tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10666901.post8214307370460299877..comments2024-01-14T01:51:23.999-05:00Comments on DuckRabbit: D'Souza vs. Dennett (preview)Duckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11349267352262603510noreply@blogger.comBlogger16125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10666901.post-4771122650827304952007-12-06T19:32:00.000-05:002007-12-06T19:32:00.000-05:00I check my referrers constantly, because each time...I check my referrers constantly, because each time I do so, I am given a food pellet. That is how I found the link from Daniel.Ben Whttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06887096661154495898noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10666901.post-13085100221480669782007-12-04T12:50:00.000-05:002007-12-04T12:50:00.000-05:00Dennettism, or the Philosophastry of the Male Nurs...Dennettism, or the Philosophastry of the Male Nurse. Philo-Nurses no longer can do metaphysics or logic--or even politics; at least they can rip off biologists and cognitive scientists in decent academic-parasite fashion.Jhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11567400697675996283noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10666901.post-20656268454658802502007-12-03T19:25:00.000-05:002007-12-03T19:25:00.000-05:00Thanks guys. I'm not a link-hound or anything (th...Thanks guys. I'm not a link-hound or anything (thank goodness) – I just wondered how Ben got over here so fast once Daniel linked to him in the comments.<BR/><BR/>That's hilarious about the link to your post with "lord" in the title – not what they bargained for, I imagine.<BR/><BR/>Oh, I read Ben's post about Dennett, and while it does bring up some interesting considerations, I don't think it really hurts Dennett that much. I will add explaining why I think this to my list of things to do. Nice wordplay over there, btw.Duckhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11349267352262603510noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10666901.post-58240949666909792412007-12-03T18:17:00.000-05:002007-12-03T18:17:00.000-05:00Whoops. This is what I should have posted; I figu...Whoops. <A HREF="http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8191(199604)71%3A276%3C219%3AMK%22AW%3E2.0.CO%3B2-C" REL="nofollow">This</A> is what I should have posted; I figured it's what the link I posted would redirect to if I wasn't logged in to the UT system. At least I correctly guessed the article Duck was referring to.<BR/><BR/>Also, Technorati picks up some links Google Blog Search didn't; it also tracks links in side-bars, it appears. Google never told me about <A HREF="http://istanbulfactsandideas.blogspot.com/" REL="nofollow">this</A> for instance (I'm a subheading!). But Technorati didn't notice the weird Bible site that linked to me. (Or at least Google says it did; Firefox crashed when I tried to load the page. Before crashing, I saw literally hundreds of links to books on Amazon, and nothing besides. It was, uh, <I>interesting</I>. I think I got linked because it automatically links to anything that uses the word "lord" in a post-title.)<BR/><BR/>I'm pretty sure the GBS feed Duck wants is <A HREF="http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch?hl=en&q=http%3A%2F%2Fduckrabbit.blogspot.com%2F&btnG=Search+Blogs" REL="nofollow">this one</A>.Daniel Lindquisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05443116324301716578noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10666901.post-27873286608418373552007-12-03T13:45:00.000-05:002007-12-03T13:45:00.000-05:00Hi Dave,Re. Finding the links, you might try with ...Hi Dave,<BR/><BR/>Re. Finding the links, you might try with technorati: e.g. <A HREF="http://www.technorati.com/blogs/duckrabbit.blogspot.com/?reactions" REL="nofollow">this link</A> for people that linked to you.tanashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02767714629020630193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10666901.post-54268059981056384062007-12-03T13:33:00.000-05:002007-12-03T13:33:00.000-05:00D'Souza's basic claim on the limits of reason (whi...D'Souza's basic claim on the limits of reason (which Descartes also noted back in the day) is actually correct, in terms of existential generalization, however it much it offends the philosophastry business:<BR/><BR/>Theist's claim: Assuming an infinite domain (or perhaps philosophasters might care to establish a finite universe?) , <BR/>there is a Being somewhere in this domain which has godly attributes: Ex (Gx) (imagine E backwards).<BR/><BR/>Until one has aquaintance with everything in the domain (telescopes far more powerful than what we currently have, as well as ability to get information beyond light speeds), it cannot be assumed to be false. Thus the atheist claim (the negation of the theist's claim) is actually mistaken in so far that they have not examined the entire infinite domain , or somethin' like that. Bienvenido a La Malebolgia!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10666901.post-59075816185389890412007-12-03T12:53:00.000-05:002007-12-03T12:53:00.000-05:00I just watched the D'Souza-Dennett debate on YouTu...I just watched the D'Souza-Dennett debate on YouTube. It was painful. D'Souza makes brief mention of Kant in part 14.N. N.https://www.blogger.com/profile/05983492370711591794noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10666901.post-38692165617235982232007-12-03T12:11:00.000-05:002007-12-03T12:11:00.000-05:00The Ivy League Atheist Lemma--Theism and/or Cartes...The Ivy League Atheist Lemma<BR/><BR/>--Theism and/or Cartesianism implies a realm of objective justice, where humans are held accountable for their sins (not that that is easily provable).<BR/><BR/>--Ivy League professors generally do not care to be held accountable for their sins.<BR/><BR/>--Therefore, Theism/Cartesianism shall be held as unsuppportable/indefensible/irrational, since it like, ruins the I.L. par-tay. <BR/><BR/>QE f-n D.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10666901.post-51262254740528132122007-12-03T11:35:00.000-05:002007-12-03T11:35:00.000-05:00D – I think you're right about Plantinga (like I s...D – I think you're right about Plantinga (like I said, I was being charitable), but as a Davidsonian I can barely make sense of his argument in the first place.<BR/><BR/>The Bird article is: "McDowell's Kant: <I>Mind and World</I>," Philosophy 71 (1996).<BR/><BR/>N (can I call you N?) – I don't want to get into it in the comments, but I think that to get Kenny's fallacy to apply to Dennett, you have to do more than simply point to Dennett's self-described "homuncular functionalism"; you need to show that its use of "human-being predicates" is indeed "reckless." I certainly don't think it's a straightforwardly fallacious regress (Dennett addresses this objection, which of course people have made since the beginning of time). Of course I'm not a functionalist of <I>any</I> kind, and one might indeed describe functionalism's defect as a sort of dualism (form/content, not brain/body); but this doesn't apply specifically to the homuncular variety.<BR/><BR/>I use Google Reader already (thanks to you, I think); as Daniel says, I'm concerned not with new posts by others but by links or trackbacks ("pings"?), which Blogger doesn't seem to have any way of telling you about, at least in any convenient way. I'll check out Google Blog Search, if my limited computer skills allow.Duckhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11349267352262603510noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10666901.post-15924532262943442592007-12-03T09:34:00.000-05:002007-12-03T09:34:00.000-05:00Daniel,You have to have a UT account to access tha...Daniel,<BR/><BR/>You have to have a UT account to access that link.N. N.https://www.blogger.com/profile/05983492370711591794noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10666901.post-14699174727171504822007-12-03T09:20:00.000-05:002007-12-03T09:20:00.000-05:00Thanks. You know you've been poor when an assistan...Thanks. You know you've been poor when an assistant's salary excites you. Surprisingly, I didn't have to lie about my Wittgensteinianism ("Are you now or have you ever been a Wittgensteinian?!") They were actually interested in Ludwig (my Aristotelianism didn't hurt either).<BR/><BR/>Sorry, I should have been clearer. I meant that Dennett's taking of the intentional stance toward brains and their parts commits what Anthony Kenny calls the "homunculus fallacy." (Hacker, who acknowledges taking this over from Kenny, calls it the "mereological fallacy.") Kenny puts it this way: "I shall call the reckless application of human-being predicates to insufficiently human-like objects the 'homunculous fallacy', since the most naive form is tantamount to the postulation of a little man within a man to explain human experience and behavior" (<I>The Legacy of Wittgenstein</I>, p. 125). By attributing mental predicates to parts of the brain, Dennett is, in effect, postulating a little man within to explain human experience and behavior. This is a form of dualism. (Actually, it is a form of nonsense. Brains and their parts cannot meet <I>any</I> of the criteria for the ascription of mental predicates.)<BR/><BR/>I can't follow the detailed version of Plantinga's argument as it involves the application of Bayes' theorem (I'm not on friendly terms with the probability calculus), but in general outline it argues that, if we are the products of an evolutionary process, and if naturalism is true, then it is probable that our cognitive faculties are unreliable means to truth. As such, it is a version of one of Descartes' reasons for doubt in the First Meditation: "There may indeed be those who would prefer to deny the<BR/>existence of a God so powerful, rather than believe that all<BR/>other things are uncertain. But let us not oppose them for<BR/>the present, and grant that all that is here said of a God is<BR/>a fable; nevertheless in whatever way they suppose that I have<BR/>arrived at the state of being that I have reached -- whether they<BR/>attribute it to fate or to accident, or make out that it is by<BR/>a continual succession of antecedents, or by some other<BR/>method -- since to err and deceive oneself is a defect, it is<BR/>clear that the greater will be the probability of my being so<BR/>imperfect as to deceive myself ever, as is the Author to whom<BR/>they assign my origin the less powerful."<BR/><BR/>The best way to keep up on new blog posts is Google Reader. I posted on this application a while back: http://methodsofprojection.blogspot.com/2007/06/google-reader.htmlN. N.https://www.blogger.com/profile/05983492370711591794noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10666901.post-5041498311203204652007-12-03T03:14:00.000-05:002007-12-03T03:14:00.000-05:00Google Blog Search lets you set up RSS feeds for s...Google Blog Search lets you set up RSS feeds for search terms; I have a feed for links to sohdan.blogspot.com on Google Reader. That's how I did it, at least. Helps accommodate for the fact that Blogger doesn't support trackbacks very well.<BR/><BR/>I've never been convinced that Platinga's "evolutionary argument" even works on its own terms. I've yet to see much in the way of argument that a reliable method of forming true beliefs would not be of survival value; the claim that gets argued for tends rather to be that some false beliefs have survival value. But that's entirely consistent with the great bulk of beliefs formed by some given "belief-forming apparatus" being true, and this apparatus having survival value. So the argument doesn't even strike me as <I>valid</I>, not to mention that it uses a rather narrow sense of "naturalism" (one that makes epiphenomenalism seem likely) and it's tied to Platinga's mess of an epistemology. It's a failure on all fronts.<BR/><BR/>I'm guessing that <A HREF="http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/view/00318191/ap060251/06a00050/0?currentResult=00318191%2bap060251%2b06a00050%2b0%2c00&searchUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jstor.org%2Fsearch%2FAdvancedResults%3Fhp%3D25%26si%3D1%26q0%3Dgraham%2Bbird%26f0%3Dau%26c0%3DAND%26wc%3Don%26sd%3D%26ed%3D%26la%3D" REL="nofollow">this</A> is what Duck was referring to with Bird.Daniel Lindquisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05443116324301716578noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10666901.post-406795737307911882007-12-02T23:48:00.000-05:002007-12-02T23:48:00.000-05:00Hey N.N., welcome back to the virtual world. Cong...Hey N.N., welcome back to the virtual world. Congratulations on your employment (what did you do, tell them your dissertation is actually on Kripke?)!<BR/><BR/>No more than Daniel do I see how the intentional stance leads to dualism. In Dennett's early writings it did look like instrumentalism, but later on it's less clear. I recommend <I>Sweet Dreams</I> for a short, clear, recent assessment of where he is now re: the mind. I see that I am now obliged to post on the matter. Just for that, I'll stop now; you'll have to wait.<BR/><BR/>As I understand it, these debates (with Hitchens, Michael Shermer, and Dennett so far; he keeps baiting Dawkins, but I doubt it'll work since his stand-up routine is already getting old) are D'Souza's idea, as a way to flog his new book. I'm not sure why the opponents agree to it; maybe they don't know what a slimy little weasel he is. I saw him at Columbia (just a speech), and unfortunately Spartacist hecklers made it easy on him (i.e., by heckling). It was ugly. I hate that he's on my side of this moronic debate (i.e. "Is Religion Just for Stupid-heads?"), and he's said some jaw-droppingly ridiculous things, so I think I'll pick on him some more. Wait til you see the next one – it'll make your teeth hurt.<BR/><BR/>Plantinga's argument, if we're thinking of the same thing, does not impress me, as it depends crucially on his reliabilist epistemology, which seems designed (no pun intended) primarily for delivering the desired result. And that's a charitable reading. Feh. But at least Plantinga and Swinburne are philosophers, and not pretentious political hacks.<BR/><BR/>Allison is the man – <A HREF="http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=3761" REL="nofollow">here's an excellent review</A> of the second edition of his groundbreaking book, the first edition of which was assigned for <I>my</I> undergraduate course in the <I>Critique</I> (that is, the one I <I>took</I> – I don't think I could teach one). I hesitate to mention it here, lest further postage be demanded, but I cannot tell a lie: my favorite Kant book is Arthur Collins's <I>Possible Experience</I>, which I recommend even over Allison. (I understand Anton studied with Collins!) Also worth checking out is Bird's review of/response to <I>Mind and World</I>, taking McDowell to task for slighting Kant's realism (he misses McDowell's main points, allowing him basically to respond with: yeah, okay, fine, if you want to talk that way; but the review is a good summary of Bird's Kant – very forceful and pointed). Unfortunately I forget the reference.<BR/><BR/>Daniel, thanks for the link; I'll have to see what Ben says. Check out <I>Sweet Dreams</I>.<BR/><BR/>Ben, that's excellent.<BR/><BR/>By the way, how do you guys know immediately when someone links to you? Is there some blogger feature or something?Duckhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11349267352262603510noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10666901.post-26039795714272222952007-12-02T23:28:00.000-05:002007-12-02T23:28:00.000-05:00I wonder when the last time D'Souza used his brain...I wonder when the last time D'Souza used his brain for anything was.<BR/><BR/>(I swear to god, in all earnestness, it didn't occur to me that the above sentence has a straightforwardly insulting interpretation until I had already composed it.)Ben Whttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06887096661154495898noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10666901.post-62187348349764567962007-12-02T19:04:00.000-05:002007-12-02T19:04:00.000-05:00Why would the "intentional stance" support a duali...Why would the "intentional stance" support a dualism of brain and body? I'm inclined to agree that Dennett might be vulnerable to some charge of this sort (it came up in the original Dennett/Hacker threads IIRC, but I'm not having any luck locating them), but the various stances strike me as harmless. And even congenial, insofar as they're another anticartesian tool in the box. They might come in handy at some point.<BR/><BR/>Where I think Dennett slipped up in the Dennett/Hacker debate was in trying to "bridge the gap" between the aspects revealed in the intentional stance and the aspects revealed in the physicalist stance. For one thing, if there appears to be a gap that needs bridging, I'm already wary that we've made a wrong turn. And secondly, Dennett seemed to want to go from physical aspects (which aren't mind-like) to intentional aspects (which are mentalish) through various grades of pseudo-minded intermediaries (systems that construct pseudo-maps, that pseudo-perceive, that pseudo-recognize, that pseudo-categorize, all below the level of persons (which are what is seen in the intentional stance)). I took Hacker/Bennett's criticism to be that there was no cashing out of these metaphors ("Like reading a map, except not normative" -- as I recall, Hacker claimed that all there was to the metaphor was that we had noticed an isomorphism), and that the prevalence of the metaphors was diverting attention from research at the more-micro level of individual cells etc. whose functioning would seem to be a more likely place to look if you want to start building up from simple systems to more complex ones. All of which I would accredit to Dennett's naturalism. The idea of various stances (including the intentional stance) strikes me as anodyne, and separable from any attempts to bridge-build.<BR/><BR/>(This reminds me: I <A HREF="http://waste.typepad.com/waste/2007/10/game-of-chess.html" REL="nofollow">need to reread</A> "Real Patterns" to see if I've actually been misreading Dennett on the "predictive value" of the intentional stance. If wolfson's criticisms hold, then the stances start to look a whole lot more naturalistic, and a whole lot less amenable to deflating the sort of tensions I want to deflate.)<BR/><BR/>I suspect Dennett agreed to "debate" D'Souza because he likes to rant against religion, and this is a good way to get publicity for his ranting. I suspect D'Souza is "taking up this cause" because he thinks his arguments really are amazing and that Dennett cannot answer them. Though I would be surprised if he hadn't heard of Platinga & Swinburne (neither of whom I can stand, incidentally).<BR/><BR/>Allison's main work is "Transcendental Idealism: An Interpretation and Defense". It's probably the most influential English-language work on Kant in the past few decades. Amazon tells me that Paton is from 1936. There has since been progress made in Kant Studies. Though I suppose it's better than my autodidactic approach to Kant; there never was a Kant seminar offered at my undergrad institution. Though you'd be surprised at how often I could get a theology class to derail into a discussion of transcendental idealism (without being off-topic!), and I had plenty of opportunities to talk with profs outside of class. But the only thing forcing me to actually slog through Kant's text was my own desire to read Kant; I am reminded of Sancho Panza being ordered to beat his own buttocks.<BR/><BR/>I also look forward to the Dennett post.Daniel Lindquisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05443116324301716578noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10666901.post-39713570927524669732007-12-02T15:08:00.000-05:002007-12-02T15:08:00.000-05:00Dave,I’m a fan of Dennett’s in the sense that I ne...Dave,<BR/><BR/>I’m a fan of Dennett’s in the sense that I never miss a chance to hear him speak. He’s a wonderful and entertaining speaker (not to mention a pretty imposing figure). But I disagree with almost everything he says. And I think his opposition to the Cartesian conception of the mind is a wonderful instance of irony given that his intentional stance supports a similar dualism, viz., brain-body dualism. Indeed, his view is merely a species of the homonculous fallacy. But before I complain any more about Dennett, let me say that I consider D’Souza to be much worse.<BR/><BR/>Why in the world would Dennett agree to “debate” him? While I’m sure that the exchange will be great fun, what’s the point? Or is fun the point? And why in the world is D’Souza taking up this cause? Does he think he can do better than Swinburne or Plantinga? Has he even heard of Swinburne or Plantinga? (I’m actually intrigued by Plantinga’s argument that belief in evolution together with belief in naturalism is self-defeating.) It seems to me that D’Souza should stick to writing biographies of Reagan.<BR/><BR/>Could you recommend the best text of Allison’s or Bird’s for the “one-world” interpretation. I must confess that I’ve never heard of it. My only encounter with the first Kritik was in a senior seminar as an undergraduate. My professor pressed Paton’s Metaphysic of Experience into my hands.<BR/><BR/>As someone who thinks that Wittgenstein and Ryle are right in their approach to the mind, and as someone who thinks that Hacker’s criticisms of neuroscience follow in their footsteps, I am bothered that D’Souza, who clearly hasn’t taken the time to think these matters through, has latched onto them merely because they are enemies of his enemy. He might be surprised to find out that Hacker is a “naturalist” (which, of course, isn’t the same thing as a “reductionist”). <BR/><BR/>I think Hacker’s principal complaint against Dennett can be summarizes this way: the brain or parts of the brain simply can’t satisfy any of the criteria for the ascription of mental concepts. Naturally, since all of those criteria are behavioral, and brains and their parts don’t behave in a way that is remotely similar to human behavior. Anyway, I look forward to discussing the matter when you give your defense of Dennett. Unitl then, I can share your dislike of D’Souza. <BR/><BR/>N.N.N. N.https://www.blogger.com/profile/05983492370711591794noreply@blogger.com