Is Philosophy a Game of "Let's Pretend"?
Let's play.
I'll assume for the sake of this post that we're all familiar with the children's game of "Let's Pretend" or its equivalent. In it, children pretend that something they know not to be the case is the case. For example, they pretend they're birds, or frogs, or that one of them is something and not the others, or that they're adults and adults are children.
Is that game much the same as the "game" of philosophy? In other words, is philosophy, at least in some respects, an activity by which we pretend?
Consider the definition of "pretend" as a transitive verb (from Merriam-Webster Online):
1: to give a false appearance of being, possessing, or performing
// does not pretend to be a psychiatrist
2a: to make believe : FEIGN
// he pretended deafness
2b: to claim, represent, or assert falsely
// pretending an emotion he could not really feel.
I would say that venerable joker, Rene Descartes, was (in effect) playing "Let's Pretend" when he pretended an Evil Demon--evidently an even more practiced and accomplished joker than Descartes himself--was causing him to believe the entire world actually existed, thus leading him to try to convince himself that it did.
I hope we may agree that Playful Rene at the least was pretending when he summoned his Evil Demon (let's call him "ED") to aid him in his quest, i.e. that he didn't really think ED existed. But I think he was pretending, as well, that he had reason to doubt the existence of the world in which he lived. That's because in every respect he interacted with it from moment to moment, without doubt or hesitation. That's not something we do when we doubt something. If I truly doubted the existence of this keyboard, this computer, I wouldn't be using it or having used it, would have no reason to doubt it in that case. The word "reason" is significant here, dear reader. When we have no reason to doubt, we pretend to doubt.
Of course, philosophers necessarily play "Let's Pretend" when they engage in what are charmingly (though inaccurately) called "thought experiments." Though philosophers' thought experiments aren't similar to queries like "What would have happened if Napoleon had B-52s at the battle of Waterloo?" (which concern impossibilities) they almost by definition address hypothetical circumstances; ones we pretend exist for purposes of the "experiment."
Certain philosophical "questions" or "problems" seem to me to be grounded in pretended concerns. Any question beginning with "How" or "Why" (as philosophical questions often begin) presuppose an answer is sought and to be found or not found. We have some idea of what would be a satisfactory answer, normally. Otherwise, we wouldn't ask a question to begin with--unless an answer which would be satisfactory wasn't really sought, i.e. when the question isn't a question meant to be answered, but is posed for some other purpose. What satisfactory answer would there be to a philosophical question such as "Why is there something rather than nothing?" Presumably that isn't a question to which a scientific answer is sought. If it is, it is best left to scientists. What criteria would we use to determine the sufficiency of an answer to such a question if no scientific answer is adequate? What more are we doing than pretending there could be nothing instead of something? What does that even mean?
Here's another question: "How do I know what I know?" Again, I think no scientific answer is sought. What, then, is intended in asking the question? How do we know we don't know what we know? What would it mean to not know what we know? What would be different if we did know how we know what we know? What more are we doing than pretending we don't know what we know, and asking what would that mean or be like?
Perhaps it's unfair to characterize the discussion of some traditional philosophical discussions as mere "play." Perhaps it's kinder and more accurate to consider it to be a mental exercise. I think mental "muscles" are indeed exercised in addressing such questions, and such muscles may be beneficial. But also, perhaps, it sometimes distances itself too greatly from life and the world and becomes pretense.
I'll assume for the sake of this post that we're all familiar with the children's game of "Let's Pretend" or its equivalent. In it, children pretend that something they know not to be the case is the case. For example, they pretend they're birds, or frogs, or that one of them is something and not the others, or that they're adults and adults are children.
Is that game much the same as the "game" of philosophy? In other words, is philosophy, at least in some respects, an activity by which we pretend?
Consider the definition of "pretend" as a transitive verb (from Merriam-Webster Online):
1: to give a false appearance of being, possessing, or performing
// does not pretend to be a psychiatrist
2a: to make believe : FEIGN
// he pretended deafness
2b: to claim, represent, or assert falsely
// pretending an emotion he could not really feel.
I would say that venerable joker, Rene Descartes, was (in effect) playing "Let's Pretend" when he pretended an Evil Demon--evidently an even more practiced and accomplished joker than Descartes himself--was causing him to believe the entire world actually existed, thus leading him to try to convince himself that it did.
I hope we may agree that Playful Rene at the least was pretending when he summoned his Evil Demon (let's call him "ED") to aid him in his quest, i.e. that he didn't really think ED existed. But I think he was pretending, as well, that he had reason to doubt the existence of the world in which he lived. That's because in every respect he interacted with it from moment to moment, without doubt or hesitation. That's not something we do when we doubt something. If I truly doubted the existence of this keyboard, this computer, I wouldn't be using it or having used it, would have no reason to doubt it in that case. The word "reason" is significant here, dear reader. When we have no reason to doubt, we pretend to doubt.
Of course, philosophers necessarily play "Let's Pretend" when they engage in what are charmingly (though inaccurately) called "thought experiments." Though philosophers' thought experiments aren't similar to queries like "What would have happened if Napoleon had B-52s at the battle of Waterloo?" (which concern impossibilities) they almost by definition address hypothetical circumstances; ones we pretend exist for purposes of the "experiment."
Certain philosophical "questions" or "problems" seem to me to be grounded in pretended concerns. Any question beginning with "How" or "Why" (as philosophical questions often begin) presuppose an answer is sought and to be found or not found. We have some idea of what would be a satisfactory answer, normally. Otherwise, we wouldn't ask a question to begin with--unless an answer which would be satisfactory wasn't really sought, i.e. when the question isn't a question meant to be answered, but is posed for some other purpose. What satisfactory answer would there be to a philosophical question such as "Why is there something rather than nothing?" Presumably that isn't a question to which a scientific answer is sought. If it is, it is best left to scientists. What criteria would we use to determine the sufficiency of an answer to such a question if no scientific answer is adequate? What more are we doing than pretending there could be nothing instead of something? What does that even mean?
Here's another question: "How do I know what I know?" Again, I think no scientific answer is sought. What, then, is intended in asking the question? How do we know we don't know what we know? What would it mean to not know what we know? What would be different if we did know how we know what we know? What more are we doing than pretending we don't know what we know, and asking what would that mean or be like?
Perhaps it's unfair to characterize the discussion of some traditional philosophical discussions as mere "play." Perhaps it's kinder and more accurate to consider it to be a mental exercise. I think mental "muscles" are indeed exercised in addressing such questions, and such muscles may be beneficial. But also, perhaps, it sometimes distances itself too greatly from life and the world and becomes pretense.
Comments (105)
Bingo! You hit the bullseye!
Assumptions/Axioms: Let's assume/pretend such and such and find out what logically should follow.
Agrippa's trilemma:
1. Assume [Let's pretend]
2. Infinite regress [Let's
3. Circularity [Let's
Obviously, I believe what I've pondered and written about may just be play, or pretense, or an exercise. When we write about something being done, that doesn't mean we're doing it.
I think a fair number of people argue for sport and enjoy the ego boost of imposing an argument they have learned to make; similar to studying a chess opening for traps and variations. Quoting Ciceronianus
Something was possible and time passed. Next question.
There are dozens of philosophers whose ideas
I find extremely valuable. I can’t think of a single one of them whose questions fit your category of a mere mental exercise.
Your choice to speak in generalities gives you the luxury of levelling accusations without having to back them up with an argument. Could you give an example of a question from a specific philosopher, and either show that they don’t answer it, or that their answer is either pretense or ‘distanced from life’? Quotes would be welcome.
The reference to Descartes and ED was inadequate? Are you seeking quotes in which he wrote what I say he wrote, because you deny he wrote it?
Descartes does not "pretend" that there is an evil demon that controls our perceptions of the world. He considers the possibility and hypothesizes consequences. He explicitly states that our everyday opinions about the world are reasonable. From the Meditations:
[i]I am driven back to the position that doubts can properly be raised about any of my former beliefs....I don’t reach this conclusion in a flippant or casual manner, but on the basis of powerful and well thought-out reasons. So in future, if I want to discover any certainty, I must withhold my assent from these former beliefs just as carefully as I withhold it from obvious falsehoods.
It isn’t enough merely to have noticed this, though; I must make an effort to remember it. My old familiar opinions keep coming back, and against my will they capture my belief. It is as though they had a right to a place in my belief-system as a result of long occupation and the law of custom. These habitual opinions of mine are indeed highly probable; although they are in a sense doubtful, as I have shown, it is more reasonable to believe than to deny them.[/i]
Bolding is mine.
He does this after he evokes ED, though. He pretends, and after pretending concludes he was correct from the beginning.
So, if I say "Suppose it rains tomorrow, will they still have the game," I'm pretending it will rain tomorrow. Is that correct?
We all have reflexive reactions to things that upon later thoughtful reflection we realize might not have been valid. Those who are most reflective and thoughtful are generally the ones we go to when we have a difficult problem. That something might seem immediately obvious should therefore not be a reason not to look closer. This matches well to Hume's distinction between the "vulgar view" and the "philosophical view," with the former being what is immediately accepted without consideration and the latter what has been arrived at by thought.
Your attack here was upon Descartes, but it would also be against Hume, as his result was to say that neither the direct realist view (i.e. the vulgar view) nor the indirect realist view (the philosophical view) are correct, but the truth lies in pure skepticism of the external world.
I'd also point out that your position is also opposed to Berkeley, who concludes there is no corporeal world. That is to say, the idea of skepticism and questioning what might seem at first glance to be indubitable is part of the fabric of philosophy generally, and good examples could be given in scientific inquiry as well (e.g. Ptolemy versus Copernicus or Newton versus Einstein). It is through doubt of the seemingly obvious that we arrive at new theories.
In any event, Descartes did have reason to doubt. He set out his reasons very clearly in the Meditations.
http://eddiejackson.net/web_documents/Descartes'%20Meditations%20on%20First%20Philosophy.pdf Saying he had no reason to doubt hand waves past all his arguments to the contrary. I'd think to make the argument that his reasons were not valid reasons would require actual laboring with the text.
In any event, I take the thrust of your objection to be that you don't believe Descartes when he says he had doubt, and you suggest he's dishonest at some level in having asserted the doubt he did. Your objection is therefore an ad hom because it hardly matters whether he specifically did doubt what he says to have doubted. The only question is whether the things he doubted were arguably doubtable. I don't follow how it's illogical to question the validity of the senses.
Since your objection does not rest on logical invalidity, it must rest upon some type of pragmatism, where you just don't think this matters at a practical level. That might be, but I don't see an objection that something might not have an impact on my life critical to the question of what is the truth about the world.
Come now. Are you seriously claiming this is comparable, or analogous, to saying this?
“I shall then suppose, not that God who is supremely good and the fountain of truth, but some evil genius not less powerful than deceitful, has employed his whole energies in deceiving me; I shall consider that the heavens, the earth, colours, figures, sound, and all other external things are nought but the illusions and dreams of which this genius has availed himself in order to lay traps for my credulity; I shall consider myself as having no hands, no eyes, no flesh, no blood, nor any senses, yet falsely believing myself to possess all these things; I shall remain obstinately attached to this idea, and if by this means it is not in my power to arrive at the knowledge of any truth, I may at least do what is in my power [i.e. suspend my judgment], and with firm purpose avoid giving credence to any false thing, or being imposed upon by this arch deceiver, however powerful and deceptive he may be.”
? René Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy
Isn't the nature of a hypothetical that we assume something for the sake of argument, regardless of truth? Hypotheticals themselves appear in the subjunctive, indicating they are not statements of fact, but are, as you say, "pretend" (e.g. "If I were you" versus "If I was you.").
I wouldnt know how to distinguish philosophical speculations and imaginings from scientific models in any categorical sense. I think the essential connection between the two disciplines becomes clearer with the mention of such empirical entities as phlogiston and the ether. Of course, the fact that for so many years the sciences could claim to wall off the domain of the empirical from the subjective side of consciousness meant that they have been oblivious to the essential role
of the imaginative and the speculative in not only the generating of theory but also in the the coherence of scientific facts.
That's because he wrote the Meditations as a series of ready-to-use arguments that Catholics could use to convert other people to Catholicism. He says as much in the preface, it's why the Church allowed the publishing of the book.
Holy Mother Church has so much to answer for, I'm afraid.
He had reason to doubt he had hands, eyes, blood, senses (though using them all to write that he doubted them)? Doubt the "external", the chair he sat on, the paper he wrote on, the pen or quill or whatever he used to write with? He had reason to doubt, in other words, that he was writing that he had reason to doubt? All this is what he claimed. You may consider the reasons he gave as adequate for him to doubt he had hands; I don't. Had he reached for something in the past and found he had no hand to grasp it? Try to clip his fingernails only to find he had no fingers?
I think the absurdity of such claims highlights the fact he never could have believed them in the first place.
Quoting Hanover
I'm claiming only that he pretended something was the case in a misguided effort to "prove" something he had no need to prove. Children aren't dishonest when they play "Let's Pretend."
Quoting Hanover
I don't think it can be said a hypothetical situation is one in which we're asked to assume that everything is an illusion. What would be the hypothetical situation in that case? There could be no situation at all. He's doing more than asking a hypothetical question.
Imagine yourself asking this question in court. "Doctor, assume that your patient didn't exist. Would it be your opinion in that case that he had sustained a permanent injury?"
Yes. I think it is. Descartes says suppose our world is an illusion created by a demon. What if... He doesn't propose that it is or appears to be. He does acknowledge that it could be, but then goes on to say "These habitual opinions of mine are indeed highly probable... it is more reasonable to believe than to deny them."
Yes, and not just him. Berkeley, Hume, Locke, and Kant did as well, some to more degrees than the other, just to name a few. If you'd like, I could create a long list of philosophers who have conteded that the hands, eyes, and blood they see aren't as they appear to be.
I appreciate you disagree with them, but to the extent your disagreement rests upon your claim that they were simply disingenuous, there's no proof of that, and the argument is entirely an as hom.
Quoting Ciceronianus
But your first paragraph here shifts from the second. In the first, you ask about illusions, in the second, you ask about existence itself. You can hypothesize about illusions, but not of existence. Existence is not a property that can be hypothesized about without entailing a contradiction.
To clarify between a meaningful hypothetical and a meaningless one:
Meaningful: "Officer, assume the witness claiming to observe the murder was a hallucinating paranoid schizophrenic, do you still believe him?
Meaningless: "Officer, assume the witness claiming to observe the murder didn't exist, do you still believe him?"
The point is Descartes did not believe he had no hands etc. He found himself capable of doubting he had hands etc, on the strength of the possibility that he might be dreaming, it might be a trick played on him by the ED and so on. He went through the process of identifying everything he could possibly doubt in order to see what he could not possibly doubt.
"Pretend" for the sake of speculation? contemplation? discussion? 'spiritual exercise'? Yes, of course.
"Is there something rather than nothing"? (Re: 99.99% of every thing consists of empty space according to modern physics and ancient atomists pretend there are "atoms and void" (with the latter encompassing the former.)) Pseudo-question, if you ask me, that's been way too fashionable for too long.
Category error, counselor. You just claimed it's a "philosophical question" and now you're implicitly comparing it (negatively) to a "scientific answer". No bueno, señor.
It means we're using "nothing" is a non-ordinary way that requires some clarifying speciificity. Otherwise, "nothing" doesn't mean anything sensible.
Do you have grounds to question "what you know"? Or grounds to reject "what you know"? If in both cases you don't, then the question is moot.
Do we have grounds to question "we know we don't know what we know"? Or grounds to reject "we know we don't know what we know"? If in both cases we don't, then the question is moot.
Perhaps "what we know" is subconscious or that we are mistaken that we know "what we know".
My guess is that our skills for learning would be more explicit, even reflective, and self-corrective.
Dialectics (well, some of us ...) :wink:
What I was trying to say is that if no scientific answer is sought, it would appear no real answer is sought, i.e. that it's a pseudo-question, as you note.
Quoting 180 Proof
Or, I think, that you "pretend" there are grounds, though there are none.
Quoting 180 Proof
But in that case we wouldn't know. But when we do know, how do we know we know? I don't think this is a real question unless it relates to the process by which we ascertained something is the case, or perhaps something like a neurological answer regarding what takes place.
How's this then: They claim to have no hands (or eyes, etc.) or to doubt they do, despite the fact that the see them, feel them, use them, and in every way act as if they know they have them and do not doubt that they do. But perhaps you don't think they acted as if they had hands or believed they had them.
Regarding a pertinent hypothetical, I think this is more apt: "Doctor, assume an Evil Demon has caused you to think the plaintiff exists, and is your patient, and that you have treated him, but all this is but an illusion. In that case, would it be your opinion the plaintiff has sustained a permanent injury?"
Of course, Descartes isnt trying to find out if a person who is mentally deranged can perform a cognitive task(like determining if someone has suffered a permanent injury ) , when the derangement would
precisely preclude such a performance. Descartes isnt stupid, so why are you trying to make him sound stupid? Let’s elevate the ‘cognitive’ level of this discussion a bit, and update Descartes’ hypothetical. Schizophrenics, like perhaps the doctor in your example, often hear voices in their heads telling them to do things or making assertions of fact. One could say that such derangement is in some
respect what Descartes had in mind with his evil genius hypothetical. The question for Descartes is how deep such derangement runs. Is there nothing indubitable for the Schizophrenic, not even their sense of self? Research has shown that people can distinguish between a sense of agency and a sense of ownership of thoughts. That is , voice hearers may recognize that a voice is coming from their own head, but not believe that they willed the voice.
Some philosophers interpret this to mean that the sense of self is constructed and not indubitable. Others claim that even in the case of voice hearers there is an indubitable minimal feeling of self-consciousness. Something like this is what Descartes was after, a core notion self in the form of the ‘I think’ that could be considered immune to doubt.
If Descartes had used the modern example of a schizophrenic instead of a person deranged by an evil genius would you have no longer considered his example ‘pretend’?
The question hinges upon the correlation between the perceived and the actual, so your questioning how hands, eyes, and any other object you might choose exists is ambiguous without clarifying which worldview you accept. If you accept the view of the direct realist, the two are the same (i.e. the hand you see is the hand there is). If not, you don't (i.e. the hand you see is distinct from the hand there is). Unless you are a direct realist, the question of doubt that exists between the perceived and actual remains critical and it for that reason you have a good number of philosophers who inject the skepticism you object to. Your objection arises entirely because you reject their worldview, but that does not make them disingenuous in their skepticism.
Your last sentence is a shift away from metaphysics insofar as you cease attempting to decipher the nature of reality and instead turn toward pragmatism. Again, I think that shift just ignores the question of what the composition of reality is and it instead asks how do we react to certain stimuli.
Quoting Ciceronianus
That we don't engage in such extreme doubt in every day matters doesn't mean that asking such questions in other contexts doesn't yield important distinctions and understanding. It is conceded that no one delays their day to day interactions in order to reconfirm their corporeal existence, but that again is a reference to pragmatism. That is, the fact that attorneys don't try to reestablish reality as a foundational matter before asking more specific questions doesn't make me pause and wonder whether Descartes, Hume, Berkely, Locke, and Kant really had anything meaningful to say.
I'm with Peirce when it comes to Descartes, and I think the same criticism applies to others. He calls it self-deception, I call it pretending. It is of course done with a purpose in mind. That purpose may be very worthy. But see the last sentence of the following quote. That's what I feel philosophers have been doing, doubting while philosophizing what they don't doubt in their actual lives.
"We cannot begin with complete doubt. We must begin with all the prejudices which we actually have when we enter upon the study of philosophy. These prejudices are not to be dispelled by a maxim, for they are things which it does not occur to us can be questioned. Hence this initial skepticism will be a mere self-deception, and not real doubt; and no one who follows the Cartesian method will ever be satisfied until he has formally recovered all those beliefs which in form he has given up. It is, therefore, as useless a preliminary as going to the North Pole would be in order to get to Constantinople by coming down regularly upon a meridian. A person may, it is true, in the course of his studies, find reason to doubt what he began by believing; but in that case he doubts because he has a positive reason for it, and not on account of the Cartesian maxim. Let us not pretend to doubt in philosophy what we do not doubt in our hearts." C.S. Peirce, Some Consequences of Four Incapacities
That's what Descartes said. :rofl:
In supposing the Evil Deceiver, Descartes is presenting a counter to the logic of Anselm where we can only conceive of what we are given the ability to conceive. So, if there is a limit to the utility of doubt, it has to be approached from a different starting point than something like: 'we are not the source of our ideas.'
The purpose of having a method is that we actually are the source of some ideas.
He also said this in his First Meditation, as I noted above.--"I shall then suppose, not that God who is supremely good and the fountain of truth, but some evil genius not less powerful than deceitful, has employed his whole energies in deceiving me; I shall consider that the heavens, the earth, colours, figures, sound, and all other external things are nought but the illusions and dreams of which this genius has availed himself in order to lay traps for my credulity; I shall consider myself as having no hands, no eyes, no flesh, no blood, nor any senses, yet falsely believing myself to possess all these things"
I guess he was pretending, then.
Peirce said that by the way, not me.
I know, sorry about the misquote. It's just not a criticism of Descartes.
The self-deception that Peirce had in mind is akin to, and indebted to, the self-deception that Kant revealed the Cartesian certainty to rest on. Every new philosophical system that comes down the pike defines itself via its critical relation to a philosophy that came before it. Put differently, the new philosophy exposes as self-deception what had been take to be indubitable within the older view. This is not unlike the way newer scientific theories falsify older ones. Which doesn’t mean the older theories were pretending.
I think you'd like Descartes. He's saying we don't need the Church as a foundation for knowledge. It was a step on the right direction.
No more than philosophers of mind are pretending when they invoke derangements of cognitions such as schizophrenia and then ask if there is anything left of the sense of self that the deranged mind can rely on. Schizophrenics offers lose their sense of boo derives between their body and the world outside of it. They literally lose their hands, eyes, flesh, etc and believe themselves inanimate or indefinable, and may imagine this to be the result of an evil power.
It's a reference to what we do, and are, and think, and believe, and confirm every day of our lives. I don't know what you mean by "pragmatism", but for me, if we in doing philosophy claim to doubt what we do, and are, and think, and believe, and confirm every day of our lives, we're pretending to do so, as as our own conduct, our own lives, establish that we don't doubt that at all.
Well, we shouldn't entirely disregard the fact that in that case, they're considering the effects of a disease or condition they don't doubt exists on an actual person they don't doubt exists.
It's certainly true I'd agree with him about that.
If we are good philosophers, we should doubt those things, because there are many brain conditions that show us what we at one time thought to be indubitable are merely relative , contingent constructions of mind. Phenomenologist talk about the naive attitude we normally use to encounter the world, in which it’s assumed certainly is not doubted. There point is that if anything is ‘pretend’ it is the assumption of the certainty of the world, not the doubting of it. If you don’t doubt it , then you are deceiving yourself. Or more precisely, you are confusing a relative and contingent construction of mind with a certainty.
It may be useful in some sense to pretend to doubt for a particular purpose, just as it may be useful in some sense to pretend to be or do something we aren't or don't do for a particular purpose. But we should know we're pretending in that case, and I think the purposes for which we pretend would be fairly limited.
As a good phenomenologist I begin by doubting the unquestioned existence of the world , including other persons.
“The epoche creates a unique sort of philosophical solitude which is the fundamental methodical requirement for a truly radical philosophy. In this solitude I am not a single individual who has somehow willfully cut himself off from the society of mankind, perhaps even for theoretical reasons, or who is cut off by accident, as in a shipwreck, but who nevertheless knows that he still belongs to that society. I am not an ego, who still has his you, his we, his total community of co-subjects in natural validity. All of mankind, and the whole distinction and ordering of the personal pronouns, has become a phenomenon within my epoche; and so has the privilege of I-the- man among other men. “(Husserl, Crisis, p.184)
Which is why Descartes wasn’t pretending, any more than researchers are pretending when they use what they learn from pathological conditions to shed legitimate doubt on capacities they previously thought to be unquestionable.
Quoting Ciceronianus
From Wiki:
"Charles Sanders Peirce (/p??rs/[8][9] PURSS; September 10, 1839 – April 19, 1914) was an American philosopher, logician, mathematician and scientist who is sometimes known as "the father of pragmatism"."
You're quoting the father of pragmatism yet aren't sure why I'd be interpreting your position as pragmatism?
Quoting Ciceronianus
Is the point of using this strained meaning of "pretending" to disparage the position to imply an intentional dishonesty? I get up every day expecting the sun to rise so that I can go about my day. I act just like it rises and greet the rising sun as if it had risen, totally pretending as if it rose.
It turns out the earth is spinning and the sun is sitting still. Sometimes things aren't as they appear. Who'd have thunk? Maybe I should question other things, or would I be accused of pretending?
Quoting Joshs
A bit too Oedipal (or p0m0) for my tastes ... but true often enough.
With what limited understanding I have of pragmatism from Rorty, I think, what you allude to @Ciceronianus is an attempt to elucidate something greater than a dead or defunct methodology in attempting to understand the same issues that bother the mind's of many philosophers.
My understanding of the issue is that you're perverting what Dewey might have stated in that we only think when confronted with a problem. Is that accurate in your view?
Philosophy is very broad. Laws and constitutions are built on philosophical foundations. Philosophy includes questions of moral responsibility, human rights, the scope of state powers. The answers to the questions can affect lives and deaths. So this is not just play. Whether philosophy helps or not is another question. I suspect that when tyranny is being planned then philosophy is ineffective. But that's different from being unserious.
Sorry to take so long to respond. I was (ever so sincerely) doubting my hands exist, and questioning whether, if they did, they could use this (apparent) keyboard on which I may or may not be typing, for some time now. I've decided, after serious thought, that it doesn't matter in the least.
Don't you think that lawyers pretend as well? This very moment, I'm pretending I care what you think about lawyers. What wonders will I learn from this pursuit?
I'm sure that Descartes was very sincere in his insincerity. I'm also confident that he, like Hume as Cuthbert noted, understood his faux doubt to be ridiculous when he stopped philosophizing. When philosophizing, he seriously pretended he had no hands, eyes, etc. He did that for a purpose. That's what I mean when I say pretended.
I think he was misguided in doing so. You may, if you wish, think he really believed he had no hands, etc., and only very slowly and laboriously convinced himself that he did indeed have them, but I don't.
Quoting Shawn
I think you have very limited understanding of Classical Pragmatism if what you understand is derived from Rorty.
Quoting Shawn
I positively seethe with perversity. But I don't pervert what someone "might have" said. That would be silly and pointless--to pervert what might or might not have been said. If it had not been said, there would be nothing to pervert.
It happens Dewey indeed said that (although I paraphrase). You may find that out for yourself if you manage to convince yourself there is an Internet and you can access it. I happen to agree with him. And with Peirce that what he calls "self-deception" on the part of Descartes shouldn't be indulged in.
Yes.
Quoting Hanover
I quoted a definition of "pretend" in the OP. I think it applies. I think it's possible to pretend without being intentionally "dishonest." When I say Descartes was pretending when he assumed there was an Evil Demon, and all that entailed as he described it, I'm saying he didn't believe there was an Evil Demon, nor did he believe had no hands, eyes, etc. Do you think he believed in the Demon, and that he had no hands, or eyes and all else he said was entailed by the Demon's illusion? If you don't, I agree with you. If you do, I think there's a problem.
For me, this merely shows how clumsy, how awkward, how incoherent we become when we try to make explain the ineffable in words, as philosophy.
It doesn't do anything so useful and worthy when it entails questioning the existence of the "external world" or asking why there's something whether than nothing and such inconclusive, unresolvable chestnuts (meaning, "something repeated to the point of staleness").
I think he believed it possible he were so deceived.
I dont think so. I think you’re directly contradicting Peirce. From the quote you citied, Peirce is suggesting Descartes sincerely believed in his method of radical doubt, and that his was an unintentional self-deception This is the opposite of what you’re claiming, which is that it was a deliberate self-deception, in the same way that Kant’s categorical imperative may be a self-deception. . Never does Pierce suggest that deliberate “pretending” is involved in the hypothetical of the Evil demon , which is the core of the OP.
To me this shows what happens when we go on first impressions rather than bothering to read the background material.
Descartes believed in God , and what’s more, he believed in a god that placed the faculty of perfect reason in our heads, via the pineal gland. Now, if one can believe in a god with such powers, one must also entertain the possibility ( which is quite different than pretending, since we’re not talking about a fantasy, but about a scenario that in Descartes’ mind could not be ruled out) that such an all powerful Being could manipulate those faculties to deceive us. In fact, isnt the god’s very placement of faculties of perfect reason already a manipulation? Is what you’re
really trying to argue here that the belief in a god who tells us how to think must be considered ‘pretend’?
Alright, I confess. All this time I've been seeking to undermine belief in God.
Does it also show that you shouldn't quote someone without quoting the "background material" as well, and then complain that the person you provided the quote to hasn't bothered to read the "background material"? By all means, quote all of Husserl and the work of all phenomenologists. I'll let you know when I'm done reading, but you can check on my progress now and then if you like.
Sounds like a reasonable project to me.
Ok.
I think lawyers do it for differing reasons or even financial motivations. The motivation for a philosopher to pretend would be only to engage similarly as in physics with thought experiments over the nature of the world.
What kind of pretending do lawyers have to do as a living to play devils advocate or be called accusers doesn't seem interesting to debate over.
Quoting Ciceronianus
Well, if Peirce called it self-deception at his time, and with it Hume told us to disregard metaphysics, which seems to always be a common theme that you bring up about the nature of philosophy isn't really interesting to pretend about nowadays with the linguistic turn and stuff like that.
Quoting Ciceronianus
He used a hypothetical doubt to construct a foundation for knowledge. And he wrote afterwards about his meditations. One can of course doubt the construction of his doubt. Let's pretend there is a devil deceiver???
If "If" is equivalent to "Let's pretend", then every argument can be recast as "let's pretend {premises}, then {conclusion}. The interesting question, then, is "is there more to philosophy than argument?" I certainly hope so!
Quoting Ciceronianus
Quoting Janus
I re-post this, which you (perhaps conveniently?) failed to respond to previously.
Let's consider the definition of "doubt."
Macmillan Dictionary (online)
"to think that something is probably not true or that it probably does not exist
to think that something is unlikely"
From Dictionary.com:
"to be uncertain about; consider questionable or unlikely; hesitate to believe
verb
to be uncertain about something; be undecided in opinion or belief:
noun
a feeling of uncertainty about the truth, reality, or nature of something:
a general feeling of uncertainty, worry, or concern:
As soon as I'd dropped out of school to become a full-time musician, I was full of doubt—what if I’d made a terrible mistake?
Set your doubts aside, and listen to my business idea with an open mind."
From Collins English Dictionary (online):
"1. VARIABLE NOUN
If you have doubt or doubts about something, you feel uncertain about it and do not know whether it is true or possible.
2. TRANSITIVE VERB
If you doubt whether something is true or possible, you believe that it is probably not true or possible.
3. TRANSITIVE VERB
If you doubt something, you believe that it might not be true or genuine.
4. TRANSITIVE VERB
If you doubt someone or doubt their word, you think that they may not be telling the truth."
As you say Descartes did not believe he had no hands, I assume you think he believed he had hands. By saying he was nonetheless able to doubt he did have hands, are you saying:
He believed he had hands, but was uncertain he had hands?
He believed he had hands but thought it probably not true he had hands?
He believed he had hands but thought it questionable he had hands?
He believed he had hands but thought it unlikely he had hands?
He believed he had hands but believed it might not be true he had hands?
He believed he had hands but hesitated to believe it true he had hands?
If not, you should reconsider your use of the word "doubt." If so, you must think Descartes to have been a very frightened, undecided and confused man.
Personally I've likened philosophy to figuring out detailed and rational definitions to what we already use daily. What is "good"? What is "meaning"? It asks us to examine the words we've been using without thinking about them, and finally thinking about them.
The process of thinking involves imagination, and thought experiments. How else would a hypothesis be formed in science? The same goes for a premise in philosophy. A fine philosophical question by the way!
The imagination is not a state: it is the human existence itself.
William Blake
P. S.
I rest not from my great task! | To open the Eternal Worlds, | to open the immortal Eyes of Man | Inwards into the Worlds of Thought; | Into eternity, ever expanding | In the Bosom of God, | The Human Imagination
Are you offended that Descartes had thoughts that he didn’t have to?
I tend to agree - to an extent. Debates on abortion, outside academic philosophy, quickly go to topics such as personal identity, the nature of consciousness, the possibility of knowing other people's perceptions, free will and responsibility. On the one hand, Wittgenstein talking about beetles in boxes and G E Moore speculating that he might not have eaten an egg for breakfast. On the other, demonstrations outside clinics. There is a connection - I submit.
No. I don't find anything he did (that I know of) offensive. I think he never, really, thought that an Evil Demon was fooling him, or that he thought he had no hands, no eyes, or that he thought any of things he said he would assume didn't exist didn't, in fact, exist. I don't find that offensive. I merely think it was a pretense.
"Imagining a scenario" sounds quite a bit like pretending, to me. I suppose you may say that Descartes "imagined" he had no hands if you'd like to or even "imagined" doubting he had no hands. What I contend, though, and what it seems several people disagree with, for reasons unclear to me, is that he never actually doubted he had hands; he always believed he had hands; he always thought he had hands. Like "pretending," "imagining" something to be the case isn't believing it to be the case.
That's right; he never believed he had no hands, but recognized that the belief that he had hands was not ineliminable across the whole range of imaginable scenarios; whereas the belief that he had beliefs was ineliminable across all imaginable scenarios. I'm struggling to see what your point has been. Are you accusing him of disingenuously pretending to honestly believe he had no hands, or what?
Quoting Ciceronianus
He didnt claim they didn’t exist, he hypthosized that they could possibly not exist, that he might possibly be deceived about their existence. Do you think this was an important idea for him to convey , an idea deserving of analysis within thousands of doctoral
dissertations written over the past few hundred years? Tell me how much stronger Descartes’ argument would have been had he eliminated reference to the ED ( must be getting old. I keep reading this as ‘erectile dysfunction’).
I'm saying he pretended to have no hands (and so on). I'm unsure how to make this any clearer. He entertained a faux doubt--he feigned doubt--for the purpose of justifying the fact he never had any doubt in the first place. But, to put it simply, we don't doubt what we don't doubt. We don't resolve doubt when we have no doubt. We may be able to resolve our doubt when we actually doubt, by addressing the reasons for our real doubt and determining whether they have any basis. Resolution is obtained when we no longer feel any doubt.
Descartes never felt any doubt he had hands. There was nothing to resolve or explain. He would never have come to the conclusion that he had no hands, or that his doubt he had hands was justified. The conclusion was never in question. There was no question to be addressed, and the answer was "fixed." I think that entertaining pseudo-questions isn't beneficial.
OK, I don't know if you have read Descartes, but you seem to fairly thoroughly misunderstand his project. I don't know what else to say to you about it, so I guess I'll leave it there.
I can't say I do, sorry. I fear there's nothing I can do about those doctoral dissertations, but I don't think I'm alone in thinking philosophers have been addressing pseudo-questions for centuries, so it isn't surprising that such dissertations were written.
Quoting Joshs
That's difficult to do, as I don't think he needed to argue that he had hands. I don't think there was an reason to think he didn't. However, if the question was raised, e.g. if someone claimed he had no hands, or that he should doubt their existence, in his place I would have asked--"Why?" And have addressed the feebleness of the responses made.
You’re wrong. Descartes had reason to doubt he had hands. I imagine if you were to ask him point blank what odds he would give that he had no hands he would say something like 1/10th of 1% or less, probably much less. That is not certainty of having hands, that is exceedingly strong confidence of having hands. The point isnt the percentage of doubt. It is that there is no way to exclude at least a smidgeon of doubt, due to the possibility that one’s faculties of cognitive judgement have been deranged. That is a vital and important point to make about where cognitive certainty and doubt come from, especially when it is contrasted with what he claimed one can be indubitably, 100% certain about in cognition.
Well, if you think we have "reason to doubt" in any case absent absolute certainty, then I think you've accepted a very peculiar definition of "doubt" which admits of no reasonable discussion of it given its definition.
I get the impulse to say that Descartes was conjuring a pseudo-problem, and ‘solving’ this so-called problem is offered to the over-educated as a pointless game they can play in their ivory tower. I’ve had such feelings about philosophy, and I’d guess most have.
But I find myself wanting to defend Descartes, because this was a bold act of imagination on his part, was it not? And as such, yes, something like playing — but play is serious business.
For instance, when you say
Quoting Ciceronianus
I wonder about that. For Descartes to respond imaginatively to his experience as he did — is that “distancing” himself from life, rather than another possibility of life? Is there no imagination in the life and in the world you suggest are our proper study?
And more than that: by imagining other possibilities, he can, as science fiction writers do, show us how the world we do live in works — not by saying it works like the world he imagines, not because his imagined world is some explanation of ours, but because he can show us, perhaps more clearly in imagination, how a world works. You have to conjure, imaginatively, a way of bringing out what is most taken for granted, what you can’t see because it’s too close. You have to, as Pound said, “make it new!”
None of this is judgment on the success of Descartes’s experiment, but I’m inclined to applaud the attempt, and his use of imagination.
Philosophy (in the past at least, and it seems for some now) cherished certainty and perfection. Philosophers sought immutable truth, beauty and goodness. They treated the "real world" and ordinary day-to-day life as imperfect and consequently inferior, unhelpful in seeking the absolute. For example, they thought that cases of mistakes in perception established our senses could not be trusted as sources of knowledge in any case regardless of whether they could be explained by circumstances and conditions that applied. They thought dreams indicate we can't tell for sure whether we're asleep or awake at all times. They ignored context, perhaps because they thought context was the world and the world just wasn't good enough.
I think that's what Descartes and other philosophers thought. That allowed them to ignore the fact that moment to moment their existence and conduct established they didn't harbor any reasonable doubt they had hands, or that there was an "external world." Instead, they thought they had to justify the fact they didn't doubt what they didn't doubt, instead of inquiring whether there was any reasonable basis for doubt in the first place. They were befuddled, in other words.
But it's not always a cut-and-dried distinction - the one between questions and pseudo-questions. Wars have been fought over this. In fact a war of a kind is underway right now. I mean, between people who know or think they know what sex they are, regardless of what kind of body they have, and people who think or know that our sex is (usually) as much beyond discussion and doubt as (usually, again) our possession of hands.
I think that's more a dispute over the definition of "sex." As far as I know, there's no dispute regarding the definition of "hands." But in all honesty, I don't know much about the "war" you mention.
I get that, and I get wanting to call that a “retreat from life” or something, but of course it’s not — there’s no such thing. It’s just another way of living. What you can do is point out how this way of living works, and how it differs from other ways, what enables it, and so on. But don’t take them at their word.
Maybe an example would be clearer. Suppose you know someone who believes in an afterlife, and they explain to you that they give no thought to their temporary stay here on earth but only to the eternal life to come. Now you could, as someone who does not believe in an afterlife, tell them that they are giving up earthly rewards for nothing, since nothing is waiting for them in the afterlife. Or you could point out that believing in an afterlife is a particular way of living here on earth, that it’s simply not true that they give no thought to this life but only to the eternal life to come: they give it enough thought to arrange this life in a particular way, as a preparation for the eternal life, and we can see them living that sort of life, in accordance with that idea, right here, right now.
That’s also what scientists like Galileo and Newton , artists and poets prior to the Romantic era, and political theorists thought. That’s what the Enlightenment was about, an idea of rationality as making possible the perfection of empirical and social knowledge. Philosophical eras are reactions against previous thinking. Enlightenment rationalism was a rejection of medieval scholasticism and its anti-empirical bent. So relative to what came before it , Cartesianism was hardly a dismissing of the
real world’. On the contrary, it inaugurated an era of questioning of inherited assumptions about reality.
As is always the case, philosophers in the post-Enlightenment era have led the way in rejecting the ideals of perfection, the absolute and certainty. So your critique of philosophy is really only the critique of the philosophy of a certain era, and along with it every other field of cultural endeavor of that era. Its fault was that it didn’t go far enough in rejecting Medieval platonism.
Quoting Ciceronianus
Not the Church, but philosophers. Why did they ignore Descartes' explanations as to what he wished to achieve with his texts, and instead took him as "one of their own", ie. a secular philosopher seeking the truth?
Descartes did not merely pretend ED.
He supposed ED, and lo and behold: this supposition is as consistent with our observations as our default presumption of a stable, mind independent world.
This is a nontrivial result. It reframes our knowledge of a stable, mind independent external world. It is not absolute certainty, but rather, presumption. No matter how likely we might feel this presumption to be, it cannot be confirmed with certainty, since whatever observation we can imagine, ED explains this observation equally well.
This underpins our modern understanding of science, that every theory is provisional in principle. This extends to our pragmatic, mundane lives: we cannot explain any phenomena definitively, another explanation may always come along which explains the same thing equally well, or better.
Quoting Ciceronianus
Where did you find this? I don't recall saying such a thing, and the comment I'm directed to doesn't seem to contain it.
[quote="hypericin;636170"0]This underpins our modern understanding of science, that every theory is provisional in principle. This extends to our pragmatic, mundane lives: we cannot explain any phenomena definitively, another explanation may always come along which explains the same thing equally well, or better.[/quote]
So, our "modern understanding of science" is that it supports the existence of an Evil Demon as much as any other explanation of our observations? I don't think so.
You seem to be on the "quest for certainty." No certainty, no basis for judgment. I think that's something very different from an acknowledgement that new evidence may require an adjustment in judgments made. That acknowledgement doesn't mean we must believe that any theory, no matter how well-tested, no matter how well it fits the evidence, is no more preferable than any other. If so, the belief we're hatched from eggs by the will of God is just as reasonable as any other explanation of our existence.
If your view is the prevailing view, it's no wonder people won't take vaccines for fear of microchips or turning gay, and believe Trump won the 2020 election.
This was my addition to your list, sorry I thought it was obvious.
Quoting Ciceronianus
Not "as much as".
Quoting Ciceronianus
Funny, this strikes me as your attitude. You are the one who is conflating doubt with disbelief.
Certainty is what Descartes teaches us we must abandon. But this does not make all theories equal. There are any number of reasons why we might prefer one theory over another. I greatly prefer stable, mind independent objects, over ED. But we cannot be certain, that is just the condition we have to live with.
Quoting Ciceronianus
Even if we could somehow shoehorn this theory to fit all observations, the resulting model would be so baroquely complex we would reject it. But so long as it really does match observation, it cannot be eliminated with certainty.
Ah well, nothing wrong with deliberately misquoting someone, is there? And the list was meant to provide examples of what it is to "doubt" the existence of one's hands according to the definition of that word. I don't doubt my hands exist, nor did Descartes, by that definition, so nothing on that list was an expression of an opinion on my part. You managed to not only attribute to me something I never said, but misrepresent my opinion.
Quoting hypericin
Is there any basis for this preference? One which makes it more likely to be correct than ED, for example?
Quoting hypericin
Why should we care whether a theory fits all observations? What if it fit most observations, as opposed to theories which fit none at all?
Lucky you. It's dismal. The relevance, I'm arguing, is that as well as all the heat and dust there is a metaphysical question or doubt, although not the same as Descartes's doubt. One proposition is that, given all that can be known about a person's body and its history, their sex may be inferred, if it can be inferred at all. Another view is that such a proposition is false. On the contrary, it is believed, any amount of information about a person's body is insufficient to establish their sex with certainty; and such information is indeed not even necessary. The 'war' is real enough: passions are raised, careers threatened and relationships broken. Perhaps this is a case where we have not enough in the way of general metaphysics outlining at least the possible grounds for agreement and difference. Far from being a waste of time the speculations could contribute to making peace. Anyway, nothing else seems to be working.
One of my daughters has scolded me for being confused by the term "non-binary" and finding it difficult to remember to refer to someone as "they" or "them." I like to think this is more the result of being old than being a bigot.
I can see this as being an issue in law, and know it has been to an extent in the case of restrooms, but haven't had to deal with it yet. I look forward to it being addressed by our Supreme Court, after it has dealt with abortion, again. [Irony warning] Since it's determined speech includes money paid, I'd think it would be able to handle this area with ease.
:roll: Don't be so dense.
My point is that your list was incomplete. My version is the sense in which Descartes would doubt he had hands, were he to do so.
Quoting Ciceronianus
Yes. Its sheer arbitrariness, for one.
And, the quantity of additional theory which is required to flesh out this universe. It must posit godlike beings (or being, in the solipsistic version) capable of sustaining this unfathomably complex delusion of only apparently stable objects. What is their biology? What is our own, since all we know of ours is just illusion? Are they supernatural, which would require an entirely new physics to account for?
These reasons are not definitive. They can't be, since we in principle cannot be certain it is not true.
Quoting Ciceronianus
If it fits most observations, then something must be wrong with the theory, or with the observations. If it fits none, then the theory is just nonsense.
Ah, "in principle." Happily, absolute certainty doesn't matter in practice, which is to say that it's disregarded, just as we disregard in practice any pretended "question" regarding the existence of our hands.
Maybe you've just got the wrong forum? People have lived perfectly successful, pragmatic lives without raising a single philosophical question.
And, don't forget, "Do we have hands?" Or eyes, noses, feet, etc. "Are our hands really out there? Do we really know we have hands?"
Wittgenstein may have been right when he claimed that a good and serious philosophical work could consist entirely of jokes. Cicero may have been right when we wrote that there's nothing so absurd that some philosopher hasn't already said it. Being fond of the Classical Pragmatists, I may have a different idea of what constitutes philosophical topics than you do.
Do you have hands, by the way? I assume you're not certain you do. But how could you tell, in any case, "non-pragmatically"?
Yes, the law will decide. The link I am making to Descartes is on the question of 'what can be doubted?' Knowing someone's complete physiology, present and past, does it make sense to doubt their sex? Some say very insistently, no, it makes no sense, because the sex can be read off the physiology with certainty. Others say most stridently, yes, because a person's sex is determined not by observation of others but by that person's self-perception. The law, in deciding, will need to grapple with the metaphysics. If it doesn't do so explicitly and with argument, then it will do so implicitly and with unquestioned assumptions. It's a case for philosophy of law, not just for law. If the law-makers ever get round to consulting a philosopher I would bet that the name of Descartes will surface at some point in the discussion.
I'm not sure how much I'm devil's advocating here because I share your impatience with apparently meaningless questions, brains in vats and other distractions. But increasingly I see how these tangles can be a cause of real life problems and I have more sympathy for the ivory tower puzzles than I used to feel.
I think it will be more a matter of definition--the presence or absence of one--at least in the case of the law where I practice. When a word is defined by the law (as in a statute containing definitions of words used) that definition is accepted. The meaning of the word is clear, and it isn't subject to interpretation. Law is subject to interpretation only when it's ambiguous (where reasonable persons may disagree on meaning).
If it isn't defined by the law, recourse may be had to dictionary definitions, and, again, if the meaning is clear, there's no opportunity for interpretation. If the meaning of the word in itself or in context is ambiguous, then courts may interpret the law. That may be done based on legislative history if it exists, comparing the law with other, similar, laws in which the word is used, looking to case law interpreting other laws--there are rules of statutory construction which are followed by courts. Meanings of words, which can change over time and in circumstances, are significant, not metaphysical questions regarding the existence of an external world. You may say metaphysical assumptions are built into the meaning of words, and in a trivial way (as far as the law is concerned) that may be true. The law generally is committed to the existence of an "external world." You won't find me, or I think any lawyer, citing Descartes as an authority in a court proceeding.
Chances are that in a court, those people who assume there may be an Evil Demon or that there's no certainty we have hands won't be considered "reasonable." Depending on the matter before the court, they may be not only considered but adjudged incompetent.
True. I am talking about the philosophical bases of law and law-making rather than legal practice. But you will find philosophers dealing with legal concepts and lawyers who do philosophy. I'm thinking of Mary Warnock, for example, her work on education of children with disabilities (1970 Education Act). Abortion, passim. Human rights law. etc.
I’m curious. Would you consider the following to be an example of “let’s pretend”?
“…entirely honest, sincere and unaffected, because unprepense, meditation upon the Idea of God, into which the Play of Musement will inevitably sooner or later lead, and which by developing a deep sense of the adorability of that Idea, will produce a Truly religious Belief in His Reality and His nearness. It is a reasonable argument, because it naturally results in the most intense and living determination (Bestimmung) of the soul toward shaping the Muser's whole conduct into conformity with the Hypothesis that God is Real and very near; and such a determination of the soul in regard to any proposition is the very essence of a living Belief in such proposition. “
Musement, you mean? I've always been interested in Peirce's Neglected Argument for the Existence of God. But no, I don't think he was pretending, as he wasn't purporting to doubt what he didn't doubt.
I don't think "Lets Pretend" is the same as "it could be."
:up:
Pretend: behave so as to make it appear that something is the case when in fact it is not.
"I closed my eyes and pretended I was asleep"
Assume: suppose to be the case, without proof.
"topics which assume detailed knowledge of local events"
---
There's a subtle difference between pretend and assume.
Philosophy is assumption-based and so, philosophy can't be a game of let's pretend!
Of course, if we put ourselves in explore mode, pretending is not just permissible but in fact necessary. Truth isn't the only game in town now is it? We may fantasize, lead fictional lives, immerse ourselves in RPGs, escapism is healthy.