Steve Watson

Another Pointless Dialogue on Relativism About Truth

The fourth effort

A: All truths are relative
B: Do you mean that all statements of fact are true for some and false for others?
A: Yes, that’s what I mean.
B: So a statement like ‘There is a hippopotamus in this room’ is true for some false for others?
A: That follows, of course.
B: But when I say that there’s a hippo in the room I’m describing some fact about the world so that what I mean is that there really is a hippo in the room. If it is true-for-me then if I try to walk across the room I will fail because my path will be blocked by this hippo.
A: And you would annoy the hippo.
B: But for someone for whom the statement ‘There is a hippo in this room’ is false, there is no such fact as the hippo in the room and their path would not be blocked.
A: Do you think there’s a hippo in the room, B?
B: If I said I did, would you be inclined to contradict me, A?
A: Not a bit of it!
B: Then under what circumstances would you feel justified in challenging any factual statement any other person made?
A: I’m not sure. Perhaps only when I think they’ve reached their understanding of the facts of the matter according to unreliable or incorrect processes, or when their claims are contradicted by others of their claims?
B: I’m not sure how you can even talk about reliable and unreliable or correct and incorrect processes of knowledge generation, unless you think that there is some way that the world actually is. Do you think that the world is a certain way?
A: Of course I do. There’s a world and I’m in it – and you may be too.
B: Well thanks for the grudging acceptance of my coexistence with yourself.
A: De nada
B: But if you think that the world is a certain way, then surely language can be used to describe how the world is, and that language can describe it correctly or incorrectly, and so it may describe it truly – for everyone – or falsely – for everyone. Indeed, that is just what true and false mean for people who speak the language.
A: Aren’t you assuming that everyone has the same understanding of any statement of fact? That can’t be assumed – indeed it’s highly unlikely! So a statement that may be understood by one person as describing a certain fact about the world may be understood by another person as describing a quite different fact about the world. One understanding may make the statement true and the other may make it false.
B: Well, this is very sneaky. I suppose it’s possible to argue that it’s impossible to state anything so clearly that there can be no misunderstanding, and that there are always possible misunderstandings that will make a true statement into a false one (I abbreviate, hoping for charity;) but this seems less than relevant to the original claim which I understood to be referring to the variable truth-value of a certain statement for different persons given its constant propositional understanding.
A: I don’t believe that was ever stipulated.
B: Yes, and I suppose it’s a good example of the very claim that you were making.
A: I meant to do that.
B: Uh huh. But suppose we had two people who really did have exactly the same understanding of a particular statement – by which, let me clarify, I mean that they both have exactly the same idea of what facts in the world would make that statement true or false. Could the statement yet be true for one and false for the other?
A: I doubt that any such persons exist.
B: And I doubt that anyone could be raised entirely in a black and white room or could memorise a Chinese-speaking AI program, yet we talk about them quite happily.
A: I doubt that any such persons could exist.
B: And I doubt that you could justify that as an in-principle claim; but set that aside, because your hesitation suggests that you think they couldn’t really disagree, in which case your earlier claim about subjectivism is reduced to a claim about mere misunderstandings. It remains true that statements describing the world that are close enough to identically understood by all parties will be either true or false for all parties.

Posted in Philosophy | No Comments »

Fragonard, L’escarpolette

Things never heard: ‘I reckon my kid could do better than that.’

Posted in Art | No Comments »

Three Pointless Dialogues on Relativism about Truth

I was reading and listening to some Steven Pinker articles and podcasts (for Quillette, I believe) talking about his new book on rationality, and one of the throwaway points he makes is that relativism about truth is a bad position. I don’t doubt that, but I’m not so sure that the argument that no-one is a relativist about what matters most to them is a very convincing one, and nor is the argument adapted from the anti-total skeptic argument so obviously applicable. (The latter goes ‘There are no true statements’ ‘Is that true?’) Anyway, I thought I’d have three goes at clarifying or Socratizing the claim. They don’t really go anywhere very conclusive, but I thought they were amusing enough to keep.

The first effort

A: All truths are relative
B: Do you mean that all truths are subjective and dependent upon persons and circumstances?
A: Yes, that’s about the size of it.
B: Well, is that statement itself a relative truth?
A: Presumably so; why?
B: Because if it is then it’s only true for some persons and circumstances.
A: That’s as may be, but if it’s true for just one person then it’s true for all persons.
B: How so?
A: Because if it is true for me, say, that all statements are true for some persons and circumstances and not for others, then for any statement if someone, say Bob, says it’s true then there are other persons who will say it is false, and it will follow that that statement will be seen by Bob to be true for some and false for others, and Bob will agree that truth is therefore relative.
B: I doubt that Bob will agree to that. Bob is likely to say that if a statement is true then it’s true for him, and if someone else says it’s not true for them then they are just wrong.
A: On what grounds could Bob say that? He’d have to think that in saying that a statement is true that he’s making a universal claim on behalf of all utterer’s of the statement.
B: Yes, he probably does. He probably thinks that that’s exactly what the truth predicate does – that’s what it means to be true. To talk about ‘relative’ truths is to talk about truth having a qualification which is just outside its scope. A statement that is true for some but not for others is either referring to characteristics of some but not others or is just not a properly formed statement.
A: Well, I suppose we’d better try to work out what is meant by ‘true’ then.
B: Yes, and possibly before we start describing it as relative or universal.

Second try

A: All truths are relative
B: You mean that all indicative statements are true for some people but not true for other people?
A: Yes; or all indicative statements may be true for some people and at the same time not true for other people.
B: OK. Let’s put this in clearer terms: you’re saying that for any such statement there’s a possible world in which it is true for some and not true for others.
A: That’s close enough.
B: And that would apply to that statement too I suppose?
A: Of course. The rule applies to any indicative statement, and that’s one of those.
B: Then there’s a possible world in which it is true that that statement is true for some and not true for others?
A: Sure.
B: It follows that in the possible world where it is true for some and not true for others, there are certain people for whom it is not true that there’s a possible world in which it is true that that statement is true for some and not true for others.
A: Yikes; but yes, that seems right.
B: If for those people there is no such possible world, then certainly the actual world is not going to be such a possible world.
A: Yes, but is this the actual world with respect to them or the actual world with respect to us? I mean is it the world they are in which they would call the actual world, or the world we are actually in which to them is just another possible world?
B: It hardly matters does it?  But let’s say it’s our actual world. For those people it is true that this world is not a world in which that statement is true for some people and not true for other people. So it is not true that any indicative statement may be true for some people and not true for others.

Third go

A: All truths are relative
B: You mean that all indicative statements are true for some people but not true for other people?
A: Yes, something like that.
B: So, if that’s true, then there are going to be people for whom the statement that all truths are relative is going to be false.
A: Presumably, why?
B: Because for those people it will not be the case that all truths are relative. For those people it will be case that some truths are true for everyone at the same time. So they will truly say that some statement is true for everyone – and the relativist may not truly say that that statement is untrue.

Posted in Arguments, Philosophy | No Comments »

New pronouns!

I, me, my

Please keep up.

Posted in Politics | No Comments »

L’incohérence de Bouddhisme

Le bouddhisme a la réputation d’être à la fois une religion et une philosophie : en fait, beaucoup de philosophes pensent que c’est une philosophie admirable. Il y en a cependant d’autres qui pensent que c’est un mélange des pseudo-profondeurs et d’incohérences. Par exemple, les bouddhistes disent que la fin vers laquelle tous devraient s’efforcer est nirvana – c’est-à-dire le néant absolu. (Il est important de garder à l’esprit que le nirvana n’est pas un paradis ou un au-delà.) Les Bouddhistes disent aussi (c’est l’un des trois signes d’existence, anatta) que le soi n’existe pas. Il n’y a aucune entité dans l’univers qu’on peut identifier comme le soi ; et, donc, personne ne peut pas dire qu’il existe.  Donc, si je n’existe pas, comment puis-je m’efforcer d’atteindre le nirvana¸ et de plus, pourquoi ?

Ou considérons la prétention que notre existence dans le monde continue (ignorons le signe d’anatta pour le moment) parce que nous (encore, qui ?) souffrons les effets de nos désirs. Par conséquent ils disent que nous devrions nous efforcer de rejeter nos désirs. Mais ils ne peuvent pas nous donner ce conseil sans admettre qu’ils désirent nirvana et que nous devrions le désirer. Le désir est donc en même temps nécessaire et interdit. Il y a beaucoup d’autres paradoxes tout aussi évidents et flagrants et non résolus dans cette philosophie ; en fait tous les efforts des soi-disant philosophes bouddhistes n’ont eu l’effet que de confondre les questions de plus en plus. En dépit de tous cela ils n’ont pas laissé tomber les prétentions contradictoires de leur philosophie. Et pourquoi pas ? Parce que le Bouddhisme est avant tout une religion et non pas une philosophie.

Posted in Philosophy, Religion | No Comments »

The Mystery of the Trinity Solved

Thus are God the Circle, God the Triangle, and God the Square all One God

Posted in Philosophy, Religion | No Comments »

_ new pronouns

_ pronouns are _, _, and _. They may not be written or pronounced, for you are not worthy.

Posted in Politics | No Comments »

Daosheng On Buddha-Nature and Sudden Enlightenment

The Buddha-nature (fóxìng – which translates Sanskrit tat^hAgatagarb^ha meaning the ‘matrix of the thus gone’ or budd^had^hAtu meaning ‘the realm of the enlightened one’) was the subject of the second of Daosheng’s teachings that we will consider. The Buddha-nature was supposed to be that part of a being’s nature which made it possible for the being to achieve the enlightenment that the Buddha achieved. It was thus that part of the Being’s nature that approximated to (shared in / was identical with / what you will) the essential nature of the Buddha. Although most schools would agree on the purely functional characterization just given, yet there is little agreement on what exactly it was that instantiated the function or realised the potential. Some considered it to be a quality of Mind, or the undefiled mind, or (in the Lankavatarasutra) the universal mind (of the Yogacaras,) while others considered it to be simply nothingness or non-being itself. In any case, it was disputed whether every sentient being possessed the Buddha-nature and was thus able to achieve enlightenment. Daosheng was amongst those who thought that it was a universal quality of sentient beings and that certain important consequences followed from this fact.

Since his treatise on this has not survived his relevant arguments have to be extrapolated from his other commentaries, but they seem clear enough in general. From his reading of the various sutras he concludes that every being does have the Buddha-nature, although not every being realises that they do. The task for each being is to achieve this realisation and to use that realisation to become enlightened and thus fully actualise their Buddha-nature. Daosheng envisioned the Buddha-nature as being whatever it was that was able to enjoy nirvana given that according to the most basic truth of anatman there was ‘no self.’ He further held that Buddha-nature was identical with nirvana and sunyata. His arguments for this point are not specified but we might assume that since nirvana (extinction) and sunyata (emptiness) are without characteristics or parts it is not possible to enjoy them or to participate in them while having characteristics and parts; therefore this thing, if it was to ‘enjoy’ extinction and emptiness could only do so as a kind of participation – and by the nature of extinction and emptiness, participation in them could only be identification with them. This being the case, and Buddha-nature being thus without characteristics, there would be two further consequences. First, being indivisible into parts, it could not be grasped in parts: it was all or nothing, which supported the claim of sudden enlightenment. Second, being inapprehensible from outside – since it has no qualities for any perception or comprehension to grasp – to know the Buddha-nature is to participate in it; so that the understanding of the Buddha-nature leads to instant enlightenment and liberation.

Posted in Philosophy, Religion | No Comments »

Sengzhao’s Arguments are Weak

The doctrines and attitudes and practices that are thought of as typical of the Chan school arose early but gradually after Buddhism had been introduced to China. In particular, the early Chinese Buddhist scholars Sengzhao and Daosheng are considered to have laid the philosophical groundwork for the Chan school. So far as we can be sure of them, however, their arguments for these doctrines are rather weak.

We shall consider just the first of these. Sengzhao (384-416,) was, so it is said, originally a Taoist who upon reading an old translation of the Vimalakirti Sutra became an enthusiastic Buddhist, and eventually a disciple of Kumarajiva – one of the most productive of the earliest translators and interpreters of Buddhist documents. In Xi’an (which was then the capital Chang’an) Sengzhao assisted his master in the translation and interpretation of Indian texts but he also began to make his own contributions. These can be found in his Book of Zhao (Zhao Lun,) a collection of essays, of which three are of primary significance in preparing the ground for Chan. It is particularly worth noticing that the arguments made in all three essays might be made in essentially the same way by a Neotaoist as easily as by a Buddhist.

1. Objects Do Not Move

In the essay on mutability and immutability Sengzhao argued the paradoxical point that there is at once no change and no immutability; or equivalently, that everything is both changeful and immutable; or even better that changefulness and immutability are equally vacuous terms referring to nothing. To make this claim he observes that any entity that is in the past never becomes an entity in the present because it is always in the past. Everything is therefore absolutely immutable, frozen in the instant of its existence (whether present or past.) On the other hand, since the passage of time must necessarily involve the sequential being and non-being of all things absolutely, there is nothing but mutability. By way of a clarifying example he gives us the man who left his village as a youth and returns as an old monk. We observe here that everything about the man has changed so he is a different entity, but he is nevertheless still the same man (called Fanzhi) so he is the same entity, so what is the same and immutable is also different and mutable. Unfortunately, this is just the old problem of the preservation of identity through change that we recognise from such classic examples as the Ship of Theseus, and rather detracts from than advances the purely conceptual argument that it is supposed to illustrate.

2. Unreal Emptiness

In the essay on Being and Not-being he argues that nothing purely exists or does not exist; in everything that exists there is the quality of non-existence and in everything that does not exist there is the quality of existence. Of everything, whether it exists or not, it may therefore be said that it both exists and does not exist. His argument is that if something purely exists and has no quality of non-existence, then it would always be so qualified and so could never fail to exist. In particular, its origination is not dependent on the operation of causes in the world – contrary to what the Buddha claimed about all existent things. Similarly, for anything that does not exist, if it has no quality of existence within it then it can never do other than not exist, with all the same unwelcome consequences as for necessary existence. This is a marvellously paradoxical result, but its conviction for modern audiences is undermined by the inadmissibility of the assumption upon which the argument is based: that existence – and non-existence too, for that matter – may be treated in the same way as property predicates like ‘tall’, ‘happy’, or ‘blue.’ This assumption is known to lead to all sorts of problems and is almost universally rejected now.

3. Wisdom Has No Knowing

Finally, in the essay on wisdom he argued that that could not be considered as a kind of knowledge – or at least not any kind of propositional knowledge. Such knowledge, we observe, is knowledge of something – we cannot speak of having that sort of knowledge without acknowledging that there is an object of knowledge. Such knowledge essentially involves an apprehension of the qualities of a known thing. If prajña (bo re), or sage-wisdom (shèng zhi) as Sengzhao calls it, is an apprehension of the Absolute Truth, then, given that the Absolute Truth is that there is nothing to be apprehended, sage-wisdom cannot involve the apprehension of the qualities of some object, and therefore cannot count as knowledge in the normal sense. In fact sage-wisdom is more like knowledge by acquaintance of Non-being, or even an actual identification with that state, a kind of knowing how to be non-existent. Of course, it was not established that any such knowledge was possible at all, so the move to understand what form that knowledge could take rather begs the question.

Posted in History, Philosophy | No Comments »

Le Libre arbitre

Chacun a le sentiment d’un libre arbitre même si il n’y croit pas. Chacun a le sentiment que c’est possible à faire autrement que ce qu’il fait ; il n’a qu’à choisir autrement que ce qu’il a choisi. Enfin, il a le sentiment que ce qu’il fait est la conséquence d’un choix et la responsabilité de ce choix est à lui. Voilà pour ses sentiments. D’autre part, certains pensent que nous sommes tous des objets physiques et toutes nos actions sont ordonnées par les lois de la Nature. Ces lois n’admettent qu’un seul résultat pour leur application sur une situation donnée. Pas de place ici pour un choix parmi des possibilités. Face à ce choix entre notre connaissance scientifique du monde et nos simples sentiments de liberté, nous choisissons forcement le première choix, et nions la possibilité d’un libre arbitre.

Mais cet argument, tel qu’il est, doit nous mettre un peu mal à l’aise. Selon l’argument, si nos actions ont une cause, alors on ne peut pas nous les attribuer. Autrement, si nos actions n’ont pas une cause ? Sont-elles en ce cas à notre crédit ? Non ? Alors, que nos actions soient causées ou non elles ne sont pas notre responsabilité. C’est une conséquence un peu trop bizarre même pour un philosophe ; mais où est le problème fondamental ? Il y a pas mal de réponses que les philosophes offrent : mais peut-être qu’il n’y a qu’une simple erreur de raisonnement. On peut construire d’autres arguments similaires à celui ci-dessus qui ne sont pas convaincants. Par exemple, supposons que le moteur de ma voiture cesse de marcher parce que sa batterie est à plat. Peut-on vraiment attribuer le problème à la batterie ? Non, parce-que l’opération de la batterie est déterminé par les lois de la Nature et il y a une autre cause antérieure pour ce changement dans son opération.  Pensons-nous donc que nous ne pouvons pas dire que la batterie est responsable ? Non, nous ne le pensons pas. Alors, pensons-nous que l’argument contre le libre arbitre est de la même nature et échoue de la même façon ?

Posted in Philosophy | No Comments »