Archive for March, 2024

Would Carnap have tolerated modern metaphysics?

Thursday, March 28th, 2024

EDIT: NOTE Dated 27.11.2024:

I now find my comments below, written with little understanding of Carnap, to be confused and foolish. I probably did not even grasp the important shift in second sentence of Para-1 of my comments of Carnap’s reliance on “the logic” to tolerance. I am in agreement with most of what Cohen and Marschall say in their paper wholeheartedly, while noting that what they say is not novel anymore but the application of the Carnapian value-based critique to contemporary issue is quite interesting. Where I might have some disagreement has to do their treatment of the notion of internal-external questions.

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Cohen, W.A; Marschall, B. Would Carnap have tolerated modern metaphysics? The Monist, 106 (2023), pp 326-341.

The paper describes two phases of Carnap’s criticism of “metaphysics”. The first meaning-theoretic critique rested on the inability of certain natural language grammatical forms to correctly map to the logical forms (for example where the logical form ¬∃(x)R(x) can be in the natural language grammatical form R(x).) Then such natural language statements are meaningless. The second “value-based” phase, forced by the appearance of certain logical languages that could in fact map many such grammatical forms, was based on the “principle of tolerance” for all such logical languages but demanded that they clearly state their syntactic rules and that frameworks be valuable for practical inquiry. Those frameworks or languages that do not state their syntactic rules clearly or whose value is dubious are to be less valued and possibly meaningless.

The §4 seems to be wrong (at least quite weak) in its emphasis on the value being based on practical scientific considerations. I believe this is due to a reading of the tolerance principle devoid of its general thesis. The principle was a special case for the foundations of mathematics program of his ontological neutrality. While talking of Aufbau he summed up the attitude as “my attitude was again ontologically neutral. For me, it was simply a methodological question of choosing the most suitable basis for the system to be constructed, either a phenomenalistic or a physicalistic basis. The ontological theses of the traditional doctrines of either phenomenalism or materialism remained for me entirely out of consideration… in the Aufbau I merely refrained from taking sides; I added that, if one proceeds from the discussion of language forms to that of the corresponding metaphysical theses about the reality or unreality of some kind of entities, he steps beyond the bounds of science.” There can be no metaphysics beyond the bounds of sciences, ontological questions are to be answered by our best theories and only meaningful questions are of methodology and epistemology not ontology.

This principle can possibly be used to test whether Carnap would have tolerated contemporary mereology or not. My own partially articulated opinion is that the problem of meaningless metaphysics can be best understood through informal logic principle of sense-domains consistency1. Asking whether a discussion is within a single sense-domain or not. Where a sense-domain is the sets of predicates and constants that are implied by using the particular term in a particular sense (either one of several possible natural language senses or any theoretic sense). If the discussion switches domains without clarification or uses predicates and constants inconsistent with the sense in that particular domain then the discussion risks becoming non-sense. One assumption in this theory is that there is no sense of the terms in isolation that are also not natural language commonsense.

Perhaps what I am getting at through sense-domain principle is only a way of avoiding semantic ambiguities. Similarly, there are ways of avoiding syntactic ambiguities in natural languages. But maybe what some people assume Carnap to be saying is that certain kinds of inquiries are necessarily ambiguous because they are contentless or/and meaningless. And this can somehow be shown by logical or epistemic analysis. But both the critiques Carnap offered were inquiry general. His later criticism of ontology was perpahs methodological and based on the value and success of non-ontological inquiries and the fruitlessness of ontological ones.

 

1This is not a “theory” in naturalistic sense because argumentation and language-use for inquiry is a human action and without a theory of human action a theory of argumentation in this sense is impossible. But to the extent the goals and intention of the person engaged in argumentation is insight though clear exchange then some principles for clear discussions can be sketched out. Sense-domain principle being one such proposal.

 

 

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Quick review of “Determined” by Robert Sapolsky

Monday, March 11th, 2024

I intended to write a critique of Sapolsky’s method for the study of human behavior in his last two books but after reading a couple of chapters from both I did not think it worthwhile for the following reasons: his writings are filled with anecdotes, thought experiments whose explanatory connection remains dubious. he uses terms like “decision”, “intent” etc in peculiar ways to draw one unclear conclusion after the other. For example, “You view a picture of someone holding an object, for a fraction of a second; you must decide whether it was a cell phone or a handgun.” We don’t “decide” how we interpret our impressions in any meaningful sense of this word. If it is an intense situation, where the capacity to deliberate is subdued by other needs but that is not how we live day to day – there is a rush, tiredness, and biases; that might inform initial impressions. But as soon as the impressions are conscious, the faculty and capacity of deliberation can review the impression.

And he does not answer any of the classical objections against determinism. So, instead after a brief criticism of his political program, I will point out some classical positions on free will on which Sapolsky has written 700+ pages and those he failed to acknowledge and address.

What little I could gather about his political and social program is the following.  Based on “Hierarchies, Obedience, and Resistance” in his previous book Behave and the first two chapters of Determined. Based on these two conclusions can be clearly seen in his writings:

  1. Human individuals have natural inequalities and they are reflected in the natural hierarchies of human societies. These hierarchies if led by people who are not concerned about the “common good” (“bad apples”) can be harmful and if people or groups are concerned with the “common good” (“good apples”) then they can be good. Sometimes people subordinated in the hierarchy can “resist” and new “heroes” can emerge, creating new and different hierarchies. He writes that “like other hierarchical species, we have alpha individuals, but unlike most others, we occasionally get to choose them. Moreover, they often are not merely highest ranking but also “lead,” attempting to maximize this thing called the common good.”
  2. People lack deliberation (and hence reasons) and have no real control over what they do and hence over the world, so it is not a problem if they live in hierarchies, they are in fact necessary for their survival. [The whole of the latest book]

Human dignity and freedom lie in our capacity to be undetermined, and free to act on rational grounds, and any restriction on our deliberative capacities is unjust. These enlightenment and libertarian ideas cannot be formulated in Sapolsky’s behaviorist worldview. In fact, this is what he is trying to resist. Sapolsky loses objectivity in a social inquiry by pretending to be neutral or fooling himself into believing that he actually is (perhaps because he was determined to do so) when he is defending a particular view of human nature and justification for command societies where intense “learning” programs will be required for possibly gaining correct morality, under the garbs of science. Because theologies and ideologies are old-fashioned nowadays, scientific jargon with no substance sells. Maybe I am being unfair and this is just his thesis presented in the culture of debate and deliberation. [He writes: “Thus, a lot of people have linked emergence and free will; I will not consider most of them because, to be frank, I can’t understand what they’re suggesting, and to be franker, I don’t think the lack of comprehension is entirely my fault.” emphasis added] But the point remains the same with or without his “intent”.

In Determined, he argues in favor of a strong determinism. Where we have no room for free will.

Experience of freedom of choice is perhaps more intensely felt than perceptual experience. You can stop reading this right now – you do have that choice, and you can act on it or not. We can try to study this capacity and the “faculty of choice” in Descartes’ phrase as a feature of the mind/brain, as a particular part of nature we are yet to learn about – and may or may not succeed. Or we can say this experience is an illusion and we do not have any choice. Sapolsky begins the book talking about William James, but I guess he did not consider his views on this issue for the same reasons he left out other thinkers. James noted that “the arguments I am about to urge all proceed on two suppositions: first, when we make theories about the world and discuss them with one another, we do so in order to attain a conception of things which shall give us subjective satisfaction; and, second, if there be two conceptions, and the one seems to us, on the whole, more rational than the other, we are entitled to suppose that the more rational one is the truer of the two.” James then notes if determinism were true then why is the proponent of determinism engaging in rational argument about the soundness of their claims. Is she compelled to do it and reader not free to judge the claim to be more or less truer? This picture and also the picture of not trusting our most immediate experience have no rational grounds be considered correct.

 

 

Posted in secular priesthood, Social Philosophy | Comments Closed

Review of: ‘Global Warming In India: Science, Impacts and Politics’, Nagaraj Adve, Eklavya, 2022.

Monday, March 4th, 2024

[Published in November 2022, volume 46, No 11 of The Book Review India]

Nagaraj Adve’s Global Warming In India is a brief and practical guide that enables the reader to engage with the discussions, debates and actions about the most pressing social and moral issue before our generation. It is written with a sense of hope and compassion for the “ordinary people” that is largely missing in similar and popular books, which tend to focus more on the specialist and technocratic solutions handed over from above and to which most of us are expected to assent to and participate merely as a consumer or observer. The first chapter about the science of global warming is presented without unnecessary jargons and covers all the concepts necessary to clearly grasp the phenomenon. But where this books differs the most from other popular climate change books is in Chapter 2 where the author identifies the “systematic drivers” of the crisis.

The root cause of climate change is capitalism’s DNA, argues Nagaraj. A society which organizes its most important tasks and goals around the maximization of profits cannot address the needs of the ecosystems or its poor and working people. It produces more and more goods by degrading quality of work and the environment through cost cuttings in pollution prevention and casualizing jobs. Lets recount two (out of many) recent incidents that support this claim. One day after Putin invaded Ukraine the LNG Allies a oil and gas lobbying association wrote an open letter to Joe Biden asking him to expand the fossil fuel infrastructure to fill the export gap in Europe created by the war and also by the sanctions against Russia1. And as a result new gas and oil pipelines have been sanctioned along with $300 million in funding by the US government for the new fossil fuel infrastructure.2 And in India, the Economic Times reported that, “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has opened arbitrage opportunities so enticing that Reliance Industries Ltd deferred maintenance work at the world’s biggest oil refining complex to churn out more diesel and naphtha after prices surged.”3

It is often claimed that it is taking us so much time to switch from fossil fuels to greener sources of energy because of all the inertia built in from previous decades of planning. But as these cases illustrate the cause of delay is not only past inertia but active investment and development for more fossil fuel dependence in present and for future.

Also, related to this is the Indian government’s policy positions on climate change. The Indian NDCs for the Paris Agreement almost entirely depend on reducing the share of fossil fuel in the energy mix. Nagaraj addresses with the deficiency of such approach in the later chapters. He points out that for actual and meaningful reduction of greenhouse gas emissions the fossil fuels must drop in absolute terms. But this demand is rejected by the Indian government and also by much of the liberal and left critics and environmentalist. They object that why should India, a “developing” nation give up on its opportunity “to grow” for mitigating a crisis created by the richer nations? One answer is being provided by the leaders of the most venerable and island nations. They have been repeatedly saying that India and China are among the top emitters and emerging economies and “while they (India and China) develop; we die; and why should we accept this?”4 The self-image of India created by the Indian intellectuals is very self serving, shifting from a “powerful” nation to “developing poor” nation as the needs of the business and political elites demand. India is the third biggest emitter of greenhouse gases and when it claims its right to more “carbon space” to develop at the cost of islands and coastal communities then, how different is the notion of “carbon space” from Nazi “living space”?

Moreover, as Nagaraj distinctly points out the policies that lead to climate crisis have also led to unparalleled inequality both globally and in India. The NCRB 2021 report reveals that in 2021, 1,64,033 people committed suicide in India, including 5 daily wage earners every hour.5 While, “during the pandemic (since March 2020, through to November 30th, 2021) the wealth of billionaires increased from INR 23.14 lakh crore (USD 313 billion) to INR 53.16 lakh crore (USD 719 billion). More than 4.6 crore Indians meanwhile are estimated to have fallen into extreme poverty in 2020 (nearly half of the global new poor according to the United Nations.) The stark wealth inequality in India is a result of an economic system rigged in favour of the super-rich over the poor and marginalised.”6 So how justified can a business as usual let-India-develop position be when only development seems to be of the top 1% and top 10% of Indians.

The final chapter on solution is filled with thought provoking ideas that are just the right balance of specific and general to help come up with concrete plans while allowing creativity and local needs to be assimilated. But, the solutions have to acknowledge and recognize the faces and the forces responsible for the economic and climate crisis: the billionaires and their corporations.

This book is an essential reading for anyone who wants to make sense of the changes taking place before us and to be a positive part of it.

1https://lngallies.com/energy-security/

2‘How the gas industry used the Ukraine war to secure new fossil fuel infrastructure’ Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

3‘Billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s refinery makes millions from war windfall’ Economic Times, May 09 2022

4Quoted in Karin Bäckstrand, Ole Elgström (2013) ‘The EU’s role in climate change negotiations: from leader to ‘leadiator’, Journal of European Public Policy, 20:10, 1369-1386, DOI:10.1080/13501763.2013.781781

5https://frontline.thehindu.com/social-issues/ncrb-2021-report-dying-young-and-jobless-in-india/article65894493.ece

6https://www.oxfamindia.org/press-release/inequality-kills-india-supplement-2022

Posted in activism, alienation, climate crisis, India | Comments Closed