Teleology and Instrumentality

Quoting Pantagruel

Instrumentality is the translation of an abstract into a concrete idea, I think. Ultimately, the instrument does not create the desired outcome so much as it comes to embody it.

As I was reading this part of your text, it struck me it was similar to Aristotle's ideas about causation - the 3D printer is the efficient cause. Teleology comes in with the final cause.

Then you went on to say:

Quoting Pantagruel

Aristotle characterizes the soul as the end of this body. So, although it is not so much the concept of function that is at stake here (although entelecheia seems to be associated with energeia and therefore with functioning), in the background teleology still plays a role.

I think all these ideas are related.

Reply to T Clark Well, without the value of the vision of the goal, the goal itself has no value. So it is the idea that creates the value that realizes the goal.

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Quoting tim wood

to give an account of being

I'd say that reason is ultimately instrumental. Basically, consciousness is teleology. In "gradually waking up and becoming aware of itself" (Nagel) the universe actualizes meaning. Human beings also actualize meaning. Hence the power of actions which fail, but in the pursuit of a noble goal, symbolic actions.

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Quoting Pantagruel

I'd say that reason is ultimately instrumental. Basically, consciousness is teleology.

Reason is surely teleological. It is ordered towards truth. It is not ordered to falsity in the same way it is ordered to truth.

This is one place where Hume's is-ought theory seems to break down. Reasoning implies 'oughts' because we are ordered towards truth. If I present you with a sound argument, then you ought to assent to the conclusion. Thus when Hume was giving his no-ought-from-is argument, he was ironically deriving an 'ought' from an 'is'. "This is a sound argument, therefore you ought to believe it." Or, "This is true, therefore you ought to believe it."

That said, I don't quite see how teleology and instrumentality are the same thing. Perhaps you can elaborate?

Reply to tim wood I think that the enactment of an idea would be the abstract idea made concrete.

Quoting Leontiskos

That said, I don't quite see how teleology and instrumentality are the same thing. Perhaps you can elaborate?

Well if it is teleological then it is purpose-driven. So then enaction of the purpose requires means, which I would call instruments or tools. Which can be more or less appropriate of the purpose. Id be interested in a comprehensive study of instrumentality, tools, and morphology.

Reply to Pantagruel - Oh, okay. Teleology is not purpose-driven in the sense that the entity necessarily devises its own purpose and its own means to that purpose. For example, teleology is present in the plant's being ordered to reproduction, even though there is no instrumentality of means. Thus a teleological entity need not possess intention.

Quoting Pantagruel

Thomas Nagel has some really good descriptions of the ways in which reality seems to have fundamentally teleological aspects.

Where, in particular? I’ve read some of his work, which has impressed me deeply, but I can’t recall this discussion in particular (although I do know that the idea of ‘the universe become self aware’ was part of his Mind and Cosmos.)

Quoting Pantagruel

Instrumentality is the translation of an abstract into a concrete idea,

I was under the impression that ‘the instrumentalising of reason’ was a criticism of post-Enlightenment philosophy by the New Left. I can’t see how instrumentality is tied to Aristotle’s idea of telos.

Quoting Wayfarer

Where, in particular? I’ve read some of his work, which has impressed me deeply, but I can’t recall this discussion in particular (although I do know that the idea of ‘the universe become self aware’ was part of his Mind and Cosmos.)

It's one of the main themes of Mind and Cosmos. As I mentioned, it's a very short book and more than pays back the time invested to read it.

Quoting Leontiskos

Thus a teleological entity need not possess intention.

Well, Aristotle articulates a kind of non-intentional teleology. However we are again begging questions. The notion that there could be purpose without intention to me is just "autologically unsound." As soon as you allow purposiveness, you have intention.

Quoting Pantagruel

It's one of the main theme's of Mind and Cosmos. As I mentioned, it's a very short book and more than pays back the time invested to read it.

:100:

Teleology would mean that some natural laws, unlike all the basic scientific laws discovered so far, are temporally historical in their operation....Natural teleology would require two things. First, that the nonteleological and timeless laws of physics...are not fully deterministic....Second, among those possible futures there will be some that are more eligible than others as possible steps on the way to the formation of more complex systems....Teleological laws would assign higher probability to steps in state space that have a higher "velocity" towards certain outcomes. (Nagel, Mind and Cosmos, pp 92-93)

In fact, experiments in abiogenesis seem to support such a hypothesis. The number of inorganic chemical precursors for a living cell is very high, over seventy. Such that the probability of all of them naturally coalescing within the confines of artificial cell membranes in an experiment was infinitesimal. What in fact happened, was that many of the lipid membranes contained zero molecules, while a few of the membranes contained all of the necessary components. The "desired" complex future state was preferentially selected. Teleology.

Quoting Pantagruel

Well, Aristotle articulates a kind of non-intentional teleology. However we are again begging questions. The notion that there could be purpose without intention to me is just "autologically unsound." As soon as you allow purposiveness, you have intention.

For William Paley "teleology" is purposive and intentional, but not for the Aristotelian tradition. Given that you talk about Aristotle in your OP, I didn't think you would be basing your notion of teleology on an 18th century Protestant theologian.

Reply to Leontiskos :up:

Quoting Leontiskos

If I present you with a sound argument, then you ought to assent to the conclusion.

I also admire T. Nagel, and recommend his The View from Nowhere and The Last Word as superb, challenging presentations of some of these themes.

Leontiskos raises an interesting point about the force of “ought” in a statement like “This is a sound argument, therefore you ought to believe it.” Much as I would like to derive a genuine, non-hypothetical “ought” from “is” here, I don’t think we can. It seems like two responses are possible. 1) The statement is shorthand for “You ought to believe this sound argument if you care about such things as holding beliefs that are based in reason/soundness/fact etc.” 2) There is actually no choice in the matter at all, since to understand the soundness of an argument is to believe it. This is Nagel’s position, by the way, in regard to logical truth.

Of course this leads to larger perplexities about the force of “ought” in any statement. Could there really be a non-hypothetical, categorical, absolute requirement (capital-O “Ought”, as it were) to believe or do anything? I suppose Kant came closest to making a good argument for this, in the Groundwork, where he tried to show that not accepting the categorical imperative was contradictory to human freedom, a kind of self-cancellation. But even here, I don’t know that it’s incoherent to simply reply, like Whitman, Very well, then I contradict myself.

That said, I do believe that religious experience can generate an “ought” of an entirely different kind, but that’s for another OP.

Useful discussion of Aristotle's telos in the IEP.

The word telos means something like purpose, or goal, or final end. According to Aristotle, everything has a purpose or final end. If we want to understand what something is, it must be understood in terms of that end, which we can discover through careful study. It is perhaps easiest to understand what a telos is by looking first at objects created by human beings. Consider a knife. If you wanted to describe a knife, you would talk about its size, and its shape, and what it is made out of, among other things. But Aristotle believes that you would also, as part of your description, have to say that it is made to cut things. And when you did, you would be describing its telos. The knife’s purpose, or reason for existing, is to cut things. And Aristotle would say that unless you included that telos in your description, you wouldn’t really have described – or understood – the knife. This is true not only of things made by humans, but of plants and animals as well. If you were to fully describe an acorn, you would include in your description that it will become an oak tree in the natural course of things – so acorns too have a telos. Suppose you were to describe an animal, like a thoroughbred foal. You would talk about its size, say it has four legs and hair, and a tail. Eventually you would say that it is meant to run fast. This is the horse’s telos, or purpose. If nothing thwarts that purpose, the young horse will indeed become a fast runner.

It's the basis of the idea of final cause, the end to which something is directed. Counter-intuitively, for instance, the final cause of a match is fire (because matches exist to start fires) whilst the efficient case of fire is the match. Generally speaking, since the overthrow of Aristotelian physics by Galileo, the concept of telos and teleology has fallen into disrepute, although I've read that philosophy of biology has found reasons to want to resurrect the idea of final cause.

Quoting J

Much as I would like to derive a genuine, non-hypothetical “ought” from “is” here, I don’t think we can. It seems like two responses are possible.

Which of the two responses do you prefer?

Quoting J

2) There is actually no choice in the matter at all, since to understand the soundness of an argument is to believe it. This is Nagel’s position, by the way, in regard to logical truth.

Yes, I can see it. On my view people should be forced to submit to sound arguments, but experience shows that they can somehow manage to avoid doing so, and so I don't actually think the 'ought' disappears. But as a Christian I see this as bound up in the paradox of evil, where irrationality is a form of evil.

More concretely, we could consider the second-order question, "Ought we strive for sound arguments?" It seems that if (2) is correct, then we ought to strive for sound arguments. For example, we should be cautious in our reasoning, try to avoid fallacies and bias, and avoid drawing conclusions when we are in overly emotional states of mind. Once the teleology of the intellect is granted, it acts as a center of gravity, pulling other facets of life into a "moral" (or normative) orbit, such as this second-order question.

(Another excellent post, by the way.)

Quoting Leontiskos

Which of the two responses do you prefer?

This was a question about how to view a statement like "You ought to believe a sound argument" -- what sort of "ought" do we have in mind here? The two responses I suggested were:

1) The statement is shorthand for “You ought to believe this sound argument if you care about such things as holding beliefs that are based in reason/soundness/fact etc.” 2) There is actually no choice in the matter at all, since to understand the soundness of an argument is to believe it.

Concerning the second, I reread what Thomas Nagel has to say about it (in The Last Word, 77). He writes, "We cannot conceive of a being capable of understanding [logical arguments] who did not also find them self-evidently valid: Nothing would permit us to attribute to anyone a disbelief in modus ponens, or in the proposition that 2 + 2 = 4." Nagel clearly doesn't think you can withhold belief, in the psychological sense, from something you accept as true rationally. I'm not so sanguine about it, but if Nagel is right, there's no issue about "ought" since the believer would have no choice in the matter.

For my part, I think the first response is the better one. As far as I can understand the concept of "ought" in philosophy and ordinary discourse, it is always conditional or hypothetical. Even the bluntest and most heartfelt uses of "ought" ("You ought to do the right thing, just because it's the right thing", "You ought to believe X because it's true") still seem to me to refer back to an unspoken conditional of some sort. Not everyone cares about right things or truth or being rational. Those who do should certainly invoke the "ought" in these examples. But I don't know what force the "ought" could have for those who don't. Robert Nozick, more or less kidding, wrote about an imaginary ultimate philosophical argument so powerful that “if the person refuses to accept the conclusion, he dies”! Short of such a miraculous and cruel syllogism, I really don't know what more could be done to give some firepower to "ought". Which is not at all to say that the concept is dispensable or incoherent. It's just not categorical, not self-justifying.

Quoting J

There is actually no choice in the matter at all, since to understand the soundness of an argument is to believe it. This is Nagel’s position, by the way, in regard to logical truth.

This seems to entail the instrumentality of reason.

Quoting Pantagruel

This seems to entail the instrumentality of reason.

That's interesting. Could you say more about it?

Well, presumably sound arguments pertain to truths that are not trivially evident. So the function of reason is to both understand and to express, translating the intuition of a complex truth that does not reduce to a simple symbolic form (or it would would be immediately self evident and not require an argument). So the capacity of understanding engenders the power of expression, which enforces the belief.

Quoting Pantagruel

It's one of the main themes of Mind and Cosmos. As I mentioned, it's a very short book and more than pays back the time invested to read it.

Holy cow, what a difference between you and me. This is one of the many books I've started, and am soon in over my head. I keep going as best I can for some time, hopefully absorbing little bits here and there. Then I move on to the next book, and do the same. Regardless of the difficulties, I absolutely love the book.

Parts of this conversation remind me of Two-Part Invention, the intro to Chapter II of GEB.

@Pantagruel. I see, thanks. I thought you meant there was a specific connection between Nagel's position on logical truth (to understand is to believe) and the instrumentality of reason. But I think you're saying that all reasoning works this way, not just apodictic stuff like modus ponens.

Thanks, Reply to J

Quoting J

But I don't know what force the "ought" could have for those who don't.

In common speech I think ‘ought’ lies between indifference and necessitation. If the doctor tells me, “You ought to drink more water,” he is not calling forth indifference with regard to drinking water, and he is not stating that I am necessitated to drink water. He is apparently appealing to my power of choice and claiming that I should choose to drink water. He is advising.

(To construe this as, "You ought to drink more water if you want to be healthy," is not false, but it can be misleading. This is because most doctors do not treat health as a matter of indifference, as if one might just as well desire to be unhealthy. We should therefore substitute "because" instead of "if", which produces a significant difference.)

Quoting J

It seems like two responses are possible. 1) The statement is shorthand for “You ought to believe this sound argument if you care about such things as holding beliefs that are based in reason/soundness/fact etc.” 2) There is actually no choice in the matter at all, since to understand the soundness of an argument is to believe it.

It seems to me that (1) represents indifference and (2) represents necessitation. If this is right, then neither one can represent an ‘ought’, and oughtness instead lies somewhere between them.

Quoting J

Even the bluntest and most heartfelt uses of "ought" ("You ought to do the right thing, just because it's the right thing", "You ought to believe X because it's true") still seem to me to refer back to an unspoken conditional of some sort. Not everyone cares about right things or truth or being rational.

I think the controversial premise here is . The intuitive opinion follows Aquinas in claiming that the human being is intrinsically ordered to truth (which is also what grounds Nagel's idea). It seems that someone who holds to (1) must contradict this and maintain that human beings are indifferently related to truth and falsity. Namely, they must hold that the human being is not ordered to truth any more than it is ordered to falsity. But this seems to be incorrect.

In the Metaphysics Aristotle defines true and false, “To say of what is that it is not, or of what is not that it is, is false, while to say of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not, is true” (IV-7). If someone were indifferent to truth they would say false things as often as they say true things, and they would intend to say false things as often as they intend to say true things, and they would do this even when “talking to themselves” or reasoning privately. They would consider foundational principles like the principle of non-contradiction false as often as they considered them true. But none of this is the case, and therefore human beings are not indifferent to truth. I think this can also be seen by giving Nagel’s (2) its due, for the claim that humans are indifferent to truth would be a complete repudiation of Nagel’s arguments, and this seems implausible.

But then what is the force of a claim like, “You ought to believe X because it's true”? It’s hard to say what the exact force is, but I aver that it is easy to see that it exists and that it lies between indifference and necessitation. No one responds to that challenge by saying, “I grant that it is 100% true but I am going to go ahead and not-believe it anyway.” The only question here is whether X is true, not whether we ought to believe true things. And going back to my <original point>, when Hume presents us with an argument he is implicitly claiming that we ought to assent to it.

At the end of the day, in these questions I think a tertium quid is breaking through a false dichotomy. Positing only indifference or necessitation excludes ‘oughts’ from the outset. Or if you like, non-hypothetical ‘oughts’. My suggestion is that if we avoid that dichotomous presupposition, the truth-ought emerges with just as much certitude as anything else.

(Somewhat relatedly, a lot of people seem to think, “Because they can be ignored or argued against, therefore duties do not exist.” I would respond, “If duties could not be ignored or argued against, then they would not exist.” Of course my interlocutor might respond that what does not make its presence felt need not be ignored. But surely our “duty” to truth makes its presence felt, yet without forcing our hand.)

Quoting J

As far as I can understand the concept of "ought" in philosophy and ordinary discourse, it is always conditional or hypothetical.

This should probably be left for another post, but let me say just a short and insufficient word so as not to ignore it. I tend to disagree, as I think most ‘oughts’ are not purely hypothetical. Suppose I went up to a serial killer and said, “Hey, there’s an old lady who lives at the end of the lane. All of her neighbors will be away on Saturday. She removes her hearing aids at 9 pm. Just letting you know. ;)” That would be a purely hypothetical ‘ought’! But I don’t think most ‘oughts’ are like that. I think most ‘oughts’ involve non-hypothetical aspects, even though they also contain hypothetical aspects. Following Kant, we tend to hold that any ‘ought’ which is not categorical is hypothetical. I don’t think that’s right. There can be different shades and weights of duty.

Quoting Leontiskos

The intuitive opinion follows Aquinas in claiming that the human being is intrinsically ordered to truth

There are many interesting and insightful things in your post that I'd like to respond to, but I have to confess my almost complete ignorance of Thomism. So first, could you expand on what Aquinas means by "intrinsically ordered to truth"? I'm guessing it has something to do with an essential nature of human beings, possibly involving an Aristotelian telos? But I'd welcome some help here.

Maybe it's not so much not believing the truth that you can't deny as it is not caring. The Architect told Neo that the Oracle "stumbled upon a solution whereby nearly 99% of all test subjects accepted the program as long as they were given a choice. Even if they were only aware of the choice at a near unconscious level." For a more real-world example, how many happily married people would say they do NOT want to be told if their spouse is cheating, because they would rather have the blissful lie? As Cypher said, ignorance is bliss.

Quoting J

There are many interesting and insightful things in your post that I'd like to respond to, but I have to confess my almost complete ignorance of Thomism. So first, could you expand on what Aquinas means by "intrinsically ordered to truth"? I'm guessing it has something to do with an essential nature of human beings, possibly involving an Aristotelian telos? But I'd welcome some help here.

Sure, that’s fair. For my purposes in this thread, when I speak about being “ordered to truth” I am thinking, first, that the human being is not indifferent to truth and falsity; and second, that truth is primary rather than falsity, and this is what my arguments above aimed to show.

I actually think Aristotle’s discussion in Metaphysics IV-4 is a good point of entry, and in the paragraph that followed my comment about Aquinas’ opinion I was trying to give a shortened form of that argument.* In Aristotle’s text he is showing that one cannot believe that the principle of non-contradiction is false, and from this I draw the conclusion that we are not indifferent to truth and falsity with respect to the principle of non-contradiction. Nagel’s point that we cannot disbelieve an argument that we see to be sound is similar, and it seems to show that belief corresponds to (perceived) truth.

* If we wish to look at Aquinas himself, there are two relevant premises: 1) The intellect is ordered to truth (as opposed to falsity), and 2) The human being never acts apart from the intellect. Cf. Summa Theologiae, I.Q85.A6, I.Q16, and I.Q17; De Veritate, Question 1

@Leontiskos Thanks, that helps. You’ve raised some complex and difficult issues here. Maybe the best point of entry is the beginning of your paragraph about the “indifferent speaker” :

Quoting Leontiskos

If someone were indifferent to truth they would say false things as often as they say true things, and they would intend to say false things as often as they intend to say true things, and they would do this even when “talking to themselves” or reasoning privately.

Here, “indifferent” is being used in the sense of having no preference, overall, between truth and falsity. Aside from a certain former president, I agree that it’s difficult to imagine such a person doing this continually. But I don’t read you as describing a person who doesn’t know the difference between truth and falsity. Indeed, you speak of them as intending truth when speaking truthfully, and falsity when not. So that’s one sort of indifference: I can tell X from Y but have no preference or allegiance or “ordering to” one over the other.

But then you offer this:

Quoting Leontiskos

They would consider foundational principles like the principle of non-contradiction false as often as they considered them true.

Here, I think, “indifference” is being applied in a new sense. Now the speaker doesn’t know the difference. They’re not merely indifferent as to their choice; they can’t tell them apart. Here I’m with you and Aristotle and Nagel: I can’t believe in a person who can explain the law of non-contradiction but not acknowledge its validity.

But, going back to the first sense of “indifference,” surely it’s still possible for the “indifferent speaker” to take this position: “Yes, I recognize truth and falsity quite well, but I am indifferent to them in this case.” Or, of course, they might say, “I actively prefer what is false, again in this case.”

By bringing up individual cases in this way, I think we move into another difficult aspect of the question: When we talk about things like Aristotelian ordering, are we speaking about what is the case for all humans all the time, or allowing that exceptions can be made? (Perhaps it’s a telos for the species which we haven’t yet achieved?) We might say, as an analogy, that the human species has evolved so that mothers, and by extension families, care for their young. As a general rule, this is unexceptionable. But we know it’s possible for a particular parent, in a particular situation, to fail to follow this rule. (It’s not necessitated, in your terminology.) Is “being ordered to truth” like that? Or are we saying that there is a human nature so hardwired that it’s literally impossible for anyone, anytime, not to show a preference for truth over falsity? I doubt we could maintain this. Indeed, if we could, the issue of “ought” would be moot. Every example would be covered by the “Nagel rule”: You can’t help but think/believe/say it.

Similar questions would apply to the doctor situation. It’s true that doctors assume, as a rule, that their patients desire health, but it’s not outlandish for some hedonist to say, “Sorry, I’d rather live at 100mph and die young, thanks all the same. Hold the water!” So you need a real, if unspoken, premise that says, “Follow your doctor’s advice if you want to be healthy” -- and many do not. It’s not that one might “just as well” desire to be unhealthy because one is indifferent to health, or can’t tell the difference between good health and illness. Rather, one has made a choice to value something else more.

We agree that “it’s hard to say what the exact force is” of a claim like “You ought to believe X because it’s true.” Given what I’ve written above, there are some cases where we’d say “You ought to believe X because . . . no, wait a minute, it’s a ?Nagel truth’ so you already believe it!” Those aren’t the problematic ones (though very problematic indeed for those who don’t think Nagel truths – self-evident or analytic truths – exist). The case of concern is one where we want to say, “You ought to believe X because it’s true (though not self-evident) and because human beings are creatures with a certain ordering to truth. You should believe this particular true thing because of the sort of creature you are.” Sadly, this just puts us back into the general/individual distinction, it seems to me. The nonbeliever can always reply, “I quite agree that humans have evolved this way, and I certainly practice this most of the time. However, I am not hardwired to do so in non-apodictic truth-claim situations, and in this case, I will choose not to.” So our “ought” remains hypothetical, and our interlocutor is rejecting our hypothesis for themselves, in this case. They’re saying, “I don’t accept the translation of ?if’ into ?because.’ I interpret your statement as ?You should believe this particular true thing if you want to be the sort of creature you are. Well, ?the sort of creature I am’ is one who may be ordered to truth but can also choose not to believe some instances of it. So that’s what I’ll do.’ ”

(I want to fess up to something that has really started to puzzle me, though. I’m starting to think that the whole “you ought to believe X” thing is kind of unreal, a philosopher’s thought-experiment. What exactly would it mean to “not believe” something, if you also thought it was true? What are the actual examples of this? Are we talking about belief as a psychological experience, or as a theoretical assent to a proposition? We all know that if I’m asked, “Do you believe water is H2O?” the questioner doesn’t mean “Are you having a mental event right this moment that consists of believing X?” Beliefs can be unthought, background conditions. So which kind of “belief” have I been claiming, rather glibly, that it’s possible to refuse to true statements? I need to think a lot more about this, so it’s in parentheses.)

As you say, the “ought” question is huge and deserves its own thread/book/library. So does Kant’s view about imperatives. I appreciate the light you shed on the possible nuances between categorical and hypothetical oughts, and for what it’s worth, I find some nuances in Kant as well. I’ll watch for the next Kantian ethics discussion.

Hi Reply to J, good post.

Quoting J

Leontiskos Thanks, that helps. You’ve raised some complex and difficult issues here.

Yes, it's a bit haphazard, but it's one way in. :smile:

Quoting J

Here, “indifferent” is being used in the sense of having no preference, overall, between truth and falsity. Aside from a certain former president, I agree that it’s difficult to imagine such a person doing this continually. But I don’t read you as describing a person who doesn’t know the difference between truth and falsity. Indeed, you speak of them as intending truth when speaking truthfully, and falsity when not. So that’s one sort of indifference: I can tell X from Y but have no preference or allegiance or “ordering to” one over the other.

Right, it's a bit like the roulette wheel which is indifferent to odd or even outcomes.

Let's first look at this idea of indifference. You are presenting the idea that there are two different kinds of indifference at play. The first sense is statistical or preferential indifference, where outcomes do not provide evidence of a pattern. The second is indifference to two options in the sense of ignorance of these options. If I attend to truth as often as falsity then I am indifferent to them in the first sense. If I do not know truth or falsity then I am indifferent to them in the second sense (but probably also in the first sense).

Quoting Leontiskos

They would consider foundational principles like the principle of non-contradiction false as often as they considered them true.

Quoting J

Here, I think, “indifference” is being applied in a new sense. Now the speaker doesn’t know the difference. They’re not merely indifferent as to their choice; they can’t tell them apart. Here I’m with you and Aristotle and Nagel: I can’t believe in a person who can explain the law of non-contradiction but not acknowledge its validity.

But I am using it in that same statistical sense. "They would consider [them] false as often as they considered them true." You speak of "validity," but I think we should speak of truth. You presumably believe the principle of non-contradiction is true, and that's my point. We know that it is true, and we believe it on that basis.

Perhaps you are thinking, "But it's not possible to believe the principle of non-contradiction is false, and therefore we are ignorant of such a counterfactual." I would say that in one way that's the point, and what is necessarily false is never possible. It's just easier to see in this instance. In another way people can and do act contrary to the principle of non-contradiction, but they end up paying a price of one sort or another and often amend their thinking or acting.

Quoting J

It’s not that one might “just as well” desire to be unhealthy because one is indifferent to health, or can’t tell the difference between good health and illness. Rather, one has made a choice to value something else more.

I think you are pointing to a hierarchy: "I prefer to be healthy more than I prefer to be unhealthy, but I prefer the taste of candy more than I prefer to be healthy." I don't have a problem with this, but I don't want to descend into your more complicated questions just yet...

My point about indifference is meant to exclude the option you prefer, "You ought to believe this sound argument if you care about such things as holding beliefs that are based in [truth]" (Reply to J). It seems to me that the prima facie reading of that claim (call it "(1)") implies that we are indifferent to truth. "Believe this sound argument if you like truth. Disbelieve it if you don't. It's up to you." That notion of indifference is my first target.

Now I'm not really sure how to address the rest of your post, because there's a lot of interesting things to respond to. I will probably have to leave some for another day, returning to them later. But I think this is the general argument you are making (again, taking (1) and (2) from above: Reply to J):

"It depends on the case. Some cases align with (1) and some align with (2). The former are indifferent or hypothetical, whereas the latter are necessitated."

Now I see a spectrum rather than an either-or, where there is a middle ground between (1) and (2), but that should be obvious. In any case, my primary response here is that it is not legitimate to use this case-based logic. Consider our initial inquiry: “This is a sound argument, therefore you ought to believe it” (Reply to J). This is a uniform claim which applies to all cases of putatively sound argument. It is not a bifurcated claim about two different case-models. The simpler formulation is even more obvious, "This is true, therefore you ought to believe it." This is a uniform claim which is intended to apply to both sorts of cases (e.g. self-evident truths and obscure truths; necessary truths and contingent truths; etc.).

...So I'll just leave it there for now so that you can respond, lest I have assumed too much.

Another central argument you present is the idea that, if it is not necessitated, then it must be hypothetical (if it is not (2) then it must be (1)). Obviously this will need to be addressed, but for the sake of length I will just make a preliminary observation:

Quoting J

The nonbeliever can always reply, “I quite agree that humans have evolved this way, and I certainly practice this most of the time. However, I am not hardwired to do so in non-apodictic truth-claim situations, and in this case, I will choose not to.”

I concede that the nonbeliever can do this. “If duties could not be ignored or argued against, then they would not exist” (Reply to Leontiskos). Similarly, people can deny the principle of non-contradiction, or that 2+2=4. Our argument surely must ride on something more than what human beings are capable of doing.

To say a tiny bit more, a normative case for truth must be more than evolutionary. I think Nagel's point holds true in light of our ordering to truth, the only difference is that the "gravity" of a self-evident truth is so strong that it cannot be ignored. But on the other hand there are people—even (especially!) professional philosophers—who will attempt to deny things like the principle of non-contradiction. Maybe that fact presents the more productive route for our discussion, because you seem to agree with Nagel that such people are not at their rights to do such a thing.

Quoting J

I want to fess up to something that has really started to puzzle me, though. I’m starting to think that the whole “you ought to believe X” thing is kind of unreal, a philosopher’s thought-experiment. What exactly would it mean to “not believe” something, if you also thought it was true? What are the actual examples of this?

I think at a very basic level we are simply considering instances of disagreement and/or persuasion, which are common. For example:

• "You ought to support the war in Ukraine."
• "You ought to vote for so-and-so."
• "You ought to accept a middle ground between (1) and (2)."
• "You ought to get the answer of 67 for this math problem."
• "You ought to accept that the Earth is not flat."
• "You ought to propose to your girlfriend."
• "You ought to abide by the speed limit."

(It is of course possible that this is a haphazard mixture of the speculative and the practical, and maybe that's just another can of worms. But we usually think of practical advice being grounded in truth. For example, the first example is predicated on the claim that Ukraine is deserving of support; the second on the claim that so-and-so is the best candidate, etc. Those are the truth-claims that end up being argued about.)

Quoting J

As you say, the “ought” question is huge and deserves its own thread/book/library. So does Kant’s view about imperatives. I appreciate the light you shed on the possible nuances between categorical and hypothetical oughts, and for what it’s worth, I find some nuances in Kant as well. I’ll watch for the next Kantian ethics discussion.

Sounds good. I realize we are only scratching the surface, and that the questions you are asking are fairly obvious and deserve answers. As for Kant, I am familiar with his Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals and his treatise on lying, but I haven't read his other ethical works.

There's a lot of good stuff here and I probably need to reply piece by piece, as this week is starting to get the better of me. So, to begin:

Quoting Leontiskos

I think at a very basic level we are simply considering instances of disagreement and/or persuasion, which are common."

Yes, and I have no trouble making sense of the kind you go on to list. Where I'm starting have doubts concerns statements like "You ought to believe that water is H2O because it's true." Surely all the persuasion would take place at the prior claim of "Water is H2O." Once you're persuaded that this is the case, what more am I asking you to do if I say to you, "Now, believe it, because it's true"? I initially thought there was some conceptual (not psychological) space between "acknowledging truth" and "believing," but now I'm wondering if this is an illusion. If you know X is true, then you need no further reasons to believe it. (You might require some psychological assistance, of course, if it's a weird or humiliating truth.) And if you don't know, my asking you to believe it seems to be asking you to take my word for its truth. This is all very unsatisfactory somehow, and I'd welcome anyone to straighten it out.

BTW, this has obvious parallels to the question of whether the statements "X" and "It is true that X" have the same propositional content.

Quoting J

Yes, and I have no trouble making sense of the kind you go on to list. Where I'm starting have doubts concerns statements like "You ought to believe that water is H2O because it's true." Surely all the persuasion would take place at the prior claim of "Water is H2O." Once you're persuaded that this is the case, what more am I asking you to do if I say to you, "Now, believe it, because it's true"?

I think you are right about this. When you <originally> used that formulation I thought you were trying to bring out something which usually remains implicit ("...because it is true"). We don't usually speak that way. But yes, truth is sufficient grounds for belief.

Quoting J

I initially thought there was some conceptual (not psychological) space between "acknowledging truth" and "believing," but now I'm wondering if this is an illusion. If you know X is true, then you need no further reasons to believe it.

It seems to me that everything which one holds to be true is believed, but not everything that is believed is held to be true. We can believe things with all sorts of different levels of certitude, and many of these relate to evidence and truth, but some seem to be related more to things like fear, hope, or desire.

Quoting Leontiskos

But I am using it ["indifference"] in that same statistical sense. "They would consider [them] false as often as they considered them true."

Possibly I just misunderstood; I thought you had confused two kinds of indifferent people. The first kind, Ms. Nihil, can tell the difference but doesn't care, so chooses randomly. The second kind, Mr. Ignorant, can't tell the difference and so also chooses randomly. This guy, to me, is the roulette wheel: The wheel not only makes "choices" at random, it also has no idea what the difference is between red and black. A model for Ms. Nihil might be a person who's asked to select an assortment of candies she likes, and there are only two choices. Turns out she likes both equally, so while she knows perfectly well the difference between caramel and chocolate, she decides to make random choices because she doesn't care.

The outcomes would be the same: randomness, "indifference" in either sense. But there'd be a huge moral difference if the choice was between, say, right and wrong. A person who can't (ever) tell that difference would, I suppose, be pitied, or hospitalized. But someone who knows the difference, can recognize it when they see it, and still doesn't care about choosing right over wrong -- we'd judge Ms. Nihil pretty harshly here, I think.

Quoting J

Possibly I just misunderstood; I thought you had confused two kinds of indifferent people. The first kind, Ms. Nihil, can tell the difference but doesn't care, so chooses randomly. The second kind, Mr. Ignorant, can't tell the difference and so also chooses randomly. This guy, to me, is the roulette wheel: The wheel not only makes "choices" at random, it also has no idea what the difference is between red and black. A model for Ms. Nihil might be a person who's asked to select an assortment of candies she likes, and there are only two choices. Turns out she likes both equally, so while she knows perfectly well the difference between caramel and chocolate, she decides to make random choices because she doesn't care.

Yes, good explanation. I was thinking of Ms. Nihil. I was thinking of the indifference that attaches to your (1) (Reply to J). Because (1) represents a hypothetical imperative, and hypothetical imperatives only function when one has knowledge of the ends/goals, therefore we must be talking about Ms. Nihil rather than Mr. Ignorant.

So the "they" in question in this statement is Ms. Nihil:

Quoting Leontiskos

They would consider foundational principles like the principle of non-contradiction false as often as they considered them true.

I happen to agree regarding her marital status. :grin:

Quoting Leontiskos

"This is true, therefore you ought to believe it." This is a uniform claim which is intended to apply to both sorts of cases (e.g. self-evident truths and obscure truths; necessary truths and contingent truths; etc.).

Just to pick up this thread for a moment: The unease I was describing above has to do with whether it makes sense to use "ought" in this way. You've persuaded me that the claim is indeed a uniform one, not separated into "Nagel truths" (self-evident, apodictic) and more complex inferences. OK, so the idea is that, if X is a true statement, I ought to believe it. But what I now wonder is: Exactly what would the alternative be? Does the phrase "disbelieve a truth" make sense? In psychological terms, sure -- we all know how hard it can be to really take on board a difficult truth. But I don't think that's what either of us is talking about here. We want a situation in which I understand and acknowledge the truth of statement X, but also claim that I don't believe it. And if you begin to sympathize with me about how hard this can be sometimes (perhaps X is one of those "difficult" truths), I deny that this is the problem. I'm not experiencing any inner resistance of that sort, I reply; I simply do not believe X.

Is this thinkable? If you then asked, "Why not?" what could I reply? This hypothetical situation is meant to evoke a rational response. And if I've excluded any personal, subjective reasons for disbelief, then we seem to have hit bedrock. What more can I say except "I just don't"?

So, this suggests that belief follows from truth, and Nagel is right not just about self-evident logical principles like the law of non-contradiction, but about any truth that is understood as such. If so, then in such a case "you ought to believe," even though it seems to be a good English sentence, is meaningless, since I already do. Or, more accurately, its only meaning would arise in urging me to investigate and overcome whatever non-rational, psychological reasons are preventing me from believing what I acknowledge to be true. Does this make sense to you? Is this what you have in mind when you imagine saying to someone, "You ought to believe X"? If so, I can certainly go along with that.

A final, interesting point about a statement like "I acknowledge X to be true but I don't believe it": Is this self-validating in some way? Do I have direct, introspective knowledge of what I believe and don't believe? Must it be the case that, if a person says, "I don't believe X", they really don't? Or may they be mistaken? We can be mistaken about "I know," "I remember," "I see," and even "I feel," sometimes. More subtly, we can use "I wish," I desire," "I promise," in circumstances where it's reasonable for a listener to doubt our self-knowledge. Where does "I believe" fit, in this collection? J. L. Austin probably has this somewhere; perhaps I can find it.

Can someone give me an example of a "final cause" that cannot be eliminated for initial causes?

The examples that Aristotle provides, e.g the functions of the human body, aren't examples because they can be eliminated for the initial causes of Darwinian evolution.

Reply to sime

I'm not sure I understand your question. Let's take an example: the final cause of an acorn is an oak tree. Presumably you are positing that there is some "initial cause" which makes this final cause superfluous?

Quoting J

But what I now wonder is: Exactly what would the alternative be?

Quoting J

If so, then in such a case "you ought to believe," even though it seems to be a good English sentence, is meaningless, since I already do.

I think there are two basic philosophical questions at stake in this. The first is how to account for error and false opinion. The second is how to account for learning. Both are quite difficult. The paradox of learning is set out in the Meno:

Meno, 80e, (tr. Grube):I know what you want to say, Meno. Do you realize what a debater's argument you are bringing up, that a man cannot search either for what he knows or for what he does not know? He cannot search for what he knows—since he knows it, there is no need to search—nor for what he does not know, for he does not know what to look for.

Quoting J

Exactly what would the alternative be? Does the phrase "disbelieve a truth" make sense? [...] We want a situation in which I understand and acknowledge the truth of statement X, but also claim that I don't believe it.

I think we could recast the statement, "X is true, therefore you ought to believe it," with, "X is true, therefore you ought to see that it is true (and then you will believe it)." If someone is capable of learning, then they are able to see that something is true which they did not previously believe to be true (whether or not they believed it to be false). We could then equally say, "You ought to learn that X is true."

Quoting J

Is this thinkable? If you then asked, "Why not?" what could I reply? This hypothetical situation is meant to evoke a rational response. And if I've excluded any personal, subjective reasons for disbelief, then we seem to have hit bedrock. What more can I say except "I just don't"?

The first thing we would do is assess the argument, and this goes back to my thread on "Argument as Transparency." If I assert and you counter-assert, Monty Python-style, then there is no hope for understanding. But if I give an argument, then, instead of counter-asserting, you ought to point out where and why the argument fails. Recall that our initial question regarded arguments, not truths, and this is because we persuade via argument.

Quoting J

If so, then in such a case "you ought to believe," even though it seems to be a good English sentence, is meaningless, since I already do. Or, more accurately, its only meaning would arise in urging me to investigate and overcome whatever non-rational, psychological reasons are preventing me from believing what I acknowledge to be true. Does this make sense to you? Is this what you have in mind when you imagine saying to someone, "You ought to believe X"? If so, I can certainly go along with that.

If I tell you that you ought to attend your friend's wedding, you might respond with several questions. "Why should I go?" "How would I get there?" etc. Telling someone that they ought to believe something is a bit like that, where we are prescribing an end point and prescinding from the means needed to get there. In fact in the usual course of things we do not give an isolated injunction, and instead provide reasons or arguments for the injunction. If I gave an order, "Believe that the sun is at the center," you could only respond by saying that you already do so believe, or else you cannot so believe (in your current state). Such an order is pointless without an argument to accompany it.

Quoting J

Do I have direct, introspective knowledge of what I believe and don't believe?

I want to say that we do, but this all hangs on the various debates concerning the nature of belief. That is, I think different camps actually define belief differently. In our context I think we are just thinking of assenting to explicit propositions presented in arguments, and that sort of assent is directly and infallibly known.

Quoting Leontiskos

I'm not sure I understand your question. Let's take an example: the final cause of an acorn is an oak tree. Presumably you are positing that there is some "initial cause" which makes this final cause superfluous?

Yes. To say that an oak tree is a "final cause" of an acorn is to speak informally about the evolutionary feedback that determined the chemistry of Dendrology, which when applied to a given acorn refers only to a directed chain of causality whose conclusions are fully determined by initial conditions.

Reply to sime

I feel like you are making a category error with respect to 'final cause'. What do you mean by that term and why does your 'initial cause' make that meaning superfluous? Surely Aristotle was not "speaking informally about evolutionary feedback" when he used the term, given that he was not aware of Darwinian evolution.

Quoting Leontiskos

I feel like you are making a category error with respect to 'final cause'. What do you mean by that term and why does your 'initial cause' make that meaning superfluous? Surely Aristotle was not "speaking informally about evolutionary feedback" when he used the term, given that he was not aware of Darwinian evolution.

Had Aristotle known about evolution, then he could have explained the regularity of nature without appealing to final causes and only to adaptive feedback in the cycle of life. His arguments don't amount to a proof of the necessity of final causes, but to the insufficiency of causal models that don't take into account adaptive feedback.

Quoting sime

Had Aristotle known about evolution, then he could have explained the regularity of nature without appealing to final causes and only to adaptive feedback in the cycle of life. His arguments don't amount to a proof of the necessity of final causes, but to the insufficiency of causal models that don't take into account adaptive feedback.

Quoting Leontiskos

I feel like you are making a category error with respect to 'final cause'. What do you mean by that term and why does your 'initial cause' make that meaning superfluous?

Quoting Leontiskos

I feel like you are making a category error with respect to 'final cause'. What do you mean by that term and why does your 'initial cause' make that meaning superfluous?

To use the SEP's description of Aristotle's causal ontology:

The material cause or that which is given in reply to the question “What is it made out of?” What is singled out in the answer need not be material objects such as bricks, stones, or planks. By Aristotle’s lights, A and B are the material cause of the syllable BA.

The formal cause or that which is given in reply to the question “"What is it?”. What is singled out in the answer is the essence or the what-it-is-to-be something.

The efficient cause or that which is given in reply to the question: “Where does change (or motion) come from?”. What is singled out in the answer is the whence of change (or motion).

The final cause is that which is given in reply to the question: “What is its good?”. What is singled out in the answer is that for the sake of which something is done or takes place.

Let us define a final cause to be reducible to the first three causes if there exists a causal model that reproduces the effects attributed to the final cause, that consists only of the first three causes applied to one another in an adaptive feedback loop.

I am asserting that all final causes are reducible in the above sense. This is equivalent to asserting the existence of a computer simulation of all phenomena attributed to final causes.

Quoting Leontiskos

I think we could recast the statement, "X is true, therefore you ought to believe it," with, "X is true, therefore you ought to see that it is true (and then you will believe it)."

This nicely captures the problem. I agree that the recasting doesn’t ask us to create any “rational space” between understanding and believing. So my misgivings about whether such a space really exists are avoided. In the recast version, “and then you will believe it” is meant to describe a (necessary?) consequence or perhaps even a definitional identity between “see the truth” and “believe it”. We’re not left wondering whether we can still not believe!

But what is the force of the “ought,” in the recast statement? Is “You ought to see that X is true” the same thing as “You ought to believe X”? I don’t think so. I read the two statements as saying quite different things. “You ought to believe X” wants to claim that the truth of X gives us a reason to believe X, a reason that should be heeded. Whereas “You ought to see that X is true” could be saying a couple of different things. It could mean, “If you understand X, then you ought to accept its truth.” Or it could mean, “You have an obligation, under the circumstances, to understand X so as to affirm its truth.” What sort of obligation? Perhaps an important decision is at stake; perhaps time is running out on an ethical dilemma.

The point is, neither interpretation of “You ought to see that X is true” is offering a reason to believe it, in the way that “You ought to believe X” does (claim to) offer a reason for belief. The original, unrecast version is claiming that a space is available between truth and belief, and from within that space a person can be adjured to choose belief on the grounds of an allegedly compelling reason, namely that X is true. The recast version doesn’t make this claim.

I remain uneasy about whether such a space makes sense, but I don’t think we can eliminate it in the manner you were suggesting.

Quoting sime

I am asserting that all final causes are reducible in the above sense.

This is very clear and helpful. I’ll let Leontiskos pursue the evolutionary biology question, but I want to raise a problem concerning the more common use of “final cause” -- that is, as a reason for doing something. Are you saying that a proper analysis of the first three causes, taken together, would also eliminate or correct a statement like “I raised the flag to show my support for our troops” as an answer to the question, “Why did you raise the flag?”?

Quoting Leontiskos

Reason is surely teleological.

And yet, when reasoning we do not all reach the same conclusions.

Quoting Leontiskos

It is ordered towards truth.

Quite often it is ordered toward defense or justification or persuasion, to what can be made to seem to be true rather than to demonstrate or determine what is true.

Thomists might like to think that the correct use of reason leads to the truth, but when there is doubt, an appeal to the authority of revelation sets things right. Even if reason is ordered toward the truth, it may not get us there.

Aristotle, of course, did not take recourse in revelation. But then again he did not rely on the authority of reason either. With regard to questions and problems, especially with regard to what is most fundamental, it becomes clear that reason can lead to aporia.

Even if we are ordered to truth it does not follow that what we say, even to ourselves, is what is true. It does not mean we even always want to know what is true.

The irony is that Aquinas' argument is ordered toward a conclusion that may be false.

Quoting J

This nicely captures the problem. I agree that the recasting doesn’t ask us to create any “rational space” between understanding and believing. So my misgivings about whether such a space really exists are avoided. In the recast version, “and then you will believe it” is meant to describe a (necessary?) consequence or perhaps even a definitional identity between “see the truth” and “believe it”. We’re not left wondering whether we can still not believe!

Yes, I think that's right.

Quoting J

The point is, neither interpretation of “You ought to see that X is true” is offering a reason to believe it, in the way that “You ought to believe X” does (claim to) offer a reason for belief. The original, unrecast version is claiming that a space is available between truth and belief, and from within that space a person can be adjured to choose belief on the grounds of an allegedly compelling reason, namely that X is true. The recast version doesn’t make this claim.

I remain uneasy about whether such a space makes sense, but I don’t think we can eliminate it in the manner you were suggesting.

Your first point is about a "reason to believe," and I would point you to what I said about argument in my last post. These truncated statements are only preliminary, and real reasons to believe only occur (dialectically) in the form of arguments. "You should believe X because [of this argument]."

Your second point is about "space between truth and belief," and I would point you to what I said about learning in my last post. The relevant and fundamental fact is that we are able to learn, and therefore there is space between truth and belief. We come to believe things that were already true. The complement of belief/assent in the sense we are taking it is therefore a failure to learn. (Knowledge is an act, but its opposite, error, is not. You are searching for the opposite of assent/belief in the realm of acts, where it does not exist. The opposite is a kind of privation.)

Quoting sime

Let us define a final cause to be reducible to the first three causes if there exists a causal model that reproduces the effects attributed to the final cause, that consists only of the first three causes applied to one another in an adaptive feedback loop.

I am asserting that all final causes are reducible in the above sense. This is equivalent to asserting the existence of a computer simulation of all phenomena attributed to final causes.

Okay, so you assert that final causes are reducible to Aristotle's other causes.

Quoting sime

Had Aristotle known about evolution, then he could have explained the regularity of nature without appealing to final causes and only to adaptive feedback in the cycle of life. His arguments don't amount to a proof of the necessity of final causes, but to the insufficiency of causal models that don't take into account adaptive feedback.

Does not adaptive feedback presuppose final causality? It would seem that the final cause of Darwinian evolution is something like the survival of life.

Quoting sime

This is equivalent to asserting the existence of a computer simulation of all phenomena attributed to final causes.

I think the question is whether the simulation itself involves final causality.

Quoting sime

Yes. To say that an oak tree is a "final cause" of an acorn is to speak informally about the evolutionary feedback that determined the chemistry of Dendrology, which when applied to a given acorn refers only to a directed chain of causality whose conclusions are fully determined by initial conditions.

Supposing an acorn is fully determined to become an oak tree by initial conditions, this does not undermine final causality. Final causality means, among other things, that the acorn is determined to become an oak tree and not a poplar or ash tree. It is about the determinate end that its development is ordered to. Now I think Aristotle might say that the formal cause contains the final cause in fieri, and perhaps you could argue from this that the final cause is unnecessary. But the response would probably be that simply looking at the acorn and its initial state is not going to tell you anything about its final state.

Quoting Fooloso4

Quite often it is ordered [...] to what can be made to seem to be true...

Yes, as often as Sophists operate.

Quoting Fooloso4

...an appeal to the authority of revelation sets things right.

Who said anything about revelation? You're engaged in axe-grinding.

Quoting Fooloso4

The irony is that Aquinas' argument is ordered toward a conclusion that may be false.

You can attempt to give an argument for such a conclusion if you like.

Quoting Fooloso4

Thomists might like to think that the correct use of reason leads to the truth, but when there is doubt, an appeal to the authority of revelation sets things right.

The exclusion from consideration of anything that is associated with the domain of revealed truth is also a factor in current philosophical discourse. This shows up in many of the debates about ‘cause’, ‘purpose’, and ‘meaning’ in the presumption that the universe world must always be considered absent of them as a kind of axiom.

Quoting Leontiskos

Quite often it is ordered [...] to what can be made to seem to be true...
— Fooloso4

Yes, as often as Sophists operate.

It is often overlooked how close the sophist and philosopher are.

More generally, the problem is our inability to make the distinction between what seems to us to be true and what might be true.

Quoting Leontiskos

Who said anything about revelation?

I put these pieces together:

Quoting Leontiskos

the Aristotelian tradition.

Quoting Leontiskos

But as a Christian

Quoting Leontiskos

The intuitive opinion follows Aquinas in claiming that the human being is intrinsically ordered to truth

Quoting Leontiskos

Summa Theologiae,

For the Thomist the Aristotelian tradition is typically the Thomist tradition. Even without reference to Aquinas, I recognized the claim as Aquinas' rather than Aristotle's. It occurs often in the argument of Thomists.

Quoting Leontiskos

You're engaged in axe-grinding.

Nope. Just following where that ordering leads.

Quoting Leontiskos

You can attempt to give an argument for such a conclusion if you like.

You miss the point. That reason does not lead to the truth of God cuts both ways.

Quoting Fooloso4

I put these pieces together:

You stitched four clauses together and added a double serving of non sequitur for taste? This is why I don't often respond to your posts.

Quoting Wayfarer

The exclusion from consideration of anything that is associated with the domain of revealed truth is also a factor in current philosophical discourse.

The interesting thing here is that Aquinas is rather precise about when a revealed premise* is being used and when it is not. This reflects not only his natural precision, but also the historical situation, in which Aristotelianism was under intense scrutiny. To conflate a revealed conclusion with a non-revealed conclusion would have been fatal given the fact that the whole academic enterprise of that time was scrutinizing the Aristotelians for precisely such slips. So Fooloso's assumption that anything that comes from Aquinas must be revelation-based is not only faulty reasoning, it is also almost exactly backwards.

* A premise derived from Christian revelation as opposed to simple natural reason.

Quoting Leontiskos

You stitched four clauses together and added a double serving of non sequitur for taste? This is why I don't often respond to your posts.

No need to stitch together what for Aquinas belongs together.

Quoting Leontiskos

So Fooloso's assumption that anything that comes from Aquinas must be revelation-based is not only faulty reasoning, it is also almost exactly backwards.

I have made no such assumption.

You seem to have lost the thread of the argument. You claim that reason is teleological. By teleology you say you mean how the term is understood within the Aristotelian tradition. You go on to say, that it is Aquinas who says that the human being is intrinsically ordered to truth.

Teleology is the movement toward something's completion. The completion of reason accordingly would be the truth. Aquinas, however, says that God reveals things that transcend human reason. In other words, the completion of reason does not yield the whole truth. For this revelation is needed.

All this is very far from what you accuse me of. I suspect your defensiveness is getting in the way.

Quoting Fooloso4

The completion of reason accordingly would be the truth. Aquinas, however, says that God reveals things that transcend human reason. In other words, the completion of reason does not yield the whole truth.

You are committing the fallacy of affirming the consequent, claiming that because reason is ordered to truth therefore (all) truth must be derivable from unaided reason. A revealed truth does not undermine the thesis that the telos of reason is truth.

It's as if I said that all bears are animals, and you responded by saying, "But Aquinas claims that some animals are not bears, therefore your claim can't be right."

Quoting Leontiskos

You are committing the fallacy of affirming the consequent, claiming that because reason is ordered to truth therefore (all) truth must be derivable from unaided reason.

Nope. What I am saying is that if, as you assert, there is a telos of reason, then it has to date failed to complete or realize itself.

Aquinas and I are in agreement that reason has a limit. Where Aquinas and I differ is with regard to where to draw that limit. Although I cannot say where to draw that limit I can say that he allows for it to extent much further than I do. Where he claims that the truth of God is known to reason, I deny it.

Quoting Fooloso4

if, as you assert, there is a telos of reason, then it has to date failed to complete or realize itself.

Not all acorns become oaks.

Reply to Leontiskos

But some do.

There are no examples of reason completing itself. Although Thomists might believe it does in some limited way, because they believe that through it we can know that God exists, a great many highly capable and reasonable people do not agree.

Why the lack of agreement? If it were simply a matter of reason there would be no such disagreement.

Quoting Fooloso4

Why the lack of agreement? If it were simply a matter of reason there would be no such disagreement.

"Why is rational agreement so elusive?"

Reply to Leontiskos

I read through that thread, including your response.

With regard to it:

It should not matter whether one is a philosopher as long as one is reasonable. But even if restricted to philosophers worthy of the name we do not find agreement with regard to the question of reason itself let alone agreement on the existence of God.

Culture and history should not make a difference unless reason is historically determined and God is not transcultural.

Reply to Pantagruel

Re: "Thomas Nagel has some really good descriptions of the ways in which reality seems to have fundamentally teleological aspects. For me, this hinges on the idea of instrumentality. /
Instrumentality is the translation of an abstract into a concrete idea, I think."

Telos seems to have more to do with the idea itself than the concrete result. For example, from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

"Consider a knife. If you wanted to describe a knife, you would talk about its size, and its shape, and what it is made out of, among other things. But Aristotle believes that you would also, as part of your description, have to say that it is made to cut things. And when you did, you would be describing its telos."

Heidegger goes into more depth in On The Essence and Concept of ????? in Aristotle's Physics, p. 26 & 27:

"In Greek thought ???????? [energeia] means "standing in the work," where "work" means that which stands fully in its "end." But in turn the "fully-ended or fulfilled" [ das "Vollendete" ] does not mean "the concluded," any more than ????? [telos] means "conclusion." Rather, in Greek thought ????? and ????? [ergon] are defined by ????? [eidos: form, essence]; they name the manner and mode in which something stands "finally and finitely" [ "endlich" ] in its appearance. ...

"Aristotle says this in his own way in a sentence we take from the treatise that deals explicitly with ?????????? [entelecheia] (Meta. , ? 8, 1049 b 5): ??????? ??? ???????? ???????? ???????? ????? [phanerón oti proteron energeia dynameis estis]: "Manifestly standing-in-the-work is prior to appropriateness for...." In this sentence Aristotle’s thinking and pari passu Greek thinking, reaches its peak. But if we translate it in the usual way, it reads: "Clearly actuality is prior to potentiality." ???????? [energeia], standing-in-the-work in the sense of presencing into the appearance, was translated by the Romans as actus, and so with one blow the Greek world was toppled. From actus, agere (to effect) came actualitas, "actuality." ??????? [dynamis] became potentia, the ability and potential that something has. Thus the assertion, "Clearly actuality is prior to potentiality" seems to be evidently in error, for the contrary is more plausible. Surely in order for something to be "actual" and to be able to be "actual," it must first be possible. Thus, potentiality is prior to actuality. But if we reason this way, we are not thinking either with Aristotle or with the Greeks in general. Certainly ??????? [dynamis] also means "ability" and it can be used as the word for "power," but when Aristotle employs ??????? as the opposite concept to ?????????? [entelecheia] and ???????? [energeia], he uses the word (as he did analogously with ????????? [kat?goria: predication, categorisation] and ????? [ousia]) as a thoughtful name for an essential basic concept in which beingness, ?????, is thought."

So telos is to do with the 'standing' of the essence, the instrumental idea, but not so much the actualised concretion. In general we can take a break from the instrumental reification of reality, as Derrida notes of 'teleology' in A Taste for the Secret, p. 20:

"It is perhaps necessary to free the value of the future from the value of the [eschatological, teleological] 'horizon' that traditionally has been attached to it — a horizon being, as the Greek word indicates, a limit from which I pre-comprehend the future. I wait for it, I predetermine it, and thus I annul it. Teleology is, at bottom, the negation of the future, a way of knowing beforehand the form that will have to be taken by what is still to come."

So we can actually chill-out and float upstream in a reality free of instrumentality, from time to time.

Quoting Chris Degnen

So we can actually chill-out and float upstream in a reality free of instrumentality, from time to time.

I don't see how this follows. Everything you cited suggest that teleology is imminent, as imminent as is the future....

Reply to Pantagruel

I'm seeing telos as instrumental purposeness and teleology as the examination of purposes and reasons. That is fine in a world of thought and things, but in an unconditioned world without (or before) thought there is no telos.

Quoting Chris Degnen

That is fine in a world of thought and things, but in an unconditioned world without (or before) thought there is no telos.

I would say that whether there is or is not such a world is precisely what is in question. And the essential fact of telos suggests to me that there is not such an unconditioned world.

Quoting Pantagruel

...the essential fact of telos...

What is that?

Reply to wonderer1 The fact that teleology exists. You can't abstract away from something that is evident. You can hypothesize what a universe absent consciousness might be like but, per impossibile, you cannot actually experience such a universe without being in a state of self-contradiction. If you want to deny teleology, why not also deny materiality?

Reply to Pantagruel Quoting Pantagruel

I would say that whether there is or is not such a world is precisely what is in question. And the essential fact of telos suggests to me that there is not such an unconditioned world.

In Dennis Schulting's Kant, Non-Conceptual Content, p. 85, he write about Kant's gedankenlose Anschauung: intuition without thought:

"From the immediately preceding passage (A110), where he argues that ‘[t]here is only one experience, in which all perceptions are represented as in thoroughgoing and lawlike connection’ (emphasis added), it appears that Kant excludes the possibility that one could have an epistemically relevant perception or intuition that does not belong to unitary experience grounded in ‘a transcendental ground of unity’ (A111), but this does not imply that he excludes the real possibility of ‘intuition without thought [ gedankenlose Anschauung ]’."

A translation of A111 from the Critique of Pure Reason is:

"The thoroughgoing and synthetic unity of perceptions is precisely what constitutes the form of experience, and it is nothing other than the synthetic unity of the appearances in accor­dance with concepts.
[A111] "Unity of synthesis in accordance with empirical concepts would be entirely contingent, and, were it not grounded on a transcendental ground of unity, it would be possible for a swarm of appearances to fill up our soul without experience ever being able to arise from it. But in that case all relation of cognition to objects would also disappear, since the appearances would lack connection in accordance with universal and necessary laws, and would thus be intuition without thought, but never cognition, and would therefore be as good as nothing for us."

As good as nothing. Perfect meditation material for the upstream float.

Reply to Chris Degnen Lots of people attempt to abstract essential features of consciousness and then deny consciousness. I have never found this cogent. Rather, it seems to me fundamentally "autologically unsound," viz., relying on a faculty to deny the existence of that faculty. "Passive volition" is an example of a paradoxical concept found in Tibetan yoga and zen buddhism. But this is not being without mind so much as it is being of two minds.

Reply to Pantagruel Quoting Pantagruel

"Passive volition" is an example of a paradoxical concept found in Tibetan yoga and zen buddhism. But this is not being without mind so much as it is being of two minds.

I think it can be more direct than passive volition, e.g. Potthapada Sutta

"with the complete transcending of the dimension of the infinitude of consciousness, [thinking,] 'There is nothing,' enters & remains in the dimension of nothingness. His earlier perception of a refined truth of the dimension of the infinitude of consciousness ceases, and on that occasion there is a perception of a refined truth of the dimension of nothingness."

In other regards I guess you have to suppose 'If I stop thinking is there a world?'. So if I'm unconscious I am still alive and my being is in the world, even though I am having no thoughts.

Quoting Chris Degnen

"there is a perception of a refined truth of the dimension of nothingness"

Various philosophers also consider the faculty of "intellectual intuition"

Reply to Pantagruel Quoting Chris Degnen

"there is a perception of a refined truth of the dimension of nothingness"

I mistakenly foreshortened the quote; the subsequent paragraph hits it:

". . . If I were to think and will, this perception of mine would cease, and a grosser perception would appear. What if I were neither to think nor to will?' [3] So he neither thinks nor wills, and as he is neither thinking nor willing, that perception ceases [4] and another, grosser perception does not appear. He touches cessation. This, Potthapada, is how there is the alert [5] step-by step attainment of the ultimate cessation of perception."

I'm not sure how thoroughly that can be done. A clonk on the head might be more effective. Then you can exist without thinking and all logos, telos and instrumentality is dropped.

Reply to Pantagruel Reply to Pantagruel Quoting Pantagruel

Various philosophers also consider the faculty of "intellectual intuition"

I am sure that is not what I am driving at. I am distinguishing that telos pertains to rationalisation and consciousness, but one's being, or (unconscious) self has a mysterious ineffable existence that can spin-up consciousness. When it is giving consciousness a rest then telos takes a holiday.

Reply to Chris Degnen Yes, I know that isn't your gist. But personally I think that the undercurrent of purpose is not disposable. There an innate conation to consciousness. I do think that will can and should be employed in both an externally realizing and internally self-restraining sense. But I don't see the "null-state" as being meaningful, except as an exercise perhaps.

Reply to Pantagruel Quoting Pantagruel

But I don't see the "null-state" as being meaningful, except as an exercise perhaps.

I think it has utility as an aspiration, as in calling thought into action when required and resting it when not required; calming the chattering monkey-mind. Nevertheless, just quietly observing uses reason and teleology to render the world intelligible, so thought is not really fully rested.

Another reason to contemplate the "null-state, or gedankenlose Anschauung [thoughtless intuition] is that it is the origin of thought, phenomenologically. 'Being' facilitates conscious thought which discriminates the beings, the things. Because it is prior to thought it has no telos or logos. So there is existential significance to the distinction in our generally logocentric world.

Quoting Chris Degnen

I think it has utility as an aspiration, as in calling thought into action when required and resting it when not required;

Which is identical with what I wrote, no?

Quoting Pantagruel

I do think that will can and should be employed in both an externally realizing and internally self-restraining sense

As far as there being something "prior to thought" here we part ways. This can only be speculation, IMO, and it isn't productive, pragmatically speaking. It tends towards an kind of idealism which I no longer support I see consciousness as inextricable from the contexts of its expression.

Reply to Pantagruel Quoting Pantagruel

As far as there being something "prior to thought" here we part ways. This can only be speculation, IMO

Actually nothing can be said of being, so that's fine isn't it? Nevertheless something gives rise to thought, and since it is prior it is without telos — no purpose. You can create your own.

"The nothing is the "not" of beings, and is thus being, experienced from the perspective of beings. The ontological difference is the "not" between beings and being." (Pathmarks, p. 97)

"Beyng is nothing "in itself" and nothing "for" a "subject."" (Contributions, p.381)

Even if it is figuratively nothing it makes a placeholder for something prior, thus escaping teleology and logos. A rare freedom in a logocentric world.

Reply to Pantagruel

[I]Incomplete Nature[/I] by Terrance Deacon is an interesting modern attempt to recover Aristotlean formal cause through thermodynamics and thus to explain purposeful behavior and the emergence of first person perspective. It isn't fully convincing, but it's the best effort I've seen.

One deficit it has though is that it assumes that information only exists in terms of life, as a given. To assume otherwise would be to introduce humonculi for Deacon.

I think this is mistaken. My hunch is that a satisfactory accounting of intentionality will include an explanation of the way perspective and semiotic elements of reality are "baked in" from the outset. Scott Mueller's "Asymmetry: The Foundation of Information," and Carlo Rovelli's "Helgoland," have some interesting points on this front.

Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus

Incomplete Nature by Terrance Deacon is an interesting modern attempt to recover Aristotlean formal cause through thermodynamics and thus to explain purposeful behavior and the emergence of first person perspective. It isn't fully convincing, but it's the best effort I've seen.

One deficit it has though is that it assumes that information only exists in terms of life, as a given. To assume otherwise would be to introduce humonculi for Deacon.

I think this is mistaken. My hunch is that a satisfactory accounting of intentionality will include an explanation of the way perspective and semiotic elements of reality are "baked in" from the outset. Scott Mueller's "Asymmetry: The Foundation of Information," and Carlo Rovelli's "Helgoland," have some interesting points on this front.

Thanks, I really appreciate the references/recommendations, those are always beneficial.

Quoting Chris Degnen

Nevertheless something gives rise to thought, and since it is prior it is without telos

Not necessarily. Perhaps thought is a symptom of teleology.

Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus

I think this is mistaken. My hunch is that a satisfactory accounting of intentionality will include an explanation of the way perspective and semiotic elements of reality are "baked in" from the outset. Scott Mueller's "Asymmetry: The Foundation of Information," and Carlo Rovelli's "Helgoland," have some interesting points on this front.

I just grabbed the Kindle of Incomplete Nature, it looks excellent. Unfortunately the Mueller books is $$$! Maybe there is a PDF floating around....