ask a philosopher

8/10/2019 Ask a Philosopher

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a sk aphilosopher! G eoffrey Klempner 2001

ht tp://w w w .shef .a c.uk /un i/projects/pt pdl p/

The fol l ow in g questi ons an dan swer s ar e sel ected fr om theAsk a Philosopher pages onthe Pathways to Philosophyweb site. The questions weresubmitted between August1999 and J anuar y 2001.

I w ou ld l i ke to thank PauloGhira lde l l i fo r ask ing me tocol l ect my an swer s togeth er i nbook form. Al though theirwork is not inc luded in th isselection, th ank s ar e al so du eto Rachel B r ow ne, M atth ewDel Nevo, Br ian Tee, AdamGatwa rd and Wi l l Greenwoodfor thei r f in e contr ibu t i ons the

an swers pages.

Last but n ot least, th ank youto th e al l th e peopl e who havesubm i tt ed questi ons that havepuzzl ed and i nspi r ed u s andhelp ed to m ake th is one of t hebest philosophy resources onth e Worl d W id e Web.
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TEACHING P HILOSOPH Y

Da ye a sked:

H ow does one take the in f in i t e tr ut hs that th ey lear n an d encapsul ate th em in to

in stant t r ut hs th at people can r ead and un der stan d? H ow can one take som eth in gth at th ey foun d pr ofoun d an d a u ni ver sal t r uth and help other s to real i ze that too?

Your quest ion is about teaching and a lso about phi losophy. The phi losopher whohas thought about this ques t ion more than any other is Ludwig Wit tgenstein , inhis Phi losophi cal I nvest i gat ions. Bu t one could also cite the example of DescartesMedi ta t ions.

Let s say tha t you ha ve d iscovered a profound a nd universa l t ruth an d you w r i te i tdown. That is not enough, because the reader needs to be persuaded of i ts t ruth.Well , suppose you give the argument , would that be enough? In phi losophy, theanswer would in many cases be, No. The reader can fol low the logic of a nargument and st i l l fa i l to grasp the meaning of i ts conclusion. Something moreneeds t o be done.

A good t ea cher ca n a chieve more th a n can ever be achieved by the w r i t ten pa ge .In the process of dialogue one engages with an individual , and each individual sneeds ar e different. The process by which you came to appreciate those truths isone you ca n repea t w i th oth ers , a nd so underst a nding is passed on, not a l l a t once,but in gra dua l s ta ges.

What is remarkable about phi losophical educat ion, however , i s how much we a l lhave in common. Descartes conceived his great work, Medi ta t ions on First

Phi losophy from a heurist ic s tandpoint . By adopting the very personal style of aseries of private meditat ions , Descartes invi tes the reader to do the same. Thereader is encoura ged to look w i thin th emself , and f ind w ha t D esca rtes f inds there.

Witt genstein, in the Phi losophi cal I nvest i gat ions, inv ites th e reader t o pa r t i cipa tein a form of therapy. At every s tage, he gives voice to the readers doubts andw orries. So you find a n um ber of voices, besides Witt genst eins own . Some times, iti s not a lwa ys easy to te l l wh ether i t i s Wi t tgenste in speaking. Unl ike Descartes ,Wittgenstein never tells the reader where this is al l leading. The process iscompleted when t he reader ha s successful ly ba t t led w i th th eir i l lusions, when theyare no longer tempted towards fa lse theories of the nature of consciousness andthe self .

My practical a ims as a teacher are perhaps more modest than your questionimplies. I dont expect all my s tudents to agree wi th me. I t i s enough tha t theyl ea rn t o see the quest ion . I do not see tha t a s in a ny sense a failure. There is nophi losophical t ruth that is so true that one cannot conceive how an intel l igentperson could be incapa ble of believing i t .

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NATU R E AND U S E O F P H IL O S O P H Y

Yami let t e a sked:

What is special about philosophy that distinguishes it from other intel lectual

end eavour s l i ke mat hemat i cs, science an d hi story?

Some peopl e have cl aim ed th at phi l osophy i s a pur ely abstr act fi el d th at is of nohel p in d eal i ng wi th pr actical ever yday problem s. Ba sed on your char acter izati on ofphi losophy, wh at ar e your view s about th is?

What definition of philosophy, or characterization of i ts aims, methods or subjectmat ter would encompass a l l the quest ions and answers ra i sed on these pages? Idoubt w hether any would .

There a re bra nches of ma thema t ics , nota b ly se t t heory a nd foundat iona l s tud ies,as wel l a s in tui t ionis t mathemat ics and log ic , tha t have a s t rong phi losophica lcomponent . The sa me is true of qua nt um m echa nics and cosmology in physics. Inhistory, the philosophical question of the na ture o f h i s tor ica l causa t ion , o r thecri ter ia for evaluat ing a histor ica l explanat ion are i s sues tha t his tor iansthemselves discuss and do not merely brush to one side as the concern ofphilosophers.

We philosophers love to be useful . Philosophers si t on committees debatingeuthanasia and genetic research. They inspire pol i t ic ians to write their speechesa nd elect ion m a nifestos. But I bel ieve the sea rch for a just i f ica t ion of phi losophy interms of i ts usefulness ul t ima tely lea ds to a dea d end.

I t i s a great thing when phi losophical puzzlement propels the invest igator themathematician, or the physicis t , or the his torian into aspects of their subjecttha t they had not previously explored, into new approaches and new ways ofth inking. For one wh ose voca tion l ies elsewher e, the qu estions of philosophy can bea n inspira tion, i ts meth ods a powerful tool of discovery.

For one whose vocation is to be a philosopher, the sole and complete justi f icationfor phi losophy is a s ense of wonder t ha t pursues q uest ions for t heir own sa ke, forno oth er rea son tha n because one feels gripped by them. For those tha t need i t ,th e quest ion of just i f ica t ion is irrelevan t ; for those tha t do not , th e q uest ion ha s noanswer .

K a nokw a n a sked :

I cant separ ate th e th i nk i ng of phi losopher s fr om t hat of psychologi sts. So I want toknow, What i s th e di f fer ence betw een Phi losophy an d Psychology? Wh y should westu dy phi l osophy?

The best w a y t o il lust ra te t he di f ference betw een phi losophy a nd psy chology wouldbe wi th a parable . Af ter making the f i r s t Mars l anding , a g roup o f Ear tha s tronaut s encounter some Mart ians . Un for tun a te ly , th e minds of Mar t i ans w orkso d if ferent ly f rom t he minds o f huma ns th a t despi te many months o f pa ins taking

effort , only very slow progress is made tra nsla t ing Ma rt ia n langu a ge into a humanlan gua ge. Mart ian psychology is so ra dica l ly di fferent from huma n psychology.

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Yet there are areas where Mart i ans and Humans can converse rela t ively easi ly .Ma rt ia n a nd huma n scient i s ts can compar e view s about the ultimate structure ofm at te r . Mar t i an and hum an m a them at i c i ans can t a lk abou t ad vances in settheory. Mart ian and human phi losophers have no di f f icul ty discussing the pros

a nd cons of the philosophical t heory of mind-body dua lism.

U p unt i l the present century , i t wa s t a ken for g ran ted tha t a fu ll educa t ion w ouldinclude the study of philosophy. Philosophers broadly agreed with Aristotle w hodefined ma n a s t he ra t iona l a nima l . Aristot le bel ieved t ha t to l ive the best l ife itw a s necessary t ha t w e should exercise our mental facul t ies to their ful lest extent ,and to employ them for the best purposes . Philosophy was the subject thatfu lf il led these dema nds bet ter tha n a ny o ther huma n a ct iv ity .

Nowadays , however, phi losophers seem to have scaled down their expectat ions .P hi losophy h a s become just a nother bra nch of aca demic s tudy . I think tha t th is isa pi ty . Present day phi losophers have lost the sense of how vi tal ly important

philosophy is for l i v ing wel l.

Cicely Fra ncis a sked:

H ow w oul d you compare and cont rast phi losophy and rel i g ion, and also phi l osophyan d sci ence?

One of the wa ys of a pproa ching the quest ion wh a t phi losophy is , is to expla in w ha tphilosophy is not. P hilosophy is not religion. P hilosophy is not science.

The two statements I have just made about phi losophy do more than s implyna rrow down th e field of possibil it ies concerning w ha t ph ilosophy is, or might be. I ti s one of the feat ures th a t essent ia l ly belong to the activity of the philosophy thatone labours under the in termi t tent or cons tan t tempta t ion towards seeingphilosophy a s a kind of religion, or, al t erna tively, as a kind of science.

In the opening paragraphs o f my paper , Can Phi losophy be Taught? (ht t p://w w w .shef.a c.uk/un i/pr ojects /pt pd lp/gu ide/t ea ch.h t ml) I ta lk about thetempt a t ion to ma ke a G od out of phi losophy. In my paper , I ca l led t ha t a fool ishmista ke a nd of fered the th row a w a y rema rk, I s incerely hope it s not one Ive everbeen tempted to ma ke. B ut t ha t i s unt rue . I ha ve been tempted . Otherw ise, howwould I know w ha t I w as t a lk ing about?

Worship, and a conception of what is holy, are the core of religion. (I dontnecessarily mean w orship of a persona l God, as in the J udeo-Chr ist ian t ra di t ion.)Religious practices, l ike prayer and meditation, are designed to open ourselves upto experiencing, or receiving, that which i s i mmea sur a b l y h i g her tha n us , tha twh ich i s wha t w e a re not .

Philosophy, or the greatest phi losophical or metaphysical systems, are merely aproduct of hum a n endea vour. To w orship w ha t w e ourselves ha ve mad e is idola t ry.

Nor i s phi losophy science. Once again, you cant real ly understand what that

means i f you have not , a t some t ime, wished that phi losophy could be madescientific . To qualify as a science, an inquiry does not need to be based on

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observing or collecting facts, or putting forward empirical ly tes table hypotheses .Mathematics is a science. But phi losophy i s not mathemat ics . Even P la to , whofamously put above the doors of his Academy, Let no-one who has not s tudiedma th emat ics enter here knew this . Even, I bel ieve, Descartes , despi te his wel l-adver t i sed a t tempt in the D iscour se on M eth od a n d Medi ta t ions to apply the

geomet rical m eth od to philosophy.

In phi losophy, there are no f ixed star t ing points. No philosophical term of anyconsequence has ever been successfully defined. One is constantly striving t ounderstand the significance of the things that the on-going dialectic obliges, ortempts us , to say . We never qu i te know wh ere we a re . Tha t i s w hy the illusion of ascient ific philosophy a ppear s so tem ptin g.

B rooke asked:

Please help me answer this question: Identi fy and expound upon what effects

Socr ates, Plato and Ar istot l e have had on our l i ves wi t h i n th e past 50 year s.

You ha vent a sked for mu ch!

You ha ve obviously been given th is as a n essa y qu estion. I ca n only guess a t whatsort of a nsw er your instr uctor wa s expecting.

Ta ke a wa y Socra tes, Pla to and Ar is to t le and you take away the s ta r t ing po int o f2,500 years of Western philosophy. Imagine a possible world where philosophymet a dead end and the early speculat ions of the Presocrat ic phi losophers wereburied and forgot ten. Or ima gine a possible w orld w here phi losophy st a r ted out on

a n a l togeth er di f ferent ba sis from the S ocrat ic meth od, or th e theories of P la t o a ndAristotle.

One can imagine these th ings in the abs t rac t , the problem i s tha t , a s a workingphilosopher, i t is simply impossible to subt ra ct the influence on ones w hole w a y ofthinking that these histor ica l f ac ts represent , o r imag ine how one might havethought di f ferently . Phi losophers are a lways trying to think di f ferently , t rying tobrea k out of the confines of s ta r t ing points a nd a ssumptions . The di f f iculty is th a tone can never know how far one has succeeded, in the face of the suspicion that ,given the hist orica l point that we have actually star ted from, there may be waysof thinking th a t a re impossible for us to comprehend.

Or you could be asking how important the influence of 2,500 years of Westernphilosophy has been in the West over the las t 50 years . Undoubtedly ,philosophical views a re deeply ingra ined in our culture. I t is a lso true that over thelast 150 years the increasing confinement of phi losophical act ivi ty within thea cademic depar tm ents of universi t ies ha s led to a s i tua t ion where phi losophy, a s abranch of human inquiry, has had decreasing inf luence on our lives. Not so verylong ago, a person who had not s tudied phi losophy was considered uneducated.How l i t t l e tha t i s t rue today .

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STUDYING PHILOSOPHY

Kelly a sked:

M y name is Kel l y and I am 15 year s old. I am ver y in ter ested i n ph i losophy an d

would l i ke to lear n m or e about i t. I dont do ver y wel l i n basic school subj ectsbecause I am alw ays th in k i ng about phi losophi cal topics. I d ont kn ow any of theterm s or anyth i ng, I ju st kn ow I have a phi losophi cal m in d. I h ave been th in k i ngabout how ever ythi ng goes back t o in f in i t y , and I don t know w hat th at i s cal l ed? Ith in k about h ow i f ther e is one God, th en w ho mad e hi m , and w ho mad e hi m ....andso on, i t al l com es down to in f in i t e m easur es. An d how we are al l so stu pid , and weonl y have th e abi l i t y to im agine and th i nk about so m uch. And I also have thi sobsession w it h t im e, I m ean w ha t i s it ? D oes it even exist or is i t a system . I dontth in k our m in ds have th e capabi l i t y of even i m agin in g these answer s, but st i l l , thequest i ons are on m y m in d al l th e t i m e. I kn ow youre probably th i nk i ng, What anidiot but I real l y am i nterested i n l earn in g about t h i s stuf f , and anyth i ng wouldhelp. T han k you.

When I was f i f teen my a l l-consuming passion was Chemistry, and a l l I knewabout phi losophy was that i t had something to do wi th o ld men in beards . But Idid th ink of mysel f as a n a th eist (I dont n ow) a nd got int o lo ts of scra ps because ofth a t . I t w a s good pra ctice for phi losophy.

The traditional ideas of theology provide a good starting point for thinking aboutmetaphys ics , wh ich i s wh a t your q uest ions a re rea l ly about. There is the contrastbetw een the infinitude of G od, th e crea tor, an d th e finitu de of his crea tion, includingcreatures l ike ourselves. Then there is the contrast between the way thingsa ppear t o f inite beings who are dependent on perception as the source of al l their

knowledge, an d th e wa y th ings are in real i ty , or in th emselves or ma ybe for G od.

Time figures prominent ly in both kind s of questions. You a re right t ha t w e oscilla tebetw een the idea of a t ime stret ching endlessly into the past a nd endlessly int o th efuture, and the idea of a universe that came into exis tence at some t ime in thepast , an d w il l cea se to exist a t some t ime in the future. Things necessar i ly appearto us as occupying a posi t ion in space and t ime, yet in real i ty , f rom Gods eternalsta ndpoint , t ime is like th e pages in a book or th e tra cks on a CD .

One of the philosophers who thought most deeply about these issues wasImmanuel Kant , in his book The Crit ique of Pure Reason (Kritik der ReinenVernu ft), first pu blish ed in 1781. Alth ough it is one of t he most difficult philosophybooks youre ever l ikely to see, i t wont hurt you just to pick i t up. Have a look atthe Preface and Introduct ion. Check out the index and l is t o f contents. See whatyou ca n learn a bout Ka nt from doing a bi t of detect ive work.

K a n t a r g ue d t h a t we can have no knowledge of things in themselves , and thatth ere is no wa y t o prove the exis tence of G od. G a thering knowledge is an unendingprocess , so in tha t sense space and t ime have no f ini te bounda ries . B ut t he infinityis potent ial , not actua l . The concept of th e universe a s a tota l i ty is one th a t Ka ntthinks is too big for our minds to gra sp. He tr ied t o show th a t th ere w ere l imits towhat human beings can discover through the use of reason. His purpose, he sa id,was to deny the poss ibi l i ty o f r a t iona l knowledge about God, about the way

th ings a re in themselves to ma ke room for fa i th .

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There are lots of good introductions to philosophy. (Some are l isted in thePathways In troductory Book Lis t on the Pa thways web s i te , a th t t p://w w w .sh ef.a c.uk/un i/pr ojects /pt pdlp/pa t h w a ys /pa k5.h t ml . ) I t i s important ,though, i f you dont want to ki l l your enthusiasm for philosophy, to look at someoriginal texts, l ike P lat o, Berkeley, Descartes , Russel l , Wittgenstein. Better to get

a t a s te for t he rea l th ing t ha n re ly on w a t ered-down vers ions .

Thank you for sharing your quest ions with me. I hope that your phi losophicaljour ney proves to be a joyful one.

K a nokw a n a sked :

M aybe I m ust ta ke th e cour se for Ph i l osoph y in th e U ni ver sity...so I need somesuggest i ons. H ow can I lear n Phi losophy wi th happi ness and m ake th e point so ver ygood?

The firs t piece of a dvice I w ould give is t o look very car efully a t t he Depar tment ofP hilosophy a t t he U niversity w here you hope to s tudy before a ccepting th e offer ofa place. P a y th em a vis i t , or , better s t i l l, several vis i ts . Who is going to teach you?Are the lecturers and professors enthusias ts , or do they regard teaching as anecessa ry chore, a nd s t udent s a s a m ere inconvenience?

How ca n you lea rn phi losophy w i th happiness? So few s tudents even think to askthat question. Their only concern seems to be with success and doing well . Wouldyou st i l l be prepared to carry on even i f you did badly, and found yoursel f a t thebottom of the c lass? The rewards of s tudying phi losophy are not reserved for t hehigh flyers. How ever, in order to reap t hose rewards you need to adopt an a t t i tude

of humili ty. In the face of the perennial problems of philosophy we are al l ignoranta nd st upid. Some ar e sl ight ly less so, tha t is a l l.

Ta ke your tim e, dont bite off more than you can chew. There is no point in toil inga w a y for some possibly future reward, i f you cant enjoy what you are doing hereand now, in the present. The great moments of i l lumination will come when theycome. But meanwhile every moment conta ins the possibi l i ty for enl ightenment i fyou look for i t . Enjoy the journey, because in philosophy you really cant sayw hether you wi l l ever reach a dest ina t ion.

Read about the l ives of the great phi losophers, and gain inspira t ion from them.Read, not to idolise, nor simply to appropriate ideas for your own use, but to bringthe words on the page to l i fe . Every text you pick up is an invitat ion to dialogue.The grea test joy in rea ding t he cla ssics of philosophy is t he feeling of ent ering int oa d ia logue tha t t r a nscends t ime and space. The great philosophers l ive on in theirw orks , and t ha t i s w here we ca n meet them w henever we choose.

U nders ta nda bly , you a l so w an t to ma ke the point so very good you want to getgood marks for your essays , make a big impression in seminars and discussions.To do that, you need to overcome the fear of failure. Sometimes, the only way t olearn is f rom our m ista kes. You must not be afraid to look a fool . That means notgett ing su cked into to a w a y of thinking w here everyone is in competi t ion w i th you,w here you ei ther win or lose. Let others compete i f they want to . Show that your

only concern is understanding and learning more, tha t for you t ru th i s more

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important than being perceived to be r ight . That wi l l make the best impressionof all.

Robyn asked:

H ow m uch does a typi cal academ i c phi losopher r ead i n a typi cal w eek an d how longshoul d th is take hi m ? e.g. how m an y paper s etc.? Or pu t an other way, h ow longshoul d one spend on a piece of wr i tt en ph i l osophy for pr acti cal pu r poses (say ani mm i nent essay or sem in ar )?

I am lost i n a l abyr i nt h of paper s, arti cl es and books and w ond er h ow p eopl e copewi th such a h uge l i terat ur e.

The wa y t o cope wi th the labyrinth of ar t ic les and books is to step l ight ly . Dip in.Read enough to get the gist of what the author i s say ing and move on . Use thetime that you save to concentrate on the book or the ar t ic le tha t deserves your

close a t tent ion. Usual ly , in wri t ing an essay or preparing for a seminar , i t ispossible to na rrow th e l is t d ow n t o one or tw o importa nt pieces.

You ha ve to unlearn the ha bit o f aut oma t ica l ly t reat ing authors of phi losophicaltexts wi th respect . Be bloody minded. I f you are not convinced that the piece isw orth spending t ime on a f ter the f i rst or second pa ge , the a uthor ha s missed thei rchance.

Lecturers love to wri te long book l is ts . I t s a w a y of showing you a l l the ha rd w orkthey have done on your behal f . Often, though, the thing you should real ly berea ding is not in th e book l ist but in the current issue of Mind or the Philosophical

Review. Once again, heal thy disrespect is the order of the day. Trust yourjudgement in ri f l ing thr ough th e journa ls, or scouring t he selves of the book shop orl ibrary.

As regards t ime, I remember Freddie Ayer in an interview once saying that hefound i t impossible to do more than four hours concentrated work in philosophy inone day. I would set an absolute upper l imit on philosophical reading of two hours.Youl l be surprised what you can do in that t ime, i f you concentrate your efforts.Look a f ter your eyes, they h a ve to las t you a l i fet ime.

P H I L O S OP H I C AL AR G U M E N T

Stephen asked:

What i s th e pr im ar y goal of th e phi l osopher , and to wh at extent is a master y of th ear t of argum ent ati on i nd ispensable as a m eans to th e end of att ai ni ng th at goal ?

P hi losophers love a rgument . I dont jus t mean tha t they love a rguing . I mean tha tphi losophers are in love wi th the Pla tonic idea of argument . Pla to invented aspecia l na me for i t , dia lectic.

Yet P la to , mos t famous ly in the Republic, a lso ta lked about the importance of

philosophic vision. The ultima te a im of philosophy is t o seek a n und istort ed visionof int elligible reality, m a de possible by th e light of the G ood.

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In t hese terms, there is room for l ively debate whether the analyses produced area response to quest ions about real i ty or only about our ideas of reality . I wouldsay both . F or example, a ques t ion a bout t he na ture o f ca usa t ion i s a bout t he worldof ca uses a nd effects , a nd a lso a bout our concept of a ca use. B y coming up wi th a

workable analysis of the concept of causation, analyt ical phi losophers would sayth a t t hey ha ve discovered something w e didnt know before about t he w orld.

Or, a l ternat ively, i f you are interested in metaphysical systems of the past youcan analyse the ideas of real i ty proposed by Spinoza , Berkeley, Kant or Leibniz.Then you ca n sa y , Yes, i f one a grees to cert a in premisses , say , about t he na tur e ofspa ce or experience or subs ta nce, then cert a in conclusions follow .

The deeper quest ion is whether there might be something lef t over when a l l thelogical analysis is done, as I think there is . My interest in metaphysics is nei theranaly t ica l nor his tor ica l . I share the fa i th o f the metaphys ic ian tha t there aret r uth s to discover about t he ul t ima te na tur e of things. This isnt t he place to try t o

persuade you. However , I would point out that the end of metaphysics has beena dver t i sed many t imes , and ea ch t ime ha s proved to be a fa l se a larm .

Ignace asked:

H ow d o you see th e r el ati onshi p betw een m ath emati cs and phi l osophy ? I f anyone issear chi ng f or answer s, hasnt he got m ore cha nces to fin d th em in proofs in m athsthan in philosophy ? What makes the study of existing, unproved theories inph i losophy m ore worth whi le than exact sci ences?

I see phi losophy as s tudying his tory more than actual ly trying to achievesomething. There is a rela t ionship between them, but I think by merely studyinghis tory , th i s doesnt g ive a ny a nsw ers .

One phi losopher who would agree wi th you that phi losophy is concerned wi ths tudying h is tory a l though perha ps not q ui te in t he wa y t ha t you mean is R.G.Collingwood. In his Autobiography (1939) and Essay on M etaph ysi cs (1940)Collingwood develops a view of the core act ivi ty of phi losophy as the s tudy of theabsolute presupposi t ions of di f ferent histor ica l periods. Insofar as thefundamental quest ions of phi losophy have an ans wer , tha t ans wer cons i s t s in adescript ion of the d i f ferent s t a ndpoint s from w hich t he un iverse and our place in i tha s been conceived a t different t imes, rather than a search for the one correct ort rue s ta ndpoint .

While I f ind t ha t C oll ingw oods a ccount of tr ut h in term s of seeking a n answer to aquest ion is a valuable reminder that explanat ions say, the explanat ions of feredby the histor ian, or the phi losopher are rela t ive to interest , that t ruth dependsat least partly on what you are looking for , his histor ic ist v iew of the nature ofphi losophy seems un necessar i ly defea t is t . I f C ol lingw ood w ere r ight , then we a remerely deceiving ourselves when look for answers to the philosophical questionstha t g r ip us. There is no right or wrong answer. All we are doing is investigatingth e presuppositions of our beliefs, ra ther t ha n se t t ing out , if necessar y , to cha ngeth ose beliefs i f th ey fai l to correspond w ith r eali t y.

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I t hink phi losophy can change our bel iefs . You can ta ke a v iew tha t is w idely held say, a view about the nature of f ree wi l l , or consciousness, or truth anddemonstra te th a t i t i s log ica l ly incoherent . You can s ta r t w i th a t rui sm, or se t oft ru isms, an d derive a conclusion th a t is very far from being truist ic. I dont feel theleast bi t emba rra ssed in ta lking a bout proving th ings in philosophy.

Admitt edly, proving t hings in philosophy is not l ike proving t hings in mathematics.In ma thema tics, a proof es tab l i shes a resul t , something tha t can be put in thet ext books. As Wittgenstein remarks somewhere, mathematicians do not usual lycome to blow s over w heth er a par t icular proof in ma th ema tics is va l id. (There arenotable exceptions: for example the controversy over the nineteenth centurymathematician Georg Cantors proof of the existence of a hierarchy of inf ini tenumbers.)

In phi losophy, w e a re never completely sure of wh a t w e mea n. P hi losophers w orkw ith w ords , they cons truct a rguments a d ia lect ic out of words using logic asth eir guide. The resul t i s more words. The words suggest , ra ther than dicta te, a

certa in way of seeing things, a v ision. That in turn generates more words, moredia lect ic , and so the process continues apparently wi thout end. One ei ther has ata ste for this kind of activity, or not. You evidently dont !

KNOWLEDGE

Nick asked:

I have and essay to wr it e for m y th eor y of k nowl edge lesson and I am havi ng somedi ff i cult ies, so I woul d l ik e to ask your h elp f or some id eas, or an exampl e. T he topic

is : D o we have to thi nk scient i f ical ly i n ord er to f ind the tru th?

This is a n excellent q uestion.

When a re w e thinkin g scient ifically? You dont ha ve to put on a white coat. We arethinking scient i f ica l ly whenever we break down a problem into its components;wh enever w e do a systematic survey of , or search for evidence; whenever we putforw a rd possible solut ions or explan a t ions an d test th em.

In Zen a nd the Art of M otorcycle Main tenan ce, Robert Pirs ig gives an account to ta l ly convincing t o someone l ike me who ha s never brought a screw driver n ear acar or motorcycle or TV set that the only rel iable way of solving problems wi thyour bike is th e scient i f ic w a y, using rea son a nd logica l a na lysis . Sur e, sometimesth e problem sorts i t self out w i th a good thump (i t works for my TV, anyway). Buti t s not a reliable way. You can do more harm than good. And even if you do good,youl l never know th e tr uth a bout t ha t ba d connect ion or loose w ire or w ha tever i tw a s t h a t caused the problem. The second t ime around, thumping might not workso well.

The w a y of science increases your cha nces of f inding t he tr uth . I t a lso gives you amore reliable wa y of checking wh ether or not th e thing y ou ha ve found real ly is thetr uth i t purports t o be.

As readers of his book wi l l know, Pirsig argues that the scient i f ic approach is notenough i f you have the wrong a t t i tudes, i f you are not on the Qual i ty track. You

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w ill never be a good mecha nic if you ea rs a re dea f to subtle differences in the soundt h a t the engine makes, or i f you have no feel for the r ight force to apply whenscrewing a nut . However , our quest ion was no t about whether th inkingscientifically is sufficient on i ts own, but whether i t i s necessary . Are there anycases where the bes t way to ge t to the t ru th i s to abandon the scienti f ic

approach?

You a re a teacher w ho ha s begun to suspect that a child is being bull ied at school.You want to get to the truth of the matter . You can adopt the scient i f ic methodsof the detective: Interview all the children concerned, cross check their stories,spea k to th e pa rents, look at past school reports . Then you can put forward yourhypothesis. B ut you could sti l l be wrong. In a court of law , t he evidence w ould notbe sufficient to secure a conviction. The only reliable method is to secure theconfidence of those involved, and get them to ta lk. In other words, the route totru th is t hrough persona l rela t ionship, the meeting of I a nd t hou.

For those w ho bel ieve tha t t here are t ru t hs revealed in religion, it will of course be

no surpr ise tha t no t a l l t ruths a re revea led by sc ience . Wha t i s in teres t ing i s theclose similar i ty between the kinds of thing theologians say when they are ta lkinga bout f a i th a nd w ha t I ha ve jus t sa id about the I -thou re la t ionship .

The best thing to read on this is Mart in Buber I and Thou, which along with Zenand the Art of M otorcycle M ain tenan ce should be on every introduct ion toepistemology read ing l ist .

Dexter a sked:

What consti tu tes knowl edge?

a nd Romina a sked:

H ow can we be sur e of w ha t w e kn ow?

You might think t ha t w ha tever else knowledge might involve, i t has a t least got toenta i l tha t t he person w ho is sa i d t o know tha t P , is sur e tha t P . How ca n you besa id to know somethin g i f youre not sure?

In tha t case , Romina s ques t ion would have to be unders tood as a ra ther carelessw a y of expressing t he problem of scepticism. What Romina should have said is ,Ho w ca n w e be sur e tha t w e know w ha t w e th ink w e know ?

For the moment , I do not want to ta lk about scept ic i sm. So le t s s t ick wi th thequest ion w heth er you ca n know something even though youre not sure.

First of f , i t could be argued that there are cases where a person does knowsomething, even though they are not sure. The standard example is the nervousschoolboy. The nervous schoolboy is asked, What is the capital of France? Theschoolboy knows that the answer is Par is . After a l l , hes been on hol iday toFrance and even gone up the Ei f fel Tower! Yet when put on the spot by ani rascible tea cher , a l l his confidence va nishes, a nd he cann ot br ing h imself to give

an answer.

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There is more than one way to analyse this example. Threa tened wi th ins tantexecution, there might be a l l sorts of quest ions that you would have answeredperfect ly confidently , w hich you now feel not qui te sur e about . H ow sure is sure?Would you r isk your l i fe to a ssert t ha t P a r is is the capi tal of France? Isn t there at iny poss ib il ity tha t Minis ters a t the la tes t EU Summit a greed t ha t Lyons should

be the capi ta l in ret urn for a su bsidy for Fr ench beef?

An al ternat ive explanat ion for fa i lure to be sure of what you know is that therea re certa in s ta tes of fear w here ones bra in is s imply par a lysed and will not let outthe knowledge w hich is in there. Not just the w ord P a r is , but th e ci ty of P a r is w i thal l i ts bui ldings and inhabi tants , has temporari ly vanished from the fearfulschoolboys min d.

This takes us into the general quest ion of just what does const i tute knowledge.The standard account used to be that knowledge is justi f ied true belief . Someonecan not be sa id to know t ha t P , i f i t is not t rue tha t P . (Wha t w e w ould sa y ins teadis that They thought they knew. ) Or we use scare quotes: I knew that this

quest ion was no t go ing to t ake me more than f i f teen minutes , but I was wrong !H owever, not every belief w hich is tru e, count s a s knowledge. Youve got to be ableto just i fy your c la im by giving sui ta ble rea sons.

As the phi losopher Pa ul G ett ier showed in a paper Is K nowledge J ust i f ied TrueBelief which rocked academic philosophy in the 60s, thats sti l l not enough. Youcan h a ve excel lent r easons for bel ieving t ha t P , an d your bel ief tha t P can be true,but i t can s t i ll turn out th a t i t w as only by a lucky f luke tha t your belief turned outto be true. For example, I know that my next door neighbour Derek is a t homebecause I ca n see h im mowing the l aw n. In f a ct h e is mowing the l aw n. B u t w h a t Ididn t know is that his long lost twin brother Br ian has come to s tay for a

for tnight , and i t could just as easi ly have been Brian, not Derek, whom I spiedthrough the w indow.

With the Gett ier-type examples , the f loodgates are opened. Take anything youcould reasonably be sa id to know. Like the fac t th a t D erek i s mow ing the l aw n. Ia sk mysel f , Do I know th a t Derek ha s not got a tw in brother? I f I ca nt sa y, Yesthen I dont know that Derek is mowing the lawn, even though I can see himclearly. With a bit of ingenuity, you can do the same t r ick on jus t about anyfa ctua l proposi t ion th a t you ta ke yoursel f to know .

Vijaya asked:

Do you th in k t hat th er e i s kn ow l edge we shoul d n ot seek? An d i f so, wh y?

There is a popular saying that a l i t t le knowledge is a dangerous thing . I amment ioning this at t he s ta rt beca use I wa nt to exclude this sort of response. Tha tis not a rea son for not seeking knowledge in the first place. If I know that the bestI am likely to achieve in my knowledge seeking is insufficient to reliably guide myactions , then I should be aware of that fact and proceed with caut ion. A l i t t leknowledge is da ngerous only w hen w e fa lsely est ima te i ts s ize.

There are in fact two quest ions to answer: 1. Whether there is any knowledge

which , as a mat ter of prudent self-interest, I should not seek. 2. Whether there isa ny kn owledge which i t would be mora lly wrong for me to seek.

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1. Knowledge gives us the power to do things. I f my plans rest on fa lsea ssumptions , they a re more likely to be frus tra ted th a n i f they had been based onknowledge. I t would seem to fol low from t his th a t knowledge can never be a badth ing for me. The more know ledge I possess, t he more power I have to achieve my

goals. However, we have to reckon on the psychological effect of certa in kinds ofknowledge, for example, the knowledge that one has only six months to l ive. Adoctor may judge that i t i s not in a persons best interests to be to ld be to ld thet ru t h a bout th e ir s ta te of hea l th .

2. A person ca n be held mora lly culpa ble for not ma king sufficient effort to a cquireknowledge of the facts , in cases where their act ions have unintended ba dconsequences for oth ers . I t is not a n a dequa te defence to say, for example, I didntknow tha t t he brakes of my truck were faulty. Ethics concerns doing good things,a nd n ot d oing bad things, a nd just a s in th e ca se of prudent sel f-interest , knowledgeis necessary for successful ly carrying out our intentions . However, as before,there seem to be cases where one can rel iably predict that the effects of our

a cquiring cert a in kinds of knowledge. One example would be the at tempt to deviseintell igence tests which could be used to determine possible differences betweenpeople from di f ferent racia l groupings. I t i s a near-certa inty that such knowledgew ould be put t o a bad use.

I t herefore see no contradiction in asserting the following propositions. Knowledgeis prima facie good for t he person w ho seeks i t . We have a prima facie moral dutyto ensure tha t we a ct out o f knowledge ra t her tha n ignorance. Yet there a re ca sesw ere, all th ings considered, knowledge is not good for the person who seeks i t . Andthere are cases were, a l l things considered, we moral ly ought not to seekknow ledge tha t is wi th in our mea ns to acquire.

Mike a sked:

What i s m ean t by kn owl edge i s soci al l y constr ucted? an d how can t h i s chan ge overt ime?

You can t know someth ing i f i t isnt t rue. Wha tever else, know ledge might imply, itimpl ies tha t w e ta ke something to be the ca se , a nd w ha t w e take to be the case isth e ca se, in other w ords, i s t ru e.

But wha t d oes i t t ake to make something t rue? Do t ruths exis t in a t imelessreal i ty , wa it ing for us to discover them? Or are some of the things we cal l t ruthsmerely a product o f the way we th ink , or ra ther , the way hum an be ings havethought a t a part icular histor ica l period? Like houses a nd ci t ies , on this v iew, t he t ru th s th a t h uma n beings ta ke themselves to know are constructed and, in t ime,pulled down a ga in .-- Could tha t be t rue?

To some extent , wh a t I would say here is t he sa me a s I sa id, below , in m y secondopinion on R.E . Lees ques t ion about the a rgument aga ins t re l a t iv i sm. But i tseems to me that in the socia l construct ion theory of knowledge there is moregoing on t ha n s imply t he cl a im tha t t rut h i s re la t ive to a society , or to a his toricalperiod.

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First , one has to not ice that not a l l forms of knowledge appear equal ly sui tablecand ida tes for a social const ructivis t a ccount. I t is a plain fact that ei ther Caesardid, or did n ot, cross t he Ru bicon (a s I remember vaguely from my history lessonsa t school). On th e other h an d, the q uest ion w hy he did i s a mat ter for his tor ians toa rgue over . One of th e things t ha t cha ra cter ize a g iven society in a g iven h istor ica l

period is the way i t v iews i ts own history. The way certa in histor ica l facts a recommon know ledge, seen to be unq uest ionably t rue.

I t i s when knowledge is implicated in sel f-understanding that the c la im aboutknowledge being socially constructed appears most tempting. What we aredepends pa r t ly on wh a t w e unders ta nd ourselves to be , the wa y we v iew wh ere weha ve come from a nd w here we a re going.

Here is an example which I have used before. When Prime Minister MargaretTha tcher n otoriously sa id, There is no such th ing a s Society, her w ords reflected ar ea l i t y tha t ha d come about because of the prevai l ing at t i tude towards sociali s sues tha t kept t he Conserva t ive pa r ty in pow er . Where th ere ha d been Society ,

there was no more. This a t t i tude was supported by a certain view of his tory . Acri t ic of Thatcher would say that i t was a d i s tor ted v iew. But i t was no t whol lyfa lse ei ther .

As individua ls w e tell , and re-tell the story of our own lives in response to changesin our c i rcumstances . We are a lways s t r iv ing to crea te a coherent narra t ive , toimpose our wil l on the chaos of events. The same thing is true on a social level .Wheth er you believe in the existence of such a th ing a s S ociety wi th a ca pi ta l S or dont believe i t , whether or not Society is i tself one of the things that is social lyconstructed, we are individually and collectively constructors of our own t ruths ,our own knowledge.

P HILOSOPH Y AND SCIE NCE

J ason asked:

Who i s the m ost w id ely r ead phi l osopher ? D oes thi s popul ar i t y ha ve any cor r ela ti onwi th the tru thfu ln ess of th ei r id eas?

I th i nk th at possibl y Plat o i s th e most r ead p hi l osopher , yet h e hat ed democracym ain l y because he was scepti cal th at t he maj or i t y kn ow best. Was he r igh t?

As a scien ce studen t, I was also wondering that because philosophers seem todi sagree a l ot (wh ich i s very im por tant for the subj ect), how d oes a phi l osophy Ph .D.student graduate when the examiners may have very different opinions of thei n tegr i ty of th e th esis? Science paper s ar e l ess subj ecti ve because of t he power ofexper im ent al d ata. T herefore is science th e only r el i abl e way to un der stan d t he w or ldsin ce i t seem s easier t o convi nce other sci en ti sts of t heori es?

I seem to have mi l l ions of ori gin al phi losophi cal i deas, please tel l m e how can I f i ndout if th ey are good or r ubbi sh? T he m ajor i ty say ru bbish.

I f P l a to was r ight in th inking tha t the major i ty do no t a lways know best, then it

does not fol low from the fact that Plato is the most popular or most read

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phi losopher tha t h i s ideas a re any more t rue than the ideas o f l ess popular andless rea d philosophers.

Of course, t he reverse doesnt fol low ei ther . J ust beca use a phi losophy is populardoesnt mea n th a t i t can t be tru e. Sometimes the majori ty a re r ight .

I am assuming for the sake of discussion that a phi losopher is more popular orw idely r ead in proport ion t o the nu mber of people wh o believe tha t his/her idea sa re t rue . That is not always the case either. To give one controversial example, Iwould think that more people read Nietzsche because of the bril l iance of hiswri t ing and the provocat iveness of his quest ions than because they believe thathe wa s r ight in the a nsw ers he gave to those quest ions .

You say t ha t t he majority say tha t your ideas are rubbish. They may be r ight . Orth ey ma y be wr ong. The quest ion is , How do you f ind out ei ther w a y?

To determine whether or not a philosophical idea is true, you dont simply take a

vote: I th ink i t i s rubbish , I th ink i t i s br il liant , I ca nt ma ke up my mind . Youtest i t out . You argu e your case. At t he end of th e day , you a re the one tha t s got t omake the decision. You might succeed in persuading the majority, but one lonevoice of cri ticism succeeds in sparking doubts in your own mind, and you end upabandoning your idea . Or you might f ind tha t you a re making no headway inpersua ding others to accept your idea , but none of the others succeed in providinga rguments w hich persuade you to aba ndon it .

Tha t m a y not seem much comfort to the phi losophy PhD student facing a host i lepanel of exam iners . I feel sorry for P hD s tudents a nd I a m sur e there a re moretha n a f ew who feel that they are obl iged ta i lor their ideas and theories to what

they bel ieve the examiners wi l l f ind agreeable. For that is not the standard fora cademic success or fa i lure. The s t a nda rd is n ot whether a thes i s i s thought to bet rue , but whether a case has been made, whether the ideas a re suf f i c ient lyoriginal , and whether the arguments put forward in support of those ideas aresuff iciently s t rong, to be worth y of deba te .

How ever , the not ion of w ha t is or is not w orthy of deba te ra ises a more troubl ingissue. The heart of your question concerns the vivid contras t between a thesis ,say, in chemistry or physics , which in arguing i ts case has to account for theexperimental data , and a thesis in phi losophy where there are no experimentaldata . Phi losophical ideas which do not f i t in wi th current academic fashions aremore vulnera ble to being ext inguished simply beca use there is n oth ing to fa l l ba ckon .

I dont agree wi th you that science is the only rel iable way to understand theworld because I would argue that the di f ference between the inf luence ofsubjective factors in science and their influence in philosophy is only relative, notabsolute. I t i s a crude misunderstanding of the real i ty of scienti f ic research tosuppose th a t th e production of experiment a l da ta is , in i tsel f , a proof of objectivity.I suggest you read Kuhns Structure of Scient i f ic Revolut ions and FeyerabendsAgainst Method, to get a f lavour of the case against the view that scientificmeth od is a gua ra nt ee of objective or reliable know ledge.

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MIND AND S OUL

P eto asked:

I n your opi ni on is i t necessar y th at soul shoul d be separ ate from body?

Let us look at the reasons that might be given why the soul must be necessari lysepa ra te from body.

In the Medi ta t ions Descartes argued that i t i s possible that I could have a l l thesubject ive experiences I a m h a ving now, even though a n externa l world of mater ia lobjects in space does not exis t . For i t is conceivable that a l l my subjectiveexperiences are being produced in me by an evil demon who wants to deceive meinto thinking tha t a ma teria l w orld in space exists w hen i t doesnt .

Descart es used this sceptica l hypothesis to raise the qu estion of how w e ca n proveanyth ing about the externa l world . But in the S ixth Meditat ion he also made afurther deduct ion. He sa id that i f i t is conceivable that my subjective experiencescan exist even though my body does not exist, then even if my body does exist even if th ere is no evil demon but a G od wh o is not a deceiver then my subjectiveexperiences cannot belong to anything material but must belong to somethingnon-ma teria l . In oth er w ords, m y experiences occur in a non-ma teria l soul which isnecessarily separa te from my body.

What Descar tes i s say ing i s tha t i f there are two things , A and B tha t can beconceived of as exist ing a par t , th en th ey can n ever be cal led th e same thing, eventhough we never f ind them apar t in the ac tua l wor ld . I f my exper iences can beconceived of as existing apart from my body or my brain, then experiences can

never be the same thing as bra in processes, even though in the actual worldexperiences never occur w ith out bra in processes.

Wha t i s in teres t ing about th i s a rgument i s th a t i t does not rely on al leged cases ofreincarnation, or out-of-body experiences. I t is based on purely logicalconsiderat ions. B ut is i t va l id?

To answer tha t ques t ion would require a long essay. I bel ieve that Descartesa rgum ent does present a ser ious cha l lenge to ma teria l ism. The ma teria l is t ha s gotto prove, not only tha t mater i a l i sm i s t rue in the ac tua l wor ld , but a l so tha tmaterial ism is true in al l possible worlds. For i f we grant just one possible worldwhere material ism is not true, i .e. a possible world where subjective experiencesoccur in th e absence of an y physica l processes, th en a ny subject w hich ha s th osekinds of experiences in the actual world must be regarded as necessarilysepara ted from body.

You asked for my opinion. In my view, mater i a l i sm can be defended aga ins tDescartes argument. However, the debate does not s top there. According toma teria l ism, a possible world exact ly l ike this one wi th someone exactly l ike me init w ould necessari ly be a possible w orld in w hich I myself existed. Yet i t does seemth a t I ca n conceive th a t t h ings might ha ve been just the way they are , tha t theremight ha ve been a D r Klempner wri t ing th ese w ords to you now, even though I didnot exist. I h a ve not y et come across a sa tisfa ctory reply to tha t a rgum ent . B u t I

a m a lso not sure w ha t conclusions, i f any , ca n be deduced from it .

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Monique asked:

Can you expla i n t o m e how a m achi ne can t h i nk?

Ma chines such as computers can ca lculat e, but ca lculat ing is not t he sa me as

th inking. A chess computer run ning a progra m like Deeper B lue, the program thatdefea t ed Ka sparov , ca lcula t es moves a t a n a ma z ing speed but i t does not think. I tdoes not h a ve beliefs or desires. I t is not conscious.

The ma th ema tic ia n Alan Turing once proposed a test w hich could be u sed t o sett lethe quest ion whether a computer met the cr i ter ia for being an ar t i f ic ia lintel l igence , that is to say, a test which would determine whether the computerw a s no t only a ble to ca lcula t e but a l so to th ink , as w e do.

The idea of th e test is childishly s imple. Suppose you log ont o a cha t l ine. You havea conversation with an individual who calls themself Daniel . How do you knowtha t Daniel i s no t a machine programmed wi th se t responses to the words tha t

you type on the screen? If Daniel is able to continue to hold up an intell igentconversat ion, respond appropriately to whatever questions you asked, then youwould conclude that Daniel was capable of thinking. What Turing sa id was that i tis i r relevant w hether Da niel is a huma n being or a ma chine. A ma chine tha t cando wha t D a niel does is intelligent, is ca pa ble of th inking, by definit ion.

Your question, however, is how it is possible that a machine l ike Daniel , ama chine wit h genu ine ar t if icia l intelligence, could ever exist .

Is t ha t a technica l quest ion or a phi losophica l quest ion?

Daniel s brain is not made of biological t issue but metal , si l icon and plastic. Butwhy should biological t issue be the only material that is capable of producingthoughts? On t he other ha nd, perha ps you are jus t as puzz led (as I am) by thequest ion how a person can t hink!

Daniel does not have a body, as we have. He si ts motionless on a desk. His onlyact ion is to spew out words when words are fed in. For me, that is a ser ious,perhaps fa ta l object ion, which is why I am not f inal ly convinced by the Turingtes t . I sha re the v iew held by a number of researchers in t h i s a rea tha t a genuineart if icial intelligence would have to possess something ana logous to arms andl egs , eyes and ears . I w ould have to be a n a gent , and n ot merely a l angua ge user .

L O G IC AND L ANG U AG E

J ohanna a sked:

I am a Fin ni sh phi losophy stud ent and cur r ent ly str uggl i ng wi th Char les Peir ce. Iha ve been asked t o do an essay on th e fol l owi ng topic: Tr ut h is t hat whi ch to th ecommun i ty ul t i m atel y sett l es down , Cha r les Peir ce. An al yse and eval uat e th isclaim.

M r Peir ce was a pragmati st , and that s alm ost al l wh ich I k now about h im . But how

to add pr agmati sm in to thi s stat em ent ? Can t r ut h be di vid ed i nt o other categor i esth an th is? I ve been w r it in g someth in g about subj ecti ve an d objecti ve tr ut h shoul d

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20/74

th e existence of t ra nscendent tr uth , whet her the ordinar y person is interested in itor not . And t ha t is suff icient t o cause th e meta physica l worry .

Tha t is why a s a pragma tist one ha s to make the f ina l s tep o f showing tha t thereis no transcendent truth out there. To be a true pragmatist , in other words, you

ha ve to re fute rea l i sm about t ru th . And th a t i s no easy ta sk.

Susan asked:

T he questi on I have before me, fr om a ph il osophy cour se is: What is th e tr ut h-valu eof th e fol l owi ng stat em ent ?

Th i s sta tem en t i s fa l se.

M y ins t ruc tor th in ks we m ight have fun wi th t h is , that i t is l i k e a r idd le. I d on t th inkth is is funn y. Coul d you help m e?

The question is funny-peculiar rather than funny-ha ha . There are phi losophicaljokes, but this isnt one of them. Like al l good philosophical paradoxes, it exposesour lack of understanding of a concept. I do, however, agree wi th your ins t ruc tortha t i t i s a q ues t ion you can ha ve a lot o f fun wi th .

One doesnt need to study phi losophy to real ize that t ruth is a problem. In Thisstatement is false , the problem turns up in a completely unexpected place. Thew orry posed by t his childishly simple para dox ha s nothing t o do w i th t he l imits ofhuman knowledge, o r the re l a t ion between fac ts and va lues , o r the na ture ofscient i fic law s, a l l quest ions w hich cast doubt on our a bi li ty t o define trut h. Yet the

doubts i t ra ises a re no less potent .

This sta tement is fa lse cant be true and i t cant be fa lse. I f i t s t rue, then i t sfa lse, if i t s false t hen i t s t rue. Ei ther way, you end up contradict ing yoursel f . Buti t can t be n ei ther t rue nor fa lse, beca use th a t implies contra dict ion too.

So the ta sk is to f ind some principled reason why one is not permit ted to ra ise th equest ion whether a statement l ike This s tatement is fa lse is true. Suppose wesa id tha t a s ta tement was not allowed to refer to i tself . That wont do. You canmake the statement, This statement is in English which is true, or Thissta tement is in Fr ench w hich is fa lse.

What about, This statement is true? No contradiction there. Yet there isdefinitely something funny going on. This statement is in English reports a fac t .w herea s This s ta tement i s t rue doesn t r epor t a fac t . Should we say th en tha t as ta tement can be tr ue only i f it r eport s a fact? Tha t s no good, beca use w e w a n t t osay tha t examples of the la ws of logic, l ike If i t s raining then it s raining are trueeven t hough t hey dont r eport facts .

St il l, there is a str ong suspicion th a t t he principle w e are looking for to r ule out th equest ion whether This sta tement is fa lse i s t rue is a lso going to rule out thequest ion whether This sta tement is t rue is t rue. And so it goes on. Whateverprinciple we come up w i th, i t ha s t o be an essent ia l pa r t of a def ini t ion of trut h, not

t a cked on a s a n a f ter thought .

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The logician Alfred Tarski, in his famous paper on the Definit ion of truth inFormal ized Languages , thought he had found an acceptable solution, but hiscomplica t ed th eory of an infinite hierarchy of meta-languages, each one of whichis a l lowed to refer to sta tements ma de in the l angua ge below , rema ins a ma t t er o fdebat e today .

Chr i s t an a s ked :

H ow should I approach t h i s quest i on t aken fr om an u nd er gradu ate paper?

Can a pr oper nam e have a Fr egean sense but la ck a M il l i an conn otat i on?

In his System of Logic Mill dis t inguishes between the denota t ion and theconnota t ion of a term. I f t he term i s a general term, the denotat ion is the c lass ofthings to which the term applies, l ike al l horses or al l planets . I ts connotation isi ts descriptive mean ing, i .e. th e informa tion tha t w ould be deduced by a competent

speaker f rom the fact that something is a horse or a planet . I f the term is ana me, it s denota t ion i s the bea rer of the na me. B ut w ha t a bout i t s connotation?Mill claimed that proper names do not have a connotat ion. Take my name, forexample. I am told that Geoffrey or ig inal ly came from the Lat in for br inger ofpea ce. How ever, i t does not fo l low f rom the fac t tha t my name is Geof f rey tha t Ia m a br inger of peace. A competent speaker could not deduce anything about mefrom t he fact t ha t my na me is G eoffrey.

In his pa per On Sense and Reference, Frege a rgued t ha t both singular terms a ndgeneral t erms ha ve both a sense and a reference. The sense of a term is the modeof present a tion of th e reference, or, a s some commenta tors ha ve expla ined i t , the

rout e to reference. Fr eges idea is tha t there can never be such a thing as s implyknowing the reference of a term. You know i t in a part icular way, or from apar t icula r s ta ndpoint . To ta ke Freges exa mple, th e plan et Venus is known a s t heMorning S ta r a nd a lso a s the E vening S ta r . At one t ime, people did not know t ha tthe Morning S ta r i s the Evening S ta r . They d id no t know tha t these were twomodes in w hich one an d th e sam e heavenly body wa s present ed to them.

For genera l terms, Fr eges sense seems prett y much l ike Mills connota tion. Thesa me holds for descript ive singular terms such as, The Prime Minister or the carpar ked outside my w indow . With proper na mes i t s a di f ferent s t ory.

There has been much controversy in recent phi losophy of language over thequest ion whether proper names have a Fregean sense . In what fo l lows , I amvoicing my own opinions:

Mill did not ad dress himself to th e question how a proper nam e gets its den ota tion,or what i t i s for a competent speaker to know tha t a proper name has thedenot a t i on t ha t i t has . Frege saw a problem here which Mill d id not see. In givingexam ples of th e senses of nam es, however , Frege a lwa ys gives descript ions. Thetrouble is , that whatever you or I know in grasping the correct use of a properna me ca nnot be a na lysed in terms of an y specif ic set of descriptions . S o i t beginsto look ra ther problematic whether there is any such thing as the mode ofpresentation of the reference which belongs to any given name. The names

Hesperus for the Evening Star and Phosphorus for the Morning Star are pret ty

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L. Witt genstein Phi losophi cal I nvest i gat ionsP ar t I , para 258.

H eres how Witt genst ein proposes to get rid of th e idea of th e privat e object :

assume that it constantly changes, but that you do not notice

the change because your memory constantly deceives you.

ibid. Pa rt I I , p. 207.

I can t think of the number of t imes I ve racked my brains trying to imag ine theth ing Wittgenst ein a sks us to assu me, th a t th e inexpressible qu a l ity blue ha s forme constantly changes etc. etc. It took me a long t ime to real ize that i t s a l lwa sted effort .

Well , w e ca n a rgue about th a t . We can a rgue a bout wh ether Wit tgenste in i s r ightin cl a iming th a t in order to have mean ing , it i s necessary t ha t the meaning a termbe capa ble of being commu nica ted t o oth ers , tha t i t should ha ve a meaning in our

public lan gua ge. Scrut ons cla im is th a t i t is sufficient for a term to have what heterms object ive reference that i t should have a recognized use in a publiclangua ge. And I think h e could be wrong a bout this .

The fact that people agree, or a capable of reaching agreement doesnt proveanything. We can a l l agree about something , and st i l l be wrong. Or our seemingagreement can be the resul t of pure accident . For a term to have genuine,objective meaning , and no t merely a name we pass a round, th inking we a l l meanthe same thing by i t , something more is needed, something to do wi th the way weare connected wi th the world: the fact that we do not spend a l l our l ives merelytalking to one another but use language for a purpose. This is something the

pragma tists clea rly saw .

P a ulo asked:

I would l ik e to know about Pr i vate L anguage in Wit tgenstein , but I also wan t t om ake conn ect i ons wit h ar guments of Qui ne about tr ans lat i on ( the fam ous R abbi t)and the m in d as a M useum . I n eed th is because I am t r y ing to put the thi ngs in acompar ati ve tabl e for stud ent s. Th ank s.

At one place in Word and Object, Quine makes a d i sparag ing remark aboutWit tgenste in s a rgument aga ins t a pr iva te l anguage. Tha t i t was no t in the leas tbi t or ig inal , and had a l l been thought before. I remember reading the remark a ndthinking that this must have been a kind of bl indness on Quines part . Sure, thephi losophers w ho rejected t he idea of a pr iva te la ngua ge before Wittgenst ein ma dethe r ight move. But there is a l l the di f ference in the world between reject ing atheory l ike the famous incident recorded by Boswell of Dr J ohnson kicking astone in order to refute B erkeleian ideal ism beca use you a re convinced by yourgut feel ings tha t t he theory is wrong, and offering a philosophical argument whichshows why the theory is wrong, and uncovers the source of the i l lusion thattempts us int o holding the th eory in th e fi rst place, wh ich is w ha t Wittgenstein didwi th h i s a t t ack on th e idea o f a pr iva t e la ngua ge.

The indeterminacy of translation and the inscrutabil i ty of reference are t w ofam ous Quinian t heses. There is nothing in Wittgenst ein tha t is remotely l ike the

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cla im tha t t r a ns la t ions from one la ngua ge to ano ther a re underdetermined by a llactual and possible data ( indeterminacy thesis) , or that i t i s impossible todetermine from the s tructural features of a given language which objects thesingular terms of that language refer to ( inscrutabi l i ty thesis) . The closest Quinecomes to sounding l ike Wittgenstein is when character izes the view he is arguing

against as involving the picture of the mind as a Museum, wi th rows of exhibi tseach labelled wi th a di fferent w ord. Tha t is not a phi losophica l a rgument , however .I t i s mere rhet oric.

According to Wittgensteins pr ivate language argument , there is no knowledge ofobjects independent of a shared language and i ts resources for identi ty andindividuation. According to Quine, the objects that exist in the universe a rerelat ive to our la ngua ge. So, by cha nging our notion of identity , we change the wayin which real i ty is carved up into objects. There is no absolute, languageindependent , l ist of the objects th a t r ea lly exist . Reference is inscrut a ble.

So, for example, in Quines famous case of the rabbit, i f you came across a tribe

w ho used a word gavagai which they used whenever we used the term rabbi t , i tw ould be possible in principle to of fer an a l ternat ive, equal ly accurate transla t ionaccording to which gavagai was a term which referred to a rabbi t par t , or ,a l terna t ively, to a temporal s l ice of a four-dimensiona l spa ce-t ime r a bbi t .

Like Quine, Wittgenstein makes his point using an imaginary scenar io .Wittgenstein asks us to imagine a person a t tempting to coin a word for anexperience whose only impact on the world is in the mind of the subject whoseexperience it is, w hich can not be a ccounted for or defined in terms of any conceptswith w hich w e are fam i liar .

In a s imila r wa y , you could pa i r o ff Wi t tgenste in s a rgument t ha t there wi l l a lwa y sin theory be more tha n one wa y of interpreting the expression of a given l inguisticrule, with Quines thesis of the indeterminacy of translation. According to Quine,however much data you ga ther , i t i s conceivable tha t the sentence you havet r ans la ted in to Engl i sh has an a l terna t ive , incompat ib le t rans la t ion which i sconsis tent wi th t ha t da ta .

I a m prepared to concede tha t in both ca ses , Quine and Wit tgenste in a re t a lk ingabout the same thing . They are t ry ing to ge t across the same idea . In myadmit tedly biased view, however , Quines dia lect ica l approach fa i ls whileWitt genst eins succeeds.

FR E E WIL L AND D E TER MINIS M

Lois asked:

I h ave been havi ng som e th ought s about d eterm in i sm . Al th ough i t is one of m anyth in gs th at probably cann ot be pr oved, I t hi nk i t is a fascin at i ng id ea th at w e haveno free w il l , but t hat ever y decision we make is a ctu al ly determ i ned by our genes,our psychology, our envi r onm ent (and possi bl y some other factor s), but th at w e onl yth i nk w e ar e m aki ng a decision. It cer tai nl y woul d m ake us al l feel l ess gui l t y aboutthe choices we ha ve m ade. I un der stan d th at F r eud was a determ in ist or at l east

w r ote som ethi ng about i t . Do you h ave a sour ce? Al so, I woul d appr eciat e an y othersour ces you h ave for t hi s phi losophi cal id ea. I am not in ter ested i n B ibl ical or other

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r el i gious aspects of it . I am i nt er ested in i t in a secul ar way only . Also, what is yourown view of determ in ism?

First , let me apologize for missing the seven-day deadline for your question, whichI received a week ago on F riday . I can only plea d in mit iga t ion tha t g iven the s ta t e

of my body a nd bra in a t t he moment and my bi r th , and the to ta l i ty o f th ings tha thave happened to me s ince that t ime, i t was inevi table t ha t I w o ul d mi ss thedeadl ine by one da y.

What I have jus t sa id i l lus t ra tes one way o f unders tanding the thes i s o fdeterminism. The challenge from determinism to our naive belief in free will isvery pow erful

Heres how I would define determinism: I f determinism holds, then any possibleuniverse which is indist inguishable from the actual universe a t a g iven t ime T, isindis t inguishable f rom the actual universe a t a l l o ther t imes. Consider , forexample, a universe where GK star ts of f by wri t ing , Dear Lois , First , let me

a pologize.... Let us a ssume tha t de terminism holds in tha t universe , jus t a s I a massuming that i t holds in ours, and that the two universes were indist inguishableat the t ime when GK wrote those words. Then the words GK goes on to wri te intha t un iverse wi l l be the same a s the w ords G K w r i tes in th i s universe .

I believe I have a choice in w ha t w ords to put dow n, a nd in a sense I do. No-one iscont rolling me or pointing a gun a t my hea d. Yet in a sense, t here is no possibil i ty,i f determinism holds, of my devia t ing from the tracks that were la id down whenth e universe fi rst w ent B a ng bi ll ions of years a go.

What a terrible prospect! Would i t be better for us i f the universe was not

determinist ic? At th e present sta ge of know ledge, no-one can be sur e w heth er i t i sor not . But suppose i t i sn t . Let s suppose that in the paral lel universe the verynext sentence I w ri te a f ter th is sent ence is di f ferent from the sent ence I w i ll wr i tein th is universe. Wha t a ccount s for t he di f ference? Noth ing a t a l l. I just happen todecide differently. Theres no explana t ion , no th ing about the way I was th inkingtha t a ccounts for the difference. Thats more l ike the spin of a roulette wheelth a n a f ree a ct ion th a t I h a ve responsibi li ty for .

So theres th e dilemma : no free wil l ei ther w a y.

Freud was interested in a s tronger thesis of determinism than the one I havedefined here. In his book The Interpretat ion of Dreams he makes themethodological assumption that every feature of a dream has psychoanalytics ignif ica nce. Everyth ing t ha t t he pa t ient remembers o f their drea m i s a suitablesubject matter for psychoanalytic interpretation including the patientsmistaken bel ief that the feature has no signi f icance . Determinism as I havedefined i t could hold even if Freuds view of th e significance of drea ms w a s fa lse.

The point is somet imes ma de in discussions of free wil l tha t w e a re cons t r a ined byour genetic inheri tance and upbringing. These are merely part icular examplestaken f rom the tota l i ty of the condi t ions under which we make decisions and act .Being ab le to t race the causa l influences on a persons actions, however, doesmake a s igni f icant di f ference to the way we view punishment . I t does not fo l low,

however , tha t i t i s wrong to punish . Ra ther , we have to ques t ion the way wena ively justi fy pu nishm ent , prior t o philosophical reflection.

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Chr is a sked:

Does evolu ti onar y psychology im pl y we ha ve no fr ee w i l l ?

Lets not beat a bout t he bush. When people talk of evolutionary psychology they

a re usua lly thinking of sex.

Heres an i llustra t ive exam ple. Much fuss w a s ma de a w hi le ago of research whichcla imed th a t th ere were sound evolut iona ry r easons for fema le inf idel ity . U p unt i lthen, the received view had been that according to the selfish gene principle, thehuman male had the bes t chance of propagat ing his genes i f he had intercoursew i th a s ma ny females as poss ible, whi le the huma n female had the greatest stakein ma inta ining a monogam ous rela t ionship, in order to give her children the bestchance for survival . The new research appeared to demonstrate that femalemonogamy is ideal ly combined wi th opportunist ic coupl ings wi th males who areperceived t o possess su perior genes.

Some people found th is shocking. The fa ct th a t th ey w ere so shocked says a greatdea l a bout t he continuing hypocrisy of present da y sexual a t t i tu des.

The more thought ful an d less sexual ly biased observer might still f ind reason fordisquietude. We think of a decision to be unfa i thful as a pre-eminent example ofth e exercise of free w il l. I t t urn s out th a t t he unfa ithful w ife is responding blindly t oth e comma nds of her genes .

Now, i t i s a lways open to an opponent of f ree wi l l to adopt the trumping tact ic ofclaiming that every del iberate human act ion, insofar as i t i s the end product of achain of ca uses a nd effects, ca nnot be described as truly free. There are powerful

counter moves a ga ins t tha t a rgument , however . Wha t w e are now concerned wi this an addi t ional reason for concern, based not on metaphysical dogma, but onempirica l r esea rch.

I a m n ot convinced!

What a re we rea l ly say ing? Human beings have a na ture . We inher i t na tura lpredispositions from our genes. That is hardly surprising. I t would, i f anything, bea fa r great er ca use for concern if i t turn ed out th a t hum a n psychology is inf ini telymal leable . That there was no such thing, f rom the inside, as what i t i s to behum a n. Then i t w ould be completely u p to us to ma ke of ourselves what we wi l l .Wha t a terr ible burden th a t w ould impose!

I t i s t ru ist ic tha t i t does not fol low f rom t he fac t tha t h uma n beings ha ve a nature ,tha t everyth ing tha t i s na tura l to us i s des i rable . Every responsible humanparent as I can testi fy from personal experience faces a batt le againstbiological nature. ( I t was lef t to Freud to g ive this homely observat ion a v ic ioustw ist in his la te w ork Civil iza t ion a nd i ts D iscont ents .)

In short , to be in possession of a capaci ty for reason is to be capable of makingchoices. I f we submit to nature then we are act ing for a reason , which we mayref lect u pon a nd w hich others m a y pra ise or cr i t icize, no less tha n i f we resist .

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J im a s ked :

I f, as ma ny cl ai m , we are not fr ee, wh er e do you suppose we even get t h e i dea offr eedom fr om? (I a sked a f orm er p hi l osophy teacher th i s, and h e ju st said he di dn tknow.)

This is a harder quest ion than i t looks. When asked by a phi losopher , Whatmakes you think you have free wi l l? , we are tempted to stage a demonstration:See? I moved my a rm. No-one ma de me do i t . I did i t a l l by mysel f !

Let s look a t this . First , i t s not c lear what is meant by the idea of freedom. Youcould be a sking, Why is i t t ha t w e bel ieve tha t w e ha ve free wi l l? Or you could bea sking , Why i s it t ha t w hen we a ct i t a ppears to us that we have free wi l l? On theface of i t , th ose a re tw o di fferent q uest ions.

When someone ma kes a cla im a bout the way things appear , one has to ask, Howw ould th ings a ppear otherw ise? Consider th e follow ing th ought experiment. Alice is

looking a t h er reflection in t he looking gla ss.

Did you know, we say to Alice, that there is really anotherworld on the other side of the glass, where everything istopsy-turvy and back to front?

No, really? Can I go through?

J ust try. Push the glass as hard as you can.

When I push, Alice in the Looking Glass world pushes just as

hard against me!

Exactly. But have you thought of this. When moved yourhand, it was because Looking Glass Alice moved her hand.When you had the thought, Ill try to move my hand, it wasbecause Looking Glass Alice had the thought, Ill try to movemy hand.

I dont believe you! Youve got it all wrong! When I move myhand, that causes Alice in the Looking Glass world to moveher hand. When I have the thought, Ill try to move my handthat causes Alice in the Looking Glass world to have thethought, Ill try to move my hand....

We know w ha t t o say t o Alice:

How would it appear to you if Looking Glass Alices actionswere the cause of your actions, or if Looking Glass Alicesthoughts were the cause of your thoughts?

There is no answer to that , because there is no di f ference in the appearances . Inother words, i t does not appear to us that we have free wi l l . But surely, even i f i tdoes not a ppea r to us tha t w e have free w i ll , we bel ieve th a t w e ha ve free wi l l?

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I f I believe tha t t here a re f a i r ies a t t he bot t om o f my ga rden, then even i f it i s pa r tof my belief th a t the fa i r ies w i ll never appear le t s say tha t they are invis ib lefair ies then at any rate I must be able to point to something in the wor ld tha twould not have been there, had there not been any fa i r ies . (Say, the fa i r ies helpwith l i t t le gardening chores, deftly picking out weeds, protecting the roses from

green fly.)

But there is nothing in the world that I can point to , that would be di f ferent ,depending on whether or not I had f ree wil l . That is the force of the classic,Humean dilemma posed by opponents of free wil l : I f determinism holds, then youra ct ions ar e not free beca use th ey a re determined. I f determinism fa i ls to hold, thenyour a ct ions ar e not free beca use they a re not determined. In the light of this, onedoesnt know w ha t i t w ould mean t o say tha t w e bel ieve tha t w e have f ree wi l l.

Tha t s not the end of th e argum ent . B ut I w ould venture th e specula t ion t ha t i f wecould give a coherent a ccount of wh ere th e idea of free wil l comes from, th a t w ouldgo a long wa y towa rds resist ing the classica l argum ent a ga inst f reedom of th e wi l l.

J heni fer asked:

Why i s it t h at when people are asked wheth er th ey bel i eve th at ones r esponse i s ei th erdeterm in ed or a pr odu ct of ones own fr ee wi l l th e m ajor i ty w i l l l ean on the side ofdeterm in ism , but when th ose sam e peopl e ar e asked if th ey bel i eve th at one shoul d beheld t otal l y responsibl e for ever yth i ng one does, th e maj ori ty l ean s on th e sid e ofagreem ent ? I sn t th at contr adi ctory, and w hat m ight accoun t for t hi s?

One easy fix to the free wil l problem, which enjoys continued popularity amongst

th e more hard headed (and general ly c lean shaven) analyt ic phi losophers is theview that the a t tr ibut ion of responsibi l i ty is ful ly consistent wi th the bel ief thatour act ions are the product of our physical s tate at the moment of our bir th, anda l l the th ings we ha ve exper ienced an d th a t h ave ha ppened to us s ince tha t time. Ichose to respond to your let ter today, but my choice was already on the cards ba rr ing a n inexplica ble lapse in the law s of physics 49 yea rs a go a s I l ay bawl ingin my hospi ta l cot , a longside th e couple of dozen or so other infa nt s t ha t ha d beenproduced by the ba by factory t ha t w eek. Wha t kind of choice is th a t? And how canI be pra ised, or blam ed, for ma king i t?

H eres how th e answ er goes:

Rewarding people for actions which we approve of, or punishing people for actionswh ich w e disapprove of has a useful funct ion. But reward and punishment do nota lways work. The promise of a reward is not going to deter the bank clerk fromhanding over the money when there is a gun pointed a t her head. The threat ofpunishment sadly does not deter the kleptomaniac. Every human action is t heeffect of prior causes , but not a l l causes are the same. Only i f the cause of ana ct ion is a n agent s ow n choice, unconst ra ined by factors impeding t heir a bi li ty toma ke a r a tiona l choice, ar e we justi f ied in ca ll ing t hem responsible for tha t ac t ion ,a nd t rea t ing t hem a ccording ly .

The best refutation of this picture is F.H. Bradleys example ( in Eth ica l Stud i es

1876, Essa y 1) of the ma ster of hounds w ho gives his dogs a good thrashing beforethey go out on a hunt , just to show whos boss. I f punishment i s something tha t

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ei ther works or doesnt work, i f i t i s s imply a matter of pressing levers toencourage good behaviour, then there would be nothing wrong in punishing aninnocent person i f we thought i t would cause them to behave in the future in t hew a y w e w a n t ed t h em to behave. What s missing from this picture is the ideath a t punishm ent sh ould only be given to those who deserve it . The problem is that

i f every a ction w e do is the resul t of causes going back to our bir th, then i t seemsth a t n o punishment (a nd no rewa rd ei ther) is ever deserved.

You can look for more subtle ways of sort ing out sui table cases for praise orpunishment . So long a s th e ta lk is a bout select ing from di f ferent var iet ies of causea nd effect , such m oves seem point less an d fut ile.

The obvious al t erna tive is not much bett er . I f my decision to answer this quest iontoday was not de termined by my pr ior s ta tes , then i t i s hard to see why tha tshould deserve pra ise. To a da pt a nother example from Br a dley, sa y a fr iend of fersto let you use an A-graded essay she wrote two years ago at another Col lege tohand in as your own work. You refuse. She expresses surprise. You respond

angri ly , You should have known me bet ter than that ! Knowing your uprightcha ra cter , she ought t o have predicted tha t you would ac t in the wa y th a t you d id .

My response w ould be t o esca pe this dichotomy a l togeth er by r efusing t o see th erela t ionship of person t o person in cau se a nd ef fect terms . The hu ma n w orld, th eworld of persons in rela t ion, is not the world of physics , even th ough w ha t you a ndI are ul t imately made of is nothing but physical s tuf f . When we engage wi th oneanother as persons we are interact ing on an a l together di f ferent level , where oneta lks of reason and just i f ica t ion, right and wrong, freedom and responsibil i ty. Tosee the world in t hese terms i s par t o f what i t means to be human, to inhabi t thehuma n world.

MORAL P HILOSOPH Y

Ma r k a sked :

H ow do I r econci l e a bel ief i n cer tai n m or al absolu tes th at ar e i ncont r over ti b le so faras I am concer ned (e.g. I w il l never ki l l someone, or i f I d id I w ou ld be cr i pp led wi thgui l t ) w it h w hat exper ience i nd icates is a wor l d in whi ch m ora l i ty is who l ly rela t i ve(e.g. per haps i n some ci r cum stan ces it m i ght be necessar y to ki l l i nn ocent Ser bs forth e sake of ar gum en t for a gr eat er good i .e. stoppi n g oth er Ser bs ki l l i ng K osovans)?

Th is issue gets part i cul ar ly w r angl esom e i f one has fai t h in a par t i cu la r rel i g ion e.g. Chr i stia ni ty cer tai n sects of w hi ch ul t i m ately deny t oler ance to oth er fai t hs yetthe prevai l in g moral auth or i t y wh ich m ost of us woul d d escr ibe as a good thi ng i s toextend tolerance to oth er s an d, to bor r ow a wel l u sed ph r ase, l ove th y nei ghbour asth ysel f . In tel l ectua l l y speaki ng, how woul d one f i t both m or al absolu tes and th efl exibi l i ty of mor al bel ief i nt o a sin gle coher ent system whi ch i s nei ther r ig id lytota l i ta r i an nor anar ch i ca l l y lax?

First , we need to c lear away a possible misunderstanding. The view that the r ightmoral act ion is the one that produces the greatest happiness for the greatestnum ber as a rgued for in J .S. Mill s book Ut i l i t a r ian ism is an a tt empt t o set up

a single object ive standard for r ight and wrong which stands str ic t ly opposed torela t iv ism. Di f ferences of opinion about w hich a ct ion is r ight can only concern t he

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factual quest ion of which act ion wi l l produce the best consequences, measured interms of huma n ha ppiness.

Taken to i ts l imit , ut i l i tar ianism advocates an extreme form of tolerance, wherewha t i s ad d e d up in the ut i l i ty ca lcula t ion is not pleasure or happiness the

measurement of which is open to dispute but simply the satisfaction ofpreferences. The preference uti l i tarian refrains from making any judgementconcerning w heth er t he preferences expressed by different individuals are good orba d, except insofar a s th ey conflict w ith t he uti l i ta ria n principle itself .

I want to say tha t the ut i l i t a r i ans a re r ight in ho ld ing tha t there is an objective,ra t ional basis for moral conduct but wr ong in thinking t ha t i t enta i ls a universal lya pplica ble formu la t ha t can be used to decide every ethical quest ion.

My own view is that the basis for moral conduct resides in the authori ty of theother. I regard t ha t principle a s the one mora l a bsolute . Wha t I mean by tha t i stha t the judgements of o thers concerning their needs and interests have

necessa ry a uthority over my a ctions. So moral beliefs are not merely subjective.B ut cla ims confl ic t . People want di f ferent things. Most important ly , the c la ims ofsome persons have a higher authori ty for me than others . The claims o

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