I went hunting for some ethics papers last month because of the dearth of ethics papers. I didn't post them in time to be considered last month, nor this month, but seeing as I'm behind the times on both I thought I'd go ahead and post the pdf's I found online here for future consideration:
I also obtained permission from Sally Markowitz to make a .pdf of her paper which argues in favor of abortion with respect to feminist values -- something which I find interesting because most discussions of abortion focus on the morality of the act, but she defers said discussion on the basis of her political orientation, saying that the moral discussion can't take place until this wider issue is addressed. (Reversing the hierarchy of values, in the popular sense).
Just finished exams on Thursday so looking forward to getting involved in this conversation now that I have more time.
I read Foot's paper a month ago, it's a very easy read. I have a horrible memory so this summary may leave out some of the ideas.
Foot takes aim at the hypothetical/categorical imperative dichotomy. She argues that just because something is not a hypothetical imperative (HI) does not imply is a categorical imperative (CI). The example she uses is that of a club rule or etiquette. These aren't HI because we don't have a goal we are trying to achieve when we keep them, they also aren't CI as it's not irrational to break the rules.
After this she argues that since it's not always irrational to break moral rules either, they too are not CI.
Ooo, that Foot article (which I voted for), reminds me of another that might make for good reading the month after: G. E. M. Anscombe's Modern Moral Philosophy. Wanted to read both for a long time now.
"Morality as a System of Hypothetical Imperatives" by Philippa Foot
(Nope. Looked at some summaries and skimmed the actual paper. Not very exciting. Looks like typical Pragmatist sleight-of-hand)
"Merely Cultural" by Judith Butler
(Nope. Fuck Judith Butler and everyone who looks like her.)
"The Physics and Metaphysics of Biosemiotics" by H. H. Pattee
(Nope. Too trendy, and seems to have "Hofstadter Disease.")
"Concepts and Objects" by Ray Brassier
(Yes! This is some good stuff. Accessible to people from different schools, fundamental, relatively short, and focused on big-picture issues. Gets my vote.)
"How to Define Consciousness: And how Not to Define Consciousness" by Max Velmans
(Nope. Good observations that are well articulated, but too narrow to be fecund enough for discussion.)
"Freedom and Resentment" by Peter Strawson
(Fascinating, but I think the Brassier paper beats it.)
@StreetlightX - It reminds of a video I saw of Judith Butler talking where she mentioned she regularly gets insults thrown at her about her appearance. Gratuitous and unpleasant. Not worthy of further comment.
Reply to bert1 I actually have no idea what she looks like. But her philosophy is so vapid that I can't think of anything else to say about her. "Epicene" and "Crypt Keeper" were shots in the dark - I just kind of assume she looks like an old prune. Like Bertrand Russel, but less class.
TheWillowOfDarknessNovember 24, 2015 at 00:47#40480 likes
Reply to TheWillowOfDarkness Don't you mean "Your trans-phenomenological intersubjective consensus-reality-impacting physical re-structuring of your standpoint has been critically absorbed by your surrogate linguistic community."?
TheWillowOfDarknessNovember 24, 2015 at 01:03#40500 likes
Partly. That more or less works as a convoluted description of the interaction between our experiences and community, to create a particular culture and an individual's ideas and reactions to the world.
I like to be more succinct and direct when addressing erroneous claims of vapidness though. It helps people get over the idea that Butler's arguments are nothing more than a random collection of fancy words doing nothing more than trying to sound important.
Not asking, Pneu, Butler's clearly a lost cause for you. But I don't think it was a mere accident that you went straight for a comment about her appearance. Make of it what you will, it's not something I really want to discuss.
Aaah, who am I kidding? I'm secretly a white supremacist Nazi KKK Grand Imperial Wizard Patriarch Racist King of Oppression, and I HATE ALL FEMALE PHILOSOPHERS.
(Nope. Too trendy, and seems to have "Hofstadter Disease.")
Presuming you are referring to Douglas Hofstadter, what is his "Disease" and what are the symptoms of it that you, by implication, are suggesting that he manifests?
Simple, Hofstadter is a good writer but all of his work seems to be pop. sci. kind of work. It's accessible but usually very shallow. Like most of Pinker's popular work.
Even if this were an acceptable characterization of Hofstadter's work, from the little I have seen of Pattee's work, it is certainly not; so it seems likely that Pneumenon was referring to something else, unless you are an alternate identity of his/hers?
Reply to John I am not Pneumenon, I was merely speculating on what he may mean by the Hofstdter's disease comment. Personally, I do find his work mostly pop. sci. Its a good read, and I have learned from it but it isn't as technical as I would like it to be. The same goes for Pinker, in my opinion and for some of Dennett's work as well. Informative, but light on real explicit content. Just my two cents...
Yeah, I've never read Hofstadter, but I was away in the country for all of last week and picked up a cheap secondhand copy of I Am A Strange Loop at a market. I began reading it, and have found nothing revelatory or remarkably original in it so far, but have found it to be, as you say, well enough written and accessible to be an enjoyable diversion insofar as it offers a kind of reading 'holiday', very, very easy compared to most of the philosophical work I have read and plan to read.
Anyway I still cannot see much of a tie-in with Pattee's work.
CiceronianusNovember 24, 2015 at 17:21#41180 likes
I was so hoping that Peirce's How to Make our Ideas Clear might somehow be chosen, even though it wasn't included among the options, as a kind of deadening surprise. Or an essay by Vidal or Mencken, just for fun. But no.
As for Judith Butler, she looks precisely like a gender theorist should look. It was explained to me recently what a non-binary is. There, now I've used "non-binary" in a sentence. Living the dream of pertinence in the year 2015.
As for Judith Butler, she looks precisely like a gender theorist should look. It was explained to me recently what a non-binary is. There, now I've used "non-binary" in a sentence. Living the dream of pertinence in the year 2015.
Hey, now. The under-representation of women in philosophy means that you have to take Judith Butler seriously. Accusing me of a non-sequitur here makes you sexist.
CiceronianusNovember 24, 2015 at 22:06#41310 likes
Reply to Pneumenon So, you assume Judith Butler self-identifies as female, and you characterize her as a woman, eh? You victimize her by failing to understand the restrictive nature of the antiquated theatrical performance you oh hell who cares what she or anyone else identifies as people should just shut up about their gender and be whatever the fuck they think they are and stop telling us about it and live their lives it's not like they're important and we'll all be dead soon anyhow. Amen.
The Great WhateverNovember 24, 2015 at 23:59#41380 likes
Reply to Ciceronianus the White You know, you have a DUTY to fight for [social cause that I find important]. If you don't do that, then you're complicit in OPPRESSION. I totally don't sound like George W. Bush with this "for us or against us" rhetoric.
Maybe it might be too long, but I'm currently reading the free, online version of Metaphysics by Michael J. Loux. You can access it here. I have been thoroughly enjoying it thus far and would recommend it to anyone with a passing interest in an introduction to contemporary metaphysics.
TheWillowOfDarknessNovember 26, 2015 at 22:55#42590 likes
We never were anything more, at any time. The issue is that so many misunderstand, many of the "scientific" persuasion, what this means. It does NOT mean that everything is caused by culture, in the sense of the nature/nurture debate. Rather, it means that any state of our community is always "constructed" out by its own presence: it is there because it exists instead of something else. Here "cultural construction" refers not to a case, by rather to the presence of some manner of existing, as it's presence over something else is what formed the present situation.
With respect to our "performances," it is not their origin or cause which matters, but rather that they exist instead of another state which might have been. Here performance is not about playing out a "fake" role per se, but rather about the absence of a nature outside ourselves: the absence of a force which necessitates any state of our existence.
CiceronianusNovember 27, 2015 at 00:21#42640 likes
Reply to TheWillowOfDarkness What we are is a function of our existence as a part of, and interaction with, the rest of nature. There is no us outside of nature. What exists now is a result of that interaction. That it exists and something else does not exist tells us something about what we are and the consequences of that interaction.
TheWillowOfDarknessNovember 27, 2015 at 01:19#42750 likes
Reply to Ciceronianus the White There is more to it than that though. What we are is its own state, with its own particular description, not merely the description of the prior interactions which lead to an outcome.
In the context of social relations, where understanding is transmitted through labels and categories, this aspect is actually critical to how we identify people and communicate about them. Our understanding of what category or label someone belongs under is defined in the description we make of them.
Gender categories, for example, are "performed" because they are a descriptive act on our part. It is our act of describing someone as belonging to a particular category or label which is the social environment of someone being understood that way. Regardless of the cause of these categories, there presence is an act of our discourse, a performance of ourselves, rather than a prior interaction which has nothing to do with what we are doing. The category of "male" and "female" is the existence of us speaking and thinking a certain way about people, rather than the presence of any prior state of particular biological trait.
In this context, prior states of interaction don't actually describe the state in question. To say that a particular behaviour, trait or act of classification is caused by various interacting forces (e.g. atoms, people, desires, etc.,etc.) leaves out the caused state in question.
If we say, for example, that the categories of "male" and "female" have arisen due to a combination of various biological and environmental forces, it doesn't actually point out how those categories are the existence of our discourse. It leaves out understanding of what is happening in the moment, leaving us unable to distinguish between the existence of our discourse and something in the world. We end-up, for example, with the false impression that it is logically impossible for someone to be understood under a particular label or category because of their biological traits.
CiceronianusNovember 28, 2015 at 12:31#43820 likes
Reply to TheWillowOfDarkness We categorize, certainly. So, we categorize yet again, and claim that what we are now is a separate category, different from others like the categories male and female. That further categorization may well be useful and beneficial for certain purposes, just as our other categories may be. Or it may not. There's no special triumph or unique insight involved in the creation of another category.
TheWillowOfDarknessNovember 28, 2015 at 22:03#43940 likes
Reply to Ciceronianus the White The point is not about the creation of category. It is the fact that it is created by us, irrespective of its causal origin. Whether a category originates from "biology" and "culture," to speak in the crude terms of the nature/nurture debate (the answer is, of course, always BOTH in any instance, as every moment of human life is biology responding to a present environment), are categorisation is merely cultural (which is to say an existing aspect of human understanding and culture, rather than the necessary nature of any person).
When it comes to the questions of the ethics of categorisation, this understanding is critical. Not because creating any category is necessary any good, but rather because it enables someone to understand what the use of a category is, allowing them to avoid the naturalistic fallacy that any person must belong to any category because of some other trait they possess.
When it comes to the questions of the ethics of categorisation, this understanding is critical. Not because creating any category is necessary any good, but rather because it enables someone to understand what the use of a category is, allowing them to avoid the naturalistic fallacy that any person must belong to any category because of some other trait they possess.
All cinnamon buns are giraffes. If you answer in the negative, it will hurt my feelings.
TheWillowOfDarknessNovember 29, 2015 at 00:02#44050 likes
Pneumenon:All cinnamon buns are giraffes. If you answer in the negative, it will hurt my feelings.
That's an ugly strawman of dubious ethical intent.
The point was about how we categorise, not what any object was. We may, indeed, think of cinnamon buns under the category of giraffes.
This is entirely possible and it doesn't change either cinnamon buns nor giraffes at all. More critically, it doesn't even change our understanding of cinnamon buns and giraffes as distinct things, assuming we only alter the category we use of the object, rather than the understanding of the object itself.
So there is no "madness" at stake here, no ignoring what the world is in favour of some personal fantasy world. There is only the category we are classing someone under and whether we are respecting how they feel they ought to be classified.
In answering negative, I would not merely be hurting your feelings. I would be disrespecting you own sense of the world, of what classification you belonged to, of what you were named.
I would, Judith Butler, be classifying you under the category "queer theorist" no matter how much you thought or felt you were Pneumenon who belonged to the brigade of post-structuralist nonsense stompers. I would be calling out to the rest of society to do so too and, in response to your protests you didn't belong to these categories, to treat you as a delusional denying of human nature.
I would hurt not only your feelings, but through the actions of others, through what the thought of you for claiming you are classified as "Pneumenon" rather than "Judith Butler," your social standing, perception of you mental facilities and affect what other think you are capable of.
There is an ethical question and cost far beyond merely someone getting upset here.
I would hurt not only your feelings, but through the actions of others, through what the thought of you for claiming you are classified as "Pneumenon" rather than "Judith Butler," your social standing, perception of you mental facilities and affect what other think you are capable of.
Feelings, classifications, social standing, and perception. No reality, though.
TheWillowOfDarknessNovember 29, 2015 at 21:55#44340 likes
Pneumenon:Feelings, classifications, social standing, and perception. No reality, though.
In a sense, yes. And that is the problem with the accusation of ignoring reality. Classification is not any sort of object we are describing. There is no “reality” we are meeting when placing someone in a category. We are performing an indexical association, not describing a state of the world. The placement of someone in a category, even the “normal” categories, is not a description of any object we observe or can pick-up. There is no standard of “reality” to meet. To ask the question: “Is are classification accurate to reality?” does not make any sense. It isn’t doing this sort of descriptive work at any point. At this level, there is never any reality to our classifications, including the "normal" ones, and there never will be.
Unfortunately though, this is not what you mean. What you mean is that feelings, classifications, social standing and perception have no place in accounting our social reality, despite the fact they constitute our social existence. A position which either seeks to equivocate descriptions of social reality with something else or views them as irrelevant to analysing and talking about the world. Either way, it results in an abject failure to understand our social relationship, understanding of each other and how these interact to affect our states of experience. It seeks to ignore elements we must be interested in if we are to give an accurate account of our social relationships.
What results is a profoundly ignorant position which simultaneously treats the fictions of our classifications as if they were objects in the world (e.g. someone being classified as "male"= a body with a penis), while dismissing the existing states of our social interaction (feelings, acts of classification , social standing, perceptions) as irrelevant to giving an account of our social interactions. It is not only deeply unethical (ignoring how our social practices defined how others are treated), but is, with respect to giving descriptions of what is happening in society, anti-scientific, as it precludes talking about the exact states one needs to if they are to describe our existing social interactions.
In a sense, yes. And that is the problem with the accusation of ignoring reality. Classification is not any sort of object we are describing. There is no “reality” we are meeting when placing someone in a category. We are performing an indexical association, not describing a state of the world. The placement of someone in a category, even the “normal” categories, is not a description of any object we observe or can pick-up. There is no standard of “reality” to meet. To ask the question: “Is are classification accurate to reality?” does not make any sense. It isn’t doing this sort of descriptive work at any point. At this level, there is never any reality to our classifications, including the "normal" ones, and there never will be.
So, ah, at what point do social classifications become independent of reality? And how do we do this magic trick where we create a world that is completely separate from real things?
Unfortunately though, this is not what you mean. What you mean is that feelings, classifications, social standing and perception have no place in accounting our social reality, despite the fact they constitute our social existence.
So is our "social existence" (as opposed to the physical kind?) hermetically sealed off from the rest of reality, or is social consensus all that exists? Because if that's the case, you and I can enthusiastically agree that gravity isn't real, and then have a flying contest off the roof of the nearest bell tower. I'll go last.
TheWillowOfDarknessNovember 29, 2015 at 22:33#44370 likes
Reply to Pneumenon That's a strawman. I was referring only to classification not being about "reality" in the sense they aren't descriptions of an object of the world, such as a person's biology, what crime someone has committed or someone's test scores.
To be classified as "male" is not a description of someone having a penis. To be proclaimed a "murderer" is not description of an act of killing. To be given a grade of A is not a description of one's correct answers in a test. Any of those classifications may be given to someone who does not exist in the manner that many would (foolishly) think is necessarily implied by the classification. Each of these classifications is a different to description. We use them as shorthand to imply someone about a person we haven't actually described, it index them to a meaning we think they ought to have in society, to proclaim there significance about a person we haven't described often in the service of achieving an ethical goal rather than what is true. In reality, they are nothing more than where we have categorised someone. Description of a person who actually exists in the implied way is absent. There is no standard of "accurately describe the object" to meet with a classification.
Our social classifications are most certainly not separate from reality in the sense belonging to the set of what exists or is true. Social classifications are existing acts. They are material states, just as our acts of eating breakfast, walking to the store or listening to music are. Physical states of the world, the same as any other (i.e. a states of existence). They constitute people having a particular understanding of others, they result in people taking particular acts towards others because of their classification or social standing, they form the presence of one set of outcomes for people as opposed to any other. Social consensus is a state of the world. It is physical in kind, like any other state of the world.
Reply to TheWillowOfDarkness Spurious appeals to radical contingency and "quantum mechanics did it" don't stop the world from making sense. They also don't force reality to bend to social consensus.
CiceronianusNovember 30, 2015 at 01:52#44690 likes
IReply to TheWillowOfDarkness I doubt "irrespective" works here any more than it would as to any other category. I don't see this as a radical change, and think it's been coming about gradually. And I don't think the old categories will necessarily vanish. As long as they're useful, they'll be around. As for the new, we'll see. There's something intricate and artificial about them. I expect we'll see them used more by academics than others.
TheWillowOfDarknessNovember 30, 2015 at 03:11#44700 likes
Reply to Pneumenon The world always make sense. Sense has never been at stake because classification is a different act to description. Each classification is its own language game. They all work. Since classification doesn't describe states of the world, there is no limit to sense of classification. Anyone can be, for example, classified as "male." It is merely a question of who someone is using the category for at the time. It is all question of "ought" not "is." When we classify, we are not describing what someone is or does, but rather specifying a category by which they ought to be understood.
"Bending the world" to a social consensus has not the point nor has it been attempted. Classification is its own state, a way of thinking and acting which exists concurrently with everything else. It is a state separate to both existence of an object and the existence of someone describing an object.
TheWillowOfDarknessNovember 30, 2015 at 03:29#44710 likes
Reply to Ciceronianus the WhiteIt isn't about new or old categories. The point is, rather, about what constitutes a category and how people belong to them. What is at stake is not any particular category, but rather understanding that our categorisation of ourselves and others is its one state of existence, as opposed to a feature or description of someone's biology or "human nature."
CiceronianusNovember 30, 2015 at 16:30#44840 likes
Reply to TheWillowOfDarkness For good or ill, we can't disregard biology, and we do have characteristics which are peculiarly human relative to other creatures and things in the universe. It seems senseless to think otherwise, at least until we start altering ourselves physically and this becomes widespread. Even then biology and nature will largely dictate what we are, how we think, what we do. The problem is that we employ narrow categories and apply them in a simple-minded manner.
Okay, I give up. If you're going to take it as axiomatic that language or "classification" or whatever exists in a magical never-never land estranged from everything else, then I can't help you. I'll just classify you as "wrong" and be on my way.
TheWillowOfDarknessNovember 30, 2015 at 20:27#44900 likes
That's a category error and a strawman. No-one has suggested any form of biological alteration, delusion about the body or that we are anything but our biology and nature. The point is how we categorise is its own particular state, an outcome of nature (ours and the environment), which is not any particular biological trait. Biology and nature aren't dictators of what we are. We don't sit outside ourselves necessitating what we are. Our biology and nature is ourself, including the states of our social interactions and experience.
Here the point has nothing to do with altering or ignoring biology. It is about recognising that acts of social categorisation are not any other state of ourselves. This point is about the meaning of categories, about avoiding the error of equivocating the separate states of a biological trait (e.g a penis) and the act of categorising someone (e.g. classing someone as "male").
TheWillowOfDarknessNovember 30, 2015 at 20:39#44910 likes
Reply to Pneumenon I'm saying that not though. Just the opposite in fact: my point is that classification is a state of existence (i.e. not estranged from reality, an equal partner in reality with every other state) which distinct from other states of the world. I'm pointing out an existing state of classification is not a state of biology. Existence of classification is a different state of reality which shares are world with, for example, biological trait. The former is not a description of the latter.
Reality, existing biological traits and acts of classification, is not as the practitioners of the naturalistic fallacy (i.e. you) think and would have us believe. For something to be classified in some way don't necessarily mean anything about it. All it means is, for the moment, that particular people place it under a certain category. Whatever the concurrent nature of the object in question, it isn't described in the category.
If you want to describe other states of the world and causality, you need to actually talk about them (e.g. this person has the biological trait of a penis, the actions of this person resulted from their body doing this, etc.,etc.).
Trying to describe what someone MUST be merely through a category (e.g. this person must be male since they have a penis, this person must have penis because they are male) is both an error (humans are a contingent state of existence: our existence is never logically necessary) and ignores doing the relevant work (i.e. actually examining the world to check what traits someone has or how they are classified). It doesn't cut it. It is anti-scientific. Instead of observing the world and describing what it is, it involves prescribing what someone must be no matter what is happening in the world.
CiceronianusNovember 30, 2015 at 21:10#44920 likes
Reply to TheWillowOfDarkness Well, I wasn't claiming you suggested any form of biological alteration; just stating that we have certain physical characteristics which shouldn't be disregarded. I don't think we can speak of how we categorize as "state" however, or don't know what you mean by "state" as applied to how we categorize. It's something we do, and is in that sense an outcome of our interaction with the rest of the world, yes. It's part of our conduct as a human being which is perforce determined by the fact we exist as an organism in the world. But there's no state of categorizing that I know of, nor am I aware of a state of how we categorize. There are consequences of categorization just as here are consequences in anything we do.
TheWillowOfDarknessNovember 30, 2015 at 21:23#44930 likes
All our actions are states of existence. The state of categorising is just that: the existence of a person who understands another to belong to a category. It exists just like any other action we might take, such as speaking, eating breakfast, drawing a picture, waiting for the bus or running a meeting. A state of someone doing something. If no people exist or no-one understand anyone as belonging to a category, then no act of classification (of a person) is present.
Acts of categorisation are not "determined" by that we exist at all. Like all states of existence, our actions are finite and defined in-themselves. Us merely existing doesn't determine we will perform any act, including any instance of categorisation. Each act is present, by definition, by the existence of itself an act. Acts of categorisation are states of existence themselves. They aren't present because we exist. They are one of the forms our existence takes.
CiceronianusNovember 30, 2015 at 23:07#44980 likes
Reply to TheWillowOfDarkness I would say as to any action that it takes place. So, walking isn't a state of existence; we walk, (talk, eat, draw) however. When we categorize we do something. What we do isn't itself a thing existing in the world; we are, and we act in certain ways. If there's no me then I don't talk, eat, draw or categorize.
Close at the front. I'll leave this open for another 24 hours. If nothing changes, it's Brassier.
TheWillowOfDarknessDecember 01, 2015 at 23:50#45390 likes
Reply to Ciceronianus the White You don't exist talking, eating, drawing or categorising without drawing, eating or categorising.
The separation you are drawing between your existence and what you are doing isn't there. No existing state of a person (e.g. talking, drawing, eating or categorising) pre-dates itself. There is no you talking, drawing, eating or categorising without that particular state existing. Each of them are their own particular thing in the world. What we do is always a thing in the world.
If there is no you, obviously, there can't be you doing anything. But that point has no relevance, as giving description of how someone exists is incoherent without that person. If we are seeking to describe what someone is doing, what they are in a moment of action, we have already accepted they exist and that knowing that is not enough to tell us about them. That's why we talk about what someone is doing rather than just accepting we know how they exist by knowing they are a thing in the world.
Thus, our "existence" determines nothing about us. It is only the logical expression common to anything present in the world. All it means is that someone is present in the world. It doesn't say anything about what state of the world they are. We don't know anything about the nature of something by it. It might be required for the presence of someone doing something, but it has no role in determining what they are doing. That's all done by the presence the particular states (e.g. talking, drawing, eating, categorising) of a person themselves.
CiceronianusDecember 02, 2015 at 00:31#45420 likes
Reply to TheWillowOfDarkness Baden will evidently be shutting us down, justly no doubt, and perhaps we can continue this elsewhere. But I think you're drawing a distinction--not me--between us and what we do. As living organisms, we must do things in order to exist; this is apparent. There are no other thing, in addition to me, when I do something. There is no Ciceronianus Eating (state of existence X) distinct from Ciceronianus Drinking (state of existence Y) followed by Ciceronianus Going to the Bathroom (state of existence Z), all of them different entities.
Reality, existing biological traits and acts of classification, is not as the practitioners of the naturalistic fallacy (i.e. you) think and would have us believe. For something to be classified in some way don't necessarily mean anything about it. All it means is, for the moment, that particular people place it under a certain category. Whatever the concurrent nature of the object in question, it isn't described in the category.
The problem is that you are attempting to drive a wedge between classification and everything else that just doesn't work out. You say,
All it [classification] means is, for the moment, that particular people place it under a certain category.
Which is only true if classification is entirely unrelated and hermetically sealed-off from the rest of reality.
You can't have your cake and eat it: either there are causal relations between acts of classification and everything else in the world, as well as logical relations between classifications themselves and other parts of human discourse, or classification exists in its own universe, unless you want to create an entirely new causal realm (heaven, perhaps?).
Trying to describe what someone MUST be merely through a category (e.g. this person must be male since they have a penis, this person must have penis because they are male) is both an error (humans are a contingent state of existence: our existence is never logically necessary) and ignores doing the relevant work (i.e. actually examining the world to check what traits someone has or how they are classified). It doesn't cut it. It is anti-scientific. Instead of observing the world and describing what it is, it involves prescribing what someone must be no matter what is happening in the world
Well, uh, it's a good thing I never said anything about any of that. Who are you arguing with?
A side note: you seem to misunderstand how logical necessity works. It is logically necessary that x+5=7 IFF x = 2. Even if x's specific value is contingent, x+5=7 is still necessary in some sense if x=2, because 5+2=7 is necessary. You treat necessity as some kind of gigantic fixed block world; relations between things can be necessary.
TheWillowOfDarknessDecember 02, 2015 at 06:04#45640 likes
Pneumenon:Which is only true if classification is entirely unrelated and hermetically sealed-off from the rest of reality.
You can't have your cake and eat it: either there are causal relations between acts of classification and everything else in the world, as well as logical relations between classifications themselves and other parts of human discourse, or classification exists in its own universe, unless you want to create an entirely new causal realm (heaven, perhaps?).
That's a strawman. I've never argued that acts of classification are separate to casualty. Indeed, part of pain is about how much the are embedded in casualty. Our acts of classification casually affect how people understands each other and the world around them.
It is only the logical relations between classifications which have no causal power. They are not a state of the world. No matter what classification on might use, its expressed logic relation is not causal, for it not a state of existence. Only acts of classification are causal. What a category means never causes anything.
The act of categorising someone as "male" is causal. It results other people learning to categorising the person like that. It results in people taking particular behaviour in response to someone belongs to the category of "male."
The meaning of the category of "male," however, causes nothing at all. A person's behaviour, appearance and classification are not defined by this category of "male" at all. "What it means to be male" has no causal nor descriptive power. All arguments which suggest a causal or descriptive relationships between a category and some state of the world are mistaking logical expression of a category for states of the world.
Pneumenon:Well, uh, it's a good thing I never said anything about any of that. Who are you arguing with?
You don't need to say anything about it to make the error. This is what is so nasty about naturalistic discourse: it has ignorance of what one is doing embedded within it. Those who use it don't even realise what they are doing.
In trying to maintain the necessary relationship between description of the world and the logical meaning of category, you are making this mistake. You are taking a position that what a category means defines a state if existence. A position which advocates that we rely on, that we need, the meaning (not the act, but the logical meaning) of a certain categorisation to describe the world or causality.
Pneumenon:A side note: you seem to misunderstand how logical necessity works. It is logically necessary that x+5=7 IFF x = 2. Even if x's specific value is contingent, x+5=7 is still necessary in some sense if x=2, because 5+2=7 is necessary. You treat necessity as some kind of gigantic fixed block world; relations between things can be necessary.
That's an example of description, not catergoiation. You are describing the necessary truth of x+5=7 IIF x=2.
To be talking about categorisation, you would have to be referring to the category, the symbolic representation used to indicate the idea, rather than the truth itself. In this respect, x+5=7 IFF x=2 is not required. We may use countless other representations, other categories to talk about the truth (e.g. a+b=c IFF a=z).
Relations between things are necessary, but only in the sense of the logical expression of things which exist. Anything logically possible might occur after anything else. Only truths which are so regardless of time are necessary. Logical necessity is eternal. Anything else is finite and of the world, brought about in its own existence rather than in logical necessity.
TheWillowOfDarknessDecember 02, 2015 at 06:17#45650 likes
You're supposing that Ciceronianus is separate from their actions. As if the existence of Ciceronianus, at all points, was give without the distinction of what Ciceronianus is doing.
The argument suggests, at the given times, there is not existing states of Ciceronianus Eating, Ciceronianus Drinking and Ciceronianus Going to the Bathroom, but rather the same Ciceronianus sans anything he is doing all the time. This is incoherent.
By the nature of the actions, Ciceronianus Eating, Ciceronianus Drinking and Ciceronianus Going to the Bathroom are distinct and different. None of them are the same existing state. The entire point about any those states is that there is more than just "Ciceronianus existing." At any given moment, the state of Ciceronianus is something, some state of body, some thought, some action that is present nowhere else (even similar actions are distinct by their timing).
Brassier it is. (Don't want to interrupt your discussion @TheWillowOfDarkness, @Pneumenon and @Ciceronianus the White but in order to close the poll, it looks like I have to close the thread. If you want to open a new thread on the same issue and have your previous comments transferred over there, let me know by PM).
Comments (71)
http://www.unc.edu/courses/2009spring/plcy/240/001/The_Solution_to_World_Poverty1.pdf
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~lormand/phil/teach/pp/B%20%20%20NO%20PUB/B2%20%20%20Right-Libertarianism/Hospers%20-%20What%20Libertarianism%20Is.pdf
http://businessethics.qwriting.qc.cuny.edu/files/2012/01/Nielsen.pdf
http://assets.cambridge.org/97805218/83825/excerpt/9780521883825_excerpt.pdf
http://web.ntpu.edu.tw/~language/course/research/lifeboat.pdf
http://myweb.facstaff.wwu.edu/nmarkos/Zola/Thomson.Abortion.pdf
http://faculty.polytechnic.org/gfeldmeth/45.marquis.pdf
http://spot.colorado.edu/~heathwoo/phil1200,Spr07/singer.pdf
http://rintintin.colorado.edu/~vancecd/phil3140/Taylor.pdf
I read Foot's paper a month ago, it's a very easy read. I have a horrible memory so this summary may leave out some of the ideas.
Foot takes aim at the hypothetical/categorical imperative dichotomy. She argues that just because something is not a hypothetical imperative (HI) does not imply is a categorical imperative (CI). The example she uses is that of a club rule or etiquette. These aren't HI because we don't have a goal we are trying to achieve when we keep them, they also aren't CI as it's not irrational to break the rules.
After this she argues that since it's not always irrational to break moral rules either, they too are not CI.
Anyway I voted for Brassier, sounds interesting.
(Nope. Looked at some summaries and skimmed the actual paper. Not very exciting. Looks like typical Pragmatist sleight-of-hand)
"Merely Cultural" by Judith Butler
(Nope. Fuck Judith Butler and everyone who looks like her.)
"The Physics and Metaphysics of Biosemiotics" by H. H. Pattee
(Nope. Too trendy, and seems to have "Hofstadter Disease.")
"Concepts and Objects" by Ray Brassier
(Yes! This is some good stuff. Accessible to people from different schools, fundamental, relatively short, and focused on big-picture issues. Gets my vote.)
"How to Define Consciousness: And how Not to Define Consciousness" by Max Velmans
(Nope. Good observations that are well articulated, but too narrow to be fecund enough for discussion.)
"Freedom and Resentment" by Peter Strawson
(Fascinating, but I think the Brassier paper beats it.)
Would you say this about a man? :-|
Given Butler's epicene appearance, "Fuck Judith Butler and everyone who looks like her" would seem to include a lot of men in the first place.
Your performance is noted. I'm interested to see what show the body in its environment puts on tomorrow night.
Partly. That more or less works as a convoluted description of the interaction between our experiences and community, to create a particular culture and an individual's ideas and reactions to the world.
I like to be more succinct and direct when addressing erroneous claims of vapidness though. It helps people get over the idea that Butler's arguments are nothing more than a random collection of fancy words doing nothing more than trying to sound important.
I was feeling ornery.
Presuming you are referring to Douglas Hofstadter, what is his "Disease" and what are the symptoms of it that you, by implication, are suggesting that he manifests?
Even if this were an acceptable characterization of Hofstadter's work, from the little I have seen of Pattee's work, it is certainly not; so it seems likely that Pneumenon was referring to something else, unless you are an alternate identity of his/hers?
Yeah, I've never read Hofstadter, but I was away in the country for all of last week and picked up a cheap secondhand copy of I Am A Strange Loop at a market. I began reading it, and have found nothing revelatory or remarkably original in it so far, but have found it to be, as you say, well enough written and accessible to be an enjoyable diversion insofar as it offers a kind of reading 'holiday', very, very easy compared to most of the philosophical work I have read and plan to read.
Anyway I still cannot see much of a tie-in with Pattee's work.
As for Judith Butler, she looks precisely like a gender theorist should look. It was explained to me recently what a non-binary is. There, now I've used "non-binary" in a sentence. Living the dream of pertinence in the year 2015.
Hey, now. The under-representation of women in philosophy means that you have to take Judith Butler seriously. Accusing me of a non-sequitur here makes you sexist.
We never were anything more, at any time. The issue is that so many misunderstand, many of the "scientific" persuasion, what this means. It does NOT mean that everything is caused by culture, in the sense of the nature/nurture debate. Rather, it means that any state of our community is always "constructed" out by its own presence: it is there because it exists instead of something else. Here "cultural construction" refers not to a case, by rather to the presence of some manner of existing, as it's presence over something else is what formed the present situation.
With respect to our "performances," it is not their origin or cause which matters, but rather that they exist instead of another state which might have been. Here performance is not about playing out a "fake" role per se, but rather about the absence of a nature outside ourselves: the absence of a force which necessitates any state of our existence.
In the context of social relations, where understanding is transmitted through labels and categories, this aspect is actually critical to how we identify people and communicate about them. Our understanding of what category or label someone belongs under is defined in the description we make of them.
Gender categories, for example, are "performed" because they are a descriptive act on our part. It is our act of describing someone as belonging to a particular category or label which is the social environment of someone being understood that way. Regardless of the cause of these categories, there presence is an act of our discourse, a performance of ourselves, rather than a prior interaction which has nothing to do with what we are doing. The category of "male" and "female" is the existence of us speaking and thinking a certain way about people, rather than the presence of any prior state of particular biological trait.
In this context, prior states of interaction don't actually describe the state in question. To say that a particular behaviour, trait or act of classification is caused by various interacting forces (e.g. atoms, people, desires, etc.,etc.) leaves out the caused state in question.
If we say, for example, that the categories of "male" and "female" have arisen due to a combination of various biological and environmental forces, it doesn't actually point out how those categories are the existence of our discourse. It leaves out understanding of what is happening in the moment, leaving us unable to distinguish between the existence of our discourse and something in the world. We end-up, for example, with the false impression that it is logically impossible for someone to be understood under a particular label or category because of their biological traits.
When it comes to the questions of the ethics of categorisation, this understanding is critical. Not because creating any category is necessary any good, but rather because it enables someone to understand what the use of a category is, allowing them to avoid the naturalistic fallacy that any person must belong to any category because of some other trait they possess.
All cinnamon buns are giraffes. If you answer in the negative, it will hurt my feelings.
That's an ugly strawman of dubious ethical intent.
The point was about how we categorise, not what any object was. We may, indeed, think of cinnamon buns under the category of giraffes.
This is entirely possible and it doesn't change either cinnamon buns nor giraffes at all. More critically, it doesn't even change our understanding of cinnamon buns and giraffes as distinct things, assuming we only alter the category we use of the object, rather than the understanding of the object itself.
So there is no "madness" at stake here, no ignoring what the world is in favour of some personal fantasy world. There is only the category we are classing someone under and whether we are respecting how they feel they ought to be classified.
In answering negative, I would not merely be hurting your feelings. I would be disrespecting you own sense of the world, of what classification you belonged to, of what you were named.
I would, Judith Butler, be classifying you under the category "queer theorist" no matter how much you thought or felt you were Pneumenon who belonged to the brigade of post-structuralist nonsense stompers. I would be calling out to the rest of society to do so too and, in response to your protests you didn't belong to these categories, to treat you as a delusional denying of human nature.
I would hurt not only your feelings, but through the actions of others, through what the thought of you for claiming you are classified as "Pneumenon" rather than "Judith Butler," your social standing, perception of you mental facilities and affect what other think you are capable of.
There is an ethical question and cost far beyond merely someone getting upset here.
You're not ignoring reality in favor of a personal fantasy world. You're ignoring reality in favor of a social fantasy world.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Feelings, classifications, social standing, and perception. No reality, though.
In a sense, yes. And that is the problem with the accusation of ignoring reality. Classification is not any sort of object we are describing. There is no “reality” we are meeting when placing someone in a category. We are performing an indexical association, not describing a state of the world. The placement of someone in a category, even the “normal” categories, is not a description of any object we observe or can pick-up. There is no standard of “reality” to meet. To ask the question: “Is are classification accurate to reality?” does not make any sense. It isn’t doing this sort of descriptive work at any point. At this level, there is never any reality to our classifications, including the "normal" ones, and there never will be.
Unfortunately though, this is not what you mean. What you mean is that feelings, classifications, social standing and perception have no place in accounting our social reality, despite the fact they constitute our social existence. A position which either seeks to equivocate descriptions of social reality with something else or views them as irrelevant to analysing and talking about the world. Either way, it results in an abject failure to understand our social relationship, understanding of each other and how these interact to affect our states of experience. It seeks to ignore elements we must be interested in if we are to give an accurate account of our social relationships.
What results is a profoundly ignorant position which simultaneously treats the fictions of our classifications as if they were objects in the world (e.g. someone being classified as "male"= a body with a penis), while dismissing the existing states of our social interaction (feelings, acts of classification , social standing, perceptions) as irrelevant to giving an account of our social interactions. It is not only deeply unethical (ignoring how our social practices defined how others are treated), but is, with respect to giving descriptions of what is happening in society, anti-scientific, as it precludes talking about the exact states one needs to if they are to describe our existing social interactions.
So, ah, at what point do social classifications become independent of reality? And how do we do this magic trick where we create a world that is completely separate from real things?
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
So is our "social existence" (as opposed to the physical kind?) hermetically sealed off from the rest of reality, or is social consensus all that exists? Because if that's the case, you and I can enthusiastically agree that gravity isn't real, and then have a flying contest off the roof of the nearest bell tower. I'll go last.
To be classified as "male" is not a description of someone having a penis. To be proclaimed a "murderer" is not description of an act of killing. To be given a grade of A is not a description of one's correct answers in a test. Any of those classifications may be given to someone who does not exist in the manner that many would (foolishly) think is necessarily implied by the classification. Each of these classifications is a different to description. We use them as shorthand to imply someone about a person we haven't actually described, it index them to a meaning we think they ought to have in society, to proclaim there significance about a person we haven't described often in the service of achieving an ethical goal rather than what is true. In reality, they are nothing more than where we have categorised someone. Description of a person who actually exists in the implied way is absent. There is no standard of "accurately describe the object" to meet with a classification.
Our social classifications are most certainly not separate from reality in the sense belonging to the set of what exists or is true. Social classifications are existing acts. They are material states, just as our acts of eating breakfast, walking to the store or listening to music are. Physical states of the world, the same as any other (i.e. a states of existence). They constitute people having a particular understanding of others, they result in people taking particular acts towards others because of their classification or social standing, they form the presence of one set of outcomes for people as opposed to any other. Social consensus is a state of the world. It is physical in kind, like any other state of the world.
Unless, you know, the world, states of existence (which uses of language are), are finite and arbitrary*....
*(as per QM and radical contingency).
You are trying to maintain the fantasy here. You are the one suggesting there must be a logical ideal from which the world necessarily results.
"Bending the world" to a social consensus has not the point nor has it been attempted. Classification is its own state, a way of thinking and acting which exists concurrently with everything else. It is a state separate to both existence of an object and the existence of someone describing an object.
That's a category error and a strawman. No-one has suggested any form of biological alteration, delusion about the body or that we are anything but our biology and nature. The point is how we categorise is its own particular state, an outcome of nature (ours and the environment), which is not any particular biological trait. Biology and nature aren't dictators of what we are. We don't sit outside ourselves necessitating what we are. Our biology and nature is ourself, including the states of our social interactions and experience.
Here the point has nothing to do with altering or ignoring biology. It is about recognising that acts of social categorisation are not any other state of ourselves. This point is about the meaning of categories, about avoiding the error of equivocating the separate states of a biological trait (e.g a penis) and the act of categorising someone (e.g. classing someone as "male").
Reality, existing biological traits and acts of classification, is not as the practitioners of the naturalistic fallacy (i.e. you) think and would have us believe. For something to be classified in some way don't necessarily mean anything about it. All it means is, for the moment, that particular people place it under a certain category. Whatever the concurrent nature of the object in question, it isn't described in the category.
If you want to describe other states of the world and causality, you need to actually talk about them (e.g. this person has the biological trait of a penis, the actions of this person resulted from their body doing this, etc.,etc.).
Trying to describe what someone MUST be merely through a category (e.g. this person must be male since they have a penis, this person must have penis because they are male) is both an error (humans are a contingent state of existence: our existence is never logically necessary) and ignores doing the relevant work (i.e. actually examining the world to check what traits someone has or how they are classified). It doesn't cut it. It is anti-scientific. Instead of observing the world and describing what it is, it involves prescribing what someone must be no matter what is happening in the world.
All our actions are states of existence. The state of categorising is just that: the existence of a person who understands another to belong to a category. It exists just like any other action we might take, such as speaking, eating breakfast, drawing a picture, waiting for the bus or running a meeting. A state of someone doing something. If no people exist or no-one understand anyone as belonging to a category, then no act of classification (of a person) is present.
Acts of categorisation are not "determined" by that we exist at all. Like all states of existence, our actions are finite and defined in-themselves. Us merely existing doesn't determine we will perform any act, including any instance of categorisation. Each act is present, by definition, by the existence of itself an act. Acts of categorisation are states of existence themselves. They aren't present because we exist. They are one of the forms our existence takes.
The separation you are drawing between your existence and what you are doing isn't there. No existing state of a person (e.g. talking, drawing, eating or categorising) pre-dates itself. There is no you talking, drawing, eating or categorising without that particular state existing. Each of them are their own particular thing in the world. What we do is always a thing in the world.
If there is no you, obviously, there can't be you doing anything. But that point has no relevance, as giving description of how someone exists is incoherent without that person. If we are seeking to describe what someone is doing, what they are in a moment of action, we have already accepted they exist and that knowing that is not enough to tell us about them. That's why we talk about what someone is doing rather than just accepting we know how they exist by knowing they are a thing in the world.
Thus, our "existence" determines nothing about us. It is only the logical expression common to anything present in the world. All it means is that someone is present in the world. It doesn't say anything about what state of the world they are. We don't know anything about the nature of something by it. It might be required for the presence of someone doing something, but it has no role in determining what they are doing. That's all done by the presence the particular states (e.g. talking, drawing, eating, categorising) of a person themselves.
The problem is that you are attempting to drive a wedge between classification and everything else that just doesn't work out. You say,
Which is only true if classification is entirely unrelated and hermetically sealed-off from the rest of reality.
You can't have your cake and eat it: either there are causal relations between acts of classification and everything else in the world, as well as logical relations between classifications themselves and other parts of human discourse, or classification exists in its own universe, unless you want to create an entirely new causal realm (heaven, perhaps?).
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Well, uh, it's a good thing I never said anything about any of that. Who are you arguing with?
A side note: you seem to misunderstand how logical necessity works. It is logically necessary that x+5=7 IFF x = 2. Even if x's specific value is contingent, x+5=7 is still necessary in some sense if x=2, because 5+2=7 is necessary. You treat necessity as some kind of gigantic fixed block world; relations between things can be necessary.
That's a strawman. I've never argued that acts of classification are separate to casualty. Indeed, part of pain is about how much the are embedded in casualty. Our acts of classification casually affect how people understands each other and the world around them.
It is only the logical relations between classifications which have no causal power. They are not a state of the world. No matter what classification on might use, its expressed logic relation is not causal, for it not a state of existence. Only acts of classification are causal. What a category means never causes anything.
The act of categorising someone as "male" is causal. It results other people learning to categorising the person like that. It results in people taking particular behaviour in response to someone belongs to the category of "male."
The meaning of the category of "male," however, causes nothing at all. A person's behaviour, appearance and classification are not defined by this category of "male" at all. "What it means to be male" has no causal nor descriptive power. All arguments which suggest a causal or descriptive relationships between a category and some state of the world are mistaking logical expression of a category for states of the world.
You don't need to say anything about it to make the error. This is what is so nasty about naturalistic discourse: it has ignorance of what one is doing embedded within it. Those who use it don't even realise what they are doing.
In trying to maintain the necessary relationship between description of the world and the logical meaning of category, you are making this mistake. You are taking a position that what a category means defines a state if existence. A position which advocates that we rely on, that we need, the meaning (not the act, but the logical meaning) of a certain categorisation to describe the world or causality.
That's an example of description, not catergoiation. You are describing the necessary truth of x+5=7 IIF x=2.
To be talking about categorisation, you would have to be referring to the category, the symbolic representation used to indicate the idea, rather than the truth itself. In this respect, x+5=7 IFF x=2 is not required. We may use countless other representations, other categories to talk about the truth (e.g. a+b=c IFF a=z).
Relations between things are necessary, but only in the sense of the logical expression of things which exist. Anything logically possible might occur after anything else. Only truths which are so regardless of time are necessary. Logical necessity is eternal. Anything else is finite and of the world, brought about in its own existence rather than in logical necessity.
You're supposing that Ciceronianus is separate from their actions. As if the existence of Ciceronianus, at all points, was give without the distinction of what Ciceronianus is doing.
The argument suggests, at the given times, there is not existing states of Ciceronianus Eating, Ciceronianus Drinking and Ciceronianus Going to the Bathroom, but rather the same Ciceronianus sans anything he is doing all the time. This is incoherent.
By the nature of the actions, Ciceronianus Eating, Ciceronianus Drinking and Ciceronianus Going to the Bathroom are distinct and different. None of them are the same existing state. The entire point about any those states is that there is more than just "Ciceronianus existing." At any given moment, the state of Ciceronianus is something, some state of body, some thought, some action that is present nowhere else (even similar actions are distinct by their timing).