coherent, it seems that a somewhat cogent argument against free will could be made.
If it is possible, in principle, to manipulate someone's experience in such a way as to give them the phenomenology of choosing freely when in fact they are not, then there really isn't any way of knowing why this may not just be the way we've evolved.

So, the argument would look something like this (and, grant me that its late and I haven't thought this through too much):

1.Some version of libertarian free will is the most intuitively plausible.
2.We, prima facie, as well as "the folk," find libertarianism about the will to be intuitively plausible, in main part, because of our phenomenology of choice--that is, we deliberate and act on what seems to us to be of our own choosing.
3a.(What we may call, The Skeptical Premise) This phenomenology of choice does not give us reason to favor a libertarianism about the will over a determinist one--that is,
3b. the phenomenology can be equally explained by something like the Marcus Wright story, without any messy science fiction tale (e.g. we may have just evolved to be Marcus Wrights). Ockham's Razor does not favor the libertarian explanation of the Marcus Wright one.
Therefore,
4.Our reason for finding libertarianism about the will loses its grounding, and along with this, its intuitive force.
Therefore, ceteris paribus,
5.Determinism should be the accepted view, libertarianism should hold the burden of proof.

What obvious hole am I missing? I may be accused of begging the question. Well, yeah, I guess that is probably true. But, if we took an anecdotal survey of reactions to the Marcus Wright story, and most found it coherent, then perhaps we could say intuitions about free will are too highly inconsistent to claim that libertarianism is more intuitively plausible than determinism.

Holy Crap!/Question of the Summer

Pt. I-- Holy Crap!
So, yeah. I have turned in my final paper; I have taken my final test. I will be graduating on Saturday, barring any unforeseen failings or transcript overlookings! Holy shit! I will have an M.A. in Philosophy! In honor, I have created a "Word Cloud"
http://www.wordle.net/gallery/wrdl/837362/Masters

Are Investors Functionalists?

Ok, so before I get started on this post, I have a question for all readers (with an opinion) of this blog--I am currently trying to decide the manner in which to write posts. I have, in the past, written in a way such that any intelligent reader can understand. However, there are times when I have wanted to post on things which are more specific to contemporary analytic philosophy, things which I have not the space to give background. Here is my question: Should I write this blog to the general reader, or should I assume a good background of philosophical knowledge? Your opinion would be appreciated.
On to the post!

From the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
"Functionalism in the philosophy of mind is the doctrine that what makes something a mental state of a particular type does not depend on its internal constitution, but rather on the way it functions, or the role it plays, in the system of which it is a part."
Put very simply, and in a way functionalists would quibble with, functionalists define mental states by their functional/dispositional role. For example, a functionalist would define pain as "a disposition to wince, to take aspirin if offered, etc. etc."
There are a lot of objections to functionalism, and its not as popular as it once was about 20-30 years ago. But its still a pretty popular theory of mind--it can be construed materially, so no problems with immaterial substances. But it also allows for multiple realizability, which seems pretty plausible.
I'm not concerned with those objections here. But I am interested to see if functionalists have thought about accepting a real life China-brain example.
Is the creature, "Carl", being referred to in the following quotes an intelligent being capable of reacting to world events just as we are?
"Carl's reaction to the 'going concern' news was somewhat strange given that it was not a surprise at all."
"The president's words did little to inspire Carl, however."
Headlines: "Unrepentant Carl" "Is Obama Responsible for Carl's Meltdown?" (a little tabloid, that one.)
"He appeared to win the confidence of some leaders, according to CNNMoney.com. But the story was different on the home front, where Carl is all but comfortable with the plan."

Who is this powerful "Carl"? Some political nerd? A powerful, but emotionally unstable, member of Obama's cabinet? He certainly reacts to world events in a swift and calculated way.

Well, you've probably figured it out. But if you haven't, "Carl" is Wall Street. So is Wall Street a conscious, intelligent creature? Don't give me that incredulous stare (philosophers will get that)! What is the difference between a human being and Wall Street that makes you believe that we are conscious and Wall Street not? Both are highly organized systems, made up of smaller systems (cells on the one hand, and human beings and computers on the other), react to stimulation in somewhat though not totally predictive ways, etc.
If you aren't a dualist, what is it that makes humans different from other organized systems?
I've been learning philosophy of mind for about 5 years now; everything seems more confusing the more I learn. So before you dismiss the idea of something like Wall Street being conscious, try to find, in your own introspection, some definitive line or qualifying idea as to what the necessary and sufficient conditions are to be a conscious being.

And before you say, "hey, functionalism is just stupid. Problem solved." Trust me, every position in Phil of Mind has something bizarre going on. That's why Philosophy of Mind is such a hot field, and why views are still so divided.

I just may have been right about something

Hey look! Another reason why NOT to get/have a facebook account! Everything you upload or post becomes property of Facebook....forever.
http://consumerist.com/5150175/facebooks-new-terms-of-service-we-can-do-anything-we-want-with-your-content-forever

There is also stuff on the news sites, but I am afraid the links will die, so just google news it.

Michael Phelps smokes weed.

Maybe instead of "Wow, who knew Michael Phelps was a big loser drug addict," the reaction should be "Wow, I guess marijuana isn't that bad for you when done in moderation. After all, winning eight gold medals has to take a lot of ambition, hard work, strength, and focus. Maybe all of our stereotypes about marijuana aren't completely true?"