Manuscrito (Ma) - Resenha Crítica

Kant on the Rationality of Morality – GUYER (M)

1 de abril de 2020

GUYER, Paul. Kant on the Rationality of Morality. Cambridge University Press, 2019. 73pp. Resenha de: CARVALHO, Vinicius. Manuscrito, Campinas, v.43 n.2 Apr./June 2020.

In his contribution to the Cambridge Elements: The Philosophy of Immanuel Kant series, Paul Guyer contends that Kant derives the fundamental principle of morality (in this case, the formulas of the categorical imperative) and the object of morality (the highest good) from the application of the most fundamental principles of reason: the principle of noncontradiction, of sufficient reason, and, to a lesser extent, the principle of excluded middle. The fundamental fact that ought not to be denied by any rational agent – on pain of self-contradiction – is that oneself and others have a free will, in other words, that they have the capacity to freely set and pursue their own ends. Guyer argues that Kant grounds his whole moral theory upon this fact, and that the application of the fundamental principles of reason to it gives us the principle and the object of morality. In what follows, I will summarize each of the book’s chapters, discussing some of its claims when I see fit.

In the second chapter – Reasons, Reasoning and Reason as Such, the first chapter being the introduction – Guyer discusses past approaches about the relation between the fundamental principles of morality and reason for Kant. For instance, philosophers such as Christine Korsgaard and Allen Wood emphasize that rational actions are actions based on reasons, and that genuine reasons are universally valid norms, valid for everyone, everywhere. Kant would have gotten the requirement to act on universally valid reasons from the observation that this is what characterizes rational action. Onora O’Neill also emphasizes the same requirement for universalizability, though she supports her reading not by appealing to the notion of a reason in particular, but to the notion of reasoning in general, in her well-known account of Kant’s conception of reason in the Canon of Pure Reason from the first Critique². In my view, Guyer correctly criticizes an aspect of O’Neill’s reading on this point: it is not the case that we “invent and construct standards for reasoned thinking and acting”³all the way down. Pace O’Neill, Guyer argues that it is certainly the case that Kant did not believe that the application of the principles of rationality were sufficient to arrive at substantive metaphysical conclusions: this is one of the features of dogmatism he so fiercely denounced. But he certainly regarded some formal principles of reason as “necessary conditions of reasoning because they are the fundamental principles of reason” (p. 9). So, even though Guyer agrees with these interpreters about the importance of the requirement of universality when it comes to morality, his argument will be that this requirement is the result of the application of some even more fundamental principles, beginning with that of noncontradiction.

The third chapter – From Noncontradiction to Universalizability – shows exactly how that is so. First, Guyer shows that Kant followed the philosophical tradition of his time in accepting the principle of noncontradiction as the first principle of reason (and the principle of sufficient reason as the second). Indeed, Kant is quite clear on this matter in his lectures on Logic (especially in ^{the Jäsche Logik}) and at some points in the first Critique⁴. But to which concepts and pairs of judgment need we apply this principle to derive the principle of morality? In the preface to the Groundwork, Kant says that for any moral law, its “ground of obligation” must be sought “a priori simply in concepts of pure reason” (^GMS, AA 04: 389), and in the second section of the work he clarifies that this a priori concept is the concept of a rational being (^GMS, AA 04: 412). More precisely even, it is the concept of a rational agent, which is a rational being with the capacity to act according to the representation of certain laws, for the sake of certain ends (^GMS, AA 04: 426-7). According to Guyer:

Kant’s argument will then be that the fundamental principle of morality can be derived from the application of the principle of noncontradiction to the concept of a rational agent as one capable of setting its own ends. This capacity must be affirmed of any rational agent and cannot be denied without contradiction. (p. 17)

Guyer’s point is that a maxim is immoral whenever its proposed action entails some belief that contradicts the fact that agents have free will. Take the lying promise situation – in which an agent makes a promise with no intention of keeping it – as an example. Kant says that in such a world, in which everyone makes lying promises whenever it suits their interests, no one would accept promises at all. The practice of making promises in general would cease to exist because one of its necessary conditions (i.e., that the promisee trusts the promisor) is gone. Thus, in making a false promise an agent virtually robs the possibility of everyone else making any promises. It undermines their freedom by making it impossible for them to take part in a social practice in which they have chosen to participate⁵. It treats other people as if they were not fully free agents. According to Guyer, this shows that “the necessity of avoiding contradiction between a proposed maxim and its universalization is a consequence of the necessity of avoiding contradicting the nature of rational beings as persons with free will” (p. 24). Although Kant does not explicitly say this in the Groundwork, Guyer takes as textual evidence (a) the fact that Kant says of immoral maxims that when universalized they either contradict themselves, or that they entail practices that are inconsistent with some fundamental characteristic of rational agents (see ^GMS, AA 04: 423-4), and (b) Kant’s treatment of the duties not to commit suicide, to help others in need, and to develop one’s talents in the ^{Metaphysics of Morals} (see MS, AA 06: 451; 453).

Since Kant’s treatment of duties in that latter work relies more heavily on the Formula of Humanity (FH) rather than the Formula of Universal Law (FUL), because the nature of rational agents as free agents (ends-in-themselves) is explicit in the former formula, Guyer says: “Thus Kant’s requirement of universalizability follows from the formula of humanity and is ultimately grounded in the law of noncontradiction because the latter is.” (p. 23). I believe this deserved a bit more clarification by the author, though, for the question “how could the requirement of universalizability expressed by FUL follow from FH if the latter is presented after and as a ‘development’ of the first formula?” comes straight to the reader’s mind. A possible answer would be that the derivation of FUL already relies upon the premise that rational agents are free agents, who express their freedom in their adoption of maxims. The evidence for this is Kant’s distinction, already at the beginning of the derivation, between imperfect and perfect wills (^GMS, AA 04: 412). It is precisely because rational agents with imperfect wills are free to adopt whatever maxims they propose to themselves that the principle of morality – to choose only maxims apt for universal legislation – is presented as an imperative. In any case, I believe this point should have been more fully developed by the author. The chapter ends with a brief treatment of Kant’s deduction of the freedom of the will at the third section of the Groundwork, where Kant argues that we cannot but regard ourselves as beings with free will when we apply the distinction (argued for in the first Critique) between world of sense and intellectual world. The fact that we know that we are free agents (from the practical point of view) is what produces a self-contradiction whenever we adopt a maxim that entails some belief or other that is inconsistent with this knowledge.

The fourth chapter – The Principle of Sufficient Reason and the Idea of the Highest Good – shows how Kant got his conception of the highest good through the application of the second fundamental principle of reason, that is, the principle of sufficient reason, according to which there is an adequate explanation for every fact. Guyer first discusses how Kant refuses the traditional use of this principle as it was employed by the rationalists, for the application of this principle is warranted only within the limits of possible experience. But, according to Guyer, he accepted the use of this principle when it came to matters of morality. More precisely, Kant claimed that the application of this principle lets us theorize about the “unconditional”, which, in this case, means that we can apply this principle to think about the complete and systematic consequences of morality. For Kant, this means that we are drawn to the idea of the highest good, a condition in which “universal happiness [is] combined with and in conformity with the purest morality throughout the world.” (^TP, AA 08: 279).

Throughout the chapter, Guyer defends his interpretation on how to read Kant’s conception of the highest good and his argument for it. He shows that Kant applies this principle in two ways: first, to show that morality is a condition on the pursuit of happiness. Kant does not ground moral worth in possible or actual good consequences of actions. Some action might bring a great deal of happiness (whatever we understand ‘happiness’ to mean), but its accomplishment is constrained by moral considerations, such as if it respects the nature of those involved as ends-in-themselves. In the second case, happiness is conceived as the complete object of morality: since happiness is the satisfaction of all possible ends (^GMS, AA 04: 418; KpV, AA 05: 25) and the nature of rational agents is that they set themselves their ends, then “the moral command to preserve and promote the capacity to set ends is in fact equivalent to a moral command to promote happiness … [happiness is] what morality commands in the first instance, but not, as it turns out, all that it commands” (p. 37). This is why, in Kant’s words, “pure practical reason … seeks the unconditioned totality of the object of pure practical reason, under the name of the highest good” (KpV, AA 05: 108). It is important to keep in mind here that happiness commanded by morality under the concept of the highest good is not happiness simpliciter, that is, the mere satisfaction of contingent ends, but that it is limited by moral considerations. This conception of the highest good as the object of morality also leads Kant to develop what he thinks to be the necessary conditions for the attainment of this object. The three ideas of pure reason that were discussed in the Dialectic of the first Critique now receive the status of postulates of practical reason: the immortality of the soul, freedom of the will and the existence of God are propositions that, for Kant, cannot be theoretically proven, but which we must accept because they are necessary conditions to the realization of morality’s object, the highest good. The end of the chapter is devoted to show how Kant eventually shifted position regarding the role of the postulates, especially in his latter writings from the 1790’s.

In the fifth chapter – Rationality and the System of Duties -, Guyer argues that Kant’s treatment of duties show that he also took the ideal of systematicity to be part of his conception of reason and rationality. That this ideal is essential to Kant’s philosophy is clear from the Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic (see ^KrV A 642/^B 670), and in his practical philosophy we can see this ideal at work in many occasions. First, there is the requirement that an agent adopts not only one maxim apt for universal legislation, but that all his maxims satisfy this requirement (^GMS, AA 04: 432). Second, there is the requirement that all ends of all agents be compatible, as well as that each agent be treated as an end-in-itself, as expressed in the Formula of the Realm of Ends (^GMS, AA 04: 433). And third, there is the suggestion that the supreme principle of morality must be able to offer a complete division and characterization of the generally recognized classes of duties⁶, that is, into (a) perfect and imperfect duties (^GMS, AA 04: 423-4), and (b) both duties of virtue (noncoercively enforceable) as well as duties of right (coercively enforceable). Granted, Kant seems to use in general two different principles to derive these duties, focusing on FUL in the Groundwork and on FH in the ^{Metaphysics of Morals}. But, as Guyer argues, these principles are supposed to be interchangeable and at least coextensive when it comes to the duties they entail. The most important point of the chapter, however, is the explanation of why we might need a system of duties. Showing that Kant followed in important aspects George F. Meier’s treatment of duties, Guyer argues that the systematic classification of duties, combined with the application of the principles of noncontradiction and excluded middle – the principle that ought implies can as well, but this one is not usually explicitly stated by Kant – are what allows Kant to deny the possibility of conflict of duties, in other words, genuine moral dilemmas. Thus, Guyer says:

Here is where Kant might have brought in the principle of the excluded middle as well as that of noncontradiction: whereas the latter principle tells us that two contrary duties, that is, duties to perform two incompatible acts at the same time, cannot both be duties (on the ground that we cannot have an obligation to perform the impossible), the former would tell us that we have to perform one of these duties. (p. 47)

This chapter ends with a discussion of Kant’s ideal of systematicity both in the theoretical and in the practical uses of reason as presented mainly in the third Critique.

The sixth chapter – Reason as Motivation – explains how, for Kant, pure reason can motivate action. Guyer shows that Kant’s disagreement with Hume about the role of reason in action, though substantial, is not complete. Whereas Hume thought that reason was motivationally inert and could not lead us to action – only sentiments and “passions” could -, Kant thought that pure reason could be practical. Indeed, this is necessary for any action to have moral worth: “What is essential to any moral worth of actions is that the moral law determine the will immediately” (KpV, AA 05: 71). But this does not mean that reason motivates us to action without any feelings being involved, for Kant also says that “every determination of choice proceeds from the representation of a possible action to the deed through the feeling of pleasure and displeasure, taking an interest in the action or its effect” (^MS, AA 06: 399). Guyer explains this apparent inconsistency by arguing that we must place Kant’s theory of motivation within his transcendental idealism, specifically the distinction between noumenal and phenomenal selves. The moral law does determine the will immediately because this happens when we choose to adopt the moral law as our “fundamental maxim” (^RGV, AA 06: 36) and when we are conscious of it “whenever we draw up maxims of the will for ourselves” (KpV, AA 05: 29). But when it comes to choosing particular maxims, this happens through the intermediation of the feeling of respect, which is a self-wrought feeling, caused by reason, that acts as a counterweight in favor of the moral law against the motivational pull of inclinations (^GMS, AA 04: 401). Thus, Guyer says that “reason produces action – this is Kant’s disagreement with Hume – but it does so through the production or modification of feeling – here is Kant’s agreement with Hume” (p. 53). In the rest of the chapter, Guyer discusses Kant’s fuller theory of motivation as presented in the ^{Metaphysics of Morals}, which involves the exercise and cultivation of a class of feelings that are sensible to the determination for action through the concept of duty, namely: moral feeling, conscience, love of others or sympathy, and self-respect or self-esteem. Thus, Guyer joins others who have consistently pointed out that any interpretation that represents Kant’s ethics as devoid of any place for feelings and emotions is seriously flawed.

In the seventh chapter – Kantian Constructivism -, Guyer discusses the metaethical implications of his interpretation, especially in the realism versus antirealism debate concerning Kant’s moral theory. Appropriately, the author first makes sure to distinguish semantic realism from ontological realism. This fundamental distinction is unfortunately not always drawn in discussions of Kant’s metaethics, causing many unnecessary disagreements. Guyer claims that Kant is clearly a semantic realist: for him, judgments about right and wrong, good or bad, are not indeterminate in their truth-value, and they can be correctly inferred from previous moral judgments and principles. In other words, there are correct and incorrect answers to moral questions, i.e., questions of permissibility, worthiness, etc. The real hornet’s nest is when it comes to the following problem: in virtue of what are some moral judgments true? Is it due to some metaphysical fact independent of us, or is it the result of the application of some constructive procedure?

The latter position was famously defended by John Rawls, who labeled the method employed in his political philosophy Kantian Constructivism. Defenders of a constructivist reading of Kant’s metaethics claim that he derived the principles of morality from a mere conception of practical reason or reason in general. On the other hand, those who prefer the (ontological) realist view say that what ultimately grounds morality and from which Kant derives its principles is the fact that rational agents are ends in themselves, “or that human freedom is intrinsically valuable” (p. 64). As Guyer points out, and I am in very much agreement with him on this point, the method by which Kant derives particular moral duties constitutes a form of constructivism: we infer particular duties by applying the different formulas of the moral law to our specific circumstances⁷. Therefore, we can say that Kant is a normative constructivist.⁸ But it is not so clear whether he is a metaethical constructivist. Some argue that what grounds the moral law is the fact that rational agents are free, which gives them an irreducible value, outside the purview of construction, upon which morality is grounded⁹. For Guyer, Kant’s position regarding the nature of the fundamental principle of morality should be seen as a realist position: this fundamental principle is ultimately derived from the application of the principle of noncontradiction to the fact that rational agents have free wills, a fact that obtains independently of any procedure of construction. But he claims that this does not fit well with what we contemporarily regard as moral realism, for this fact is not a specific moral one, nor is it Kant’s position that there is something of value in the world independent of evaluative attitudes. About this, Guyer says:

This is a fact, in Kant’s own words a “fact of reason”, but it is not a mysterious moral fact, or a value that somehow exists in the universe independently of our act of valuing it. It is simply a fact that cannot be denied on pain of self-contradiction, since, Kant assumes, in some way we always recognize it even when by our actions we would deny it. Whether Kant succeeded in demonstrating this fact is a question; but there is no question that he regards our possessions of wills as a fact from which moral theory must begin. Thus we can say that as regards its fundamental principle, Kant’s moral philosophy is a form of realism, though not specifically moral realism. (p. 64)

As the author points out both in this last chapter and in the second, it is one thing for Kant to show how the principles and the final object of morality are derived from the fact that we are free agents combined with the requirement to respect the fundamental principles of reason; it is quite another thing for him to demonstrate that we are, indeed, free agents. That would be the subject of a much longer and detailed study, which falls out of the scope of the book, let alone of this review. Kant on the Rationality of Morality is a short but insightful book. Its discussions bridge Kant’s theoretical and practical philosophies, and they offer an original argument for one of the most important interpretative problems of the Groundwork, the derivation of the principles of morality. I recommend it especially to those who prefer to read Kant’s ethics as not so dependent on the significant metaphysical and epistemological theses of his transcendental idealism; as well, of course, to those interested in moral theory in general.

References

Kant, I. Gesammelte Schriften. Hrsg.: Bd. 1-22 Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Bd. 23 Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, ab Bd. 24 Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen: Berlin, 1900ff. [ Links ]

_____ “The Jäsche Logik”. (Log). In: Lectures on Logic. Translated by J. Michael Jung. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. [ Links ]

_____ Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. (GMS) Translated by Mary Gregor and Jens Timmermann. Cambrigde: Cambridge University Press, 2011. [ Links ]

_____ Critique of Pure Reason. (KrV). Translated by Paul Guyer and Allen Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. [ Links ]

_____ “Metaphysics of Morals”. (MS) In: Practical Philosophy. Translated by Mary Gregor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. [ Links ]

_____ “Critique of Practical Reason”. (KrV) In: Practical Philosophy. Translated by Mary Gregor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. [ Links ]

_____ “On the common saying: That may be correct in theory, but is of no use in practice”. (TP) In: Practical Philosophy. Translated by Mary Gregor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. [ Links ]

_____ Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason. (RGV) Translated by Allen Wood and George di Giovanni. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. [ Links ]

Herman, B. “Leaving Deontology Behind”. In: The Practice of Moral Judgement. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press, 1993, pp. 208-240. [ Links ]

Korsgaard, C. The Sources of Normativity. Edited by Onora O’Neill. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press , 1996. [ Links ]

Timmons, M. “The Categorical Imperative and Universalizability”. In: HORN, C; SCHÖNECKER, D. (eds.) Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2006, pp. 158-199. [ Links ]

O’Neill, O. Constructions of Reason. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press , 1989. [ Links ]

_____ “Autonomy, Plurality and Public Reason”. In: BRENDER, N; KRASNOFF, L. (eds.) New Essays on the History of Autonomy: A Collection Honoring J. B. Schneewind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004, pp. 181-194. [ Links ]

Schönecker, D; Schmidt, E. “Kant’s Moral Realism regarding Dignity and Value: Some Comments on the Tugendlehre.” In: SANTOS, R; SCHMIDT, E. (eds.) Realism and Antirealism in Kant’s Moral Philosophy. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter , 2018, pp. 119-152. [ Links ]

Street. S. “Constructivism about Reasons” In: SHAFER-LANDAU, R. (ed.) Oxford Studies in Metaethics, vol. 3, 2008, pp. 207-245. [ Links ]

Wood, A. Kantian Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press , 2008. [ Links ]

Notas

¹This work was supported by grant 2019/21992-8, São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP).

² ^{O’Neill, 1989}.

³ ^{O’Neill, 2004}, p. 187.

⁴Log, AA 9: 51 and ^{KrV, A} 150/^B 189; A 151-2/B 191. References to Kant’s texts follow the standard: abbreviation of the work, followed by their number in the Akademie volumes and their corresponding pagination. Except for the ^{Critique of Pure Reason}, quoted with reference to the pagination of its first (A) and second (B) editions. All quotations of Kant are taken from the Cambridge editions.

⁵ ^{Barbara Herman (1993}, p. 215) gives a similar explanation: “A condition of choice that could not be accepted by all rational agents would be: doing x where the possibility of x-ing depends on other rational agents similarly situated not doing x. This is the condition standardly found to be the ground of choice of the deceitful-promise maxim”.

⁶Right after stating FUL, Kant says: “Now, if from this one imperative all imperatives of duty can be derived as from their principle, then, even though we leave it unsettled whether what is called duty is not such an empty concept, we shall at least be able to indicate what we think by it and what the concept means” (^GMS, AA 04: 421). For an argument that FUL cannot adequately provide a general classification of duties, see Timmons (2004).

⁷“ … moral philosophy … gives him [the human being], as a rational being, laws a priori; which of course still require a power of judgment sharpened by experience <durch Erfahrung geschärfte Urtheilskraft>, partly to distinguish in what cases they are applicable, partly to obtain for them access to the will of a human being and momentum for performance …” (^GMS, AA 04: 389). See also ^MS, AA 06: 217.

⁸I am borrowing this notion from ^{Street (2008)}.

⁹For such a realist reading of Kant, see ^{Schönecker and Schmidt (2018)}.

Vinicius Carvalho – University of Campinas Department of Philosophy Campinas – S.P. Brazil carvalho.viniciusp@gmail.com

Acessar publicação original

Tags: Cambridge University Press (E), CARVALHO Vinicius (Res), Construtivismo Moral, Filosofia Moral, GUYER Paul (Aut), Immanuel Kant, Imperativo categórico, Kant on the Rationality of Morality (T), Manuscrito (Ma)

Linguistic Bodies: The continuity between Life and Language – DI PAOLO et al (M)

1 de janeiro de 2020

DI PAOLO, Ezequiel; DE JAEGHER, Hanne; CUFFARI, Elena. Linguistic Bodies: The continuity between Life and Language. MIT Press, 2018. 414 pages. Resenha de: FIGUEIREDO, Nara Miranda. Manuscrito, Campinas, v.43 n.1 Jan./Mar. 2020.

INTRODUCTION

Di Paolo, De Jaegher and Cuffari begin the book by inviting the reader to see herself as a linguistic body. They list individual and social daily activities that are always permeated by reasons, emotions, choices, thoughts and mental conversations and ask what would be the best way to approach a linguistic body to talk about its nature. The authors’ choice is to explain, from the beginning, what linguistic bodies are. Therefore, the book is divided into three parts: In the first, the authors offer their definition of a body, in the second, they discuss what linguistic bodies are, and in the third they focus more specifically on how we become linguistic bodies and how the language we know is part of our actions. These three parts comprise a total of 12 chapters and 414 pages, including glossary, notes, bibliography and index, and are entitled ‘Bodies’, ‘Linguistic Bodies’ and ‘Living as Linguistic Bodies’, respectively.

The authors claim that the theory of linguistic bodies is the first coherent embodied and social conception of human language that doesn’t resort to mental representations in order to explain any cognitive processes, including language itself. In order to contextualize the work, we should briefly recall that since the sixties the brain has been conceived as the center of cognitive processing and that theories about cognition, strongly influenced by ^{Fodor’s philosophy (1975}, ¹⁹⁸³), sustained that cognitive processes are operations on mental representations of the world. Only in the eighties, under the influence of ^{Gibson (1979)}, who argued that perception is ‘for action’, the representationalist conception began to lose space for less traditional conceptions that argued that cognition also occurs in the body (embodied), in the environment (embedded) and in action (enactive)¹. The work of ^{Varela, Thompson and Rosch (1991)} is the main reference for embodied cognition and it provides the basis for the theory of linguistic bodies, which I call linguistic enactivism.

Linguistic enactivism, according to the authors, expands and deepens the enactive theory presented by ^{Varela, Thompson and Rosch (1991)}, connecting dynamic explanations of action and perception to language. Its main aim is to show that the thesis of embodied cognition, contrary to what the critics of this conception suggest, can explain both basic skills, such as the sensorimotor ones, as well as higher skills, such as language. To provide this explanation, Di Paolo, De Jaegher and Cuffari stress that the distance between these two levels of cognitive activities has, until today, been little explored and that we can, at least in principle, imagine that they are of the same nature. Then, according to them, we need to significantly deepen our conception of the body (p.4). This is done in the book by exploring several concepts proposed by enactivism. The authors develop some of these concepts and present others and, after that, they present a conceptual model of cognition that leads us to the notion of linguistic agency, which is a key notion for considering reference, grammar, symbols and other features of language.

This review consists of a brief exposition of the book and offers a panoramic view of the theory. Following the structure of the book, I will first explain the authors’ notion of body, then refer to their notion of dialectics, after that I will expose the steps of the model and, finally, get to their conception of languaging.

THE THEORY

The authors start from the analysis of different traditional conceptions of the body: (1) the biological body, which is often considered from a purely functional perspective, and explains the development and functioning of parts essential to language, such as the brain, vocal structures, hearing, gestures, movements, etc.; (2) the situated body, which is anatomically structured and recognized by its patterns of action and linguistic behaviors; (3) the phenomenological body that, differently from functionalist conceptions, is considered from the experience of language in a world of sensations, feelings and emotions, such as desires, suspicions, care, love, confinement, respect, etc; and (4) the social body that is seen as an active body that acts socially, a body that not only uses language for communication, but that linguistically structures its practices, thoughts, rituals, places and institutions. This is a concept of corporeality as powers that spread from social practices among individuals with the development of skills (p.14).

However, the adoption of contextualized conceptions in which the body is considered only from one perspective is rejected by the authors because it is a type of “feeble pluralism lacking a theoretical core” (p.14). Thus, they seek a theoretical articulation that is capable of offering an understanding of the interconnections between the various dimensions of the body leading to the concept of linguistic bodies. This theoretical articulation has several key concepts², among them, the concepts of precariousness, auto-poiesis, interest (concern), identity, adaptivity, autonomy, appreciation, adaptivity, agency, mastery, sense-making, social interaction, and, in my understanding, the concept of dialectics connecting them all.

Dialectics, roughly speaking, is not understood in the usual way, namely, as the confrontation of opposite sides of a debate, but as constant tensions that originate between multiple relations that constitute a system. These tensions are due to the disharmony and contradictions of operating trends between different parts, norms or functions (p.114) of the system. “When a passage out of a dialectical situation into another occurs, oppositions are transformed rather than equilibrated” (p.114).

The thesis presented in the book is that dialectical tensions occur between the most diverse opposing trends. At the corporeal level, they occur between and within the body’s own dimensions, which are: organic, sensorimotor and intersubjective. The organic dimension of the body is characterized by “anatomical structures or physiology, or as bundles of sensors, effectors, and neuromuscular tissues” (p.24), physicochemical processes of the organism, metabolic, immunological processes etc., and precarious processes of self-individuation and adaptive engagement (coupling) with the environment. These structures and processes can be, and in general are, explained by investigations in the natural sciences. The normativity of the organic dimension is the result of the interactions between these elements and processes. The sensorimotor dimension involves the processes of engagement (coupling) of the agent with the environment. These processes are not separated from neurobiological processes or from the relationships of organisms with other agents (p.21). Its normativity occurs due to these interactions. The intersubjective dimension is characterized by the agent’s interaction with other agents that relate to him/her not only as objects of contemplation, obstacle or use, but as powers of interpellation, which inquire him/her, ignore him/her, support him/her, respond to him/her, smile, cry, and share a world of activities and concerns with him/her (p.62).

Within the organism, dialectical tensions occur even between the tendencies of self-production and self-distinction. Every living organism is an autopoietic system. Autopoietic systems are autonomous, in the sense that they self-regulate, but they are not independent, as they need means for self-production. Autopoietic systems can be defined as networks of “biochemical processes organized in such a way that the operation of these processes” (p.329) support the organism and its relations with the environment. These processes involve the system’s self-distinction in relation to the environment, as well as the system’s self-production from the environment. Self-production is the process by which the system uses matter and energy, from the environment for its own self-organization; and self-distinction is the process of rejecting the matter and energy from the environment. Self-production and self-distinction interact dialectically by means of agency. This means that the organism adaptively regulates its coupling with the world selecting what it accepts and what it rejects from the world.

Dialectical tensions – and the overcoming of the tensions by means of transformations and mutual influences – constitute the normativity of a certain domain, which interacts with the normativity of other domains, ultimately resulting in the behavior that we observe in interactive encounters. This is why, in my view, the notion of dialectics is so important: because it identifies the very source of normativity.

Thus, we have individual normativity followed by interactive normativity, which is the idea that in social encounters, two or more organic systems self-regulate, for the interplay of their own sensorimotor normativities and the natural caring constitutes a dialectic tension, and the very interaction is dialectic. At this point, the concepts defining the organism and its interaction with the world and with others already give room to what is called sense-making, which is defined as “The active adaptive engagement of an autonomous system with its environment in terms of the differential virtual implications for its ongoing form of life. The basic, most general form of all cognitive and affective activity manifested experientially as a structure of caring.” (p.332). As sense-making can be done jointly and it is affected by coordination patterns, breakdowns and recoveries undergone during social encounters, participatory sense-making comes into play. Participatory sense-making is “the coordination of intentional activity in interaction, whereby individual sense-making processes are affected and new domains of social sense-making can be generated that were not available to each individual on her own” (p.73)

THE MODEL

The dialectical model of cognition³ presented by the authors starts from participatory sense-making and builds up through seven other dialectic steps leading us to the notion of linguistic agency. But it is not until chapters seven and eight that the reader can have an overview of these steps. Each step, as the authors mention in the description of the visual representation of the model, is a form of social agency, “it breaks into its main form of tension” (p.160) and generates, or leads to, the next step. From this point on, things start to get very interesting, for the authors resort to theories of language, developmental psychology, phenomenological analysis and empirical research and consider “work in conversation analysis, interaction studies, and ethnography (p. 341)” as source of empirical evidence about social interactions⁴.

I will briefly explain a couple of the key steps of the model and refer to the others. Participatory sense-making breaks into individual norms and interactive norms. As I mentioned before, individual norms are constituted by the essential tensions between self-production and self-distinction among the three dimensions of embodiment⁵. Each interactive situation has its own interactive norms, which are constituted by the combination of the individual normativities. In practical terms, a good example for this autonomous normativity of interactive situations is the narrow corridor case: linguistic body A wants to walk through a narrow corridor towards the exit of the building while linguistic body B is coming on the opposite direction, both people want to pass by each other, but they bump into each other a few times before being able to pass by, because the corridor is narrow and the space is restricted. Both agents, together, self regulate their actions, despite the fact that they are not explicitly intentionally coordinating⁶ their actions at first (p.142), otherwise they wouldn’t bump into each other.

From the tension entailed by participatory sense making, we get to social acts which split to the tension between spontaneous acts and partial acts. In a nutshell, this is the difference between acts that require feedback and acts that do not. For example, when greeting, linguistic body A expects to be greeted back by linguistic body B, while just stretching does not involve any kind of feedback. From this tension, there is the coordination of social acts, which splits into creative and recursive acts. Shortly, recursive acts reproduce previous acts and reiterate them, while creative ones are new. From this tension, we have the normativity of social acts which splits into local pragmatics and portable acts, which can be synthetized in acts that are meaningful only in specific groups – local – and acts that can be enacted in several groups – portable. Internal jokes are examples of local pragmatics, while greetings are examples of portable acts. This tension leads to communities of interactors. Its tension is between two kinds of roles: regulatory role and regulated role. There is a good example for this case: in face-to-face conversation, usually, people keep a certain distance from each other; this is co-regulated by the individuals in the situation they are living. If, for example, there is something preventing the understanding between them, linguistic body A can get closer to linguistic body B in an attempt to hear better – this is a regulatory act. It says that the conversation must be clearer or louder, it is almost like a requirement for the conversation to keep going. A regulatory act is, then, “(…) a partial act used in order to modulate, select, project, reject, or encourage other particular partial acts within a shared repertoire.” (p. 331). The regulated act, on the other hand, is the partial act that complements the regulatory act. Naturally, linguistic body B can enact another regulatory act to which linguistic body A will either conform or confront⁷.

The tension between regulatory and regulated roles leads to dialogue and recognition, the sixth step of the model. It splits into production of utterances and interpretation of utterances. Before referring to the tension, it is important to highlight that utterances are not understood as we traditionally do, namely, as statements that involve sentences in spoken or written language, nor as linguistic gestures. Although these can also be examples of utterances, utterances are essentially acts. An utterance is “A dialogic act, enacted asymmetrically through the actions of a mutually recognized producer and an audience.” (p. 332). They have a double dimension of meaning (p.175): they contribute to the co-regulation of interactive encounters, which is its pragmatic dimension, and they are meaningful due to how they relate to the participants of the encounters, which is its expressive dimension (p.176). As I just mentioned, the tension that happens in dialogue and recognition is between interpretation and production. Interpretation is the act of the listener (audience or apprentice) before the producer. Production is the act of a producer, which is someone who performs the utterance, before the audience. Thus, “The utterance as a whole is a social act in the sense we have given to this term: it is constructed as much by the audience as by the producer and may fail if the corresponding complementary acts are not coordinated” (p. 174).

From production and interpretation of utterances in a dialogue, we come to participation genres. “Participation genres encompass the practices and situated norms of different kinds of social interaction, a subset of which are Bakhtin’s speech genres.” (p. 179). Participation genres frame the production of utterances and what is required for interpretation, and they help to coordinate the regulation of social acts. They split into self-control and mutual interpretation. Mutual interpretation is the act of interpreting himself/herself and others. Self-control is the act of the producer when he/she interprets his/her own utterances due to dialogical regulation. “In other words, mutual interpretation leads to self-interpretation and to the self-regulation of utterance production” (p. 184) which leads to social self-control.

The final step of the model is reported utterances, which splits into incorporation and incarnation and it has a transformative potential that leads to a “new kind of embodied agency: linguistic bodies” (p.191). Reported utterances are “utterances that echo, reflect, refract, or somehow make use of other utterances, the producer’s own or those of others.” (p.187). It brings up “the producer’s interpretation of the utterances it repeats or reflects (^{Voloshinov 1929/1973}, 117).” (p.187). Incorporation is when external processes become constitutive of a system; it is the appropriation of utterances of other agents by a linguistic agent. Incorporated utterances are a result of personal enactments and patterns of a community. These acts “may sometimes lie deep in the past of a community’s linguistic experience” (p.191) and they define a linguistic agent. Incorporation “entails the incarnation of other linguistic agents, their perspectives, attitudes, voices, gestures, movements, personalities, ways of relation and so on”⁸ (p.194). This is the paradox of linguistic bodies: “acts of utterance incorporation define a linguistic agent, but the process of incorporation simultaneously entails the incarnation of other linguistic agents” (p.194). This is explained by means of virtual dialogues. Self-directed utterances, “a social skill put to personal use” (p.125), entail a dialogic attitude, even when there is no actual interlocutor (or audience). Thus, virtual dialogues “can be enacted by a single linguistic agent if in addition to invoking the presence of (specific or indeterminate) others, these others are also incarnated-that is, ‘animated’ as agents and given a part in the construction of the virtual dialogue.” (p.194). The ongoing management of this last tension of the model, namely, incorporation and incarnation, defines a linguistic body.

Objectivity is another concept worth mentioning before we come to how the authors propose that grammar develops from the continuity between life and mind. The claim is that it has been part of the model all along as it emerges through collaborative processes of sense-making. Objectivity is conceived as “the activity of taking something as a thing, a this that is the object of our treating, doing, acting, or uttering”⁹ (p.200). The objectification happens when, by repeating an utterance we bring “that utterance to presence (i.e., to shared attention and awareness); in so doing, we have made it a possible object of shared regulatory action; and we have also opened up the possibility of appreciating the utterance, of letting it be, of lingering there with us.” (p. 203). The objectifying attitude is, then, “the practice of regulating other practices and experiences in a mutually constraining relation with sociomaterial conditions” (p. 203).

LANGUAGING

Let us now move to the emergence of language. First, in chapter nine, the authors consider how we become linguistic bodies. They suggest that “children even at or before birth, experience full linguistic engagement” (p. 258) and that we are always unfinished beings, “constantly in becoming” (p. 218). After that, in chapter ten, they consider how research about autism can help not only to improve the model but also in our understanding of autism and non-autistic linguistic bodies. In chapter eleven, they start exploring how language as we know it (when we study grammar, narratives, symbols and so on) emerges from our living practices. They say that “It is not the case that in considering grammar, symbol, convention, and written language (…), we have finally built our way up to the inevitable plane where ideal entities of higher-order cognitive abilities hang out ” (p.279). But in seeing the sensitivities and powers of linguistic agency throughout the book, we can consider words, syntax and symbols differently (p.279). In reference to ^{Ochs (1996)} and ^{Sapir (1927)}, they say that grammar is immersed in social interaction and language interpenetrates with experience. Thus, the enactive take is probably “compatible with research that links grammar to a logic of practices, material structures and social relations” (p. 280). Besides that, linguistic enactivism adds that several phenomena, such as “Sensitivities to symbols, grammar, convention, regulation, narrative” (p.280) can be explored from a linguistic enactivist perspective which considers, “the joint structuring and mutual accommodation of repertoires, the normative regulation of interactive encounters (…)” (p.280), bodily, interactive and societal autonomy, and the tensions of incorporation and incarnation.

According to linguistic enactivism, grammar “can be understood as a dynamic and local organizing activity of linguistic bodies” (p. 281). Regulating patterns can be identified since the first tension described in the model, the tension between individual norms and interactive norms. The authors point out that “(…) unspoken regulative patterns (…) help coordinate the construction of utterances. Emergent grammatical patterns (…) are in essence no different from (…) more obviously embodied and interactive forms of coregulation” (p.287). Grammatical rules are the objectification of these patterns. The preferred word for talking about grammar is ‘grammaticalizing’, as much as ‘languaging’ “referring, regulating, judging, symbolizing, and sensitizing” (p. 293) which preserve “the materiality, agency, and susceptibility of these processes” (p. 293), while ‘reference’, ‘rules’, ‘content’, ‘symbol’ and alike keep the idea of language as a set of abstract rules, somehow independent of living bodies.

“Referring, then, is an emerging outcome of sense-making processes of linguistic bodies becoming together” (p. 295). And because “linguistic bodies also symbolize and interact with symbols as ‘products’” (p. 295) of the processes of becoming linguistic bodies, a “novel materiality, asymmetry, and temporality” (p. 307) emerges. One that allows us to enact ourselves “through engagements with the utterances of another” (p. 307) when writing and reading, for example, and to understand voices “uttered by no body” (p. 308), in advertisements, political messages, institutional rules, guiding symbols, norms in our communities and so on.

The book ends considering some ethical issues implied by the theory. Once we accept that we are intersubjective bodies, constantly interacting not only with other linguistic bodies but also with utterances that do not have a specific enunciator, such as the ones just mentioned, we immediately see that the essential character of living beings of caring about life “because we are precarious organic, sensorimotor, and intersubjective bodies” (p. 309), our embeddedness in a world of others, and our constant becoming by means or incorporation and incarnation leads us directly to the embeddedness of ethical concerns. Linguistic agency is a form of ethical agency because it “is only with the appearance of the critical and person-constituting powers of linguistic bodies that questions of what kinds of worlds we are building, for whom, and under what constraints and possibilities, first become issues in the history of life” (p. 10), and due to this, as put by Varela (1999a) “the turn toward concrete situated practices in the study of the mind should be accompanied by a similar turn toward concrete ethical know-how” (p. 350).

CONCLUDING REMARKS

In short, we are linguistic bodies because we are, even before birth, immersed in a world of others and of several needs and constraints for life maintenance. These conditions mean that things are inherently meaningful to us. What we traditionally understand as language, is a development of several layers of complexity in our forms of life.

The main points to be highlighted in this theory, in my view, are (1) the source of normativity in the dialectical tensions and its natural character; (2) the idea that life itself is a dialectic tension between self-production and self-distinction that involves selective opening and selective rejection (adaptive regulation) (p.40); (3) the explanation of how language, as we know it, emerges from this natural normativity, which encompasses the whole dialectical model; (4) the perspective that we are essentially social beings, and (5) that because things are essentially meaningful to us, including being bad or good, the theory also involves ethical issues and gives room for the development of ethical agency from an enactive perspective.

As mentioned more than once throughout the book, this is not a finished work. Several points need to be developed, complemented and corrected. Besides that, “the model is not meant to describe the unfolding of historical stages in the evolution of human language or the development of linguistic skills” (p.133). The theory aims at extending “the remit of enactive theory” (p.133) in exposing the logic of the activity of using language (p.133). Also, the authors “do not end the book (…) with broad enactive accounts of symbols or grammar” (p. 10), but, despite its unfinished character, one can see that this book is the result of many years of research and dedication. Some concepts can be explored in more detail if one looks for specific papers; I should mention the very concept of participatory sense-making (^{De Jaegher & Di Paolo, 2007}), the concept of agency (^{Barandiaran, Di Paolo, & Rohde, 2009}) and sense-making and language (^{Cuffari, Di Paolo & De Jaegher, 2015})¹⁰, but there are several references throughout the book.

It is a very dense book, the theory is intricate and sophisticated, but it is totally worth the reading. For those working on embodied cognition, either by endorsing it or by questioning it, this is a keystone work and it promises to shake up our conceptions. For those not specifically working on that, it might be a little challenging, but it certainly provides an entirely different conception of mind and life. This book offers an insightful and fascinating perspective on the long-standing problems of the relationship between body and mind.

References

ANDRÉN, M. (2017). Children’s expressive handling of objects in a shared world. In C. Meyer, J. Streeck, & J. S. Jordan (Eds.), Intercorporeality: Emerging Socialities in Interaction (pp. 105-141). Oxford: Oxford University Press. [ Links ]

BAKHTIN, M. M. (1984). Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics (C. Emerson, Trans.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. [ Links ]

BAKHTIN, M. M. (1986). Speech Genres and Other Late Essays (V. W. McGee, Trans.). Austin: University of Texas Press. [ Links ]

BARANDIARAN, X. E., DI PAOLO, E. A., & ROHDE, M. (2009). Defining agency: Individuality, normativity, asymmetry, and spatio-temporality in action. Adaptive Behavior, 17(5), 367-386 [ Links ]

CHALMERS D., CLARK, A. (1998) “The extended mind”. Analysis. 58 (1): 7-19. doi:10.1093/analys/58.1.7 [ Links ]

CUFFARI, E., DI PAOLO, E. A., & DE JAEGHER, H. (2015). From participatory sense-making to language: There and back again. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 14(4), 1089-1125. [ Links ]

DE JAEGHER, H., & DI PAOLO, E. A. (2007). Participatory sense-making: An enactive approach to social cognition. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 6, 485-507. [ Links ]

DU BOIS, J. W. (2014). Towards a dialogic syntax. Cognitive Linguistics, 25(3), 359-410. [ Links ]

JOHNSON, M. (2018) The Embodiment of Language in The Oxford Handbook of 4E Cognition. “Newen, S. Gallagher, & L. de Bruin (Eds.) Oxford: Oxford University Press. [ Links ]

FODOR, J. A., 1975 The Language of Thought, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. [ Links ]

FODOR, J. A., 1983. The Modularity of Mind, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. [ Links ]

GIBSON, J. J., 1979 The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception, Taylor & Francis Group. [ Links ]

GOFFMAN, E. (1959). The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Anchor Books. [ Links ]

GOODWIN, C. (1981). Conversational Organization: Interaction between Speakers and Hearers. New York: Academic Press. [ Links ]

GOODWIN, C. (1986). Audience diversity, participation and interpretation. Text, 6(3), 283-316. [ Links ]

HEGEL, G. W. F. (1807/1976). Phenomenology of Spirit (A. V. Miller, Trans.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. [ Links ]

JONAS, H. (1966). The Phenomenon of Life: Toward a Philosophical Biology. New York: Harper & Row. [ Links ]

JONAS, H. (1968). Biological foundations of individuality. International Philosophical Quarterly, 8(2), 231-251. [ Links ]

LAKOFF, G., & JOHNSON, M. (1980). Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. [ Links ]

LAKOFF, G., & JOHNSON, M. (1999). Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought. New York: Basic Books. [ Links ]

NEWEN, S. GALLAGHER, & L. DE BRUIN (2018) The Oxford Handbook of 4E Cognition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [ Links ]

OCHS, E., SCHEGLOFF, E., & THOMPSON, S. (Eds.). (1996). Interaction and Grammar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [ Links ]

POPOVA, Y. B. (2015). Stories, Meaning, and Experience: Narrativity and Enaction. London: Routledge. [ Links ]

RIEGEL, K. F. (1976). The dialectics of human development. American Psychologist, 31(10), 689-700. [ Links ]

RIEGEL, K. F. (1979). Foundations of Dialectical Psychology. [ Links ]

SACKS, H. (1992). Lectures on Conversation (2 vols.). Oxford: Blackwell. [ Links ]

SAPIR, E. (1927/1949). The unconscious patterning of behavior in society. In D. G. Mandelbaum (Ed.), Selected Writings of Edward Sapir in Language, Culture, and Personality (pp. 544-559). Berkeley: University of California Press. [ Links ]

SIMONDON, G. (1958/2017). On the Mode of Existence of Technical Objects (C. Malaspina & J. Rogove, Trans.). Minneapolis, MN: Univocal. [ Links ]

SIMONDON, G. (2005). L’Individuation à la Lumière des Notions de Forme et d’Information. Grenoble: Millon. [ Links ]

VARELA, F. J., THOMPSON, E., & ROSCH, E. (1991). The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. [ Links ]

VOLOSHINOV, V. N. (1929/1973). Marxism and the Philosophy of Language (L. Matejka & I. R. Titunik, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. [ Links ]

Notas

¹We should also mention ‘extended’. It means that cognitive processes essentially involve our relation to things (our notebooks, for memory, for example) (^{Chalmers and Clark, 1998}). Embodied, embedded, extended and enactive cognition comprise what is today called 4E cognition (^{Newen, Gallagher, & Bruin, 2018}) and might even become 7E cognition (^{Johnson, 2018}) if it comes to include emotional, evolutionary, and exaptative.

²Many of them are concepts borrowed or developed from enactivism, ultimately referring to the book ‘The Embodied Mind’ of Thompson, ^{Varela and Rosch (1991)}. Some of them amount to other authors, like ^{Hegel (1976)}, ^{Jonas (1966}, ¹⁹⁶⁸), Simondon (1957, ²⁰⁰⁵), ^{Riegel (1976}, ¹⁹⁷⁹), Harris (1981, 1996, 2004), and others. I won’t explain these concepts here.

³The theory of linguistic bodies as a whole aims to show “the logic of the activity of using language” (p.133). The dialectical model of how participatory sense-making leads to linguistic agency is part of the theory.

⁴Several references are provided in the book, I’ll name a few: ^{Sacks (1992)}, ^{Lakoff and Johnson (1980}, ¹⁹⁹⁹) ^{Goodwin (1981}, ⁹⁸⁶), Gibbs and Cameron (2008), ^{Bakhtin (1984}, ¹⁹⁸⁶), ^{Goffman (1959)}, ^{Voloshinov (1929)}, ^{Du Bois} 920140, ^{Andrén (2017)}, ^{Sapir (1927)}, ^{Popova (2015)}. This short list is merely to give the reader a general idea of the amount of work on which the theory of linguistic bodies is based.

⁵Keep in mind that we are talking about situated (embedded) bodies, which interact constantly with others and with the world. These processes don’t start from the individual. They are constantly developing and immersed in networks of relations. The theory is an attempt to abstract and objectify parts of these processes which are constantly happening. As all abstraction and objectification, according to the authors, it has its limitations, and it will always have. It is worth noting that the very concepts of abstraction and objectification have its own specific definitions in the book. I am using them here according to these definitions.

⁶I would like to refer here to the important concepts of dissonance and synergy. Although I shall not go into the details here, these concepts are fundamental for explaining social interactions.

⁷‘Conform’ and ‘confront’ are not specific concepts used by the authors, just my words to explain the relation between the two roles.

⁸My italics

⁹My italics.

¹⁰One can also search online for talks given by the very authors which offer good overviews of their theory. I should specifically mention a couple of videos made exclusively to present their work in a symposium dedicated to the book, which was held during the 2nd Meeting on Cognition and Language, in 2019, and is available on youtube on the channel “Cognição & Linguagem” https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTpRvDsWfOhDMa5NpdqSPXE_OWu_1efV

Nara Miranda Figueiredo – University of Campinas. Center for Logic, Epistemology and History of Science. Campinas, SP. Brazil. naramfigueiredo@gmail.com

Acessar a publicação original

Tags: Cognição, Corpos linguísticos, CUFFARI Elena (Aut), DE JAEGHER Hanne (Aut), DI PAOLO Ezequiel (Aut), Enactivism, FIGUEIREDO Nara Miranda (Res), Linguagem., Linguistic Bodies: The continuity between Life and Language (T), Manuscrito (Ma), MIT Press (E), Vida

Interperspectival Content – LUDLOW (M)

1 de julho de 2019

LUDLOW, P. Interperspectival Content. Oxford University Press, 2019. 272 pages. Resenha de: MARTONE, Filipe. Manuscrito, Campinas, v.42 n.3 July/Sept. 2019.

Peter Ludlow’s most recent book is a systematic defense and exploration of what he calls interperspectival contents. Such contents are a sui generis kind of content expressed in language by tense and indexical expressions. They are essentially perspectival, and they cannot be eliminated or reduced to non-perspectival contents. Moreover, the ‘inter’ in ‘interperspectival’ means they are not subjective, private things: they are shared across agents situated in different perspectives. According to Ludlow, reality is shot through with such contents, from language and thought to computation and the flow of information, and they are needed to explain a number of phenomena, including intentional action, rule-following and the passage of time. In a sense, then, Ludlow’s new book is the perfect antithesis to ^{Cappelen & Dever (2013}). He makes a comprehensive case that perspectivality is not merely philosophically interesting, but also that it runs as deep as basic physics (Ch. 8). The book is ambitious, broad-ranging and interdisciplinary, and it would be impossible to discuss all of its contents in a short review. For this reason, I concentrate on the main points of his theory (laid out in the first three chapters) and try to spell them out in a bit more detail.

Perry’s messy shopper and Lewis’ twin gods convinced almost everybody that certain beliefs and desires must involve an essentially perspectival ingredient if they are to explain human intentional action adequately. Referential content, they claimed, is not enough. Because this perspectival ingredient is expressed in language by tense and indexicals, it is usually referred to as ‘indexical content’, but Ludlow prefers to call it ‘interperspectival content’, or ‘perspectival content’ for short (p. 3). Since Perry’s and Lewis’ work, philosophers started seeing ineliminable perspectival components everywhere: in emotion, perception, consciousness, temporal reasoning, ethical agency and in normative behavior more generally. Of course, they disagree on the precise nature of this perspectival component (e.g. if it reflects a deep feature of reality or is merely a narrow psychological state), but there is widespread agreement that it must be there to explain various aspects of human activities. There is a vocal minority, though, who remains deeply unconvinced. The most notable case is that of ^{Cappelen and Dever (2013}), henceforth C&D.

C&D’s work had a huge impact, so it is a natural starting point for Ludlow. In the first chapter, he uses C&D objections as a foil to show why interperspectival contents are indispensable. His main target are the so-called Impersonal Action Rationalizations (IAR). IARs attempt to explain an agent’s behavior only in terms of non-perspectival attitudes. C&D argue that IARs are perfectly adequate explanations of behavior, even though they are perspective-free. If they are right, this would show that there is no necessary connection between perspectivality and agency, pace Perry and Lewis. To better see the point, it is useful to reproduce here two action rationalizations Ludlow discusses, one personal and the other impersonal (p. 26):

Personal Action Rationalization (explanation) 1.

Belief: François is about to be shot.
Belief: I am François.
Belief (Inferred): I am about to be shot.
Desire: That I not be shot.
Belief: If I duck under the table, I will not be shot.
Action: I duck under the table.

Impersonal Action Rationalization (explanation) 1.

Belief: François is about to be shot.
Desire: François not be shot.
Belief: If François ducks under the table, he will not be shot.
Action: François ducks under the table.

For C&D, IAR-1 is an adequate explanation of why François ducked, and therefore the supposedly essential perspectival component is dispensable. Ludlow grants that some IARs have the appearance of genuine explanations, but he claims that we have good reasons to suspect that they appear that way because there is “something enthymematic” (p. 27) about them. For instance, IAR-1 seems to work only because the premise that François believes that he himself is François is implicit. This is not a new argument, but Ludlow gives it a different spin by asking us to consider a case in which François lacks the perspectival belief that he himself is François, but still ducks. The lack of a first-personal belief seems to make his ducking completely random and unconnected to the attitudes described in the rationalization.

To me, however, the most interesting argument Ludlow offers against C&D appeals to temporal beliefs. Ludlow notes that François’ attitudes are already knee-deep in temporal perspectival contents:

The desire is not that François timeline be free of getting-shot events; it is too late to realize such a desire. You can’t get unshot. His desire is that he not get shot now. Similarly for François’ belief: His belief is that if he ducks under the table now he will not get shot now. (p. 27)

Thus, even if the first-person perspective is somehow eliminated from the rationalization, temporal perspectival contents must remain, otherwise we cannot explain why François ducks at the moment he ducks. For some reason, the role of temporal perspectival contents in action explanation has mostly slipped under philosophers’ radars, and Ludlow does a nice job of bringing it out¹. In fact, because temporal contents do not involve the complexities of the first-person, they seem to make a better and more straightforward case for the indispensability of the perspectival element, as ^{Morgan (2019}) argued.

Another interesting aspect of the first chapter is the discussion of C&D’s example of the aperspectival god. C&D claim that there could be a god who does not have perspectival thoughts but who could nevertheless act upon the word just by thinking things like ‘the door is closed’, and the door is closed. This example is supposed to show that there could be intentional action without perspectivality. But, Ludlow argues, this is very implausible. Suppose the aperspectival god creates a universe containing only ten qualitatively identical doors arranged in a circle (p. 33). How can the god form a particular intention to close one of the doors in this case? Indexical-free definite descriptions cannot single out any of them, and neither can proper names, since to name something you must first be able to identify it, either perceptually or by description. Even being omniscient, there must be a perspectival way of singling out one particular door in the god’s ‘awareness space’ (e.g. ‘that door’), otherwise she would not be able to form a particular intention about it. Ludlow’s example bears some similarities to Strawson’s massive reduplication universe (¹⁹⁵⁹: 20-23), and both have more or less the same moral: every act of particular identification seems to ultimately rest on demonstrative (i.e. perspectival) identification. If this is right, then the aperspectival god would not be able to form particular intentions in these cases, and hence could not act upon particular objects. Ludlow concludes that perspectival components are indispensable.

Having established why we need perspectival contents, in the second chapter Ludlow goes on to explain what they are. In particular, by focusing on tense, he argues that perspectival contents are substantial features of reality, and not merely superficial aspects of language or thought. His argument leans heavily on a methodological doctrine he calls Semantic Accountability. As he puts it, “the basic idea is that meaningful use of language carries ontological commitments” (p. 16), and “that the metalanguage of the semantics must be grounded in the world and the contents that are expressed in the metalanguage are features of the external world” (p. 38). In other terms, if we cannot purge perspectival contents from the metalanguage that gives the semantics of a certain piece of perspectival discourse, then we must treat these contents as irreducible and ineliminable features of reality. Ludlow argues that this is not only the case with tense, but also with information theory, computation and even with physics. As we can see, the doctrine of semantic accountability plays a crucial role in the whole book.

In the second chapter he also expands on the two central notions of the book, namely, perspectival position and perspectival content. In short, perspectival positions are “egocentric spaces anchored in external positions” (p. 6), where external positions are objective locations in space and time. Because we are embedded in such positions, certain things will be there or here, past or future, and so on, with respect to us. More importantly, Ludlow argues that perspectival positions are not a matter of phenomenology, i.e., of how things are experienced by the relevant agents. According to him, the same perspectival position can have different phenomenal experiences associated with them, whereas different perspectival positions can yield the same phenomenal experience (p. 7).

Now, things get more complicated with interperspectival contents. Because they are primitives for Ludlow (p. 42), it is pretty hard to define them precisely. He attempts to circumvent this difficulty by employing several metaphors. First, he asks us to think of perspectival positions in terms of panels on a storyboard. Each panel is anchored in the agents’ perspectival position and represents the world from their point of view. For example, in a situation where I say ‘I am here’ and you say ‘you are there’, there is a panel representing my utterance, your utterance and the world from my perspectival position, and a panel representing your utterance, my utterance and the world from your perspectival position. The interperspectival content, in turn, “consists of this collection of storyboard panels…and a theory of how the panels in the storyboards are related (p. 42). As I understand it, this theory describes the events occurring – my utterance and your utterance – in a way that explains what we are doing, our motivations, beliefs and emotions in that situation. This explanatory theory would be the perspectival content. Another metaphor Ludlow offers is that of a dramaturge who has all the panels before her. The dramaturge knows how to coordinate them and has a theory of what is happening (p. 42). Finally, Ludlow emphasizes that perspectival contents are shared. When I say ‘I am here’ and you say ‘you are there’, we are expressing the same perspectival content, but from different perspectival positions. That is, we are expressing the same theories from different perspectives (p. 40), and to do that we have to use a different set of expressions. The same phenomena occurs with perspectival contents expressed across different temporal positions. If I think ‘today is a fine day’, and in the next day I think ‘yesterday was a fine day’, my thought episodes have the same referential content and the same perspectival content under a different verbal clothing.

The fact that perspectival contents are shared and remain stable across perspectival positions might make them look just like referential contents, since the latter also have the same properties. But Ludlow quickly points out that this cannot be right, for referential contents cannot explain action, emotion, and so on (p. 45), as he argued in the first chapter. Thus, whatever perspectival contents are, they cannot be referential contents. In fact, in the next chapter he is going to claim that perspectival contents bear important similarities to Fregean senses, which are notoriously richer and more fine-grained than referential content.

I understand that perspectival content is a pretty difficult notion to grasp, but the fact that Ludlow’s attempts to ‘define’ them are not so obviously equivalent makes things somewhat more confusing. For instance, in various passages he seems to identify perspectival contents with theories of some sort:

the resulting local theory is your interperspectival content.” (p. 72, italics mine).

I’ve offered a proposal in which we think of interperspectival contents as local theories that we express in different ways from different perspectival positions. (p. 75, italics mine)

Earlier, though, when discussing the storyboard metaphor, he talks about perspectival contents as being the combination of the panels (i.e. perspectival positions) and a theory, and not just the theory itself (p. 42). The following passage is also a bit odd: “[a]s we saw in Chapter 1, stripping the perspectival content from these theories [i.e. action rationalizations] neuters them” (p. 71). This makes it seem that perspectival contents are something contained or invoked in theories, and not theories in themselves. Also, assuming that perspectival contents are identified with theories, it is not clear how to interpret this passage: “[p]erspectival contents, when expressed, do not supervene on the state of a single individual, but they rather supervene (at least partly) on multiple individuals in multiple perspectival positions.” (p. 44). It surely sounds weird to say that a theory supervenes on individuals in perspectival positions; supervenience does not seem to be the right sort of relation here. Although I think I understand what perspectival contents are, I confess that I still feel a bit confused about the particulars and how they are supposed to work exatcly.

In the third chapter, Ludlow sets out to explain our “cross-perspective communication abilities” (p. 57), that is, how we manage to communicate across perspectival positions. As I mentioned earlier, in order to express the same perspectival content across spatial, temporal or personal perspectival positions we need to adjust its verbal expression. But how exatcly do we do that? To answer this question, Ludlow draws from his theory of Interpreted Logical Forms (ILFs)² and from his theory of microlanguages³. The problem ILFs set out to explain was the problem of how using different expressions at different times could count as attributing the same attitude to an agent (p. 66). The basic idea is that, in making attitude reports, we are offering a “contribution to our shared theory of the agent’s mental life” (p. 67). This theory has two components: the Modeling Component and the Expression Component. The Modeling Component is roughly the ability to model an agent’s mental life, and it is sensitive to various factors, such as our interests and goals, our common ground, our knowledge of folk psychology, and so on. The Expression Component, in turn, involves a tacit negotiation among speakers regarding which expressions to use to talk about the agent’s belief structure as modeled by the Modeling Component. Drawing from research in psychology, Ludlow calls this process of negotiating expressions entrainment (p. 68). The result of entrainment is a microlanguage built on the fly, in the context, to describe the relevant agent’s attitudes. Thus, given our models and our local microlanguages, different words sometimes express the same content, sometimes different contents, or leave the matter open (p. 68). This same general idea applies in the case of perspectival contents and how they are expressed across different perspectival positions. The ability to form microlanguages help us express local theories, constructed on the go, about perspectival information. In other terms (as I understand it), by modeling perspectival information and by building microlanguages we are able to express shared local theories so as to explain action, emotion, and so on, from different perspectives and about agents in different perspectival positions. To illustrate this point, Ludlow again uses the metaphor of the storyboard:

… we can think of the storyboards as illustrating the Modeling Component. The overarching theory of content attribution combines the perspectival information (illustrated by the multiple storyboards), coordinates its expression across the agents represented, and combines that with fine grained contents as in the Larson and Ludlow ILF theory (…) The resulting local theory is your interperspectival content. (p. 72)

What I have discussed so far covers, I think, the main body of Ludlow’s theory of perspectival contents. These chapters are dense and complicated, and some points would benefit from a lengthier exposition. For example, ILFs and microlanguages are very important to the overall theory, and it would help if they were explained in a bit more detail. This also happens later in the book, when he uses his theory of the dynamic lexicon to account for the passage of time. I suspect that readers who are not familiar with Ludlow’s earlier work might fail to fully appreciate his point.

In the fourth chapter, Ludlow considers alternative accounts of perspectival contents: token reflexive theories, Lewis’ de se, Kaplan’s theory of indexicals and demonstratives, and use theories. He argues that all of them try to purge perspectival contents from the semantics, but sooner or later they reappear with a vengeance. According to him, such sanitized semantics (especially token-reflexive theories) fail to do the very thing they were supposed to do, i.e., explain action, emotion, temporal reasoning, etc., and they often end up surreptitiously reintroducing perspectival contents in the metalanguage. His objections to Perry’s reflexive-referential theory, in particular, are very compelling. He ends with an interesting discussion of rule-following and normative behavior in general, which provides the perfect hook for the next chapter, where he applies his theory to computation and information theory. In short, he argues in that chapter that perspectival contents are necessary to understand the very notion of information, and that “all information flow, whether natural or the product of human intentions, ultimately bottoms out in perspectival contents.” (p. 134).

In the sixth chapter, Ludlow argues for what he calls A-series and B-series compatibilism. This is the thesis that we can combine the immutable ordering of events in time (the B-series) with the tensed series of events (the A-series) without generating puzzles. Again, he draws on his earlier work on the dynamic lexicon (^{Ludlow 2014}) and relates it to his theory of perspectival contents to explain how that is possible. He claims that both the B-series and the A-series are needed to account for the passage of time, and perspectival contents and the dynamic lexicon play an essential role in his explanation. Also, he notes that one can endorse his view of the A-series without being a presentist. A detailed argument for this latter claim, however, is found in the appendix. The remaining chapters deal with further metaphysical issues and argue that perspectival contents cannot be eliminated even from science, both in its practice and in its theories.

In sum, Ludlow’s book puts forward provocative claims and an interesting and novel theory of perspectivality. The amount of ground covered in such a relatively short book is admirable. Even if it is not all that clear that Ludlow’s theory can explain everything it is meant to explain – after all, its ambitions are far from humble -, his arguments, objections and examples are vivid and persuasive, and they cannot be ignored by philosophers working on these issues. Philosophically inclined computer scientists, information theorists and physicists might also find the book an interesting read.

References

CAPPELEN, H., AND DEVER, J., 2013. The Inessential Indexical. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [ Links ]

LARSON, R., AND LUDLOW, P., 1993. “Interpreted Logical Forms.” Synthese 95, 305-56. [ Links ]

LUDLOW, P., 2014. Living Words: Meaning Underdetermination and the Dynamic Lexicon. Oxford: Oxford University Press . [ Links ]

LUDLOW, P., 2000. “Interpreted Logical Forms, Belief Attribution, and the Dynamic Lexicon.” In. K.M. Jaszczolt (ed.), Pragmatics of Propositional Attitude Reports. Elsevier Science, Ltd. [ Links ]

MORGAN, D. 2019. “Temporal indexicals are essential”. Analysis 79 (3):452-461. [ Links ]

STRAWSON, O. 1959. Individuals: An essay in Descriptive Metaphysics. 7th Edition, New York, Routledge. [ Links ]

Notas

¹An exception is ^{Morgan (2019}).

²Cf. ^{Larson & Ludlow (1993}) and ^{Ludlow (2000}).

³Cf. ^{Ludlow (2014}).

Filipe Martone – University of Campinas Department of Philosophy Campinas, SP Brazil. E-mail: filipemartone@gmail.com

Acessar publicação original

Tags: Ação, Filosofia da linguagem, Indexicalidade, Informação, Interperspectival Content (T), LUDLOW P (Aut), Manuscrito (Ma), MARTONE Filipe (Res), Oxford University Press (E), Theory of interperspectival contents

Philosophy of Mathematics – LINNEBO (M)

1 de abril de 2019

LINNEBO, Ø. Philosophy of Mathematics. Princeton Universisty Press, 2017. 216p. Resenha de: ALBARELLI, Felipe. Manuscrito, Campinas, v.42 n.2 Apr./June 2019.

The present volume is a contribution to the book series Princeton Foundations of Contemporary Philosophy, and oﬀers a self-contained presentation of fundamental topics of the contemporary philosophy of mathematics. Notwithstanding the intrinsic diﬃculties of the subject, the book is enjoyable and very well-written and Linnebo succeeds in giving a clear presentation of intricate debates and concepts. The focus of the text is on problems and consequently history is presented only to clear the origin of the various topics. For this reason this book perfectly complements the classic textbook by ^Shapiro [1], oﬀering a more updated and problem driven introduction to the philosophy of mathematics.

The book is divided in twelve chapters, roughly grouped in two parts: the ﬁrst seven chapters are devoted to the classic themes from which originate the contemporary debate, while the last ﬁve oﬀer a selection of contemporary trends in the philosophy of mathematics. The content-and to some extent the structure-of the book reﬂects the division in sections of the evergreen anthology by ^{Benacerraf and Putnam} [2]: the presentation of the big three schools and the corresponding views on the foundations of mathematics, the ontological problem for mathematical objects, the epistemological problem for mathematical knowledge, and a discussion of the philosophy of set theory.

The book does not intend to be complete neither with respect to the contemporary debates, nor with respect to the history of the discipline. Nonetheless, Linnebo succeeds in giving a broad perspective which introduces some of the most interesting problems of the subject and that, therefore, can proﬁtably be used as an introduction for both philosophers and mathematicians.

This is another merit of this book. It is explicitly structured to build a bridge between the two disciplines, being palatable for people with backgrounds from both philosophy and mathematics. Without diluting the beauty of the subject in shallow waters easy to explore, this book presents the classical ontological and epistemological problems in such a clear way to make them interesting and puzzling from both a philosophical and a mathematical perspective.

We therefore highly recommend this book as an introduction to the philosophy of mathematics; one that will surely convince the readers to investigate further this vast and intriguing domain. We conclude by surveying the content of each of the twelve chapters.

In Chapter One Mathematics as Philosophical Challange, Linnebo introduces the main themes of the book. Initially, the author presents the integration challenge: the attempt to reconcile on a philosophical ground the ontology of abstract mathematical objects with priori knowledge. Next, a section is dedicated to a brief presentation of Kant’s philosophy of mathematics. Here the analytical/synthetic and the a priori/a posteriori distinction are presented. Finally, Linnebo ends the chapter describing the main philosophical positions with respect to mathematics, on the base of Kant’s distinctions.

Chapter two Frege’s Logicism is about Frege’s philosophy of mathematics. Linnebo starts by outlining both Frege’s logicism and his platonism about mathematical objects. Frege’s argument for logicism is presented as an attempt to reduce sentences about arithmetic to sentences about cardinality, while the argument for platonism is introduced by considerations on the semantics of natural language. Subsequently, Frege’s response to the integration challenge is presented. Towards the end, the author shows how Cesar’s problem and Russell’s Paradox undermine Frege’s logicist project.

Chapter three Formalism and Deductivism addresses the two positions named in the title, explaining the motivations for each as well as the main problems that they face. Initially, game formalism is presented, this is the thesis according to which mathematics is the study of arbitrary formal systems, like a game of symbolic manipulation. Next, Linnebo presents term formalism, according to which mathematical objects are the symbols used by mathematicians. Finally, the chapter ends with a discussion on deductivism, the position that sees mathematics as the study of the the formal deductions from arbitrary axioms.

Chapter four Hilbert’s Program is about Hilbert’s formalistic project. This type of formalism diﬀers from the previous ones in that it distinguishes between two types of mathematics: ﬁnitary, which deals only with arbitrarily large and ﬁnite collections, and inﬁnitary, which deals with complete inﬁnite collections. Linnebo argues that Hilbert assimilates ﬁnitary mathematics to term formalism, and inﬁnitary mathematics to deductivism. Hilbert Program is presented as making use of ﬁnitary mathematics, which has few suppositions but limited applications, to justify the use of inﬁnitary mathematics, that is epistemically problematic but without limits of application. The chapter ends with a discussion of how the discovery of Gödel’s incompleteness theorems showed the impossibility of completing Hilbert Program.

Chapter ﬁve Intuitionism deals with the philosophical thesis bearing the same name, which stands out from those already presented by criticizing certain mathematical practices. Initially, Linnebo explains that intuitionists argue that proofs that use non-constructive methods implicitly presuppose platonism; thus the proposal to abandon principles like the law of the excluded middle. Next, the chapter discusses the intuitionist alternative ontology of mathematics in terms of mental constructions. A subsection is devoted to present intuitionist logic. The chapter ends by showing how the intuitionist view on inﬁnity and proof can inﬂuence arithmetic and analysis.

Chapter six Mathematics Empiricism provides an initial section on Mill’s philosophy of mathematics and then focuses on Quine’s empiricism and the indispensability arguments. Initially, Linnebo presents Mill’s argument in defense of the thesis that the principles of mathematics are empirical truths. Then, in discussing Quine, Linnebo presents the main arguments against the synthetic/analytical distinction and his holistic empiricism, together with the criticism that these positions received in the literature. The chapter ends with a presentation and discussion of Quine’s famous indispensability argument, which defends mathematical platonism on the basis of the unavoidable use of mathematics in science.

Chapter seven Nominalism discusses the thesis that no abstract mathematical objects exist. Linnebo explains that the diﬃculty of explaining how we could have knowledge of abstract objects, given that they have no causal relationship, serves as a basis for nominalism. Then, Field’s project to nominalize science is presented, which consists in showing that it is possible to do science with a language that is not committed to the existence of abstract entities. To this aim, Filed needs to reformulate scientiﬁc theories without impacting on their deductive capacities. Towards the end Linnebo also presents a form of nominalism that is not reconstructive.

Chapter Eight Mathematical Intuition is devoted to mathematical intuition. Here we face directly the diﬃcult problem of the justiﬁcation of mathematical knowledge. After having cleared that intuition is not an univocal notion and that intuitive knowledge may come in degrees, Linnebo proceeds in presenting the recent debate on the relevance of intuition in mathematics. We are brieﬂy recalled that intuition is fundamental in the work of Hilbert, Russell, and Gödel and then the chapter goes on presenting recent defenses of mathematical intuition: the realist use that Maddy made of this notion, the position of Parsons which extends the line of Kant and Hilbert, and ﬁnally the phenomenological perspective of Føllesdal. The extent to which intuition can be used to justify higher mathematics is then referred to chapters ten and twelve.

Chapter Nine Abstraction Reconsidered goes back to the notion of abstraction, connecting Frege’s work with the neo-logicist position inaugurated by Hale and Wright. Abstraction principles are presented as a form of access to abstract mathematical objects. The discussion starts from Russell’s paradox and the consequent collapse of Frege’s logicist program. After brieﬂy presenting Russell and Whitehead proposal to avoid the paradoxes by means of type theory, Linnebo presents the neo-logicist prosopal: the attempt to derive arithmetic from safe abstraction principles. After a discussion of the logicality of Hume’s Principle and after presenting the problem of distinguishing the good abstractions from the bad ones, the chapter ends with a discussion on a form of abstraction called dynamic, which better ﬁts the iterative conception of sets.

Chapter Ten The Iterative Conception of Sets is meant to introduce the reader to the problems of the philosophy of set theory. After brieﬂy recalling the deﬁnition of the cumulative hierarchy of the V^α, which form the intended interpretation of the axioms of set theory, Linnebo presents and discusses the axioms of ZFC. The chapter continues explaining the similarities between ZFC and type theory and then proceeds in addressing Boolos’ stage theory-i.e. the philosophical counterpart of the formal presentation of a cumulative hierarchy-and the way in which this theory is used to justify a great amount of ZFC axioms. Linnebo then warns the reader from the diﬃculties of a literal understanding of the generative vocabulary and towards the end of the chapter he introduces the debate between actualists and the potentialists with respect to existence of the universe of all sets.

Chapter Eleven Structuralism presents the main tenants and problems of a view of mathematics centered around mathematical structures. Following the standard terminology, Linnebo divides structuralist positions between eliminative and noneliminative structuralism, according to the commitments to the existence or nonexistence of structures or patterns. By exemplifying these position Linnebo presents the case of arithmetic, discussing the origins of structuralist positions in the work of Dedekind. An interesting section then is devoted to the view according to which structures result from a process of abstraction. The chapter ends by outlining the connection between structuralism and the foundations of mathematics oﬀered by category theory.

Chapter Twelve The Quest for New Axioms brings back the discussion to the philosophy of set theory. The starting point of the discussion is found in the widespread presence of independence in set theory, discovered after the proof of independence of the Continuum Hypothesis (CH) from ZFC. Linnebo then proceeds in discussing the main philosophical arguments oﬀered to justify extensions of ZFC able to overcome independence: intrinsic reasons, connected to the use of intuition, and extrinsic reasons, based on the success of new set-theoretical principles. The chapter ends with a discussion on two common views on set theory: pluralism, that equally accepts diﬀerent interpretations of ZFC, and a monist view, that has its roots on the quasicategoricity argument of Zermelo for second order ZFC.

References

SHAPIRO. Thinking about Mathematics. Oxford University Press, 2000. [ Links]
BENACERRAF AND H. PUTNAM. Philosophy of Mathematics. Selected Readings. Cambridge University Press, 1967. [ Links]

Giorgio Venturi – University of Campinas. Department of Philosophyv. Brazil. gio.venturi@gmail.com

Felipe Albarelli – University of Campinas. Department of Philosophy. Brazil. felipesalbarelli@gmail.com

Acessar publicação original

Tags: ALBARELLI Felipe (Res), Epistemologia, Filosofia da Matemática, LINNEBO Ø (Aut), Manuscrito (Ma), Ontologia, Philosophy of Mathematics (T), Princeton Universisty Press (E), Set Theory

Priority Nominalism – IMAGUIRE (M)

1 de abril de 2019

IMAGUIRE, G.. Priority Nominalism. Springer Verlag, 2018. 171p. Resenha de: CICCARELLI, Vicenzo. Manuscrito, Campinas, v.42 n.2 Apr./June 2019.

In his most recent book ‘Priority Nominalism’ (2018, Springer Verlag), Guido Imaguire presents a new sort of nominalism considered both as a development and an enrichment of Quine’s view on universals notoriously labeled by Armstrong Ostrich Nominalism: like the Ostrich that buries his head under the ground, the Quinean nominalist gets rid of universals by not taking predicates with the adequate ontological seriousness.

The basic idea of the book is that questions of existence must be answered by applying what Imaguire calls the criterion of Grounded Ontological Commitment. According to this criterion, Quine’s criterion of ontological commitment must be applied not to all sentences composing the theories that we are open to accept as true, but only to sentences of the same theories – or suitable paraphrases – expressing fundamental facts, i.e. facts that are not grounded in any other fact. This criterion combined with the view that predication is fundamental, i.e. not grounded in any other fact about properties, classes, platonic forms, etc… – results in a strengthened version of Ostrich Nominalism: there are no universals for there are no sentences expressing fundamental facts in which expressions allegedly standing for universals occur in a position into which we may quantify. Thus the notion of metaphysical grounding represents the additional and crucial ingredient of Priority Nominalism that makes it a strengthened version of Quine’s Ostrich Nominalism. Moreover, Priority Nominalism besides gaining more argumentative strength than Ostrich Nominalism is also wider in scope: not just properties, but also entities like classes, numbers, meanings, and word types can be explained away using the same strategy.

The book has also another purpose: to show that the attitude of the Ostrich Nominalist is not dismissive regarding ontological questions about universals when he is endowed with the theoretical tool of the notion of grounding. The ostrich nominalist does not reject the problem of the grounds of predication: he simply argues that predication is not grounded in anything else, that is fundamental, and thus he does have an answer. Moreover, Imaguire argues that even Quine’s Ostrich Nominalism is not dismissive and consequently the label Ostrich is unfair: according to Imaguire, what is achieved with the introduction of the notion of metaphysical grounding is a way of making explicit some aspects of Quine’s nominalism that many times are justified by appealing to ontological intuitions.

In the first chapter, Imaguire presents the Problem of Universals. According to him, the expression ‘Problem of Universals’ has been traditionally used to denote different issues and formulations. Imaguire lists five formulations: (1) The existence question, (2) The grounding of predication, (3) The One-Over-Many Problem, (4) The Many-Over-One Problem, and (5) the Similar-But-Different Problem. (1) is summarized by the question “Do universals exist?”; (2) is the problem of explaining predication, i.e. of specifying in virtue of what a certain particular a is F. Formulations (3), (4), and (5) are deeply related and amount to answering questions introduced by the “how is it possible” clause: (3) “How is it possible that two different particulars a and b are both F?”; (4) “How is it possible that the same particular a is both F and G?”; (5) “How is it possible that two distinct particulars a and b are similar – insofar as they are both F – and different at the same time?”. As the author remarks, many traditional solutions to the Problem of Universals deal with one particular formulation, while his proposal has the ambition of providing answers to all formulations (1)-(5). The author defends that the logical core of the Problem of Universals is the type-token problem: the problem of accepting the existence of types just because there are tokens of the same type. The type-token problem represents a generalization of the Problem of Universals, for it extends the problem of existence to other suspicious abstract entities that are not properties. In another section, Imaguire argues that the type-token problem is often confused with the sparse-abundant problem. The sparse-abundant problem in spite of being connected with the problem of universals (existence of universal is defended on the ground of non-arbitrary special sorts of similarities, properties, classes) is not its logical core.

The chapter ends with a list of the main solutions to the Problem of Universals so far proposed:

Trascendental realism
Immanent realism
Class nominalism
Predicate/concept nominalism
Trope theory
Priority nominalism

In chapter 2 friends and foes of Ostrich Nominalism are considered. Concerning the foes, after examining the main objections in the literature, the author concludes that the Ostrich nominalist is subject to four main charges: 1) he does not take the Problem of Universals as a genuine metaphysical problem, 2) he does not take predicates with ontological seriousness, 3) he does not offer an analysis of predication, 3) he does not offer an explanation for commonality of properties. On the other hand, the Ostrich has friends, namely authors that partially agree with some crucial aspects of Ostrich Nominalism: e.g. the fact that predication is fundamental (Van Cleve, Summerford) and the fact that not just properties are suspicious entities but also other abstract entities (Melia, Azzouni).

In chapter 3 it is discussed what kind of explanation the Problem of Universals demands. Three main candidates for the role of explanans are considered:

Ontological commitment
Grounding
Truthmaking

The priority nominalist offers a complex explanation based on the combination of ontological commitment and grounding.

Given that the Problem of Universals is an ontological problem, ontological commitment seems at first glance the best candidate. Moreover, the One-Over-Many Problem, when framed as an argument, is based on the criterion of ontological commitment. The argument may be briefly resumed as follows: from the fact that a is F and b is F we deduce that a and b have something in common; thus there is something that a and b have in common. Hence, the fact that a is F and b is F is committed to an entity that a and b have in common.

The Priority Nominalist does not frame his explanation in terms of the truthmaking relation for several reasons. Truthmaking is a relation from reality to language while ontological commitment goes in the opposite direction. Yet the problem of universals is the problem of accounting for the truth of predication, thus it goes from language to reality. In this sense ontological commitment seems to be a more adequate explanans than truthmaking.

Another problem of the truthmaking relation is that – differently from ontological commitment – it is non-factive: the fact that a sentence S is made true by something does not ensure that there is a unique truth-maker and does not say anything at all on what sort of entities all possible truth-makers of S might be. Thus from the fact that ‘Fa‘ is true, we cannot conclude by invoking the truthmaking relation that there is a universal for which F stands.

Grounding also seems to be more adequate than truthmaking. The main reason the author offers is that to construct the ontological hierarchy that is required for the formulation of the problem by the Priority Nominalist, the transitivity of the relation between different ontological categories is required. Truthmaking is not transitive whereas grounding is.

The final part of the chapter is dedicated to introduce the notions that are crucial to the explanation offered by the Priority Nominalist. The notion of ontological categories as the most general categories of reality is introduced and ontological categories are divided into fundamental and derivative. A metaphysical theory is considered as a System of Ontological Categories. Four important claims are made regarding ontological categories:

Categories of the same level are pairwise disjoint.
To accept a range of entities as ontological category does not mean to accept it as a fundamental ontological category
The mere existence of instances of an ontological category does not imply that the category is fundamental
When at least one entity eof a category C is fundamental, then C is fundamental

With this conception of ontological category in mind the Priority Nominalist may state his position: properties, states of affairs, tropes are instantiated ontological categories, yet they are only derivative. The only fundamental ontological category is the category of concrete particulars.

In chapter 4 the author deals with the Problem of Predication, i.e. the problem of explaining in virtue of what a particular a is F. A solution to this problem is necessary to deal with the One-Over-Many Problem, for the One-Over-Many Problem is formulated in terms of multiple predications. The chapter has a negative purpose: to show that any view so far proposed according to which predication is not fundamental and thus any attempt to ground predication irremediably falls into an infinite regress.

The author starts by listing how the so-called Bradley’s regress occurs with the main approaches to the Problem of Predication: Transcendental Realism, Immanent Realism, Class Nominalism, Concept Nominalism, Predicate Nominalism, Resemblance Nominalism, and Trope Theory. Exception made for Trope Theory, the structure of the reasoning that gives rise to the regress is almost the same.

Successively, Imaguire passes to consider some possible strategies to block Bradley’s regress that have been proposed and points out their main flaws:

Identity of levels strategy: all levels of explanation are only apparently different. However, the author objects that each level amounts to the introduction of a different relation (e.g. relation of different order, different linguistic level) thus different levels of grounding correspond to different facts.
Quantificational Strategy:this is a strategy available only for the nominalist. The idea is that there is no need to quantify over the relation introduced to ground predication, thus there is no effective ontological commitment to such a relation. The Priority Nominalist replies that it is unclear why we should not take with ontological seriousness the relation introduced to ground predication while we should do the opposite with the property appearing at the initial level.
Formal Relations:the relation appearing at each level of explanation is a mere formal ontological relation, thus we are not ontologically committed to it. Yet – as the author remarks – which criterion do we have to distinguish between properties and relations that need to be grounded and a formal ontological relation?
Internal Relations:the relation between a particular and a universal (whatever it may taken to be) is an internal relation, and internal relations are given as ontological free lunch whenever the relata are given. However – the author objects – the notion of internal relation cannot be strictly defined without appealing to intrinsic features of the relata. As a consequence, the internal relation of e.g. instantiantion is grounded on the fact that a certain particular has certain properties. How could it possibly ground predication without begging the question?
Truthmakers:Armstrong proposed an argument to block the regress based on the notion of truthmaker. As Armstrong argues, all steps of explanation in Bradley’s regress have the same truthmaker, thus the explanation may arrest at the first step. The author objects that in Armstrong’s argument there is an illegitimate switch between the relation of truthmaking and that of grounding: why at the first level, i.e. the level of predication, we must ask for grounding and at the following levels we must ask for a truthmaker?

The conclusion Imaguire draws is that all attempts to ground predication so far proposed are unsatisfactory; albeit this fact does not represent a knock-down argument against the view that predication may be grounded, it supports the hypothesis that predication is fundamental. And precisely this is the position of the Priority Nominalist. Moreover, the author stresses that such a position does not amount to refuse to deal with the Problem of Predication, yet it corresponds just to a particular answer to this problem, i.e. that predication is not grounded in anything else.

In Chapter 5 a solution is offered to the One-Over-Many Problem and its variations (i.e. the Many-Over-One and the Similar-But-Different Problems). As previously mentioned, the One-Over-Many Problem may be formulated as an argument whose crucial point is the criterion of ontological commitment: the existence of universals is justified by the fact that we are allowed to quantify over what two particulars being both F have in common. Imaguire highlights that the principle of ontological commitment presents a fundamental difficulty which he calls the Paraphrase Symmetry Problem:

“suppose that sentence S commits us to the existence of entity E, but its paraphrase S* does not. Why should we conclude that the commitment of S to E is only apparent? What reason could we have to prefer S to S*? Since ‘is a paraphrase of’ is plausibly a symmetrical relation between sentences, one could also conclude that the non-commitment of S* to E is only apparent.” ^{Imaguire (2018}), p. 87

According to the Priority Nominalism, such a difficulty may be overcome by combining the criterion of ontological commitment with the notion of metaphysical grounding. In other words, given the two sentences S and S* of the quoted passage, the criterion of ontological commitment must be applied to the sentence (if any) that expresses a fundamental fact. The combination of ontological commitment with grounding results in the Criterion of Grounded Ontological Commitment which may be summarized by the motto:

“To be is to be a value of a bound variable of a fundamental truth.” ^{Imaguire (2018}), p. 89

The Criterion of Grounded Ontological Commitment is firstly used to analyze the One-Over-Many Problem. Imaguire considers a battery of sentences and the corresponding paraphrases that are relevant to the issue: for instance, he considers both the sentence ‘a is F‘ and the sentence ‘a has the property F”. The Priority Nominalist is willing to say that ‘a is F‘ expresses a fact that is more fundamental than that expressed by the sentence ‘a has the property F‘, and thus, given that in ‘a is F‘ there is no expression allegedly standing for a universal that occurs in a position over which we may perform a first-order quantification, there is no grounded ontological commitment to universals. To achieve this goal Imaguire uses Fine’s logical theory of the grounding relation and in particular Fine’s treatment of two lambda operators: the predicate abstraction and the property abstraction operator. Thus Imaguire formalizes the aforementioned battery of sentences and their paraphrases using Fine’s rules for the lambda operators and the immediate result is that ‘a is F‘ (formalized using the predicate abstraction operator) grounds ‘a has the property F‘ (formalized using the property abstraction operator). The same strategy is used to dissolve the apparent ontological commitment to universals in the Many-Over-One Problem and the Similar-But-Different Problem.

The remaining part of the chapter is dedicated to two important issues: the status of sentences apparently committed to abstract entities and the specification of a truthmaker for sentences of the form ‘a is F‘. Concerning sentences like ‘a has the property F ‘, ‘a and b have the property F in common’, etc… the priority nominalist has a position that notably differs from many nominalistic views: many nominalists would say that the sentence ‘a has the property F‘ is false or truthvalueless at best, for there are no such entities as properties; the priority nominalist holds that ‘a has the property F ‘ is “a common but misleading manner of saying that things are in a certain way” (^{Imaguire (2018}), p. 100), i.e that a is in the F-way. The same applies to other abstract terms, as in the case of numbers: sentences containing number terms are not false, they are true even if they do not express fundamental facts; they are just ontologically misleading insofar as they suggests that there are numbers. By proposing a hierarchical structure of reality in which derivative facts are included with a thin notion of existence, the Priority Nominalist does not have to pay the price of avoiding property talk, or number talk, or meaning talk, etc…

Concerning the problem of specifying a truthmaker for ‘a is F’, the Priority Nominalism invokes the notion of thick particular: what makes true ‘a is F‘ is precisely the thick particular a with its being in a particular way expressed by the predicate F. In other words, the state of affairs corresponding to ‘a is F‘ has as only constituent the thick particular a.

Chapter 6 is about second-order quantification. Imaguire distinguishes two different senses of second-order quantification: the metaphysical sense and the logical sense. A metaphysical second-order quantification is a quantification over properties that may be instantiated by particulars: ‘There is a property that Napoleon and Julius Caesar have in common’ is an example of this sort of quantification. Notice that from a strictly logical point of view, this sort of quantification corresponds to a first-order quantification, for expressions allegedly standing for properties are nominalized: ‘There is an x such that x is a property and Napoleon and Julius Caesar have x in common’. A logical second-order quantification is a quantification into the position of first-order predicates, e.g. ‘ There is something that both Napoleon and Julius Caesar are’. It is crucial for the priority nominalist to explain away both logical and metaphysical second-order quantification, for if second-order existential quantified sentences were as fundamental as first-order ones, then there would be an unavoidable (grounded) ontological commitment to type entities.

The author considers three contexts of abstract reference to properties that allow for metaphysical second-order quantification: exemplification, intensional, and classificatory contexts. Exemplification and intensional contexts are easily dismissed, thus he concentrates on classificatory contexts and in particular to two examples: the sentences `Humility is a virtue’ and ‘Red is more similar to orange than blue’. The strategy Imaguire uses to paraphrase away abstract reference is based on the following guiding principle: every time we talk about a property F we are not really talking about F-ness but about F things. The one of the simplest examples of this kind is when we paraphrase the sentence ‘the concept F is a subconcept of the concept G‘ as ‘For every x, if x is F, then x is G‘. Clearly, cases like ‘Humility is a virtue’ are far more complex and require additional theoretical tools. Imaguire uses the method of grounded paraphrases, i.e. a method of paraphrasing second-order sentences based on both Fine’s logic of grounding (including the relation of partial grounding) and a sort of negative form of grounding that he calls despite operator.

The case of logical second-order quantification is treated differently. Imaguire argues that logical second-order quantification is not intelligible, for every attempted construction of a grammatical sentence in ordinary language translating the formal second-order quantification ends up altering the syntactic category of the quantified expressions. Moreover, even if an intelligible reading of second-order quantification were available, it could not result in an ontological commitment, for there would still be a difference between second and first-order quantification based on the different semantic behaviors between naming expressions and predicative expressions. Such a difference is explained in terms of Dudman’s distinction between the representational and the semantic role conceptions of reference. Predicative expressions have reference in the sense that they fulfill a certain semantic role in the determination of the truth-value of an entire sentence and not in the sense that they stand for existing entities. On the contrary, proper names have reference in the sense that they stand for an existing possibly extra-linguistic entity: according to Imaguire’s terminology, proper names have referents, predicates have references. The conclusion of the chapter is that provided that both metaphysical and logical second-order quantification may be respectively explained away and dismissed, intelligible second-order sentences express facts that are not fundamental for they are grounded in facts expressed by the correspondent first-order grounded paraphrases. As a consequence, according to the criterion of grounded ontological commitment, second-order sentences do not have any additional ontological import compared to their first-order paraphrases.

In the last chapter the author resumes his position by presenting the big picture of reality resulting from Priority Nominalism. Not just properties are dismissed as non-fundamental entities, but also word types, meaning, sets, numbers, etc… Even concrete particulars like mereological aggregates do not exist insofar as they are not fundamental: Priority Nominalism entails a form of mereological atomism. The chapter is also concerned with the contextualization of Priority Nominalism in the theoretical debate on the status of universals. Imaguire considers traditional realist and nominalist approaches to the Problem of Universals and remarks that most of them do not make explicit the distinctive features of Priority Nominalism, for the proposal of the book besides offering a new solution to the Problem of Universals, represents a relatively new way of understanding and formulating the problem itself. He argues that the approach the priority nominalist favors is what he calls the hierarchical approach. According to this approach, realists and nominalists disagree about the hierarchical structure of reality. The realist holds that properties are treated like objects, while the nominalist holds that they belong to a different level and only the level zero (i.e. the level at which we are allowed to quantify over in fundamental truths) is the level of existing entities. Thus the realist is accused of confusing different levels of the hierarchical structure, by reifying what does not belong to the level zero.

Finally the author lists the main advantages of Priority Nominalism:

Agreement with pre-theoretical intuitions: the apple is red is a fundamental fact, is not grounded in the existence of properties or classes, or mysterious relations of resemblance.
Few metaphysical assumptions: does not need modal realism, does not need universals, does not need sets.
Qualitatively and quantitatively economical: there is just one category of existence, i.e. particulars.
Provides an objectivist solution to the problem of universals: there are no abstract entities, yet there are objective truths about them.

‘Priority Nominalism‘ is an excellent example of how a book may be concerned with vexed problems and vast topics in a relatively small number of pages. The author goes constantly straight to the point and avoids as much as possible any sort of digression; moreover, the purpose of book and the general view of the author on the matter are frequently resumed and re-proposed, so that the reader should not get lost in the dialectic of the arguments. At every crucial point of the book, a long list of examples facilitates the understanding; the style of writing is simple, direct, and pleasant.

The book is an original and interesting work in two senses: it contains a new solution to the Problem of Universals and represents a new formulation and understanding of the problem itself. For instance, in chapter 1 the reader may find a remarkably clear exposition of the Problem of Universals that is re-formulated in many versions according to fine and profound philosophical distinctions; even the reader who is not so familiar with the relevant literature may read the introductory parts of the book without big efforts.

The basic idea of the proposed view – the combination of grounding with ontological commitment – is simple and at first glance seems to be fruitful. However, the fact that complex arguments and notions are often resumed in the space of few pages may give the false impression that notions such as that of metaphysical grounding are less controversial than they actually are. Perhaps such an impression is given by the fact that while the author is extremely clear regarding the main difficulties and objections to Quine’s criterion of ontogical commitment, he does not seem to do the same with the notion of metaphysical grounding which is definitely a controversial notion; in recent times almost any aspect of grounding has been questioned and put under debate: its modal status (Trogdon 2013), the formal properties of the grounding relation (^{Rodriguez-Pereyra 2015}), its theoretical role and indispensability (^{Wilson 2014}). Given that it is not clear from the book what is the author’s position regarding the main problems of the notion of grounding, possible difficulties for Priority Nominalism may arise if grounding is understood in one way or the other. For the sake of clarity, I will try to sketch a problem for the priority nominalist that may arise from the controversial nature of the notion of grounding. The priority nominalist may be in a predicament engendered by the very strategy he uses to dismiss universals, i.e. the principle of grounded ontological commitment. Consider the sentences ‘a is F‘ and ‘a has the property F‘; let A be the fact expressed by the former and B the fact the latter expresses. Consider now the sentence ‘A grounds B’: the priority nominalist is happy to say that ‘A grounds B’ is true. Let C be the fact expressed by ‘A grounds B’. For the priority nominalist to say that C is a fundamental fact is not an option: for given that B is a fact included in C and given that C is fundamental, then B must also be fundamental (this is a version of what has been known as the collapse problem (^{Sider 2011})). Yet if B is fundamental, then by the criterion of grounded ontological commitment there are properties. Thus the priority nominalist owes us an argument to the effect that C is not a fundamental fact and is grounded in another fact D not including B. Perhaps C is grounded on A (as suggested by adapting deRosset’s strategy to avoid the collapse problem to the present case (^{deRosset 2013})); nevertheless, the author does not say anything in the book about facts expressed by sentences of the form ‘X grounds Y’.

In spite of possible controversies regarding Imaguire’s proposal, ‘Priority Nominalist‘ is a highly recommended reading for everyone who is interested in contemporary metaphysics. It is at the same time an excellent introduction to the Problem of Universals, a capillary survey of the recent literature on the issue, and an extremely interesting attempt of vindicating some ontological intuitions that are implicit in Quine’s nominalism.

References

DEROSSET, L. Grounding Explanations, Philosophers’ Imprint 13, 2013. [ Links ]

IMAGUIRE, G. Priority Nominalism, Springer Verlag, 2018. [ Links ]

RODRIGUEZ-PEREYRA, G. Grounding is not a Strict Order, Journal of the American Philosophical Association 1 (3):517-534, 2015. [ Links ]

SIDER, T. Writing the Book of the World, Oxford University Press, 2011. [ Links ]

WILSON, J. No Work for a Theory of Grounding, Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 57 (5-6):535-579, 2014. [ Links ]

Vincenzo Ciccarelli – University of Campinas, Department of Philosophy, Campinas, SP, Brazil. E-mail: ciccarelli.vin@gmail.com

Acessar publicação original

Tags: CICCARELLI Vicenzo (Res), Grounding, IMAGUIRE G (Aut), Manuscrito (Ma), Nominalismo, Priority Nominalism (T), Springer Verlag (E), Universais

Thinking about Free Will – VAN INWAGEN (M)

1 de janeiro de 2019

VAN INWAGEN, Peter. Thinking about Free Will. Cambridge University Press, 2017. 232p. Resenha de: MERLUSSI, Pedro. Manuscrito, Campinas, v.42 n.1 Jan./Mar. 2019.

The book is chronologically divided into 14 chapters, covering the main issues that have been at the centre of recent concern on free will. For instance, Harry Frankfurt’s influential objection to the principle of alternative possibilities (namely, that being able to do otherwise is a necessary condition for moral responsibility) is discussed in chapters 1 and 6. The author also deals with the Mind and ethics arguments for the claim that indeterminism and free will are incompatible (chapter 2). With respect to the compatibility problem of free will and determinism, there is van Inwagen’s reply to McKay and Johnson’s counterexample (¹⁹⁹⁶) to the no-choice transfer rule (chapter 7). Given the supposed plausibility of the arguments for the incompatibility of free will and determinism and the incompatibility of indeterminism and free will, van Inwagen thinks that free will is a mystery (chapters 7 and 10). Other important topics of interest include a discussion about Daniel Dennett’s book Elbow Room (chapter 4), van Inwagen’s own view that we seldom are able to do otherwise (chapter 5), the notion of ability (chapters 7, 11 and 14) and, perhaps more importantly, a reply to Lewis’ objection to the Consequence Argument, namely, the question of whether we are able to break the laws of nature (chapter 9), among many others.

There are many interesting problems discussed in the book, and most of them are well-known among readers familiar with the discussion. (Naturally, there is also a good deal of overlap between the chapters). It is not my aim to focus on every interesting thesis in the book. What I shall do instead is to focus on van Inwagen’s insights about what is the problem of free will, especially his claim that free will is a mystery given the joint plausibility of the Consequence Argument (which argues for the incompatibility of free will and determinism) and the Mind Argument (which argues for the incompatibility of free will and indeterminism).

As one might expect, there are many philosophical problems about free will, such as the problem of logical determinism (how is free will possible if there are true propositions about our future actions?), the problem of theological omniscience (how is free will possible if God knows beforehand what we are going to do?), etc. But is there a thing which may be properly called the problem of free will? I think van Inwagen provides us with a nice proposal. The idea is that the problem of free will may be presented as a set of propositions for all of which we seem to have good reasons, but which are jointly inconsistent. “Free will” and “determinism” have been used in the literature, to be sure, in different senses. According to van Inwagen, “free will” involves the ability to do otherwise, and “determinism” is nomic determinism, that is, the thesis that the past and the laws of nature determine a unique future. The problem goes as follows (or close enough):

If nomic determinism is true, then there is no free will.
If nomic determinism is not true, then there is no free will.
There is free will

The problem leaps out because we seem to have unanswerable arguments for propositions 1 (namely, the Consequence Argument) and 2 (namely, the Mind argument), and it is no easy task finding out a proper answer to these arguments. And if it turns out that propositions 1 and 2 are true, 3 will be false, and in that case there would not be such a thing as free will. However, van Inwagen also notices that “there are […] seemingly unanswerable arguments that, if they are correct, demonstrate that the existence of moral responsibility entails the existence of free will, and, therefore, if free will does not exist, moral responsibility does not exist either” (149).

It would then be bad news if these arguments were cogent (because it would be difficult to see how moral responsibility is possible). Though the Consequence Argument and the Mind argument have initially seemed unanswerable, there are – I think – promising replies to the main formulations of these arguments in the literature, especially if we make some assumptions about counterfactuals and the laws of nature. The first answer to the Consequence Argument along these lines is Lewis’ `Are we free to break the laws?”, which possibly is – according to van Inwagen – “the finest essay that has ever been written about any aspect of the free will problem”. (I will not, however, present the Consequence Argument here, since it can be found everywhere in the literature).

If we make some assumptions about counterfactuals, then one premise of the Consequence Argument is implausible. Let L be the conjunction of all the correct laws of nature. One premise in the argument tells us that L is true and no one has, or ever had, the ability to do something such that, if one were to do it, L might be false. Consider Lewis’ theory of counterfactuals, where “if p were the case, then q would be the case” is (non-vacuously) true in our world iff q is true in the most similar worlds to ours where p is true. Imagine, for example, a possible world where I am doing otherwise, say, typing different words on this page. If determinism is true, this world cannot have the same past and laws of nature as ours. Now ask yourself: What are the closest worlds to ours where I type different words? Are they worlds where the actual laws of nature are broken or where the past history is different all the way back to the Big Bang? We just have one option, and Lewis tells us that the most similar worlds to ours are those where the laws of nature are slightly different from ours (or broken by what he called a “divergence miracle”), but where the past isn’t different all the way back to the Big Bang. (For objections to Lewis’ theory, see ^{Bennett (1984}), ^{Goodman (2015}), ^{Dorr (2016})). Lewis points out that the laws need not be broken by our acts, so that the compatibilist need not be committed to the claim that we are able to break the laws of nature. So, if Lewis is right about how we should evaluate counterfactuals on the assumption of determinism, then the premise of the Consequence Argument that no one has any choice about whether L is unjustified.

Another, more interesting problem with the argument is that it presupposes an anti-Humean conception of the laws (see, in particular, ^{Beebee 2000}, ²⁰⁰³). According to the Humean conception, the laws of nature are – roughly speaking – the best way to summarise all past, present and future facts. Laws do not govern anything, but merely systematise. If this conception of laws is correct, it is hard to see how the claim that laws are deterministic is a threat to free will. After all, if Humean laws do not govern, they do not place a constraint on our actions. As a result Humeans will not have trouble in saying that the claim that laws are deterministic is consistent with our ability to do otherwise. Humeans like Beebee see no problem in saying that agents are able to break the laws in the sense that the laws are violated or broken by our acts. Lewis, on the other hand, claimed that agents are able to do otherwise than they in fact did even if determinism is true, but denied that agents are able to break the laws of nature in that sense, and his view is known as Local Miracle Compatibilism.

It seems to me that some similar worries apply to the Mind Argument. A toy version of the argument goes more or less as follows: (M) “If what one does does not follow deterministically from one’s previous states, then it is the result of an indeterministic process, and (necessarily) one is unable to determine the outcome of an indeterministic process” (162). The problem here, I think, is that van Inwagen presupposes that (i) the laws of nature cover our actions and (ii) are indeterministic with respect to them. There are two questions about the nature of laws that we should keep separate from one another:

Extent: Is everything that happens covered by the laws of nature? For instance, there may be happenings, or kinds of happenings, or whole domains about which L – the complete set of correct laws – is silent.

Permissiveness: When L speaks about the outcomes that are to occur, what kind of latitude does it admit? For instance, does it always select a single happening? Does it always lay down at least a probability, or can L admit a set of different outcomes, remaining silent about their probabilities?

Clearly there are further implicit conditions if (M) is to follow from the assumption that the laws of nature are indeterministic. I take it that it is presupposed that my action, for instance, is the kind of happening that is governed by laws and that those laws that govern it are indeterministic with respect to it. But the assumption that the laws of nature are universal in extent in the sense that they cover everything that happens in the world, however, is unjustified. There is nothing in the mainstream accounts of the laws of nature that require them to be universal in extent, let alone to cover actional-events.

My suspicion is that the problem with respect to indeterminism and free will arises because it is presupposed that the laws govern or cover our actions, and are indeterministic with respect to it. This is why “indeterminism” seems to rule out control over our actions. But what are the reasons for accepting that the laws govern everything? Perhaps they do not. If so, I find it difficult to accept the core idea behind the Mind (or the luck) Argument.

The problem of free will has indeed momentous philosophical consequences. While many solutions have been offered in the literature, they will involve the acceptance of surprising and not altogether unquestionable philosophical assumptions. As such, even though philosophers have questioned the plausibility of propositions 1 and 2, van Inwagen’s formulation and treatment of the free will problem remains fruitful, and his work continues to shed light in one of the most interesting and intractable problems of philosophy.Thinking about Free Will nicely supplements the existing objections and responses to the theses advocated in An Essay on Free Will and it also covers the main new topics that have been at the centre of recent concern on free will.

References

BEEBEE, H. “The Nongoverning Conception of Laws of Nature”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 61: 571-594, 2000. [ Links ]

_____ “Local Miracle Compatibilism”, Noûs 37 (2): 258-277, 2003. [ Links ]

BENNETT, J. “Counterfactuals and Temporal Direction”, The Philosophical Review 93 (1): 57-91, 1984. [ Links ]

CARTWRIGHT, N. & MERLUSSI, P. “Are laws of nature consistent with contingency?”, in Laws of nature, eds. W. Ott and, 2018. L. PATTO, Oxford: Oxford University Press. [ Links ]

DORR, C. “Against Counterfactual Miracles”, The Philosophical Review, 125 (2): 241-286, 2016. [ Links ]

GOODMAN, J. “Knowledge, Counterfactuals and Determinism”, Philosophical Studies 172 (9): 2275-2278, 2015. [ Links ]

MCKAY, T. J. and Johnson, D. “A Reconsideration of an Argument against Compatibilism”, Philosophical Topics 24 (2): 113-122, 1996. [ Links ]

LEWIS, D. “Are We Free to Break the Laws?”, Theoria 47: 113 – 21, 1981. [ Links ]

Pedro Merlussi – University of Campinas, Center for Logic and Epistemology, Campinas, SP, Brazil. E-mail: p.merlussi@gmail.com

^{Acessar publicação original}

Tags: Cambridge University Press (E), Determinismo, Livre-arbítrio, Manuscrito (Ma), MERLUSSI Pedro (Res), Peter van Inwagen, Responsabilidade moral, Thinking about Free Will (T), VAN INWAGEN Peter (Aut)

Contradictions, from Consistency to Inconsistency – CARNIELLI; MALINOWSKI (M)

1 de janeiro de 2019

CARNIELLI, Walter; MALINOWSKI, Jacek. Contradictions, from Consistency to Inconsistency. Trends in Logic 47. Springer International Publishing, 2018. VI+322 pagesp. Resenha de: TESTA, Rafael R. Manuscrito, Campinas, v.42 n.1 Jan./Mar. 2019.

Trends in Logic is the conference series of the journal Studia Logica, covering contemporary formal logic and its relations to other disciplines. The works collected in this volume were initiated by the discussions that took place at the conference to commemorate the 40th Anniversary of the Centre for Logic, Epistemology and History of Science. The title of the event celebrates one of the three main areas of CLE – that has been called as the epicentre of a “Brazilian school of paraconsistency”. The reasons for that are the original works of da Costa, followed by his pupils and collaborators that are part of CLE’s history. Simply put their interest include the development of systems strong enough to encompass most of mathematics, while avoiding some well-known logical paradoxes.

Not surprisingly most of the works in this volume are developed around paraconsistent logics or, as it is explained by the editors in the introductory chapter, they are concerned about the subtle distinctions between consistency and non-contradiction, as well as among contradiction, inconsistency and triviality. There are many interesting problems discussed in the book, some of them are well-known among readers familiar with paraconsistency. Setting aside the introduction, the book itself does not intend to be a historical review on the main questions regarding the subject. Rather, the chapters help the reader to taste some information about where paraconsistency is now and where it is heading, as well as cast new lights on some old questions regarding the consistency of formal theories. In what follows I succinctly present the central elements of each chapter.

The introduction briefly presents some state-of-the-art discussion regarding the central questions that permeate the book. In the homonym chapter, Carnielli and Malinowski explain the title of the book and show the relevance of the subject in contemporary discussions in logic and philosophy of science – themes that are familiar to the authors. Walter Carnielli is full professor of Logic at the State University of Campinas (Unicamp) and served as the director of CLE, as well as editor and member of editorial boards of major journals. Some of his works encompass for instance combinations of logics, many-valued and paraconsistent logics – like the logics of formal inconsistency advanced by ^{Carnielli and Marcos (2002}) that systematises a large class of paraconsistent logics. Jacek Malinowski is the editor-in-chief of Studia Logica, Head of the Department of Logic and Cognitive Science at the Polish Academy of Science and Head of the Section of Logical Semiotics at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun, Poland. He has published works in several areas, for instance logical foundations of computer sciences, nonmonotonic and cognitive logic, just to name a few. The book reflects the multidisciplinary interest of the editors.

The second chapter (the first of 13 collaborative papers) brings Arenhart’s investigation on an overlooked argument advanced by ^{da Costa (1997}) to the effect that there may be true contradictions about the concrete world. The novelty of the chapter “The Price of True Contradictions About the World” is bridging da Costa’s argument to a well-known dialetheist understanding of paraconsistency. By advancing several objections to the argument, the daring conclusion drawn by the author is that the acceptance of true contradictions about the world comes with heavy prices to pay: for instance adopting an inconvenient conservative and pessimistic attitude towards change in science.

In “The Possibility and Fruitfulness of a Debate on the Principle of Non-contradiction”, Estrada-González and del Rosario Martínez-Ordaz go back to the Aristotelian arguments regarding the principle of non-contradiction (PNC) originally advanced in his Metaphysics. The aim is to show how they can be used for a better understanding of the different standpoints that are present in the contemporary debate. The authors advance five major stances regarding the debate on the PNC, namely: Detractors, Fierce supporters, Demonstrators, Methodologists and Calm supporters. They suggest how we can find elements of those instances in several authors in the literature, from Aristotle up to the present. Maybe the main claim of this chapter is that one can find all the elements of Calm supporters already in Aristotle’s works.

Friend and del Rosario Martínez-Ordaz explore a formal method to model the fact that sometimes mathematicians and scientists reason with inconsistent premises while denying that this is possible or makes any sense – a tooll called Chunck and Permeate (C&P) advanced by Bryson and Priest (2004). Roughly speaking, C&P divides a given proof with inconsistent premises into consistent subsets, called chunks, and allows only some information to permeate from one chunk to the next. In “Keeping Globally Inconsistent Scientific Theories Locally Consistent”, the authors extend C&P by adding a visual representation of chunks in the form of bundle diagrams. By extending it, they apply the method to analyse a case in physics and discuss the implications of inconsistency toleration in science, possibly opening up avenues for other discussions in the role of logic in science.

In “What is a Paraconsistent Logic?”, Barrio, Pailos and Szmuc recall some canonical definitions of paraconsistent logics (advanced for instance by ^{Priest, Tanaka and Weber (2016}); ^{Carnielli and Coniglio (2016}); and ^{Ripley (2015})) in order to suggest a new one. By taking into account a meta-inferential notion of explosion, the authors bring into the light the fact that some logical systems might validate the Explosion Principle but invalidate a meta-inferential version of it. Relaying on some well-formulated logical and philosophical reasons, this chapter advances the novel thesis that a logic is paraconsistent if it invalidates either the inferential or the meta-inferential notion of Explosion. Being so, a number of systems in the literature turn out to be, in that sense, paraconsistent logics.

Gaytán, D’Ottaviano and Morado present a system motivated by the problems of modelling explanation from the point of view of Philosophy of Science. In the chapter “Provided You’re not Trivial: Adding Defaults and Paraconsistency to a Formal Model of Explanation”, the authors advance the so-called GMD framework. Within that formal system it is possible to make an analysis of the interaction between rules and a minimal conception of context – composed by a set of beliefs (a minimal idea of a theory) in interaction with an inferential engine (a logic). In order to illustrate this novel epistemic system, the authors adopt it to analyse the concept of explanation using Reiter’s default theories and a specific paraconsistent logic of da Costa.

In the chapter “Para-Disagreement Logics and Their Implementation Through Embedding in Coq and SMT”, Woltzenlogel Paleo advances a novel approach to para-disagreement logics. The basic language is the usual propositional one, extended with box and diamond operators from modal logics and the @ operator from hybrid logics. The semantics are very similar to possible worlds for modal logics with small differences regarding the representation of world reachability. This framework allows a fine-tuned approach regarding information source, so that conflicting information from different sources can be consistently combined. By suggesting some possible semantical embeddings in Coq and SMT, the author advocates the implementation of automated reasoning tools for these logics.

Džamonja and Panza, in “Asymptotic Quasi-completeness and ZFC”, put forward a thesis that the axioms ZFC of first order set theory is actually very powerful at some infinite cardinal, contrary to what it could be stated. Since ZFC axioms are subject to Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorems (cf. ^{Gödel (1931})), if they are assumed to be consistent then they are necessarily incomplete – a fact that can be supported by various concrete statements, including the celebrated Continuum Hypothesis. In order to illustrate their thesis, it is explained that by looking at limits of uncountable cardinals, such as א_ω, and working with singular cardinals (which are necessarily limits, cf. ^{Kojman (2011})), at such cardinals there is a very serious limit to independence. Furthermore, many statements which are known to be independent on regular cardinals become provable or refutable by ZFC at singulars. The thesis then follows by the fact that the behaviour of the set-theoretic universe is asymptotically determined at singular cardinals by the behaviour that the universe assumes at the smaller regular cardinals. Being so, ZFC foundationally provides an asymptotically univocal image of the universe of sets around the singular cardinals.

“Interpretation and Truth in Set Theory” also presents an inquiry on some fundamental questions of set theory. In this chapter, Freire grasps concrete axiom systems in terms of a double-layer schema: respectively containing the conceptual and the deductive components of the system. The conceptual component is identified with a criterion given by directive principles, supposable bounding the subject matter of the system. After advancing two lists of directive principles for the set theory, the set-theoretic truth and the fixation of truth-values in each double-layer picture that emerged from these lists are then analysed. It is worth noticing that the general approach that is forwarded in this chapter can be applied to other mathematical theories with interesting results.

In the short but sturdy chapter “Coherence of the Product Law for Independent Continuous Events”, Mundici demonstrates a formal result regarding probability theory: the product law for logically independent events (for Boolean as well as for continuous MV-algebraic events) follows from de Finetti’s fundamental notion of a coherent set of betting odds, in the same sense that it was originally demonstrated for the additivity law by de Finetti’s 1932 Dutch Book theorem.

In the chapter “A Local-Global Principle for the Real Continuum”, Magossi and Rioul present a logical flow of proofs in the most influential undergraduate and graduate textbooks on Real Analysis in the U.S.A., France and Brazil in order to start a discussion regarding the local-global principle (LG) as a new efficient and enjoyable tool for proving the basic theorems of real analysis. Both, LG (any local and additive property is global ) and the related principle of global-limit (GL: any global and subtractive property has a limit point) could be used as basis for a new presentation of the integral, just as Cousin’s lemma was used to build the Kurzweil-Henstock integral – what the authors intend to advance in future works.

The chapter “Quantitative Logic Reasoning” by Finger brings an unifying approach on some logical systems, namely propositional Probabilistic Logic (classical propositional logic enhanced with probability assignments over formulas); first-order logic with counting quantifiers over a fragment containing unary and limited binary predicates; and propositional Łukasiewicz Infinitely-valued Probabilistic Logic (a multi-valued logic for which there exists a well-founded probability theory). From the viewpoint of Quantitative Logic Reasoning, the author shows that analogous properties hold throughout that class of systems, and presents for each one a language, semantics and decision problem, followed by normal form presentation and satisfiability characterization. Furthermore, complexity results and decision algorithms are also advanced.

Carnielli, Mariano and Matulovic advance an algebraic method based on the polynomial representation of first-order sentences in order to introduce algebraic semantics for first-order logic, departing from modern forms of “algebraizing a Logic” tradition like presented by ^{Blok and Pigozzi (1989}). In “Reconciling First-Order Logic to Algebra” the authors employ the notion of M-rings, rings equipped with infinitary operations that can be naturally associated to the first-order structures and each first-order theories. It is shown that infinitary versions of the Boolean sums and products are able to express algebraically first-order logic from a new perspective. This chapter also suggests an unifying algebraical approach to logic by opening-up avenues for possible generalizations of the method to n-valued and other non-classical logics.

In the book’s last chapter, Marcelino, Caleiro and Rivieccio clarify the efficiency of some novel techniques in the study of Hilbert-style logics. In “Plug and Play Negations” the authors focus on the negation fragments of logics which result from different possible choices of well-known rules involving the connectives {→,⊥}, with a few variations – in fact negation is usually introduced as a derived connective by making ¬p:=p→⊥¬p:=p→⊥ (that is, using the material implication → and the falsum constant ⊥). In turn the degree of tolerance to inconsistencies of a logic (degree of paraconsistency) can be determined by the interaction among these three connectives. The techniques used allow for a modular analysis of the logics, providing complete semantics based on (non-deterministic) logical matrices and complexity upper bounds.

Albeit the great diversity of themes discussed in the chapters, all of them can be subsumed into a broadly understood study of consistency – the book perfectly demonstrates how issues surrounding that study go well beyond traditional inquiries on paraconsistent logics, taking novel perspectives that are not too far away from such inquiries. The selection helps the reader to perceive how those works intersect with core traditional mathematical and philosophical questions. Contradictions, from Consistency to Inconsistency nicely supplements the existing literature on the subject. This is a volume that it is well worth reading!

References

ARISTOTLE: Metaphysics. In The Complete Works of Aristotle, ed. J Barnes (vol. 2). Princeton N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984. [ Links ]

BLOK, W.J. and D. PIGOZZI. “Algebraizable Logics”. Memoirs of the AMS. 396, American Mathematical Society, Providence, USA, 1989. [ Links ]

BROWN, B. and PRIEST, G. “Chunk and permeate, a paraconsistent inference strategy. part i: the infinitesimal calculus”. Journal of Philosophical Logic 33 (4): 379-388. August, 2004. [ Links ]

CARNIELLI, W. and CONIGLIO, M. Paraconsistent Logic: Consistency, Contradiction and Negation. Dordrecht: Springer, 2016. [ Links ]

_____ and MARCOS, J. “A taxonomy of C-systems”. Paraconsistency: The Logical Way to the Inconsistent. Lecture Notes in Pure and Applied Mathematics 228, 1-93, 2002. [ Links ]

DA COSTA, N.C.A. Logiques Classiques et Non Classiques. Essai sur les fondements de la logique. Paris: Masson, 1997. [ Links ]

DE FINETTI, B. Theory of Probability, A Critical Introductory Treatment, Translated by Antonio Machí and Adrian Smith. Chichester, UK: Wiley, 2017. [ Links ]

GÖDEL, K. “Über formal unentscheidbare Sätze der Principia Mathematica und verwandter Systeme, I”. Monatshefte für Mathematik und Physik 38: 173-198, 1931. [ Links ]

KOJMAN, M. “Singular Cardinals: from Hausdorff’s gaps to Shelah’s pcf theory”. In Sets and Extensions in the Twentieth Century ed. by Dov M. Gabbay, Akihiro Kanamori, and John Woods, vol. 6 of Handbook of the History of Logic, pp. 509-558. Elsevier, 2011. [ Links ]

PRIEST, G., TANAKA, K. and WEBER, Z. “Paraconsistent logic”. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Winter 2016 ed, ed. Edward Zalta. Stanford University, 2016. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/logic-paraconsistent/. [ Links ]

RIPLEY, D. “Paraconsistent logic”. Journal of Philosophical Logic 44 (6): 771-780, 2015. [ Links ]

Rafafel R. Testa – University of Campinas. Center for Logic and Epistemology. Campinas, SP. Brazil. E-mail: rafaeltesta@gmail.com

Acessar publicação original

Tags: CARNIELLI Walter (Aut), Consistência, Contradictions/from Consistency to Inconsistency (T), MALINOWSKI Jacek (Aut), Manuscrito (Ma), Paraconsistência, Princípio da não-contradição, Raciocínio, Springer International Publishing (E), TESTA Rafael R (Res)

Proper Names: A Millian Account – PREDELLI (M)

1 de abril de 2018

PREDELLI, S.. Proper Names: A Millian Account. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. ix+165p. Resenha de: LO GUERCIO, Nicolás. Manuscrito, Campinas, v.41 n.2 Apr./June 2018.

On his most recent book, Proper Names: A Millian Account (2017, OUP p. 165), Stefano Predelli pursues a defense of the traditional Millian thesis that proper names are non-indexical, rigid devices of direct reference. As he announces at the introduction, his strategy is not to argue directly in favor of the view but to provide a cogent presentation thereof, delimit its scope, dispel its most common misinterpretations and find its place into a wider picture concerning extra-semantic regularities and language use, especially with regard to the role played by a name’s origin and its articulation. The book focuses mainly in ‘referential’ uses of proper names, that is, bare occurrences of proper names in argument position, although considerable attention is paid to predicative uses in some of the last chapters (negative existentials and indirect reports are left aside). The final chapter, somewhat isolated from the previous ones, discusses several subtleties with regard to the occurrences of proper names within works of fiction and presents a novel theory concerning fictional names.

In the first chapters Predelli lays the ground for the rest of the book. Chapter 1 (Preliminaries) covers familiar ground. The author presents a simple indexical intensional language along kaplanian lines, which allows him to perspicuously distinguish between definite descriptions, indexicals and proper names in terms of their behaviour with respect to contexts and points of evaluation (Kaplan’s circumstances of evaluation). There we find a characterization of names as non-indexical, rigid terms of direct reference. In other words, proper names are characterized as endowed with a constant character (a character which, unlike that of indexicals, outputs the same intension at every context) and a constant intension (an intension which, unlike that of definite descriptions, outputs the same extension at every point of evaluation), together with the idea that sentences containing proper names express singular propositions.

The next two chapters (2 and 3) have two main aims: i) to depict a pre-semantic picture about how to represent uses of expressions, specially proper names and ii) to place the account within a wider view concerning the way in which uses of expressions impart information by virtue of extra-semantic regularities. As for the former, Predelli introduces the idea of an expression, namely a term endowed with a syntactic category, a phonological and/or orthographical articulation, and a character, viz. a certain truth conditional contribution. He characterizes articulations as abstract types which can be exemplified by tokens of them, although tokening an articulation does not suffice for bringing up an expression. In order to legitimately represent a token of an articulation as a use of an expression (represented as an expression-context pair, <e, c>) the former has to take place in an appropriate setting, which includes the choice of language, the intentions of the speaker, the expectations of the audience and so on. Thus, a single token of a given articulation can be represented in different ways, but it is only once you choose to represent it as a use of a specific expression (hence as endowed with specific semantic features -e.g. a given character) that semantic evaluation comes into the picture.

To complete his view on the pre-semantics of proper names Predelli presents the basics of what he denominates launching episodes. In typical cases (‘smooth’ cases) a launching episode involves a launching device (namely an articulation), a launching target and launcher with certain intentions, e.g. the intention to create a new word instead of conforming to prior usage. In addition, certain social facts might be required to hold (although not necessarily), like the launcher being in a position of authority and such. Once a launching has taken place in which a certain articulation is conventionally associated with an individual, there can be replicating episodes, i.e. tokens which defer to the original launching episode involving that very articulation as the source from which they inherit their semantic features. The way a given token of an articulation is represented depends on the launching episode on which it rests. Importantly, when a token is appropriately connected with a certain launching episode, it is not merely a token of an articulation but a token of an expression, endowed with a certain syntactic category and character. The important thing for the Millian is then that ‘the inner mechanisms of a replicating episode play a clearly pre-semantic role, namely that of justifying the representation of a certain episode of speaking in terms of an expression-context pair.’ (Predelli 2017, p. 60) (my emphasis)

With regard to ii) Predelli elaborates on a distinction which will be central for the rest of the book, between the evaluation of an expression at a context and the use of an expression in a context. A semantic theory, he claims, should be able to evaluate a given expression w.r.t contexts in which such expression has not been used, as it should become clear by paying attention to sentences like ‘Nobody is speaking’. In light of this, he claims that we must distinguish between the class of all contexts, which is relevant for drawing conclusions about character, and the restricted class of contexts of use, which is not. To take the previous example, ‘Nobody is speaking’ is false in every context of use but, according to Predelli it would be wrong to draw the conclusion that it is false by virtue of its character since there are contexts in which such sentence is true, namely those in which no expression is used. Once this distinction has been drawn, Predelli puts forth the idea of settlement:

An expression e settles the sentence S iff true_c(S) for all c ∈ CU(e)¹.

which is employed later in the book to account for several phenomena allegedly problematic for Millianism. The general idea is that some contents are neither encoded in the character nor conveyed by means of traditional pragmatic mechanisms (e.g. conversational implicatures) but imparted by virtue of extra-semantic regularities concerning various features of an expressions’ type of use, articulation, origin, etc.

Unsurprisingly, uses of proper names have results of settlement: as with any other expression, on top of encoding a certain truth conditional contribution a use of a proper name imparts some information by virtue of extra-semantic regularities pertaining to its use. By way of illustration: a use of the name ‘Pablo’ (namely the tokening of an articulation as an expression endowed with a certain character, the constant function which outputs Pablo at every context) for example, settles ‘Pablo bears ‘Pablo’’, i.e. for every c ∈ CU(Pablo) it is true at c that Pablo bears ‘Pablo’. Allegedly, by appealing to these kind of considerations one is able to account for traditional problems regarding cognitive value, like the difference between ‘I am Pablo’ and ‘Pablo is Pablo’. On his view, both sentences encode identical truth conditional contents, but uses of the former additionally impart the information that the agent of the context bears ‘Pablo’, while uses of the latter do not. Mutatis Mutandis for ‘Cicero is Cicero’ and ‘Cicero is Tully’: while they both encode the same truth conditional content, uses of the latter impart the information that the bearer of ‘Cicero’ is also a bearer of ‘Tully’, while uses of the former do not. This encourages Predelli to conclude that

…appeals to cognitive value as the starting point for semantic inquiry are, at best, foolhardy. More fundamentally reckless is the attitude according to which cognitive value is primarily a property of expressions, rather than of uses and users-an attitude that makes it almost inevitable to look for character and/or content-based peculiarities behind the intuitive discrepancy between, say, ‘Cicero is Cicero’ and ‘Cicero is Tully’. (Predelli 2017, p. 68)

Now, besides regularities involving the use of expressions, the author highlights several social conventions surrounding the articulations allowed in authorized launching episodes, e.g. the convention that /Alice/ is an articulation reserved for women. Predelli calls the class of these conventions an onomastic, and claims that uses of proper names can be said to impart information w.r.t. a given onomastic in force. In other words, a use of the proper name ‘Alice’ (that we represent <Alice, c>) settles^o ‘Alice is a woman’, that is, for every c ∈ CU (Alice) (the contexts of use consistent with the onomastic o), ‘Alice is a woman’ is true at c. Predelli pushes the strategy even further: in addition to regularities of use, like the fact that whenever a name is used a given articulation is tokened, and regularities pertaining to onomastics, like the fact that a certain name it is typically reserved for women, there is encyclopaedic knowledge concerning the circumstances of some launchings which might become more or less widespread among a community. Thus, phenomena which, some have argued, ought to be explained by resorting to the cognitive import of proper names, like the non-triviality of a sentence like ‘Hesperus is Phosphorus’, can be accounted for within this framework as information imparted by their uses. More specifically, the information that the evening star is the morning star is imparted^e by uses of ‘Hesperus is Phosphorus’ (i.e. ‘the evening star is the morning star’ is true for every c ∈ CU^e(Hesperus is Phosphorus) -the class of contexts of use consistent with the encyclopaedic knowledge surrounding those names which is widespread within a community), but it is not imparted^e by uses of ‘Hesperus is Hesperus’.

This extension of the notion of settlement in order to account for intuitions concerning cognitive value is perhaps one of the most controversial points on Predelli’s account. On the one hand, the author places settlement results within the field of pre-semantics, unlike other non-semantic mechanisms as conversational implicatures, which arguably take place at a pos-semantic level (see Predelli 2017, p. 69). However, settlement^o and settlement^e results seem to be a pos-semantic business. To be sure, results of settlement are unavoidable: once you decide for a representation of a token of /Alice/ as a use of the name ‘Alice’ -<Alice, c>- (e.g. after a use of the sentence ‘Alice prunes in June’) impartation effects like ‘a proper name is being employed’ and ‘Alice bears ‘Alice’’ follow straightforwardly, in consonance with its alleged pre-semantic nature. By contrast, even after you choose to represent a token of /Alice/ in ‘Alice prunes in June’ as a use of the proper name ‘Alice’ you can either infer that ‘Alice is female’ or that the use is not consistent with the onomastic in force in the community. Put differently, ‘Alice bears ‘Alice’’ follows straightforwardly from the fact that the proper name ‘Alice’ was used and from that fact alone, while ‘Alice is female’ seems to be just something you are allowed to infer in virtue of the fact that ‘Alice’ was used plus some of your background beliefs or knowledge, such as the defeasibly justified belief that the launching of the name conformed to a given onomastic. The point is even stronger when it comes to encyclopaedic knowledge. The encyclopaedic information surrounding the launching of ‘Hesperus’ does not seem to be something imparted by the use of the name by virtue of some of its pre-semantic features, but just general knowledge which comes to mind whenever the name is used. Of course one has the right to call all these different ways of conveying information settlement or impartation, but it seems plausible that standard settlement results work quite differently from settlement^o and settlement^e ones: the former are plausibly pre-semantic while the latter are arguably not. If this is correct, despite appearances Predelli does not provides a uniform account for results concerning cognitive value of proper names.

Another aim of the book is to dispel some very common but (according to Predelli) erroneous interpretations of Millianism. One of them is the view that for Millians names are arbitrary and unstructured ‘tags’. On Predelli’s view, this is just a misconception: a Millian should be ready to admit that some names like ‘Goldman’ or ‘Outline of a theory of truth’ are both complex and motivated; as long as their truth conditional idleness is acknowledged, Millianism is perfectly consistent with these facts. Another common view is that according to Millianism co-referential names are synonymous. By contrast, Predelli argues that Millianism is consistent with a name’s meaning reaching beyond its truth conditional import (Chapter 5). To show this the author picks up on previous work (see ^{Meaning Without truth, OUP 2013}) in order to distinguish both impartation and character from a third dimension of meaning, the bias. In a nutshell, the bias is just genuinely non-indexed settlement: a kind of conventional restriction on appropriate contexts of use which is not constrained to this or that type of use (face-to-face conversation, answer machines, etc.) In light of this, the bias of an expression differs from imparted contents in that it is a part of conventional meaning, but it also differs from character in that it is a non truth conditional dimension of meaning.

With regard to this point, one might wonder whether the ‘genuinely non-indexed settlement’ definition offered by Predelli really captures the difference between impartation and bias. After all, some allegedly imparted contents are arguably settled for every context of use, e.g. ‘There exist, existed or will exist intentional agents’. This point is important because it is supposed to mark the distinction between the pre-semantic level (settlement) and the semantic (although non truth conditional) one. How do we differentiate contents presumably imparted in every context of use by virtue of extra-semantic regularities pertaining to their use from contents presumably imparted in every context of use by virtue of conventional meaning?

Be that as it may, once Predelli’s view about bias is assumed it is clear that co-referential names might have different bias, hence fail to be synonymous. For example, one can imagine a name ‘Alice’ and a nickname ‘Ally’ which co-refer, though appropriate uses of the latter are conventionally constrained to informal contexts (or contexts in which the speaker is familiar with the audience) while appropriate uses of the former are not.

In chapters (6 and 7) Predelli discusses the repercussions for Millianism of some hypothesis concerning proper names which have received much discussion in recent literature. Specifically, he examines the determiner hypothesis, according to which proper names in argument position are syntactically flanked by a determiner, and the predicate hypothesis, which maintains in addition that names are predicates (thus they express a non-constant intension). He finds both consistent with the main Millian tenets.

Concerning the former, the author argues that the Millian can afford it just by making some non-problematic assumptions: she just has to understand the proper name as encoding a non-indexical character and a constant intension with a singleton as its value {{Alice}_c = Alice}, while analyzing the determiner as an expletive element. Concerning the latter, Predelli claims that contrary to what supporters of the predicate hypothesis assume, allegedly predicative uses of proper names (e.g. Burge-like examples like ‘Some Alice are crazy, some are sane’) do not contain occurrences of proper names in the sense adopted in the book but tokens of name-like articulations unrelated to any launching episode from which to inherit any semantic feature. Put differently, they ought not be represented as <‘Alice’, c>, hence they do not express full-fledged sentences appropriate for truth conditional conclusions. If this is correct, appeals to uniformity by defenders of the predicate hypothesis are biased against Millianism.

Another typical argument put forward (in this case by nominal descriptivists) against Millianism resorts to the trifling or trivial character of sentences like ‘Socrates is called /Socrates/’. Predelli claims that he is able to provide a non-semantic explanation consistent with millian commitments: a use of ‘Socrates is called /Socrates/’ involves a tokening of the articulation /Socrates/, moreover, it involves a use of that articulation as a specific name (a use representable as <‘Socrates’, c>, where Socrates = <NAME, /Socrates/, {Socrates}>); as a result the sentence is settled, that is, it is true for every c ∈ CU(Socrates is /Socrates/), which is what explains its apparent triviality. An additional consideration reinforces the point: in Predelli’s account the same broad mechanism concerning information imparted by use-regularities explains the trifling character of ‘Socrates is called ‘Socrates’’ and that of ‘Horses are called /Horses/’, while nominal descriptivists need to somehow differentiate the two cases (the explanation for the former is said to be semantic while the explanation for the latter is not).

Predelli’s rendition of the disputed sentence as ‘Socrates is called /Socrates/’ is not uncontroversial, though. Some philosophers have argued that ‘Socrates is called /Socrates/’ and ‘Socrates is called Socrates’ are both grammatical and mean different things (see for example ^{Fara 2011}. See also ^{Matushansky (2008}), who presents syntactic evidence that the some constructions involving ‘called’ include a small-clause in which ‘Socrates’ is not quoted but it enters the syntax as a predicate). The former means that people use /Socrates/ to address Socrates or to refer to him. The latter, however, attributes to Socrates a property, that of having ‘Socrates’ as a name (a property which he might have even though he was never addressed by means of the articulation /Socrates/). It is arguably the latter interpretation the one that triggers the intuition of triviality, not the former: it is perfectly possible that no one ever addressed Socrates by means of /Socrates/. If this were correct, it becomes unclear whether Predelli’s response strategy works: although one could argue that both ‘Socrates is called /Socrates/’ and ‘Socrates is called Socrates’ are true in every context of use, it is not clear whether the latter is true by virtue of its character -it depends on what you think about the character of the predicate Socrates.

The last Chapter is devoted to occurrences of names in works of fiction, myths, literary criticism, etc. Predelli advocates the No Name Hypothesis, according to which occurrences of names within works of fiction are not, properly speaking, occurrences of proper names; they are occurrences of mere name-like articulations in a setting which precludes their being full-fledge expressions apt for semantic representation (a view that applies to the sentences which contain them too, for obvious reasons). In other words, they are merely fictional names. As a consequence, they encode no content, and only fictionally impart some information (which is nevertheless available to us) like the content that a name-like articulation is being tokened.

To Sum up: Proper Names: A Millian Account presents a novel and original defense of Millianism which is very welcomed in light of the recent re-emergence of descriptivism. In addition to developing a coherent and comprehensive presentation of Millianism, the book further motivates the view by framing it into a bigger picture concerning language use, it makes efforts toward clarifying its scope and limits and it provides novel responses to many arguments recently put forward in the literature on proper names. Despite its many controversial claims, it undoubtedly makes a great deal in moving the debate forward. It is a highly recommended read for anyone with an interest in semantics and philosophy of language and a mandatory one for anyone working on proper names.

References

PREDELLI, S. Meaning Without Truth, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. [ Links ]

FARA, D. G. “You can call me ‘stupid’,… just don’t call me stupid”. Analysis, 71(3), 2011: 492-501. [ Links ]

MATUSHANSKY, O. “On the linguistic complexity of proper names.” Linguistics and philosophy 31(5), 2008: 573-627. [ Links ]

^Notas

¹Since every sentence which is true by virtue of character is also settled, Predelli introduces the notion of mere settlement, which applies only to sentences which are not true by virtue of character alone.

Nicolás Lo Guercio –Universidad de Buenos Aires – CONICET, Instituto de Investigaciones Filosóficas – SADAF, Bulnes 642, CP. C1176ABL, C.A.B.A Argentina. E-mail: nicolasloguercio@gmail.com

Acessar publicação original

Tags: Discurso direto, Filosofia da linguagem, LO GUERCIO Nicolás (Res), Manuscrito (Ma), Nomes próprios, Oxford University Press (E), PREDELLI Stefano (Aut), Proper Names: A Millian Account (T), Semântica

Reference and Representation in Thought and Language – DE PONTE; KORTA (M)

1 de abril de 2018

DE PONTE, Maria; KORTA, Kepa. Reference and Representation in Thought and Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. 304 pagesp. Manuscrito, Campinas, v.41 n.2 Apr./June 2018.

This book explores many different issues and aspects of the various ways by which we talk, think and represent the world. On the side of language, philosophers and linguists offer new insights on proper names, descriptions, indexicals and anaphora which will interest anyone working on semantics, especially in the direct reference framework. On the side of thought, the book contains chapters on the representation of time, cognitive dynamics, selfhood, and on de se attitudes. Mediating between them is a chapter on salience, a now much discussed notion that concerns both language and thought. In what follows, I present the central elements of each chapter as succinctly as possible, commenting briefly on them when I see fit.

The first two chapters deal with the prototypical referring expressions, i.e., proper names. In “Names, predicates, and the object-property distinction”, Genoveva Martí takes issue with predicativism¹. Roughly, predicativists hold that the semantics of names do not differ essentially from that of common nouns like ‘horse’ or ‘refrigerator’. Just like those nouns, names express a property, namely, the property of bearing the name. For Martí, however, predicativism is wrong at a fundamental level: it fails to capture how language expresses the basic metaphysical distinction between objects and properties. The grammatical subject-predicate distinction is not enough. Descriptions in subject position can single out objects all right, but they do so by appealing to their properties. Only truly referring names can abstract objects from their attributes. As she puts it, names are devices for expressing “the separation of the object from its properties – from all of its properties – that is required to distinguish the object, the substance, from its attributes” (p. 16). Predicativism does not give us that.

Martí’s chapter discusses some of the central aspects of direct reference in an engaging manner, and it offers us plenty to discuss despite its short length. One thing needs clarification, though. She appears to conflate the notion of an object (or substance) with that of a substratum (or bare particular). In the passage quoted above, for example, she seems to think that the notion of an object is that of a thing abstracted from all its properties. But this is not, strictly speaking, the notion of an object, but of a substratum. If this is right, then the underlying metaphysics referential semantics would capture is that of substratum-property distinction. But I doubt this is correct. It is prima facie reasonable to be a referentialist and a bundle theorist or a hylomorphist, and both views eschew substrata. But if an object is not something abstracted from all its properties, it is not obvious why predicativists should feel threatened. Her other objection, that predicativism presupposes that names are referential devices (pp. 18-19), however, is much more compelling.

Eros Corazza, in his rich contribution “Proper names: gender, context-sensitivity, and conversational implicatures”, discusses how names can systematically convey more information than merely their semantic content, and how that information is exploited by anaphoric reference. All this without abandoning Millianism, because this information is non-semantic: it is extrinsic or stereotypical, and hence not part of truth-conditional content. For example, the semantic content of ‘Sue’ is just an individual, but the name also imparts the information that its referent is female. That information, however, is cancellable, as illustrated by Johnny Cash’s song A Boy Named “Sue”: Sue’s dubious father does not violate any grammatical or semantic rules by naming him so. Thus, stereotypical information may be allocated in “the category of [Gricean] generalized conversational implicatures” (p. 28). We often exploit stereotypical information in anaphoric reference, as when we say ‘Sue said she isn’t coming today’, even if we are unsure of Sue’s gender. Stereotypical information, then, provides us with default interpretations in anaphoric reference. Corazza also discusses the context-sensitivity of gender-silent names like ‘Chris’ and ‘Kim’, as well as other relevant issues often neglected in philosophy of language. In sum, the chapter is an example of how rich and resourceful – and not the barren landscape oftentimes depicted by its opponents – Millianism can be.

The next three chapters focus on indexicals. As the editors say, “they offer key insights on self-knowledge, action, consciousness, subjectivity, and so on. Understanding them is essential for understanding both reference and representation” (p. 5). In “Indexicals and undexicals”, John Perry offers a new account of good old indexicals like ‘today’ and ‘tomorrow’. In short, Perry analyzes what he calls undexical uses of these expressions. An undexical use occurs when the input for the arguments of the relevant expression does not come from the Kaplanian context (the 4-tuple of agent, time, location and world), but rather from a different source. Consider:

(1) Whenever we are in Ireland, the local bars miss us.
(2) Wherever one is in Ireland, the local bars are friendly.
(3) I’m going to be in Cushendale next week. The local bar is very friendly.

In (1), the input location for ‘local’ comes from the context of the utterance, and so ‘local’ functions indexically. In (2), the input is provided by the quantifier ‘wherever’, and so ‘local’ functions like a bound variable. In (3), the antecedent sentence provides the relvant location for ‘local’, and so it is used anaphorically. Thus, ‘local’ is used undexically in (2) and (3). Perry argues that the same phenomenon occurs with other indexicals like ‘past’ and ‘tomorrow’: when their inputs are supplied by the context, they function indexically; when not, they function undexically, as in ‘Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today’ (this example is discussed at length). Also, he points out that expressions have a default indexical use when they are normally used indexically rather than undexically (e.g. ‘today’). In the final part of the chapter, Perry discusses the cognitive advantages of undexical uses and how they are based on default indexical uses. He also introduces the concepts of roles and of role linking, and claims that intelligent life is based on them (p. 53). Unfortunately, his discussion is rather brief for too deep an issue; it would definitely benefit from a longer treatment elsewhere.

Kent Bach’s “Reference, intention, and context: Do demonstratives really refer?” defends the unorthodox view that demonstratives (e.g. ‘this’ and ‘that’) do not have semantic reference, and hence are not genuine context-sensitive expressions. For Bach, there is a fundamental difference between demonstratives and automatic indexicals like ‘I’ or ‘today’. Automatic indexicals are genuinely context-sensitive and semantically refer because their meanings suffice to determine reference as a function of context. They refer on their own, so to speak. Demonstratives do not. Their meanings are insufficient to determine reference; at most, they restrict what can be literally referred to. For instance, the meaning of ‘that dog’ restricts reference to dogs, but it cannot determine a particular dog by itself. In Bach’s terms, we refer by an expression when the expression itself is able to refer; we refer with an expression when we use it merely as an aid to reference. Because demonstratives do not have semantic reference, we only refer with them, not by them. The leading alternative to this picture is semantic intentionalism. Basically, semantic intentionalism holds that the meanings of demonstratives are sensitive to speaker intentions, and that these intentions make demonstratives semantically refer². However, Bach argues, speakers only intend to refer with a demonstrative; they do not also intend for the object to be the semantic value of the demonstrative. The first intention has no semantic relevance, and thus cannot help intentionalism; the latter would make it work, but it is simply not part of the mechanics of demonstrative reference.

Bach’s thesis has serious implications for standard truth-conditional semantics, for demonstratives would not make any determinate contribution to semantic content. He suggests that the same problem plagues “other putative context-sensitive expressions and constructions, such as gradable adjectives, epistemic modals, predicates of personal taste, relational nouns, genitive phrases, noun-noun pairs, and quantifier phrases” (p. 59). His argument, then, has far-reaching consequences for the debate on contextualism. I wonder, however, whether it affects the so-called Bare-Bones theory of demonstratives³. Basically, it holds that the context provides objects, not intentions, as inputs for demonstratives. Bare-Bones semantics, then, is intention-free, both in context and in character. Hence, it is not obvious that Bach’s argument applies to it as well.

In “Semantic complexity”, Maite Ezcurdia offers an insightful discussion of what distinguishes referring from quantificational noun phrases. The standard distinguishing criterion is that referring expressions are rigid by their nature, whereas quantificational expressions are not. Stephen Neale adds another criterion: referring expressions must also be semantically unstructured. This is what Ezcurdia calls the “noun phrase thesis” (NPT). For NPT, noun phrases are either semantically unstructured rigidly referring expressions or semantically structured restricted quantifiers. But what about complex demonstratives (e.g. ‘that man in the corner’)? They seem to refer, but their form strongly resembles that of descriptions. Are they referring or quantificational? For Neale, they are referring. Yet, if NPT is true, they must be semantically unstructured, and hence the nominals contained in them are semantically otiose. For Ezcurdia, however, this is implausible. She argues that we have no good reasons to hold NPT, and that complex demonstratives can be both referring and semantically complex. She claims that we must distinguish two kinds of semantic complexity: one, exhibited by quantificational expressions, shows up in the truth-conditions; the other, exhibited by complex demonstratives, stays only at the level of linguistic meaning. These two kinds of complexity are related to the two semantic roles nominals can play in noun phrases: in quantificational phrases, their role is predicative, i.e., they restrict the range of the quantifier; in referring phrases, their role is individuative, i.e., they determine the extension of an expression for further predication. Hence, the nominals contained in complex demonstratives are not semantically otiose; they just have a different semantic function.

Ezcurdia’s chapter is rich, well-argued and generous to Neale’s thesis. The only thing I want to point out is that the difference between predicative and individuate roles for nominals could have been spelled out in a bit more detail. Ezcurdia claims that nominals in complex demonstratives are not predicative because “they are not saying something about an object that an expression […] has previously selected. Rather they aid in the selection of the object itself […]” (p. 81). But the nominals in a description in subject position seem to be doing this as well. In other terms, they too select an object so that the grammatical predicate can ‘say something about’ it; they just do it by a different semantic mechanism. In a sense, then, they are also individuative. Thus, the notion of ‘not saying something about a previously selected object’ seems too general to distinguish the individuative role from the predicative role.

In the chapter “Donnellan’s misdescriptions and loose talk” Carlo Penco argues against “the standard view” of definite misdescriptions. According to this view, we cannot state something true in a referential use of a definite description if the description fails to fit; whatever truth is conveyed is conveyed by implicature. Penco, however, thinks this is mistaken: we can indeed state a truth even if nothing fits the description. He calls this thesis “Donnellan’s intentional strong claim” (DISC), and offers a defense of it. Donnellan’s insight, according to Penco, is that referential uses involve a type of social intention, an “intention to use a descriptive content fit for the context of utterance” (p. 112). This intention cannot be divorced from what speakers should expect their audience to understand in the relevant context. And, crucially, this intention is part of what is said, of what is stated, and not merely of what is implicated. Hence, Penco claims, we can already find in Donnellan a theory of loose talk, as discussed by ^{Sperber and Wilson (1986)}, and a rejection of the Gricean “two-stage” analysis according to which we state a falsity and implicate a truth. As Penco notes, this reading makes Donnellan a precursor of contextualist ideas. Based on Donnellan’s isights, Penco argues that “what is said by a referential description depends on the grade of looseness required by the context” (p. 119), and that “looseness is motivated by the pursuit of relevance” (p. 115). All in all, it does not matter whether Penco’s reading of Donnellan is accurate or not; his proposal is original and interesting in its own right and deserves further discussion.

The linguist Yan Huang is the author of the next contribution, entitled “Pre-semantic pragmatic enrichment: The case of long distance reflexivization”. Consider this sentence:

(4) *John₁said that Bill loved himself1

In English, (4) is ungrammatical: the pronoun cannot be bound by ‘John’. However, in languages such as Japanese, Chinese and modern Greek, for example, this long-distance binding is allowed. That is, reflexives can be systematically bound outside their local syntactic domains. Marshalling evidence from a variety of languages, Huang explains the phenomenon of long-distance reflexivization with his version of the neo-Gricean pragmatic theory of anaphora. In broad strokes, he argues that long-distance binding is “pragmatically enriched for reference pre-semantically” (p. 126), and thus helps determining what is said.

In “The interplay of recipient design and salience in shaping speaker’s utterance”, Istvan Kecskes employs his sociocognitive approach (SCA) to account for the mechanisms of speaker’s utterance production. Very roughly, SCA aims to integrate and explain the relation between the individual traits (prior experience; salience; egocentrism; attention) and the social traits (actual situational experience; relevance; cooperation; intention) that are brought to bear in communication exchanges. More precisely, Kecskes wants to show how the interaction between subconscious salience and recipient design – the model a speaker builds of the hearer’s relevant knowledge in the context – shape speakers’ production, and why “speaker-hearer rationality should include not only cooperation but egocentrism as well” (p. 161). The concept of salience has recently drawn a lot of attention in various debates – including in the debate about indexicals and demonstratives -, and Kecskes makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of it.

In the following chapter, “New thoughts about old facts”, María de Ponte and Kepa Korta point out what they take to be some mistakes in Arthur Prior’s argument against B-theories of time (i.e. theories holding that pastness, presentness and futurity are not objective features of reality). The gist of Prior’s argument – and of many others like it – is that B-theories offer “no grounds for tensed thoughts and tensed emotions” (p. 164). Prior asks us to consider which of the following sentences we would use after a root canal operation:

(5) Thank goodness the root canal is over [now].
(6) Thank goodness the date of the conclusion of the root canal is Friday, June, 1954.
(7) Thank goodness the conclusion of the root canal is contemporaneous with this utterance.

For him, only (5) is adequate. Why? Because only the proposition expressed by (5) involves the property of being over (an A-property). Thus, to make sense of why we say (5), and not (6) or (7), we must count A-properties as objective features of reality. In short, Ponte and Korta read Prior’s argument as being committed to three theses:

i. Utterances (5)-(7) express different propositions.
ii.Utterances (5)-(7) are associated with different thoughts.
iii.The proposition related to utterance (5) and its associated thought require the existence of an A-property of events (p.170).

Ponte and Korta partly agree with (ii), but reject (i) and (iii). First, being referentialists, they claim that sentences (5)-(7) express the same proposition. Nevertheless, the way in which (5)-(7) express this proposition is different. As they put it, these sentences “are associated with different motivating thoughts (some of them A-thoughts, others B-thoughts) and present different cognitive routes for their respective audiences” (p. 172). They have different cognitive significance, but the same referential content. This is why they can express different thoughts. Second, Ponte and Korta argue that the move from the fact that we have tensed thoughts and emotions to the reality of tensed properties is unjustified and superfluous. In sum, their chapter is an attempt to clarify Prior’s argument and undermine its supposed ontological import by showing how the puzzling phenomenon can be explained by a more sophisticated epistemic and semantic theory. In fact, it is hard to see how linguistic and epistemic considerations can reveal something about the nature of time. Ponte and Korta’s thorough effort to untangle these issues is a welcome antidote to this sort of idea.

In “Cognitive dynamics”, François Recanati develops and clarifies several aspects of his influential theory of mental files. In broad strokes, Recanati’s view is that mental files can play some of the roles of Fregean senses: they determine reference, they explain cognitive significance, and they enable coreference de jure. They determine reference relationally, i.e., in virtue of standing in some relation to the file’s reference, and not satisfactionally. This allows them to contain misinformation and still refer to the same thing. The different cognitive significance of ‘Hesperus is Hesperus’ and ‘Hesperus is Phosphorus’ is explained by the deployment of different files: in the first case, the subject deploys the same file twice, while in the second two distinct but coreferring files are deployed. Finally, coreference de jure is enabled when the subject deploys the same file in a chain of reasoning: it explains why the inference from ‘Hesperus is bright’ and ‘Hesperus is a star’ to ‘Hesperus is a bright star’ is warranted and rational. ^{Onofri (2015}) and ^{Ninan (2015}), however, object that mental files cannot explain cognitive significance and enable coreference the jure simultaneously. Recanati stands by his position and thoroughly addresses their worries.

The last two chapters tackle the issue of self-representation. In “The property theory and de se attitudes”, Wayne Davis argues against the so-called property theory of de se thoughts, originally proposed by Lewis and Chisholm, and recently advocated by Neil Feit⁴. The problem this theory attempts to solve is the following. An amnesiac Lingens can have the belief that he himself is lost while not believing that Lingens is lost. We would express this unfortunate situation with these sentences:

(8) Lingens believes that he himself is lost
(9) Lingens believes that Lingens is lost

The problem is that, if attitudes are taken to be dyadic relations between subjects and propositions, and propositions are taken to be singular propositions or sets of possible worlds, then both sentences express the same relation to the same proposition. The special character of the de se attitude is missing. To solve this, the property theory denies that believing is a propositional attitude; rather, believing is seen as self-ascribing a property. Davis, however, thinks this move fails to yield a satisfactory account of attitudes, and offers his own account. First, he puts forth ten objections against the property theory. Second, he argues that we should take attitudes to be relations to conceptual propositions, i.e., entities made up of concepts, and not to objectual propositions, i.e., singular propositions or sets of possible worlds. In addition, he claims that part of what made the problem of de se attitudes “seem insoluble […] was the erroneous Fregean assumption that ‘conceptual’ elements must be descriptive” (p; 214). For Davis, the missing element in the explanation is a non-descriptive indexical self-concept. Thus, de se attitudes differ from other attitudes precisely because they are attitudes towards a conceptual proposition having an indexical self-concept as constituent.

In the last chapter, entitled “Selfhood as self-representation”, Kenneth Taylor proposes a middle ground between Cartesian and eliminativist/fictionalist accounts of the self. Contrary to Cartesians, he rejects the existence of a metaphysical sui generis entity that is supposed to be the self (something akin to a thinking substance); contrary to eliminativists/fictionalists, he believes that “there really and truly are beings organized as selves” (p. 225-6). For Taylor, selves are just beings psychically arranged in such a way that they bear the property of selfhood. And bearing selfhood consists in having the very special capacity to have self-representations. Taylor’s central idea is that self-representations are distinct from other representations not because of what they represent, but because of how they represent it. Thus, for Taylor, to bear selfhood is not to be in possession of some mysterious inner entity or to have a “mental CEO” that constitutes the content of self-representations. It is rather to have “the capacity to deploy […] a de se device of explicit coreference” (p. 224, fn. 1). Taylor frames his position in a broader context, discussing Locke’s, Hume’s and Kant’s views on the matter.

The editors of Reference and Representation in Thought and Language can only be commended for taking the pain to organize this volume. Its major merit is, to me, the great diversity of the themes discussed in the chapters. The selection admirably shows how issues surrounding reference go well beyond traditional topics in semantics, and how they intersect (or fail to intersect) with deep philosophical problems in metaphysics and in the philosophy of mind. And when it comes to traditional problems in semantics, the chapters offer novel solutions and often discuss underexplored aspects of our referential devices in an engaging and sophisticated manner. Anyone working on how language and thought relate to the world will surely enjoy this book.

Referências

CAPLAN, B. 2003. “Putting Things in Contexts.” Philosophical Review 112 (2): 191-214. https://doi.org/10.1215/00318108-112-2-191. [ Links ]

FARA, D. G. 2015. “Names Are Predicates.” Philosophical Review 124 (1): 59-117. https://doi.org/10.1215/00318108-2812660. [ Links ]

FEIT, NEIL. 2008. Belief about the Self: A Defense of the Property Theory of Content. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press. [ Links ]

KING, JEFFREY C. 2014. “Speaker Intentions in Context: Speaker Intentions in Context.” Noûs 48 (2): 219-37. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0068.2012.00857.x. [ Links ]

NINAN, DILIP. 2015. “On Recanati’s Mental Files.” Inquiry 58 (4): 368-77. https://doi.org/10.1080/0020174X.2014.883751. [ Links ]

ONOFRI, ANDREA. 2015. “Mental Files and Rational Inferences.” Inquiry 58 (4): 378-92. https://doi.org/10.1080/0020174X.2014.883748. [ Links ]

PONTE, MARÍA DE, and KEPA KORTA, eds. 2017. Reference and Representation in Thought and Language. First edition. Oxford Linguistics. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press. [ Links ]

PREDELLI, STEFANO. 2012. “Bare-Boned Demonstratives.” Journal of Philosophical Logic 41 (3): 547-62. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10992-011-9183-5. [ Links ]

SPERBER, DAN, and DEIRDRE WILSON. 2001. Relevance: Communication and Cognition. 2nd ed. Oxford ; Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers. [ Links ]

STOKKE, A. 2010. “Intention-Sensitive Semantics.” Synthese 175 (3): 383-404. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-009-9537-5. [ Links ]

Notas

¹ ^{Fara (2015)} is the most worked out defense of predicativism to date.

²Cf. ^{Stokke (2010)}, ^{King (2014)}.

³Cf. Caplan (2002) and ^{Predelli (2012)}.

⁴E.g.: ^{Feit (2008)}.

⁵Article info CDD: 401

Acessar publicação original

Tags: DE PONTE Maria (Aut), Discurso direto, Filosofia da linguagem, Filosofia da mente, KORTA Kepa (Aut), Manuscrito (Ma), Oxford University Press (E), Reference and Representation in Thought and Language (T), Referência, Referência direta, Representação

Paraconsistent Logic: Consistency, Contradiction and Negation – CARNIELLI; CONIGLIO (M)

1 de abril de 2018

CARNIELLI, W.; CONIGLIO, M.. Paraconsistent Logic: Consistency, Contradiction and Negation. Logic, Epistemology, and the Unity of Science Series. New York: Springer, 2016. Resenha de: ANTUNES, Henrique; CICCARELLI, Vicenzo. Manuscrito, Campinas, v.41 n.2 Apr./June 2018.

The principle of explosion (also known as ex contradictione sequitur quodlibet) states that a pair of contradictory formulas entails any formula whatsoever of the relevant language and, accordingly, any theory regimented on the basis of a logic for which this principle holds (such as classical and intuitionistic logic) will turn out to be trivial if it contains a pair of theorems of the form A and ¬A (where ¬ is a negation operator). A logic is paraconsistent if it rejects the principle of explosion, allowing thus for the possibility of contradictory and yet non-trivial theories.

Among the several paraconsistent logics that have been proposed in the literature, there is a particular family of (propositional and quantified) systems known as Logics of Formal Inconsistency (LFIs), developed and thoroughly studied within the Brazilian tradition on paraconsistency. A distinguishing feature of the LFIs is that although they reject the general validity of the principle of explosion, as all other paraconsistent logics do, they admit a a restrcited version of it known as principle of gentle explosion. This principle asserts that a contradiction that concerns a consistent formula logically entails any other formula of the language. The expression ‘consistent’ here is a generic term susceptible to several alternative interpretations (not necessarily coinciding with non-contradiction), depending on the particular LFI under consideration. Another (related) feature that distinguishes the LFIs from other paraconsistent logics is that they internalize this unspecified notion of consistency inside the object language by means of a unary sentential operator ○ (called ‘consistency operator’ or simply ‘circle’). When prefixed to a formula A, ○ expresses that A is consistent or well behaved, however these expressions are to be interpreted in each particular case.

Paraconsistent Logic: Consistency, Contradiction and Negation, by Walter Carnielli and Marcelo Coniglio, is entirely devoted to the Logics of Formal Inconsistency. The book covers the main achievements in the field in the past 50 years or so, presenting them in a systematic and (to a great extend) self-contained way. Although the book is mostly concerned with particular logical systems, the relations among them, and their corresponding metatheoretical properties, it also sets the basis of a new philosophical interpretation of paraconsistent logics.

The book contains nine chapters, which altogether cover several topics about the LFIs. In Chapter 1 the authors explain the rationales behind paraconsistent logics in general and the LFIs in particular, and discuss the philosophical problems related to paraconsistency under the light of some general issues in the philosophy of logic (such as the nature of logic and the nature of contradictions). It is argued that since there are some real life situations in which contradictions do actually turn up, paraconsistent logics are justified, no matter how those contradictions are interpreted – whether they are seen as concerning reality or knowledge. The chapter also discusses the relation between paracomplete and paraconsistent logics and analyzes some key notions related to paraconsistency, such as consistency, contradiction (and the principle of non-contradiction) and negation.

In Chapter 2 the concept of LFI is precisely defined, as well as other basic technical notions employed throughout the book. A minimal propositional LFI, called mbC, is introduced by means of an axiomatic system. mbC results from positive classical propositional logic by the inclusion of two additional axioms: the principles of excluded middle and gentle explosion – A ∨ A and ○A → (A → (¬A → B), respectively. mbC is then provided with a valuation semantics with respect to which it is proved to be sound and complete. The relations between mbC and classical propositional logic are carefully analyzed. The analysis reveals that mbC can be viewed both as a sublogic and as an extension of classical logic, when these terms are suitably qualified.

Chapter 3 presents several extensions of mbC and analyzes the relations between the notions of consistency/inconsistency and contradictoriness/non-contradictoriness – formally expressed by the formulas ○A/¬○A and A ∧ ¬A/¬(A ∧ ¬A), respectively. As it turns out, although consistency and non-contradictoriness (and inconsistency and contradictoriness) are partially independent in mbC, they may or may not coincide in some of its extensions. In addition, the notion of a C-system is introduced. Despite the complexity of the relevant definition, a C-system simply amounts to an LFI within which the consistency operator is definable in terms of the other connectives of the language. Da Costa’s hierarchy of paraconsistent logics – a family of paradigm examples of C-systems – is briefly presented and explained. The chapter also deals with the important notions of propagation and retro-propagation of the consistency operator.

The first part of Chapter 4 is devoted to the problem of the algebraizability of some LFIs, and the second part discusses some many-valued LFI-systems. In Section 4.1 some preliminary concepts concerning logical matrices are introduced. Section 4.2 contains a Dugundji-style proof of the uncharacterizability by finite matrices of the LFIs presented so far. Section 4.3 contains a proof of the algebraizability of some extension of mbC in the broader sense of Block and Pigozzi. The remaining sections deal separately with different many-valued LFIs, most of which were proposed several decades before the emergence of the concept of Logic of Formal Inconsistency.

Chapter 5 represents a partial detour from the main exposition, for the systems presented therein are not extensions of positive classical propositional logic. The first case considered by the authors is that of intuitionistic logic: more specifically, it is shown how a consistency operator ○ can be defined within Nelson’s logic N4 in terms of a strong negation ~ operator (i.e., ○A ≡ ~(A ∧ ¬A)). Another interesting case covered by the chapter is that of modal logic, where the consistency operator is shown to be interpretable as having a sort of “modal flavor”. In particular, the definition ○A ≡ A → □A can be introduced in normal non-degenerate modal logics. Some systems of fuzzy logic are also analyzed in the chapter. In all of the aforementioned logics, the strategy pursued by the authors consists in defining a consistency operator within the system in question and then showing that it satisfies the general definition of an LFI.

Chapter 6 is devoted to the problem of defining non-deterministic semantics for non-algebraizable systems (even in the broader sense of Block and Pigozzi). It presents three main formal semantics – based, respectively, on F -structures, non-deterministic logical matrices, and possible translations. Of particular interest, especially from a more philosophical point of view, is the so-called possible translation semantics, whose main idea is to translate a given logic into logics whose semantics are well known and deterministic. The relevant notion of translation is that of a mapping preserving logical consequences and the rationale for this approach is the interpretation of a logic as a combination of “possible world views”.

Chapter 7 concerns first-order LFIs. The chapter is mainly devoted to two systems: QmbC, the first-order extension of mbC, and QLFI1. Due to the non-deterministic nature of mbC, a non-standard semantics is defined for its first-order extension: the authors introduce the notion of a Tarskian paraconsistent structure, defined as an ordered pair composed of a Tarskian structure (in the classical sense) together with a non-deterministic valuation. Concerning QLFI1, the approach is twofold: on one hand, it is shown how the language may be interpreted in a suitable Tarskian paraconsistent structure; on the other hand, a different semantics is proposed, given that the propositional fragment of QLFI1 can be characterized by a three-valued matrix. The semantics is represented by a partial structure, defined in a similar way to a classical Tarskian structure, except for the fact that all predicate symbols are interpreted as partial relations. Both QmbC and QLFI1 are proved to be sound and complete with respect to the corresponding semantics. Compactness and Lowenhëim-Skolem theorems are proved for QmbC.

Chapter 8 concerns one of the most straightforward applications of paraconsistent logics: set theory. Nevertheless, the authors’ approach to the subject is substantially different from what has been traditionally done in the field of paraconsistent set theory – namely, to formulate a non-trivial naïve set theory countenancing the unrestricted comprehension principle for sets. The systems presented in the chapter include all of Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory’s axioms (except for the axiom of foundation, which is replaced by a weaker version of it) with an LFI as the underlying logic. Another distinguishing feature of those systems is that they include a consistency predicate for sets whose behavior is governed by a set of additional axioms. Hence, whereas in a propositional LFI the property of consistency applies only to formulas, in the corresponding paraconsistent set theories it applies to both formulas and sets. The main results of the chapter are the derivability adjustment theorem (establishing that any derivation in ZF can be recovered within its paraconsistent counterpart) and a proof of the non-triviality of the strongest system presented in the chapter.

Chapter 9 discusses the significance of contradictions for science, describing some historical paradigm examples where contradictions seem to have played an important role in the development of scientific theories. It also proposes an interpretation of paraconsistent logics according to which they are better viewed as possessing an epistemological, rather than an ontological, character; in a nutshell, this means that they are not supposed to deal primarily with reality and truth (as in the case of classical logic), but with the epistemic notion of evidence. This interpretation is meant to be a more palatable alternative to dialetheism (the thesis that there are true contradictions), since it neither affirms the existence of true contradiction nor rejects classical logic as incoherent – adhering thus to logical pluralism.

One of the main virtues of Paraconsistent Logic: Consistency, Contradiction and Negation is that it keenly highlights the pervasiveness and generality of the notion of logic of formal inconsistency. Firstly, because it shows through the definition of an LFI how several systems of paraconsistent logic proposed in the literature – which at first sight might have appeared to be quite unrelated with one another – can be framed under a single unifying concept. Secondly, because it emphasizes that the definition of an LFI is applicable to systems based on logics of various different kinds, such as classical, intuitionistic, fuzzy, and modal logic. The resulting multiplicity of systems allows for various alternative semantic approaches, which are carefully described in several chapters of the book (e.g., valuation semantics, deterministic and non-deterministic matrices, F-structures, swap structures, possible translations semantics).

The book is mainly devoted to the taxonomy of LFI-systems, leaving little room for a more detailed discussion of the intrinsic properties of each particular system. This is understandable, though, since it is not meant to be a textbook. However, it is possible to use the book as an introductory text on formal paraconsistency by skipping some of the more technical chapters (e.g., a reader merely interested in those LFIs based on positive classical propositional logic may well skip chapters 5, 6 and possibly 8).

Concerning the more philosophical chapters of the book (chapters 1 and 9), the reader might think that the issues discussed therein would have deserved a more extended and rigorous analysis, especially when compared to the painstakingness of the other chapters. In particular, she might find the epistemic interpretation of paraconsistent logics wanting, despite its initial plausibility, this view in not sufficiently argued for. Moreover, specific relations between the epistemic interpretation and the particular features of the LFIs are missing. Nevertheless, this apparent shallowness is presumably due to the fact the purpose of those chapters is not to thoroughly develop a philosophical theory about paraconsistency, but merely to indicate some conceptual possibilities. After all, Paraconsistent Logic is mainly a technical piece of work.

So much for the general considerations. There are two specific points that we think would deserve a more detailed discussion. The first one concerns the cumbersome notation employed in the characterization of the semantics of first-order LFIs (Chapter 7): the strategy adopted by the authors in that chapter consists in extending the (non-deterministic) propositional valuations to the first-order case, combining these with a (classical) Tarskian structure – characterized, as usual, by a non-empty domain together with an interpretation function. The resulting first-order valuations apply thus only to sentences and the notion of truth, as in the propositional case, is not defined in terms of assignments, sequences, or any other technical device usually employed in order to interpreted the variables. The absence of any of these devices leads the authors to locally indicate all the relevant substitutions of individual constants for the free variables of a given formula. In the case of QmbC, for example, the semantic value of a quantified formula ∀xA (under a structure ? and a valuation v) is defined by means of the following clause:

v(∀xA) = 1 iff v(A[x / ā]) = 1, for every a in the domain of ?

where A[x / ā] denotes the result of substituting the constant ā for all free occurrences of x in A, and where the language is supposed to have at least one individual constant ā for each elements a of the domain of ? (that is, the language is supposed to be diagrammatic). At first sight, the use of the notation [x / ā] (and its generalization [x ₁,…, x _n / ā ₁,…, ā _n] to multiple simultaneous substitutions) does not seem to compromise readability at all – in fact, they are usually employed in the definition of substitutional semantics for first-order logic. However, matters become much more complicated when it comes to the additional clauses introduced in the definition of v(A) in order to guarantee that the substitution lemma holds for Tarskian paraconsistent structures. One of these clauses, which concerns the negation operator, is formulated as follows:

(sNeg) For every contexts (x^→ ; z) and (x^→ ; y), for every sequence (a^→ ; b^→ ) in the domain of ? interpreting (x^→ ; y^→ ), for every A ∈ L(?) _x_→_{; z}and every t ∈ T(?) _x_→_{; y}_→such that t is free for z in A, if A[z/t] ∈ L(?) _x_→_{; y}_→and c = (t[x→ ; y→ / a→ ; b→ ]) ^?^“then:

If v((A[z/t])[x→ ; y→ / a→ ; b→ ]) = v(A[x→ ; z / a→ ; c]) then

v((¬A[z/t])[x→ ; y→ / a→ ; b→ ]) = v(¬A[x→ ; z / a→ ; c])

Without attempting to individually explain every piece of notation above, (sNeg) merely expresses that if the substitution lemma holds for a formula A, then it holds for its negation as well (the introduction of this clause, absent in the definition of classical first-order structures, is necessary given the non-deterministic behavior of the negation operator in mbC). Now, it is quite clear that the reader would probably take several minutes to read and understand (sNeg). Moreover, this situation is not restricted to (sNeg), but it also happens with the similar clause concerning the consistency operator and the formulation and proof of various semantic theorems enunciated in Chapter 7. The notational cumbersomeness of the chapter is further worsened by the introduction of the notion of extended valuation, which assigns a truth value to an arbitrary formula A (not necessarily a sentence) by indicating a sequence of individual constants with respect to which A is to be evaluated. More precisely, if the free variables in A are among x ₁,…, x _n (abbreviated by x → ) then the truth value of A under the extended valuation v _x_→^a^→is simply v(A[x ₁,…, x _n / ā ₁,…, ā _n]). This notion represents a simile of the notion of satisfaction and is necessary in order to provide an interpretation for the open formulas.

The notation of Chapter 7 could, however, be greatly simplified in the following way: instead of importing the notion of valuation from the corresponding propositional LFI, the authors could well have defined a new notion of valuation which assigns one of the truth values 0 or 1 to each pair (s, A), where s is an assignment of objects of the domain to first-order variables and A is an arbitrary formula (open or closed). All definitions and theorems of the chapter could then be easily adapted according to this strategy, yielding much simpler formulations. In particular, clause (sNeg) above would become:

(sNeg’) Let A be a formula with at least one free variable z and let t be a term free for z in A. Let s be an assignment in a structure ? and let s’ be the assignment which is just like s except that is assigns the interpretation of t under s to the variable z. Then:

If v(s’, A) = v(s, A[z / t]) then v(s’, ¬A) = v(s, ¬A[z / t])

In addition to the evident simplicity of this new formulation, it is worth mentioning that since the notion of valuation above applies to any formula whatsoever of the language (open or closed), it is unnecessary to introduce extended valuations, resulting in a significant conceptual simplification.

Our second criticism concerns the paraconsistent set theories of Chapter 8. In general, the main motivation for a paraconsistent set theory is to recover the intuitive notion of set codified in the unrestricted principle of comprehension – i.e., the idea that every property P determines a set of all and only those objects having P. Of course, this can only be achieved by renouncing to classical logic, since that principle classically entails the existence of contradictory sets (e.g., Russell’s set, universal set, etc.). On the other hand, classical set theories (such as ZF) maintain classical logic at the cost of imposing what seems to be ad hoc restrictions to the comprehension principle and countenancing additional principles whose justification seems also ad hoc. Hence, paraconsistent and classical set theories are symmetrically opposed to one another: what the former tries to achieve (i.e., preserve the intuitive notion of set) is given up by the latter, and what the latter preserves (i.e., classical logic) the former revises.

Nevertheless, the approach to paraconsistent set theory adopted by the authors diverges significantly from these two trends. Firstly, because the attempt to recover the intuitive notion of set codified in the principle of comprehension is explicitly given up once they opt for ZF-like axiomatizations of their theories – ruling out well-known inconsistent collections from the outset. Secondly, given that those theories are variations of ZF based on one or another LFI, the revision of the underlying logical theory is achieved by extending classical logic, rather than renouncing to it. In fact, each of the set theories of Chapter 8 is equivalent to ZF under the assumption that all sets enjoy the property of consistency.

This particular take on paraconsistency may leave the reader wondering what is the point of having a paraconsistent set theory that does not explicitly countenance contradictory collections (‘Why not just stick with ZF?’, she might ask.). The book does not provide an explicit answer to this question, though. However, it would not be difficult to imagine a scenario in which the systems of Chapter 8 would be vindicated: suppose that ZF is someday shown to be inconsistent. Under this circumstance, any of those systems could be used to preserve the strength of ZF while avoiding its triviality. Even though a paraconsistent set theory of this kind may turn out to be fruitful, its fruitfulness turns on an unlikely possibility, though – namely, that ZF could be inconsistent. In view of such a possible application, we suggest that the approach to paraconsistent set theory adopted by the authors is aimed at presenting alternative versions of ZF that are more “cautious” in the sense that they would be able to withstand contradictions, should they ever arise within ZF. For this reason, we believe that those theories should not be viewed as competitors to classical set theories, but rather as interesting and possibly useful variations of it, whose mathematical properties are nonetheless worth investigating.

Paraconsistent Logic: Consistency, Contradiction and Negation is a comprehensive text on the LFIs and fulfills an important gap in the literature on paraconsistency. A huge amount of significant results is presented for the first time in a single text, providing the reader with an extensive survey of the research in the area. Moreover, the content of the book is not limited to the achievements of the so-called Brazilian school of logic, but also encompasses contributions coming from other areas and research groups. As a result, it is highly recommended for everyone interested in both the formal and the philosophical aspects of paraconsistency, including mathematicians, linguistics, computer scientists, and philosophers of language, mathematics and science.

References

CARNIELLI, W., CONIGLIO, M. Paraconsistent Logic: Consistency, Contradiction and Negation. Logic, Epistemology, and the Unity of Science Series. New York: Springer, 2016. [ Links ]

Henrique Antunes – State University of Campinas, Department of Philosophy, Campinas, SP, Brazil, antunes. E-mail: henrique@outlook.com

Vincenzo Ciccarelli – State University of Campinas, Department of Philosophy, Campinas, SP, Brazil. E-mail: ciccarelli.vin@gmail.com

Acessar publicação original

Tags: ANTUNES Henrique (Res), CARNIELLI W (Aut), CICCARELLI Vicenzo (Res), CONIGLIO M (Aut), Consistência, Contradição, Epistemologia, Lógica, Lógica da inconsistência formal, Lógica paraconsistente, Manuscrito (Ma), Negação, Paraconsistent Logic: Consistency/Contradiction and Negatio (T)

Vom System zum Gebrauch: Eine genetisch-philosophische Untersuchung des Grammatikbegriffs bei Wittgenstein – UFFELMANN (M)

1 de janeiro de 2018

UFFELMANN, Sarah Anna. Vom System zum Gebrauch: Eine genetisch-philosophische Untersuchung des Grammatikbegriffs bei Wittgenstein. Bergen: University of Bergen, 2016. Manuscrito, Campinas, v.41 no.1, Jan./Mar. 2018.

This work concentrates on the concept of grammar in Wittgenstein’s philosophy, mainly in the so-called transitional and later periods. This is a topic that has attracted the attention of various scholars in the last few decades, with the amount of secondary literature on the topic being significant. Uffelmann convincingly shows that she knows the relevant studies published in German and English, interestingly discussing throughout Vom System zum Gebrauch many different views. More important, however, is the knowledge demonstrated by the author of the Wittgenstein texts. As the title makes clear, Uffelmann does not limit her study to the publications edited from Wittgenstein’s Nachlass, such as Philosophical Remarks, Philosophical Grammar, The Blue and Brown Books or Philosophical Investigations, but she makes effective use of the Nachlass itself. In doing so, the status of grammar in Wittgenstein’s thought receives a decisive illumination, with Vom System zum Gebrauch contributing in an important way, with its “genetic-philosophical investigation”, to the clarification of many puzzling issues. To enter into Wittgenstein’s Nachlass is not an easy task, but the author has acquired all the learning needed to move herself in a profitable manner through an extraordinarily convoluted corpus. Yet, the work has the necessary balance between a genetic and a philosophical study, with the Nachlass being in the service of an elucidation of philosophical matters, in particular the transition from a system-like conception of meaning to one based on use.

The main claim of Vom System zum Gebrauch is that Wittgenstein’s conception of grammar underwent important changes in the different phases of his philosophizing. This view challenges those interpretations, such as that of Peter Hacker, that see the concept of grammar as remaining essentially the same from 1929 onwards. As Uffelmann recognizes, to interpret what Wittgenstein meant by grammar on an evolutionary basis is not absolutely innovative, with other authors having already proposed a similar reading (e.g. Mauro Engelmann). However, the work is original in tracing the concept of grammar from the time of the Tractatus until the writings on certainty and, above all, in providing empirical data, of philological kind, to support the claims made. This methodology allows Uffelmann to reject speculation in favour of evidence and this scientificity provided by philology is, in the domain of an author like Wittgenstein, with his intricate Nachlass, most welcome.

In the first chapter of Vom System zum Gebrauch, Uffelmann analyses the different uses of the word “grammar” and then introduces Wittgenstein’s peculiar usage. The starting-point is Moore’s criticism of the Wittgensteinian conception of grammar, with the author citing some hitherto unpublished notes from the Moore papers and relating these to the sources already available. There follows a valuable inventory of Wittgenstein’s employment of the term “Grammatik” in the Nachlass. Uffelmann distinguishes between “grammar in the general sense”, “grammar in the particular sense”, “grammar in another sense” and “derivatives from grammar”. It is very interesting to see, as the perspicuous tables of the work show (Sec. 1.6), that it is in the Big Typescript that the concept of grammar appears more often, with “grammar in the general sense” having more occurrences than “grammar in the particular sense”, something that is also the case in the 1929-30 remarks but not in Part I of the Investigations. Another interesting conclusion is that the word and its derivatives almost disappear in the last writings, where Wittgenstein prefers to use “logic”, something that has a parallel only in the 1929-30 remarks, though there “grammar” also appears copiously. Last but not least, the author also demonstrates that, in all sets analysed, “logic in the general sense” has a much more regular appearance than “logic in the particular sense”. Although Wittgenstein wrote the majority of his texts in German, the empirical data that could have been obtained from his texts in English, namely the Blue Book, with no counterpart in German, would have been an important addition to the study. In fact, Vom System zum Gebrauch does not examine this dictation in detail, one that, as recent work of Jonathan Smith has shown (²⁰¹³), Wittgenstein revised extensively.

After laying down the main arguments of Vom System zum Gebrauch, Uffelmann focuses, in the second chapter, on what Wittgenstein meant by “grammar”, in its relationship with “logic”, in the Tractarian corpus and the early post-1929 manuscripts. The examination of the concept of “grammar” as used at the time of the preparation of the Tractatus is short and even if Wittgenstein does not use it abundantly, his regular employment of the term “logic” should suffice to justify a more thorough analysis. It is in the criticism that the early Wittgenstein directs at both Frege and Russell that we find the roots for his innovative conception of “logical grammar” or “logical syntax”, as he makes clear in Tractatus 3.325. The author quotes the first paragraph of this proposition twice (p. 26, fn. 24, and p. 69), but not the parenthetical remark that constitutes the second paragraph, where Frege and Russell are named. On p. 69 Uffelmann reproduces in facsimile the proposition that in the Prototractatus corresponds to the first paragraph of 3.325, numbered 3.2015, but even there the second paragraph immediately follows the first, bearing the number 3.20151. Another important issue that could have been subjected to a deeper examination is Wittgenstein’s so-called phenomenological phase. Section 2.2 includes five pages on “phenomenology as grammar” and a couple of pages dedicated to the “colour-octahedron”, but what is at stake in the 1929 writings and the vast literature on the topic should deserve a central attention. The consequences of Wittgenstein’s rejection of a phenomenological language are considered in Section 2.3, where we find some pages about “grammar as ‘theory of logical types’”, with Russell being discussed. The fact that Wittgenstein talks in Tractatus 3.331-3.333 about Russell’s theory of types and that Tractatus 3.334 alludes to “rules of logical syntax” – with only 3.332 being referred to on p. 97, fn. 165 – confirms the significance of the Tractarian period for the understanding of the later views.

Chapter 3 concentrates on the Big Typescript and the Brown Book, more specifically what Alois Pichler has called the “Brown Book Complex”, which consists of Ts 310 (the English Brown Book), the second part of Ms 115, where we find Wittgenstein’s German version of that work under the title Philosophische Untersuchungen: Versuch einer Umarbeitung, plus Ms 141, which contains a preliminary version of the German text. The author begins with some elucidatory remarks about the singularity of Ts 213, distinguishing it, as Joachim Schulte has done, from the Big Typescript, with Wittgenstein’s revisions. This sub-section, “Erläuterungen zur Textgrundlage: Ts 213 und BT”, constitutes a remarkable overview of the problematic history behind the publication of this pivotal text, which involves the polemic edition of Philosophical Grammar. With the help of other perspicuous tables (Sec. 3.1), we can see that the concepts of both “grammar” and “logic” are recurrent in Wittgenstein’s reworking of the typed text, making the number of occurrences even larger. The discussion of “grammar as a pure calculus” and the introduction of “games and language games” is well conducted, with Uffelmann discussing relevant literature. The Brown Book and its twin texts are examined in Section 3.2 and the author begins again with elucidations on the textual basis, at this point Ts 310 and Ms 115ii. These, however, are much briefer than those on Ts 213 and BT. As recent work of Arthur Gibson has shown (²⁰¹⁰), Wittgenstein has also revised at length the English version of the Brown Book. Although we are still waiting for the publication of that version of the Brown Book, some words about it would have been fitting. In fact, as I myself have noted (^{Venturinha 2013}, p. 5), Wittgenstein tried, with the help of Moore, to publish the Brown Book in 1935. The absence of these references is however consistent with the little attention paid to the Blue Book, though I am of the opinion that these two English texts should have been decisively taken into account in Vom System zum Gebrauch. As a matter of fact. I have not found a single quotation from the Blue Book or Ts 309. It is true that we find in Section 3.2 a table containing appearances of the term “grammar” not only in the Big Typescript and the Philosophical Investigations, as Tab. 1 on p. 59 already documented, but also in the Brown Book and Ms 115ii. But we do not find such an analysis for the term “logic”, albeit there is a sub-section on Wittgenstein’s use of it in the “Brown Book corpus”.

The fourth and final chapter concentrates on the Philosophical Investigations and later manuscripts, namely those from which On Certainty was edited. As before, Section 4.1 contains important considerations on the text of Ts 227, which Uffelmann, following Alois Pichler, interprets as a “polyphonic album”. This interpretation is extraordinarily interesting but its tenets can only be fully accessed when it is confronted with opposing and related views, something that the work treats very quickly. The transition to the analysis of the later texts also deserves a note. In fact, there are important materials between the composition of Ts 227 and the 1949-51 remarks. For that reason, we need to take the examination of Mss 172-177 as a case-study, which is simply indicative of Wittgenstein’s views at that time. If it is true that these manuscripts were sources not only for On Certainty but also for Remarks on Colour and the second volume of the Last Writings on the Philosophy of Psychology, the fact is that there are many items in the Nachlass that could decisively contribute to the circumspection of the concept of “grammar”, in this period and before. The analysis of the other writings on the philosophy of psychology and of those on the philosophy of mathematics would certainly add important data to the investigation. As an exercise among many possible exercises, however, Vom System zum Gebrauch fulfils its aims of clarification. It isolates specific corpora and extracts important conclusions that can be tested against other textual sets. But given their interrelatedness, we would need the whole picture to draw definite conclusions.

I therefore look at the pathway described in this work concerning the evolution of the concept of grammar as an interesting suggestion, but there are aspects that still puzzle me. It is not obvious, for instance, that the phenomenological language envisaged in 1929 should be of a pure formal, symbolic nature, as is assumed in Vom System zum Gebrauch. If it is a fact that Wittgenstein still aims in his phenomenological phase (which includes “Some Remarks on Logical Form”) to implement a clear notation, capable of making clear the confusions of our natural language, we should not take that project, as for example Jaakko Hintikka took it to be, as closely related to that of the Tractatus. Yet the author refers, for example on both pp. 20 and 107, to “his [Wittgenstein’s] project of developing a phenomenological notation as a supplement to the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus” (sein Projekt, eine phänomenologische Notation als Ergänzung zur LpA zu entwickeln), characterizing this “notation” on the same pages as “logical-formal” (eine phänomenologische, und überhaupt jegliche logisch-formale Notation). The truth is that Wittgenstein continued to insist on the need, as he writes in the Blue Book, “to construct new notations, in order to break the spell of those which we are accustomed to” (¹⁹⁶⁹, p. 23). That these “notations” are not formal is something that becomes evident in the Investigations, where he writes that

If I were to reserve the word ‘pain’ solely for what I had previously called ‘my pain’, and others ‘L.W.’s pain’, I’d do other people no injustice, so long as a notation were provided in which the loss of the word ‘pain’ in other contexts were somehow made good (²⁰⁰⁹, §403).¹

And in §562 of the Investigations he asks: “But how can I decide what is an essential, and what an inessential, coincidental, feature of the notation? Is there some reality lying behind the notation, to which its grammar conforms?” Taking into account that Wittgenstein’s methodology in 1929 is, differently from that of the Tractatus, entirely descriptive of the workings of our language, it may be argued that the rejection of phenomenology at the end of that year in favour of grammar is mostly due to the recognition that a phenomenological description, though much broader than what the Tractarian operators could offer, is nevertheless secondary in relation to our ordinary language. And that is why Wittgenstein came to the conclusion as early as October 1929 that it is its grammar that must be investigated in first place since any phenomenological description will need a grammatical elucidation of the terms employed.

If we now take into consideration that many of the 1929 remarks made their way, via different typescripts, into the Big Typescript, it may also be argued that the conception of grammar there remains fundamentally unaltered. In contrast with what the work suggests, the autonomy of grammar defended by Wittgenstein can be seen as compatible with its application to reality if we realize, as Frege did, that the sense of our propositions, the possibility of forming a “thought”, is a precondition for the empirical verification of their truth or falsehood. Hence the coincidence of grammar and logic that Uffelmann recognizes to exist in the Big Typescript. The apparent incompatibility between the completeness and at the same time the incompleteness of grammar vindicated by Wittgenstein is explained by our difficulties in providing a full account of what it makes sense to say. No surprise that the Big Typescript and its revisions include a number of remarks on our understanding of poetry, in order to point out the fluidity of what is it like to understand a sentence, bearing in mind that some sentences cannot be subjected to verification.

The tensions we find in the Big Typescript will make room for a much more concrete analysis of language, one that, according to the author, is to be found for the first time in the 1934-35 Brown Book, but, as mentioned before, the 1933-34 Blue Book has also a key role in the appreciation of our “language games”. This is a notion that Wittgenstein introduces as early as 1932 and one can actually argue that this attention to the specific context in which we use our words does not mean, as Vom System zum Gebrauch interprets it, doing away with the idea of grammar as the “complete space of possibilities” (vollständiger Möglichkeitsraum), as mentioned on pp. 22 and 183. This can indeed be seen alongside Wittgenstein’s “conception of grammar as the description of language use” (Auffassung von Grammatik als Beschreibung des Sprachgebrauchs), as Uffelmann calls it on pp. 171 and 177, for any use that can be described will be part of that whole – it cannot be outside it. What happens is that all these uses are now seen as making part of logic, which is broadly understood as the possibility of forming thoughts translatable into reasonable actions. This actually responds to the puzzling circumstance of the Brown Book possessing no occurrences of “grammar in the general sense”, but only “in the particular sense”, whereas the Philosophical Investigations contains almost the same number of each of them, 14 in the first and 18 in the second sense, as Tab. 7 on p. 161 documents. If we were to be guided only by these empirical data, we would have to point to another shift in Wittgenstein’s notion of grammar. The author, however, does not want to do that and, rightly, defends that the Brown Book and the Philosophical Investigations have a view of grammar in common with each other. Her strategy is to interpret the instances of “grammar in the general sense” within the polyphonic method of contrasting positions, including those held by Wittgenstein in his previous writings. The polyphonic reading, as stressed, has enormous advantages over a traditional, theoretical reading. It responds much better to the therapeutic character of philosophy that Wittgenstein vindicates. But this does not mean that we cannot – and should not – look at, for example, §371 of the Investigations, in which we find that “Essence is expressed in grammar”, or at §373, where it is said that “Grammar tells what kind of object anything is”, in a positive way. Uffelmann is absolutely right in claiming throughout the work that Wittgenstein replaces a metaphysical way of looking at philosophy with an activity of grammatical elucidation. Yet, one may wonder whether a rejection of the systematicity of grammar, of its essentialism, is really possible. The multifarious language games analysed by Wittgenstein in his later philosophy belong all to the grammar of human reasoning or, as he also terms it, to the “natural history of human concepts” (¹⁹⁸⁰, §950). And if Wittgenstein is already well aware of the impossibility of providing a complete account of our language uses, the results of his descriptions, though not theoretical, in the common sense of the word, constitute more than simple possibilities of looking at things – they are actual possibilities and therefore belong to our systematic understanding of reality.

This leads me to the last point I wish to make. It concerns the prevalent use of “logic” in the later manuscripts. The author leans herself towards the opinion that the concept of “grammar”, which cannot be coincident with that of “logic”, undergoes a transformation again, in line, as noted on pp. 24, 201, 203 and 211, with the “extended concept of grammar” (erweiterte Grammatikbegriff) defended by Danièle Moyal-Sharrock, even if the thesis of a “third” Wittgenstein is not entirely subscribed to in Vom System zum Gebrauch. But if we do not accentuate the shifts in approach and terminology that naturally exist in Wittgenstein’s thought, we can see that grammar and logic go hand in hand all along the way, from the Tractatus to the very end, and that grammar was simply a mode he found to conceive of logic in a completely different way from what Frege and Russell did. The evolution of the concept of “grammar” is indeed the evolution of the concept of “logic” that comes to be regarded in the remarks on certainty in a quasi-psychologistic way.

In conclusion, there are claims in Vom System zum Gebrauch that can be challenged and the empirical data, though very useful, are not complete enough to solve all the questions that can be raised when this fascinating topic is approached. But Uffelmann defends her views quite effectively using a methodology that helps to situate the claims made beyond the space of mere hypotheses. We are thus in the presence of an excellent work, one that, no doubt, will prove to be of invaluable help to those concerned with Wittgenstein’s Nachlass and his conception of grammar.

References

GIBSON, A. “The Wittgenstein Archive of Francis Skinner”. In: VENTURINHA, N. (ed.), Wittgenstein After His Nachlass. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 64-77, 2010. [ Links ]

SMITH, J. “Wittgenstein’s Blue Book: Reading between the Lines”. In: VENTURINHA, N. (ed.), The Textual Genesis of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations New York: Routledge, pp. 37-51, 2013 hbk, 2016 pbk. [ Links ]

VENTURINHA, N. “Introduction: A Composite Work of Art”. In: VENTURINHA, N. (ed.), The Textual Genesis of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations. New York: Routledge, pp. 1-16, 2013 hbk, 2016 pbk. [ Links ]

WITTGENSTEIN, L. Preliminary Studies for the “Philosophical Investigations”: Generally known as The Blue and Brown Books. Second edition. Ed. by R. RHEES. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1969. [ Links ]

____________ Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology, Vol. 1. Ed. by G.E.M. Anscombe and G.H. von Wright. Transl. by G.E.M. Anscombe. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1980. [ Links ]

____________ Philosophical Investigations. Fourth edition. Ed. by P.M.S. Hacker and J. Schulte. Transl. by G.E.M. Anscombe, P.M.S. Hacker and J. Schulte. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. [ Links ]

Notas

¹All subsequent references to the Investigations are to this edition.

Nuno Venturinha – Nova University of Lisbon – FCSH, Department of Philosophy / IFILNOVA, Portugal. E-mail: nventurinha.ifl@fcsh.unl.pt

Acessar publicação original

Tags: Gramática, Linguagem fenomenológica, Lógica, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Manuscrito (Ma), UFFELMANN Sarah Anna (Aut), University of Bergen (E), VENTURINHA Nuno (Res), Vom System zum Gebrauch: Eine genetisch-philosophische Untersuchung des Grammatikbegriffs bei Wittgenstein (T)

Evolving Enactivism – Basic minds meet content – HUTTO; MYIN (M)

1 de janeiro de 2018

HUTTO, Daniel; MYIN, Erik. Evolving Enactivism – Basic minds meet content. [?]: MIT Press, 2017. xxvi + 328p. Resenha de: NASCIMENTO, Laura. Manuscrito, Campinas, v.41 n.1 Jan./Mar. 2018.

Hutto and Myin’s most recent work, Evolving Enactivism – Basic minds meet content (2017, MIT Press, xxvi + 328 p.), contains the development of the Radical Enactive (or Embodied) approach to cognition (henceforth REC), initially presented in their previous book Radicalizing Enactivism – Basic minds without content (²⁰¹³), where they laid out the basic framework for REC. REC aims to fully embrace the “E” (embodied, embedded and ecological) aspects that for an enactivist approach are fundamental to the adequate understanding of cognitive phenomena. For REC, cognitive phenomena amount to how an embodied and embedded organism which has an ontogenetic and phylogenetic history engages and interacts with the environment in specific ways. Nothing more (but also nothing less) than invoking these interactions, their history and their effects is needed in order to achieve comprehension of cognitive activities, be it, the jumping of an insect, the initial clumsy grabbing of a human baby or imagination and memory. More specifically, Hutto and Myin question the legitimacy and the necessity of relying on the closely related notions of representational content and contentful mental states in naturalistic explanations of cognition.

In mainstream cognitive science, cognition is usually taken to be formed by a series of processes that start with the retrieval of external information by the sensory organs and end in the overt behavior of the subject. In between, representations, which have as their content the information picked up by the senses, are created by brain processes. These contentful representational states can be multiply used: they can be stored, processed, manipulated and they interact with already existing content carrying representational vehicles to finally inform and cause the general actions of the subject. This mechanistic view on cognition, in which its parts, operations and organization are understood in terms of the informational processing of content-bearing states and their interactions, is firmly rejected by REC.

In REC’s view, the positing of mental representations and representational contents as the mechanistic components of cognition, besides not adding any explanatory value, also faces a fundamental problem: the Hard Problem of Content (henceforth HPC), an important challenge for explanatory naturalists. In general terms, for a representation to be contentful is for it “to take (‘represent’; ‘claim’; ‘say’; ‘assert’) things to be a certain way such that they might not be so” (p. 10), that is, representations have specified conditions of satisfaction. The HPC amounts to explaining how a mental state can semantically represent something, that is, how mental states acquire their contents without violating any naturalistic constraints. The problem arises whenever content is presupposed to be “literally ‘extracted’ and ‘picked up’ from the environment as to be ‘encoded’ within minds” (p. 30), as a sort of abstract commodity that can be traded in and out from organisms (p. 31). According to Hutto and Myin, the challenge posed by the HPC has not been successfully met: the available notions of content are either too weak to account for the semantic properties representations are supposed to play in cognition, or too strong to meet the constraints of naturalistic explanation. Hutto and Myin claim that “we lack any respectable scientific account of how to understand the idea that cognition is literally a matter of trafficking in such informational contents” (p. 31). As the matter stands, it is indeed possible that the fundamental cornerstones of Cognitive Science are in fact unwarranted theoretical posits.

In addition to the exposition of their substantial doubts about the assumptions that underlie much of the mainstream research on cognition, Hutto and Myin also argue that it is perfectly possible to explain cognition without relying on mental content and mental representation, and in their books they offer reasons to be confident about REC’s explanatory potential. REC claims that many of the cognitive actions which organisms perform do not depend on the employment of contentful representations. Saying that organisms do not rely on contentful representations when engaging in cognitive activity, however, does not amount to saying that organisms are not directed to the world: they do interact with the world, and respond to its offerings, but not in the contentful ways associated with semantic properties as exhibited, for example, by linguistic judgments.

Hutto and Myin propose a “duplex account” of cognition which allows for the existence of, but insists on the difference between, contentless but nevertheless world-targeting-cognition and content-involving cognition. The first kind of basic capacities “can be extremely flexible, open-ended and content-sensitive” but should not be considered as rudimentary or “low-graded forms of cognition” (p. 89); they merely come first in the ontogenetic and phylogenetic development of the organism. Basic cognition, then, encompasses some of the central forms of human cognition both in children and adults, such as perceiving, imagining and remembering (p. 90). Content-involving cognition, by contrast, is “a special achievement” (p. 90), and only appears through the mastery of certain socio-cultural practices. By distinguishing between cognition which does and does not involve content, Hutto and Myin emphasize the fundamental difference that there is “between responding to and keeping track of covariant information and making contentful claims and judgments that can be correct or incorrect” (p. x). Thus, one of the tasks REC sets itself concerns explaining how dynamic and non-linear couplings between organisms and their environments can give rise to content-involving cognition, as the book’s title suggests.

The first chapters set the scene, and recover some of the arguments presented in the previous book. Chapter 1 makes explicit where REC is positioned within the theoretical landscape, by taking a critical stance on the nature and the role played by representational content in cognition. The strength of the commitment to representation and content can vary: from claiming that all kinds of cognitive capacities depend necessarily on contentful representations which are always neural and brain-bounded (what they call ‘unrestricted-CIC’) to more embodied varieties, in which some of the representational states are embodied and not only brain-bound, and/or possess bodily content (being, thus, conservative enactive approaches to cognition, or ‘CEC’). REC’s claim, in its turn, is that not all kinds of cognitive phenomena necessarily employ internal contentful representations.

In the chapters that follow, Hutto and Myin discuss other existing research programs and lines of thinking, such as Kandel’s (2001) empirical research (chapter 2), Predictive Coding (chapter 3) and Auto-poietic Adaptive Enactivism and Ecological Dynamics (chapter 4). Hutto and Myin argue that, after stripping these various approaches of their commitments to the notions of representation and content, such approaches are, at least in principle, compatible with the REC framework. With the same aim, a similar process of “RECtification” is then applied to the philosophical doctrine of Teleosemantics (chapter 5), in order to account for the notion of Ur-Intentionality.

Ur-Intentionality, the main theme of Chapter 5, is explored through questioning current takes on the Brentanian notion of intentionality. Hutto and Myin point out that the notion of intentionality that has been assumed in existing attempts aimed at its naturalization is too narrowly-focused, since it is very often only concerned with one single kind of intentionality, namely the content-involving one exhibited paradigmatically by propositional attitudes and linguistic judgments, but also by states with nonconceptual content. To account for the diversity of cognitive phenomena, Hutto and Myin insist that a more nuanced approach to intentionality is necessary. Ur-intentionality consists in the relation to the world that basic cognitive capacities exhibit: “it is possible to think of the most primitive form of intentionality (…) in non-contenful, non-representational ways while still allowing that such intentionality exhibits a trademark property of the intentional – that of being an attitude directed towards an object” (p. 95). Ur-intentionality, then, is explained by appeal to the result of the RECtification of Teleosemantics, Teleosemiotics. Original Teleosemantics defines mental contents according to the biological proper functions selected by evolutionary processes. However, mental content defined only by its evolutionary function is not adequate to account for intensionality, since it does not allow for the individuation of the intensions (with an “s”) of the purported representational vehicles (a worry already raised by ^{Fodor (1990}), when he argues that teleological accounts of content are not able to provide a solution to the disjunction problem). Consequently, Teleosemantics does not provide an appropriate explanation of the semantic properties of contentful representations. However, it can offer something else. Teleosemiotics (the RECtified Teleosemantics) aims not to provide a “robust semantic theory of content” (p. 154) but rather an account of the systematic relations that bear between the organism and the environmental features that affect it. Such systematic relations also incorporate phylogenetic traits, selected through the species’ biological history, and ontogenetic traits, developed in the individual history of the subject (pp. 117-118). Those elements account for the normative dimension that REC attributes to contentless behavior.

Chapter 6 explains why REC is not defeated by its own criticisms to the tradition, that is, why it does not fall prey to HPC and how suggesting a “duplex account” does not lead to a “saltationist view”, that is, a view that implies evolutionary discontinuity. Some critics claim that the HPC applies to REC as well, since REC is not an eliminativist or nihilist view on content and in fact acknowledges the existence of content-involving cognitive capacities that arrive on the scene later than basic ones. A similar issue lies at the origin of the “saltationist” criticism: how to understand the arising of content in cognition, without presupposing there to be a naturalistically illegitimate leap from the contentless activities to the content-involving ones? REC’s answer to these criticisms depends on the “relaxed naturalism” that it proposes. According to REC, resources such as Cognitive Archaeology, Anthropology and Developmental Psychology, for example, are as scientifically respectable as more restricted ones, such as Neuroscience or Physics. Hence, the kind of content that REC allows into its naturalistic picture arises from the “development, maintenance and stabilization of practices involving the use of public artifacts through which the biologically inherited cognitive capacities can be scaffolded in very particular ways” (p. 145). It is a complex story to tell but, according to REC, there are no fundamental obstacles that exclude it of being told. This is the aim of the second part of the book: to show how REC can be satisfactorily applied to particular cases. Hutto and Myin provide “naturalistically relaxed” considerations on how to properly describe perceiving (chapter 7), imagining (chapter 8) and remembering (chapter 9). They offer a positive account for such phenomena, dismissing some common presuppositions that they take to prevent a more adequate understanding of them. To exemplify, let us briefly consider REC’s account on memory, a phenomenon that is widely supposed to always require contentful representations to be stored and reused later.

First of all, REC emphasizes that memory cannot be accounted for by a single and general explanation, for it is constituted by different processes and functions. So, it is not the case that memory’s only (or even main) function is to reproduce the past accurately. REC acknowledges roughly three distinguishable types of capacities in a “memory spectrum”: non-declarative, declarative and amalgamated kinds of memory. Procedural memory is a non-declarative type of memory that is “purely embodied and enactive” (p. 203), that is, contentless, even if it implies sensitivity to particulars of individual places or things. Remembering how to execute a task in ways sensitive to the specific context at hand does “not require representing any specific past happening or happenings, and specially not representing these as past happenings” (p. 205). This can be considered the most ubiquitous type of memory, shared by humans and other animals alike, and, it is important to emphasize, it is not the exercise of a blind habit (p. 204). REC’s take on it can be made more specific: non-declarative memory is contentless, for it does not require anything more “than reinitiating a familiar pattern of prompted response, albeit with adjustments that are dynamically sensitive to changes in circumstance and context” (p. 205). On the other side of the spectrum lies a completely different kind of memory which “absolutely requires contentful representation” (p. 205), namely the declarative types of memory. Autobiographical declarative memory involves contentful representation to enable the description of past experiences. Drawing on research in Developmental Psychology, more specifically from a strong interpretation of Social Interactionist Theory (SIT), REC claims that autobiographical memory “requires the development and exercise of socioculturally acquired narrative capacities” (p. 207). REC’s point is that before this kind of special sociocultural interactive practice is mastered, which is accomplished through involvement with social artifacts such as narratives, children cannot make contentful autobiographical judgments. Unlike weak versions of SIT, which are compatible with unrestricted representationalist views on memory, REC holds that it is not the case that the development of full-scale autobiographical memory is a matter of the enhancement or improvement of a more primitive form of an autobiographical memory skill that is already present before involvement with social narratives. Rather, narrative practices are precisely what make autobiographical memory possible. Other functions are developed through narratives as well: the sense of self, that is, “what it is to be a person with a temporally extended existence” (pp. 210-211) and the establishment of social cohesion, not only within smaller groups, such as families, but also in larger societal groups (p. 212). In sum, for REC, memory consists in a variety of capacities, some of which involve representing the past. However, by being dependent on the engagement with sociocultural practices and artifacts, some memory capacities are not a matter of “built-in talent but an achieved skill” (p. 239).

Finally, the epilogue further explores the persistent attachment to the notion of representation in theorizing about Neurodynamics. Hutto and Myin analyze representational talk as it is employed in Neuroscience. They argue that the properties attributed by neuroscientists to neural patterns are not necessarily incompatible with REC, even though they are very often called “representational”. However, this then raises the question: what is the brain’s task, if it is not to represent, or to host representations? In REC’s view, it is to enable organismic contentless connections with worldly features, allowing for cognitive phenomena to unfold. Contrary to what is assumed in influential views, it is thus not necessary for brain cells or cell assemblies to contentfully represent the world in order to influence and allow for cognitive behavior. As such, while it is Neuroscience’s task to determine what are the causes of cognitive activity, REC claims that contentful neural episodes need not figure among those causes.

Throughout the book, Hutto and Myin urge for serious consideration of Enactivism, especially their radical version. Enactivism has received a significant amount of attention recently, which includes a variety of criticisms. For example, enactivist claims are sometimes criticized for being vague and/or trivial. Other times, it is claimed that enactivist approaches are only appropriate for more practical activities, that is, those activities that involve the body and environment in obvious ways, but not for more “sophisticated” higher cognitive activities. In the specific case of REC, it has been argued that it is a purely negative approach, and that it does not provide any positive considerations. It is safe to say that Hutto and Myin’s book successfully addresses the aforementioned criticisms: not only do they make clear what REC’s commitments are, they also show that it is possible for REC to account for diverse cognitive phenomena. Moreover, if REC is true, then it is not a trivial matter. Abandoning the main tenets of Cognitive Science, that is, the assumption that cognition is necessarily dependent on the notions of content and representation, as REC proposes, fundamentally transforms the pressing issues concerning cognition. In that sense, REC can be considered as having a truly revolutionary character.

Hutto and Myin’s philosophically and empirically informed analysis shows that they are well aware that an adequate understanding of cognition depends not only on more experimental data but also involves philosophical and highly theoretical matters. It is of great importance to be clear not only about the empirical adequacy of theories, but also about the assumptions that underlie and motivate these theories. Of course, whether REC is successful in fulfilling its aim of providing a thoroughly naturalistic account for cognition is a matter that demands further investigation, but Evolving Enactivism shows that there are good reasons to consider REC a promising framework from which an enactive cognitive science can proceed (and evolve). Many issues – language, mathematics, consciousness, to name a few – still deserve a to be reconsidered thoroughly in a RECish, pragmatic framework. Nevertheless, the second part of the book, on notoriously difficult issues such as perception, imagination and memory, demonstrate that the prospects look good. As Hutto and Myin repeatedly state, REC cannot be dismissed just because of traditional and cherished assumptions. REC’s radicalism is thus not gratuitous. It is instead a well-motivated and powerful answer to the sorts of explanatory stalemates and difficulties that cognitive science has struggled but so far failed to solve.

References

FODOR, J. A theory of content and other essays. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press., 1990. [ Links ]

HUTTO, D.; MYIN, E. Radicalizing Enactivism – basic minds without content. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2013. [ Links ]

Laura Nascimento – University of Campinas, Department of Philosophy, Campinas, SP , Brazil, lauranasciment@gmail.com. University of Antwerp, Centre for Philosophical Psychology, Antwerp, Belgium.

Acessar publicação original

Tags: Cognição, Enactivism, Evolving Enactivism - Basic minds meet content (T), HUTTO Daniel (Aut), Intetncionalidade, Manuscrito (Ma), MIT Press (E), MYIN Erik (Aut), NASCIMENTO Laura (Res), Naturalismo

Frege und die kontinentalen Ursprünge der analytischen Philosophie – GOTTRIED; SCHLOTTER (M)

1 de janeiro de 2018

GOTTFRIED, Gabriel; SCHLOTTER, Sven. Frege und die kontinentalen Ursprünge der analytischen Philosophie. Münster: Mentis, 2017. 251p. Resenha de: PORTA, Mario. Manuscrito, Campinas, v.41 n.1 Jan./Mar. 2018.

1. INTRODUCTION

The purpose of Frege und die kontinentalen Ursprünge der analytischen Philosophie (Frege and the continental sources of Analytic philosophy) by Gottfried Gabriel and Sven Schlotter is to fill an interpretative gap in the clarification of Frege’s ties with his time (p. 1). Performing this task is not merely of historical interest, but is an indispensable element for an adequate systematic understanding of Frege’s thought (p. 10). Ignorance of the context is the basis of the standard view, instilled by Dummett, which views Frege as a philosopher of language. In this sense, the principal result of Gabriel and Schlotter’s investigation is to change this image of Frege by showing that his interest was principally epistemological, and that from there, his thought consequently necessarily developed into logic and philosophy of language. It is, then, a matter of demonstrating Frege’s ties with his philosophical-historical setting and of doing so, not in some generic way, but by documenting the unequivocally made assertions by means of concrete quotations.

Gabriel and Schlotter’s work, however, extends beyond the limits of a reinterpretation of Frege’s ideas on a historical-philosophical basis to present itself as a paradigm of a new way of considering the relationship between Analytic and Continental philosophy which, instead of emphasizing an absolute break between the two, stresses the continuity of the former with respect to the latter and, in so doing, the continental roots of Analytic philosophy (p. 10, p. 13). In this sense, their book about Frege must be seen as part of a far-reaching movement which extended to Wittgenstein and Carnap.

A. Exposition¹

2. The continental roots of Fregean logic

Gabriel and Schlotter underscore the connections between Fregean logic and traditional logic, demonstrating that there has been a steady evolution in Germany since Kant’s time (p. 10) and punctiliously laying bare the sources of certain fundamental Fregean ideas (p. 66ff.).

One of the main questions about logic which has arisen since Kant’s time due to Hegel’s having expounded on it is whether this discipline is merely formal, or whether it is material (and, possibly, metaphysical) in nature. Regarding this question, a controversy referred to as “the logical question” (“die logische Frage”), in which a good number of XIXth century German logicians took part, arose between Trendelenburg and Herbart. This controversy would prove decisive for the Fregean idea of logic, which displays evidence of strong Trendelenburgian inspiration and leans toward a material conception of logic (even if Frege did not on account of this subscribe to the thesis of the partial or total identity of logic and metaphysics). Logic was not, then, for Frege, merely “formal,” but had its own content, dealing with specific objects. Without this, there would be no possibility of “logicism” (p. 95).

Other relevant areas in which Fregean conceptions take up, or are inspired by, ideas present in the German logicians of the XIXth century, are:

a. the idea of a Begriffschrift (which had originated Leibniz’ work and came to Frege via Trendelenburg; pp. 29ff.);
b. aspects of the intensional conception of the concept as function and, especially, an organic model of the formation of concepts and of logic itself as a whole (Trendelenburg; p. 34);
c. the relationship between logic and arithmetic (Lotze; pp. 37f.);
d. the existential interpretation of the forms of Aristotelian judgment, which derived from criticism of the square of opposition of traditional immediate inferences (Herbart, Sigwart; pp. 58ff., 61);
e. the discussion of the Kantian classification of judgments, including the problem of its completeness, of the adequacy of its subdivisions and the homogeneity of the criteria of classification (p. 7). The result would be a new arrangement of the forms of judgment based on a clear distinction between the act of judging and the content judged (Herbart). Placing the quality before the other forms leads to the thesis that the distinction between affirmation and negation is the only one essential for the judgment as such, given that all the others are linked to the content (Herbart, Brentano, Bergmann, Windelband). Frege continued along these lines but reduced affirmation and negation to a single act, recognition (Anerkennung), referring the latter to the content. All the other forms of judgment are interpreted by Frege as forms of content, not of act;
f. the first steps taken towards questioning the properly logical nature of the subject-predicate structure (Lotze, Sigwart) which, nevertheless, would consequently be developed by Frege alone (p. 77f.);
g. the reference of particular judgments to existential judgments and the linking of the latter to numerical attributions (Herbart; p. 64);
h. the epistemological interpretation of the modalities of judgments (pp. 80, 89).

3. Philosophy of language

Frege took up the tradition of philosophy of language which already existed in Germany and dated back to Herder (pp. 130ff.), the points of contact with Lotze’s and Liebmann’s ideas, which coincide in places, including in the terminology used, being of particular relevance (p. 137).

If Gabriel and Schlotter’s main line of interpretation consists of bringing out the centrality of the theses relative to philosophy of language, showing its dependence on epistemological questions, then this is manifested paradigmatically in two points:

i. Frege recognized the existence of thinking that could not be reduced to language and emphasized the need of categorial clarification in philosophy, which imply a fight against language taking place within language itself (p. 130);
j. Frege’s most important contribution to the philosophy of language, namely, the distinction between sense and reference, is nothing but a semantic reformulation of an epistemic thesis, whose origins are found in the tradition of Leibnizian perspectivism which came to Frege via Lotze (p. 145). Already in Lotze as well, the distinction between sense and reference is linked to the finding that, while being formally synthetic, arithmetical statements possess identical content. What for Lotze was a point of departure turned into Frege’s ultimate objective, in other words, the grounding of the cognitive value of such statements (p. 141). But not only in Lotze, but also in Sigwart, do Gabriel and Schlotter detect preparatory stages of Frege’s distinction between sense and reference based on considerations about the different forms of cognitive access to the same object or on the cognitive value of identity judgments as recognition of what is the same in what is different (p. 143).

4. Theory of knowledge

4.1 The concept of truth as value

The concept of value in the Fregean term “truth-value,” generally interpreted as being analogous to the mathematical concept of the value of a function, must be understood in a fully axiological sense (p. 160). Frege himself referred to the relation existing between truth as value and ethical and esthetic values.

Frege’s treatment of the subject of truth coincides in obvious ways with the ideas of the members of the Baden school, something which is not only expressed in a negative way in the criticism of the correspondence theory of truth, but also in a positive way in the value-theoretical conception of truth inherited from Lotze in which the notion of recognition (Anerkennung) plays a fundamental role). Truth, Windelband told us, is what is recognized in judgments, and judgments what the truth recognizes (p.159). Having said that, the concept of recognition (Anerkennung), refers linguistically to a normative idea of value: values are objects of recognition. As in Windelband, Frege’s theory of recognition of truth in judgments (Anerkennungstheorie) involves two phases, the separation between assertive force and the judgeable propositional content, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, an affirmation of this content which must be understood in a value-theoretical sense as the attribution of a truth-value (p. 165).

4.2. The transcendental-pragmatic grounding of our acceptance of logical laws. The epistemological status of logical laws.

Frege accepted different modes of justification, proof or logic demonstration (Beweis) and grounding (Begründung), the former being a matter for logic, the latter for theory of knowledge. The main point of this distinction is that Frege accepted modes of justification which are not strictly speaking logical. Without them, we could not, strictly speaking, talk of a grounding of the logicist thesis in Frege.

At first, it may have seemed that in Frege the basic logical laws, which obviously cannot be deduced without circularity, or are not justifiable in any way, or can only refer back to their own self-evidence (something which is at odds with his thesis of the relativity of the axioms). There is, however, another way of justifying basic logical laws, which certainly does not account for their inherent necessity, but rather of our need to recognize them as such (pp. 116-117). This mode of justification, which Gabriel and Schlotter call “transcendental-pragmatic”, is clearly parallel to that developed by Windelband (pp. 106-107). Indeed, Frege and Windelband coincide both in their assumptions (distinction between proof and grounding) and in what is proved (our recognition), and in the (essentially “teleological”) mode of proof (pp. 106-107).

With the distinction between proof and grounding, the analytic-synthetic and a priori – a posteriori distinctions and, on the basis of this, the differences between geometry and arithmetic enter in. It is interesting how Gabriel and Schlotter show how Frege’s position draws near that of Liebmann when it comes to geometry (p. 96).

4.3. Transcendental Platonism

While Frege and neo-Kantianism share what we might call a transcendental-pragmatic grounding of logical laws, both also share, and as something encompassing it, a basic epistemological position which Gabriel and Schlotter call “transcendental Platonism.” Transcendental Platonism stands in contrast to ontological Platonism (which asserts the being-in-themselves of transcendental objects or entities in another realm different from the empirical realm) in order to – taking up again Lotze’s interpretation of the Platonic theory of Ideas, according to which they do not exist, but are valid – apply the notion of validity (Geltung) to the determination to the transcendental mode of existence (p. 195).

With respect to Windelband, but in theory valid in a generic way for neo-Kantianism as a whole, Gabriel and Schlotter cite texts in support of their thesis asserting that the transcendental principles which present themselves to us as duties (Sollen) are based on validity-in-itself (p. 303).² The validity-in-itself of a proposition is the basis of our taking it as true (Fürwahrhalten) not, on the contrary, our taking it as true the basis of its validity (p. 306).

However, while in order to prove that Windelband’s Platonism is not ontological but transcendental, Gabriel and Schlotter appeal to those texts in which the founder of the Baden School, in one way or another, refer to Lotze’s thesis that values do not exist, but are valid, in order to prove the same thesis with respect to Frege, they appeal to texts in which Frege referred to the objectivity of numbers, not to a being-in-itself independent of knowledge, but to reason (Vernunft) as a faculty of knowledge (Erkenntnisvermögen) (p. 172) and/or to the “existence of intersubjective cognitive units” (p. 165).

5. Frege’s interest in metaphysics

Gabriel and Schlotter assert that Frege’s logicist project is fundamentally metaphysically motivated (pp. 167, 172). However, the term ‘metaphysical’ already has two meanings in Kant, namely, as a synonym for a priori knowledge of reason and as a synonym for a priori knowledge of transcendental objects. This gives Gabriel and Schlotter’s thesis two possible meanings, since the difficulties in grounding it in each one of them are clearly different. With respect to the first meaning, it is clear that, to the extent that Frege admits informative analytic knowledge or the possibility of a priori access to non-empirical objects, for him, mathematics arrives at a type of knowledge that Kant considered impossible in metaphysics (pp. 174-175. Cfe. Frege: GA, § 89). With respect to the second meaning, however, there is really nothing obvious about Gabriel and Schlotter’s thesis. Precisely for that reason, it is of interest to pay particular attention to their argumentation, which turns on demonstrating, on the one hand, that Frege explicitly placed his logicist program within the framework of opposing worldviews and, on the other hand, that he observed that deciding between them essentially had to go by way of treating the problem of infinity in mathematics, being radically at odds Cantor in the matter (p. 189. Cfe. Frege: NS, p. 272).

It is important to note that the 1915 text in question shows that the metaphysical needs, that initially tried to be satisfied by the logicist program of numbers as objects of reason, was now oriented in another direction, but remained. One of the basic motivations behind the grounding of arithmetic in geometry was in the fact that infinity could be recognized in the strict sense.

6. CONSIDERATION OF THE FINAL STAGE OF FREGE’S THOUGHT

Gabriel and Schlotter’s consideration of Frege’s interest in metaphysics is an example of their tendency to call attention to the existence in Frege’s thought of permanent convictions which survive the failure of his logicist program and later assume a new form. As a second element along these lines, it is worth mentioning Frege’s opposition to formalism and his conviction that numbers are objects, which is also at the basis of his project to ground arithmetic in geometry. The turn to geometry seeks, then, to secure the idea of numbers as objects no less that the thesis of infinity does.

Along the same lines, Gabriel and Schlotter’s observation points to the fact that in the final stage of Frege’s thought, his ties with neo-Kantianism grew stronger, his actual interaction with it being documentable, on the one hand, as well as a significant reception by neo-Kantians, on the other. Meriting special attention among such interactions is the relationship of Frege’s term and concept of “third realm” (drittes Reich) with its neo-Kantian context, with Simmel and Münch and Hirzel especially (p. 187), as well as the documented disagreement with Bauch as the background for Frege’s essay “Negation.”

B. CRITICAL DISCUSSION

In disagreement to what is usually the case among many Analytic philosophers, I recognize the value of Gabriel and Schlotter’s perspective and the relevance of their endeavor. I believe it necessary, however, to make some points with respect to what they have achieved in the hoping in the final analysis but to contribute to it.

Even though Gabriel and Schlotter have made a substantial contribution to reconstructing the context of Frege’s thought and his actual interactions (furthering investigation into the subject significantly beyond Hans Sluga’s work), this perspective is far from having been exhausted, for they not only leave out of consideration some authors expressly cited by Frege himself (such as, for ex., Grassman and Fischer), but by focusing one-sidedly on Frege’s relationship to the neo-Kantianism of Baden, they almost totally overlook Frege’s relationship with Brentano’s school (Stumpf, Marty, Kerry, Husserl) which, however, constitutes another basic element for reconstructing Frege’s philosophical horizon overall, since it is no less a matter of that other major school of the time.

The reference to a certain one-sidedness in the choice of the sources considered warns us about something else, namely that, although Gabriel and Schlotter have shown important and interesting areas of contact between Frege and neo-Kantianism, they do not take into consideration at the same time and with equal emphasis the differences between the two, something which, if actually done would certainly provide a more nuanced view. From this perspective, the following aspects seem to me to be relevant:

Certainly the rejection of any ontological or ontologizing interpretation is present both in Lotze’s Platonism and in that of the neo-Kantians. However, the mere ontological Platonism – transcendental Platonism alternative does not account here for the possible variants and conceals decisive differences. This situation ends up being extremely compromising when it comes to Frege. Even though he may not have been an ontological Platonist that does not mean that he was then a transcendental Platonist.
Regarding Fregean abstract objects, both extensional and intensional, Gabriel and Schlotter time and again find that there is an ontologizing tendency in Frege which is foreign to the neo-Kantians. But, is not this precisely the sign that Fregean Platonism is not transcendental?
The same question can ultimately be considered from another point of view. How is one to reconcile Frege’s metaphysical motivations in the two senses mentioned with a consistently neo-Kantian standpoint? For a neo-Kantian there can neither be abstract objects, nor a priori knowledge of abstract objects, yet the transcendental method requires that the only knowledge a priori possible be knowledge of the conditions of possibility of empirical knowledge.
But, it will be said: Have not Gabriel and Schlotter proved the existence of a transcendental-pragmatic grounding of logic as much in Frege as in neo-Kantianism? I do not want to deny this, but rather call attention to the fact that Windelband’s logic is transcendental logic too, while that of Frege is only general logic (even when certainly non-formal). More concretely, while the transcendental grounding in Windelband is paradigmatically oriented toward the principle of causality, in Frege it is oriented toward the principle of identity.
Elaborating therefore on the differences between Frege and the neo-Kantians indicated, one finds that, far from totally ignoring them, Gabriel and Schlotter in a certain way take them into consideration and, in such cases, tend to favor neo-Kantianism, so that ultimately they end up offering us not a neo-Kantian Frege strictly speaking, but actually a Frege improved, corrected through the lenses of neo-Kantianism.
Presented with such a situation, it seems to me opportune to call attention to the possibility of a different perspective, which does not understand Frege in terms of neo-Kantianism but, in a certain sense and in, so to speak, a schematic way, neo-Kantianism through Frege. An impartial interpretation of the relationship between Frege and neo-Kantianism must ultimately account for the fact that Analytic philosophy developed out of the former and not out of the latter and that, overall, it brought the emergence of a paradigm that also contributed to the decline of neo-Kantianism. The decisive difference between Frege and neo-Kantianism seems to me to be rooted in the fact that the reflection of the latter exclusively takes its orientation from the concept of validity (Geltung), while the former introduces the fundamental distinction between sense and truth-value, which is completely absent in the neo-Kantian scheme of things. With this, the problem of objectivity splits into two clearly different questions, that about the objectivity of the truth-value and that about the objectivity of sense (being that each one of them is, in turn, subject to a noetic variant and noematic variant). One sign of the pertinence of what has been said is the characteristic difference between the two of them in the fight against psychologism which, while being almost exclusively epistemological (and, in general, axiological), in the neo-Kantians, is also essentially semantic in Frege (and later in Husserl). The very material brought up by Gabriel and Schlotter concerning Bauch as Frege’s interlocutor in “Negation” confirms this idea. They rightly find that there are two fundamental areas of disagreement between Bauch and Frege: the existence or not of false thoughts and the status of negation. Fine, I submit that these two differences are not unconnected and refer to an even more fundamental one, namely, the presence in Frege’s thought and the absence in Bauch’s of a clear distinction between sense and truth-value. Precisely because of this, Bauch is obliged to say that, being worthless, false thoughts have no existence in-themselves, but solely exist in the subject thinking them³. This difference between Frege and Bauch, is a difference that can already be traced back to Windelband, for whom, even when values-in-themselves certainly exist, nothing suggests that he also admitted an existence in-itself of anything similar to a Fregean thought (Gedanke)⁴. In Windelband, truth-bearers seem to be simply connections of representations (Vorstellungsverbindungen) (NN, p. 74).
We already observe that there is an important difference in the way in which Gabriel and Schlotter prove that Frege’s basic epistemological position can be characterized as transcendental Platonism. For a neo-Kantian like Windelband, the concept of validity (Geltung) is an ultimate concept not definable subsequently and possesses a supra-objective character and a supra-subjective character in equal measure since it is the basis of the subject-object distinction itself. Gabriel and Schlotter, however, assimilate validity in Frege to reason (Vernunft) and reason, in turn, to intersubjectivity. With this, they seem to have been remaining faithful, more so than is desirable or necessary, to an interpretation along the lines of Sluga’s, which is conducted within the distinction between transcendental idealism and Platonic idealism and which, on the one hand, links transcendental idealism to validity, on the other, however, continues to think that the notion of a “transcendental subject” is in some way essential to such idealism. This, however, which can rightly be maintained with respect to variants of transcendental idealism from Kant to Husserl, via Fichte, does not rightly hold for neo-Kantianism.

To conclude, let me say that, in spite of some possible improvements of the kind I have noted, Gabriel and Schlotter’s investigation unquestionably constitutes an indispensable frame of reference for the subjects it treats, and any subsequent study of them must take it into account and will only be of real value if argued on the basis of it.

References

FREGE, GOTTLOB. Die Grundlagen der Arithmetik. Eine logisch mathematische Untersuchung über den Begriff der Zahl. Hamburg: Meiner, 1988. (GA) [ Links ]

______ Nachgelassene Schriften. Unter Mitwirkung von Gottfried Gabriel und Walburg Rödding, ed. by Hans Hermes, Friedrich Kambartel and Friedrich Kaulbach. Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 1969. (NS) [ Links ]

LOTZE, HERMANN. Grundzüge der Religionsphilosophie. 2nd ed. Leipzig: Verlag von S. Hirzel, 1889. (GRel) [ Links ]

WINDELBAND, WILHELM. Die Prinzipien der Logik. In: Windelband, Wilhelm and Ruge, A. (eds.) Encyclopädie der philsophischen Wissenschaften. Tübingen 1912. Vol. 1. pp. 1-60 (PL) [ Links ]

______ Normen und Naturgesetze. In Windelband, Wilhelm. Präludien. Aufsätze und Reden zur Philosophie und ihrer Geschichte. Vol. 2. Tübingen, 1884. 9th ed. 1924. II, pp. 59-98 (NN) [ Links ]

Notas

¹In my exposition, I have slightly changed the order of Gabriel and Schlotter’s text dealing with the philosophy of language as a continuation of logic and before to theory of knowledge. In it, Chapters 1 and 2 deal with logic, whereas Chapters 3, 5, 6 deal with theory of knowledge and inserted in between the two is Chapter 4, which deals with philosophy of language. Chapter 8, finally, deals with the final stage of Frege’s thought.

²Indeed, Frege made a similar distinction in differentiating between the two meanings of the term ‘law.’

³“Der falsche Satz 3 + 2 = 6 hat gewiss eine Wirklichkeit jedesmal, wenn er von einem denkenden Subjekt gedacht oder ausgesprochen wird. Aber unabhängig von seinem wirklichen gedacht oder ausgesprochen werden hat er keinen Bestand, wie ihn die Gleichung 3 + 2 = 5 durch ihre Geltung hat.” Bauch: Wahrheit und Richtigkeit, p. 47 (emphasis added).

⁴The case of Rickert from 1907 on merits special consideration, not having to overlook his discussion with Lask, influenced by Husserl.

Mario Porta – Pontificia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, Department of Philosophy, São Paulo, SP, Brazil, mariopor@pucsp.br

Acessar publicação original

Tags: Filosofia, Frege und die kontinentalen Ursprünge der analytischen Philosophie (T), Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege, GOTTFRIED Gabriel (Aut), Manuscrito (Ma), Mentis (E), Neo-kantismo, PORTA Mario (Res), SCHLOTTER Sven (Aut)

Aristotle on Knowledge and Learning: The Posterior Analytics – BRONSTEIN (M)

1 de outubro de 2017

BRONSTEIN, David. Aristotle on Knowledge and Learning: The Posterior Analytics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. xiii-272p. Resenha de ZUPPOLINI, Breno Andrade. Manuscrito, Campinas, v.40 n.4 Oct./Dec. 2017.

David Bronstein’s outstanding book is one of the greatest contributions to the study of Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics (hereafter, APo) of the last years. All of his claims are carefully argued in admirably clear prose. The book is original in many ways, but its main achievement is an illuminating reconstruction of Aristotle’s account of learning. Bronstein argues that we can get a better understanding of this account if we frame it as a reaction to Meno’s Paradox (Meno 80e 1-5). According to the Paradox, for any x, either we know x or we do not know it. In either case, we cannot search for x: if we do not know x, we cannot even identify the object of our investigation; if we already know x, investigating it is pointless. The fact that the APo contain only one explicit reference to this puzzle (APo I 1, 71^a 29-30) is irrelevant. Bronstein convincingly argues that Aristotle is in many passages offering solutions for (and sometimes explicitly formulating) what can be taken as different versions of the Paradox. The result is a systematic discussion of three different kinds of learning (listed in Metaph. A 9, 992^b 30-33): “learning by demonstration” is analysed in Part I, “learning by definition” in Part II, and “learning by induction” in Part III.

One of the main theses of the book is that inquiry, for Aristotle, follows a “Socratic Picture” (as Bronstein calls it), which can be divided into five stages:

Stage 1: We do not know whether a subject S exists and we seek whether it exists.

Stage 2: We know that S exists, and we seek what it is (its essence).

Stage 3: We know what S is, and we seek whether a predicate P belongs to it as one of its demonstrable attributes.

Stage 4: We know that P belongs to S as one of its demonstrable attributes and we seek why it belongs.

Stage 5: We know why P belongs to S.

This five-stage picture shows us that learning is not an “all-or-nothing” matter, providing therefore a way-out to Meno’s dilemma. First, we learn by induction preliminary accounts specifying the meaning of conceptual terms (also known as “nominal definitions”), so we can investigate whether or not they denote existing kinds (APo II 19 and Bronstein’s Chapter 13). We move from Stage 1 to Stage 2, for instance, when we know that there is a real kind satisfying our account of a given subject-term “S”. Second, we get from Stage 2 to Stage 3 by division or induction: if S is what Bronstein calls a “subordinate subject-kind” (a species of a genus, e.g. human being), its essence is discovered by division; if S is a “primary subject-kind” (a genus, e.g. animal), its essence is grasped by induction (APo II 13 and Bronstein’s Chapter 12). Once we know the essence of our subject S, we start investigating its demonstrable attributes. For Aristotle, knowing that a predicate P belongs to S is the same as knowing that P exists, so the passage from Stage 3 to Stage 4 also involves using a preliminary account to determine whether “P” corresponds to an existing kind (now, a “predicative” or non-substantial one). Finally, we move from Stage 4 to Stage 5 by grasping the cause of S being P, which for Aristotle is the same as discovering the essence of P (APo II 8 and Bronstein’s Chapter 10). As the inquirer moves from one stage to the other, she upgrades her epistemic status by engaging in the three types of learning. Before undertaking a proper “scientific” investigation, she learns preliminary accounts “by induction”. When she is on her way to become a scientist, she learns “by definition” the essence of attributes (by using demonstration) and subject-kinds (by using division or induction). Finally, once the inquirer becomes an expert scientist, she learns “by demonstration” by getting a better understanding of the explanatory power of previously obtained definitions (see p. 7 and p. 73).

Bronstein also offers a promising – although “admittedly speculative” (p. 49) – solution to a classic exegetical problem, recently revived in the literature by Michael ^{Ferejohn (2013}, 147 ff.). As we have seen, the Socratic account of inquiry Bronstein attributes to Aristotle involves the essence of subjects as well as the essence of predicates. In fact, Aristotle seems to endorse two different (and possibly incompatible) models of scientific explanation. According to what Bronstein calls “Model 1”, the cause of a subject S being P is the essence of S. A “Model 2” demonstration, on the other hand, is such that the cause of S being P is the essence (or the causal part of the essence) of P. Bronstein argues that Model 1 and Model 2 demonstrations are connected in the following way (pp. 48-50). We know, by demonstration, that the moon (minor term) is eclipsed (major term) because of the screening of the sun by the earth (middle term). Since the eclipse is defined as loss of light from the moon because of screening of the sun by the earth (APo II 2, 90^a 14-18), we can say that the major (eclipse) and the middle term (screening of the sun by the earth) are definitionally, and therefore “immediately”, connected (see 93^a 36). However, the connection between the middle (screening of the sun by the earth) and the minor term (moon) requires further explanation. This explanation probably involves a reference to essential features of the moon, like its natural movement and its position in the composition of celestial spheres. Thus, although the demonstration of the eclipse follows Model 2, once we pursue a demonstration of its minor premise we might end up with an explanation following Model 1. This solution is attractive for many reasons. First, it explains how the two models endorsed by Aristotle can be taken as parts of the same coherent doctrine. Second, it guarantees a prominent place to Model 2 demonstrations, which are often neglected or wrongly taken (to my eyes at least) to be secondary, less important types of explanations – other exceptions to this tendency include ^{Goldin (1996)}, ^{Charles (2000)}, and ^{Angioni (2016)}. Thirdly, Bronstein’s account of these two models makes Aristotle’s theory philosophically interesting in a particular way: the reason why there is a regular, stable relation between a demonstrable attribute and its subject is that their essences are linked by a chain of causal connections.

Let me now discuss some unsolved problems in Bronstein’s book. We can distinguish two schools of interpretation, so to speak, when it comes to the relation between demonstrative knowledge (the knowledge a scientist has of demonstrable truths) and nous (the knowledge a scientist has of indemonstrable principles, mainly definitions). According to one of these schools (often referred to as “intuitionist” or “rationalist”), the principles become known in advance of any demonstrative practise and are grasped independently of their explanatory connections to other truths in the domain (see, for instance, ^{Irwin 1988}; ^{Ferejohn 1991}; ²⁰⁰⁹). The other school (sometimes called “interrelational” or “explanationist”) argues that having noetic knowledge of the principles, including definitions, involves grasping them as principles, i.e. as premises from which other truths are demonstrated, but which are not demonstrated from more basic premises (^{Kosman 1973}; ^{Burnyeat 1981}; ^{McKirahan 1992}; ^{Charles 2000}). Bronstein seems to be somewhere between the two schools. On the one hand, his Socratic Picture contradicts the “explanationist” approach, since we get to know the essence of a subject S before we start investigating the cause of S being P (Stage 3 precedes Stage 4). On the other hand, he also disagrees with “rationalist” interpretations, since, for him, having nous of the essence of S requires knowing this essence as the cause of S being P (p. 9; p. 73; p. 222).

The only way Bronstein can keep this intermediate position is by distinguishing non-noetic from noetic knowledge of essences, the first depending only on division and/or induction, the second requiring some demonstrative practice. For the “explanationist” interpretation, a non-noetic grasp of the essence of (e.g.) human being is the knowledge of the fact that human beings are two-footed tame animals (supposing that this is the essence of human beings). This merely factual knowledge differs from the (noetic) knowledge that being a two-footed tame animal is the essence of human beings, which involves grasping it as the cause of their demonstrable attributes. In Bronstein’s view, on the other hand, the method of division can give us knowledge not only of the fact that human beings are two-footed tame animals, but knowledge that this is the essence of human beings. He correctly points out that in APo II 13 Aristotle claims that division gets us to the definition of the object (97^b 12-13). However, the philosopher never affirms or implies that division gives us the knowledge of the essence as an essence. For several reasons, the claim that we can know an essence as such independently of its status as a cause is anti-Aristotelian in spirit. The philosopher states that the way we distinguish indemonstrable premises (including definitions) from demonstrable ones is by organizing a whole body of truths based on their causal connections (APr I 30, 46^a 17-27). His own scientific practice goes in the same direction. Treatises such as the Historia Animalium, which (one might say) presents a collection of facts grasped by division and induction, do not distinguish causally fundamental truths from demonstrable truths. This is a task Aristotle undertakes only in explanatory studies such as de Partibus Animalium or de Generatione Animalium. The fact that, for Aristotle, grasping an essence as such involves grasping it as a cause or explanatory factor is not exactly surprising. After all, essences are essentially causes of a certain kind (namely, formal causes). If division somehow allows us to distinguish essential from demonstrable attributes, the criteria are unclear, and the proponents of the “rationalist” interpretation may argue that some sort of “intuition” or “mental vision” (nous, according to them) must be part of the process. If, on the other hand, division itself involves explanatory concerns, the members of the “explanationist” school may think their case is already won.

A different but related difficulty concerns the essence of attributes, which, according to Bronstein, are not discovered by division or induction like the essence of subject-kinds. We get to know the essence of the lunar eclipse, for instance, by identifying the cause of the moon being eclipsed (or suffering a certain loss of light). Once this cause is identified, the eclipse can be defined as a loss of light from the moon caused by screening of the sun by the earth. Here, the reader might expect Bronstein to claim that “learning by definition” and “learning by demonstration” coincide, since he accepts that demonstration is the method for learning definitions of attributes. However, he insists that even here the two kinds of learning are distinct. “Learning by definition” is a process in which the inquirer (not the expert) engages, and consists in discovering essences previously unknown. On the other hand, only the expert can “learn by demonstration”, since she is able to acquire “a new understanding of the explanatory power of a definition she already knows” (p. 72). While learning by demonstration “proceeds from definitions”, learning by definition “proceeds to them” (p. 73). I must confess I fail to understand the distinction Bronstein is willing to draw. For him, learning by demonstration consists in grasping explanatory connections between previously recognized facts: knowing x and y in advance (x being the cause of y), the scientist realizes that x is the cause of y (pp. 39-40). However, a demonstration reveals the essence of (e.g.) the lunar eclipse precisely because it displays a causal connection between screening of the sun by the earth and the loss of light from the moon. It is unclear what kind of new information the expert can obtain by formulating (again?) a demonstration that has already revealed to him the cause and essence of eclipse. Still, Bronstein’s efforts to make this distinction are understandable. He is one of the few interpreters (if not the only one) that takes Aristotle’s use of the phrase “learning by demonstration” (APo I 18, 81^a 39-40; Metaph. A 9, 992^b 30-33) seriously and tries to explain it without reducing demonstration to a pedagogic procedure (as ^{Barnes 1969}, for instance, does). In fact, this is one of the most significant contributions of his book.

I would like to address a final issue. As we have seen, Bronstein claims that the essence of subject-kinds is grasped by division and induction, while the essence of attributes (and processes) is grasped by demonstration. The reason, according to him, is that the essences of attributes are “causally complex” and have the structure “A holds of C because of B”. In virtue of this causally complex structure, each of the elements in the essence of an attribute corresponds to one of the three terms involved in a syllogistic demonstration (Bronstein’s Chapter 7 and 10). On the other hand, the essences of subjects are “causally simple”, consisting in a combination of genus plus differentiae (Bronstein’s Chapter 12), which explains why they are grasped not by demonstration, but by division and/or induction. The relevant text here is APo II 9, where Aristotle affirms that only things “whose cause is something different” have definitions isomorphic to demonstrations (93^b 25-28). Attributes and processes such as eclipse and thunder would somehow be “different” from their cause, which would make their essence “causally complex”. Subject-kinds (substantial beings, in particular) would be in a way “the same” as their causes, and hence their essences would be “causally simple” (Bronstein’s Chapter 9). I am not convinced that APo II 9 draws a distinction between attributes and subject-kinds (or between non-substantial and substantial beings). As a matter of fact, in Metaph. VII 17 and VIII 2-4, Aristotle applies to substances the theory of definition developed in APo II 8 (see ^{Charles 2000}; ^{Peramatzis 2011}; ²⁰¹³). One may argue, as Bronstein does (p. 101), that the idea that sensible substances are analysable as compounds of form and matter (crucial to the arguments in the Metaphysics) is absent in the APo. However, Aristotle’s own examples in APo II 8, 93^a 22-24, include substances (human being and soul), which suggests that the interdependence between defining and explaining holds good for subject-kinds as well. It is true that these examples are not fully explored, as thunder and eclipse are. Nevertheless, Aristotle might have thought that bringing hylomorphism to the (already complicated) discussion in APo II 8 would create extra difficulties unnecessarily. The absence of hylomorphic considerations in the APo is not a strong reason to think that Aristotle did not have consolidated views about the issue by the time the treatise was written – in APo II 11, for instance, he explores his theory of four causes, one the best-known doctrines of his philosophy of nature. Actually, in APo II 9, the entities whose essence is “not something different” seem to be conceptually simple items, rather than substances (Aristotle’s example is “unit”). Still, there is a sense in which defining and explaining remain interdependent activities even in the case of these simple entities. In a famous a passage from De Anima I 1, Aristotle claims that a definiens that does not help us understand the derivative properties of the definiendum is not properly scientific, but “dialectical and empty” (402^b 16-403^a 2). In other words, knowing the essence of X as the essence of X involves understanding how it explains X’s demonstrable attributes, even if there is not a demonstration isomorphic to the essence of X.

If this review focused on what I take to be difficulties for Bronstein’s interpretation, it is for a very simple reason: the merits of his book speak for themselves. As with any great philosophical work, even when the readers disagree with the views he advances, they will end up with a better understanding of their own ideas about the topics discussed. For anyone interested in Aristotle’s theory of knowledge, reading and reacting to this book is indispensable.

References

ANGIONI, L. “Aristotle’s definition of scientific knowledge (APo71b9-12)”. Logical Analysis and History of Philosophy 19: 79-105, 2016. [ Links ]

BARNES, J. “The Aristotle’s Theory of demonstration”. Phronesis 14 (2): 123-152, 1969. [ Links ]

BURNYEAT, M. “Aristotle on Understanding Knowledge”. In: Berti, E. Aristotle on Science: The Posterior Analytics, Proceedings of the Eighth Symposium Aristotelicum (pp. 97-139). Padova: Editrice Antenore, 1981. [ Links ]

CHARLES, D. Aristotle on Meaning and Essence. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000. [ Links ]

FEREJOHN, M. The origins of Aristotelian science. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991. [ Links ]

______“Empiricism and First Principles in Aristotle”. In: Anagnostopoulos, G. (ed.) A Companion to Aristotle (pp. 66-80). Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. [ Links ]

______ Formal Causes: Definition, Explanation, and Primacy in Socratic and Aristotelian Thought. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. [ Links ]

GOLDIN, O. Explaining an Eclipse: Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics 2.1-10. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996. [ Links ]

IRWIN, T. Aristotle’s First Principles. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1988. [ Links ]

KOSMAN, L. “Understanding, Explanation, and Insight in the Posterior Analytics”. In: Lee, E.N. Mourelatos, A.P.D. & Rorty, R.M. (eds.) Exegesis and Argument, Studies in Greek Philosophy presented to Gregory Vlastos. New York: Humanities Press, 1973. [ Links ]

McKIRAHAN, R. Principles and Proofs. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992. [ Links ]

PERAMATZIS, M. Priority in Aristotle’s Metaphysics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. [ Links ]

______“Science and Metaphysics in Aristotle’s philosophy.” Metascience 22 (2): 303-315, 2013. [ Links ]

Breno Andrade Zuppolini – University of Campinas. Department of Philosophy. Campinas, SP. Brazil. baz1289@gmail.com

Acessar publicação original

Tags: Aprendizagem, Aristóteles, Aristotle on Knowledge and Learning: The Posterior Analytics (T), BRONSTEIN David (Aut), Conhecimento, Manuscrito (Ma), Oxford University Press (E), ZUPPOLINI Breno Andrade (Res)

Relatar lo Ocurrido como Invención: Una Introducción a la Filosofía de la Ficción Contemporánea – GARCÍA-CARPINTETRO (M)

1 de julho de 2017

GARCÍA-CARPINTERO, Manuel. Relatar lo Ocurrido como Invención: Una Introducción a la Filosofía de la Ficción Contemporánea. Madrid: Ediciones Cátedra, 2016. Resenha de: AZEVEDO, Gustavo de. Manuscrito, Campinas, v.40 n.3 July/Sept. 2017.

Had we made a list of the most philosophically problematic entities, fictional objects would surely have been among them. Many discussions on Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Language, Mind and Mathematics have at some points involved such entities. Currently there are three main families of theories about fictional objects, namely, possibilism, neo-meinongianism and creationism. Notwithstanding the subtitle of the book, Relatar lo Ocurrido como Invención goes further than a mere introduction to the Philosophy of Fiction. In this book García-Carpintero puts foward his own set of theses about the theme. Moreover, it is not only concerned with the epistemology of fiction, as one would assume from the title. All fundamental problems involving fiction¹ are addressed in detail there, from the most basic to the most complex topics until Chapter 5 which is, like the epilogue, written in the form of a literary essay. In the first two chapters, he introduces the most important speech acts theories and applies them to fictional speech (or writing) acts. In Chapter 3, there is a discussion over fictional worlds qua possible worlds. After that, in Chapter 4, the lengthiest one, he states how two ways of reference occur, namely, from a non-fictional world to a fictional one and vice-versa.

Firstly, with the intent of establishing a background thesis of speech acts, García-Carpintero makes an analysis of Austin’s, Grice and Strawson’s, and Williamson’s ideas about this point. Austin’s theory appears in order to distinguish the illocutionary force from the propositional content of an utterance, which can be found in every occurrence of a speech act, although the first semantic aspect is essentially related to institutions, conventions or common practice, while the second constitutes the truth conditions for enunciative utterances. That is, every illocutionary act expresses a proposition, even if the same proposition may be expressed by sentences with different illocutionary force. Similarly, acts with the same illocutionary force may represent different propositions.

Grice and Strawson claim that illocutionary acts are not fundamentally connected to conventions, but to communicative intentions instead. Such a conception, according to García-Carpintero, is imbued in a psychological analysis of linguistic actions that are constituted by two intentions: primary and procedural. The first intention concerns a propositional attitude, whilst the second looks for the satisfaction of the first intention by an inference reached via the recognition of the primary intention. Besides that, García-Carpintero explains the Gricean theory of conversational implicatures with the goal of pointing out that there is more to be considered in an utterance than its literal meaning.

None of the conceptions explored in the first two sections of the first chapter (the ones I have talked about in the last two paragraphs) are adopted in the book. The background thesis we should have in mind to read the subsequent chapters is based on the following rule: (KT) “Asserting that p is correct if and only if, she who asserts that p puts her audience in a position to know p” (p. 42). This is the knowledge transmission rule, which, in contrast to a psychological-descriptive conception, is normative. García-Carpintero, following a theory adduced by Williamson, argues that neither conventions nor intentions are sufficient to provide a correct account of assertive acts. The former is not sufficient because asserting is not a convention, although the use of certain expressions in assertions is conventional. And the latter is also not sufficient because there are utterances which one asserts without the intention of doing such.

Section 2.1 gives an explanation of Searle’s ideas about assertion in fiction. Two main points are made: (i) speech acts in fiction are pretended; (ii) there are two types of norms ruling speech acts, which are vertical and horizontal. The first relates language to the world and the second involves extralinguistic conventions. Linguistic acts in fiction are ruled by the second type. Section 2.2 is dedicated to defend the claim that imagination is a de se propositional act which is immune to error through misidentification. This kind of propositional act is essential to the construction of fiction (here recognized as pretense). The idea introduced in Section 2.2 is further developed in Section 2.3 through the analysis of Walton’s and Currie’s theses. Walton proposes that sentences in fiction are pretended and must be analyzed within the scope of a fictional operator, since the propositions expressed by these sentences cannot be true simpliciter. Currie defends the claim that a fictional work is characterized by the author’s communicative intention that some proposition should be imagined by the audience. That is to say, every fiction author concocts her work with the intention of leading the audience on an imaginative process of propositions by the means of recognizing this very same intention.

Chapter 3 is dedicated to an analysis and criticism of a conception due to Lewis, and states a normative proposal about the fictional discourse. After explaining which idea of possible worlds² he is adopting, García-Carpintero exposes two interpretations of the Lewisian theory of fiction. Both interpretations assume that assertions contained in fiction are pretended. Nonetheless, the first restricts the accessibility relation to the actual world, while the second does not have such a restriction. Here are the two interpretations: AN1 – “A sentence of the form Ff (P) is true if and only if P is true at the closest possible world to the actual world where the pretended assertions which constitute f are known by the pretended narrator” (p. 79); AN2 – “A sentence of the form Ff (P) is true if and only if, if w is a possible world in which the propositions which constitutes the context of f are true, P is true at the closest possible world to w in which the pretended assertions which constitutes f are known by the pretended narrator”(p. 81). F is a fictional operator, f is an indicator of the fiction we are talking about, and P is a proposition.

Section 3.2 discusses three main objections to Lewis’ theory. (1) It cannot deal with impossible propositions in fiction since possible worlds must be consistent. For instance, there are, intentionally or not, stories that contain contradictory propositions. According to García-Carpintero’s interpretation of Lewis, each contradictory proposition is true in one fiction but not their conjunction, which calls into question the intentions of some authors; (2) Some fictional truths are derived from the conventions related to the literary genre (e.g., comedy, drama etc.) and not directly from the standard meaning of the sentences expressed in the text. For example, a movie character may have scopophobia, while the actor who plays that character has been filmed all the time; (3) Some of the narrator’s assertions are not true in the story and some truths in the story are not asserted by its narrator. There are cases in which the narrator tries to deceive the audience by non-trustworthy assertions. And there are also truths that the audience should infer from the narrator’s assertions. This is because some parafictional truths are not true in worlds closest to the one in which the narrator knows what she is saying.

García-Carpintero explains his own ideas Sections 3.4 and 3.5. The normative analysis does not exclude the relevance of communicative intentions since, after all, these intentions determine that the assertion norms are not applied to fiction, but to the norms of fictionalizing (make-fiction), which make an invitation to imagine certain propositional contents³. More precisely, the rule adopted by García-Carpintero is: “(F) Fictionalizing p is correct if, and only if, one puts her expected audience in a position of imagining p and p deserves to be imagined by such audience.” (p. 89). Insofar as we can, and in fact do, imagine contradictions, this rule accommodates contradictory stories. It also deals well with truths derived from genre conventions. If the screenplay invites us to imagine a scopophobic character, it does not matter if the actor representing the character was in front of a lot of cameras. Thus, the truth of a sentence of the form F_f(P) depends on the author’s success in attracting the expected audience to imagine P. Otherwise, a story like Kafka’s The Metamorphosis could be criticized in the wrong way. When he wrote that a man turns into an insect, he did not imply that there is a possible world where a human being can become an insect⁴, this is just an invitation to imagine such transformation.

Another problem concerning the Lewisian idea is that the storytelling act is also part of the story, but if a fiction asks us to imagine a world without rational beings, this would be impossible, since the narrator herself is a rational being telling the story. Hence, F deals better with such a story, since the fiction asks us to consider as true the fictional proposition that there are not rational beings in this world. That is, if we adopt F, we do not need to consider such a story to be inconsistent, withal, it does not exclude the real author from fictional analysis. García-Carpintero claims that we should take into account the author’s intentions, even if the author’s context does not determine the content of the story. That is to say, the details of the author’s biography must not be counted as part of the fictional content, even though they determine which speech acts were used. Thus, only data from the author’s work are relevant to its interpretation, although the author’s communicative intentions are relevant to determine the content of the work.

Section 4.1 exposes the classical quarrel involving descriptivist and Millian theories of proper names. (In Section 4.2 García-Carpintero manifests preference for a version of the former.) Nothing new concerning the well-known Fregean theory of reference is presented on this section, but the characterization of this theory is precise and more than sufficient for the proposals of the book. The same comment should be made about the Millian theory, which includes Kripke’s modal argument against descriptivism. This argument, according to García-Carpintero, cannot show that there are no descriptive elements in proper names, although it shows that proper names are rigid designators, while definite descriptions usually are not. He argues that demonstratives and indexicals have descriptive contents, even though they are rigid designators. Therefore, no necessary relation between rigid designation and descriptive content can be established. At this point, García-Carpintero starts a long explanation about indexicals.

Indexical terms have two kinds of meanings. One relates to their rule of use and the other to each use of them. For example, on the one hand, the indexical “I” has a rule of use, namely, it refers to the person who makes the utterance. On the other hand, each time “I” is used, it refers to a different person if used by different speakers. So indexicals have a common and a specific meaning for all and each occurrence, respectively. García-Carpintero’s suggestion is to extend this analysis of indexicals to other referential terms, but the challenge is to maintain that there is a descriptive content associated to these terms without sustaining that they are synonymous (referential terms and its associated descriptive content). From this point on, he makes use of Stalnaker’s pragmatic presuppositions theory in order to meet this challenge. Inasmuch as descriptive content is part of a presupposed proposition, it is not part of the asserted proposition. This derives from the claim that some presuppositions, instead of being part of semantic content, are pragmatically presupposed. He addresses Kripke’s modal argument with the very same conception which avoids treating definite descriptions as part of the asserted content of referential terms. If definite descriptions are, as adduced by García-Carpintero, only part of presupposed content, then claiming that they are not rigid designators does not dismiss definite descriptions as part of the content of referential terms.

In Section 4.3 García-Carpintero develops some consequences of a fregean theory of reference regarding fictions. He advocates that names of fictional characters are disguised descriptions. Moreover, such terms do not work as rigid designators, since they denote different objects in different possible worlds compatible with fictional truths of the work of fiction. This supposedly occurs because fictional objects are incomplete and there are many possible worlds compatible with all fictional truths in a fictional work.

Also, García-Carpintero advocates the thesis that we should put a fictional operator in front of any fictional truth. That is, “Sherlock Holmes is a detective” is false, while “F_sh (Sherlock Holmes is a detective)” is true (_sh indicates one of Sherlock Holmes stories). Thus, if one asserts that Sherlock Holmes exists, she is saying something false, while it is true that F_sh (Sherlock Holmes exists). Appealing to fictional operators avoids commitment to the existence of fictional objects. There are three problems for this strategy: (i) Ironic sentences inside a fictional work cannot have the correct treatment; (ii) Transfictional sentences whose truth are independent from fiction like “Sherlock Holmes is more famous than any real detective”, cannot be read with the fictional operator and remain true; (iii) As a consequence of (ii), the two readings problem remains (against simplicity). In spite of the mentioned thesis being simpler than neomeinongians theories, that can hardly be seen as a real advantage since neomeinongians theories make use of extraneous distinction between properties or property relations and have no concern with simplicity.

Section 5.1 addresses problems (i) and (ii). García-Carpintero⁵ states that, if we utter the sentence appearing in (ii) as a metaphor, we were doing nothing but proposing to imagine Sherlock Holmes as an actual object of reference. After all, it is possible to assert the proposition expressed by the sentence appearing in quotation marks at (ii) without referring to any fictional object, viz., we could assert it via a paraphrase which would only contain assertions about fictional works. However, such an answer does not help with problem (i) because ironic statements inside fiction cannot be seen as a metaphoric use of the singular reference apparatus. Hence, the appeal must fall back over presuppositions. Wherefore, the main theses presented in this book are:

Speech acts of fiction construction are pretended, and García-Carpintero calls these speech acts “presuppositions generators”. These presuppositions generators produce propositions whereby we imagine what is true in a fiction;
Such propositions must be interpreted with a fictional operator F_f, where f indicates the work of fiction in analysis;
Fictional discourse does not commit one to the existence of with fictional objects.

Why does that sort of pretending speech acts matter? Section 5.2 sketches an answer, which is better developed in the epilogue. Fictions are not only able to trigger emotions, they also provide knowledge, which may be propositional, experiential (by putting yourself in someone’s shoes), and practical (know-how), although García-Carpintero is only concerned with propositional knowledge is this book. He argues that the differences between fiction and reality at the ontological and illocutionary levels do not imply that we cannot acquire knowledge from fiction, since there are many fictions that talk about reality. That is to say, some fictional work contains true propositions about reality, even though fictions are not under the aegis of truth.⁶ However, there is an epistemic disparity between fiction and reality. An author of fiction intends to bring about imaginative acts about propositions. On the other hand, someone who writes a non-fictional piece, e.g., a scientific paper, must have the intention to sustain her ideas. Although he considers this a strong objection, García-Carpintero (p. 186) thinks that we can acquire knowledge from fiction in a similar way than we acquire knowledge from testimony7. If we were authorized to import propositions about the real world into fiction, we could, likewise, be authorized to infer propositions about the real world from fiction. In the conclusion of Section 5.2, García-Carpintero defends the view that, besides being a source of knowledge, fiction matters because it triggers emotions in the following way: being engaged in a fictional game is pretending that some propositions are true, therefore the emotions felt from fiction are equally pretended, i.e., the fear we feel when watching a movie is, actually, fear_f, although these two reactions (fear and fear_f) remain indistinguishable regarding their phenomenal features.

Lastly, Section 5.3 is dedicated to the fictional aspect of visual arts and music. Pictorial representations express propositions as well as linguistic representations. If an appropriate pictorial representation of p is made, she who perceives such representation will imagine herself as seeing that p. So, differently from linguistic representation, the pictorial one is about what a spectator sees. In other words, the truths are the product of de se fictional propositions about what someone sees from a representation. Abstract painting is not a hindrance to the thesis above. It is produced with the same intention to cause some visual imaginative experience on a spectator as non-abstract painting is also produced. How about music? A musical oeuvre generates fictional propositions. Thus, a musical piece expresses fictional truths via melodic, harmonic and rhythmic structures listened by an appropriate spectator. This spectator can feel fictional emotions provided by her imaginative act similarly to the fictional literature engagement.

Relatar lo Ocurrido como Invención is probably the most complete introductory book ever written about philosophy of fiction. Nevertheless, its main theses, (1), (2) and (3), would need further explanation. It seems to this reviewer that the answers to problems (ii) and (iii) regarding (2) are unsatisfactory and (i) is not even addressed. Thesis (1) and (2) seem to subsume each other, which jeopardizes the alleged simplicity of García-Carpintero’s theory. The same goes for the distinction between two kinds of emotions. Why postulate entities like fear_fif it is numerically identical to fear?. It is also hard to be convinced by the combination of the thesis that we should not be committed to the existence of fictional entities with the thesis that some metafictive sentences are true. The book is full of very interesting examples, but sometimes some of them seem to be meant rather as exercises of literary criticism than as support for the arguments. The claim that some sentences containing fictional names must be seen inside the scope of a fictional operator, while others must be paraphrased (in order to avoid ontological commitments), seems a bit arbitrary. Nonetheless, Carpintero’s theory has many advantages over artifactualists and neo-meinongian theories. Had he renounced the use of the fictional operator in favor of paraphrases,⁷ he could still avoid the ontological commitment via the claim that fiction is an invitation to imagine propositions. It could be hard to obtain these paraphrases, but the strategy would preserve his nice version of descriptivism. Moreover, this would not preclude that sentences inside fiction refer to reality nor that a fictional work can be a source of knowledge. Summarazing, in the view of this reviewer, the book has two merits, namely, exposing the most recent debate about fiction and exhibiting a fair fregean theory over fictional objects, which makes it a mandatory reading for those interest on the philosophy of fiction.

References

GARCÍA-CARPINTERO, Manuel. Relatar lo Ocurrido como Invención: Una Introducción a la Filosofía de la Ficción Contemporánea. Madrid: Ediciones Cátedra, 2016. [ Links ]

Notas

¹Including the three families of theories mentioned before.

²Parafctional truths.

³Propositions are structures composed of properties and objects.

⁴Supposedly all human beings are necessarily human beings.

⁵(iii) is not addressed. It is a consequence of García-Carpintero’s thesis choice.

⁶This lack of compromising with truth is the illocutive difference. The ontological difference is obvious.

⁷In spite of claiming fictional objects are artefacts (p. 168), the rest of his argumentation shows another direction.

Gustavo de Azevedo – University of Campinas. Department of Philosophy. Campinas, SP. Brazil. E-mail: deazevedogustavo@gmail.com

Acessar publicação original

Tags: AZEVEDO Gustavo de (Res), Ediciones Cátedra (E), Filosofia da ficção, GARCÍA-CARPINTERO Manuel (Aut), Manuscrito (Ma), Relatar lo Ocurrido como Invención: Una Introducción a la Filosofía de la Ficción Contemporánea (T), Teoria Fregiana da referência

The Varieties of Self-Knowledge – COLIVA (M)

1 de julho de 2017

COLIVA, Annalisa. The Varieties of Self-Knowledge. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. 288p. Resenha de: BORBA, Alexandre. Manuscrito, Campinas, v.40 n.3 July/Sept. 2017.

Annalisa Coliva’s recent monograph, The Varieties of Self-Knowledge, is, if not the major, one of the greatest contributions of the decade to the subject of self-knowledge in philosophy. In it, the philosopher defends the original thesis that the acquisition of knowledge about our own mental states admits a plurality of methods. In this review, I will focus on an idea that Coliva brings up in her work and explores in detail. More precisely, I will focus here on the criteria that, according to Coliva, demarcate the territory of the so-called “first-personal self-knowledge”, as opposed to the third-personal self-knowledge-i.e., those instances of knowledge about oneself acquired by publicly accessible methods. According to Coliva, transparency, authority and groundlessness are necessary and a priori aspects of first-personal self-knowledge (COLIVA, 2016, p. 6). Before we proceed, let us make a general overview of the work.

The first chapter is an introductory chapter, in which the innovative thesis of the work is stated and there is a brief exposition of the content that we will have throughout the reading. The second chapter is dedicated to demarcate the territory of mental states, from sensations and perceptions, passing through the so-called “propositional” attitudes and ending in the emotions. Coliva provides us a geography of the mental states in which she will operate successfully. She sets aside, however, states of the mind such as moods and character traits-and this is, I think, justifiable in the context of philosophy because of the lack of a deeper literature on the subject. One of the major merits of this chapter is the fact that Coliva draws the distinction, widely retracted throughout the book, between propositional attitudes as dispositions and as commitments. With this distinction in mind, Coliva succeeds, already in chapter 7, following the philosopher Akeel Bilgrami, illuminating the phenomenon of self-deception, as well as, in the appendix of the work, illuminating what is possible and what is paradoxical in Moore’s paradox. It is, therefore, one of the most important distinctions outlined in the monograph.

The third chapter discusses the varieties of self-knowledge, distinguishing between two kinds of self-knowledge, namely, the first-personal self-knowledge and the third-personal one. It is here that Coliva demarcates the territory of first-personal self-knowledge as necessarily involving groundlessness, transparency, and authority. Coliva is convincing in proposing that the knowledge we have of our own mental states, being theses as varied as the previous chapter pointed out, I say, that self-knowledge admits different methodologies. Some cases of self-knowledge are acquired by inference, or observation, or any other method involving some minimal epistemic effort. However, Coliva proposes that cases of first-personal self-knowledge are not necessarily instances of cognitive achievement. Yet, this proposal forces us to take the theories that Coliva calls “epistemically robust accounts” of first-personal self-knowledge as false. In this way, Coliva seems to reject already in advance the accuracy of theories such as the inner sense theory, the inferentialist theory, and the simulation theory, which are explored in the fourth chapter.

The fourth chapter is dedicated precisely to the epistemically robust accounts of first-personal self-knowledge, in which the inner sense, the inferentialist, and the simulation theories are presented. These theories state that the knowledge we have about our own mental states can be acquired by introspection, observation, inference to the best explanation, simulation, etc. The fifth chapter deals with the so-called epistemically weak accounts of first-personal self-knowledge, which include theories such as Peacocke’s rational internalism, Burge’s rational externalism, and Evans’s transparency method, later developed in different ways by Fernández and Moran.

The sixth chapter presents the so-called expressivism, the result of some interpretations of Wittgenstein’s work. It is in expressivism that for the first time we see the statement that first-personal self-knowledge is not exactly a kind of knowledge since it does not fit the Wittgensteinian criteria of knowledge self-ascription¹. The seventh chapter presents the so-called constitutivism, whose main representatives are Shoemaker, Wright, Bilgrami, and Coliva herself. As in expressivism, constitutivists declare that first-personal self-knowledge is not exactly the result of a sui generis epistemic achievement, and since it is not based on anything, we should conclude that to call it “knowledge” is a misunderstanding (p. 163). In contrast to expressivism, however, constitutivism appeals to metaphysical theses².

Finally, the eighth chapter is the chapter in which Coliva exposes pluralism about self-knowledge. According to her, the limits of constitutivism involve the scope of propositional attitudes as commitments. Concerning the basic emotions, sensations, and perceptions, Coliva promotes a meeting between constitutivism and expressivism. Finally, the knowledge we have of our complex emotions and our propositional attitudes as dispositions are genuine cases of knowledge that we obtain by methods that are publicly accessible-Coliva also includes in this scope the knowledge we acquire about our own personality³. The appendix deals with Moore’s paradox.

The point I want to focus on in this review is the criteria that Coliva presents to demarcate the territory of first-personal self-knowledge. They are three: groundlessness, transparency, and authority. Both admit a weak and another strong variant. In a weak characterization, groundlessness admits some epistemic ground, although it dispenses the foundation as being of an observational or inferential kind. The so-called epistemically weak accounts, such as rational internalism and externalism, of Peacocke and Burge respectively, or even Evans’s transparency method, such as developed by Moran, satisfy this criterion. It was not clear, however, how the transparency method as developed by Fernández satisfies weak groundlessness, since, in Fernández’s account, a self-ascription of, let’s say, a belief, is based on the same evidence of the first-order belief which is the object of the self-ascribed belief. If this is the case, then the self-ascription of a first-order belief based inferentially is based on the same kind of evidence of the first-order belief, a consequence which would hurt weak groundlessness.

Strong groundlessness holds that cases of first-personal self-knowledge are simply not grounded in anything. As stated by Coliva, strong groundlessness can be described as the idea that first-personal self-knowledge is neither observational nor inferential, nor is it epistemologically based on one’s previous awareness of one’s ongoing mental states. If this is the case, then first-personal self-knowledge is not exactly an instance of knowledge and, therefore, it is a terminological error to call it “knowledge” after all. Coliva ends up adopting exactly this perspective, which is consistent both with expressivism and constitutivism.

Weak transparency consists in the idea that if one has a given mental state M, then one is aware of it, i.e., the mental state M is phenomenologically salient to the subject. Coliva gives us reasons to prefer strong transparency over weak transparency. This preferred variant of transparency states that, given C-conditions, which include concepts’ possession, cognitive well-functioning, alertness and attentiveness, and to the exclusion of unconscious and purely dispositional mental states, if one has a given mental state M, then one will be in a position to judge or believe (or both) that one has it. I highlighted “be in a position to” passage because, as I think, it is subject to different interpretations, as I will explore next.

Finally, weak authority states the idea that, given C-conditions (including concepts’ possession, cognitive well-functioning, alertness, and attentiveness), if one judges to have a mental state M (save for dispositional ones or for the dispositional elements of some mental states), one will usually have it. On the other hand, strong authority is the idea that, given C-conditions, if one judges to have a mental state M (save for dispositional ones or for the dispositional elements of some mental states), one will always have it.

I begin with the passage, in the description of strong transparency, according to which, given C-conditions, if one has a given mental state M, one will be in a position to judge that one has it. As I think, this passage allows three possible interpretations, which I will call the Wittgensteinian interpretation; the metaphysical interpretation; and the epistemic interpretation. The Wittgensteinian one is the interpretation according to which “to be in a position to” judge that one has a mental state M is a feature of the grammar we have, the option that has inspired expressivism. The metaphysical interpretation is another option, which has its roots in constitutivism, according to which “to be in a position to” judge that one has a mental state M is a feature of the kind of metaphysical relation we have with M. Finally, the epistemic interpretation, which can be identified in some epistemic accounts of first-personal self-knowledge, states that transparency consists in an epistemic relation between oneself and M.

Here, I will explore the third option, i.e., the idea that transparency is a feature of the kind of epistemic relation we have with some of our own mental states, such as sensations, intentions-as-commitments, and beliefs-as-commitments, in an attempt to save weak epistemic accounts of first-personal self-knowledge. What follows is the idea that one knows that one is feeling ψ, intending to φ or believing that p based on the transparency of ψ-sensation, φ-intention or the belief that p is the case. In this view, transparency is seen as playing the epistemic role in our self-ascriptions of some of our own mental states-precisely, those that are transparent to us. I am not sure, however, if the epistemic relation we have with our own mental states involves the kind of normativity that accompanies characteristic instances of knowledge.

The present view is not inconsistent with Wittgensteinian criteria for knowledge self-ascription. To see why, we need to consider the pragmatics of self-ascription. Consider questions such as “how do you know that you feel ψ / believe that p?” In ordinary conversation, we assume, in cases of first-personal self-knowledge, the authority of the first person. My bet is that such questions-and the answers that would be appropriate to them-would hurt two elements of cooperative conversational practices, namely, informativeness and relevance. They hurt the element of informativeness that is expected in a conversation because the most immediate answer to such questions no longer tells you what is already assumed in the question: “I know that I feel ψ because I am feeling!”, or “I know that I believe that p because I believe!”. Therefore, it is also not relevant to ask someone with questions such as these. The strangeness with which we would react to such questions is explained by factors of the order of pragmatics. What follows is the idea that the presumption of the first-person authority is explained by cooperative conversational practices, i.e., the normal operation of a cooperative conversation. I highlighted “presumption of the first-person authority” because this is not an explanation about first-person authority itself, but about its recognitional conditions. This is because, in my view, first-person authority itself depends ontologically on the transparency of the mental states, which, as I maintain, is a feature of the kind of epistemic relation we have with some of our own mental states.

Before ending my review of this incredible monograph, I need to comment a question that remains unanswered: cases of first-personal self-knowledge are accompanied by the characteristic normativity present in cases of knowledge? If “no”, the consequence of this view is that epistemic normativity is not a necessary condition for knowledge, because there are cases of knowledge, namely, first-personal self-knowledge, without epistemic normativity. If “yes”, then this normativity needs to be explained. Maybe the person’s conceptual mastery and its cognitive state of alertness, attentiveness, etc. can be the explanation of the epistemic normativity present in cases of first-personal self-knowledge. And if this is so, then the present weak epistemic account is consistent only with weak authority, because only weak authority allows the possibility of error in judging that we have a mental state M-and normativity in general, as I think it is plausible to assume, presupposes the possibility of error.

^Notas

¹See p. 140.

²See p. 164.

³See p. 239.

Alexandre de Borba – Federal University of Santa Maria. Department of Philosophy. Santa Maria, RS. Brazil. azdeborda@gmail.com

Acessar publicação original

Tags: Autoconhecimento, Autoridade, BORBA Alexandre (Res), COLIVA Annalisa (Aut), Manuscrito (Ma), Palgrave MacMillan (E), The Varieties of Self-Knowledge (T), Transparência

About Oneself: De Se Thought and Communication – GARCÍA-CARPINTERO (M)

1 de abril de 2017

GARCÍA-CARPINTERO, Manuel; TORRE, Stephan (eds.). About Oneself: De Se Thought and Communication. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016, 368p. Resenha de: VALENTE, Matheus. Manuscrito, Campinas, v.40 n.2 Apr./June 2017.

About Oneself: De Se Thought and Communication is a recently published collection of eleven papers on de se thought, i.e. thoughts about oneself as oneself, and its implications for a theory of communication. Edited by Manuel García-Carpintero and Stephan Torre, this volume contains contributions from many distinguished experts and presents the state-of-the-art discussions on this important field.

The issue of de se thought dates, at least, as far back as the late 1960s¹, when some noticed that, in order to characterize the information encoded in a de se thought, one must reject some traditional assumptions about propositional attitudes. Take, for example, Perry’s famous story of when he tried to find the person making a mess in the supermarket by following a trail of spilled sugar only to subsequently realize that he himself was the culprit. It seems that, whatever the content of Perry’s epiphany is – the one he could express by uttering “I am making a mess” – it resists characterization by traditional conceptions of propositions (i.e. as sets of possible worlds or structured Russellian propositions).

Most of the chapters in this volume are primarily concerned to defend one or another theory of de se thought and to examine their implications for an account of communicative success. Due to shortage of space, this review will focus on the papers that are directly involved with these questions. Our main objective will be weaving these papers together such as to make explicit their points of agreement and disagreement.

What, after all, is so special about de se content? This is not an easy question to answer. Indeed, some philosophers even got as far as declaring that there is no real problem of de se content over and above the typical issues that singular thought (in general) brings about, such as Frege’s Puzzle². Dilip Ninan’s paper – What is the Problem of De Se Attitudes? – intents to reach a verdict about the extent to which some content is essentially indexical. According to Ninan, only de se attitudes (as opposed to other de re attitudes) are such that they give rise to cases where two subjects agree about all the objective properties of a situation while still diverging in their behavior. This happens, for example, in Perry’s bear scenario (¹⁹⁷⁹), in which I am being chased by a bear while you are watching from a safe distance. Even though we may agree on our objective beliefs about the situation (e.g. that I am being chased by a bear and you are not) as well as in our desires (e.g. we both desire that I don’t get killed), it is still true that we will be motivated to behave differently (e.g. I will curl up into a ball and you will run to get help). That is, only when de se attitudes are concerned, there can be full belief-desire agreement concomitant with divergent behavior. That conclusion leads to an outright denial of Explanation:

(Explanation) If a subject’s behaving in a certain way is explained by his set of belief-desire pairs, then any other subject possessing the same set of belief-desire pairs will be disposed to behave identically.

Ninan’s paper help us see how most theorists of de se thought are trying to hold onto Explanation in the face of conflicting evidences by rejecting one of the following two theses:

(Absoluteness) The contents of attitudes are absolute, i.e. contents do not vary in truth-value across individuals or times.

(Publicity) The contents of attitudes are public or shareable, i.e. if an agent x can entertain a content p, then so can any other agent y. (p. 111)

If Explanation and Publicity are true, Ninan claims, one must agree that someone could possess one of my de se beliefs, e.g. that I am being chased by a bear. Per Explanation, we would then be disposed to behave identically – we would both be disposed to, say, curl up into a ball. However, since it is possible that our beliefs diverge in truth-value – one of us could just be overly paranoid – we would then have to dispose of Absoluteness. This is the path (^{Lewis, 1979}) famously took by defending that the content of de se attitudes are properties (or, equivalently, centred propositions), entities which vary in truth-value relative to non-worldly parameters.

Clas Weber – in Being at the Centre: Self-location in Thought and Language – explicitly sets out to defend a Lewisian theory of propositional attitudes and to show how the communication of de se thoughts would be possible inside that framework. In order to do this, Weber advances the Transform-and-Recenter Model of communication, according to which there is no single content being replicated from speaker to hearer in successful instances of de se communication. Since assertions present their contents as being essentially from a particular perspective, Weber claims, we must perform a series of transformations on other people’s asserted contents, so that a piece of information that was originally presented from the speaker’s perspective becomes a piece of information relative to the hearer’s.

In his contribution, De Se Communication: Centered or Uncentered?, Peter Pagin argues that no Lewisian theory positing centered contents can give a suitable account of de se communication, since “the connection between a [centered] content and its thinker is not representational” (p. 275). In a Lewisian theory, the content of de se thoughts are impersonal properties, e.g. the property of being chased by a bear. Only when a thinker believes that property, i.e. self-ascribes it, a connection between her and the content of her thought is drawn. Pagin argues that this entails that a thinker may never merely entertain a thought, e.g. that she is being chased by a bear; what she entertains is just the property of being chased by a bear, not that she is being chased by a bear. After considering various recent incarnations of the Lewisian theory, Pagin goes on to advance his own Fregean-inspired view, maintaining Absoluteness in exchange for Publicity, and thus, giving rise to the famous issue of ‘limited accessibility’. Pagin claims the denial of Publicity should be seen as non-problematic since (i) it is an independently motivated thesis that subjects rarely have the same conception of the concepts they employ and that (ii) this should not harm communicative success in the least.

In opposition to both Lewisian and Fregean theories, some philosophers argue, following (^{Perry, 1979}), that sameness of behavior between A and B should not be explained by them believing a common content, but by them believing possibly distinct contents under the same guise. François Recanati and Manuel García-Carpintero both identify themselves as developing their own Perrian accounts of de se thought. These two authors argue that, in order to clarify these issues, one has to take into account two distinct semantic levels about which one’s attitudes and assertions are accountable: the presuppositional content that one’s representations carry and the content that they properly expresses. The former accounts for the cognitive significance of a thought, whereas the latter accounts for our intuitions on (dis)agreement and sameness of subject matter. Recanati, in Indexical Thought: The Communication Problem, presents his version of a Perrian two-factor theory by means of his independently motivated framework of Mental Files, i.e. psychological guises by means of which we produce and retain singular thoughts. Recanati considers multiple accounts of de se communication before settling for an improved variant of Weber’s Transform-and-Recenter model. Differently from Weber, who frames his model by means of metarepresentations, Recanati fleshes it out in terms of Mental Files. For this reason, he claims to be able to overcome the aforementioned objections from Pagin. One interesting consequence of Recanati’s account of de se communication is that the idea of the thought expressed by an utterance, over and above the thoughts of the speaker and her interlocutor, comes out as otiose. As the author emphasizes, as long as we have our hands on the thought of the speaker, the thought of the hearer, and a suitable relation of coordination between them, there remains no theoretical role to be played by a neutral notion of the thought expressed by the utterance.

Manuel García-Carpintero’s paper, Token-Reflexive Presuppositions and the De Se, agrees with Recanati’s in that both argue that the cognitive state of a subject undergoing a de se thought must be characterized not only by (i) that subject (mentally) asserting a certain content but also by (ii) her thought triggering certain reference-fixing presuppositions. Thus, even if the content of de se attitudes are to be fleshed out as familiar singular propositions, “when I judge I am hungry I [also] presuppose that the person of whom I am predicating being hungry is the thinker of this very judgement” (p. 191). García-Carpintero points out the importance of distinguishing the attitude a subject holds towards an asserted content from the attitude held towards a content that she presupposes in virtue of having made that assertion. The author claims that the attitude towards a presuppositional content cannot be that of belief, since anyone else could believe a certain presuppositional content without being motivated to act in the special way de se attitudes motivate us to act. Because of these reasons, García-Carpintero notes, even a Perrian theory is bound to posit some kind of limited accessibility to de se thoughts. In his own framework, the limited accessibility arises from the fact that, while anyone can have a belief about the owner of a certain thought of mine (e.g. that the owner of that thought is hungry) only I can have a thought about myself by correctly presupposing that the owner of that thought is hungry. One shortcoming of that paper, as the author himself admits, is that it does not provide a deeper development of the attitude of presupposition. More particularly, it would be enlightening to know more about a subject’s understanding of her own presuppositions besides the fact that it should be merely implicit. Should it, for example, be characterized as dispositional knowledge that one would be able to manifest given sufficient time and reflection or is it something even less substantial, such as, perhaps, a matter of knowledge-how? These questions remain open for further inquiry.

Robert Stalnaker’s positions about de se thought have been usually understood as being in opposition to a Perrian two-factor theory. Be that as it may, in his contribution – Modeling a Perspective on the World – we see him getting closer and closer to that tradition. Stalnaker’s most immediate concern in that paper is proving that one does not need to add centers to possible worlds in order to model attitudinal content. According to him, the formal apparatus of centred possible worlds is theoretically useful, not for modeling contents, but for modeling belief states, i.e. the relation between particular thinkers and the set of doxastic alternatives accessible to them. More specifically, belief states are modeled by Stalnaker as pairs consisting of a base world (the world and time in which the subject is in that state) and a set of doxastic alternatives available to that subject (the worlds that might, for all that subject believe, be the actual one). As more than one author in this volume has noticed³, Stalnaker’s resulting theory resembles a typically Perrian theory with two levels of content, one playing the internal role of psychological rationalization (the doxastic alternatives) and the other, playing the external role of providing absolute truth-conditions for the relevant attitude (the base world). One might wonder, as García-Carpintero (p. 188 ff. 21) suggests, whether this means that Stalnaker’s theory is not concerned, as it used to be in earlier works, with providing a holistic individuation of a subject’s total belief state, but with characterizing specific parts of a subject’s belief states. Unfortunately, Stalnaker does not comment on that, so we are left to our own speculations.

No theory of de se thought has an easy way out of the problem of communication. In Varieties of Centering and De Se Communication, Dirk Kindermann claims that no variant of the Lewisian and Perrian accounts of de se thought⁴ allows us to maintain a simple picture of communication as the replication of thought from speaker to hearer. He takes that and related facts to motivate a neutral position on the issue of de se thought: “everything that can be done by one view can also be done by the others; the views cover exactly the same empirical data and do so in equally simple ways; the choice between the views is a matter of (theoretical) taste and prior commitments” (p. 309). Kindermann’s conclusion implies that, at least some disagreements between philosophers working on de se thought are not fundamental, such as those about which theory provides a simpler account of de se communication, propositional agreement/disagreement or of samesaying. Coming last in a volume about de se communication, Kindermann’s paper has a particularly anti-climactic feel. If, as this author suggests, there are no knock-down arguments waiting to be discovered in favor of this or that theory, philosophers might need to put the issue of de se thought into a new perspective in order to avoid reaching an argumentative dead-end.

There are four remaining papers. Isidora Stojanovic’s Speaking About Oneself investigates the concept of samesaying in relation to de se utterances and argues that it neither tracks the character nor the Kaplanian content of an utterance. In Why My I Is Your You, Emar Maier presents a formal model of de se communication using the apparatus of Discourse Representation Theory. Aidan McGlynn’s Immunity to Error Through Misidentification and the Epistemology of De Se Thought claims that de se thoughts are not epistemically special and that the phenomenon of IETM should be characterized as a matter of degree. Finally, Kathrin Glüer’s Constancy in Variation tackles the issue of perceptual content and defends the thesis that it does not need to be modeled by centered contents.

One may ask, what is the upshot of the discussions and arguments contained in this volume? Here’s a tentative answer: to account for de se intentionality, we need to explain (i) why two people who have identical de se beliefs are (ceteris paribus) disposed to behave identically while (ii) two people who seem to agree on all the objective properties of a scenario may nonetheless go on to act differently. This was, as we have seen, one of the lessons of Ninan’s contribution to that volume. Most authors seem to agree that, in order to explain (i), we need fine-grained representations of one’s beliefs and/or belief states; however, it is crucial to distinguish the attitude one has towards those fine-grained objects from the attitude one has towards one’s beliefs. On the other hand, there is not much consensus nor positive suggestions about how to explain (ii). Again, most authors point out that merely having beliefs with the same objective truth-conditions is not enough for two people (or two temporal stages of the same person) to count as being in agreement with each other. However, it is not clear what else is necessary. One interesting theoretical possibility is suggested by Recanati’s talk of “coordination” among different thoughts, but the idea is arguably underdeveloped as it stands. Another possibility is to see Weber’s Transform-and-Recenter model as providing a constraint on the agreement relations between two thoughts, e.g. two thoughts A and B agree with each other if and only if B would be the output of the Transform-and-Recenter operation on A and vice-versa. However, that route seems to lead one to conclude that communication and belief retention are highly intellectual inferential processes, whereas intuition has it that they are just the opposite.

All in all, the issue of de se thought is by now a firmly established area of philosophical research and this volume points the way future discussions should take. We recommend it to any reader who is interested in the latest discussions in the philosophy of language and their ramifications into the philosophy of mind and epistemology.

References

Castañeda, Hector-Neri ‘He’: A study in the logic of self-consciousness. Ratio 8 (December):130-157, 1966. [ Links ]

Perry, J. The problem of the essential indexical. Noûs 13 (December):3-21, 1979. [ Links ]

Lewis, D. Attitudes de dicto and de se. Philosophical Review 88 (4):513-543, 1979. [ Links ]

Prior, A. N. Thank Goodness That’s over. Philosophy 34 (128):12 – 17, 1959. [ Links ]

Frege, G. The thought: A logical inquiry. Mind 65 (259):289-311, 1956. [ Links ]

Cappelen, H. & Dever, J. The Inessential Indexical: On the Philosophical Insignificance of Perspective and the First Person. Oxford University Press, 2013. [ Links ]

Magidor, O. The Myth of the De Se. Philosophical Perspectives 29 (1):249-283, 2015. [ Links ]

^Notas

¹(^{Castañeda, 1966}), (^{Perry, 1979}) and (^{Lewis, 1979}) are usually referred as the first authors to address the issue of de se thought. However, the origins of the argument in favor of essentially de se thoughts can be traced to even earlier works, such as (^{Prior, 1959}) and (^{Frege, 1956}).

²For some recent de se eliminativists, see (^{Cappelen and Dever, 2013}) and (^{Magidor, 2015}).

³García-Carpintero, p. 188 ff. 21; Recanati, p. 144 ff. 5; Weber, p. 249 ff. 5.

⁴lt seems that Kindermann could very well extend his argument to Fregean theories, although he does not go in that direction.

Matheus Valente – Universitat de Barcelona – Department of Logic, History and Philosophy of Science, Carrer de Montalegre 6 Barcelona 08001, Spain, matheusvalenteleite@gmail.com

Acessar publicação original

Tags: About Oneself: De Se Thought and Communication (T), GARCÍA-CARPINTERO Manuel (Ed), Manuscrito (Ma), Oxford University Press (E), Teoria da Comunicação, TORRE Stephan (Ed), VALENTE Matheus (Res)

On Inequality – FRANKFURT (M)

1 de julho de 2016

FRANKFURT, Harry G. On Inequality. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2015. 102p. Resenha de: FAGGION, Andrea Luisa Bucchile. Manuscrito, Campinas, v.39 n.3 July/Sept. 2016.

Frankfurt begins by making a familiar point against the imposition of strict economic equality: “Inequality of incomes might be decisively eliminated […] just by arranging that all incomes be equally below the poverty line” (p. 3). We should not infer from this, however, that Frankfurt reduces egalitarianism to economic egalitarianism, a trend of thought that argues for a brand of equality according to which everybody enjoys the same wealth.

Moreover, Frankfurt’s refusal to grant moral relevance to equality as such does not entail that he does not regard poverty as a moral problem. This is why he replaces egalitarianism with a doctrine of sufficiency – “the doctrine that what is morally important with regard to money is that everyone should have enough” (p. 7) – which also proscribes “economic gluttony” (p. 3). According to Frankfurt, egalitarianism misconstrues the real challenge of reducing “poverty and excessive affluence” (p. 4). Indeed, Frankfurt suggests that most people agree with him on this; what we really find repugnant when we express disapproval of inequality is another feature of the situation: the fact that some people have too little (p. 40).

However we determine the concept of sufficiency, it is not a comparative concept. In other words, according to Frankfurt, the amount of money available to others is not directly relevant to determining what is needed for a certain kind of life (p. 10). Thus, instead of focusing on alleged conflicts between the pursuit of equality and freedom, Frankfurt emphasizes what he considers a form of moral disorientation caused by the pursuit of equality. The pursuit of equality as a good in itself distracts us from what is truly significant (p. 13).

Frankfurt is willing to admit that the concept of having enough is hardly precise: “[I]t is far from self-evident precisely what the doctrine of sufficiency means, and what applying it entails” (p. 15). When he returns to the question “What does it mean for a person to have enough?” he notes that the assertion that a person has enough entails only that a requirement has been met, not that a limit has been reached. In other words, it’s not bad to have more than enough (p. 47).

Certainly, the main problem is how to specify the content of such a requirement, especially if one keeps in mind that this content entails claims of justice to be addressed by public policies. What counts in this specification? Is it the attitudes people actually have about the issue, or the attitudes it would be reasonable for them to have (p. 99, n. 15)? If the latter, what criterion of reasonableness would be useful here?

Frankfurt rejects the possibility that sufficiency is related to having enough to avoid misery (p. 49), which would be the only easy way to determine a pattern of sufficiency. The above questions are thus as difficult as they are important. They are also questions, however, that go beyond the limits of Frankfurt’s essay. In this work, Frankfurt merely warns against hastily adopting an inadequate alternative in the face of the difficulties associated with the doctrine of sufficiency (p. 15).

Frankfurt emphasizes that his interest is analytical rather than political (p. 65). In the end, however, it will seem obvious to some that Frankfurt’s doctrine of sufficiency risks ultimately being much less economically feasible than egalitarianism if developed as a theory of justice – even if Frankfurt is right about the fact that this does not count as a reason to adopt egalitarianism. Indeed, this does not even count against the claim that what lurks behind our disapproval of inequality is really the ideal of sufficiency.

With this noted, what really matters here is whether Frankfurt is right about its being unreasonable for someone to be unsatisfied about her life only because her standard of living is bellow that of others (p. 73). In other words, is equality an important component of sufficiency itself? Would it be unreasonable to be unsatisfied with your life if everyone else were at least ten times wealthier than you? Some will understandably doubt Frankfurt’s take on this issue.

Still on the topic of economic equality, Frankfurt considers arguments based on marginal utility, according to which economic equality would maximize the aggregate satisfaction of members of society. The idea is that the marginal utility of money necessarily diminishes for the wealthy, and thus that the redistribution of income and wealth provides money to those for whom it has more marginal utility. An argument along these lines is presented by Abba Lerner, who is quoted by Frankfurt as follows:

The principle of diminishing marginal utility of income can be derived from the assumption that consumers spend their income in the way that maximizes the satisfaction they can derive from the good obtained. With a given income, all the things bought give a greater satisfaction for the money spent on them than any of the other things that could have been bought in their place but were not bought for this very reason. From this it follows that if income were greater the additional things that would be bought with the increment of income would be things that are rejected when income is smaller because they give less satisfaction; and if income were greater still, even less satisfactory things could be bought. The greater the income, the less satisfactory are the additional things that can be bought with equal increases of income. That is all that is meant by the principle of the diminishing marginal utility of income. (qtd. on p. 28)

Frankfurt’s first reply to this kind of argument is grounded in his concept of a “threshold effect”. The satisfaction obtained via the purchase of the last item in a series may be greater than the satisfaction obtained by purchasing the other items because the last item represents the crossing of a threshold. The experience of collectors illustrates this point. Frankfurt’s second reply involves the refusal to accept Lerner’s assumption that if a consumer refrains from obtaining a certain good until his income increases, this necessarily means that he rejects it when his income is lower (p. 32). According to Frankfurt, even where a consumer does not save money to purchase a certain good, this doesn’t necessarily mean that he rejects that good and prefers the good he actually purchases. The consumer may regard saving for a particular purchase as pointless because he believes that he will not be able to save enough money within an acceptable period of time (p. 97, n. 10).

Thus Frankfurt claims that it is not the case that economic egalitarianism maximizes aggregate utility in society. Indeed, Frankfurt believes that an egalitarian distribution may minimize aggregate utility in certain circumstances: “[W]hen resources are scarce, so that it is impossible for everyone to have enough, an egalitarian distribution may lead to disaster” (p. 36). Frankfurt’s example is a situation in which there is enough medicine and food to enable some members of a population to survive but where an equal distribution of these resources would result in nobody’s receiving enough, and thus in everybody’s death (p. 34). This line of thought is reminiscent of theories of justice according to which justice is meaningless in contexts of extreme scarcity and abundance (see, for instance, ^{Hume, 2006}, p. 93-94). Frankfurt is thus open to the objection that it is not only egalitarianism but indeed any conception of justice that would be inapplicable in such circumstances.

With the above noted, the ideal of equal respect and concern is much more relevant to contemporary theories of justice than strict economic equality. The most important part of Frankfurt’s book is therefore his analytical attempt to illustrate what he takes to be a conceptual confusion at the root of this ideal:

Enjoying the rights that it is appropriate for a person to enjoy, and being treated with appropriate consideration and concern, have nothing essentially to do with the consideration and concern that other people are shown or with the respect or rights that other people happen to enjoy. Every person should be accorded the rights, the respect, the consideration, and the concern to which he is entitled by virtue of what he is and what he has done. The extent of his entitlement to them does not depend on whether or not other people are entitled to them as well. (p. 75)

Frankfurt’s point – perhaps echoing Aristotle – is that philosophers like Dworkin (see, for instance, ¹⁹⁸⁵ and ²⁰¹¹) have mistaken the moral requirement to be impartial or avoid arbitrariness for the moral requirement to treat people with equal respect and concern: “To avoid arbitrariness, we must treat likes alike and unlikes differently. This is no more an egalitarian principle than it is an inegalitarian one” (p. 101, n. 3).

Importantly, Frankfurt is not denying that there are rights that belong to every human being by virtue of their humanity. Where this is the case, however, your having the right in question is not grounded in a principle of equal treatment. Your right is explained by your having a characteristic that others also have. In other words, impartiality requires us to treat equals as equals, but it doesn’t require of us that we view everybody as equal.

According to standard contemporary conceptions of justice, equality is not to be embraced no matter what the circumstances. On the standard egalitarian view, equality is more like an original position, for which justifications are unnecessary and from which divergences must be justified. Nonetheless, if Frankfurt is right, equality is not this species of moral position by default, or a constitutive moral principle. It is necessary to argue for the requirement of equal treatment (by showing that there are no relevant differences between two persons, for instance) (p. 77-78).

To sustain his thesis, Frankfurt challenges a scenario made famous by Berlin. It’s worth reproducing the passage quoted by Frankfurt in full:

The assumption is that equality needs no reason, only inequality does so… If I have a cake and there are ten persons among whom I wish to divide it, then if I give exactly one tenth to each, this will not, at any rate automatically, call for justification; whereas if I depart from this principle of equal division I am expected to produce a special reason. (qtd. on p. 80)

Frankfurt claims that it is not the moral priority of equality that explains why we should divide Berlin’s cake into equal shares. In Frankfurt’s view, the key feature of the situation is the lack of relevant information. If a distributor has no information at all about those among whom she is to distribute something, this amounts to a situation in which each person is identical to the others. This is why the cake should be divided into equal shares:

It is the moral importance of respect, and hence of impartiality, rather than of any supposedly prior or preemptive moral importance of equality, that constrains us to treat people the same when we know nothing that provides us with a special reason for treating them differently. (p. 81)

It is true that Frankfurt’s point here looks like a dispute about words, since both Frankfurt and the egalitarian agree that Berlin’s cake should ultimately be divided into equal shares. Yet the implications of Frankfurt’s point are highly relevant. If equality on its own cannot justify, say, a rights claim, then the discussion is really about entitlement. The concept of entitlement is generally neglected in contemporary philosophical debates about social justice. It’s as if the resources discussed in these debates appeared from nowhere, such that the only relevant issue is whether there is justification for departing from a policy of equal distribution – such as differences between conceptions of the good, as in (^{Dworkin, 1985}), or the fact that the “cake” diminishes when divided into equal shares, as in (^{Rawls, 1999}). Against this background, Frankfurt’s essay is a breath of fresh air for contemporary philosophy.

References

DWORKIN, RONALD. A Matter of Principle. Cambridge, Massachusetts; London, England: Harvard University Press, 1985. [ Links ]

______. Justice for Hedgehogs. Cambridge, Massachusetts; London, England: Harvard University Press, 2011. [ Links ]

HUME, DAVID. Moral Philosophy. Ed. Geoffrey Sayre-McCord. Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 2006. [ Links ]

RAWLS, JOHN. A Theory of Justice: Revised edition. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1999. [ Links ]

Andrea Luisa Bucchile Faggion – Universidade Estadual de Londrina – Filosofia Rodovia Celso Garcia Cid | Pr 445 Km 380 | Campus Universitário Cx. Postal 10.011 | CEP 86.057-970 | Londrina – PR, Londrina 86057-970 Brazil. E-mail: andreafaggion@gmail.com

Acessar publicação original

Tags: Desigualdade, FAGGION Andrea Luisa Bucchile (Res), FRANKFURT Harry G (Aut), Justiça, Manuscrito (Ma), On Inequality (T), Princeton University Press (E)

Realizing Reason: A Narrative of Truth and Knowing – MACBETH (M)

1 de julho de 2016

MACBETH, Danielle. Realizing Reason: A Narrative of Truth and Knowing. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. 494 p. Resenha de: VALENTE, Matheus; DAL MAGRO, Tamires. Manuscrito, Campinas, v.39 n.3 July/Sept. 2016.

Danielle Macbeth’s Realizing Reason is a tour de force about the history of mathematical knowledge from ancient Euclidean geometry to the late 19^th century and early 20^th century developments on mathematical logic. It is an ambitious work dealing with a vast array of subjects and philosophical themes while still being able to consistently display a high standard of erudition and originality in areas as diverse as the Philosophy of Mathematics, Language, Science and Mind.

The narrative of the book is complex and multifaceted, but its main thread is two-fold. On one hand, Macbeth aims to develop a novel account of “our being in the world” which gives room for the existence of normative facts in a world which is fully explained by mechanistic causal laws – a profound philosophical dilemma that stands at the center of many authors’ works such as Kant, and, more recently, Macbeth’s former Pittsburgh colleague, John (^{McDowell, 1994}). On the other hand, Macbeth argues for a reparation on the perspective with which philosophers should see the practice of mathematics and the mode through which it attains knowledge. The author’s objective is primarily to show how the practice of mathematics, in each of its historical stages from the Greeks to the present, by means of its characteristic linguistic notations, enabled thinkers to literally amplify their knowledge, as opposed to merely making explicit what was already implicit in the information one had begun with. Furthermore, Macbeth aims to prove that this much is true even of mathematics as it is currently conceived, i.e. “the practice of reasoning deductively from concepts” (p. 5). One of the author’s main challenges is to show how there can be such a thing as an “ampliative deduction”, and in order to achieve this feat, Macbeth must break through Kant’s conceptual distinctions to open the way for the idea that the knowledge attained by some deductions, which is, per definition, analytic, can, at the same time, be synthetic.

Both issues dealt with in the book – the apparent incompatibility of reasons in a world of causes and the notion of ampliative mathematical knowledge – are foundational questions in Philosophy and each can be traced to the early beginnings of philosophical practice itself. It is noteworthy that Macbeth sets out to tackle both at the same time while also showing how the resolution of one question is tied to the resolution of the other (and vice-versa).

The book is divided into three main sections, each composed by three chapters, which chronologically tell the story of reason’s development and unfolding from the Ancient Greek’s mathematical practice to the present. The first section is entitled Perception, alluding to Macbeth’s claim that in the early stages of our intellectual development we have our “primary mode of intentional directedness in perception” (p. 17). This corresponds to a time before the Cartesian turn in the sixteenth century, where “pure intellection”, as opposed to the perception of an object, “becomes the paradigmatic mode of intentional directedness and the model even for perception” (p. 18). This intellectual revolution, which led us from bare perception to pure intellection, is the main theme weaving together the three first chapters.

In Chapter 1, Macbeth presents a story detailing how perceptually aware beings, like ourselves, have managed to progress from our ancestors’ rudimentary capacities of imitation and of synthesizing procedural knowledge to sophisticated self-consciousness and rationality. Crucial to Macbeth’s story is a profound anti-Cartesian stance, according to which we should not make a division between the merely physically describable stuff that is “outside” and the normatively significant, meaningful experiences that are “inside” (p. 20). In explicit opposition to Robert (^{Brandom, 1994}), Macbeth suggests jettisoning altogether the idea that a world described by means of causes stands in contrast to a world described by means of reasons, as if these concepts were not applicable to things of the same nature. Just as nature acquires biological significance as animals evolve in their environments, e.g. a bunch of leaves becomes food, so does nature become socially and culturally significant as intelligent beings begin cooperating, sharing goals and engaging in practices and games among themselves. The last step in that progression is the transformation of social beings into “properly rational beings capable of distinguishing in principle between how things seem and how things are” (p. 56); that is, the acquisition of the capacity to step back from our natural inclinations and to realize that “anything we think can be called into question, and improved upon” (p. 49). This final stage of intellectual development, Macbeth claims, depends fundamentally on the coming into being of a natural language, which is, albeit contingent and historical, not an obstacle to objectivity, but constitutive of our access to it.

Notwithstanding their importance, natural languages are intrinsically grounded on our perceptual means of access to the world, and, for that reason, do not reach far enough so as to provide us with knowledge of all there is to be known about in the world. In chapter 2, Macbeth delves deeply into Ancient Greek mathematics – exemplified by Euclidean diagrammatical practice, a methodology that would be the unchallenged orthodoxy in Western mathematical thought for centuries until the Renaissance – in order to make clear how the unfolding of reason takes us ever more far from our immediate empirical reality. Macbeth’s central claim in this chapter is that, in Euclidean diagrammatical practice, we do not reason on diagrams, but in them; in other words, Macbeth claims that an Euclidean diagram does not merely describe a certain course of mathematical reasoning (as, for example, we could describe a mathematical demonstration on natural language), it “formulates the contents of concepts” in a mathematically tractable way and, for that reason, constitute – as opposed to merely picturing or describing – the reasoning itself. As Macbeth fleshes out that important distinction, it becomes ever clearer how demonstrations in Euclidean geometry managed to amplify our knowledge, often giving rise to discoveries that were not even implicit in what the demonstration had begun with. Differently from an Euler or Venn diagram (or any other types of “picture proofs”), in an Euclidean diagram “what is displayed are the contents of concepts the parts of which can be recombined with parts of other concepts”. So, for example, a certain mark in a diagram may be seen as either the side of a triangle or the radius of a circle, depending on the perspective that the reasoner impinges on the drawing. The possibility of this “gestalt-shift” (absent in, e.g. Euler and Venn diagrams) is what explains how figures often pop-up in an Euclidean proof – such as when an equilateral triangle appears as if from nowhere in the proof I.1 of the Elements – and thus, how “something new can emerge that was not there even implicitly”.

Chapter 3 leads us to the radical departure from Ancient thought that happens during the Renaissance with the rise of Modern philosophy, physics and mathematics. Macbeth is particularly concerned with Descartes’ influence in the emergence of a new mathematical practice by means of the introduction of the language of elementary algebra. The algebraic method adds a new degree of abstraction to the activity of reasoning, Macbeth argues, since its intentionality is not object-oriented, but directed to the merely potential relations which arbitrary objects may instantiate (p. 132). For example, one begins to interpret geometrical objects in a computationally tractable way, as the arithmetical relationship of some lengths (e.g. a square is some quantity multiplied by itself). By abstracting away from objects, and, thus, from any subject matter in particular, Descartes’ language allows “pure intellection to become (at least in intention) an actuality” (p. 149). Similarly to the language of Euclidean geometry, Descartes’ algebraic method is not to be conceived as merely a tool through which a course of reasoning can be described or pictured; instead, these symbolic languages present content in a mathematically tractable way, and, because of that, are the matter by means of which reasoning itself is constituted, or, to use Macbeth’s terminology, reasoning comes into existence in those symbolic languages, as opposed to being merely described on them.

The next triad of chapters is entitled “Understanding”, referencing the fact that Kant’s legacy to Philosophy entails that “pure reason is not and cannot be a power of knowing as Descartes had thought. Not reason but only understanding is a power of judgement, of knowing” (p. 151). This is precisely what chapter 4 is concerned about, more particularly, Kant’s Copernican revolution, by means of which our epistemic access to reality is turned upside-down, requiring “the philosopher […] to focus not unthinkingly on the object of knowing but self-consciously on the power of knowing, on what reason requires of objects as objects of knowledge” (p. 199). Macbeth’s argues that, as groundbreaking as Kant was, his thought was still pretty much restrained by the scientific, and, most importantly, the mathematical practice of his day, which, absent the revolution that would come in the nineteenth-century, could not ground a proper account of mathematical truth and knowledge – that is, an account of mathematical truth and knowledge answerable to things as they are in themselves, as opposed to things as they merely appear to us.

Chapters 5 and 6 present the new form that mathematics has come to be clothed in by means of the collective effort of intellectuals throughout the nineteenth-century. By means of the work of mathematicians such as Bolzano, Galois and Riemann, Macbeth tells us the story of how mathematics, after twenty-five centuries of development, finally becomes a self-standing discipline, “the work of pure reason wholly unfettered by the contingencies of our form of sensibility” (p. 244). However, not all is well with that sudden reshaping of mathematical practice, since, if mathematics answers to nothing outside of its own activity, as it came to be seen, it starts to look as if mathematics is nothing more than a linguistic game, completely disconnected of any struggle for objectivity.

Indeed, for much of the twentieth-century, Macbeth will go on to argue, a cluster of theses based on (i) the distinction of logical form and semantical content, (ii) a truth-theoretical account of meaning and (iii) a primacy of mathematical logic as the ruler of all formal disciplines will go on to become the orthodoxy in the understanding of mathematics and of its practice. This is, according to Macbeth, a very unfortunate event, since it seems force on us a picture of logic and mathematics as being merely formal disciplines, and, for that reason, completely deprived of intentional properties. Even worse, and this is one of the central points of the book, this is the picture that intellectuals born during the twentieth-century (even the best of them), have accepted without subjecting it to scrutiny, i.e. a picture of reasoning as being purely mechanistic, “nothing more than the rule-governed manipulation of signs with no regard for meaning” (p. 293).

In the last group of three chapters, aptly entitled “Reason”, Macbeth purports to analyze the philosophical problems that are engendered by the last great revolution in mathematics, i.e. when it came to be seen as “a practice of deductive reasoning on the basis of defined concepts” in nineteenth-century Germany. Most pressing to the author’s concerns is showing that this new conception of the mathematical practice is not purely formal in the sense that it came to be seen by philosophers, but, on the contrary, that it is intrinsically meaningful and often enables us to attain knowledge in the strongest sense of that concept, that is, objective knowledge about things in themselves.

In chapter 7, Macbeth takes the reader to a confrontation, for the first time, with Gottlob Frege’s Begriffsschrift, a mathematical notation that “was explicitly designed as a notation within which to reason deductively from concepts in mathematics”. This long chapter goes at great lengths to explain Frege’s concept-script because, as Macbeth defends, one must understand the notation in order to be able to see the mode of reasoning embodied within it. The pinnacle of the chapter, however, is Frege’s proof of theorem 133 in Part III of the Begriffsschrift, which Macbeth presents as being a real example of a deduction that establishes a real extension of one’s knowledge. The particularity of that proof is the book’s central concern until its very end, namely, the fact that it joins content from two definitions, as opposed to merely joining content from two axioms. That operation of bridging the content from two previously unconnected definitions is precisely what enables that mathematical practice to amplify one’s knowledge. Just as figures often pop up in a Euclidean diagram, “as if from nowhere”, some deductive proofs link concepts that were independently introduced and which, absent that proof, would display no immediate connection among themselves.

That much gets clearer throughout chapter 8, where Macbeth argues that definitions, although they are, by nature, stipulative, are not epistemically vacuous, since they serve to articulate the inferential content of particular concepts, and that is something one might – objectively – succeed in doing correctly or not. Definitions, however, do not amplify one’s knowledge by themselves; it is only in the context of a proof that they are able to forge new links within one’s conceptual repertoire:

proofs without definitions are empty, merely the aimless manipulation of signs according to rules; and definitions without proofs are, if not blind, then dumb. Only a proof can actualize the potential of definitions to speak to one another, to pool their resources so as to realize something new. (p. 387)

The conception of reasoning that we reach by the end of the book is, contrary to the Early Modern simulacrum that we have unreflectively inherited, is neither reductive nor mechanistic. It does not purport to reduce the content of concepts to primitive notions, instead, those contents are displayed in a mathematically tractable way. It is also not mechanistic, Macbeth claims, since the knowledge attained by a deductive proof may be, at the same time, both analytic and synthetic – a fact that makes Kant’s dichotomies stand in need of a radical revision.

The book’s narrative comes full-circle by the end of chapter 8 and throughout chapter 9, where Macbeth studies the case of physics, about which she draws a parallel between the nineteenth-century revolutions in mathematics and the twentieth-century revolutions in theoretical physics. The underlying theme is that mathematics and physics have both recently undergone profound revolutions, while philosophy “has, until now, remained merely Kantian” (p. 453). The final blow on the Cartesian view that we have inherited from the early moderns involves disentangling the Sinn/Bedeutung distinction from that of concept and object (a disentanglement that was out of reach for Kant). Only by clarifying those distinctions, we can understand “how a radically mind-independent reality and an unconditioned spontaneity are not only compatible but in the end made for each other” (p. 451).

Realizing Reason suffers from a flaw that is an almost inevitable consequence of its virtues. Macbeth’s overambition, i.e. her attempt to leave no stone unturned, leads to her book having a certain bric-à-brac quality, since the thread that unites her narrative throughout highly distinct subject matters is usually, but not always, evident. Regardless of that, this book presents innovative theses in a multitude of areas, of special interest being its analysis of Frege’s work, which sees his accomplishments from a whole new perspective and as giving rise to a heterodox conception of ampliative deductive knowledge. All in all, Realizing Reason is a recommended read for anyone with interests in the broad set of areas encompassing the philosophy of mathematics, mathematical practice, history of mathematics and logic, and who is interested in seeing how the issues on those areas communicate with issues in the philosophy of mind, language and the history of philosophy.

References

BRANDOM, R. B. Making It Explicit: Reasoning, Representing, and Discursive Commitment. Harvard University Press. Link no philpapers: http://philpapers.org/rec/BRAMIE, 1994. [ Links ]

MCDOWELL, J. Mind and World. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Link no philpapers: http://philpapers.org/rec/MCDMAW, 1994. [ Links ]

Matheus Valente – ¹Universidade Estadual de Campinas 57 Monroe St, Campinas 13083-872, Brazil, matheusvalenteleite@gmail.com

Tamires Dal Magro – Universidade Estadual de Campinas Rua Cora Coralina, 100, Campinas 13083-872, Brazil, tamiresdma@gmail.com

Acessar publicação original

Tags: Conhecimento, DAL MAGRO Tamires (Res), Gottlob Frege, História da Matemática, MACBETH Danielle (Aut), Manuscrito (Ma), Oxford University Press (E), Raciocínio matemático, Razão, Realizing Reason: A Narrative of Truth and Knowing (T), VALENTE Matheus (Res), Verdade

Referential Mechanics: Direct Reference and the Foundations of Semantics – ALMOG

1 de abril de 2016

ALMOG, Joseph. Referential Mechanics: Direct Reference and the Foundations of Semantics. [?]:Oxford University Press, 2014. Resenha de MARTONE, Filipe. Manuscrito, Campinas, v.39 n.2 Apr./June 2016.

The work of Ruth Barcan Marcus, Saul Kripke, Keith Donnellan, David Kaplan and others started a revolution in philosophy of language. The so-called direct reference theory, or simply referentialism, dealt a powerful blow to the then prevailing Fregean spirit of theories of meaning and reference, and it deeply affected the way we think about these topics. But saying what the core ideas of direct reference really are is not as easy as one might think. Direct reference theorists often disagree about what seems to be very basic issues: Are there singular propositions, and do we need them? If descriptivism is false, what are the mechanisms of reference determination? What are the consequences (if any) of holding a referentialist semantics to our views on cognition? Should referentialists be worried about Frege’s Puzzle? In a time in which debates in philosophy of language can get highly sophisticated, it is easy to get lost amidst technical arguments and overlook these fundamental questions. ^{Joseph Almog}‘s new book, Referential Mechanics: Direct Reference and the Foundations of Semantics, is an attempt to look past the technicalities of this “quantum mechanics of words” (p. xvii) and to engage with those questions directly.

Almog has three aims in this essay. First, he wants to understand what direct reference is really about. To do so, he dissects the versions of direct reference offered by three of its founding fathers – Kripke, Kaplan and Donnellan – and examines their foundations and their consequences for philosophy of mind and metaphysics. Second, he tries to show that two puzzles that supposedly threaten direct reference – the puzzle of empty names and Frege’s Puzzle – are not puzzles at all. Third, and finally, he introduces his project of unifying the semantics of all subject-phrases under the referentialist framework: instead of modelling paradigmatically referential terms such as proper names after denoting phrases (e.g. “every philosopher” or “most philosophers”), as Montague and his followers did, Almog wants to treat denoting phrases as genuinely referential terms. The challenge of integrating referential semantics into global semantics is what he called the Russell-Partee-Kaplan challenge. But Referential Mechanics only sets up the stage for a full answer to this challenge. A detailed account will be given in a companion piece, not yet published.

The book is divided into four chapters. The first three deal with direct reference as conceived by Kripke, Kaplan and Donnellan, and the fourth wrestles with the puzzles of empty names and cognitive significance (a.k.a. Frege’s Puzzle) and begins to work on an answer to the Russell-Partee-Kaplan challenge. In what follows I will offer a brief overview of the chapters, pointing out some of their virtues as well as their shortcomings.

In the first chapter, Almog offers an interesting reading of Kripke’s Naming and Necessity (henceforth NN) and introduces some of the key notions of his essay. He claims that there is a fundamental tension between two very different conceptions of semantics in NN. On the one hand, there is what he calls the designation model theory for natural language. This model is what we get from Lecture I. On this model, direct reference is cashed out in terms of rigid designation. On the other hand, there is the historical referential semantics, found mainly in Lecture III. The distinction between these two conceptions of semantics “touches the very fulcrum” of Almog’s essay (p. 15). According to him, the designation model suffers from a fundamental defect; it completely misconceives what semantics truly is (or should be): a descriptively correct account of the actual workings of a natural language, and not an adequate but mere representation of such workings (p. 16).

The main problem with the designation model, Almog argues, is the following. In this model, expressions such as names, definite descriptions, sentences and predicates are all unified under the fundamental semantic relation of designation. This model of semantics, therefore, sees no categorical difference between proper names and definite descriptions. In other terms, even though names are rigid designators whereas descriptions are not, both are connected to their designata via the same kind of semantic relation. However, designation is a “stipulated relation designed for a language with uninterpreted symbols: individual constants, variables, predicates (…)” (p. 15). Thus, designation is not, Almog claims, the real semantic relation that obtains in an actual existing language like English. Taking it to be so creates an insolvable puzzle, namely, the puzzle of reference determination: descriptions pick out their designata via satisfaction or fit; but how do names pick out their designata if they are not disguised descriptions, as Kripke so convincingly argued? How does the designation relation obtain for proper names? This model of semantics has no answer to give.

The historical referential semantics, on the other hand, gets it right. There is no puzzle of reference determination to be solved. The names we use are already loaded with their referents. We, consumers of language, do not have to “reach out” to them; they come to us through their names via causal/communication chains. The puzzle of reference determination arises only we if take designation to be the fundamental semantic relation obtaining in actual languages. Once we see that it is not, the puzzle disappears. Almog calls this shift from an “inside-out” (designation) to an “outside-in” (historical referential) mechanism of reference the “flow diagram reversal”: we refer with a name not because we designate an object, but because the object itself is already connected to the name we are using. This “flow diagram reversal”, he claims, is present in the works of Kripke, Kaplan and Donnellan, and it is the key idea of direct reference.

Almog’s notions of “outside-in” mechanisms of reference and of “flow diagram reversal” are quite interesting, and they neatly capture some of the main lessons of direct reference. However, he makes some rather cryptic remarks about perceiving an object through its name. More precisely, he claims that the reversal account of reference also extends “the classically qualitatively understood perception” (p. 29), meaning that “we perceive (remote) objects by means of loaded names” (p. 30). He offers some details of this view in footnote 19, but they are not really illuminating. What he seems to be suggesting is that public names put us in some sort of “acquaintance” relation with their bearers, allowing us to cognize them through language. This is a respectable idea which has many advocates nowadays. Yet, to say that this kind of relation extends perception per se seems to stretch the notion of perception beyond plausibility.

The second chapter is devoted to Kaplan’s account of direct reference in terms of singular propositions. For Kaplan, for a term to be directly referential is for it to make a special kind of contribution – its referent – to the proposition expressed by the sentence that contains it. This kind of proposition is called ‘singular proposition’. Almog stresses how distinct Kaplan’s approach to direct reference is when compared to Kripke’s designation model. That model makes no use of propositions; its key semantic unit is the pre-sentential subject (the designator). Kaplan’s direct reference semantics, on the other hand, takes propositions as its key semantic unit, and as the objects of assertion and thought. Almog argues that this leads to several problems, and these problems show that singular propositions fail to capture what direct reference is really about.

One interesting aspect of this chapter is that it tries to distinguish between what are legitimate criticisms of singular propositions and what are not. Almog vehemently dismisses the claims that the doctrine of singular propositions (and direct reference in general) is committed to a particular view about modal haecceitism and about the informativeness of identity statements (i.e. Frege’s Puzzle). Singular propositions and direct reference, he argues, are merely semantic notions. As he puts it: “There are no entailments from direct reference theory proper regarding either modal or attitudinal questions” (p. 48; italics in the original). What are legitimate criticisms of singular propositions, on the other hand, are the well-known objections of negative existentials with empty names and of reference to past objects.

What is a bit strange in this chapter is Almog’s claim that the failure of singular propositions to correctly classify apparently contradictory cognizers like Kripke’s Pierre and to capture phenomena of cognitive dynamics adequately “leads to the breakdown of the apparatus of proposition and content” (p. 56). If singular propositions are neutral regarding “attitudinal questions”, as he says, why are arguments from cognitive dynamics and propositional attitudes wielded against them? Why is Frege’s Puzzle not a problem to singular propositions while Kripke’s Pierre is? In fact, Kripke’s Pierre seems to be an instance of Frege’s Puzzle, so it is not at all clear why singular propositions are threatened by the first and not by the latter. Almog is also quite vague when it comes to his alternative to singular propositions. He talks of “object-loaded names” coming to us and of sentences with empty names being true precisely “because there is no proposition” corresponding to them. These remarks are somewhat obscure. He says, for instance, that “On this idea of the re-ferent coming to us late users, there is no mystery about why you and I can and do refer now to the long gone Aristotle by using now the (Aristotle-loaded) name ‘Aristotle’, just as we see a long dead star by being impacted now by light from it” (p. 52). There is plenty of mystery there to me, however. If the object no longer exists, how come it is loaded into the name? How do we “refer back” to Aristotle and cognize him, as Almog often says, if Aristotle does not exist anymore? Almog probably means that there is a causal connection between Aristotle, “Aristotle” and us, but that is not a complete explanation of what sort of thing we are in fact cognizing and referring to when using a name. Besides, it is also not obvious why his objections to singular propositions do not apply to his own view, since objects themselves play a crucial role in his semantics, as they do in Kaplan’s account.

The third chapter is by far the most compelling part of Almog’s book. It discusses Donnellan’s idea of referential uses of expressions and its connection to having an object in mind. Almog believes that these two ideas are the key ideas not only of direct reference, but of semantics in general. In discussing them he hopes to show that semantics should be conceived not as a branch of model theory (as Montague held), but as branch of cognitive psychology (p. 63).

Almog claims that Donnellan’s insight about having an object in mind in fact explains direct reference: direct reference is direct not because of conventional rules of language, but because it is linked to a certain cognitive mechanism of grasping worldly objects. This mechanism is captured by the “flow diagram reversal”: we do not have to reach out to those worldly objects; our minds, by natural processes, enter in relations with those objects, and they “make their way” into our cognition. It is not necessary to select which object we are thinking of and then look for it in the world. In fact, Almog argues that it is a mistake to understand Donnellan’s idea of having an object in mind as internally selecting some individual or other; the object we have in mind is determined by causal/historical processes. It is because we have objects in mind in this way that we can directly refer to it.

Almog argues that the process of referential use is divided into three different stages. First, there is the fixing. My mind enters in some relation with an object by an outside-in mechanism, which makes that precise object the object of my cognition. Second, there is the characterization. After the object is determined by this process, I can predicate things of it. Almog stresses that, because the object is already fixed, it does not matter if I apply false predicates; my thought is about it even in cases of gross mischaracterization. This is precisely what happens in Donnellan’s cases. Third, there is the communication. After (1) the object is fixed and (2) I form some beliefs about it, I can (3) go on to express these beliefs through language. To do that, I use whatever expression I think will help to direct the audience’s attention to the object I am already thinking of. As Almog puts it: “I am trying to co-focus you, make you have in mind what I already have in mind” (p. 69). This is why, for him, referential uses are not in any way restricted to definite descriptions. Any kind of singular terms, and even expressions like “someone”, can be used referentially: these terms do not determine the reference; they are used merely as aids to communication.

With this Almog hopes to show why Kripke’s claim that Donnellan’s cases are cases of speaker reference and not of semantic reference is mistaken. He believes that this distinction is preposterous; they are all as semantic as it gets. However, I do not see why this conclusion follows from his arguments. His proposal might in fact account for referential uses, but it is not clear why it also entails that there is no such thing as the semantic referent of an expression in a particular use. Even if our cognition is hooked to objects by non-conventional processes (which is a very plausible idea), it does not follow that this sort of having in mind completely overrides the conventional reference of the expressions used. In other words, I do not see why it is incompatible to hold this “flow diagram reversal” for thought and the speaker/semantic reference distinction at the same time. In short, more arguments are required to show why Donnellan’s “cognitive mechanics” entails the collapse of the speaker/semantic referent distinction.

In sum, Almog seems to be proposing some sort of externalist-subjectivist semantics in this chapter. It is externalist because external objects themselves make their way into our cognition, and the meanings of the expressions we use (if we are allowed to talk about meanings in Almog’s framework) are external objects and properties. Yet, it is subjectivist because what matters for giving the content (again, if such talk is plausible here) of the expressions we use are not community-wide conventions, but individual speakers in particular occasions. This is not, of course, to deny the role of conventions, but what ultimately determines the content/referents of our expressions is what the speakers have in mind when they use these expressions. This combination of two apparently opposed views about language is certainly interesting and it deserves further discussion.

The fourth and last chapter is concerned with Frege’s Puzzle and the puzzle of empty names, and it introduces the discussion of the Russell-Partee-Kaplan challenge. Almog argues that, if we take Donnellan’s approach seriously, both puzzles disappear. In fact, they turn out to be uninteresting consequences of this model of semantics (p. 91). The first observation he makes is that no speaker is omniscient regarding the semantic history of all names she uses. If this is right, informative identity statements are to be expected precisely because knowing that two names lead back to the same object can only be known a posteriori. Informativeness, Almog claims, is a relational feature, and it arises from the interaction between the information a speaker has in the head and the relevant sentence. If this in-the-head information is sufficient to settle the truth of the sentence, it will be trivial; if not, it will be informative. Second, the puzzle of empty names disappears because what makes sentences containing such names true are not object-involving propositions; what makes them true is the history of the name that leads back to failed baptisms.

Almog puts the Russell-Partee-Kaplan challenge as follows: “Can we or can’t we generalize the reference-only semantics to all nominals?” (p. 98). The problem arises from a dilemma about the visible grammatical form of subject-predicate sentences and their semantic forms. Subject-predicate sentences apparently work in the same way: they introduce objects for subsequent predication. Some terms, like proper names and indexicals, seem to fit well in this intuitive definition. Their visible grammar is a reliable guide to their semantic (or logical) forms. The problem is that some subject-predicate sentences, like “most philosophers are wise” or “some linguists sing”, do not seem to refer to any object. How should we deal with this? Russell, as Almog says, held that not all nominals function semantically in the same way: some refer, some denote. Montague, on the other hand, wanted to keep the link between visible grammar and semantics, but to do that he opted to treat referential terms as he treated other denoting nominals: visible grammar reflects semantic form insofar as all subject terms denote and not refer. Almog, however, wants to keep the semantics of all nominals referential and the visible grammar intact. So, he needs to explain what sort of reference expressions like “most philosophers” and “many linguists” have and how we should treat subject-predicate sentences containing them.

Almog claims that all nominals can be used either referentially or attributively. In the first case, they merely communicate an already made reference to an object, i.e., they externalize what I have in mind; in the second, they originate reference. This is a genuine semantic “ambiguity” of nominals, and not a mere pragmatic phenomenon. Both uses, however, necessarily involve reference to some worldly entity. As for their reference, Almog claims that nominals like “every musician” and “two philosophers” pick out kinds or “pluralities” in the world (p. 111). In this way, they do not denote, but genuinely refer to these entities. He closes the chapter by considering some challenges and further objectives (to be discussed in another essay): he wants to extend his account beyond subject-predicate sentences, apply it to the logical relation of consequence and to understand what is to cognize the world by using ordinary language – all of this following the general guidelines of keeping the semantics referential and the superficial grammar untouched.

Referential Mechanics is an engaging and provocative book, even though its difficult subject and the many topics it discusses would probably receive a better treatment in a longer and more detailed essay. Its occasional lack of clarity and insufficient argumentation can get frustrating sometimes. However, this does not diminish its many merits. The essay advances unorthodox theses and offers interesting takes on three of the most important versions of direct reference. Anyone interested in semantics, foundational semantics and in the history of analytic philosophy should definitely study it.

References

ALMOG, Joseph. Referential Mechanics: Direct Reference and the Foundations of Semantics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. [ Links ]

Erratum

In the article “Referential Mechanics: Direct Reference and the Foundations of Semantics” with DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/0100-6045.2016.V39N2.FM, published in MANUSCRITO, 39.2, 133 a 140, on 133, where it says “Referential Mechanics: Direct Reference and the Foundations of Semantics” one should read “Book Review: ALMOG, J. Referential Mechanics: Direct Reference and the Foundations of Semantics (Oxford University Press, 2014)”

Although this article is included in the present volume, it appeared earlier in the modality Ahead of Print.

¹CDD: 401

Filipe Martone – University of Campinas – Philosophy. Rua Cora Coralina, 100, Campinas São Paulo, Brazil. 13083-896. filipemartone@gmail.com.

Acessar publicação original

Tags: ALMOG Joseph (Aut), Foundational semantics, Manuscrito (Ma), MARTONE Filipe (Res), Oxford University Press (E), Referential Mechanics: Direct Reference and the Foundations of Semantics (T), Semântica

Kant and Non-Conceptual Content – HEIDEMANN (M)

1 de julho de 2013

HEIDEMANN, Dietmar H. (ed.). Kant and Non-Conceptual Content. [?]: Routledge, 2013. 227p. Resenha de: FAGGION, Andrea. Manuscrito, Campinas, v.36 n.2 July/Dec. 2013.

Kant and Non-Conceptual Content is based on a special issue of the International Journal of Philosophical Studies. With the exception of the last of the eight chapters, by Hannah Ginsborg, all the articles were initially presented at a workshop on Kant and non-conceptual content in May 2009 at the Department of Philosophy of the University of Luxembourg. The first chapter is an introduction by Dietmar Heidemann (‘Kant and Non-Conceptual Content: The Origin of the Problem’, pp. 1-10). In the following two chapters, almost half of the book, Robert Hanna presents his arguments in favour of a strong version of Non-Conceptualism that he considers as Kantian Non-Conceptualism (‘Beyond the Myth of the Myth: A Kantian Theory of Non-Conceptual Content’, pp. 11-86, and ‘Kant’s Non-Conceptualism, Rogue Objects, and the Gap in the B Deduction’, pp. 87-103). In their articles, Brady Bowman (‘A Conceptualist Reply to Hanna’s Kantian Non-Conceptualism’, pp. 104-133), Terry Godlove (‘Hanna, Kantian Non- Conceptualism, and Benacerraf’s Dilemma’, pp. 134-151), Stefanie Grüne (‘Is there a Gap in Kant’s B Deduction?’, pp. 152-177), Tobias Schlicht (‘Non-Conceptual Content and the Subjectivity of Consciousness’, pp. 178-207), and Hannah Ginsborg (‘Was Kant a Nonconceptualist?’, pp. 208-221) critically discuss Hanna’s claims.

Kant and Non-Conceptual Content certainly brings a contribution to the Kant scholarship regarding a crucial issue in the first Critique: the relation between concepts and perceptual experience. But its appeal is not merely historical. Since both conceptualists and nonconceptualists have claimed a Kantian root of their arguments, the answer to the question of whether Kant himself was a conceptualist or a non-conceptualist may clarify the framework of this contemporary controversy in philosophy of mind. Furthermore, the question of the role played by concepts in perceptions, if any at all, can only emerge once Kant has drawn a distinction between understanding and sensibility as two qualitatively different sources of representations. In other words, a polemic regarding non-conceptual content in mental representations cannot arise while the distinction between sensible and intellectual representations is drawn as a distinction of degrees of clarity and distinctness. This being so, to sum up, Kant has settled the philosophical paradigm inside which it makes sense to discuss nonconceptual content in mental representations (Heidemann 2013, pp. 2-4).

In order to make their point about Kant being a non-conceptualist, non-conceptualists strongly rely on the distinction itself between understanding and sensibility as independent and irreducible mental faculties (Heidemann 2013, p. 8). On the other hand, conceptualists claim that: ‘In his slogan, “Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind,” Kant sums up the doctrine of conceptualism’ (Gunther 2003, p. 1). In brief, conceptualists interpret this famous slogan as a Kantian statement of the requirement of concepts for the intentionality or object-directedness of intuitions in such a way that sensible representations would lack representational content without the guidance of understanding (Heidemann 2013, pp. 1-2; Hanna 2013, p. 90). Such a conceptualist thesis would be further developed in the Transcendental Deduction of the Pure Concepts of the Understanding. In their turn, nonconceptualists claim that, in Kant’s view, concepts are required only ‘for the specific purpose of constituting objectively valid judgments‘ (Hanna 2013, p. 93) thus that the blindness of intuitions without concepts should be thought of as less literal than conceptualists suggest.

Following these remarks, it is easy to note that this discussion is about the unity of representations. The revolutionary Kantian distinction between sensible and intellectual representations is a distinction between different kinds of unity in mental representations. According to Kant, the unity of concept is the unity of ‘a representation that is contained in an infinite set of different possible representations (as their common mark), which thus contains these under itself‘ (CPR, A 25/B 40). On the other hand, the unity of intuition is the ‘unity of a set of representations within itself‘ (CPR, A 25/B 40). For this reason, the whole of intuition is a whole whose parts cannot be conceived of as independent representations, but only as components or limitations of the whole, while the conceptual unity is the unity of independent representations sharing a common mark (Heidemann 2013, p. 7 and Bowman 2013, p. 107). Hence, the following question is at issue in Kant and Non-Conceptual Content: once we have agreed that the unity of intuition is intrinsically different from the unity of concept, must we assert that the unity of intuition is also independent of the unity of concept?

Hanna’s answer for the question above is undoubtably positive. In order to make justice to his Non-Conceptualism, it is important to note that he is not saying that the manifold of sensible intuition could bear intentionality by itself. From his point of view, such a claim would

amount to a ‘”sensationalist” conception of non-conceptual content’ susceptible to the objection of adherence to the Myth of the Given (Hanna 2013, p. 14 and p. 75). Rather, on his account, Non-Conceptualism is a theory about ‘representational contents whose semantic structure and psychological function are necessarily distinct from the structure and function of conceptual content, and are not strictly determined by the conceptual capacities of […] minded animals’ (Hanna 2013, p. 20). This is his essentialist content Non-Conceptualism, also considered by Hanna as a Kantian Non-Conceptualism exactly due to the thesis regarding a qualitative difference in the semantic structure and the psychological function of concepts and intuitions. By emphasizing this difference, Hanna supports Russell’s classical distinction between knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description, even though he holds that ‘the primary objects of cognitive acquaintance are just individual macroscopic material beings’ (Hanna 2013, p. 40). While knowledge by description is always either ‘knowing X as F‘ (conceptual content) or ‘knowing that X is F‘ (propositional knowledge) (Hanna 2013, p. 41), knowledge by acquaintance (non-conceptual content) is always a context situated, egocentric perspectival, and intrinsically spatiotemporally structured knowledge-how (Hanna 2013, p. 18 and p. 60). This non-conceptual content is:

not ineffable, but instead shareable or communicable only to the extent that another ego or first-person is in a cognitive position to be actually directly perceptually confronted by the selfsame individual macroscopic material being in a spacetime possessing the same basic orientable and thermodynamically irreversible structure. (Hanna 2013, p. 41)

In the second part of his chapter ‘A Conceptualist Reply to Hanna’s Kantian Non-Conceptualism’, Bowman criticizes such a criterion of distinction between conceptual and nonconceptual content that is based on context independence versus the lack of such an independence (Bowman 2013, pp. 120-122). He also defends that ‘[k]nowing-how must […] be analysable in terms of knowing-that’ (Bowman 2013, p. 126). Rather than Non-Conceptualism, Bowman proposes a ‘conceptualist active externalism’ according to which our encounter with the world is already conceptually shaped and involves an at least quasi-conceptual activity on the part of the perceiver (Bowman 2013, pp. 120-121).

Whether deemed acceptable or not, the strong and essentialist version of Non- Conceptualism offered by Hanna is to be contrasted with state Non-Conceptualism, a version of Non-Conceptualism that Hanna believes to be unacceptable (Hanna 2013, p. 26 and p. 32). State non-conceptualists define Non-Conceptualism in terms of failure of concept-possession. Roughly speaking, the state non-conceputalist claim is that the savage who sees ‘a house from a distance, for example, with whose use he is not acquainted, […] admittedly has before him in his representation the very same object as someone else who is acquainted with it determinately as a dwelling established for men’ (Log, AA 09: 33). In other words, the savage from Kant’s example does not need to possess a corresponding concept to specify what he sees as the sight of a house in order to see the very same house as he would see whether he possessed the concept of ‘house’. The same claim is made about little infants and non-human animals regarding their encounters with the world, since they do not possess linguistic tools to judge or describe what they do encounter.

In accordance with Hanna, the problem with state Non-Conceptualism is that a Highly Refined Conceptualism entails that even if it can be shown that some human or non-human cognizers do actually achieve perceptual representations with intentionality and objectdirectedness without actually possessing or even being capable of possessing a corresponding concept for the identification of the perceived object, then Conceptualism is still not undermined (Hanna 2013, p. 32). This is because, as Hanna admits, ‘it is possible to have the ability to deploy and use a concept without also having possession of that concept. In other words, concept-possession requires more and richer abilities than the basic, minimal set of abilities required for concept-deployment and concept-use alone‘ (Hanna 2013, p. 24, see also p. 38 and p. 75).

Thus, that Kantian savage mentioned above could still be deploying a conceptual content, even though he did not possess the corresponding concept. Concept-possession, for Hanna, requires the capability of becoming self-consciously aware of the descriptive or intensional elements of the concept and carrying out analytic a priori inferences involving the concept (Hanna 2013, p. 24). On the other hand, concept-deployment and concept-use only require the ability to recognize an object when one perceives it and to distinguish the object from other sorts of things (Hanna 2013, p. 24). Hence, the truth of a Highly Refined Version of Conceptualism would require only that some possible non-contemporary or non-conspecific cognizer dispositionally possesses the concepts being used and deployed by the cognizer who does not herself possess or is capable of possessing those concepts (Hanna 2013, p. 33; see also Bowman 2013, p. 119).

This is why passages as that from Logic Jäsche quoted above are not enough to make Kant a non-conceptualist. After all, state Non-Conceptualism is compatible with Highly Refined Conceptualism. Nevertheless, as said above, Hanna considers that his content Non- Conceptualism has a Kantian provenance. In fact, the core of his arguments in favour of content Non-Conceptualism relies on Kant’s theory of incongruent counterparts (for instance, a hand and its mirrored image), that is supposed to show that ‘incongruent counterparts are qualitatively identical‘, thus, that ‘there is no descriptive difference between incongruent counterparts’, what amounts to say that there is no conceptual difference between any object and its incongruent counterpart, and, therefore, that if one can perceive the exact and real difference between incongruent counterparts, then ‘essentially non-conceptual content exists’ (Hanna 2013, p. 47).

Although, Hanna insists that he is ‘NOT denying that essentially non-conceptual mental contents can be conceptualized in some other non-essential, non-strictly determining sense’ (Hanna 2013, p. 20; see also p. 31), it is important to note that, according to his Non- Conceptualism, such a conceptualization may also be impossible. In short, essentialist content Non-Conceptualism leaves room for ‘rogue or elusive objects’:

there might then still be some spatiotemporal objects of conscious perception to which the categories either do not necessarily apply or necessarily do not apply: that is, there might be some ‘rogue objects’ of human intuitional experience that are not or cannot also be objects of human conceptual and judgmental experience… (Hanna 2013, p. 95)

Since the Transcendental Deduction of the Pure Concepts of the Understanding maintains that pure concepts ‘are necessary a priori conditions of the possibility of all objects of experience’ (Hanna 2013, p. 89), it precludes the possibility of rogue or ill-behaved objects of experience and, therefore, presupposes Conceptualism. Certainly, only on a conceptualist account of perceptual experience it is possible to guarantee that the unity of conscious perceptions of objects in space and time is determined by (and, therefore, always compatible with) the unity of concepts. Now, if the Transcendental Deduction presupposes Conceptualism, while Kant is actually a non-conceptualist, then there is a Gap in the Deduction (Hanna 2013, pp. 95-97). This is the claim in Hanna’s second chapter in Kant and Non-Conceptual Content.

In her reply to this chapter, Stefanie Grüne notes that there is a Gap in the Deduction if and only ‘if Kant is a strong content non-conceptualist, who believes that there are at least some perceptual states which contain nothing but essentially non-conceptual content’. (Grüne 2013, p. 159). Hanna must accept this claim, since, as we saw above, he believes that state Non-Conceptualism is reducible to Highly Refined Conceptualism all things considered. Furthermore, Hanna does attribute to Kant the strong content non-conceptualist view, as we also saw above. However, Hanna’s arguments for the last claim are only provided in his first chapter, whereas Grüne analyses only his second chapter. This is why she can conclude her own chapter by asserting ‘that characterizing Kant as the founder of Non-Conceptualism is not incompatible with believing in the success of the Transcendental Deduction’ (Grüne 2013, p. 171). She is referring to state Non-Conceptualism, while Hanna must be referring to content Non-Conceptualism, as we realize by combining the claims of his first and second chapter.

After making his point about the claimed Gap in the argument, Hanna goes even further and claims that the Deduction ‘had to fail, given Kant’s other deeper and larger cognitive and metaphysical commitments’ (Hanna 2013, p. 102). For instance, Kant had to make room for moral philosophy. Thus, in accordance with Hanna’s reading, the class of necessarily rogue objects is the same as the class of persons endowed with transcendental freedom (Hanna 2013, p. 99).

Brady Bowman, in his already mentioned chapter, provides good reasons for a Kantian philosopher being cautious about Hanna’s claims regarding rogue objects. As Bowman points out, if we accept that the general idea of rogue objects of experience is compatible with, even necessary for, the overall Kantian project, then ‘our actual experience could be thoroughly Humean and its seeming intelligibility merely contingent appearance’ (Bowman 2013, p. 110). If I understand properly Bowman’s objection, the issue here is that the acceptance of the possibility of rogue objects would imply the acceptance of the possibility that all objects of human experience could be rogue objects, hence, that any regularity observed so far could have been merely accidental, as is the constant conjunction of objects for Hume. In fact, a rogue object would be that cinnabar ‘now red, now black, now light, now heavy’ that Kant mentions in the A Deduction (CPR, A 100). As a result of such a behavior in the objects of perceptions, ‘even though we had the faculty for associating perceptions, it would still remain in itself entirely undetermined and contingent whether they were also associable’ (CPR, A 121-122). On Kant’s view, if they were not, there would be a definitive threat even to the identity of consciousness (CPR, A 122 and B 133), as it is explained by Tobias Schlicht in his chapter ‘Non-Conceptual Content and the Subjectivity of Consciousness’: ‘this consciousness of being the identical single subject can only arise in the light of a regular combination of representations’ (Schlicht 2013, p. 164).

Hannah Ginsborg, in the last chapter of Kant and Non-Conceptual Content, makes exactly the same point as Bownman regarding ‘the anti-Humean aspect of Kant’s view in the Critique‘ (Ginsborg 2013, p. 212) that would be lost if we accepted Hanna’s claims regarding rogue objects. On the other hand, Ginsborg believes to be necessary to deliver a conceptualist reading of the role of the understanding in the constitution of perceptual experience that, like the non-conceptualist view, respects ‘the primitive character of perception relative to thought and judgment’ (Ginsborg 2013, p. 210). In other words, according to her, the role of understanding in perceptual synthesis cannot consist ‘in the application of antecedently possessed concepts to whatever preconceptual material is presented to us by sensibility’ (Ginsborg 2013, p. 214). Rather, on her account, ‘to say that synthesis involves understanding is simply to say that it involves a consciousness of normativity’ (Ginsborg 2013, p. 214) that amounts to the subject taking ‘herself to be synthesizing as she ought’, without having antecedently grasped any concept, pure or empirical (Ginsborg 2013, p. 214).

To be certain, Hanna also claims that perception involves a consciousness of normativity. Nevertheless, according to him, ‘essentially non-conceptual content is inherently normative’ (Hanna 2013, p. 62). This being so, while Ginsborg considers the normativity in our perceptual experience as the distinctive mark of the understanding, Hanna sustains that the ‘essentially non-conceptual content has its own “lower-level spontaneity”‘ or ‘normativity’ (Hanna 2013, p. 74), the ‘body’s own reasons’ (Hanna 2013, p. 75). That amounts to say that Hanna disconnects the imagination from the understanding when it is merely a matter of explaining the constitution of perceptual experience. Hence, in this perceptual level, it does not seem to me that Hanna admits something like what Godlove, in his chapter, describes as judgments ‘about spatiotemporal somethings cognized independently of the application of concepts’ delivered by sensibility (Godlove 2013, p. 148). According to Hanna, the understanding is required only for the constitution of objectively valid judgments, while the nonconceptual content of perception is pre-discursive and pre-reflective (Hanna 2013, pp. 14-15, 41, 60, 67-78), even though it is still normative and spontaneous.

In favour of Ginsborg’s reading, there are the textual evidence of the Transcendental Deduction. After all, even Hanna is claiming that the Transcendental Deduction depends on a conceptualist view of perception. In favour of Hanna’s reconstruction of the synthesis of the intuition, there may be the possibility of avoiding objections of over-intelectuallization of the mind. Although, Ginsborg intends to preserve the primitive character of perception relative to thought, on her account, the subject cannot perceive something as an apple ‘without conceiving it to be an apple, and hence judging that is is an apple’ (Ginsborg 2013, p. 217). This reading could be vulnerable to a familiar kind of criticism regarding conceptualist accounts of perception: if mere intentionality or object-directedness requires conceptual normativity and if conceptual normativity requires an act of judgment, then animals and infants cannot perceive objects since they lack language tools to judge or to possess concepts. Ginsborg herself calls attention to the fact that, on her account, the association involved in our perceptions differs ‘fundamentally from those of animals’ in that our perceptions carry the consciousness of normativity (Ginsborg 2013, p. 217). Indeed, on Ginsborg’s view, animals and toddlers seem to be incapable of perceptions as mental contents with intentionality and object-directedness, for, after acknowledging that we share with animals ‘natural dispositions to associate representations in one set of ways rather than another’, Ginsborg claims that the fact that ‘our perceptual experience has representational content in the first place is not due to the particular ways that we associate our representations, but rather to the consciousness of normativity in those associations’ thus that the understanding is ‘responsible for these perceptions’ having representational content überhaupt‘ (Ginsborg 2013, p. 218).

Regarding Ginsborg’s reading of Kant, we can point out that Schlicht criticizes Kant for thinking that ‘this unification [of a phenomenal manifold of sensory or representational content] amounts to a conceptual synthesis of the non-conceptual content of intuition’ (Schlicht 2013, p. 197). According to him:

If a mental representation is only something for me if and only if intuitional content is brought under categories via spontaneous synthesis, then we are left with the problem that only adult human beings can have phenomenally conscious states. Non-human animals and human infants are excluded from the range of creatures for whom there is something it is like to experience their mental states since they plausibly lack these conceptual capacities. (Schlicht 2013, pp. 197-198)

Although Schlicht sounds reasonable when he adds that: ‘We would prefer an account according to which phenomenal consciousness is more widespread among the animal kingdom. That is the main reason why Kant’s solution seems unsatisfying’ (Schlich 2013, p. 198), we could ask if there would be no alternative between Hanna’s and Ginsborg’s reading such that the synthesis of intuition would be subjected to the understanding and at the same time would not involve the possession of concepts or the over-intellectualization of the mental content. Grüne seems to be offering this alternative. In a way that reminds us of Hanna’s distinction between concept-deployment and concept-possession, Grüne states that ‘the fact that one can have an intuition without possessing concepts does not have any implications for the question what kind of content the intuition has’ (Grüne 2013, p. 164). Her claim is that categories function as rules for synthesis of the sensible manifold into intuitions, whereas ‘synthesizing does not imply judging’ (Grüne 2013, p. 167). Following Longuenesse (1998), Grüne believes that, according to Kant’s Transcendental Deduction, one needs the possession of ‘clear’ concepts in order to be capable of judgment, but only the deployment of ‘dark’ concepts as rules for synthesis in order to be capable of perceptual experience (Grüne 2013, p. 176, n. 39). On this account, perhaps Kant could avoid both the Humean acceptance of rogue objects and the over-intellectualization of the mind.

In any case, as we saw above, Hanna claims that Kant does not only leave room for rogue objects, but also identifies persons endowed with transcendental freedom and necessarily rogue objects. Regarding Hanna’s conception of persons as rogue objects of experience, Bowman also offers a more orthodox Kantian point of view. According to Bowman, Kant is not looking for a way of qualifying persons as ill-behaved or as rogue objects of experience: ‘Instead, he looks for non-contradictory ways of attributing both natural causal determinism and freedom […] to the same objects’ (Bowman 2013, p. 111). The same line of objection is followed by Stefanie Grüne: ‘we can think of ourselves as free beings only if we regard ourselves as noumena, that is as objects, insofar as they are not objects of sensible intuition’ (Grüne 2013, pp. 165-166). To be fair, one needs to admit that this more orthodox reading presupposes the Kantian commitment to a strong version of the Transcendental Idealism, a commitment that Hanna is not willing to accept (Hanna 2013, p. 90). However, it is hard to see how Hanna could bring transcendental freedom to the empirical realm without destroying the natural determinism that Kant intends to preserve as well.

All things considered, perhaps Robert Hanna’s reading of Kant is a misunderstanding of his major philosophical project. But then, as Bowman has said, it is an ‘extraordinarily productive misunderstanding’ (Bowman 2013, p. 115). Kant and Non-Conceptual Content proves that.

References

GUNTHER, York H. Essays on Nonconceptual Content. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003. [ Links ]

KANT, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason (CPR). Translated and edited by Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. [ Links ]

_____. Lectures on Logic (Log). Translated and edited by J. Michael Young. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. [ Links ]

LONGUENESSE, Béatrice. Kant and the Capacity to Judge. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998. [ Links ]

Andrea Faggion – Departamento de Filosofia. Universidade Estadual de Londrina. Rodovia Celso Garcia Cid, km 380. 86057-970. Londrina, PR. BRASIL; Programa de Mestrado em Filosofia, Universidade Estadual de Maringá; andreafaggion@gmail.com

Acessar publicação original

Tags: Conhecimento não conceitual, FAGGION Andrea (Res), HEIDEMANN Dietmar H (Ed), Immanuel Kant, Kant and Non-Conceptual Content (T), Manuscrito (Ma)

Reference and existence: the John Locke lectures – KRIPTE (M)

1 de julho de 2013

KRIPTE, Saul A.. Reference and existence: the John Locke lectures. [?]: Oxford University Press, 2013, xiii + 170p. Resenha de: SANTOS, César Schirmer dos. Manuscrito, Campinas, v.36 n.2 July/Dec. 2013.

Após quarenta anos, as conferências John Locke de 1973, proferidas por Saul Kripke entre o final de outubro e o início de dezembro daquele ano, foram finalmente publicadas pela Oxford University Press. Durante todo este tempo, essas conferências circularam entre alguns poucos felizardos na forma de cópias de cópias de cópias. Agora, esse trabalho seminal está finalmente disponível ao merecido público mais amplo.

As conferências John Locke de 1973 de Kripke tratam exatamente dos conceitos que dão título ao livro: referência e existência. Nessas conferências, Kripke desenvolve, estende e elabora ideias que haviam sido apresentadas nas conferências de 1970, sobre referência e identidade, que foram posteriormente publicadas sob o título Naming and necessity.

A principal contribuição das conferências de Kripke de 1973 está no tratamento da semântica dos termos singulares e dos substantivos vazios, como “Hamlet”, “Zeus” e “unicórnio”. Para tanto, Kripke inicia revisando o estado da semântica, desde Frege e Russell até Donnellan. Frege e Russell viram “existir” como um verbo que é usado legitimamente em predicados de segunda ordem. Assim, eles viram a existência como uma propriedade de propriedades, não de coisas singulares, pois não há razão para se usar um predicado que não pode ser falso de coisa alguma, como Russell defende em A filosofia do atomismo lógico, e Frege defende em “Função e conceito” (p. 6-7).

Kripke não concorda com essa visão. Para ele, é legítimo atribuir existência a indivíduos, pois é inteligível que se diga que algo existe ou não (p. 36). Isso não quer dizer, contudo, que Kripke defenda que a existência é uma propriedade de primeira ordem, pois ele simplesmente não trata a existência como uma propriedade. Para apresentar esse ponto, precisamos partir da sua semântica da ficção e do discurso mitológico.

Para Kripke, os quantificadores da linguagem comum atravessam o domínio de entidades fictícias ou mitológicas. Isso não quer dizer, no entanto, que essas entidades são reais num sentido meinonguiano. Em vez disso, o ponto é que se trata de uma questão empírica descobrir se essas entidades existem ou não, pois se há, na ficção ou mitologia, um personagem fictício mitológico que faz, na ficção ou mitologia, tal e tal coisa, então esse personagem existe, dado que a ficção ou mitologia dá existência ao personagem (p. 71). Assim, Kripke não defende que a existência é uma propriedade. Tudo o que ele diz é que, através da ficção ou da mitologia, se inventa entidades as quais se pode atribuir propriedades (p. 146). Por exemplo, o personagem Huckleberry Finn existe, pois há obras de Mark Twain que lhe dão existência. De modo que a existência desse personagem é uma questão empírica, bem diferente do que se dá quanto à existência de entidades matemáticas, e bem diferente da proposta de Meinong de atribuir aos entes fictícios um tipo diferente de realidade (p. 72). Um personagem de ficção é uma entidade abstrata que existe em virtude de atividades concretas, no caso narrativas. O caso é análogo ao da existência de nações, as quais existem em virtude de relações concretas entre as pessoas. O que torna verdadeiros os enunciados sobre as nações são as atividades das pessoas. De maneira análoga, o que torna verdadeiros os enunciados sobre personagens fictícios são as atividades dos narradores, pois personagens fictícios não são entidades meinonguianas que existem automaticamente, pois só existem por causa das atividades dos narradores. E, é claro, um personagem fictício não é uma pessoa, de modo que Sherlock Holmes não foi e não deveria ser contado no censo dos habitantes de Londres, pois há diferenças entre entes fictícios e entes não-fictícios (p. 73-74). Em cada caso, o teste de realidade é ligar o verbo existir a uma propriedade, de preferência um sortal. Tome o sortal “pessoa”, querendo dizer uma pessoa de carne e osso. Levando em conta esse sortal (e desconsiderando acasos históricos), a frase “Existiu na Dinamarca um príncipe chamado ‘Hamlet’” é falsa. Agora tome o sortal “personagem teatral”. Nesse caso, a frase “Existiu um personagem teatral chamado ‘Hamlet’” é verdadeira (p. 150). Essas duas questões fazem sentido, o que estabelece a legitimidade de se tomar a existência como algo que se pode atribuir a indivíduos, sem no entanto se estabelecer com isso que a existência é uma propriedade, pois Russell tem razão ao dizer que uma propriedade legítima não é verdadeira de todas as coisas. O que se dá é justamente que algo se apresenta como quantificável, e ser quantificável não é possuir uma propriedade, mas sim estar aí para receber propriedades.

Em suma, Kripke defende que tudo aquilo que é quantificável existe, sem que a existência seja uma propriedade. Além disso, se algo existe (é quantificável), e é designado, então há referência. De modo que designadores de indivíduos fictícios ou mitológicos não são vazios. Não é o caso que “Hamlet” não tem referência, mas sim que com “Hamlet” o autor pretende que há uma referência, e através de tal pretensão se estabelece uma referência, pois essa referência de faz de conta é um tipo de referência, de modo que na teoria de Kripke é errado dizer que “Hamlet” é um nome vazio (p. 103). Assim, é errado dizer que o nome “Hamlet” não designa nada, pois designa alguma coisa, não no mundo real, nem em um mundo meinonguiano, mas sim uma entidade abstrata que ganha existência através da narrativa de Shakespeare, e a qual se pode dar propriedades (p. 78).

A teoria esboçada acima tem inúmeros detalhes que não podem ser apresentados nessa resenha, além de diversos complicadores. Uma complicação é um certo duplo uso da predicação, pois podemos dizer que Hamlet é um personagem muito debatido, e também que Hamlet era melancólico. O predicado “é um personagem muito debatido” leva em conta o personagem Hamlet, enquanto o predicado “era melancólico” leva em conta o que se dá na narrativa, e a confusão entre esses predicados traz ruído à teoria semântica (p. 74).

Há também problemas relacionados à identidade das entidades mitológicas. Zeus e Júpiter eram o mesmo deus? Empregando a proposta já presente em Naming and necessity, isso depende das origens dos seus respectivos panteões. Caso as origens sejam independentes, são dois deuses diferentes, caso contrário, são o mesmo deus. O importante é que essas questões sobre a identidade de entidades fictícias ou mitológicas se respondem com investigações empíricas, no caso pesquisas históricas (p. 77). Algo análogo vale para predicados vazios que se suspeita possuidores de extensão no mundo real, pois para provar que unicórnios existem é preciso provar que há conexão histórica entre os bichos que satisfazem a descrição e o mito que nos foi legado (p. 50).

Outro ponto explorado na obra, mas ao qual apenas farei menção, sem explorar minimamente, é a semântica dos substantivos. Nisso se mantém o paralelismo com Naming and necessity, pois quanto a essa obra é muito discutida a questão de se a teoria da designação rígida, pouco discutível no caso dos nomes próprios, como “Túlio” ou “Cícero”, pode ser estendida ao caso dos substantivos, como “ouro” ou “tigre”. Sem nos aprofundarmos na questão, indico apenas que, na obra que resenhamos, Kripke considera o discurso sobre predicados vazios é tão problemático quanto o discurso sobre nomes vazios, e digno de soluções análogas (p. 43).

Nas palestras mais adiantadas, Kripke propõe aplicações da sua teoria a outras áreas da filosofia, como a epistemologia. Em suma, Kripke propõe a seguinte analogia: o discurso histórico sobre um personagem real está para o discurso fictício sobre um personagem real de maneira análoga ao modo como as propriedades reais de um objeto estão para as propriedades percebidas perspectivamente desse objeto. Apresentarei os elementos centrais dessa proposta, adiantando apenas que, na melhor das hipóteses, o que Kripke nos apresenta é insuficiente para estabelecer a analogia.

Kripke apresenta uma analogia entre sense data e personagens fictícios que funciona da seguinte maneira. Algumas pessoas reais, como Napoleão, também são personagens de filmes e outras obras de ficção. Assim, podemos dizer dessas pessoas que elas têm propriedades que podem ser descobertas pelos historiadores, e também que certos narradores lhes atribuíram outras propriedades, deixando claro que se tratava de propriedades fictícias. Algo análogo se daria com os sense data. Uma casa, vista de longe ou de perto, tem as mesmas propriedades, isto é a mesma altura, área etc. Mas a percepção dessa casa por uma pessoa que se aproxima tem outras propriedades, pois se pode dizer que se trata de algo que fica cada vez maior. A propriedade de crescer pertence à casa na percepção, assim como certas propriedades pertencem a Napoleão na ficção (p. 98-99). Assim, pela analogia de Kripke, o contexto perceptual possibilita que se atribua certas propriedades a coisas reais, tal como se dá quando fazemos ficção sobre coisas reais. O caso das alucinações seria diferente, pois aqui haveria analogia com o caso no qual se tem um personagem fictício desde o início. Por exemplo, minha prima Josefina alucina um fantasma. Se é assim, então há um fantasma na alucinação, assim como há um personagem na ficção (p. 99).

Creio que a proposta de Kripke para o caso da percepção poderia ser estendida para o caso da memória, pois se uma coisa é o objeto percebido, e outra coisa (igualmente existente) é o objeto na percepção (o qual seria análogo a um personagem de ficção), então uma coisa é o objeto lembrado, e outra coisa (igualmente existente) seria o objeto na memória (o qual também seria análogo a um personagem de ficção). Mas tenho dúvidas sobre o quanto esta proposta nos ajuda a entender a percepção, a memória e outros estados epistêmicos.

Em outras conferências, Kripke apresenta sérias reservas ao modo como Keith Donnellan analisa as descrições definidas. Como é bem-sabido, Donnellan distingue entre dois usos das descrições definidas: referencial e atributivo. Alguém diz, apontando para um homem que está ao lado de uma mulher, “O marido dela é um homem gentil”. Mas o homem não é o marido da mulher, de modo que a descrição não é satisfeita. Isso é um problema no uso atributivo de uma descrição definida, mas não no uso referencial, pois podemos ter sucesso em referir ao homem através da descrição “o marido dela” mesmo que ele não seja o marido dela. Donnellan diz que, se é assim, então há um problema na análise de Russell das descrições definidas, pois a mesma supõe que toda descrição funciona atributivamente. Kripke, no entanto, não vê qual seria a pertinência semântica das distinções de Donnellan como bases para a crítica a Russell, pois Donnellan não teria mostrado que as descrições definidas são semanticamente ambíguas, sendo que tudo o que Russell quis foi apresentar uma análise semântica das descrições definidas. Donnellan diz que as descrições definidas podem ser usadas de maneira referencial ou semântica. Mas, se é assim, então sua proposta é meramente pragmática, e não conta para a rejeição da análise semântica proposta por Russell (p. 110-111). Para Kripke, o que pode haver, e Donnellan não notou, é uma diferença entre a referência semântica e a referência do falante. Levando em conta o idioleto de um falante, podemos distinguir entre as intenções gerais do falante no uso de um termo singular (incluindo nomes próprios e descrições definidas), e suas intenções específicas em um determinado contexto. No entanto, esses não são dois sentidos de um termo singular, pois se trata de uma distinção pragmática, dado que se apoia nas intenções do falante. Assim, Donnellan não teria nenhum argumento semântico contra Russell (p. 118-123).

A partir dessa discussão, Kripke mostra que há casos nos quais um elemento pragmático pode ganhar força semântica. Tome um caso no qual uma expressão usada com o significado do falante é o antecedente de um anafórico. Por exemplo: “O marido dela é um homem gentil, ele sempre a trata com carinho”. Em um caso como esses, a descrição definida ganha um papel semântico, ainda que o homem referido não seja marido da mulher em questão. Logo, apesar de ser uma noção pragmática, a noção de referência do falante é relevante para a semântica, pois nada impede que uma referência do falante seja transmitida pela anáfora ou pela comunicação, e que ganhe valor semântico através da transmissão, podendo provocar uma mudança linguística (p. 128-136).

As críticas de Kripke a Donnellan não cessam aí, pois, ao contrário de Russell e Frege, Donnellan não analisou como sua proposta funcionaria no caso do discurso indireto. Considere a atribuição de atitude proposicional “Marcos pensa que o marido dela é um homem gentil”. Nesse caso, a descrição definida estaria sendo usada referencialmente ou atributivamente? Nenhuma das duas coisas. E, ainda assim, as análises semânticas das descrições definidas propostas por Russell e Frege se manteriam operantes (p. 134).

Nesse conjunto de conferências, Kripke não pretende ter resolvido todos os problemas semânticos envolvidos na questão dos termos singulares vazios. Em vez disso, sua proposta pretende apenas ser menos ruim do que as alternativas. Há problemas. Por exemplo, dado que a análise semântica de um nome vazio, como “Hamlet”, requer que se considere as intenções do narrador para se concluir que há pretensão de referir, disso segue que é preciso considerar o conteúdo de um nome para se estabelecer sua análise semântica correta. Mas isso é intolerável (p. 147) Não deveria haver diferentes análises para frases com nomes de entes fictícios e frases com nomes de entes não-fictícios (p. 150). Apesar desse problema, as conferências de Kripke continuam atuais, pois nos trazem ganhos na compreensão da referência e da existência.

César Schirmer dos Santos – Departamento de Filosofia. Universidade Federal de Santa Maria. Av. Roraima, 1000 – Prédio 74A, sala 2311. 97105-900 Santa Maria, RS. BRASIL. cesarschirmer@gmail.com

Acessar publicação original

Tags: Existência, John Locke, KRIPTE Saul A (Aut), Manuscrito (Ma), Oxford University Press (E), Reference and existence: the John Locke lectures (T), Referência, SANTOS César Schirmer dos (Res)

Philosophy of Language – SOAMES (M)

1 de janeiro de 2013

SOAMES, Scott. Philosophy of Language. [?]: Princeton University Press, 2010. 199p. Resenha de PINTO, Silvio Mota. Manuscrito, Campinas, v.36 n.1 Jan./June 2013

Attempts to summarize the achievements of the last one and half century of work and the open problems in the field of the anglo-american philosophy of language there have been various. And yet to my knowledge none have so sharply pointed out the main contributions of both the pioneering work in the field and their follow-up as well as succeeded in diagnosing the most relevant topics of controversy as Scott Soames does in his short recent book titled Philosophy of Language. One may even disagree with certain of his views, while at the same time recognizing his penetrating diagnosis of what the most important theses are and where the deep problems lie.

The book is organized with an introduction and seven chapters, of which the first four belong to the longer first part, while the last three constitute the second part. The first part tells us about the solid ground built by the forefathers and their intellectual heirs. The second rather short part examines such polemical subjects as: a) how to conceive of propositions so that they could play an explanatory role within a theory of meaning for a natural language (NL) together with the notion of a possible state of the world (chapter five); or b) how to understand the interaction between epistemic and metaphysical modalities, particularly in Kripke’s preferred examples where we are supposed to know a priori of certain contingent propositions that they are true (chapter six); or c) how best to view the distinction between the semantics and pragmatics of NL when it comes to their respective contributions to the propositions expressed or asserted by literal uses of NL sentences (chapter seven). The first chapter examines Frege’s and Russell’s contributions to the philosophical study of language. Frege is legitimately considered to be the founder of contemporary philosophy of language by first applying the mathematical notion of a function to the semantic analysis of any scientific language. Frege’s second insight consisted in his carefully distinguishing between the sense and the reference of every relevant constituent part of a meaningful sentence, while insisting that both the sense and reference of complex expressions must be conceived as obeying their respective principles of compositionality. Given that truth-values are preserved for sentences when we apply Leibniz’s principle of substitutivity of co-referential sub-sentential expressions salva veritate, Frege took them to be their referents. The apparent violation of this principle for attributions of propositional attitudes led him to propose that within these oblique contexts expressions refer rather to the sense they normally possess in an extensional context while their new sense would correspond to a mode of presentation or way of determining the thought in question.

The problem with this proposal is well-known: it leads to a potentially infinite class of indirect higher-order senses which makes it difficult, if not impossible, to explain how this semantic hierarchy could be systematically learned. Soames discusses two alternative approaches to Frege’s proposal for accounting for the semantics of attributions of propositional attitudes (the first in terms of acquaintance with senses and the second in terms of a non-extensional that-operator on senses of sentences), only to conclude that Frege’s is more problematic than its alternatives.

Chapter one’s second part is dedicated to Russell’s work. Soames begins with the similarities and differences between Russell’s and Frege’s accounts of propositions and their constituents. Thus, both use the notion of a propositional function to account for the semantic structure of general statements. According to Frege and Russell after The Principles of Mathematics, the existential and universal quantifiers are second-level functions. Soames rightly criticizes this way of explaining the semantics of quantified statements in terms of higher level predication, which will in turn require explanation in terms of quantification, which must be analyzed away in terms of higher level predication, finally generating an explanatory circle. Soames also criticizes Russell for trying to force the semantic analysis of natural language general statements by using only unrestricted universal and existential quantifiers. Treating natural language expressions like ‘all philosophers’ or ‘most students’ as corresponding to genuine semantic constituents of their respective propositions is a more straightforward way of analyzing such English general statements.

Russell’s contention that definite descriptions are covert quantified expressions is recognized by Soames as a real insight. As already expected, he disagrees with Russell with respect to the latter’s analysis of definite descriptions in terms of unrestricted quantifiers. Better would have been to treat them as restricted quantifiers (‘the x: x authored Waverley’) and therefore to conceive them as corresponding to semantic constituents of the propositions associated with their respective sentences. However, the phenomenon of scope of an operator, applied to definite descriptions when it interacts with other operators, is mentioned as proof that Russell was right in his contention that definite descriptions are quantified expressions in disguise.

Soames levels two further criticisms of Russell’s “On denoting” semantic theory. The first is directed against Russell’s famous principle of acquaintance, which requires that the constituents of our worldly thoughts and propositions be cognitively transparent to us. When Russell applies his principle to occurrences of ordinary proper names in sentences, he is forced to hold the weird view that they are no genuine proper names, since we have no direct, infallible epistemic access to their referents. Soames’ second critique of Russell’s semantic theory concerns the latter’s argument to the effect that the expression ‘exist’ cannot play the semantic role of a first level predicate in statements like ‘Aristotle doesn’t exist’, because positive and negative existential statements involving ordinary proper names are really statements involving definite descriptions and these already contain an existential quantifier. But, as Soames correctly argues, there is no problem in conceiving such descriptive expressions as involving restricted quantifiers (‘the x: x authored The Nichomachean Ethics‘) to whose unique satisfier the propositional function x doesn’t exist applies, if the above statement is true.

Chapter two discusses Tarski’s analysis of truth and its importance for the philosophy of language. According to Soames, Tarski was led to focus on the concept of truth because he was interested in the expressive power of mathemathical theories and in the possibility of characterizing metatheoretical semantical notions in them. Truth was a central one although it was known since the Ancient Greeks that our pre-theoretical conception of the predicate ‘true’ leads to paradox. Tarski’s proposal was to abandon the pre-theoretical concept of truth in favor of an explicitly defined truth-predicate for certain well-behaved languages, which he then showed how to explicate in such a way that would avoid paradox. As to the relevance of the Tarskian notion of truth for casting light on our pre-theoretical concept of meaning, Soames remains definitely pessimistic.

In the rest of the chapter, he criticizes two later attempts to philosophically explain linguistic meaning appealing to Tarski’s truth concept: Carnap’s and Davidson’s. The semantics Carnap proposes in the 40’s aims at clarifying notions like meaning, synonymy and analyticity for all the sentences of correctly regimented scientific languages in terms of Tarskian truth and designation as well as the notion of a complete description of a possible state of the world. Among other difficulties, he rightly complains about the very poor notion of proposition that issues from Carnap’s semantics, according to which two logically equivalent sentences express the same proposition. As to Davidson’s proposal to account for meaning in NL in terms of the semantic conception of truth, Soames’ main objection concerns what he calls the problem of justifying the claim that a given Tarski-style theory that yields truth-conditions for all sentences of a certain natural language would qualify as a correct theory of meaning for that language. Since there can always be many truth theories which are both empirically and extensionally equivalent, then the claim that one of them is the correct theory for interpreting the language in question lacks a reasonable justification.

Having shown that truth-conditional semantics of the kind Davidsonians propose as well as intensional semantics of the sort Carnapians suggest are both inadequate as theories of meaning, Soames proceeds in the third chapter to review the prospects of more recent intensional semantics. Concerning the application of Kripkean possible worlds semantics and its deeper theoretical insight into the intuitive distinction between epistemic and metaphysical modalities, Soames maintains that it still would prove inadequate as a theory of meaning for NL. According to him, one illustration of this inadequacy would be the case of two different necessary and a priori sentences which would be true at every epistemically possible situation, and yet whose respective meaning would intuitively differ.

An interesting and successful application of a possible world semantics to give robust truth-conditions of counterfactuals is provided by Stalnaker and Lewis. The idea is that a sentence like “if it were the case that P, then it would be the case that Q” is true at a state of the world w if and only if Q is true at states of the world w* sufficiently similar to w and where P is also true. Here Soames carefully distinguishes between the possible world semantic account of such conditionals and their philosophical analysis in terms of the notion of causation. According to him, a possible circularity in the analysis of counterfactuals in terms of causality and of the latter in terms of counterfactuals is something that doesn’t affect the semantic account of these conditionals’ truth-conditions in terms of possible states of the world.

Soames concludes the third chapter with a discussion of Montague’s proposal of an intensional semantics for NL. Instead of using first-order logic together with more powerful logical systems in order to regiment NL, Montague proposes more direct syntactic and semantic rules for generating complex expressions from their constituents and for interpreting these constituents and their complexes in terms of extensions and intensions. One of the most surprising features of Montagovian semantics is its classifying quantifier phrases and proper names in the same semantic category, that is: both denote sets of sets (for example: ‘John’ denotes the set of all sets which include its bearer as an element; ‘every man’ denotes the set of all sets containing every man). Soames’ argument against Montague’s similar treatment of proper names and quantified phrases maintains that it is more plausible to suppose that ordinary speakers use NL proper names as expressions designating individuals. His most substantial objections to Montagovian semantics, however, are that: a) as an intensional semantics it is incapable of dealing with sentences attributing propositional attitudes to speakers and b) as a sort of truth-conditions semantics it is strictly incapable of playing the role of a theory of meaning for NL.

Chapter four discusses two more specific features of Kripkean intensional semantics, namely: its semantic treatment of ordinary proper names and natural kind terms via the notion of rigid designation and of indexicals as expressions of direct reference. According to Soames, essentialism, rigid designation and the notion of de re necessity come to play a fundamental role in this type of intensional semantics because these are the doctrines and concepts needed in order to apply quantified modal logic for the semantic analysis of a sufficiently rich language like NL. He praises Kripke’s modal argument designed to show that ordinary proper names are rigid designators whereas their associated descriptions are non-rigid. He also endorses Kripke’s argument against the view that each name has a descriptive content, whose semantic role would be that of fixing its referent. He finally agrees with the author of Naming and Necessity‘s rough externalist and communitarian account of how the reference of NL names is determined. Overall he takes the view that the position being attacked by the rigid designation semanticist makes the mistake of conceiving the role of reference determination as an aspect of the meaning of names when this is rather an aspect of their use.

In the second half of chapter four, Soames discusses Kaplan’s direct reference semantics for indexicals. The semantics of pure indexicals is taken up first. According to Kaplan, the meaning rules associated with indexicals of this sort relate contexts of use with their respective semantic content, which together with the semantic contents of the other expressions occurring in a sentence have truth-conditions with respect to a possible circumstance of evaluation. Various other features of direct reference semantics are clarified like, for example, the distinction between rigid designators and expressions of direct reference. Further complications come up when it is a matter of providing a semantic treatment of demonstratives, since the meaning rules attributed to them relate contexts of use plus subjective elements like demonstrations or speaker’s referential intentions with their respective content. Soames overall assessment of Kaplan’s logic of indexicals is mixed: although it brilliantly explains the intuitive a priori character of contingent sentences like “I am here now” and contains also invaluable insights about the meaning of pure indexicals, the logic of indexicals fails, according to him, to provide a plausible semantics for NL demonstratives.

In chapter five, Soames insists on his argument for the semantic indispensability of the notions of proposition and possible world. According to him, an independent theory of propositions is needed, although it is not to be found in Russell or Frege, who took propositions to be intrinsically representational independently of us. Rather, such a theory should be part of a naturalistic account of the representationality of propositions in terms of the intrinsic representational properties of our cognitive states. By conceiving propositions as types of mental cognitive events by means of which agents most basically and atomically predicate properties and relations of n-uples of objects and besides by conceiving these events as objects of first-person acquaintance, Soames hopes to solve the problems related to the old Platonistic account of propositions and in particular the problem of the unity of the proposition, i.e. the problem of predication.

Essentially linked to the concept of proposition is that of a possible state of the world. This is the notion required for explaining the semantic evaluation of propositions with respect to truth. According to Soames, it makes no sense to speak of the truth of a proposition unless it is relative to a possible state of the world w, which is in turn characterized as a maximal consistent set containing either structured true atomic and normally non-modal propositions or their true negations. Of course, this notion of world-state must be enriched in order to account for the semantics of modal and belief propositions; for example, a proposition like possibly there are Higgs bosoms is true at w if and only if it is true at some world-state(s) metaphysically possible from w. It must also be enriched in the sense that it must include singular propositions about objects that do not exist in the actual state of the world. Soames closes the chapter with the rather puzzling remark according to which possible world semantics in the rich sense mentioned above should not be taken as theories of the meaning for NL modal and nonmodal sentences like belief attribution sentences.

The penultimate chapter deals with the epistemic modalities and particularly with Kripke’s controversial examples of a priori contingent propositions. According to him, paradigmatic examples of such propositions are those for which the referent of a rigid designator is fixed by the conceptual complex associated with a non-rigid definite description (for example: the proposition that one meter is the length of the platinum stick kept in Paris’ Institute for weights and measurements). Soames disagrees, by arguing that knowledge of the singular proposition associated with these cases is normally a posteriori, that is: based on his own perceptual experience, the reference fixer knows of this length [one meter] that it is the length of the famous Parisian stick. Better examples of a priori contingent, according to Soames, are propositions of the form p if and only if actually p (for instance: Princeton University has a philosophy department if and only if actually Princeton University has a philosophy department), where the actuality operator applies to propositions and predicates of them the property of being true at the actual state of the world.

Philosophy of Language‘s last chapter deals with the controversial question of how to draw the boundaries between the respective provinces of NL semantics and its pragmatics. Soames discusses, more specifically, the relations between the semantic (meaning) and pragmatic (contextually determined presuppositions, conversational implicatures, etc.) contributions to the propositions literally asserted by the utterances of NL sentences (S) or expressed by uses of S in thought. Two conceptions of such relations are discussed. According to the traditional conception, the semantic content associated with concrete literal uses of S is always a complete proposition, which might be enriched as a result of pragmatic factors operating in the context of communication, whereas Soames conceives such semantic content or meaning as a set of constraints on literal uses of S, which in the case of sentences with demonstrative indexicals or incomplete descriptions doesn’t suffice to determine a proposition but requires pragmatic information shared by language users to do so.

If Soames is right, then the most adequate way to draw the line between NL semantics and pragmatics would proceed by identifying the invariant minimal content common to all literal uses of NL sentences-its semantic contribution to the proposition asserted or expressed by such uses-and the difference between asserted or expressed content and invariant semantic content belongs to the province of pragmatics.

In my opinion, the greatest merit of Soames’s book is that of finding a perfect balance between the lucid and penetrating exposition of the most relevant problems in contemporary philosophy of language with carefully thought-out solutions to them. All those who are really interested in the topic must read it.

Silvio Mota Pinto – Departamento de Filosofia. UAM – Iztapalapa. MÉXICO. pint@xanum.uam.mx

Acessar publicação original

Tags: Filosofia da linguagem, Manuscrito (Ma), Philosophy of Language (T), PINTO Silvio Mota (Res), Princeton University Press (E), SOAMES Scott (Aut)

Modalities and Multimodalities – CARNIELLI (M)

1 de janeiro de 2013

CARNIELLI, Walter; PIZZI, Claudio. Modalities and Multimodalities. [?]: Springer, 2008. 320 p. Resenha de: COSTA-LEITE, Alexandre. Manuscrito, Campinas, v.36 n.1 Jan./June 2013.

Many philosophers are taking advantage of modal logic in order to approach their problems. This happens especially because the development of modal tools to formalize philosophical issues has been shown to be decisive to understand deep topics, for instance, in metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and their connections. This is evident when we read articles on philosophical logic. Modal tools play a role in building concepts, modelling theories and solving paradoxes, just to mention a few examples. In this sense, modal logic has been a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for philosophical research.

The book under review contains several of these modal tools. It has nine chapters dealing with a great plurality of aspects of modal logics. By the end of each chapter, there are exercises (but answers are not provided) and also a brief history of the main concepts introduced through the text. The book is accessible to anyone with a background in classical logic and it is of interest to all those studying logic. This is the English version of a book published years ago in Italian. Comparing this actual version with the old one, we see many improvements but no crucial changes.

The reader finds in chapter one an overview of classical propositional logic – called by the authors standard propositional calculus (PC)– because all modal logics studied in the book are extensions of this logic. The most important topic explored in this chapter is the constructive completeness proof of PC by Kalmár’s method. Moreover, other metalogical properties of PC are studied.

The syntactical aspects of modal logics besides their proof theory are introduced in chapter two. Beginning with Aristotle’s modal square of oppositions, this chapter goes up to the hierarchy of normal modal systems ranging from K to S5. Many properties of S5 are examined. In order to prove its consistency, they use the concept of translation of logics. The proof of the reduction theorem for modalities in S5 is presented in detail. In this chapter, the reader starts to understand the fundamental role of induction proofs in modal logics: this kind of proof is used to demonstrate the reduction theorem and the syntactical deduction theorem for modal logics. One very positive aspect of this book is that theorems are proved in detail and this is really helpful in order to precisely follow the whole proof.

After exploring syntactical aspects in chapter two, chapter three deals with semantics, and the famous Dugundji’s theorem which banned modal logic from the many-valued scenario is proved in detail. This theorem, although very important in modal logic, is almost never mentioned in modal logic textbooks. Afterwards, the fundamental distinction between Carnapian models (without accessibility relations) and Kripke models (with accessibility relations) is addressed. This lead us to correspondence theory (a branch of modal logic which investigates the connections between modal and first-order logic) and more fashionable concepts such as bissimulations, p-morphisms, and the Goldblatt-Thomason theorem. This dense chapter ends with tableaux for several modal systems. The authors show how to get different kinds of tableaux depending on the kind of accessibility of a given system.

The essential notion of (modal) completeness is analyzed in chapter four. It contains a detailed completeness proof of the general modal system K+G∞ which has as instantiations a great variety of modal logics. In this sense, proving completeness for this general system allows immediate proofs for all systems of the hierarchy from K to S5. This completeness proof is realized by what is called Henkin’s method. Thus, results such as the Lindenbaum theorem and the fundamental theorem of canonical models are presented. The chapter ends with a study of the logic of provability (linking modal logic with arithmetic), because this logic does not fall under the K+G∞ schema and, therefore, another strategy is required to prove completeness.

Following the same line, and developing metalogical properties of modal systems, chapter five shows how some modal logics are, indeed, incomplete. Notions like modal algebra and finite model property are presented. The latter is connected with the problem of proving decidability of modal logics.

From now on, the book, despite still examining a plurality of technical results, touches modal notions which are richer from the philosophical viewpoint. The theme of chapter six is that of temporal/tense logics. Temporal logics are studied from the syntactical but also from the semantical viewpoint. Tableaux are used as the main proof-theoretical strategy and completeness and incompleteness proofs of these temporal logics are also based on this technique. Tense logics are very useful in order to formalize models of time such as, for instance: branching, linear and circular time. Each temporal logic reflects some properties of these readings of time. The reader finds here a broad discussion on these subjects and a discussion of other interesting systems as, for example, hybrid logics.

Still going into modal notions with an intense philosophical flavour, the theme of chapter seven is that of epistemic logics. These are responsible for the mathematics of notions like knowledge and belief which are extremely important in computer science (and, needless to say, epistemology). Single and multi-agent epistemic logics are also studied from the proof and semantical theoretical viewpoints. There is a special session on doxastic logics as well as on common and distributed knowledge. Standard discussions on epistemic logic like positive and negative introspection are also examined.

It is rare to find a book dealing with multimodalities. These are exactly the topic of chapter eight. Indeed, it is important to note that central philosophical problems are formulated in sentences containing interactive concepts like, for instance, combined notions from metaphysics and epistemology. Thus, in order to reason about philosophy, multimodalities are the rule. This part of the book shows how to treat these multimodalities. Some multimodal systems are discussed: epistemic doxastic logics, deontic temporal logics, epistemic temporal logics etc. There is also a completeness proof of a very general multimodal system.

The last chapter (that is, chapter nine) enters into the landscape of complicated quantified modal logics which have a strong expressive power. Here we find a discussion on necessary and contingent identities, on rigid designation, and on the wild topic of quantification and multimodalities.

Despite the fact that the word “multimodalities” appears in the title, there is only one chapter dedicated to the theme. It is difficult to write a perfect book. Authors should prepare an errata correcting typos and other problems. There are no big errors, only minor and peripheral mistakes. However, some general negative aspects should be pointed out: 1) There is almost no mention of non-classical modal logics which are also pretty much investigated nowadays (this is surprising given that one the authors – W. A. Carnielli – works on non-classical logic); 2) Multimodal logics are introduced without appeal to methods like fusions and products (this is also surprising given that W. A. Carnielli does intensive research on combining logics); 3) Many-dimensional modal logics are not touched; 4) There is almost nothing about deontic logic; 5) Complexity of modal logics is not studied. This is a negative point, given that exploring concepts from the realm of computational complexity such as NP-completeness would make the book more attractive to the computer science community. Of course, some of these broad negative aspects would be, in a certain sense, too much for the purposes of this introductory guide to modal logic. This is the reason why I hope authors write a second volume covering all or some of these topics with the same elegance and simplicity.

I have used Modalities and Multimodalities to teach at the undergraduate level and the experience has been very good: after studying it, undergraduate students were able to develop creative research, going from non-abstract and primitive reasoning about the actual world to the richness and beauty of limitless modal inference.

Acessar publicação original

Tags: CARNIELLI Walter (Aut), COSTA-LEITE Alexandre (Res), Lógica modal, Manuscrito (Ma), Modalities and Multimodalities (T), PIZZI Claudio (Aut)

Pensamento crítico: o poder da lógica e da argumentação – CARNIELLI (M)

1 de julho de 2012

CARNIELLI, Walter A.; EPSTEIN, Richard L. Pensamento crítico: o poder da lógica e da argumentação. [?]: Editora Rideel, 2009, 384p. Resenha de: SILVA, Jairo José da. Critica do pensamento crítico. Manuscrito, Campinas, v.35 n.2 July/Dec. 2012.

“Razão” é um termo onipresente na filosofia, e de longa data; ambíguo também, e polissêmico. Sua acepção mais comum é a faculdade que se supõe tipicamente humana de argumentar; ou seja, sacar conclusões de pressupostos ou conclusões previamente obtidas, tudo devidamente expresso linguisticamente. Mas há argumentos e argumentos, há os bons e há os maus. Os bons são aqueles que a partir de pressupostos verdadeiros nos dão conclusões necessariamente verdadeiras ou, pelo menos, provavelmente verdadeiras. Aqueles são os argumentos dedutivos; estes, os indutivos. São maus os argumentos a veracidade de cujas conclusões não está garantida, nem com necessidade nem com probabilidade. Argumentos dedutivos são aqueles em que a transmissão da verdade (dos pressupostos às conclusões) está garantida; por exemplo, a inferência do particular a partir do geral; os indutivos, onde só está garantida a transmissão da falsidade (ou retro-transmissão da verdade, da conclusão aos pressupostos); por exemplo, a conclusão do geral a partir do particular.

Cânones de argumentação dedutiva podem ser precisamente codificados em sistemas; deduções são irrefutáveis se as regras do sistema forem cuidadosamente obedecidas; já a indutiva não admite regras precisas, ficando um pouco a mercê de um vago “bom senso”. Por exemplo, se pressuponho que todos os homens são mortais, então a mortalidade de qualquer homem em particular está logicamente garantida (regra de especificação: o particular é conseqüência necessária do universal). Considere agora as inferências: (1) todas as evidências científicas obtidas até o momento sugerem que fumar é prejudicial á saúde; logo, fumar é prejudicial á saúde; (2) minha avó fumou até os 90 anos e morreu asfixiada por um pedaço de maça; logo, fumar não é prejudicial à saúde (mas maças sim!). Qualquer pessoa racional aceitaria (1) e refutaria (2), ainda que ambas as inferências sejam generalizações a partir de casos, só que (1) tem uma base indutiva bem mais cogente. O importante é que qualquer conclusão cuja veracidade não está garantida está do ponto de vista racional constantemente sob suspeita. E a pessoa racional, que é apenas outro nome para o amante da verdade, se compromete a aceitá-la apenas enquanto não for desmentida por evidências em contrário. Mais, ela também se compromete a submeter constantemente a conclusão sub judice ao teste da evidência em contrário, o que separa nitidamente a pessoa racional da pessoa de fé ou do ideólogo, que preferem, estes, ignorar as evidências que falseiam suas crenças, ou então interpretar essas evidências em contrário de modo a torná-las inócuas, ou, o que é pior, reforçar suas crenças (são esses compromissos que, segundo Popper, separam o cientista do pseudocientista).

O livro Pensamento Crítico: o poder da lógica e da argumentação (São Paulo: Ed. Rideel, 2009), dos Profs. Walter Carnielli e Richard Epstein, quer nos ensinar a bem raciocinar, aderindo aos bons argumentos e evitando os maus (desde que, claro, sejamos amantes da verdade; se não, o livro também é útil, ensinando-nos modos já bem testados de sofismar. Ou seja, seja você cientista ou advogado, o livro tem algo a lhe ensinar. Mas, ao que me parece, os autores nos preferem racionais).

Bem argumentar, em especial dedutivamente, como já disse, envolve regras. O que garante a validade dessas regras? O uso, a tradição? Se assim fosse teríamos a estranha situação em que regras de raciocínio dedutivo seriam validadas indutivamente. Mas se não assim, como? Os autores não dedicam nenhuma atenção a esse problema filosoficamente muito sério, por isso vale a pena nos debruçarmos um instante sobre ele.

Considere o silogismo clássico: (P) Todo homem é mortal; (p) Sócrates é homem; logo, (C) Sócrates é mortal. P e p são, respectivamente, a premissa maior e a menor, e C a conclusão. Para convencer a si próprio ou a outrem da validade da inferência de C a partir de P e p alguém poderia raciocinar assim: suponhamos que C seja falsa, ou seja, que Sócrates não seja mortal; ora, então, ou Sócrates não é humano (supondo que todo homem é mortal) ou nem todo homem é mortal (supondo que Sócrates seja humano). Das duas, uma, ou P é falsa ou p o é. Logo, se P e p são verdadeiras, C necessariamente também o é.

Quem raciocina assim justifica o mais simples pelo mais complicado, já que a justificativa envolve, além de contrafatuais, isto é, situações contrárias àquelas que efetivamente se deram (quando consideramos, por exemplo, a situação em que Sócrates não teria sido humano), silogismos ainda mais elaborados que o original. Porém, como Aristóteles observou (inventado assim a Lógica Formal), a validade de uma inferência não tem nada a ver com o que houve ou poderia ter havido, mas apenas com o significado de certos termos como “todo” e “algum” e a forma das asserções, por oposição a seus conteúdos (o como se diz, não o quê se diz). A forma do silogismo é esta: (P) todo H é M; (p) S é H; logo, (C) S é M, onde “H” e “M” denotam propriedades quaisquer de certa classe de indivíduos e “S” um indivíduo qualquer dessa classe. Podemos interpretar P extensionalmente, como afirmando que a extensão de M, isto é a classe dos indivíduos com a propriedade M, contém a extensão de H; ou intensionalmente, que a propriedade M “está contida” na propriedade H (ou seja, quem diz H diz, a fortiori, M). Em qualquer caso, segue que se o indivíduo S tem a propriedade H, então também tem a M.

Mas, novamente, a justificativa da inferência depende da aceitação de inferências envolvendo classes: de H ⊆ M e S ∈ H segue que S ∈ M (que depende essencialmente, dada a definição de ⊆, da validade das regras de especificação e modus ponens: de se A, então B e A, conclua B) ou entidades intensionais: se o sentido de H “contém” o de M, então se S tem a propriedade H, S tem também a propriedade M. Parece então que a validade de algumas inferências depende da validade de outras, o que nos leva ou a uma regressão infinita ou a inferências injustificáveis que são tomadas como fundamentais simplesmente porque nenhum indivíduo racional duvidaria delas.

Em suma, a noção de razão como a capacidade de raciocinar por inferências válidas requer um cânone da razão, ou seja, um conjunto de regras básicas de inferência cuja aceitação define o indivíduo racional (no caso de inferências indutivas o cânone é mais fluido). No caso dedutivo, esse cânone consiste em definições em uso (ou implícita) de certos termos (ditos lógicos). Por exemplo, podemos tomar o silogismo acima em sua forma: (P) todo H é M; (p) S é H; logo, (C) S é M como parte da definição implícita do conceito de “todo”: dizer que todo H é M é dizer a mesma coisa que se S é H, então S também é M, não importa que S seja esse. Se alguém me pede para justificar isso basta dizer “pense no que você quer dizer por todo“. A cadeia de explicações, como diria Wittgenstein, termina sempre num “é assim que se faz”. Ou seja, o cânone da razão, para continuar com Wittgenstein, é parte de uma “forma de vida”.

Agora, uma pergunta inconveniente: há apenas um cânone da razão, válido em qualquer contexto, qualquer época, para qualquer pessoa? Ou haveria outras “formas de vida” com outros cânones, outros modos de ser-se racional? Seriam diferentes cânones como diferentes ordenamentos jurídicos, em que a noção de verdade e os modos de obtê-la variariam como naqueles a noção de crime e os modos de puni-los? Com essas perguntas, aparentemente tão inócuas, começa o assalto à fortaleza da razão. Por muito tempo parece não ter havido dúvidas, ou pelo menos dúvidas sérias, sobre a unicidade e universalidade de um cânone que por falta de melhor termo chamarei de “clássico”, propriedade de todo homem racional. Hoje, parece, isso não é mais o caso. Até o que significa fazer uma asserção tornou-se matéria de debate. “Classicamente”, asserir é comprometer-se com a realidade da situação que a asserção representa linguisticamente. Mas há os que pensam diversamente, para os chamados “intuicionistas” afirmar é comprometer-se com a efetiva possibilidade de verificação do que é afirmado. Se o “classicista” diz “17 é um número primo” ele acredita enunciar um fato; o “intuicionista” também, só que outro fato, que há meios para se verificar que 17 é um número primo. Essa divergência implica que nem toda regra de inferência válida para o primeiro o é também para o segundo. Por exemplo, o “classicista” aceita que, independentemente de qualquer verificação, se um determinado número não é composto, então ele é primo (já que qualquer número ou é primo ou não é primo, ou seja, é composto); já o “intuicionista” acredita que só se pode afirmar isso se estamos de posse de um método para verificar, dado um número qualquer, se ele é primo ou não. Aqui não há problema, pois esse método existe, mas não é difícil imaginar situações de divergências. Em suma, “classicistas” e “intuicionistas” não compartilham o mesmo cânone da razão (porém, quando apenas asserções sobre o mundo empírico estão em causa, não há conflito entre eles).

As coisas se complicam ainda mais quando o que se põe em dúvida é a validade universal de um cânone racional, qualquer que seja ele, independentemente do contexto – aquilo sobre o qual se julga – e do lugar e momento, ou seja, da história e da cultura de quem julga. Quando se acreditava que a razão era um presente de Deus aos homens era mais fácil acreditar na sua unicidade. Não havia dúvidas então que o homem era um animal racional e os mecanismos da razão, únicos. Quando perdemos o direito a essa centelha de divindade e fomos deixados à mercê de forças naturais e culturais, ficou mais fácil duvidar que todos os homens sejam racionais do mesmo modo, ainda que, se supõe, todos sejam racionais de algum modo.

O problema com o relativismo histórico ou cultural da razão é que, do ponto de vista de um cânone, os outros são necessariamente perversões da razão. Contrariamente ao “classicista”, que mais ou menos entende como o “intuicionista” raciocina, já que ele pode traduzir o cânone dele no seu (a recíproca não sendo o caso; para o intuicionista os argumentos estritamente clássicos não são a rigor falácias, mas incompreensíveis), as barreiras culturais e históricas são em geral intransponíveis. Mas a relativização dos cânones racionais vai mais além. Uma novidade que nenhum pensador mais equilibrado teria concebido é a crítica “pós-modernista” da própria noção de verdade. Começou com Nietzsche, que levantou a questão do valor da verdade, e terminou em relativismos de todo tipo. A verdade, versão “pós-modernista”, já não se distingue da mera opinião; tornou-se um ponto de vista, um instrumento de poder, um esquema de ação, uma interpretação. Se um feiticeiro tribal afirma que a epilepsia (que ele considera uma possessão demoníaca) é curável por meio de encantamentos, quem ousaria dizer, hoje, que a afirmação é pura e simplesmente falsa sem temer ser classificado de “colonialista”? Para o mantra “pós-modernista” a afirmação do feiticeiro é tão boa quanto a mais sofisticada teoria psiquiátrica (se não melhor! “Afinal”, diz o relativista, com a convicção dos justos, sujeitando a lógica à ética, “pelo menos encantamentos não envenenam o corpo e a mente como o arsenal químico da psiquiatria”). Enfim, se nem a verdade é mais a mesma, porque haveria de haver um cânone universal para obtê-la?

Curiosamente, e ironicamente, ao relativismo da verdade, e outros “relativismos”, opõe-se com vigor a Igreja, uma crítica feroz da hegemonia da razão. Se o uso da razão enfraquece a fé, como parece inevitável (não estava a árvore do conhecimento proibida ao homem? E provar do seu fruto não foi nosso pecado original? E que metáfora visual forte da sinuosidade dos argumentos racionais é a serpente, que efetivamente argumentou com Eva!), aquela deve ser restrita para que haja espaço para esta. Mas a dúvida quanto à validade universal do que quer que seja, até dos artigos de fé, que parece advir de posturas relativistas, também não pode, segundo a Igreja, ser tolerada. A “verdade revelada”, fortalecida pela “tradição” e pela “autoridade”, não está aí para ser questionada, pensa a Igreja, nem pelo exercício da razão, nem por outras “verdades”, de outras tradições, fundadas sobre outra autoridade (para o homem estritamente racional, porém, a verdade só se revela em sua experiência pessoal, ainda que herdade de outrem, mas mesmo assim, sujeita ao crivo da crítica e aberta à revisão. O absolutismo de uma “verdade revelada”, imutável, e ainda por cima assentada em autoridade e tradição inflexíveis lhe são intoleráveis).

Além da concorrência de outras normas para a argumentação correta, das críticas “pós-modernas” a lhe atribuir descarada má-fé, das suspeitas que seu exercício pode por a perder nossa alma imortal, o cânone clássico da razão ainda é freqüentemente mal manipulado, intencionalmente ou não, em sofismas, aporias, falácias e malandragens várias. No livro em análise o uso correto da razão é implicitamente entendido em sentido clássico, segundo nossa “forma de vida”, de tradição ocidental e cientificamente informada, segundo nossos modos de aceder à verdade; entendida esta como atributo de asserções que dizem dos fatos exatamente como os fatos são, independentemente de nossa vontade ou conveniência.

É um pouco surpreendente que o livro privilegie uma compreensão retórica da argumentação, mas sobre isso não se detenha. Segundo os autores a argumentação não é primariamente nem a busca pelos fundamentos da verdade, isto é, regressivamente, pelo incondicionado a que a verdade está condicionada, nem progressivamente pelas conseqüências necessárias ou prováveis da verdade, mas um modo de convencer, a si próprio ou a outrem, da verdade ou probabilidade da conclusão para a qual a argumentação converge. Claro que a argumentação tem ambas as funções, lógica e retórica, além de outras mais, mas a fundamental é a lógica, e a capacidade de reconhecer um argumento logicamente válido é a melhor maneira de precavermo-nos do erro de tomar um que não o é como se o fosse, que é o objetivo da má retórica.

Além de uma discussão alentada e bem exemplificada do que é uma argumentação válida (pelos cânones clássicos), e dos cuidados para evitar argumentos falaciosos, os autores estão preocupados em nos ensinar a reconhecer asserções bem feitas, isto é, as que têm um valor determinado de verdade. Aqui, novamente, os autores exibem seu compromisso com o cânone clássico, já que admitem que uma vez livre de ambigüidade, vagueza, e outras imprecisões, uma asserção tem sempre um valor de verdade determinado, ainda que desconhecido e mesmo não passível de ser conhecido por meios que estão à nossa disposição.

Mas se argumentos partem de pressupostos, o que garante a veracidade deles se não outros pressupostos, numa regressão que arrisca ser infinita? Os autores também têm algo a dizer sobre isso. Segundo eles, se não a veracidade, pelo menos a probabilidade de asserções pode sustentar-se sobre a experiência direta dos fatos ou a autoridade reconhecidamente competente e desinteressada, descartando-se a autoridade emanada apenas do poder, os nossos desejos e conveniências (já que é tão mais fácil, mas não tão seguro, nos deixarmos convencer daquilo cuja veracidade nos traria prazer do que daquilo que nos causaria sofrimento), o “ouvir dizer” sem fundamento, a tradição fossilizada.

A urgência de um texto como esse é óbvia. Vivemos num mundo muito complexo onde decisões que afetam nossas vidas devem ser tomadas no embate de idéias em que fraudes intelectuais de toda espécie são moeda corrente. Devemos adotar a pena de morte? Liberar o aborto? Sob que condições? Eutanásia? Pesquisa com células-tronco embrionárias? Casamento entre pessoas do mesmo sexo? Discussões sobre esses assuntos freqüentemente envolvem definições (o que é um ser humano? O que é um cidadão?) e argumentação (o aborto é um assassinato; logo, deve ser proibido). Urge então saber o que é uma definição, evitar argumentar com conceitos imprecisos ou mal definidos, saber detectar pressupostos ocultos injustificados (o que é exatamente um assassinato? Por que impedir o desenvolvimento de um embrião de algumas poucas semanas é assassinato?). Em democracias onde essas decisões são tomadas ouvindo-se a população, não falta quem queira manipulá-la para seus fins. Aqueles que sabem que as suas opiniões são pouco defensáveis do ponto de vista racional são precisamente aqueles que não esitam em recorrer a falácias. Ensinar a desmascará-los é um serviço que se presta à democracia.

Mas, poderíamos perguntar aos autores, porque privilegiar o cânone clássico. A resposta é óbvia, se os relativistas têm razão, e qualquer cânone de razão é um produto do seu tempo e do seu meio, então só podemos raciocinar segundo o nosso cânone, fruto de nosso tempo e nosso meio. Se houvesse como julgar e selecionar dentre vários haveria um cânone absoluto, contra a hipótese relativista. Ademais, segundo nosso cânone os outros estão errados; pois, se admitíssemos alternativas racionais corretas ao que a razão nos ensina, incorreríamos em contradição, o que nossa razão abomina. Logo, segundo a hipótese relativista, estamos justificados a aderir ao nosso cânone simplesmente porque é o único correto. Por outro lado, se os relativistas estão errados, e só há um modo correto de raciocinar, não há porque os autores justificarem sua aderência a ele.

Uma última palavra quanto ao título do livro. O termo “pensamento crítico” está freqüentemente associado ao marxismo, que assim se denomina por acreditar que lhe cabe o papel de corte suprema à qual todos os outros modos de pensar devem submeter-se e serem condenados como “ideologias”. Estariam os autores com essa escolha apenas ironizando? Afinal, assim agindo não estaria o “pensamento” marxismo exercendo, como o cânone racional clássico, seu direito de proclamar-se absoluto? A diferença, claro, está em que o “pensamento” marxista não é um cânone de razão, mas um fruto do seu exercício; criticável, portanto, a partir dele. O mais certo é que com esse título os autores estejam simplesmente oferecendo seu livro como uma “crítica da razão argumentativa” do ponto de vista de uma concepção de boa argumentação. E nisso nos prestam um grande serviço.

Jairo José da Silva – Departamento de Matemática, Universidade Estadual Paulista “Júlio de Mesquita”, 13500-230 Rio Claro, SP – Brasil. dasilvajairo1@gmail.com

Acessar publicação original

Tags: Argumentação, CARNIELLI Walter A (Aut), Editora Rideel (E), EPSTEIN Richard L (Aut), Lógica, Manuscrito (Ma), Pensamento crítico, Pensamento crítico: o poder da lógica e da argumentação (T), SILVA Jairo José da (Res)

Consciousness – HILL (M)

1 de julho de 2011

HILL, C. S. Consciousness. Nova York: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Resenha de: JUCÁ, Gabriel. Manuscrito, Campinas, v.32, n.2, July/Dec. 2011.

The view that conscious experiences are baffling phenomena of a metaphysically peculiar nature dies hard. Although scientific models of conscious awareness have in recent years been receiving more and more attention, such theories have yet to find room in the imagination of intellectuals. So the fact that scientists have already developed rigorous explanations of phenomena ranging from intentional action to visual perception has, unfortunately for those of physicalist inclinations, failed to capture public imagination. Can philosophers help the physicalist cause?

It is ironic that, in contemporary philosophy of mind, much important work on consciousness shows no distinct philosophical character, at least in the following sense: the positive theoretical contributions could just as well have been made by scientists. The refutations of dualist arguments involving qualia naturally require a firm grasp of contemporary philosophy, but they are evidently not what I mean by “positive theoretical contributions”, that is, actually explaining the data. Think, for example, of Daniel C. Dennett’s (1991, pp. 101-170) ingenious reinterpretations of the color phi experiment and Libet’s “timing of consciousness” puzzle, or of Paul Churchland’s ( 2002) work in praise of recurrent networks. Fascinating as they are, such ideas are hardly convincing to those skeptical about a major role for philosophy in the development of a naturalistic/physicalist perspective on the mind that is both comprehensive and rigorous.

What would such a philosophical view look like? One might try to develop a theory that, in addition to the mandatory tapping into recent empirical research, incorporates careful introspective and philosophical argument in figuring out just what the objects of experience are. Christopher S. Hill, a professor of philosophy at Brown University and a logician of distinction (he is the author of Thought and world: an austere portrayal of truth, reference and semantic correspondence) has set out to do just that. Initially a proponent of type materialism and conceptual dualism, a combo defended on his 1991 book Sensations, he evolved into a representationalist about conscious phenomena. The latter is the view defended on his latest book, Consciousness.

A key idea on Hill’s theory is approaching qualitative states as states of the external objects of perception or properties of bodily states. Following Gilbert Harman’s lead, Hill argues that awareness of qualia is not awareness of characteristics belonging to mental objects per se; instead, awareness of qualia is awareness of properties of intentional objects. Perceptual experience typically involves representing these properties in a transparent way, that is, the properties of the representations themselves are not readily available, unlike the properties of objects that we perceive. This can be justified by an appeal to introspection. As Hill says “It is introspection that shows that our awareness of external objects is not mediated by awareness of internal phenomena, and it is introspection which shows that introspection reveals only the representational properties of experiences” (pp.58-59). When we focus our attention on our visual experience of a given object, for example, we get better detailing of a feature belonging to the object – the brightness of its colors, its mereological relations, and so on. Thus, the most promising approach is a focus on the conscious mind as a representational engine. Moreover, the success of contemporary cognitive science demands just such an approach (p. 70). Indeed, scientific work in both “high level cognitive phenomena” and “lower level perceptual phenomena” presuppose this; Hill is thus led to affirm that scientific developments are the primary argument for the representationalist thesis (ibid.).

Unfortunately for proponents of such a view, there seem to be features of subjective experiences that just can’t be intrinsic to the discriminated objects. When a huge object such as The Moon is seen, for example, we have something that (from the viewpoint of average earthlings) looks rather small, even though it is perception of something enormous. So it appears that in conscious perception we are aware of at least some properties that are tied to a subjective situation, and this subjectivity might very well imply an “internal” character. This is what Hill calls “the problem of appearances” (pp.59-62).

How could those sympathetic to Harman’s view cope with the problem of appearances? Hill believes that such appearances, which he calls “A-properties” (p. 144) are indeed possessed exclusively by the objects of experience, but have a viewpoint-dependent nature. Thus, A-properties are relative to “such contextual factors as distance, angle of view, and lighting” (think of objects with the same light-reflecting properties all over but partially covered in shade: again, we have a grasp of something of a certain color all over but looking different here and there). These considerations set the stage for a Hill’s theory of visual qualia, which are to be identified with A-properties. The qualia involved in bodily sensations differ from the visual ones in not being viewpoint-dependent in this sense, but nevertheless share the crucial feature of not being mental in character. They are properties represented in awareness, not properties of awareness. This representational view extends to all qualia; indeed, even awareness of emotions is such a perceptual phenomenon.

An interesting consequence is the possibility of us being wrong even about our own experiences. In other words, incorrigibility about one’s own sensations gets discarded. Since in perception there is always an appearance/reality distinction, one could be thinking they’re outraged when actually experiencing a different emotion, such as jealousy. Likewise, you might think you are in pain when you are in fact hallucinating pain (p. 181). But Consciousness‘ main strength is not the demolition of old intuitions of incorrigibility. It is rather the extension of Harman’s introspective insights into a theory of consciousness that is both comprehensive and detailed. The representational perspective allows Hill to tackle the seemingly ineffable realms of pain and emotion as deeply as it has ever been done in philosophy.

Indeed, as surprising as it may sound to those who see awareness of pain as awareness of an intrinsically subjective mental property, pains fit rather smoothly in the representational picture defended by Hill. Here are his arguments: awareness of pain closely resembles straightforward examples of perception. We are able to attend to pains and thus to intensify the contrast between pains and what is in “the background”. We can assign spatial characteristics to pains, such as location. We can assign “parts” to pains, and we also have particularized access to them (as Hill puts it, “if I am aware of the existence of a trio of pains in my arm, I must be aware of each individual member of the trio”). These facts, coupled with the assumptions that experiencing pain also involves subconceptual representations, a priori norms of grouping into wholes and a proprietary phenomenology, strongly suggest that awareness of pain is a form of perception. The objects perceived turn out to be bodily disturbances that involve actual or potential tissue damage (p.177). This means that being aware of pain qualia means representing bodily disturbances. In Hill’s theory, pains are to be identified with such disturbances. A-properties are not mental after all, and neither are pains. And since representation involves the possibility of misrepresenting, we can hallucinate pains. That is the case in cases of phantom limb pain. Patients who present this condition don’t really have pain (p.182).

In the case of emotions, Hill explores the somatic view first proposed by William James in 1884. In a nutshell, the somatic approach says that emotions consist entirely of awareness of bodily changes triggered by biologically significant events. When one’s relative is hurt, for example, their body is guided by instinct to react in a certain way, often with crying, the usual modifications in body language, gesturing and a peculiar pace in the flow of thoughts. The agent’s emotional sensations are nothing more than awareness of these changes. Indeed, as James argued, it is difficult to conceive of emotions in the absence of such awareness. A point in favor of the somatic theory is its predictive power: researchers have verified that involuntary grimacing modifies mood. Another point in favor of the somatic approach is its refutable character. Should one find out that spinal patients (whose awareness of bodily changes is impaired) have the exact same emotional profile (given the same background conditions) of those without spinal injuries, the theory would be in serious trouble. Fortunately for Hill and other proponents of the somatic approach (Portuguese neuroscientist Antonio Damasio is an example), it seems spinal patients do have somewhat different emotional profiles (p. 199). For these reasons, it seems reasonable to conceive of emotional sensations as representations of bodily reactions.

But how can such a theory account for the fact that emotions don’t seem to be about bodily events, but about whatever triggers the events in the first place? If I grieve, it appears to me that the grief is “directed” at the loss I have had, and not about my somatic reactions to the event. Hill’s contribution here is to complement the previous somatic theories with loops of perceptual imagery “that provides an emotion with its intentional object” (p. 207). Thus, a major obstacle to the somatic approach can be negotiated smoothly.

Sympathetic though this review is, it must be said that the way Hill uses the term “qualia” can be misleading. Hill is faithful to the idea that perceptual qualia are, as Jaegwon Kim says, “the ways that things look, seem, and appear to conscious observers” (p.145). This is perfectly compatible with the account described above, but there is more to it than just that. The term “qualia” carries a deeper significance in philosophical discourse; “the way things look, seem and appear to conscious observers” is usually seen as characterizing mental states. Moreover, this characterization is said to be irreducible. “Qualia” is then used as a crucial theoretical term that states one’s position concerning reduction/elimination. The very deflated qualia mentioned by Hill, on the other hand, could just as well be accepted by qualia eliminativists. After all, who would deny that there are ways things look and appear to those who are conscious? Eliminativists have basically been saying that there is nothing irreducibly mental in consciousness. In other words, there is no felt quality that is immune to physicalist theorizing/reduction. For this reason, I feel Hill ought to stick to a more neutral term such as “appearances”, and assume a qualia-eliminativist position. His very bland definition of qualia has no theoretical bite.

Another minor flaw on Consciousness is Hill’s confusing treatment of the folk concept of pain. He alleges that the bodily disturbance theory of pain cannot do justice to the incorrigible and intrinsically experiential character of the folk concept. Unfortunately, the latter simply cannot be abandoned, for the folk concept is used to keep track of painful experiences, and this matters a great deal. As a result, we ought to say pain is either the sort of experience we have when certain somatosensory representations are activated (the folk concept) or a bodily disturbance we can be aware of (the representational theory). But is this warranted? Everything in folk psychology is used to keep track of important things, but it would be naïve to expect all of its concepts to be preserved by advanced theorizing. The concept of images seen in one’s mind’s eye, for example, appears to be bankrupt even if it is used to keep track of something quite relevant, namely, visual imagination. Likewise, we shouldn’t expect a philosophical theory of pain to fully honor the folk conception of pain.

Minor complaints aside, Consciousness helps to clarify the issues like few other books in the field. It stands out for comprehensiveness – key concepts are employed in unifying aspects of consciousness that appear very dissimilar. More importantly, though, it incorporates scientific insight without letting scientists do all the relevant work. Philosophy still has important things to say about the human mind.

References

BROOK, A., ROSS, D. Daniel Dennett. Nova York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. [ Links ]

CHURCHLAND, P. “Catching consciousness in a recurrent net”. In: A. Brooke and D. Ross (eds.) (2002), pp. 64-80. [ Links ]

DENNETT, D. C. Consciousness explained. Boston: Little, Brown, 1991. [ Links ]

HILL, C. S. Consciousness. Nova York: Cambridge University Press, 2009. [ Links ]

Gabriel Jucá – Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro, Departamento de Filosofia, Rua Marquês de São Vicente, 225, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, CEP 22453-900, BRASIL, gabrieljuca@gmail.com

Acessar publicação original

Tags: Cambridge University Press (E), Consciência, Consciousness (T), HILL C S (Aut), JUCÁ Gabriel (Res), Manuscrito (Ma), Percepção, Qualia, Representação

Filosofias da Matemática – SILVA (M)

27 de julho de 2010

SILVA, Jairo José da Silva. Filosofias da Matemática. Editora da UNESP, 2007. 240p. Resenha de: ARENHART, Jonas Rafael Becker; MORAES, Fernando Tadeu Franceschi. Manuscrito, Campinas, v. 33, n. 2, p. 531-550, jul.-dez. 2010.

INTRODUÇÃO

É difícil saber se a carência de livros sobre filosofia da matemática publicados em português seja fruto ou indicador da incipiência da pesqui-sa brasileira nessa área. Ao mesmo tempo, é interessante observar como, em nosso país, a pesquisa em lógica e seus fundamentos, que desfruta de grande reputação e inserção internacional já possui, há trinta anos, um livro inspirador em sua área, o hoje clássico “Ensaio sobre os Fundamentos da Lógica” de Newton C. A. da Costa.

O livro Filosofias da Matemática, do professor da Universidade Estadual Paulista Jairo José da Silva encontrase, por esta razão, numa posição bastante especial dentre as publicações brasileiras: tem a responsabilidade de ser, de certo modo, um pioneiro na área, preenchendo uma lacuna editorial em um tema que, via de regra, é pouco acessível a estudantes de filosofia e matemática.

A proposta de da Silva com este trabalho é fornecer um livro “útil àquele estudante, não importa a sua origem intelectual, que queira se iniciar na filosofia da matemática, mas que talvez não tenha estudado nenhuma filosofia antes e de matemática só conheça o elementar”, e, além disso, deseja fazê-lo “sem, no entanto, alienar os já iniciados tanto num domínio quanto noutro” (da Silva 2007 p. 23). O objetivo, então, é fornecer um livro introdutório que aborde a filosofia da matemática, um campo onde problemas altamente especializados da filosofia, da lógica e da matemática estão emaranhados sem, no entanto, pressupor que o leitor tenha conhecimento prévio seja dos problemas filosóficos, seja dos tecnicismos lógicos e matemáticos envolvidos.

Analisaremos aqui em que medida tais difíceis intentos cumpriram-se destacando alguns pontos da obra em que a abordagem de da Silva aos tópicos tratados diverge de nossos próprios pontos de vista sobre o assunto, e onde consideramos que talvez, tendo em vista o público escolhido, o tema poderia ser tratado diferentemente com algum benefício para o leitor. Faremos também considerações sobre algumas sutilezas em pontos técnicos de teoria de conjuntos e lógica que, talvez pela falta de espaço e devido ao caráter elementar da obra, não foram mencionados por da Silva. Ao final, nos dedicaremos a discutir brevemente uma questão que aparece constantemente na obra e que, conforme argumentaremos, poderia ter sido explorada diferentemente em seu livro: a relação entre filosofia da matemática e a matemática.

Gostaríamos de deixar claro, antes de passarmos à análise do livro, que a despeito de algumas observações de caráter crítico aqui feitas, é inegável que a obra de da Silva é uma importante contribuição para a difusão da filosofia da matemática no Brasil, talvez o maior esforço individual feito nos últimos tempos para tornar esta área mais acessível a estudantes de filosofia, matemática e leitores curiosos em geral. A iniciativa do autor, de levar a um público muito mais amplo que o de costume os principais desenvolvimentos da filosofia da matemática é indiscutivelmente louvável, principalmente se considerarmos a dificuldade que tal proposta encerra. Esperamos que esta obra, além de informar os leitores aos quais está destinada, sirva de estímulo para novas publicações que venham a contribuir ainda mais para o crescimento desta disciplina em nosso país.

A obra divide-se em cinco capítulos, a saber: 1) Platão e Aristóteles; 2) Leibniz e Kant; 3) Frege e o Logicismo; 4) O Construtivismo; 5) O Formalismo. Conforme fica claro pela organização dada ao conteúdo do livro, e conforme estipulado pelo próprio autor, ao tratar dos problemas filosóficos suscitados pela matemática, o livro irá “privilegiar uma abordagem histórica desses problemas” (p. 29). Em sua apresentação dos tópicos, orientado por uma narrativa cronológica pautada em autores da antiguidade, do período moderno e dos séculos XIX e XX, da Silva busca primeiramente, em cada capítulo, situar a discussão filosófica no contexto da matemática praticada no período específico em questão, provendo uma pequena introdução onde são descritos os principais desenvolvimentos matemáticos nos períodos em que viveram os autores discutidos. Em quase todos os capítulos, além de desenvolver uma discussão centrada no autor ou autores que dão nome ao capítulo, esboça também alguns comentários sobre outros autores que adotaram formas semelhantes de tratar os problemas filosóficos oriundos da matemática. Assim, por exemplo, no capítulo sobre Platão e Aristóteles, obtemos algumas informações sobre outras formas de platonismo, onde Cantor, Gödel e outros são mencionados. Esta é a regra, como dissemos, para os outros capítulos também.

Ainda tratando da organização do livro, acreditamos que o mesmo poderia funcionar de modo ainda mais eficiente como um guia introdutório ao tema se um sistema de referências mais prático fosse oferecido aos leitores iniciantes. Talvez por se tratar na maioria dos casos de autores já consagrados, da Silva tenha evitado sobrecarregar o texto com tais informações, e em geral, ao mencionar argumentos e teorias de filósofos ilustres como Platão, Aristóteles, Leibniz, Kant e Frege, e de matemáticos que escreveram sobre filosofia da matemática, como Brouwer e Hilbert, nem sempre considera necessário citar a fonte ou fontes dos argumentos originais ou mesmo uma literatura secundária onde estes temas são discutidos. Ademais, em sua bibliografia não encontramos elencadas obras de Platão ou Kant, por exemplo, para citar alguns que já possuem diversas edições em português. O que ocorre é que muitas vezes, após explorar uma obra como essa, de caráter introdutório, o leitor não-especialista acaba ficando interessado em dar continuidade às leituras sobre o tema. Assim, o livro de da Silva poderia não só introduzir de modo acessível os problemas com clareza conceitual, como conduzir leitores interessados a buscar pela fonte original do argumento ou de determinada posição, bem como indicar literatura secundária. Para tanto, e na medida em que isto não prejudicasse a fluidez do texto, o livro poderia fornecer as referências de modo mais preciso e explícito. O leitor, assim, saberia onde obter mais informações e onde encontrar os argumentos originais que foram apresentados por da Silva. Este tipo de informação poderia aparecer ao final de cada capítulo, com uma seção final de leituras adicionais e bibliografia básica.

DO LIVRO

Passamos agora a examinar o desenvolvimento do texto.

Uma das razões para dedicar um capítulo a Platão e Aristóteles, segundo da Silva, reside no fato de que a matemática como ciência começou com os gregos, e Platão e Aristóteles, como filósofos paradigmáticos, ofereceram respostas a problemas de filosofia da matemática que são regularmente retomadas e rediscutidas (pp. 36, 37). Concordamos com da Silva em ambos os fatos mencionados, e uma apresentação elementar da filosofia de Platão e Aristóteles é particularmente bem vinda tendo-se em vista que talvez esta seja uma das poucas oportunidades para que estudantes de matemática, por exemplo, tomem contato com as doutrinas destes filósofos. Além disso, considerando-se que a matemática é objeto de ojeriza para a maioria dos estudantes de filosofia, é interessante mostrar a eles que na doutrina dos grandes mestres a reflexão sobre a matemática ocupa importante espaço.

Um dos pontos centrais da filosofia platônica é a noção de forma ou idéia. Estas, consideradas perfeitas e imutáveis, constituiriam os paradigmas dos quais as coisas materiais seriam cópias imperfeitas e transitórias. As formas, segundo Platão, estariam em um mundo inteligível, separado daquele dos objetos físicos, e contaria com os objetos matemáticos entre seus elementos. Esta doutrina nos permite compreender a universalidade do conhecimento matemático, pois, segundo ela, trata-se de conhecimento sobre objetos que não mudam, por encontrarem-se no mundo inteligível fora do espaço e do tempo. Assim, de um ponto de vista ontológico, a teoria platônica é, ao menos aparentemente, bem sucedida. No entanto, o grande problema para Platão era explicar como temos acesso a estas entidades, dado que estão fora do alcance dos sentidos, e em um mundo separado daquele em que vivemos. Esta dificuldade, de cunho epistemológico, é geralmente chamada de problema do acesso, e qualquer filósofo que adote alguma forma de platonismo deve buscar resolvê-la.

Apesar de da Silva expor a doutrina platônica mostrando as suas vantagens de um ponto de vista ontológico e as suas dificuldades de um ponto de vista epistemológico, algumas dificuldades podem surgir na leitura deste capítulo. Uma delas fica justamente por conta da distinção entre os termos idéia e forma que, como comentamos, é central na doutrina platônica. Por um lado, da Silva admite que esses termos são sinônimos no contexto da obra deste filósofo mas, por outro, anuncia que ele, deliberadamente, irá usá-los em sentidos distintos, explicados posteriormente no texto (p. 46). Alguns leitores poderiam ficar confusos com esta separação. Apesar de ser um dispositivo que busca permitir uma exposição mais simples da teoria em questão, o que evidentemente deve ser privilegiado em uma obra como essa, a distinção proposta por da Silva e a subseqüente exposição da doutrina platônica que nela é baseada acabam criando alguns obstáculos ao leitor não iniciado como, por exemplo, a dúvida de se a filosofia platônica autoriza ou não esta distinção e, consequentemente, se a exposição é realmente fiel ao espírito platônico.

É bastante provável que o modo como Platão resolve o problema do acesso, através de sua teoria da reminiscência, bem como outros aspectos de sua doutrina, gerem estranheza em leitores iniciantes. Como o próprio da Silva conclui, “poucos ainda aceitam seriamente o reino puro de Idéias de Platão, a sua teoria da reminiscência, e outras idiossincrasias de sua filosofia” (p. 43). No entanto, conforme enfatiza o autor (p. 43), o platonismo ainda é uma forma atraente de filosofia da matemática. É essa atração, em nossa opinião, ainda atual, que poderia ter sido colocada em primeiro plano, tirando o foco central das “idiossincrasias” do sistema de Platão. Neste sentido, a nosso ver, um modo eficiente de apresentar o platonismo em filosofia da matemática consiste em centrar a discussão nos platonismos atuais, que servem muito bem para explicar as virtudes e dificuldades de uma posição platônica em filosofia da matemática sem se comprometerem com aspectos anacrônicos da filosofia de Platão. Talvez por limitações de espaço ou por envolverem alguns tópicos de lógica e teoria de conjuntos que, na concepção de da Silva, demandariam explicações que estão fora do escopo de um livro como este, o autor tenha preferido apresentá-los apenas perifericamente, privilegiando a exposição mais histórica, que possui a virtude de prescindir dos desenvolvimentos técnicos que muitas vezes estão envolvidos nos platonismos atuais.

Aristóteles, discípulo de Platão, resolve a dificuldade de seu mestre ao retirar as formas do reino inteligível e colocá-las nas próprias coisas. Nessa abordagem, grosso modo, abstraímos as propriedades dos objetos que as possuem, já que elas não estão separadas dos objetos, mas neles mesmos, sendo estes instâncias daquelas (algumas vezes enfatiza-se esta diferença entre Platão e Aristóteles utilizado-se a terminologia latina: para o primeiro, as propriedades eram vistas como sendo ante rem, anteriores às coisas; para o segundo, eram concebidas como in rebus, nas coisas). O mesmo vale para os objetos abstratos da matemática, que devem ser abstraídos dos objetos físicos que os instanciam. Essa solução resolve também o problema de se saber como a matemática é aplicável ao mundo empírico, pois ela, de certo modo, está desde o início já presente nele. Algumas dificuldades surgem para este tipo de filosofia como, por exemplo, a presença do infinito em muitos ramos da matemática, dificuldade esta que deve ser considerada seriamente por qualquer filosofia da matemática de cunho empirista.

Como da Silva expõe, o problema central aqui é explicar adequadamente a noção de abstração. Alguns pontos obscuros no texto aristotélico acabam fazendo com que da Silva, visando a clareza e a coerência, exponha a teoria aristotélica sobre o modo como objetos reais instanciam objetos matemáticos (p. 46) de uma forma que destoa da própria letra do texto aristotélico. Por um lado temos Aristóteles afirmando textualmente, segundo da Silva, que os objetos físicos instanciam realmente formas matemáticas perfeitas, como por exemplo, um objeto físico triangular instancia a forma de um triângulo (ou seja, o objeto físico apresenta as características necessárias segundo a definição de triângulo para que algo seja um triângulo). Por outro lado, segundo a interpretação de da Silva, este modo de se entender a instanciação de conceitos matemáticos na realidade não é claramente compreensível, pois, dado que os objetos físicos apresentam imperfeições, (por exemplo, um objeto físico triangular nunca é perfeitamente triangular, nunca encontramos um objeto perfeitamente triangular na natureza) é mais razoável tomar esta instanciação como envolvendo a abstração de aspectos mais ou menos perfeitos dos objetos, para que depois apliquemos alguma idealização para tornar estas abstrações perfeitas. Aqui, apesar do alegado benefício da clareza na exposição, e de da Silva chamar a atenção do leitor para o fato de que está simplificando e adaptando a letra do texto original, entramos em problemas de exegese filosófica que acabam desviando um pouco o foco do problema, mesmo quando mantemos em mente que o objetivo da discussão não é histórico (p. 29), ou seja, mesmo quando compreendemos que este é um meio de, através de uma discussão histórica, apresentar uma exposição acerca da questão da instanciação de conceitos matemáticos na natureza.

O problema da instanciação, aliás, também é tratado no apêndice do capítulo 1, que é o esboço de elementos de uma teoria formal empirista da abstração. Aqui, da Silva apresenta algumas definições sobre como tratar objetos vistos sob algum aspecto particular, por exemplo, um objeto triangular como um triângulo. No entanto, depois de apresentar alguns desenvolvimentos, com definições e teoremas, visando ilustrar uma aplicação da teoria da Silva (pp. 60, 61) fornece um exemplo baseado apenas em noções conjuntistas e uma intuição formal, que não faz uso direto da teoria por ele proposta. Não entraremos nos detalhes da teoria de da Silva, mas para ilustrar o ponto em questão utilizaremos seu próprio exemplo de aplicação da teoria, que visa fornecer uma justificação empirista para a afirmação aritmética 2+2 = 4. Consideremos uma coleção com 4 objetos. Segundo da Silva, podemos decompor, em pensamento, esta coleção em duas coleções complementares com 2 elementos cada uma. Estas operações, segundo o autor, não dependem da natureza dos elementos destas coleções, apenas da quantidade de elementos. Assim, dada qualquer coleção de objetos, ela terá quatro elementos se, e somente se, existirem duas coleções disjuntas, cada uma com dois elementos, cuja união é igual à coleção original. Neste exemplo, apenas termos conjuntistas foram utilizados, mas para muitos leitores pode não ficar claro como relacionar os termos envolvendo teoria de conjuntos com o esboço da teoria da abstração de da Silva. Talvez querendo evitar entrar em detalhes técnicos o autor tenha se limitado ao esboço apresentado sem introduzir nele as noções conjuntistas que utiliza, ou ainda, para simplificar, preferiu enunciar seu exemplo utilizando linguagem da teoria de conjuntos que é mais familiar aos leitores em geral, deixando implícito que o mesmo raciocínio pode ser feito, com um pouco mais de trabalho, na teoria empirista da abstração. Além disso, não nos é dito qual das várias teorias de conjuntos está sendo utilizada, talvez porque esteja implícito, como usualmente é o caso, que a menos que menção em contrário seja feita, a teoria de conjuntos utilizada é ZFC, mas neste caso, alguns comentários poderiam ser feitos sobre a possibilidade de sua aceitação por parte de filósofos empiristas.

No segundo capítulo, o autor busca contrapor as filosofias da matemática de Leibniz e Kant, pois acredita que “o pensamento de Kant (…) pode ser mais bem apreciado em contraste com o de Leibniz” (p. 75). Aparentemente, o principal motivo para se introduzir a discussão da filosofia da matemática de Leibniz consiste em familiarizar o leitor com a distinção entre verdades de razão e verdades de fato, preparando-o para a discussão das distinções kantianas entre juízos analíticos e sintéticos, a priori e a posteriori. Como são conceitos centrais para Kant, tanto para aquela parte de sua filosofia voltada para a matemática quanto para aquela que não se preocupa primariamente com a matemática, os esforços para tornar estas distinções claras ocupam grande parte do capítulo reservado a Leibniz e Kant.

A matemática sempre foi considerada um modelo de conhecimento puro, de modo que a justificação de seus enunciados verdadeiros não dependeria dos sentidos. Este aspecto do conhecimento matemático, embaraçoso para os empiristas, mas bem-vindo a racionalistas como Leibniz, encontra sua expressão na tese leibniziana de que todo o conhecimento matemático consiste em verdades da razão, enunciados nos quais, grosso modo, o termo sujeito está “contido” no predicado. Devemos lembrar que a forma básica dos enunciados na época, tanto para Leibniz quanto para Kant era a de um sujeito ao qual um predicado é atribuído, ou seja, da forma S é P. Assim, segundo Leibniz, não apenas os enunciados da aritmética, mas até mesmo os postulados da geometria euclidiana, em sua época a única conhecida, poderiam, com algum esforço, ser reduzidos a enunciados desta forma, sendo necessário apenas o uso da razão para a sua justificação, sem o envolvimento dos sentidos.

Kant retoma a distinção leibniziana e a amplia. Juízos podem ser analíticos ou sintéticos, a priori ou a posteriori, e estas duas classificações permitem três combinações, ficando excluídos por definição juízos analíticos a posteriori. A tese kantiana, contra Leibniz, é a de que a matemática, apesar de ser conhecimento puro, obtido sem auxílio dos sentidos, não é analítica, ou seja, sua verdade não se justifica pelo fato de que o termo sujeito está contido no termo predicado, mas é antes sintética a priori. Com isto, segundo as definições usuais, o termo sujeito de um predicado em enunciados matemáticos não está contido no termo predicado, mas sua verdade pode ser verificada sem auxílio da experiência. Isto explicaria, por exemplo, a razão de os juízos matemáticos serem ampliativos de nosso conhecimento, e não meramente explicativos, como é o caso de juízos analíticos. JONAS R. B. ARENHART & FERNANDO T. F. MORAES Manuscrito – Rev. Int. Fil., Campinas, v. 33, n. 2, p. 531-550, jul.-dez. 2010. 540

Nesse capítulo cumpre observar, mais uma vez, uma escolha terminológica que, mesmo tendo sido feita com o objetivo de esclarecer, pode resultar confusa para o leitor iniciante. Em certo momento (p. 96), da Silva propõe a substituição da noção de “representação” (palavra consagrada do vocabulário kantiano) por “significado” (que o autor alega pertencer ao vocabulário ora em voga). O problema é que, apesar de o conceito de significado poder parecer mais simples para um leitor não familiarizado com a literatura filosófica, após alguma reflexão pode não ficar claro qual foi o ganho real obtido com a mudança, pois como o próprio da Silva reconhece, esse conceito (de significado) é “infelizmente não menos problemático [que o de representação]” (p. 96).

Como conseqüência de sua filosofia, Kant não admitia a existência de números imaginários, amplamente utilizados em sua época. Desse descompasso entre a filosofia da matemática kantiana e a prática matemática corrente em sua época, da Silva observa que “a filosofia da matemática de Kant (…) foi contaminada pelo seu projeto filosófico mais amplo” (p. 107, grifo nosso). Acreditamos que seria interessante neste ponto esclarecer para o leitor, principalmente àqueles que não possuem formação em filosofia, que a filosofia da matemática de Kant não era uma empresa independente do seu projeto filosófico geral, de modo que este possa ter interferido naquela; de fato, a filosofia da matemática kantiana, pelo menos como a entendemos, é apenas uma parte de seu mais amplo sistema filosófico, seguindo, naturalmente, as diretrizes básicas dele. Possivelmente, visando simplificar a exposição, este tipo de observação não foi feita, pois implicaria entrar em detalhes sobre a arquitetura do sistema kantiano e o modo como sua filosofia da matemática nela se encaixa, o que demandaria muito espaço e desvios para tratar de temas que não são o ponto central do livro.

No terceiro capítulo, da Silva aborda com detalhes a proposta daquele que ficou conhecido como movimento logicista, enfatizando um de seus mais eminentes proponentes: Frege. O projeto fregeano consistia em reduzir a aritmética à lógica, e com isto mostrar, a favor de Leibniz e contra Kant, que ela era analítica (ainda que Frege concordasse com a tese kantiana de a geometria ser um conhecimento sintético a priori). Para tanto, Frege, como é sabido, reformulou totalmente a lógica e a colocou nos moldes como a conhecemos hoje. Com isto, consequentemente, a noção de analiticidade sofreu algumas alterações, e saber em que sentido as teses de Frege e Kant realmente diferem é um tema de debate atual. Em 1902, Frege se deparou com um grande obstáculo no desenvolvimento de seu programa: a derivação de uma contradição a partir de um de seus axiomas, descoberta no ano anterior por Bertrand Russell. Este fato levou Frege, de certo modo, a praticamente abandonar o programa logicista, ao passo que Russell passou a dedicar seus esforços na busca de modificações na lógica que pudessem impedir esta derivação. Ele então amplia o programa logicista para toda a matemática, e não só para a aritmética, como era o caso de Frege. Suas principais propostas foram a teoria ramificada de tipos e o princípio do círculo vicioso. Talvez receoso de que o público escolhido para seu livro pudesse intimidar-se com o simbolismo, da Silva evita entrar em discussões sobre a formulação e objetivos da teoria de tipos desenvolvida por Russell, atendo-se apenas ao princípio do círculo vicioso. Caso a versão de Russell do logicismo fosse mais trabalhada no texto, uma explanação sobre esta teoria poderia ser interessante, pois tornaria mais claro para o leitor iniciante os vícios da proposta de Russell como, por exemplo, a necessidade de se introduzir um axioma do infinito, fato que é apenas mencionado por da Silva, e o axioma da reducibilidade, que é mencionado sem ser nomeado (p.136), e que causaram grande oposição quando de sua proposta. Além disso, esta abordagem tornaria mais claro para o leitor porque o sistema de Russell é mais artificial (p. 135) que o de Frege, e evidenciaria o papel central que a lógica ocupa no programa logicista, tanto na versão de Frege quanto na de Russell. No entanto, como dissemos, da Silva, talvez tendo em vista a simplicidade expositiva e a compreensão do leitor, e buscando não envolvê-lo em tópicos muito técnicos, restringe a discussão da versão russelliana do logicismo.

Outro ponto em que a falta de espaço e talvez a sofisticação técnica impediram que fosse devidamente tratado em um livro como este é a conexão entre a filosofia de Frege e seus descendentes contemporâneos, os neologicistas. Há atualmente um renovado interesse na tese logicista, que reside em uma tomada de consciência de que o famoso Princípio de Hume, quando adicionado à lógica de segunda ordem, é suficiente para se derivar a aritmética de segunda ordem. Com isto, foi possível ter noção do grande feito de Frege de fornecer uma análise lógica da aritmética, além de ter lançado a base para quase toda a discussão em filosofia da matemática no período que se seguiu a ele. O paradoxo de Russell foi obtido a partir da chamada Lei Básica V, que foi adotada por Frege unicamente com o objetivo de derivar o Princípio de Hume, e verificou-se que esta era de fato sua única função. Assim, se deixarmos de lado esta lei e assumirmos diretamente o Princípio de Hume, podemos manter o projeto fregeano aparentemente sem o risco de derivarmos outros paradoxos. Uma das controvérsias, atualmente, reside em se saber se o Princípio de Hume pode ser considerado uma lei lógica, ou, caso não possa, o que é mais provável, se ele pode ao menos ser considerado como um enunciado analítico. Este tipo de discussão constitui-se em tópico demasiado técnico, e talvez por esta razão da Silva não a tenha desenvolvido com mais vagar, apresentado-a de modo bastante breve.

Ainda tratando do neologicismo, da Silva fornece argumentos quineanos para minar as duas teses desta posição: que a lógica de segunda ordem é realmente lógica (o que é necessário para que a aritmética a ela reduzida seja analítica) e que a noção de analiticidade pode ser compreendida rigorosamente. Isto, evidentemente, pode ser visto como um modo de em um pequeno espaço fornecer informações tanto sobre o neologicismo quanto sobre Quine. O problema nesta exposição, em nossa opinião, é que a brevidade com que as teses de Quine são mencionadas podem acabar passando a impressão de que seus argumentos são aceitos de modo unânime, que eles podem ter encerrado a discussão, quando na verdade foram e ainda são bastante problematizados na literatura. Talvez por uma restrição do espaço do livro, os argumentos de Quine com relação à filosofia da matemática não puderam ser expostos em uma seção dedicada unicamente a ele, mas, do modo como estão expostas suas teses, em contraposição ao logicismo, podem levar alguns leitores a ter uma impressão equivocada do debate.

No capítulo sobre o construtivismo os autores abordados são basicamente três: L. Brouwer, H. Poincaré e H. Weyl. O autor alerta seus leitores para o fato de que ainda que todos eles possam ser agregados sob a alcunha construtivista, cada um deles desenvolveu sua própria versão, as quais da Silva procura explanar em suas linhas gerais. Entre elas está o intuicionismo brouweriano, sem dúvida uma das mais radicais filosofias da matemática do século passado, que imputa como única fonte para os objetos da matemática a intuição de um matemático ideal. Longe de ser clara, a natureza dessa intuição e os métodos intuicionistas são motivo de debates e desacordos até hoje. O autor, conhecendo as sutilezas e dificuldades da discussão, evita enredar-se em tais problemas, preferindo estabelecer tais conceitos apenas em termos intuitivos, como ao dizer que para Brouwer “a matemática deveria ser fundada nesta intuição básica: um instante temporal sucedendo outro” (p. 148) ou que uma demonstração intuicionista deve ser entendida como “uma não especificada vivência de verificação do sujeito criador” (p. 153). O caráter problemático destas noções poderia ter sido evidenciado, pois estão no centro das discussões sobre o intuicionismo, deixando claro ao leitor que o assunto é espinhoso.

Ao fim desse capítulo, da Silva faz uma interessante digressão em que aborda de maneira mais detida a questão da existência dos objetos matemáticos enfocando principalmente as soluções apresentadas pelos autores construtivistas. Para Brouwer, por exemplo, a existência de objetos matemáticos deve ser garantida por uma construção matemática, de modo efetivo. Esta concepção, em choque com a prática matemática atual, impõe interessantes restrições à lógica que, no contexto intuicionista, não pode mais ser a clássica. Ainda considerando a noção de existência na vertente construtivista, merece destaque a ênfase sobre a abordagem lingüística da existência matemática defendida, entre outros, por Poincaré.

O último capítulo, o quinto, trata do formalismo. Grande parte dos esforços de da Silva são voltados para a explicação dos objetivos do chamado “programa de Hilbert”, o qual buscou salvaguardar a matemática clássica dos ataques intuicionistas valendo-se, para tanto, da formalização e demonstração por métodos chamados “finitários” da consistência das teorias matemáticas, métodos estes que seriam, aos olhos de Hilbert, epistemologicamente aceitáveis aos críticos construtivistas. Deste modo, a atenção de da Silva está naturalmente voltada para explicar o problema da consistência de teorias matemáticas formalizadas. Nas pp. 187, 188, o autor nos diz que “[a formalização de teorias] tinha um preço. A eliminação da intuição dos procedimentos dedutivos abria a possibilidade para a constituição de sistemas que demonstravam muito mais do que se queria, a saber, os sistemas inconsistentes em que tudo pode ser demonstrado.” Segundo da Silva, uma teoria formal pode nos fornecer demonstrações mais acuradas, mas uma teoria não formal, ou, nos termos de da Silva, “contentual”, por sua vez, não levanta a questão sobre sua consistência, pois, segundo ele, uma teoria contentual, como, por exemplo, a aritmética dos inteiros não-negativos “é evidentemente uma teoria consistente, simplesmente por ser a teoria de um domínio dado de objetos, os números naturais” (p. 197). O que pode dificultar a compreensão dos leitores é que, primeiramente, a partir da exposição de da Silva não é claro como se pode determinar em que condições e em que sentido uma teoria contentual, mantida ao nível informal, pode ou não ser inconsistente. Uma teoria como a teoria de conjuntos proposta por Cantor não é facilmente reconhecida como consistente ou inconsistente, pois não está devidamente axiomatizada. Este ponto poderia ter sido mais enfatizado pelo autor quando na p. 202 reconhece que a teoria de Cantor pode conter inconsistências mesmo sendo uma teoria que trate de um domínio dado de objetos, os conjuntos. No entanto, alguns intérpretes argumentam que o conceito de conjunto de Cantor era demasiado sutil, e é apressado afirmar que sua teoria é contraditória (ver Ferreirós 1999). Talvez evitando entrar em complicações que não poderiam ser convenientemente tratadas no nível de profundidade ao qual se propõe o livro, o autor tenha se limitado às considerações mencionadas. Em segundo lugar, no contexto do programa de Hilbert este tipo de questão parece inverter a ordem dos problemas: Hilbert não partia de teorias formais cuja consistência era problemática, mas sim de teorias matemáticas que deveriam ser formalizadas para assim serem submetidas às técnicas propostas por ele para demonstração de sua consistência. Assim, aparentemente, Hilbert não parecia duvidar de que a consistência de teorias não formais pudesse ser demonstrada por suas versões formais, e tal consistência não deveria ser pressuposta pelo simples fato de serem teorias sobre algum domínio dado, ou pelo fato de não serem teorias formalizadas. Novamente, acreditamos que isto não tenha sido enfatizado visando à conveniência expositiva, já que se trata de tema árido para o leitor não familiarizado com lógica e fundamentos da matemática.

Além de apresentar os autores mais conhecidos na história da filosofia da matemática, outra presença importante no livro é a de Edmund Husserl. A despeito de ser um autor muito estudado por suas contribuições para a fenomenologia, sua filosofia da matemática é pouco conhecida e divulgada nos meios acadêmicos brasileiros. O livro de da Silva tem o mérito de tornar mais acessível ao público geral a parte da filosofia de Husserl que trata da matemática. As contribuições de Husserl são bastante amplas, e torna-se difícil enquadrá-lo em apenas um dos vários rótulos que usualmente se aplicam nesses contextos. Assim, segundo a exposição de da Silva, a filosofia da matemática de Husserl apresenta facetas logicistas, formalistas e estruturalistas; como não é o caso de um trabalho dedicado apenas a explorar a filosofia da matemática de Husserl, não há um capítulo exclusivo para este autor.

Conforme já mencionado várias vezes, buscando tornar o texto acessível ao seu público alvo sem entrar em tecnicismos, da Silva muitas vezes simplifica a discussão deixando de lado sutilezas que, para serem convenientemente exploradas, requereriam um aprofundamento em tópicos de teor mais matemático. Acreditamos que esta seja a razão para explicar muitas das omissões que discutimos anteriormente, e também das escolhas de da Silva. De um ponto de vista matemático é complicado expor a teoria de tipos de Russell, por exemplo, e entrar em detalhes sobre lógica e teoria de conjuntos envolvidos nas discussões atuais, quando se tem um espaço restrito como o deste livro e se tem em mira um público amplo e com formação variada. Além disso, o aparato de cunho matemático, no contexto dessas discussões, não constitui um fim em si mesmo, apesar de que sem ele torna-se um grande desafio transmitir de modo adequado os desenvolvimentos do intuicionismo, do programa de Hilbert e do neologicismo. No entanto, da Silva em alguns pontos não deixa de introduzir em suas discussões temas mais técnicos e, quando o faz, em nossa opinião, tendo em vista seu público, poderia ser mais explícito em alguns detalhes que auxiliariam seus leitores em pesquisas futuras, caso venham a se debruçar sobre estes assuntos.

TÓPICOS TÉCNICOS

Começamos considerando alguns pontos em que definições conjuntistas foram introduzidas. Na p. 84, o autor menciona a definição de Dedekind de conjuntos infinitos como a definição de conjuntos infinitos, mas existem outras que não são equivalentes a esta sem o axioma da escolha. Estes fatos poderiam ser mencionados para o leitor, talvez esclarecendo que a definição de Dedekind é a mais usual, mas que outras podem ser utilizadas. Na página 114, da Silva afirma que as noções de cardinal e ordinal não são independentes e que no caso finito essas noções coincidem. É possível, no entanto, definir números cardinais sem fazer uso de ordinais, e em tal definição o número cardinal de um conjunto finito não é, em geral, um número natural (ver a definição de kard de um conjunto em “Foundations of Set Theory” de Fraenkel, Bar-Hillel e Levy 1984, pp. 97, 98). Novamente, a definição utilizada por da Silva é a mais usual, e talvez a mais indicada para ser utilizada em um texto de nível elementar, mas é sempre importante informar ao leitor, principalmente o iniciante, de que não se trata da única opção.

Outra discussão interessante do ponto de vista técnico e filosófico aparece nas pp. 141-142. Buscando tornar mais clara a noção de definição por abstração utilizada por Frege, da Silva faz uma breve exposição geral do procedimento utilizado para obtermos o conjunto quociente de um conjunto por uma relação de equivalência definida sobre seus elementos. Ele observa que apesar de que atualmente identificamos novos objetos matemáticos definidos como classes de equivalência, isto nem sempre foi assim. Para citar um exemplo, nos diz que Dedekind, ao introduzir os números reais através de cortes de números racionais, não identificava os reais com os respectivos cortes, o que segundo da Silva é um erro, dada nossa atual compreensão da teoria das definições por abstração. Acreditamos que dois problemas foram misturados aqui, e que o leitor iniciante, principalmente aquele sem conhecimento de matemática, pode ter dificuldades de compreensão. Por um lado, os cortes de Dedekind não são definidos pelo procedimento de abstração, não são introduzidos como particulares classes de equivalência, pois neste caso não haveria classes de equivalência suficientes para representar todos os reais. Os cortes são subconjuntos de números racionais satisfazendo certas condições. Por outro lado, alguns leitores podem achar que da Silva não está justificado em censurar Dedekind por não identificar os cortes com os números reais. Se os números reais são cortes, o que representam os objetos que obtemos através dos outros procedimentos usualmente utilizados para representar os números reais, como seqüências de Cauchy ou o método dos intervalos encaixantes? Além disso, parece que um conhecimento intuitivo dos reais era pressuposto para guiar a construção da teoria dos cortes de Dedekind e até mesmo para avaliar seu sucesso.

Outro ponto no qual da Silva faz incursões mais profundas em assuntos eminentemente matemáticos diz respeito aos teoremas da incompletude de Gödel. Em pp. 204-206, da Silva busca esboçar a demonstração daquele que é mais conhecido como o segundo teorema da incompletude de Gödel. Acreditamos que a demonstração, como está feita, seja de difícil compreensão para leitores iniciantes. É interessante lembrar que mesmo em textos voltados exclusivamente à discussão de lógica raramente a demonstração deste teorema é realizada com todo o rigor, por ser demasiado complexa. Ademais, talvez para evitar entrar em tecnicismos, da Silva não menciona que existem outras fórmulas da linguagem da aritmética de Peano que expressam sua consistência e que são demonstráveis nesta aritmética. Ou seja, Gödel mostrou que a aritmética não demonstra uma particular fórmula que expressa sua consistência, mas isto não impede que outras fórmulas expressando a consistência do sistema sejam demonstráveis, como por exemplo, mostrou Feferman em (1960).

FILOSOFIA E MATEMÁTICA

Por mais que as indagações filosóficas acerca da matemática remontem aos gregos antigos, e outros tantos filósofos do passado tenham tentado enquadrar o conhecimento matemático em seus sistemas, da Silva aponta que a filosofia da matemática como disciplina surge apenas em fins do século XIX (p. 26). Portanto, é principalmente a partir desse momento que surgem inescapáveis e importantes questões – e da Silva não deixa de assinalá-las –, como: qual é o papel de uma filosofia da matemática? Segundo da Silva, “não compete ao filósofo impor restrições à prática matemática, mas, antes, tomá-la como teste de teorias filosóficas sobre a matemática” (p. 157). O que seria uma boa filosofia da matemática? A resposta do autor é que “teorias do conhecimento, do significado ou ontologias que não consigam de alguma forma dar conta de todo o conhecimento matemático, de suas asserções e seus objetos, não são boas teorias, simplesmente” (pp. 157, 158). O problema desse tipo de resposta definitiva é que ela pressupõe que estejam claramente respondidas uma série de questões importantes, como: O que é a matemática de que uma filosofia deve dar conta? – é simplesmente o que os matemáticos fazem? E isto envolve tudo o que eles fazem enquanto trabalham, ou apenas alguma parte menos controversa de sua produção? Muitas vezes, os próprios matemáticos não estão de acordo sobre o que conta como um produto legítimo de suas pesquisas; podemos citar vários exemplos disso, como a controvérsia entre Kronecker e Cantor, a dificuldade de Zermelo em obter reconhecimento para sua demonstração do teorema da boa ordem, o tortuoso caminho para a aceitação do axioma da escolha e o problema bastante atual de se saber se resultados cujas provas foram obtidas por computadores e são muito longas para serem verificadas por seres humanos devem contar como demonstrados. Neste aspecto, parece que a filosofia pode não só limitar-se a descrever o conhecimento matemático, mas a discussão no momento de determinar o próprio escopo deste conhecimento e a direção que o progresso desse conhecimento toma poderá muitas vezes ter caráter eminentemente filosófico.

Além disso, a própria resposta pode ser razoavelmente problematizada. O que é “dar conta de todo conhecimento matemático, de suas asserções, de seus objetos.”? (pp. 157, 158) Supondo que esteja claro o que significa “dar conta do conhecimento matemático”, podemos levar em conta que não existe apenas uma matemática atualmente, mas várias, como as matemáticas não-cantorianas (por exemplo, a de Solovay), a matemática construtiva de Bishop, as matemáticas paraconsistentes, e por que não, a matemática de Brouwer e de sua escola que, numa visão pluralista da matemática, não se configura como uma amputação da matemática clássica, mas, antes, como uma matemática diferente da clássica. Assim, a “boa” filosofia da matemática (ou deveríamos dizer das matemáticas?) deve tratar de todas elas, ou só de uma ou algumas? Sendo assim, de quais? A filosofia da matemática intuicionista proposta por Brouwer não dá conta da matemática intuicionista conforme ela é desenvolvida por sua escola? Certamente ela entra em conflito com a matemática dita clássica (este é um termo vago, mas vamos assumi-lo para efeitos de argumentação), mas a filosofia de cunho platônico, que pelo menos do ponto de vista ontológico é mais adequada para esta última, por sua vez, não se acerta com a matemática construtivista proposta por Brouwer.

Aparentemente, todos os grandes projetos filosóficos do passado entraram, em menor ou maior grau, em choque com a matemática vigente; isso, em alguma medida, os desqualifica? Segundo a proposta de da Silva, sim. Acreditamos, na verdade, que essa questão é das mais importantes, e que apesar de não haver espaço para a discussão dos detalhes em um livro como este, é o tipo de problema que pode formar o pano de fundo de todo um livro. Em nossa visão, a proposta pluralista é a mais razoável tanto para tratar adequadamente o problema em foco quanto para uma obra voltada para leitores iniciantes. A tolerância expressa em tal abordagem encoraja os leitores sem os indispor contra qualquer filosofia em particular. Neste ponto, apesar de acreditarmos que esta abordagem seja a mais proveitosa, não podemos ou sequer devemos exigir que um livro de filosofia seja isento de comprometimentos por parte de seus autores; aliás, é interessante para o leitor saber que o debate continua e que ele pode e deve tomar posição na disputa. É justamente isto que move a filosofia.

Referências

FERREIRÓS, J. Labyrinth of Thought: a history of set theory and its role in modern mathematics. Birkhauser, 1999.

FRAENKEL, A. A., BAR-HILLEL, Y., LEVI, A. Foundations of Set Theory. North-Holland, 1984.

FEFERMAN, S. “Arithmetization of metamathematics in a general set-ting”. Fundamenta Mathematicae, 49, pp. 35-92, 1960.

Jonas Rafael Becker Arenhart. E-mail: jonas.becker2@gmail.com

Fernando Tadeu Franceschi Moraes. E-mail: fermatadeu@uol.com.br

Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina. Campus Trindade. 88040-900 FLORIANÓPOLIS, SC

BRASIL.

Acessar publicação original

Tags: ARENHART Jonas Rafael Becker (Res), Editora da Unesp (E), Filosofia da Matemática, Filosofias da Matemática (T), Manuscrito (Ma), MORAES Fernando Tadeu Franceschi (Res), SILVA Jairo José da Silva (Aut)

Escepticismo del Significado y Teorias de Conceptos – PINTO (M)

1 de julho de 2009

PINTO, Silvio Mota. Escepticismo del Significado y Teorias de Conceptos. Barcelona: Anthropos, 2009. Resenha de: ENGELMANN, Mauro L. Notas críticas sobre Escepticismo del significado y teorias de conceptos de Silvio Mota Pinto. Manuscrito, Campinas, v. 32, n. 2, p. 519-533, jul.-dez. 2009.

O fio condutor do livro é o argumento cético de Kripke (que o au-tor também atribui a Wittgenstein) em Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Lan-guage (1982). Segundo Mota Pinto, esse argumento, ou desafio, estabelece condições necessárias, que qualquer teoria de conceitos e do significado deve preencher. A partir disso, Mota Pinto analisa várias respostas ao problema cético e aponta duas como respostas satisfatórias (uma ele atri-bui a Wittgenstein e outra a Peacocke).

O livro contém cinco teses principais: (1) que Kripke e Wittgenste-in tratam do mesmo problema cético; (2) que Wittgenstein revisa a filoso-fia do Tractatus devido ao seu crescente interesse pela fundamentação de regras linguísticas; (3) que a solução que o autor atribui a Wittgenstein é uma das soluções possíveis; (4) que a teoria meta-semântica de Peackoke é também uma solução possível; (5) e que determinadas respostas ao pro-blema cético apresentadas na literatura não são boas. O livro é dividido em 6 capítulos. No capítulo 1, o autor apresenta o desafio cético e quais condições devem ser satisfeitas por uma resposta ao mesmo. De acordo com o autor, são duas as condições: (i) a condição constitutiva: mostrar um fato que poderia constituir a compreensão linguística de um certo idioma (isto é, o que constitui seguir uma regra); (ii) a condição epistêmi-ca: explicar nosso conhecimento de primeira e terceira pessoas a respeito da nossa compreensão de palavras (como sabemos qual regra seguimos) (p. 57). No capítulo 2, examina as origens do problema na obra interme-diária de Wittgenstein e seu paralelo com os argumentos de Quine para a “indeterminação da tradução” e a “relatividade ontológica”. No capítulo 3, critica um grupo de respostas ao problema caracterizado como ‘realis-mo individualista’ (McGinn, Soames e Horwich). No capítulo 4, critica as soluções ‘anti-realistas’ de Kripke, Crispin Wright e Dummett, assim co-mo as soluções externistas de Putnam e Burge. No capitulo 5, o autor apresenta a sua solução, a solução “wittgensteiniana”. No sexto e último capítulo, são discutidas as condições gerais que qualquer teoria de concei-tos deve preencher. Essas condições são extraídas do problema cético de Kripke a partir de uma revisão das condições que Fodor apresenta em Concepts. O autor, então, tenta mostrar que a teoria meta-semântica de Peackoke também soluciona o problema cético de Kripke e preenche as condições gerais de uma teoria de conceitos.

O livro funciona muito bem como uma análise do argumento céti-co de Kripke e das soluções propostas na literatura. Os capítulos 1, 3, 4 e 5 formam um texto conciso e bem argumentado. Esses capítulos apresen-tam uma articulação das várias posições no debate a respeito do seguimento de regras e podem, por isso, ser utilizados como livro-texto em um curso sobre o paradoxo de Kripkenstein. Enquanto o capítulo 1 apresenta o problema (ou paradoxo), os capítulos 3 e 4 examinam, de forma lúcida e sucinta, as soluções mais influentes na literatura (todas são descartadas como inadequadas); por fim, o capítulo 5 tenta mostrar por que a solução atribuída ao próprio Wittgenstein é a melhor. O capitulo 6 destoa um pouco desse padrão, pois introduz desiderata para qualquer teoria de con-ceitos e defende de maneira muito rápida a teoria de Peackoke (mais a esse respeito abaixo). Mesmo que esse capítulo esteja ligado aos argumen-tos centrais do livro, ele poderia ser mais desenvolvido – e, talvez, publicado à parte como uma crítica à teoria de conceitos de Fodor e uma defe-sa da teoria de Peacocke. O capítulo 2, principalmente na investigação da origem do paradoxo, é o menos satisfatório, pois, creio, as teses não são suficientemente fundamentadas. Contudo, é preciso ressaltar que o autor tem o mérito de tomar a sério neste capítulo a tarefa de explicar a origem das preocupações de Wittgenstein com o seguimento de regras, algo que raramente ocorre na literatura sobre o assunto. Afora isso, vale destacar que o autor corretamente detecta a centralidade do seguimento de regras no Tractatus. No que se segue, tratarei com mais detalhes dos capítulos 2, 5 e 6.

No capítulo 2, onde argumenta a favor da tese de que a mudança na filosofia de Wittgenstein está fundada no interesse crescente deste pe-las “regras da linguagem”, o autor atribui ao Tractatus de Wittgenstein duas teses: (a) “que o domínio de uma linguagem natural deve ser explicado em termos do domínio de uma linguagem primitiva e cristalina de pensamen-tos” e (b) “que entender expressões desta linguagem de pensamentos tra-duz-se em uma capacidade de seguir certas regras sintáticas a elas associa-das” (p. 60). Existem várias razões para pensarmos que essas teses exegé-ticas são incorretas. Primeiro, de acordo com o Tractatus, “o pensamento é a proposição com sentido” (Tractatus 4). Portanto, a noção de ‘proposi-ção’ explica a noção de ‘pensamento’, e não vice-versa. Em uma passagem dos Notebooks, de 12.09.1916, Wittgenstein explicitamente afirma isso: “Agora está claro porque pensava que pensar e falar seria o mesmo. O pensar é um tipo de linguagem. Pois o pensamento é, evidentemente, também uma figuração lógica e, assim, igualmente um tipo de proposição” (meus itálicos). O fundamental é que linguagem falada e linguagem pensada são linguagens lógicas. O “primitivo” no Tractatus não é o “mentalês”, mas o “logicês”. Se não fosse, Wittgenstein não poderia mostrar os limites do pensamento por meio da linguagem (ver Introdução do Tractatus). Em segundo lugar, se a linguagem de pensamentos explicasse a linguagem natural, o Tractatus deveria, no mínimo, tratar dessa linguagem e indicar seus elementos. Contudo, nada semelhante ocorre no Tractatus. Em uma carta a Russell de 1919, Wittgenstein explicitamente diz que não é do seu interesse determinar os elementos do pensamento e, ainda mais incisiva-mente, diz que a relação dos mesmos com os fatos figurados é irrelevante. (Essa carta é citada pelo autor na p. 72, mas erroneanmente considerada parte dos Notebooks; a razão para esse equívoco é o fato de algumas cartas haverem sido publicadas como apêndice dos Notebooks). Essa falta de in-teresse de Wittgenstein pelos elementos do pensamento parece-me in-compatível com a tese de que é uma linguagem mental que explica a lin-guagem natural de acordo com o Tractatus, como afirma o autor. Existe também uma lacuna neste capítulo que precisa ser mencionada. O autor não explica se as teses que atribui ao Tractatus são problemáticas, nem qual sua relação com o suposto crescente interesse de Wittgenstein pelo se-guimento de regras.

As razões que autor oferece para as teses a e b acima são também, creio, incorretas. Para a oferece duas razões. Primeiro, a influência da teo-ria das descrições de Russell e a ideia de que a sintaxe superficial da lin-guagem esconde sua sintaxe profunda; segundo, a influência do princípio fregiano do contexto, que implicaria uma única análise completa da pro-posição (p. 61). Certamente, aos olhos de Wittgenstein, foi mérito de Rus-sell mostrar que “a forma lógica aparente de uma proposição pode não ser sua forma real” (Tractatus 4.0031). Contudo, não é nada evidente como esse mérito de Russell levaria Wittgenstein a supor que existe uma lingua-gem primitiva de pensamentos (um mentalês de tipo fodoriano). O autor precisaria ter apresentado um argumento mostrando que: (i) a análise rus-selliana é idêntica à de Wittgenstein e (ii) que de tal análise segue-se a ne-cessária postulação de uma linguagem primitiva do pensamento que, por sua vez, explicaria a linguagem natural. O uso do princípio do contexto (segundo argumento) para justificar o mentalês e a ideia de uma única análise final da proposição parece-me, também, uma estratégia equivoca-da. Isso pode ser constatado já em Frege, para o qual não há tal coisa co-mo análise única e final da proposição. Uma das características da lógica do inventor do princípio do contexto é precisamente a ideia de que um pensamento pode ser analisado de diversos modos (ver, por exemplo, Begriffsschrift §9 e Logik, de 1897, em Nachgelassene Schriften). É, no mínimo, plausível que a multiplicidade de análises possíveis seja uma consequência do próprio princípio do contexto. O que determina como devemos anali-sar uma proposição são as inferências que queremos preservar em certos contextos inferenciais; portanto, a unidade significativa mínima deve ser a proposição (conteúdo judicativo ou pensamento, no vocabulário de Fre-ge). A tese b acima mencionada, por sua vez, é defendida com diversas passagens em que Wittgenstein fala de regras. No entanto, em nenhuma das diversas citações apresentadas pelo autor Wittgenstein fala de uma “linguagem de pensamentos”, o que é precisamente o ponto em questão (de acordo com a tese do autor).

O autor defende, no mesmo capítulo, que a mudança na filosofia de Wittgenstein (do Tractatus à filosofia tardia) deve ser explicada a partir de uma mudança de postura quanto a seguir regras. Mesmo que seja ver-dadeira a tese (conclusão a que não podemos chegar, creio, baseados so-mente na evidência apresentada no livro), ela não justifica a tese mais for-te segundo a qual Wittgenstein passa a adotar uma postura cética em relação a seguir regras. A evidência textual para essa interpretação é bastante problemática. Para fundamentar sua tese, o autor cita uma conversa de Wittgenstein com o Círculo de Viena em 1931. Eis o início da passagem citada: “Não ‘apliquei’ a regra x [:] x² aos números particulares, pois senão precisaria novamente de uma regra que me diz como posso retirar da ex-pressão com letras a construção da série dos números. E se quisesse apre-sentar tal regra (a saber, com letras), não teria ido adiante novamente: pre-cisaria de uma nova regra que me dissesse como posso empregá-la, e assim por diante” (WWK, p. 154). Mota Pinto argumenta que no Tractatus Wittgenstein tomou como certo que sabemos o que é seguir uma regra linguística e que a passagem citada marca uma mudança significativa quanto à problematização a respeito de seguir regras. É correto que Wittgenstein passa a preocupar-se com o seguimento de regras no período intermediário (isso, creio, porque precisa dar uma resposta à teoria causal do significado de Russell em The Analysis of Mind; ver Philosophische Bemer-kungen §21 e ss.). No entanto, na passagem citada acima, Wittgenstein pa-rece estar simplesmente reiterando um ponto tractariano, a saber, que regras não são ditas, mas mostram-se. Isso pode ser constatado quando observamos o que Wittgenstein diz imediatamente antes da passagem citada: “A generalidade mostra-se na aplicação. Essa generalidade preciso ver na configuração. Mas não vejo a regra geral melhor na expressão x [:] x² do que antes nos números particulares.” Sem mais evidência, é natural concluirmos que Wittgenstein está reiterando sua filosofia do Tractatus, e não introduzindo alguma novidade, como afirma Mota Pinto.

É interessante observar que a passagem citada pelo autor (parcial-mente reproduzida acima) é concluída com uma novidade na filosofia de Wittgenstein. Essa novidade, contudo, não parece ter sido notada. Eu cito a passagem: “Chegamos aqui, na verdade, a um erro estranho, que consis-te no fato de pensarmos que em lógica podemos ligar duas coisas através de uma terceira… Imagina-se duas coisas ligadas por uma corda. Mas isso é uma imagem enganosa… Nessa falsa concepção repousa a dificuldade que se encontra na questão: Como podemos empregar a regra? A resposta parece ser: novamente por meio de uma regra, e desse modo jamais sairíamos do lugar” (p. 155; dois primeiros itálicos são meus). Contrariamente ao que sugere Mota Pinto, Wittgenstein não está inventando aqui o problema de seguir uma regra. Ele está expressando, contudo, um ponto que se tornará central na sua filosofia tardia. Está dizendo que um “erro estranho” está em questão (e não, digamos, um problema sério que precisa ser solucio-nado). A passagem acima diz que é uma “falsa concepção” (ou uma “i-magem enganosa”) que gera a dificuldade a respeito da aplicação de uma regra e o consequente regresso ao infinito. É uma falsa analogia que en-gendra o problema. Wittgenstein diz que a própria formulação do pro-blema é equivocada; isto é, certas confusões filosóficas levam-nos a for-mular pseudo-problemas. Assim, sugere que a avaliação da gênese de problemas filosóficos pode nos levar a dissolvê-los antes que nos preocupe-mos com sua solução (ver, por exemplo, Investigações Filosóficas (IF) §§39, 90, 308). Se o problema pode ser dissolvido, nenhuma solução precisa ser encontrada (a “solução” consiste na dissolução, digamos, genética, do mesmo).

Creio que a possibilidade de um regresso ao infinito na justificação de regras e a ambiguidade relacionada a qual regra estamos seguindo es-tão, de fato, ligadas à mudança de Wittgenstein na sua filosofia tardia, mas a mudança consiste precisamente em não tomar tais consequências para-doxais como problemas a serem solucionados; são as confusas condições que levaram à sua formulação que necessitam investigação. Isso é o que está em questão também no “paradoxo” nas IF: “Quando filosofamos, somos como selvagens, pessoas primitivas, que ouvem o modo de ex-pressão de pessoas civilizadas, interpretam-no mal, e então extraem dele as conclusões mais estranhas” (§194). Que conclusão poderia ser mais estranha do que o paradoxo de Kripke? A questão wittgensteiniana a res-peito do cético de Kripke seria, então, “Que confusão a respeito de que modo de expressão gerou esse paradoxo?”, e não “Como podemos en-contrar uma solução para o paradoxo?”.

Algumas reservas relacionadas à solução (considerada wittgenste-iniana) do autor no capitulo 5 precisam ser apresentadas. Já listei acima algumas razões para pensarmos que Wittgenstein não inventou um pro-blema cético nos termos de Kripke. Sua intenção era mostrar a gênese de confusões filosófica para dissolvê-las, e não “resolver” problemas filosófi-cos. Wittgenstein não apresenta nenhuma tese como solução para o pro-blema cético, tampouco tenta estabelecer os fundamentos da linguagem. Na verdade, é completamente claro a esse respeito: “A filosofia não pode de modo algum interferir no uso efetivo da linguagem; portanto, ao final, ela pode apenas descrevê-lo. Pois ela também não pode fundamentá-lo” (IF §124; meu itálico). Passagens como essa, e outras similares, não são co-mentadas por Mota Pinto (nem por Kripke, evidentemente). O autor atribui constantemente teses gerais e teses fundacionais sobre a linguagem a Wittgenstein (por exemplo, nas pp. 60 e 184-203). Essa estratégia é, como vimos, equivocada do ponto de vista exegético. Se, no entanto, Wittgens-tein tivesse apresentado o problema cético de Kripke para depois resolvê-lo, e se sua solução fosse aquela proposta no capítulo 5, creio que tería-mos algumas dificuldades. No que se segue, apresentarei rapidamente aquilo que o autor chama de ‘solução wittgensteiniana’; depois, indicarei por que o cético de Kripke discordaria de tal solução. Esse ponto é rele-vante no contexto do livro de Mota Pinto, pois o autor argumenta que Kripke e Wittgenstein apresentam o mesmo problema cético (isso no ca-pítulo 1; por exemplo, p. 57).

A solução wittgensteiniana do problema cético apresentada pelo autor é, na verdade, uma solução davidsoniana. Pelas razões que indiquei acima, a aproximação de Davidson e Wittgenstein deve ser vista com sus-peita (Davidson, evidentemente, retirou das Investigações Filosóficas vários elementos de sua filosofia; isso, porém, não faz de Wittgenstein um da-vidsoniano e não faz de Davidson um wittgensteiniano). O autor atribui a Wittgenstein a tese de que é o “caráter interpretativo” da prática da lin-guagem a chave para respondermos ao cético. Uma espécie de interpretação radical à la Davidson revelaria regras que seriam, ao mesmo tempo, generalizações empíricas e normas linguístico-comportamentais. Assume-se, assim, que o “interpretado” e o “interpretante” são seres intencionais cujo comportamento é normatizado. As normas da lingua-gem, nessa teoria, constituem o significado das palavras e explicam a as-simetria entre primeira e terceira pessoas. Mas como, afinal, Wittgenstein responde ao cético? “Seguir uma regra”, argumenta o autor, é uma práti-ca; uma prática é uma atividade intencional; uma atividade intencional é uma atividade regida por regras (isso é circular, mas não me deterei nesse ponto). Assim, a interpretação é fundada em uma “prática interpretável” (p. 192). O que torna possível tal interpretação, e também distingue práticas interpretáveis de não-interpretáveis, é o compartilhamento de práticas (digamos entre nós e os seres que queremos interpretar). Sem o compartilhamento de práticas, não há comunicação possível (para Mota Pinto, essa é “a primeira condição necessária da possibilidade de interpretação” (p. 193)). Só podemos interpretar, de acordo com essa teoria, seres que tenham regras que “regem nossas próprias práticas” (p. 192). Essas práticas são, por exemplo, “inferir, calcular, medir…usar pala-vras para cores e muitas outras” (pp. 192-3). Com isso, conclui Mota Pinto: “aqueles que tivessem uma aritmética distinta, ou que vendessem madeira com base na área que ocupa a pilha de tábuas … seriam todos ininterpretáveis para nós” (p. 193). Aqui, o autor faz referência ao exemplo dos estranhos vendedores de madeira (ver Wittgenstein’s Lectures on the Foundations of Mathematics Cambridge 1939 (WLFM), p. 201 ss., e Bemerkungen ueber die Grundlagen der Mathematik I (BGM I), §§ 147-52). Os estranhos madeireiros são uma referência que Wittgenstein faz ao exem-plo da suposta negação do princípio de identidade por parte de alieníge-nas dado por Frege no prefácio das Grundgesetze (também na obra póstu-ma Logik de 1897). Antes de mais nada, parece-me claro que Wittgenstein interpreta esses seres que não compartilham de nossas práticas. De fato, no §150 da parte I de BGM, Wittgenstein diz que poderíamos tentar mudar sua prática espalhando a madeira de uma pilha; com isso, evidentemente, tentaríamos mostrar que não aumentou a quantidade de madeira depois de espalharmos as tábuas. Se isso não funcionasse, pensaríamos simplesmente que o que consideram “muita madeira” não corresponde ao que nós consideramos muita madeira (evidentemente, não os consideraríamos seres muito inteligentes – ver BGM §150-1). As atividades desses seres pareceriam, para nós, sem propósito (WLFM, p. 203). Nesse caso, talvez fosse importante averiguar a história da atividade (WLFM, p. 204). Assim, para Wittgenstein, a falta de compartilhamento de “práticas fundamentais” não torna impossível a interpretação, como sugere o autor. Wittgenstein não está, pois, apresentando uma “condição de possibilidade” quando fala da importância do compartilhamento de práticas. Talvez o ponto de Wittgenstein seja precisamente diluir a noção kantiana de “condição de possibilidade” por meio de um afrouxamento de claros limites entre interpretabilidade e não-interpretabilidade, compre-ensão e não compreensão e, até mesmo, entre aquilo que é linguagem e aquilo que não é linguagem (aqui vale lembrar que Wittgenstein pede que a linguagem com 4 palavras do §2 das IF seja concebida como uma “lin-guagem primitiva completa”).

Para Mota Pinto, o compartilhamento da prática tem, por sua vez, o acordo nos juízos como condição de possibilidade. Esses juízos com-partilhados, de acordo com o autor, são independentes do intérprete e do sujeito interpretado (são, nesse sentido, a base para determinar a objetivi-dade no seguimento de regras). Só é possível determinar se S segue a re-gra da ‘adição’ ou da ‘tadição’ com esse pano de fundo, pois esses juízos compartilhados constituem o significado de ‘adição’ (“condição constituti-va”, mencionada acima).

Não me parece claro que a solução wittgensteiniana apresentada pelo autor resolva o problema cético de Kripke. Primeiro, porque se con-sideramos que o compartilhamento de juízos é uma condição necessária para a interpretação, e tomamos os juízos matemáticos como parte desse grupo (como sugere o autor), o que devemos conluir é que o problema cético de Kripke é absurdo; pois não se pode duvidar, supostamente, de uma condição de possibilidade que fundamenta a interpretação (uma tal dúvida não seria interpretável). Contudo, o cético de Kripke apresentado por Mota Pinto perguntaria, creio, se o juízos compartilhados constituem o significado de adição ou tadição para o caso específico de, digamos, ‘68+57’. O problema é que o número de juízos compartilhados é finito e haverá sempre o caso kripkiano de determinar como esses juízos podem estabelecer qual a regra que está sendo seguida no novo caso particular. O apelo à prática geral, comum a intérprete e interpretado, também não re-solve o problema. Por suposição, intérprete e interpretado compartilham a prática de somar. Nesse caso, a prática compartilhada é finita. Intérprete e interpretado concordariam em todas as instâncias passadas de adicionar e ‘tadicionar’, mas não haveria nenhuma prática relacionada à tadição ou à adição de ‘68+57’ (digamos, não haveria uma instância prática para a con-tagem de tantos grãos de areia). Assim, não há como determinar se o que está de acordo com a prática é contar ou ‘tontar’, ou seja, se para o caso supostamente novo em nossa prática, devemos obter ‘125’ ou ‘5’ (ver Krip-ke p. 16).

No capítulo 6, quando trata de teorias de conceitos, o desafio céti-co serve para marcar duas características que qualquer teoria de conceitos deve possuir: explicar o que constitui o emprego de conceitos e a maneira assimétrica de conhecermos conceitos na primeira e na terceira pessoas. Com essa ideia geral, o autor apresenta a concepção fodoriana da natureza dos conceitos e a reformula de acordo com o que considera exigências do problema cético; depois mostra que a teoria de Fodor não é adequada e, por fim, mostra que a teoria de Peacocke, por sua vez, é adequada à re-fomulação proposta e é uma resposta convincente ao problema cético de Kripke.

A reformulação proposta por Mota Pinto, baseada nas condições apresentadas por Fodor, é a seguinte (as condições indicadas com asteris-cos foram modificadas por Mota Pinto e a C4 de Fodor é abandonada): (C1) conceitos são particulares mentais capazes de causar e ser causados por outros elementos mentais; (C2*) uma explicação da natureza dos con-ceitos deve dar conta da constituição e da epistemologia das normas asso-ciadas ao uso de conceitos; (C3*) teorias de conceitos precisam dar conta do fato de que atitudes proposicionais são produtivas e sistêmicas; (C5*) a explicação psicológica e a comunicação linguística requerem que os con-ceitos possuídos por pessoas diversas sejam suficientemente similares entre si.

A ideia básica de Fodor, como é bem sabido, consiste em postular uma linguagem mental (“mentalês”) e a partir disso determinar uma teoria representacional da mente. Para dar conta da aplicação de conceitos, Fo-dor assume “necessidades metafísicas” e essências. O autor considera que a teoria de Fodor envolve-se com muitos pressupostos que, se não duvidosos, deixam a teoria extremamente complexa. Afora isso, critica Fodor por não dar conta do aspecto epistemológico de (C2*). Não me parece claro, contudo, por que exatamente o autor pensa que Fodor não poderia tratar satisfatoriamente desse último ponto. Por que não poderiam os as-pectos fenomênicos dos conceitos fodorianos explicar a posse de concei-tos na primeira e terceira pessoas, como exige o autor (p. 241)?

O autor argumenta, então, que Peacocke oferece uma teoria de conceitos capaz de dar conta das condições apresentadas e capaz de res-ponder ao desafio cético (p. 252). Peacocke assume, como Frege, o con-ceito de ‘verdade’ como noção semântica primitiva e partir dele tenta de-rivar uma explicação para a natureza normativa de conceitos. Conceitos tem, para Peacocke, o estatuto de sentidos fregianos. Eles são conjuntos de disposições inferenciais que fornecem critérios para a posse de um conceito. As disposições que fornecem os critérios são chamadas ‘consti-tutivas’ (determinam o que é compreender o conceito) enquanto outras são meramente ‘colaterais’ (essa é uma variação da tese de Dummett, se-gundo a qual existem usos constitutivos e colaterais de palavras).

No entanto, quando Mota Pinto argumenta que Peacocke respon-de ao cético de Kripke (ver p. 214), não é claro como isso ocorre. Uma resposta é esboçada quando o autor introduz as condições que Peacocke dá para a posse do conceito ‘mais’. Ele o faz com definições recursivas utilizando as funções ‘zero’ e ‘sucessor’, que são chamadas “disposições inferenciais primitivas”. O que deveria estar em questão, seguindo o ar-gumento de Kripke, é se a determinação de ‘mais’ por meio de disposi-ções inferenciais primitivas pode determinar a soma para todos os casos possíveis. É evidente que, para o cético kripkiano, não podemos determi-nar se na instância supostamente nova ‘68+57’ as “disposições primitivas” funcionam como nos casos passados. Infelizmente, o autor não discute essa dificuldade. Não quero com isso sugerir que Peacocke não possa responder ao cético kripkiano. Talvez o faça (ver, por exemplo, Peacocke 1992, pp. 148 e ss.), mas isso não é evidente no modo como Mota Pinto utiliza-se de Peacocke para responder ao cético.

Às vezes tem-se a impressão que Mota Pinto não está particular-mente interessado em uma resposta de Peacocke ao cético, mesmo que o afirme (por exemplo, nas pp. 20 e 214). Seu interesse parece restringer-se a mostrar como as condições gerais que extrai como lições do argumento cético são satisfeitas pela teoria de Peacocke (e também pela teoria que atribui a Wittgenstein no capítulo 5). Se, no entanto, esse era o objetivo do capítulo 6, Mota Pinto talvez precisasse não apenas argumentar em linhas muito gerais que a teoria de Peacocke realmente satisfaz as “condi-ções epistêmica e constitutiva”. Na verdade, o autor apresenta apenas o problema da auto-atribuição de estados mentais e conjectura que Peacoc-ke “pense que a conexão constitutiva entre encontrar-se em determinados estados e atribuir-se tais estados proporciona algum tipo de justificação para as ditas auto-atribuições” (p. 255). A partir disso conclui: “Em vez de especular sobre o detalhe da posição de Peacocke, parece-me mais pru-dente concluir que reúne elementos para satisfazer também a condição epistêmica do ceticismo do significado” (p. 255). Contudo, não existem elementos no livro que justifiquem a prudência do autor. Assim, essa conclusão pode decepcionar o leitor, que está justificado pela introdução do livro a esperar um tratamento detalhado. Ao final, contrariamente ao que o autor sugere, tem-se a impressão de que a teoria de Peacocke não acrescenta muito ao debate sobre o ceticismo kripkiano.

Apontei algumas lacunas argumentativas presentes no livro e fiz várias críticas exegéticas, mas com isso não pretendo apagar seus méritos. Devo ressaltar a clareza expositiva e argumentativa na apresentação do problema kripkiano e suas supostas soluções, bem como a sadia e sempre bem-vinda tomada de posição do autor. Assim, mesmo que tenha critica-do várias teses do livro, recomendo-o como uma boa avaliação do debate acerca do problema kripkiano atribuído a Wittgenstein. O autor mostra como diversos problemas exegético-argumentativos estão relacionados e sinopticamente trata de parte significativa da literatura sobre os mesmos. Os méritos e os pontos discutíveis do livro são típicos de um projeto ambicioso: o livro oferece um mapa complexo do assunto tratado, mesmo que nem todas as fronteiras sejam traçadas da maneira correta.

Referências

FODOR, J. Concepts (Where Cognitive Science Went Wrong). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.

FREGE, G. Grundgesetze de Arithmetik. I. Band. Holdesheim: Georg Olms, 1962.

————. Begriffsschrift. Holdesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 1998.

————. Logik [1897]. In: Nachgelassene Schriften. Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1983; 137-63.

KRIPKE, S. Wittgensteinon on Rules and Private Language. Harvard: Harvard University Press, 1982.

PEACOCKE, C. A Study of Concepts. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1992.

RUSSELL, B. The Analysis of Mind. London: Routledge, 1997.

WITTGENSTEIN, L. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Lopes dos Santos, L. H. (tr.). Edusp, 1992.

————. Philosophical Investigations. German-English edition. Anscombe, A. (tr.). Blackwell, 2001.

————. Philosophische Bemerkungen. Werkausgabe Band 2. Suhrkamp, 1989.

————. Wittgenstein und der Wiener Kreis. Werkausgabe Band 3. Suhrkamp, 1993.

————. Bemerkungen ueber die Grundlagen der Mathematik. Werkausgabe Band 6. Suhrkamp, 1999.

————. Wittgenstein’s Lectures on the Foundations of Mathematics Cambridge 1939. From the notes of Bosanquet, R.G., Malcolm, N., Rhees, R., and Smythies, Y. Diamond, C. (ed.). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1976.

Notas

1 Agradeço a Rogério Severo e a Rogério Lopes pelos comentários recebidos.

Mauro L. Engelmann – Department of Philosophy Federal University of Minas Gerais

Av. Antônio Carlos, 6627 . 31270-901 BELO HORIZONTE, MG. BRAZIL. E-mail: mauroengelmann@gmail.com

Acessar publicação original

Tags: Anthropos (E), Ceticismo, ENGELMANN Mauro L (Res), Escepticismo del Significado y Teorias de Conceptos (T), Manuscrito (Ma), PINTO Silvio Mota (Aut), Significado, Teorias de conceitos

Manuscrito

27 de janeiro de 2008

Publicação de UNICAMP – Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Centro de Lógica, Epistemologia e História da Ciência
versão impressa ISSN 0100-6045versão On-line ISSN 2317-630X
Manuscrito é uma revista internacional que publica artigos sobre um amplo espectro de temas filosóficos, especialmente das áreas de História da Filosofia, Filosofia da Linguagem, Filosofia das Ciências Formais, Epistemologia, Ética, Estética, Filosofia Política e Filosofia da Mente. A revista não privilegia nenhuma abordagem filosófica em particular; ao contrário, seu propósito é refletir o progresso da filosofia como um todo, e contribuir para o intercâmbio de idéias e argumentos entre as diferentes escolas contemporâneas de pensamento. Manuscrito publica prioritariamente artigos originais sobre questões relevantes no panorama internacional da filosofia. No entanto, a revista tem uma seção reservada para resenhas críticas de livros selecionados, bem como de artigos particularmente importantes. Como Manuscrito tem o propósito de incrementar o diálogo filosófico internacional, contribuições de qualquer parte do mundo serão bem-vindas e consideradas. Artigos submetidos devem ser em inglês.

Acessar as resenhas publicadas em Manuscrito

Tags: Manuscrito (Ma)

Posts com a Tag ‘Manuscrito (Ma)’

Kant on the Rationality of Morality – GUYER (M)

Linguistic Bodies: The continuity between Life and Language – DI PAOLO et al (M)

Interperspectival Content – LUDLOW (M)

Philosophy of Mathematics – LINNEBO (M)

Priority Nominalism – IMAGUIRE (M)

Thinking about Free Will – VAN INWAGEN (M)

Contradictions, from Consistency to Inconsistency – CARNIELLI; MALINOWSKI (M)

Proper Names: A Millian Account – PREDELLI (M)

Reference and Representation in Thought and Language – DE PONTE; KORTA (M)

Paraconsistent Logic: Consistency, Contradiction and Negation – CARNIELLI; CONIGLIO (M)

Vom System zum Gebrauch: Eine genetisch-philosophische Untersuchung des Grammatikbegriffs bei Wittgenstein – UFFELMANN (M)

Evolving Enactivism – Basic minds meet content – HUTTO; MYIN (M)

Frege und die kontinentalen Ursprünge der analytischen Philosophie – GOTTRIED; SCHLOTTER (M)

Aristotle on Knowledge and Learning: The Posterior Analytics – BRONSTEIN (M)

Relatar lo Ocurrido como Invención: Una Introducción a la Filosofía de la Ficción Contemporánea – GARCÍA-CARPINTETRO (M)

The Varieties of Self-Knowledge – COLIVA (M)

About Oneself: De Se Thought and Communication – GARCÍA-CARPINTERO (M)

On Inequality – FRANKFURT (M)

Realizing Reason: A Narrative of Truth and Knowing – MACBETH (M)

Referential Mechanics: Direct Reference and the Foundations of Semantics – ALMOG

Kant and Non-Conceptual Content – HEIDEMANN (M)

Reference and existence: the John Locke lectures – KRIPTE (M)

Philosophy of Language – SOAMES (M)

Pensamento crítico: o poder da lógica e da argumentação – CARNIELLI (M)

Consciousness – HILL (M)

Filosofias da Matemática – SILVA (M)

Escepticismo del Significado y Teorias de Conceptos – PINTO (M)

Manuscrito

Buscar