For a handful of reasons, none the least of which is that my other blog is a wordpress blog, I am moving this blog from blogger to wordpress. Here is the new site.
New posts will be appearing there (when I have some time to get back to new posts).
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Monday, January 30, 2012
Monday Mill Blogging (#009)
I've missed a couple of Mondays, but today: Monday Mill Blogging is back.
Today's post is the second that will cover book 1, chapter 2, section 5.
§ 5. Connotative and Non-Connotative Names
Let's just start with a quote:
Proper names are not connotative: they denote the individuals who are called by them; but they do not indicate or imply any attributes as belonging to those individuals. When we name a child by the name Paul, or a dog by the name Caesar, these names are simply marks used to enable those individuals to be made subjects of discourse. It may be said, indeed, that we must have had some reason for giving them those names, rather than any others; and this is true; but the name, once given, is independent of the reason. A man may have been named John, because that was the name of his father; a town may have been named Dartmouth, because it is situated at the mouth of the Dart. But it is no part of the signification of the word John, that the father of the person so called bore the same name; nor even of the word Dartmouth, to be situated at the mouth of the Dart. If sand should choke up the mouth of the river, or an earthquake change its course, and remove it to a distance from the town, the name of the town would not necessarily be changed. That fact, therefore, can form no part of the signification of the word; for otherwise, when the fact confessedly ceased to be true, no one would any longer think of applying the name. Proper names are attached to the objects themselves, and are not dependent on the continuance of any attribute of the object. (p. 33)
Charitably understood, the structure of this passage is this: Mill asserts a view about proper names, considers a possible objection—the objection that the reason for giving one name rather than another imbues the name with that reason as additional significance beyond its denotation—and gives reasons for dismissing that objection (an uncharitable understanding would be one that requires us to reconstruct a compelling argument in favor of Mill's view of proper names from his response to this objection).
If we distinguish between the reason for assigning a name, and the reason a name applies to an individual, we can frame the point this way: Mill's position is that no attribute makes its way in to the application conditions for a name like "John" or "Dartmouth". The objection raises a worry based on the fact that there needs to be some reason behind the assignment of names, and Mill's reply is to argue that, even granting some reason for the assignment of the name, it seems clear that the attributes which ground the assignment do not establish themselves as conditions of application.
One might be tempted to analogize this to Kripke's distinction between reference-fixing descriptivism and meaning-giving descriptivism, but I think that might be a bit too quick. To be sure, I can see why it might be thought a parallel, but it would be hasty to suggest that this is the best way of understanding Mill's position.
In the next paragraph, Mill mentions the terms "God" (in the mouth of a monotheist) and "The Sun" as instances of connotative terms that might incidentally be indiviudal, but are linguistically general. Mill points out that we can imagine a situation in which there are many suns, and that "the majority of mankind have believed, and still believe, that there are many gods" (p. 33). Mill wants to set these aside, as he thinks they are general names which (in some sense) merely happen to name only one entity. This is introduced to distinguish it from "real instances of individual connotative names". His examples include: "The only son of John Stiles", "the first emperor of Rome", "the father of Socrates", "the author of the Illiad", and "the murderer of Henri Quatre". Now, for some of these, color me puzzled about why they are getting a different treatment from "The Sun" or "God". For others, it is much easier to see why they linguistically require the uniqueness of the entity they name (in a way above and beyond that required by "the Sun").
Mill explains that while it is possible that multiple people jointly authored the Illiad, the presence of the word "the" renders the name individual:
For though it is conceivable that more persons than one might have participated in the authorship of the Illiad, or in the murder of Henri Quatre, the employment of the article the implies that, in fact, this was not the case. What is here done by the word the, is done in other cases by context: thus, "Caesar's army" is an individual name, if it appears from the context that the army meant is that which Caesar commanded in a particular battle. The still more general expressions "The Roman army," or "the Christian army," may be individualized in a similar manner. (p. 34)
This treatment of incomplete descriptions is especially interesting, as it illustrates a sensitivity on Mill's part to the importance of context. The story appears to be that there are many different armies to which the name "Roman army" applies, however the use of the term "the" in conjunction with contextual factors, determines which of those specific armies the phrase operates as an individual name of on an occasion of use.
Mill next relates part of the story of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves:
If, like the robber in the Arabian Nights, we make a mark with chalk on a house to enable us to know it again, the mark has a purpose, but it has not properly any meaning. The chalk does not declare anything about the house; it does not mean, This is such a person's house, or This is a house which contains booty. The object of making the mark is merely distinction. I say to myself, All these houses are so nearly alike that if I lose sight of them, I shall not again be able to distinguish that which I am now looking at, from any of the others; I must hterefore contrive to make the appearance of this one house unlike that of the others, that I may hereafter know when I see the mark—not indeed any attribute of the house—but simply that it is the same house which I am now looking at. Morgiana chalked all the other houses in a similar manner, and defeated the scheme: how? simply by obliterating the difference of appearance between that house and the others. The chalk was still there, but it no longer served the purpose of a distinctive mark.
When we impose a proper name, we perform an operation in some degree analogous to what the robber intended in chalking the house. We put a mark, not indeed upon the object itself, but, so to speak, upon the idea of the object. A proper name is but an unmeaning mark which we connect in our minds with the idea of the object, in order that whenever the mark meets our eyes or occurs to our thoughts, we may think of that individual object. Not being attached to the thing itself, it does not, like the chalk, enable us to distinguish the object when we see it: but it enables us to distinguish it when it is spoken of, either in the records of our own experience, or in the discourse of others; to know that what we find asserted in any proposition of which it is the subject, is asserted of the individual thing with which we were previously acquainted. (p. 35)
I think I want to agree with Mill that the chalk mark on the house "does not declare anything about the house." It is true that one could devise a language of chalk symbols, in which different chalk marks were used to indicate different qualities. But note that in such a language, the chalk symbols would be functioning like predicates (with their physical locations determining the subject of the proposition). But I want to stress something crucial about Mill's use of the analogy here: if Mill had not so steadfastly insisted that names signify objects rather than ideas, this doctrine of mere denotation would be harder to make sense of. Note that Mill thinks the term is "connect[ed] in our minds with the idea of the object". Since our idea of the object likely includes a variety of attributes we take the object to have, the proponent of the view that terms signify ideas (e.g. Locke) would have no reason to suggest that the name lacks meaning. It might well be that the meaning is not robustly public (as my idea of Dartmouth may not be the same as your idea of Dartmouth), but the term would signify a somewhat detailed idea. Because Mill is committed to cashing out the relationship between the term and the object, and because no particular attribution of quality to Dartmouth is inherent in my calling Dartmouth "Dartmouth", Mill can set aside the various qualities built in to my idea of Dartmouth as linguistically irrelevant.
I might have more to say about this analogy at a later time, but for now, I am going to pause again, and return next Monday (hopefully) to continue working my way through 1.2.5.
Next time on Monday Mill Blogging: §5, "Connotative and Non-Connotative Names" (continued)
Monday, January 9, 2012
Monday Mill Blogging (#008)
Another Monday, another Mill blogging! 2012 is actually off to a pretty good start for Monday Mill Blogging.
Today's post is the first that will cover book 1, chapter 2, section 5.
§ 5. Connotative and Non-Connotative Names
We saw that §4 closed by foreshadowing the connotative/non-connotative distinction. This is labeled the "third great division of names" by Mill, (following the General/Singular division and the Concrete/Abstract division). We are also informed that "[t]his is one of the most important distinctions which we shall have occasion to point out, and one of those which go deepest into the nature of language" (p. 31). The distinction amounts to this:
It is easy enough to see that these are supposed to be instances of Mill applying the definition he has stated, though, if you didn't know what Mill meant by "signifies a subject only"or "attribute only" to begin with, it is unclear that the examples will be as helpful as Mill might have hoped. The subsequent discussion is a bit more helpful:
So, a word like "white" is said to be connotative, because it denotes all sorts of things, and also does this other thing ("implying" or "connoting") of the attribute whiteness. In his next example, concerning the term "virtuous" and the things which "virtuous" names, Mill gives us what appear to be the most helpful remarks on what it means for a term to connote an attribute: "The ["virtuous"] is a name applied to all of them in consequence of an attribute which they are supposed to possess in common, the attribute which has received the name of virtue" (p. 31).
This "in consequence of" condition seems to be helpful in getting us onto Mill's conception of this division of language. Some terms, like "virtue" denote attributes, some terms like "Socrates" denote subjects. And that is all they do (at least, as far as we are presently concerned). Other terms, like "virtuous", denote subjects and connote an attribute. Socrates is denoted both by "Socrates" and by "virtuous", but the latter fact is dependent on his relationship to virtue. Of course, this means that Mill would deny any such story for the term "Socrates". We might then be tempted to say that the term "Socrates" denotes Socrates, but not as a consequence of Socrates standing in some relation to an attribute.
This is, however, at best, a misleading way to phrase the position, and might make the view seem silly. Of course there are facts about our usage of the term "Socrates", and those facts will be part of a story as to why "Socrates" names Socrates and not some other person, and that story may well involve the possession of certain attribute by Socrates. Whenever the term (or a relevant predecessor term) began to be used, the story about how "Socrates" came to be a name of Socrates will ultimately involve facts about Socrates, such as him having been in a certain place at a certain time, or him being the intended subject of discussion on certain occasions, or the like. And these will of course involve attributes, the possession of which by Socrates ensures that "Socrates" denotes Socrates. However, it seems clear that this should not be how we understand Mill's position. Note that the phrasing I just described omitted a key element of Mill's phrasing. Mill says "applied to all of them in consequence of an attribute which they are supposed to possess in common" (emphasis mine). The copy of Mill's Logic that I have indicates that the phrase I've got in bold was omitted in earlier editions of the work. I won't speculate on whether the addition was motivated to avoid the reading suggested above, but with the additional qualification in there, it would not be enough for there to simply be an attribute in virtue of which Socrates is denoted by "Socrates"; rather, it would have to be that the term denotes Socrates in virtue of there being a particular attribute we suppose him to have.
I think this is a central and important point about Mill's view. Mill is not committed to denying that some facts about Socrates play a role in explaining why he is denoted by the term "Socrates"; rather, he has the weaker commitment that there is no attribute which, in virtue of our supposing Socrates to possess it, explains his being denoted by "Socrates".
Mill's stance is that concrete general names are all connotative. He indicates that having a body (with a certain sort of shape), possessing animal life, and possessing rationality are the attributes connoted by the term "man" or "human". He then offers a case based on Gulliver's Travels, indicating that rationality and animality are insufficient, because we would not call the elephant shaped (but rational) Houyhnhnms men or humans.
We then get a handful of terminology, and some clarification on how these terms interact with Mill's view.
The term "man"...
...signifies each attribute (corporeality, animal life, rationality, our distinctive shape) and each subject which possesses those attributes.
...directly signifies each subject possessing corporeality, animal life....
...indirectly signifies the attributes (corporeality, animal life...)
...denotes each subject possessing corporeality, animal life...
...connotes the attributes (corporeality, animal life...)
...can be predicated only of the subjects.
Additionally, a connotative term is called denominative, because the subject is/subjects are denominated by the connoted attribute(s). So for Mill, the proper use of "denominate" is as something done by attributes to subjects.
Mill then remarks briefly on connotative abstract terms, giving, as his example, "fault", which denotes various qualities, and connotes hurtfulness/badness/undesirability (of those qualities). I find Mill's discussion of a specific example here somewhat perplexing, and not in the sort of way where presenting my confusion will serve to help enlighten me about it, so I'll just leave it at the point here, that the category we might label abstract general terms (terms which denote many qualities) wind up connotative for Mill.
Ok, and that is all I am covering of this section today. We're a little past one fifth of the way into the section, and the next paragraph opens the issue of concrete, individual names, which I'm going to leave off until next time. So, next week, look forward to the distinction between proper names and a class of names that correspond (roughly) to definite descriptions, including some interesting remarks on incomplete descriptions and context, as well as the very exciting analogy from Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.
Next time on Monday Mill Blogging: §5, "Connotative and Non-Connotative Names" (continued)
Today's post is the first that will cover book 1, chapter 2, section 5.
§ 5. Connotative and Non-Connotative Names
We saw that §4 closed by foreshadowing the connotative/non-connotative distinction. This is labeled the "third great division of names" by Mill, (following the General/Singular division and the Concrete/Abstract division). We are also informed that "[t]his is one of the most important distinctions which we shall have occasion to point out, and one of those which go deepest into the nature of language" (p. 31). The distinction amounts to this:
A non-connotative term is one which signifies a subject only, or an attribute only. A connotative term is one which denotes a subject, and implies an attribute. By a subject is here meant anything which possesses attributes. Thus John, or London, or England, are names which signify a subject only. Whiteness, length, virtue, signify an attribute only. None of these names, therefore, are connotative. (p. 31)
It is easy enough to see that these are supposed to be instances of Mill applying the definition he has stated, though, if you didn't know what Mill meant by "signifies a subject only"or "attribute only" to begin with, it is unclear that the examples will be as helpful as Mill might have hoped. The subsequent discussion is a bit more helpful:
But white, long, virtuous, are connotative. The word white, denotes all white things, as snow, paper, the foam of the sea, &c., and implies, or in the language of the schoolmen, connotes, the attribute whiteness. The word white is not predicated of the attribute, but of the subjects, snow, &c.; but when we predicate it of them, we convey the meaning that the attribute whiteness belongs to them. (p. 31)
So, a word like "white" is said to be connotative, because it denotes all sorts of things, and also does this other thing ("implying" or "connoting") of the attribute whiteness. In his next example, concerning the term "virtuous" and the things which "virtuous" names, Mill gives us what appear to be the most helpful remarks on what it means for a term to connote an attribute: "The ["virtuous"] is a name applied to all of them in consequence of an attribute which they are supposed to possess in common, the attribute which has received the name of virtue" (p. 31).
This "in consequence of" condition seems to be helpful in getting us onto Mill's conception of this division of language. Some terms, like "virtue" denote attributes, some terms like "Socrates" denote subjects. And that is all they do (at least, as far as we are presently concerned). Other terms, like "virtuous", denote subjects and connote an attribute. Socrates is denoted both by "Socrates" and by "virtuous", but the latter fact is dependent on his relationship to virtue. Of course, this means that Mill would deny any such story for the term "Socrates". We might then be tempted to say that the term "Socrates" denotes Socrates, but not as a consequence of Socrates standing in some relation to an attribute.
This is, however, at best, a misleading way to phrase the position, and might make the view seem silly. Of course there are facts about our usage of the term "Socrates", and those facts will be part of a story as to why "Socrates" names Socrates and not some other person, and that story may well involve the possession of certain attribute by Socrates. Whenever the term (or a relevant predecessor term) began to be used, the story about how "Socrates" came to be a name of Socrates will ultimately involve facts about Socrates, such as him having been in a certain place at a certain time, or him being the intended subject of discussion on certain occasions, or the like. And these will of course involve attributes, the possession of which by Socrates ensures that "Socrates" denotes Socrates. However, it seems clear that this should not be how we understand Mill's position. Note that the phrasing I just described omitted a key element of Mill's phrasing. Mill says "applied to all of them in consequence of an attribute which they are supposed to possess in common" (emphasis mine). The copy of Mill's Logic that I have indicates that the phrase I've got in bold was omitted in earlier editions of the work. I won't speculate on whether the addition was motivated to avoid the reading suggested above, but with the additional qualification in there, it would not be enough for there to simply be an attribute in virtue of which Socrates is denoted by "Socrates"; rather, it would have to be that the term denotes Socrates in virtue of there being a particular attribute we suppose him to have.
I think this is a central and important point about Mill's view. Mill is not committed to denying that some facts about Socrates play a role in explaining why he is denoted by the term "Socrates"; rather, he has the weaker commitment that there is no attribute which, in virtue of our supposing Socrates to possess it, explains his being denoted by "Socrates".
Mill's stance is that concrete general names are all connotative. He indicates that having a body (with a certain sort of shape), possessing animal life, and possessing rationality are the attributes connoted by the term "man" or "human". He then offers a case based on Gulliver's Travels, indicating that rationality and animality are insufficient, because we would not call the elephant shaped (but rational) Houyhnhnms men or humans.
We then get a handful of terminology, and some clarification on how these terms interact with Mill's view.
The term "man"...
...signifies each attribute (corporeality, animal life, rationality, our distinctive shape) and each subject which possesses those attributes.
...directly signifies each subject possessing corporeality, animal life....
...indirectly signifies the attributes (corporeality, animal life...)
...denotes each subject possessing corporeality, animal life...
...connotes the attributes (corporeality, animal life...)
...can be predicated only of the subjects.
Additionally, a connotative term is called denominative, because the subject is/subjects are denominated by the connoted attribute(s). So for Mill, the proper use of "denominate" is as something done by attributes to subjects.
Mill then remarks briefly on connotative abstract terms, giving, as his example, "fault", which denotes various qualities, and connotes hurtfulness/badness/undesirability (of those qualities). I find Mill's discussion of a specific example here somewhat perplexing, and not in the sort of way where presenting my confusion will serve to help enlighten me about it, so I'll just leave it at the point here, that the category we might label abstract general terms (terms which denote many qualities) wind up connotative for Mill.
Ok, and that is all I am covering of this section today. We're a little past one fifth of the way into the section, and the next paragraph opens the issue of concrete, individual names, which I'm going to leave off until next time. So, next week, look forward to the distinction between proper names and a class of names that correspond (roughly) to definite descriptions, including some interesting remarks on incomplete descriptions and context, as well as the very exciting analogy from Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.
Next time on Monday Mill Blogging: §5, "Connotative and Non-Connotative Names" (continued)
The Mod Squad: A Group Blog for Modern Philosophy
Inspired by my desire to read more blog posts in history of modern philosophy, I recently started a group blog, "The Mod Squad". I posted on my facebook page to see if people wanted to participate, and I got a decent number of people expressing interest in possibly becoming contributors.
Anyone who regularly reads my blog would probably be interested in what is/will be going on over there, so I'm letting people know about it now.
Most of the things I will be posting over there are things I would have posted over here anyway. I am unlikely to double-post, just because built in forking of commenting/discussion threads seems silly, but I am pretty likely to post links in one direction or the other.
Anyone who regularly reads my blog would probably be interested in what is/will be going on over there, so I'm letting people know about it now.
Most of the things I will be posting over there are things I would have posted over here anyway. I am unlikely to double-post, just because built in forking of commenting/discussion threads seems silly, but I am pretty likely to post links in one direction or the other.
Monday, January 2, 2012
Monday Mill Blogging (#007)
2012 is off to a good start, with Monday Mill Blogging actually occurring on a Monday!
Today's post covers book 1, chapter 2, section 4.
§ 4. Concrete and Abstract Names
For Mill, the distinction between concrete names and abstract names is done based on whether the object or objects named by the term are objects or attributes. So "John" is a concrete name, because John is an object. "Whiteness" is an abstract name, because whiteness is an attribute. "White" and "old" however, are concrete names. This is because "white" names white things. Mill blames Locke for the tendency to label "white" and "old" as abstract names:
A practice, however, has grown up in more modern times, which, if not introduced by Locke, has gained currency chiefly from his example, of applying the expression "abstract name" to all names which are the result of abstraction or generalization, and consequently to all general names, instead of confining it to the names of attributes.[...] A more wanton alteration in the meaning of a word is rarely to be met with; for the expression general name, the exact equivalent of which exists in all languages I am acquainted with, was already available for the purpose to which abstract has been misappropriated, while the misappropriation leaves an important class of words, the names of attributes, without any compact distinctive appellation. (p. 29)
So, using talk of affirmation (extrapolating from Mill's use in §3), we can say that a name is concrete if it can be truly affirmed of objects, and it is abstract if it can be truly affirmed of attributes. It is singular if it can only be truly affirmed of only one object (at a time) and general if it can, in a single sense, be affirmed of several objects at once. Mill briefly discusses whether abstract terms can be singular or general, observing that colour seems to be a good example of a general abstract term, before noting that whiteness would also potentially seem to be a general abstract term (because of the different varieties of whiteness). Ultimately, Mill decides that this is not an especially interesting question, and (essentially) stipulates that "singular" and "general" only apply to concrete terms.
Mill goes on to consider an objection against his decision to class white as a concrete term and not as an abstract term.
It may be objected to our definition of an abstract name, that not only the names which we have called abstract, but adjectives, which we have placed in the concrete class, are names of attributes; that white, for example, is as much the name of the colour as whiteness is. But (as before remarked) a word ought to be considered as the name of that which we intend to be understood by it when we put it to its principal use, that is, when we employ it in predication. When we say snow is white, milk is white, linen is white, we do not mean it to be understood that that snow, or linen, or milk, is a color. We mean that they are things having the colour. The reverse is the case with the word whiteness; what we affirm to be whiteness is not snow, but the colour of snow. Whiteness, therefore, is the name of the colour exclusively, white is a name of all things whatever having the colour; a name, not of the quality whiteness, but of every white object. It is true, this name was given to all those various objects on account of the quality; and we may therefore say, without impropriety, that the quality forms part of its signification; but a name can only be said to stand for, or to be a name of, the things of which it can be predicated. (p. 30)
Recall that Mill has pointed out that some languages permit constructions analogous to "round moves", while English requires us to say something more like "Round things move". I take it this is what Mill has in mind when he indicates that he has before remarked that terms are names of the things they can be affirmed of, since in discussing that case, he decided to treat the constructions like "round moves" (in the languages which permit such constructions) as mere abbreviations of something more like "round things move".
Most interesting, however, about this discussion here, is that Mill puts forward in two slightly different forms, a methodological principle for investigating word meanings (or, alternately, we might conceive it as a straightforward constraint on one's accounts of the meanings of words). The principle takes predication to be the primary use of words. This is not especially shocking. While much recent work has been done on erotetic logic, logic for imperatives, etc., I don't think anyone would be surprised to learn that Mill's conception of logic gave a special primacy to predication. What is interesting, though, is that Mill, in a sense, takes predication to be methodologically prior to naming. There is another sense, as we can see from the structure of the work, in which naming is prior. This is because predication is something we do with names, and so, as components of predications, they wind up being more basic. But in terms of our investigation, Mill takes predications as our starting point, and uses observations about predication to draw conclusions about the denotations of terms.
Mill closes the section by noting that there is an important (semantic) relationship between the term "white" and the attribute whiteness, which is the topic of the next section ("Connotative and Non-connotative names"). This is where we will get Mill's actual statement of the doctrine that has come to be known as "Millianism" about proper names.
Just to forewarn: There is a lot going on in the next section of the text. We get an account of denotation and connotation, the famous "Dartmouth" passage, additional discussion of terms that straddle the singular/general divide, remarks on incomplete definite descriptions, some discussion of the work done by context in fixing meaning, an awesome explanation of his view in terms of Ali Baba and the Forty Theives, and discussion of the elephant people from Gulliver's Travels. So it will either get tackled in a string of posts, or in one absurdly lengthy post.
Next time on Monday Mill Blogging: §5, "Connotative and Non-Connotative Names"
2012 Margaret Wilson Conference
I'm not sure I can really express how much I like this conference.
Four years ago, Gideon Yaffe e-mailed me the submission information for the Margaret Wilson conference, saying "You might think about submitting a paper for this. You'd meet a lot of good people."
I wound up submitting my paper "The Structure and Content of Belief in Hume's Treatise", and it was accepted. That wound up being my first conference presentation in philosophy. The 2008 Margaret Wilson conference was held at Cornell, in Ithaca, and Gideon was right that I'd meet a lot of good people. I also got a lot of good/helpful feedback on my paper.
Which was really useful, because around a year later, the work in that paper had evolved to become the core of my dissertation proposal.
Two years later, at the 2010 Margaret Wilson conference at UC Boulder, I wound up presenting work from one of the later chapters of the dissertation, again meeting a number of awesome folks, and again getting a lot of good feedback on my work.
The conference is held in memory of Margaret Dauler Wilson, an extremely influential figure in scholarship of early modern philosophy. Here is a brief description from the Princeton Philosophy department website.
I am very excited to participate again this year, at the 2012 conference in Dartmouth. I'll be presenting some work on the relationship between Malebranche's and Hume's views on belief (and in particular, their commitments regarding doxastic voluntarism).
If you are a graduate student working in early modern, you should definitely consider submitting to this conference.
Four years ago, Gideon Yaffe e-mailed me the submission information for the Margaret Wilson conference, saying "You might think about submitting a paper for this. You'd meet a lot of good people."
I wound up submitting my paper "The Structure and Content of Belief in Hume's Treatise", and it was accepted. That wound up being my first conference presentation in philosophy. The 2008 Margaret Wilson conference was held at Cornell, in Ithaca, and Gideon was right that I'd meet a lot of good people. I also got a lot of good/helpful feedback on my paper.
Which was really useful, because around a year later, the work in that paper had evolved to become the core of my dissertation proposal.
Two years later, at the 2010 Margaret Wilson conference at UC Boulder, I wound up presenting work from one of the later chapters of the dissertation, again meeting a number of awesome folks, and again getting a lot of good feedback on my work.
The conference is held in memory of Margaret Dauler Wilson, an extremely influential figure in scholarship of early modern philosophy. Here is a brief description from the Princeton Philosophy department website.
I am very excited to participate again this year, at the 2012 conference in Dartmouth. I'll be presenting some work on the relationship between Malebranche's and Hume's views on belief (and in particular, their commitments regarding doxastic voluntarism).
If you are a graduate student working in early modern, you should definitely consider submitting to this conference.
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Early Moderns and "Thinking Around"
I am taking a brief break from grading to make a few notes about something I've become increasingly interested in recently, which I've been labeling for myself as "thinking around" (to be contrasted with "thinking about").
I'm going to start with two examples, one from Hume and one from Berkeley.
On my reading of Hume, there is a sort of mental activity one can engage in towards that which is strictly and literally inconceivable. This activity is supposition. In one part of my dissertation, I attempt to show that Hume can embrace this form of mental engagement without abandoning his commitment to analyze all mental activity (of the understanding) in terms of conception (i.e. ideas). At any rate, there are a few passages which are naturally read as Hume allowing that some things can be supposed which cannot be conceived. This type of mental engagement, I argue, allows a response to a Reidian objection which charges Hume as unable to account for reductio ad absurdum reasoning. So, while you cannot, on my reading of Hume, think of or about an even prime greater than 2, for example, you can think around such a prime, allowing you to reason your way to its non-existence.
Berkeley, like Hume, has a view of conception bound up with what ideas one possesses. Consequently, Berkeley deploys arguments about the nature of ideas to show that certain things are inconceivable. But, as is somewhat explicit in the third Dialogue between Hylas and Philonous, and fully explicit in Alciphron VII, Berkeley introduces a way to defend the meaningfulness of discourse in which meaningful terms to not signify ideas (rejecting a straightforward Lockeanism about language), with something I'll call "notions" (though I don't know if Berkeley consistently uses the "idea"/"notion" terminology to track this distinction). Having a notion of something does not require having an idea of it. Thus, even though I cannot have an idea of immaterial susbtance, I still have a way to engage with propositions about immaterial substances (whether we are speaking of me or god). This too is a sort of thinking around, as I understand it.
Resources which allow a philosopher to permit our thinking around something which we cannot (on their view) properly think about or of are important elements of their views for two reasons. First, they can give us important insights about other aspects of their views. For instance, noting that Berkeley must appeal to some such resource in the third dialogue, to explain how we can believe in immaterial substance helps us exclude some (seemingly natural) interpretations of the first dialogue arguments against material substance. While it might appear that Berkeley is offering a straightforward inconceivability argument against belief in material substance there, it is clear from his own later admission that we cannot strictly conceive of immaterial substance that the dialogue one argument must be more complicated than it at first seemed.
Second, however, they are important for allowing us to see how powerful objections to those philosophers wind up being. Take Hume, who embraces the view that we cannot conceive of anything which is impossible. Given that various philosophers have appeared to sincerely defend views which, for Hume, turn out to be impossible, there is the objection that Hume cannot be right, because we could not then make sense of such apparently sincere defenses. A natural sort of reply is to invoke some sort of verbal confusion underlying the dispute. But that line of reply is not always satisfying, and does not always do a good job of addressing the behavior of his opponents. On the other hand, Hume's resource of supposition-without-conception permits him a more robust way to understand his opponents as engaging with these impossible views (apart from merely "mistakenly defending that the sentences which express those impossibilities actually express truths").
I'm sure that similar sorts of resources crop up in the views of other philosophers, but I don't want to just start casting around randomly. If anyone has suggestions of places to look (especially in terms of early modern figures other than the "canonical" British empiricists), please let me know.
I'm going to start with two examples, one from Hume and one from Berkeley.
On my reading of Hume, there is a sort of mental activity one can engage in towards that which is strictly and literally inconceivable. This activity is supposition. In one part of my dissertation, I attempt to show that Hume can embrace this form of mental engagement without abandoning his commitment to analyze all mental activity (of the understanding) in terms of conception (i.e. ideas). At any rate, there are a few passages which are naturally read as Hume allowing that some things can be supposed which cannot be conceived. This type of mental engagement, I argue, allows a response to a Reidian objection which charges Hume as unable to account for reductio ad absurdum reasoning. So, while you cannot, on my reading of Hume, think of or about an even prime greater than 2, for example, you can think around such a prime, allowing you to reason your way to its non-existence.
Berkeley, like Hume, has a view of conception bound up with what ideas one possesses. Consequently, Berkeley deploys arguments about the nature of ideas to show that certain things are inconceivable. But, as is somewhat explicit in the third Dialogue between Hylas and Philonous, and fully explicit in Alciphron VII, Berkeley introduces a way to defend the meaningfulness of discourse in which meaningful terms to not signify ideas (rejecting a straightforward Lockeanism about language), with something I'll call "notions" (though I don't know if Berkeley consistently uses the "idea"/"notion" terminology to track this distinction). Having a notion of something does not require having an idea of it. Thus, even though I cannot have an idea of immaterial susbtance, I still have a way to engage with propositions about immaterial substances (whether we are speaking of me or god). This too is a sort of thinking around, as I understand it.
Resources which allow a philosopher to permit our thinking around something which we cannot (on their view) properly think about or of are important elements of their views for two reasons. First, they can give us important insights about other aspects of their views. For instance, noting that Berkeley must appeal to some such resource in the third dialogue, to explain how we can believe in immaterial substance helps us exclude some (seemingly natural) interpretations of the first dialogue arguments against material substance. While it might appear that Berkeley is offering a straightforward inconceivability argument against belief in material substance there, it is clear from his own later admission that we cannot strictly conceive of immaterial substance that the dialogue one argument must be more complicated than it at first seemed.
Second, however, they are important for allowing us to see how powerful objections to those philosophers wind up being. Take Hume, who embraces the view that we cannot conceive of anything which is impossible. Given that various philosophers have appeared to sincerely defend views which, for Hume, turn out to be impossible, there is the objection that Hume cannot be right, because we could not then make sense of such apparently sincere defenses. A natural sort of reply is to invoke some sort of verbal confusion underlying the dispute. But that line of reply is not always satisfying, and does not always do a good job of addressing the behavior of his opponents. On the other hand, Hume's resource of supposition-without-conception permits him a more robust way to understand his opponents as engaging with these impossible views (apart from merely "mistakenly defending that the sentences which express those impossibilities actually express truths").
I'm sure that similar sorts of resources crop up in the views of other philosophers, but I don't want to just start casting around randomly. If anyone has suggestions of places to look (especially in terms of early modern figures other than the "canonical" British empiricists), please let me know.
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