Still Learning

This is a test. Until tonight, I was unable to get curved quotation marks, accents, and other special symbols in my blog entries. I have two ways to compose: (1) in a Microsoft Word document, using the copy-and-paste function to transfer the text to Blogger; and (2) in Blogger. I know how to insert accents in a Word document, but when I pasted the text to Blogger, the accented letters appeared as trash. The same happened with the curved quotation marks that I use in Word documents. What I ended up doing is turning off the curved-quotation-marks function in every blog entry I composed, then turning it back on afterward. Needless to say, this was annoying and time-consuming. Tonight I decided to do something about it. I began by asking John Ray, who has been so helpful to me during the past five months. John mentioned tinkering with the settings in Blogger. When I went in, I saw that my encoding was set to “Universal (Unicode UTF-8).” There were many other choices, but only one looked promising: Western (Windows-1252). To make a long story short, I changed the setting and tried copying accents and curved quotation marks to Blogger. It worked! Thanks, John. Here, as a further test, are some special symbols: cliché raison d’être vis-à-vis 10° Fahrenheit 89¢ 7¾ feet I hope they come through! Richard Rorty on Philosophy To drop the notion of the philosopher as knowing something about knowing which nobody else knows so well would be to drop the notion that his voice always has an overriding claim on the attention of the other participants in the conversation. It would also be to drop the notion that there is something called "philosophical method" or "philosophical technique" or "the philosophical point of view" which enables the professional philosopher, ex officio, to have interesting views about, say, the respectability of psychoanalysis, the legitimacy of certain dubious laws, the resolution of moral dilemmas, the "soundness" of schools of historiography or literary criticism, and the like. Philosophers often do have interesting views upon such questions, and their professional training as philosophers is often a necessary condition for their having the views they do. But this is not to say that philosophers have a special kind of knowledge about knowledge (or anything else) from which they draw relevant corollaries. The useful kibitzing they can provide on the various topics I just mentioned is made possible by their familiarity with the historical background of arguments on similar topics, and, most importantly, by the fact that arguments on such topics are punctuated by stale philosophical cliches which the other participants have stumbled across in their reading, but about which professional philosophers know the pros and cons by heart. (Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979], 392-3 [italics in original])

Struggling with SpamBlocker

I thought I had my spam problem solved. The other day I downloaded and installed the newest version of EarthLink's SpamBlocker, which has a challenge-response feature. But it doesn't work just as I want it to, so I've disabled it. Here's the problem. I have twelve names in my Outlook Express "contacts" list. I like to keep this list simple. It has the names of people to whom I write often, such as my mother and my bicycling friends. Anyone on the "contacts" list who writes to me gets through without having to do the challenge-response thing. If you're not on the "contacts" list, your e-mail to me gets stored in the "suspect email" folder on EarthLink's server. I can see how many messages are in this folder by clicking the SpamBlocker logo in Outlook Express. Suppose I see that there's a message and go to EarthLink's server to see what it is. It's from X, one of my blog correspondents. What I'd like to do is say, "Let this person's mail get through to me." But all I can do is say, "Let it get through to me and add the person to my 'contacts' list." I don't want to add everyone to my "contacts" list! I want to keep it simple. My only alternative is to click "Send message to inbox without adding person to 'contacts' list." You guessed it. The next time X writes to me, he or she has to do the challenge-response thing again. Do you see my predicament? I want to let certain people's messages get through to me, but not by adding them to my 'contacts' list. Maybe I'll write to EarthLink. It seems like a simple thing to change, and I'll bet I'm not the only person who dislikes this feature. By the way, I apologize to those of you who had to respond to a challenge more than once. It's my fault, since I didn't add you to my "contacts" list. To make things worse, I lost several e-mail messages this afternoon. I thought I sent them to my inbox, but they disappeared. If you sent something to me, please resend it. Tax Cuts Steve Headley has an interesting post on tax cuts over at Texas Conservative. I agree with Steve that tax cuts stimulate economic growth. It's common sense. But we must not lose sight of an important principle, to wit: People are entitled to the fruits of their labor. So there are two arguments for tax cuts: the consequentialist argument, which says that tax cuts have good consequences, and the deontological argument, which says that people have a right to retain the fruits of their labor even if this does not have good consequences, indeed, even if it has bad consequences. Suppose it is shown that tax cuts do not stimulate economic growth. This undercuts only the consequentialist argument. I wish the Bush administration would articulate the deontological argument. It's important. The Bush administration has done a poor job in general of articulating its principles, explaining its policies, and justifying its decisions. The case for war in Iraq, for example, is manifold. There are at least five good reasons to have gone to war, no one of which is necessary but any one of which is sufficient. The administration made far too much of the so-called weapons of mass destruction. Now it's paying the price for that single-mindedness. The lesson is simple: Don't put all your justificatory eggs in one basket.

Construction

I chuckled when I read this post by Bill Keezer over at Bill's Comments. I, too, like watching things being built. Just today I watched from the third floor of my office building (Carlisle Hall) as workers prepared the foundation of a new campus building. Years ago, I had a bird's-eye view of the Chemistry Building going up. For a while I was looking down, then straight across, then up. I'm mechanically incompetent, so every building seems to me to be a miracle. posted by Keith Burgess-Jackson 4/6/2004 07:07:05 PM From Today's Dallas Morning News Re: "Terrorists prefer Bush," by John Godbey, Thursday Letters. John Godbey opines that George Bush "will keep the flames of hatred against America burning in the Muslim world." Mr. Godbey doesn't get it. The Muslim world does not need George Bush to engender hatred against America. They teach it in their schools every day. If John Kerry gets elected president, the Muslims won't hate us any less; they will just respect us less. William L. Haralson, Richardson Ambrose Bierce Truth, n. An ingenious compound of desirability and appearance. Discovery of truth is the sole purpose of philosophy, which is the most ancient occupation of the human mind and has a fair prospect of existing with increasing activity to the end of time. (Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Meat-Eating and Rape

As many of you know, I stopped eating red meat (beef, pork, venison, &c) in early 1981. I gave up turkey, as planned, on the last day of 1981. Since then, the only animal products I've ingested are chicken, fish, and eggs. (I've been allergic to dairy products since 1972.) A couple of years ago I stopped eating chicken. More recently still, I ruled out eggs from confined hens. As of today, the only animal products I ingest are (1) fish and (2) eggs from free-roaming hens. Do I live up to my moral standards? No. But I'm close, and that should count for something. A few years ago, in correspondence with several philosopher friends, I was taken to task by one of them for continuing to eat chicken and fish. He couldn't believe I hadn't gone all the way (cold turkey, whole hog). He said it was preposterous for me to think I was doing well. "Imagine someone saying that he commits only an occasional rape," he said. The implication, of course, is that rape is unacceptable. It's not good enough to reduce the number of rapes one commits (unless the reduction is to zero). One virtue of my friend's analogy is that it brings individual animals into the picture. The flesh one eats comes from individual animals, not from a species, a population, or a collection. Each rape is an affront to the dignity of a distinct person. Each act of consuming steak, hamburger, or a chicken leg is an affront to the dignity of a distinct animal. We tend to think of chicken as a mass term, like peanut butter, but it refers to body parts of individual chickens. My friend's criticism stung me, and it has bothered me ever since. Am I no better than the rapist who "cuts back" on the number of victims? Does my sense that I'm doing better than most people and better than I once did rest on sand? Am I deluding myself? I don't think I'm deluding myself, and I hope I'm not deluding myself by thinking that I'm not deluding myself. Suppose I were a rapist, and suppose I had been raping five women a month for many years. If I cut back to two women a month, I'd be doing better than I was. There are fewer victims. Clearly, I should not be raping at all, but raping twenty-four women a year is morally better than raping sixty a year. Would my friend disagree? He would probably say, "You shouldn't be raping any women!" But I can agree with that without giving up my belief that I'm doing better now than before. The two judgments--one comparative and one noncomparative--are compatible. My friend seemed unwilling to address the comparative claim. He's a purist. To him, there are just two choices: (1) rape at will and (2) don't rape at all. By analogy, (1) eat as much meat as you want, of whatever types you want, and (2) don't eat meat at all. There's a lot of purism (my term) in the animal-liberation movement. Anyone who hasn't purged animal products from his or her diet is viewed with skepticism (at best) or animosity (at worst). I wonder why this is. Why not celebrate each incremental movement toward veganism? After all, most of us grew up eating meat. Is it reasonable to expect people to eliminate animal products from their diets overnight, or even over the course of a year? There's a learning curve, for one thing. Vegetarian diets require new cooking skills and a better understanding of nutrition. There's also this brute fact: People enjoy the taste of meat. Perhaps they shouldn't (if that makes sense), but they do; and we're talking about changing lifelong habits. Dietary habits are especially difficult to change, since food plays such an important role in our rituals and identities. (I'll write about that in another post.) If you're a vegan, like my friend, be reasonable. Rape is abominable. But it's better for one woman to be raped than for two to be raped. This doesn't justify or excuse the rape; it simply compares two states of the world in terms of the individuals that compose those states. Eating only fish is better than eating all meats. Eating only eggs from free-roaming hens is better than eating just any eggs. It seems like common sense, but then, philosophers are not long on common sense. From the Mailbag Thanks to Matthew in his post of 4/5 for letting readers know where to find Smullyan's version of the philosopher's dream. I didn't get it from Smullyan. I got it by word of mouth, and (although I may be mistaken) I believe that it was current before 1983. Matthew thinks that I used the story to dodge the issue. What issue was that? The post I was responding to [see here] didn't contain any arguments, only opinions. But, as I used to tell my students, unsupported opinions have (as Russell was wont to say) all the advantages of theft over honest toil. Len Carrier

Gilbert Ryle (1900-1976) on the Role of Philosophy

There are many branches of methodical inquiry into the different departments of the world. There are the mathematical sciences, the several natural sciences, and there are the humane or human studies of anthropology, jurisprudence, philosophy, the linguistic and literary studies, and history, which last embraces in one way or another most of the others. There are also many disciplines which teach not truths but arts and skills, such as agriculture, tactics, music, architecture, painting, games, navigation, inference, and scientific method. All theories apply their own several principles and canons of inquiry and all disciplines apply their own several principles and canons of practice. These principles were called by Professor [Robin George] Collingwood [1889-1943] their 'presuppositions'. In other words, all employ their own standards or criteria by which their particular exercises are judged successful or unsuccessful. Now it is one thing intelligently to apply principles; it is quite another thing to step back to consider them. A scientist who ceases for a moment to try to solve his questions in order to inquire instead why he poses them or whether they are the right questions to pose ceases for the time to be a scientist and becomes a philosopher. This duality of interests may, as history shows, make him both a good philosopher and a better scientist. The best philosophical theories of mathematics have come from mathematicians who have been forced to try to resolve internal puzzles about the principles of their study, a philosophical exercise which has sometimes led to the origination of new mathematical methods and has often led to the origination of illuminating philosophical views. Every genius is the inventor of new methods and he must therefore be some sort of a critic of principles of method. Professor Collingwood [Ryle's predecessor as Waynflete Chair of Metaphysical Philosophy at Oxford University] was an historian who was puzzled about the canons of historical research. He wanted not only to explain certain historical processes and events but also to elucidate what sort of a thing a good historical explanation would be. Nor was this a purely domestic or technological interest. For to see what is an historical explanation, is, among other things, to see how it differs from a chemical, mechanical, biological, anthropological, or psychological theory. The philosopher may, perhaps, begin by wondering about the categories constituting the framework of a single theory or discipline, but he cannot stop there. He must try to co-ordinate the categories of all theories and disciplines. The problem of 'Man's place in Nature' is, roughly, the problem of coordinating the questions which govern laboratory researches with the questions governing the researches prosecuted in libraries. And this co-ordination is done neither in libraries nor in laboratories but in the philosopher's head. Professor Collingwood saw more clearly, I think, than did his most eminent predecessors in the philosophy of history that the appearance of a feud or antithesis between Nature and Spirit, that is to say, between the objectives of the natural sciences and those of the human studies, is an illusion. These branches of inquiry are not giving rival answers to the same questions about the same world; nor are they giving separate answers to the same questions about rival worlds; they are giving their own answers to different questions about the same world. Just as physics is neither the foe nor the handmaid of geometry, so history, jurisprudence and literary studies are neither hostile nor ancillary to the laboratory sciences. Their categories, that is, their questions, methods and canons are different. In my predecessor's word, they work with different presuppositions. (Gilbert Ryle, Philosophical Arguments [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1945], 3-4 [this essay is Ryle's Inaugural Lecture as Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy, delivered before the University of Oxford on 30 October 1945]) Ambrose Bierce Edible, adj. Good to eat, and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm. (Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911) Greenie Watch Dr John J. Ray ("You can call me Ray; you can call me J.; you can call me R. J.; you can call me J. Ray"), my polymathic friend Down Under, has a new blog devoted to the politicization of the environmental movement. See here. (I've also added a permanent link to the left, in, fittingly, the green area.) Sadly, science often takes a back seat to politics when it comes to understanding and protecting the natural environment. John is a no-nonsense defender of science and common sense. Please visit his new blog. He says he will post to it daily. John's main blog, of course, is Dissecting Leftism. Your day is not complete without a liberal dose of the conservative Dr Ray. From the Mailbag Dr. Carrier might wish to provide a citation for his philosopher dream story [see here], as the original author probably deserves credit. It comes from Raymond Smullyan's 5000 B.C. and Other Philosophical Fantasies (St. Martin's Press, 1983). The story is "A Universal Philosophical Refutation." You can find it here. I found the book to be an interesting and funny read. By the way, another nice dodge of the issue by Carrier. Matthew @ Ektopos http://www.ektopos.com

From Today's New York Times

To the Editor: Re "TV Shows Take On Bush, and Pull Few Punches" (front page, April 2): Like most people, I watch less and less network TV because of the violence and sexual content; these attacks on the president just give me another reason to flip over to something less offensive. Frankly, I don't believe that TV writers should be attacking the president, regardless of party. Not because he is above reproach, but because I believe that this gives a writer a forum in which to express his opinion (almost always liberal). And contrary to comments about presenting both sides, I haven't seen Hollywood do that in its TV shows. Why can't these producers and writers just put together entertaining programs and leave the politics to the news media and opinion makers? Middle America is turned off by Hollywood types' using their positions to influence public opinion. With the networks struggling to retain their shrinking audiences, you would think that they would want to avoid offending people and work on making programs of interest.

Them Wacky Academics

Professors do a funny thing. When they list their academic affiliation on their curriculum vitae (CV), they put "Current Position." The implication is that it's temporary. It screams out, "I don't plan to be at this embarrassing place for long!" It says the person in question is better than the job he or she has. It expresses frustration, envy, even resentment. Imagine some other applications of this principle: Current residence. Current citizenship. Current crime record. Current wife (or husband). There does seem to be a lot of mobility within the professoriate. Everyone is on the make and on the move, trying to climb the ladder to the top. Ambition reigns. Status rules. Not in a top-twenty program? Get going! Not yet a star professor? You're not working hard enough! The professor's mantra is "Have Ph.D., will travel." The impolite name for this is "mercenary." I once fell victim to this onward-and-upward mentality. It's engrained in graduate students. Then, one day, I asked why I would want to go anywhere else. I'm happy where I am. I have all the research-related resources I need; I have great colleagues (including our secretary, Billie); I have a reasonable teaching load; I get all the courses I want to teach, when and where I want to teach them; and I like the campus facilities. As if all this weren't enough, I'm delighted with the nonacademic aspects of my life. I live west of the Mississippi (which, perverse as it sounds, means a lot to me); I have a warm-weather climate, which makes for mild winters; I have all the athletic opportunities I want; and, not insignificantly, the cost of living is low (Texas has no state income tax). It amazes me when people uproot their families and leave their friends to get an incrementally higher-paying or more prestigious job. Some professors move across country. Some move several times in a decade. Thank goodness I got that questing out of my system long ago. I'm content with what I have. Are you?