RoR: Forum

Above, I quoted John Lachs writing about Mill's rampant empiricism regarding what it is that we ought to characterize as a human value:

Anything large numbers of people have prized generation after generation has a high probability of being good. It is extremely unlikely that the bread we have eaten for thousands of years will turn out, on close examination, to be not food but poison.

Amusingly, here is evidence that that "bread" has indeed been a slow "poison" for us all along!:

Consequently, the Neolithic introduction of dairy foods and cereal grains as staples would have caused the average micronutrient content of the diet to decline. This situation worsened as cereal milling techniques developed in the Industrial era allowed for the production of bread flour devoid of the more nutrient-dense bran and germ (35).

Origins and evolution of the Western diet: health implications for the 21st century.

:-)

Ed

Post 21

Saturday, January 28, 2012 - 5:56pm

Here is a more concise questionnaire that I contend allows you to successfully differentiate yourself into one of the 4 philosophical categories (idealist, realist, pragmatist, existentialist):

(1) Social metaphysics vs. totally-nonsocial metaphysics

Q: Is there a primacy of existence, where the universe exists independently of everyone's mind?

A: If yes, then you are a realist. For you, to be is to be (a "something"). If no, read on.

(2) Rationalism

Q: Is there a primacy of rationalism, where thinking is more important than sensing (sense perception)?

A: If yes, then you are an idealist. For you, to be is to be thought of. If no, read on.

(3) Empiricism

Q: Is there a primacy of empiricism, where sensing (sense perception) is more important than thinking?

A: If yes, then you are a pragmatist. For you, to be is to be perceived (e.g., Mill's "permanent possibility of sensation"). If no, read on.

(4) Emotion

Q: Is there a primacy of personal feelings, where "your" universe exists independently of everyone else's?

A: If yes, then you are an existentialist. For you to be is to feel (or to be felt).

This is the shortest philosophical sorter ever. Let me know what you think about it. It might need some work. This is my first draft of the thing.

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 1/28, 7:08pm)

Post 22

Thursday, February 2, 2012 - 11:44pm

Ed, here are my thoughts regarding your questionnaire:

Most people will assert primacy of existence. Some will say that what we *call* "reality" is simply the sum of what we have perceived thus far.

Most people will say we need both perception and thinking. They won't subscribe to either 2 or 3, resulting in a misunderstanding in their minds of what rationalism and empiricism entail. Rationalism is about appealing to reason--which is so broad and unfocused "classification" as to be meaningless.. Contrast this with what Rand did when she used "rationalist" to specifically refer to "continental rationalists" like Descartes.

Locke, an empiricist, never underestimated the importance of concepts. He simply emphasized they had their roots in perception, that there were no "innate ideas".

Pragmatism (Pierce, William James, et al) is supposed to be about maximizing the practical value of ideas in the face of limits on knowledge and the difficulties of discovering valid methodology. How it actually addresses these questions is an entirely different matter.

I would look at how metaphysics and methodology get together, particularly how they answer such questions on universals, identity, change, invariance, free will, and the observer-observed. Those seem to explain the other characteristics of various philosophies.

I have noticed 8 core methodologies:

essentialism -- find the essence of a thing, a set of characteristics or properties which any entity of that kind must possess; define your terms precisely, in accordance with the nature of substances and relations

continental rationalism = the "rationalism" you sketched

British empiricism

synthesis of opposites -- Hegel and lesser minds

hypothetico-deductive -- finding a conceptual "best fit" to data given what we know about the world and deducing consequences; Carvaka philosophy, Hume, Herschel, Karl Popper

pragmatism -- as I explained it above in my post

disintegration -- e.g. post-modernism, post-structuralism, etc.

adherence to reality by recognizing hierarchy and context -- e.g. Bacon, Rand

Post 23

Friday, February 3, 2012 - 12:06am

"you seem to have me painted into a metaphorical corner, as my crude characterization of him seems to rely on him being a black-hearted predator. Allow me to back-track at least half of a step to say that while Nietzschean philosophy does not necessarily advocate predatory behavior, it simultaneously does not rule out such behavior. This is even congruent with your statement that Nietzsche never quite tells us what ethics ought to be.

Think about that for a moment.

Think about what it would mean for a philosopher to never get around to telling you what ethics ought to be, but merely offer some examples of what it shouldn't be. The primary purpose of ethics discussions is to figure out what ethics ought to be. It seems like the fella' was hiding something. Maybe he was hiding something about master-slave moralities, or some such things.

Anyway, as you can tell, I don't trust the man -- and you have added good reason not to. Anyone who thinks that reality is a Heraclitean flux, could turn on you and violently murder you -- or be a friend one day, and an enemy the next (it doesn't always have to end in murders and rapes and politicians, and whatever else I happen to associate with existentialism). In a flux, this kind of behavior could be just fine. It can be explained by a disturbance in the flux. That's the trouble with existentialism, it is too open-ended. It's raw."

Nietzsche isn't clear enough to rule out all forms of predatory behavior, no.

Nietzsche is no system-builder. He is a critic of a declining Europe who wanted to protect Man without knowing how.

I sense no bad intent from the man.

In small doses, Nietzsche is merely funny. He merely elbows people in the ribs so they wake up and rethink the ideological structures around them.

But I don't dispute he's dangerous if you take him seriously. If you take him seriously you end up with a nasty habit of disintegration.

I see him as a tired man in a beerhall waiting for someone wiser than him to put things right.

But I don't take my advice from tired men in beerhalls, however funny or insightful they may be.

(Edited by Michael Philip on 2/03, 12:08am)

Post 24

Saturday, February 4, 2012 - 10:26am

Thanks for the responses, Michael.

Taking your last point first, I guess I have to agree with your characterization of Nietzsche as a man claiming to fight for something but without defining what it actually is, when -- in reality -- he was always only fighting against something, like a complaining drunkard in a beer hall, going on about how "the man" is keeping him down, or about how "the system" is holding him back.

Ed

Post 25

Saturday, February 4, 2012 - 11:53am

Michael,

Most people will assert primacy of existence.

Yeah, but this doesn't mean that they thoroughly conform to it without contradiction. This is like the joke that even a pessimist refers to himself as a realist. The pessimist thinks that his gloomy view of the world is the real view, and that others are just duped by unrelenting optimism. Through a pessimist's eyes, he is the only one with the realistic view. So, what do you have?

You have what it is that folks will, on questioning, assert of themselves, and this can be something quite different from what they actually conform to. They say one thing, and they do another. This is evidence of someone's incomplete philosophical integration. Peikoff, in OPAR, gives the example of the man who complains on Monday that taxes are too high, and on Tuesday complains that there are not enough government welfare services. Someone who will not make sure that all of his thoughts integrate with one another in order to provide a coherent picture of reality. Psychologists might call it "compartmentalization" -- but it is simply the lack of integration. So, what have you hit on?

What you have hit on is that a simple, 4-question questionnaire will not be able to perform the task I originally intended (a task that philosophically sorts people). The reason that a simple questionnaire won't work is because people will say one thing, but do another. You continued:

Some will say that what we *call* "reality" is simply the sum of what we have perceived thus far.

But they are what I call pragmatists. To communicate my view more clearly, let me try a thought experiment:

Think about an astronaut who wakes up on a previously-undiscovered planet. It is totally dark and all that he has with him is his spacesuit and a flashlight. He points his flashlight at the ground in order to take a step without falling into any kind of a pitfall. Then, he points his flashlight forward again so that he can take his second step. He performs the same methodological behavior in order to take his third step, fourth, fifth, etc. Now, let's say he runs into another astronaut in precisely the same situation as he is. One astronaut says to the other:

What can you tell me about the planet we are on?

And the other astronaut replies:

Well, I can't tell you much. But I can tell you that, if you start back there [he points his flashlight], and you point your flashlight on the ground at about 2 feet in front of you, and you take consistent steps, always trying to maintain the same direction, then, after some time [or maybe he actually counted his steps, and so he gives the number of steps it took] -- then you will find yourself where I am standing now.

Now, at this point, the original astronaut might reply in disgust:

Is that it? Is that all that you can tell me about the reality of the planet we are on? All you can tell me is what kind of results I will find when I copy some potentially-arbitrary methodology that you utilized in order to walk here?

My point was to use an epistemological analogy to depict the world in which a pragmatist lives -- to depict the metaphysics that they have projected onto reality. Ayn Rand said that a philosopher's metaphysics is just a tip-off (or an 'apologetics') of what their epistemology is. Adopt a certain epistemology and -- Voila! -- you find yourself trapped in a certain metaphysics! A pragmatist will tell you that what we call reality is "simply the sum of what we have perceived thus far" -- but this mistake in reasoning harkens back to the mistake made by the pessimist, who claims he is actually a realist.

In other words, if someone is willing to go on record and admit that reality is simply the sum of what we have perceived thus far, then this doesn't invalidate my question about primacy of existence (it isn't a way around the question) -- it just shows that pragmatists don't fully integrate all of their thoughts, which allows them to simultaneously:

1) assert a primacy of existence
2) say that "reality" is simply the sum of what we have perceived thus far

... which involves adopting a contradiction. Under a primacy of existence, reality doesn't depend on anyone's perception. You continued:

Most people will say we need both perception and thinking. They won't subscribe to either 2 or 3 ...

Again, this may be a case where they say one thing but do another. Sometimes people will not be willing or able to be entirely intellectually honest when asked about what it is that governs their thinking. I've known pessimists who swear on their mothers and on their bibles that they are realists, and that everyone else is a pollyanna stuck in La La Land. What you have uncovered is that discovering someone's philosophy isn't a straightforward task. Folks may, for instance, lie -- but they will explicitly say that they are honest. It'd be rare to find a liar who tells the truth about being a liar. Folks may look on the dark side of things, but maintain that they are realists. Folks may claim they are completely-altruistic, welfare-state liberals -- but also utilize tax evasion. The kinds of answers folks give you will not always directly correlate with the kinds of thinking that those same folks perform.

A philosophical sorter -- one which works as I intended -- needs to be more intricate than would be possible out of 4 measly questions. This is because folks don't necessarily understand -- or won't fully admit to --what their very own thinking is actually like. In order to find out what their thinking is like, you will have to stick with longer questionnaires, such as the one I first gave in this thread. The questionnaire may even need to be longer. I don't know. You continued:

Rationalism is about appealing to reason--which is so broad and unfocused "classification" as to be meaningless.. Contrast this with what Rand did when she used "rationalist" to specifically refer to "continental rationalists" like Descartes.

Good point. When I said rationalism, then I meant radical rationalism, such as continental rationalism (e.g., Descartes). Everybody needs a little rationalism in their lives. That's not the point. The point is how much weight you give it in relation to sense perception. If you give it more weight than sense perception, then you are a radical rationalist. Sometimes, because of incomplete introspection, folks won't be able to answer -- on a simple questionnaire -- about how much weight they actually assign to rationalism. In order to discover whether they are rationalists, then a quiz-designer would have to formulate an array of questions that painstakingly uncovers whether they give it more weight than sense perception. And this is, again, because folks don't always actually think or do what it is that they say they think or do (or what they report that they think or do). You continued:

Locke, an empiricist, never underestimated the importance of concepts.

Yeah, but Locke didn't successfully defend them. Mortimer Adler put Locke through the ringer about this -- showing that he never successfully rebutted Hume in this regard. You continued:

Pragmatism (Pierce, William James, et al) is supposed to be about maximizing the practical value of ideas in the face of limits on knowledge and the difficulties of discovering valid methodology.

Okay, but that is sort of like what I have been saying. To communicate my view, let's take your words again but this time with emphasis on what I think should be emphasized:

"Pragmatism (Pierce, William James, et al) is supposed to be about maximizing the practical value of ideas in the face of limits on knowledge and the difficulties of discovering valid methodology."

There are 3 claimed parts to pragmatism:

1) maximizing practical value
2) limits on knowledge
3) full or at least partial agnosticism regarding methodological validity

But # 1 is actually just gloss. What makes pragmatism unique is not that it claims to be practical. All philosophies do that. All philosophies, from a standpoint inside of that particular philosophy, will claim that they are that one philosophy which provides someone with true practicality. It may not be the practicality you were personally seeking (e.g., the practicality of an ascetic monk who is starving himself into Heaven), but when viewed from inside of the philosophy itself -- it is the particular practicality that you were supposed to be chasing after.

Now this next point is key: There is no official standard for practicality in all of pragmatism, and that is not an oversight. There was never meant to be one. Instead, whatever cultural standards are found floating around -- pray 5 times a day for piety, plow the fields from dawn-to-dusk for alimentary abundance, be honest in dealings with others, be cut-throat in dealings with others, etc. -- are the ones automatically and implicitly adopted, wholesale, into the philosophy of pragmatism.

This is the social metaphysics that permeates all of pragmatism. You continued:

I would look at how metaphysics and methodology get together, particularly how they answer such questions on universals, identity, change, invariance, free will, and the observer-observed. Those seem to explain the other characteristics of various philosophies.

I have noticed 8 core methodologies: ...

Great points, Michael. I will take some time to look them over ...

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 2/04, 8:39pm)

Post 26

Sunday, February 5, 2012 - 12:07pm

Michael, You wrote:

... particularly how they answer such questions on universals, identity, change, invariance, free will, and the observer-observed. Those seem to explain the other characteristics of various philosophies.

Okay, but regarding universals, I can give you precisely 4 takes on universals -- which seem to match up quite nicely with my idea of there being 4 broad philosophical standpoints. Here is a table:

Metaphysics ...................................................... Epistemology

Idealist ...................................................................... Realist (1)
Realist .......................................................... Intentional Conceptualist (2)
Pragmatist ........................................ Subjective Conceptualist/Mitigated Nominalist (3)
Existentialist .................................................... Full-blown Nominalist (4)

Key:
(1) Epistemological Realists think that universals have independent existence somewhere in reality (i.e., that universals have ontological primacy).

(2) Intentional Conceptualists take universals to arise from the activity of a mind in the process of understanding reality. On this view, universals do not have any independent existence somewhere out in reality, and they do not exist independently inside of anyone's head, either. An analogy would be the music that is potentially created by a bow and a violin. A bow and a violin can interact in order to make music (when someone runs the bow along the strings). But that does not mean that there is any independently-existing music that exists inside of the bow, or inside of the violin (or even out in the ambient air of the music hall). Instead, the only time there is any music is when a human is intentionally running the bow across the violin strings.

On that note, the only time that there are any universals is when human minds are active in the process of understanding reality. Universals then, are something like an emergent property of human behavior. Rand used the example of a car crash. The crash itself is not something that can be found in either of the cars, but rather emerges out of the interaction of the 2 cars with each other.

(3) Subjective Conceptualist/Mitigated Nominalists think that universals are perceptual similarities crudely associated with similarly-perceived objects -- held inside the mind by our perceptual powers of awareness (e.g., by our memory and by a perceptual or non-logical version of association).

(4) Nominalists disavow universals altogether. To them, the word "universal" does not signify anything -- except for that fact that it is evidence of the thinking mistakes made by other people.

So, regarding your first application of the combination of metaphysics and methodology (to the question of universals), I think my categorization remains unscathed -- as the various takes on universals integrate well with my outline. Other issues -- such as "identity" and "change" -- seem like they should be put off until later, so I'll jump forward and respond to your "8 core methodologies" in my next post.

Ed

Post 27

Tuesday, February 7, 2012 - 9:15pm

Michael, You wrote:

I have noticed 8 core methodologies:

essentialism -- find the essence of a thing, a set of characteristics or properties which any entity of that kind must possess; define your terms precisely, in accordance with the nature of substances and relations

continental rationalism = the "rationalism" you sketched

British empiricism

synthesis of opposites -- Hegel and lesser minds

hypothetico-deductive -- finding a conceptual "best fit" to data given what we know about the world and deducing consequences; Carvaka philosophy, Hume, Herschel, Karl Popper

pragmatism -- as I explained it above in my post

disintegration -- e.g. post-modernism, post-structuralism, etc.

adherence to reality by recognizing hierarchy and context -- e.g. Bacon, Rand

In my words, I'd refer to these 8 methodologies as:

--------------------------------
1) essentialism
2) strong, heavy, hard, radical, crude, or vulgar rationalism
3) strong, heavy, hard, radical, crude, or vulgar empiricism
4) dissemble/context-dropping
5) hypothetico-deductive
6) pragmatism
7) distintegration
8) adherence to reality
-------------------------------

But, again, I'd collapse (1) and (8) into one core methodology -- because they integrate well and are co-emblematic of the methodology performed by a metaphysical realist. I'd also collapse (3), (5) and (6) into one core method for the same reason (they are emblematic of the methodology performed by a pragmatist). Item (7) is a methodology performed by honest existentialists -- though it can be performed by dishonest pragmatists as a means to rebut opponents (all for the "greater good," of course). Item (4), likewise, can be performed -- dishonestly, if not honestly -- by idealists and existentialists (but you can never leave pragmatists out!). And item (2) is the hallmark method of an idealist.

Now, perhaps you disagree with me re-wording items. Perhaps you disagree that these methodologies track so well with my theory of 4 core philosophies. I would be interested to find out (and discuss them) if that is the case.

Ed

Post 28

Tuesday, February 7, 2012 - 9:27pm

I've been looking at Mill and at Peirce and I noticed something that I found to be really very peculiar: both Mill and Peirce made it a point to say similar things -- similar bad things -- about Hegel. Now, perhaps most major philosophers have said bad things about Hegel, and that this is just a coincidence overblown in my own mind. But I think that there is something there, and so I am going to work a little bit longer -- to try to discover it.

Please let me know if you have any insights into that matter ...

Is there a specific Hegel passage you're thinking of? Maybe something from his short logic?

Post 29

Thursday, February 9, 2012 - 6:39pm

Michael,

Mill just said he was sickened by reading Hegel. Peirce said the same thing. I don't have access to the material I got their positions from, but I did find some interesting quotes from CS Peirce on Hegel online:

After 250 years of contest in which it was always gaining ground, it remained for 250 years more in unchallenged possession of the field. The opinion referred to is nominalism. Ockham revived it. By the time the universities were reformed in the sixteenth century, it had gained a complete victory. Descartes, Leibniz, Locke, Hume, and Kant, the great landmarks of philosophical history, were all pronounced nominalists. Hegel first advocated realism; and Hegel unfortunately was about at the average degree of German correctness in logic.

This quote implies that Peirce is a nominalist -- as I said above (although I called pragmatists "mitigated nominalists").

The Hegelian philosophy is such an anancasticism [evolution by necessity]. With its revelatory religion, with its synechism (however imperfectly set forth), with its �reflection,� the whole idea of the theory is superb, almost sublime. Yet, after all, living freedom is practically omitted from its method. The whole movement is that of a vast engine, impelled by a vis a tergo, with a blind and mysterious fate of arriving at a lofty goal. I mean that such an engine it would be, if it really worked; but in point of fact, it is a Keely motor. Grant that it really acts as it professes to act, and there is nothing to do but accept the philosophy. But never was there seen such an example of a long chain of reasoning, � shall I say with a flaw in every link? � no, with every link a handful of sand, squeezed into shape in a dream. Or say, it is a pasteboard model of a philosophy that in reality does not exist.

This quote shows Peirce's disdain for Hegel and lays out reasoning behind such disdain.

From:
http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/us/peirce3.htm

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 2/09, 6:40pm)

Post 30

Friday, February 10, 2012 - 8:01pm

... and I think what Mill and Peirce hate about Hegel -- and I do not think that that is too strong of a word -- is that he built a system. On a related tangent***, in psychological science there are categorizations of people as system-builders (systemizers) and/or empathizers. An example of a system builder is an autistic savant. Such savants have terrible difficulty empathizing with anyone. An example of an empathizer might be someone with histrionic personality disorder ('heart-on-your-sleeve' disorder).

I think that Mill and Peirce don't like systems and system building because they feel that they lose "existentialist" freedom when locked into a system. So, they find knooks and crannys in built-up systems in order to shout at the top of their lungs that those systems (i.e., all systems), being imperfect things, should be brought down (or given less attention). I think it is a "deconstructionist drive" that motivates them. They seem content tearing things down without building things up.

Ed

***Further:
More than maths and mindreading: sex differences in empathizing/systemizing covariance.

Mindreading in individuals with an empathizing versus systemizing cognitive style: An fMRI study.

Empathizing, systemizing, and the extreme male brain theory of autism.

[French version of screening questionnaire for high-functioning autism or Asperger syndrome in adolescent: Autism Spectrum Quotient, Empathy Quotient and Systemizing Quotient. Protocol and questionnaire translation]

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 2/10, 8:38pm)

Post 31

Friday, February 10, 2012 - 8:09pm

82 82 82!...too hundred an forty six total...ya..gotta watch wapner at 5..

Post 32

Friday, February 10, 2012 - 8:42pm

[Pit Boss] What are you doing here?

I'm counting cards. Yeah. I'm counting cards.

:-)

Ed

Post 33

Tuesday, February 14, 2012 - 7:06pm

Hey again Ed

J.S. Mill's 1st canon:
"If two or more instances of the phenomenon under investigation have only one circumstance in common, the circumstance in which alone all the instances agree, is the cause (or effect) of the given phenomenon."

I contend that the former implies a demand for omniscience. One cannot know all the circumstances for two instances. If someone employed this rule, they could end up with a false conclusion and blame induction when it was their own fault.

Herschel's rule on commonalities:
"That any circumstance in which all the facts without exception agree, may be the cause in question, or, if not, at least a collateral effect of the same cause: if there be but one such point of agreement, this possibility becomes a certainty; and, on the other hand, if there be more than one, they may be concurrent causes."

I contend that the latter is infused with uncertainty about the conclusion and therefore does not qualify as a rule for *induction*, only a prerequisite stage of narrowing one's search for the cause because of a growing hierarchy of concepts and the mounting context of evidence.

Now look at some of Francis Bacon's suggestions:
* solitary instances, where the only observation in common is the *predicate itself*, such as instances of red having nothing in common but the red light and therefore must be caused by an arrangement of parts too small to be seen at the level of the instances
* instances of the road, where differences among things are quantitative and directional and therefore represent stages of a process rather than distinct entities, e.g. stages of a plant from a seed -- see book II aphorism XLI
* dissecting instances, where composition, and therefore explanation, is found -- see Book II aphorism XLIII of Novum Organum

In each of these cases, the conclusion is demonstrated by the context. To deny the conclusion would be to deny the chain of reasoning building up to it.

How did Europe fall so far from Bacon's lead? Alas I am not a scholar.

Post 34

Tuesday, February 14, 2012 - 8:30pm

Michael,

"If two or more instances of the phenomenon under investigation have only one circumstance in common, the circumstance in which alone all the instances agree, is the cause (or effect) of the given phenomenon."

I contend that the former implies a demand for omniscience.

I tentatively agree. Let's explore it with the concrete example of apples and oranges. Prison "hooch" is an alcoholic drink made from fruit and added yeast. You could get alcohol from an apple (I've seen someone make "apple beer") and my guess is that you could get it from oranges, too. Now, if the only thing apples and oranges shared was the fruit sugar (fructose) -- the ingredient required by necessity in order to make alcohol -- then Mill's #1 might, in theory, be put to use. But apples and oranges have more in common than fructose. Both fruits have a good amount of potassium, for instance. So where does that leave us?

It apparently leaves us in the conundrum which you outlined: We would have to take it upon ourselves to get to know each and every distinct molecule naturally found inside of apples, and each and every distinct molecule naturally found inside of oranges. This task appears daunting. If you look at the number of distinct molecules inside of plants such as apples and oranges, you get overwhelmed. I mean, it's already the 21st Century and we are still finding new things inside of these common fruits! If you had to make one from scratch, you might have to gather together a million or so distinct molecules (in various proportions)! There is certainly more than 1000 (and probably around a million or more) unique molecules in a little teeny-weeny piece of fruit.

Of course, once we gain a mechanistic understanding of alcohol-formation, the task becomes much easier. I wrote about this here. I am currently in the process of re-reading a book: The Logical Leap. On this second reading, I think that I will have a good understanding of it and how it integrates with my previous thought on the matter.

Herschel's rule on commonalities:
"That any circumstance in which all the facts without exception agree, may be the cause in question, or, if not, at least a collateral effect of the same cause: if there be but one such point of agreement, this possibility becomes a certainty; and, on the other hand, if there be more than one, they may be concurrent causes."

I contend that the latter is infused with uncertainty about the conclusion and therefore does not qualify as a rule for *induction*,

Again, I have to at least tentatively agree. This is a tough hurdle in science: Is the cause of your outcome what you assumed, or is there a deeper cause explaining the movement or change in two variables that you are watching? For instance, cancer rarely kills us directly. Malnourishment or infection kills us directly. A lot of people with cancer die from nothing more than a common cold. It just so happens that it is often the case that cancer is behind some of the malnourishment and illness out there -- that malnourishment and infection which kills us. If you ran a study and half of your mortality "study group" had malnourishment, and the other half had infection, you wouldn't know what to conclude -- unless you went deeper and performed cancer screening. Once you found that cancer was behind both malnourishment and infection, you arrive at the correct cause of death (something that could be put on a death certificate).

This brings up the issue of proximate and ultimate causes, which might be likened to Aristotle's efficient causation and final causation -- but that seems like is a tangent.

Now look at some of Francis Bacon's suggestions:
* solitary instances, where the only observation in common is the *predicate itself*, such as instances of red having nothing in common but the red light and therefore must be caused by an arrangement of parts too small to be seen at the level of the instances
* instances of the road, where differences among things are quantitative and directional and therefore represent stages of a process rather than distinct entities, e.g. stages of a plant from a seed -- see book II aphorism XLI
* dissecting instances, where composition, and therefore explanation, is found -- see Book II aphorism XLIII of Novum Organum

I love Bacon. Philosophers should be digesting Bacon more, but it is almost like they have been avoiding Bacon (out of concern for the health of their pet theories).

:-)

He was a legitimate philosophical trailblazer. In these words, you already see the seeds of a proper view of induction. Thanks for posting that. I'm going to revisit Bacon ...

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 2/14, 8:37pm)

Post 35

Tuesday, February 14, 2012 - 8:53pm

J.S. Mill:
"If two or more instances in which the phenomenon occurs have only one circumstance in common, while two or more instances in which it does not occur have nothing in common save the absence of that circumstance: the circumstance in which alone the two sets of instances differ, is the effect, or cause, or a necessary part of the cause, of the phenomenon."

Herschel:
"If we can either find produced by nature, or produce designedly for ourselves, two instances which agree exactly in all but one particular, and differ in that one, its influence in producing the phenomenon, if it have any, must thereby be rendered sensible. If that particular be present in one instance and wanting altogether in the other, the production or non-production of the phenomenon will decide whether it be or be not the only cause: still more evidently, if it be present contrariwise in the two cases, and the effect be thereby reversed. But if its total presence or absence only produces a change in the degree or intensity of the phenomenon, we can then only conclude that it acts as a concurrent cause or condition with some other to be sought elsewhere. In nature, it is comparatively rare to find instances pointedly differing in one circumstance and agreeing in every other; but when we call experiment to our aid, it is easy to produce them; and this is, in fact, the grand application of experiments of enquiry in physical researches. They become more valuable, and their results clearer, in proportion as they possess this quality (of agreeing exactly in all their circumstances but one), since the question put to nature becomes thereby more pointed, and its answer more decisive."

Now look at some of Francis Bacon's suggestions for difference:
[Conspicuous instances] are such as show the required nature in its bare substantial shape, and at its height or greatest degree of power, emanicipated and free from all impediments, or at least overcoming, suppressing, and restraining them by the strength of its qualities; for every body is susceptible of many united forms of natures in the concrete, the consequence is that they mutually deaden, depress, break and confine each other, and the individual forms are obscured. But there are some subjects in which the required nature exists in its full vigor rather than in others, either from the absence of any impediment, or the predominance of its quality.
~Francis Bacon, Novum Organum, book II, aphorism 24, 1

Conspicuous instances differentiate situations involving the required nature.

instances of quantity:
"in all investigation of nature the quantity of body � the dose, as it were � required to produce any effect must be set down, and cautions as to the too little and too much be interspersed"

Chemists talk about "phase transitions" distinguishing liquids from solids and gases.

There is a threshold of mass known as Chandrasekhar limit beyond which a star will collapse so badly that light cannot escape.

In all three cases we find quantitative difference amounting to qualitative difference.

Post 36

Tuesday, February 14, 2012 - 9:02pm

Compare and contrast Mill's approach to Concomitant Variation with Mercier's rule on concurrent variation:

Causal connection may be established by the discovery of concurrent and proportional variation of action and effect; and is the more warrantable the closer the concurrence and the more exact the proportion.

This is a very far-reaching method, and though its employment is seldom in comparison with some of the other methods, it gives results when their employment is impracticable. In some cases, as will be seen in the examples adduced hereunder, it is impossible to trace any action upon the thing changed, but the concurrent and proportional variation of the action and the change impels us irresistibly to conclude a causal connection between them.

The method, as stated above, replaces Mill's Method of Concomitant Variations, which, as he states it, is manifestly false.

~Charles Arthur Mercier, _On Causation and Causality_

He goes on to say:

The most faimiliar instance is the concurrent and proportional variation between the turning of a tap and the flow of water or the size of a gas flame. As the tap is turned more and more towards the straight position, so, concurrently and proportionally, does the flow of water increase in volume or the flame increase in size. As the tap is turned more and more towards the cross position, so, concurrently and proportionally, does the flow of water or the size of the flame diminish. The variation is not exactly proportional throughout the whole range. When the tap is near the straight position, the additional effect produced by additional alteration is less than when it is near the cross position; and when it is straight, or nearly straight, slight alterations of positions have no answering alterations in the flame or the stream of water; but still, on the whole, the variation in the size of the flame or the stream are so closely concurrent with the variations in the position of the tap, and generally observe so strict a proportion, that a bystander who had never before seen a tap or a gas flame would be compelled to presume the causal connection, and would feel his conclusion the more inescapable, the more often he saw the experiment repeated. Still more assured would his certainty become when he found that the more rapid or the slower was the action, the more rapid or the slower was the effect, and that any interruption of the one was attended by the interruption of the other. Concurrence so close, and generally so closely proportional, would carry to his mind the irresistible conviction of causal connection. It is true that in this case our conclusion is partly derived by the Method of Instant Sequence, but, as will be more fully shown hereafter, we usually employ more than one method.

The great importance of the method of concurrent and proportional variation is that it can be applied when no other method of ascertaining causation is applicable, when experimentation is impossible, and even when the means by which the effect is produced are beyond our knowledge and beyond conjecture. It is by this method that a causal connection has been established beyond all doubt between spots in the sun and magnetic storms on the earth, a causal connection that could not possibly have been established in any other way.
~Mercier

Post 37

Tuesday, February 14, 2012 - 9:05pm

You were talking about people who assert primacy of existence without conforming to it without contradiction.
I'd classify that under the difference between explicit philosophical conviction vs habitual use of consciousness.

The story about the astronauts was a good concretization of principles. I'd like to see it appear in a larger work of yours when you get around to it.

When you used "rationalism", I figured you were referring to "continental rationalism". That's fine on Oist forums but a non-O audience would need the qualifier "continental" to know what you're talking about. But I think you already know that. I'm glad we stopped to clarify.

Locke and concepts:
I totally agree that Locke had problems with universals but I have not yet read Adler's piece on him.

pragmatism as implying social metaphysics:
I need you to elaborate more on the social metaphysics angle. You seem to be saying that if one starts out being skeptical about discovering principles, one ends up defaulting to some extent and letting prevailing cultural winds undermine credibility.

Post 38

Thursday, February 16, 2012 - 7:07pm

Michael,

In all three cases we find quantitative difference amounting to qualitative difference.

I appreciate that. It is when a difference of degree crosses a Rubicon and becomes a difference in kind. The temperature of water is a continuous, quantitative variable, but at discreet points -- freezing point, boiling point -- liquid water "changes" into ice or gas (water vapor). It's a difference in kind (on one level) arising from a mere difference in degree.

Ed

Post 39

Thursday, February 16, 2012 - 7:46pm