Presentism and "ago"

According to most proponents of presentism, propositions are tensed. Thus, when yesterday you said that it is raining and I said it today, we expressed the same proposition, which, perhaps, was false yesterday and is true today. Moreover, presentists believe that one cannot refer de re to non-present objects.

For presentism to have any hope of being able to express all of reality, the presentist needs an "Ago" operator, where Ago(t,p) is a proposition that backdates p by t (units of time). If p is expressed by a present tense sentence, Ago(t,p) can be expressed by a past tense sentence. Thus, if p is the proposition that it is raining, Ago(3 days,p) is the proposition that three days ago it was raining.

Here is a plausible fact about the logic of "Ago":

1. Ago(t,p) is now true iff p was true t units of time ago

The seriously actualist presentist adds this:

2. No proposition that refers de re to a presently non-existent entity can be true. (If we like, we can probably qualify this as: "no positive proposition".)

Let p be the proposition that there is someone who will vote for Obama. Then:

3. Ago(70 years,p) is true.

I.e., 70 years ago, there was someone who would vote for Obama. Thus, by (1):

4. p was true 70 years ago.

But p makes de re reference to Obama. Since Obama didn't exist 70 years ago, it follows by (2) that:

5. p was not true 70 years ago.

And this, of course, contradicts (4).

Thus, the presentist cannot hold (1)-(3) together.

Thus, the straightforward presentist reading of the claim that 70 years ago there was someone who would vote for Obama as the claim that 70 years ago someone existed who would vote for Obama is one that doesn't fit with (1) and (2). But there is a non-straightforward way of giving the truth-conditions that does:

6. There (is) a time t at which there (is) a person x who (votes) for Obama at t and who also existed on October 29, 1939,

where "(is)" is short for "was, is or will be" and "(votes)" is short for "voted, votes or will vote".

An interesting question is whether such truth conditions are available for all possible examples of this sort.

There is, however, a different route for the presentist. She could deny (1). This would be analogous to Robert Adams' move of allowing that a proposition might be true at a world without being such that were that world actual, the proposition would be true. Such a view a view, when married to Crisp's concept of abstract times, would have the problematic consequence, that in general, at a time t, the time t was not present. (For t will contain propositions that make de re reference to now-actual objects that didn't exist at t, and so at t the maximal proposition would have been different from what it actually is.) To me, (1) seems very plausible.

Probably, most presentists will simply deny (2), allowing for de re reference to non-existents by means of haecceities. They will then open themselves to Lewis's objection that they are not really presentists, but there is probably a way out of that. It would, however, be an interesting thing if they had to deny (2)—this would mean that presentists cannot be serious actualists in the sense involved in (2). And if presentists could not be are not serious actualists, then their claim that only present objects are actual is not quite as revolutionary as it seems.

Erotic love relationship needs

Bryan Weaver and Fiona Woollard seem to think that there are people whose needs for erotic companionship could not be met by one monogamous relationship. I hereby hypothesize that for all x, if x is such that his or her needs for erotic companionship could not be met by one monogamous relationship, then x is such that his or her needs for erotic companionship could not be met by any number of relationships.

Hating the devil

An interesting disagreement among orthodox Christians, even among orthodox Catholics, is whether the devil should be hated. I have run into a number of people who think in the affirmative. In fact, anecdotal evidence suggests that that is the more common position. On the other hand, I think we should not hate the devil—in fact, we should love him.

Here are some plausibilistic arguments for my position:

1. Surely, we should not hate the souls in hell. But if the reason for hating the devil is that he cannot repent of his wickedness, then the same applies to the souls in hell. And if the reason for hating the devil is his evil works and his empty promises, then that's a bad reason—it's a reason for hating the evil works and the empty promises, but not for hating the devil.
2. Anything that is good deserves to be loved to the extent that it is good. Anything that exists is good to the extent that it exists. Thus, the devil deserves to be loved to the extent that he exists. And to the extent that he does not exist, surely then it is not he, who exists, who is to be hated, but the fact that he does not exist fully should be hated. (Yes, one can hate its being the case that p.)
3. Love and hatred are closely tied to actions. Now the actions we should engage in with respect to the devil are ones that are good for him, and hence they are more like loving than like hateful actions. For instance, we should reject the devil's temptations. That is good, because by rejecting the temptations we make him be responsible for fewer evils than he would be responsible for if we yielded, and it is bad for one to be responsible for evils. We should shun the devil's company. But to be in the devil's company, we would have to be wicked. And it harms a person to be provided with wicked companions. Furthermore, we should strive to frustrate the devil's wicked plans. While the frustration of one's plans may be bad for one in one way, in a more salient way, it is good for one when the plans are wicked. It is a bad thing for one to succeed at evil.

On the other hand, one might worry that love has a unitive dimension, and then one might argue that we should, surely, not seek to be united to the devil—that is just too dangerous. However, we can be united simply by doing good to someone, and there are ways of doing good to the devil that do not carry undue danger—for instance, we can, as noted above, do good to the devil by frustrating his evil designs. Another good we could do to the devil, should God assign this to us (we are mysteriously told that we'll judge angels), could be to condemn him to punishment, if it is intrinsically good to be punished for one's wickedness.

At the same time, the love should not have much intensity. The devil is dangerous, and we should not think too much about him. Maybe I have already done too much.

Cleanliness is next to godliness

There is an interesting study on the effects of clean smells on virtuous behavior.

John Scalzi on Molinism

See this fun story.

Westlund on companion love

Andrea Westlund in her piece "The Reunion of Marriage" (in the Monist's Marriage issue) gives an account of the "companion love" in marriage as centered on the argumentative forging of shared reasons.

While there is some argumentative forging of shared reasons in marriage, it seems to me that any account of marriage that makes the production of shared reasons be central is a conceit of affluent Western culture (bet you never expected that phrase from me!). I imagine two peasants. They fall in love, marry, pray together, raise children together, work the fields with the children, are taken care of in their old age by some of the children, and go to their eternal reward (not all necessarily in this order—in particular, falling in love may follow marrying, and the praying together hopefully happens all through the process).

The couple's joint life follows a pattern set by religious and secular tradition, the cycles of nature, and economic necessities. In the ideal case, they do indeed share ends—they jointly pursue food, drink, shelter, clothing, eternal salvation, reproduction and various joys, all for and with one another and their children. Many of their shared reasons are a function of what they individually have antecedent reason to pursue (e.g., clothing and eternal salvation) and which become a joint end when they come together in love. But in those cases there is no need for a production of reasons—they have the shared reasons in virtue of their shared humanity and their shared circumstances, as well as, perhaps, their love. (I am suspicious of the idea of love giving rather than recognizing much in the way of reasons. One could try to argue that love takes individual reasons and transforms them into joint ones.)

There is, of course, a dialogical struggle to recognize the reasons they already have—they are not perfect phronimoi who automatically are cognizant of all the reasons present for them. And there will likely be much argument over means, but that is not what Westlund is talking about.

Still there will be aspects of their relationship where they do have significant freedom. On long winter evenings, do they play dice, tell stories and jokes, sing, dance, sew and/or carve? Which non-required religious devotions do they embrace as a family? Which of their needy neighbors will they support and in what way? But in the case of devotion and charitable activity, this is merely the working out of a shared plan for particularizing and pursuing imperfect duties which they have, independently of any forging of theirs, a reason to fulfill. If the couple is lucky enough not to be too exhausted from the day's work, there may be some time for evening recreational activities, and there there will be a need to choose shared ends—but that simply does not seem to be of the essence to the marriage. It would be unfortunate if the couple were unable to do this, but their companion love does not depend on the availability of this.

Tevye: ... But do you love me?
Golde: Do I love you?
For twenty-five years, I've washed your clothes,
Cooked your meals, cleaned your house,
Given you children, milked the cow.
After twenty-five years, why talk about love right now?
...
Tevye: Do you love me?
Golde: I'm your wife!
Tevye: I know. But do you love me?
Golde: Do I love him?
For twenty-five years, I've lived with him,
Fought with him, starved with him.
For twenty-five years, my bed is his.
If that's not love, what is? (The Fiddler on the Roof)

Some liar paradoxes without truth

Let "@" be the name of the actual world.

1. The proposition expressed by (1) in English is not entailed by the proposition that @ is actual.
2. The proposition expressed by (2) in English is not compossible with the proposition that @ is actual.
3. The proposition expressed by (3) in English is not necessary.
4. The proposition expressed by (4) in English is not known by anybody.
5. The proposition expressed by (5) in English cannot be known by anybody.

That (1) and (2) are paradoxical is obvious. That (3) is paradoxical is easy to see. For if (3) is false, then (3) is necessarily true. If (3) is true, then then it is only contingently true. But the argument that if (3) is false, then (3) is necessarily true works in all worlds. So in no world is (3) false. So (3) cannot be contingently true.

The paradoxicality of (4) is a bit more fun, though I am less sure of it. If (4) is false, then (4) is known by somebody and hence true. So, (4) cannot be false. But now that we have a logically sound argument for (4), we know (4)—or at least we could, and then we can consider the argument in the possible world where we do know it. But if we know (4), then (4) is false.

What about (5)? Well, if (5) can be known by anybody, it can be true and known. But it cannot be both true and known. So, (5) cannot be known by anybody. But this is a good argument for the truth of (5), so even if we don't know (5), somebody can know it on the basis of this argument. But then (5) is false.

Is pollution bad for the earth?

A curious thought hit me today: What could it mean for something, say pollution, to be bad for the earth? We have, I think, a fairly good idea of what it is for something to be good or bad for a human, a dog, a wasp, a tree and maybe even a bacterium. But for a planet? For humans, dogs, etc., there are roughly three accounts of well-being: (a) the hedonist account that well-being is pleasure and absence of pain, (b) the desire account that well-being is (roughly) fulfillment of desires and lack of frustration of desires, and (c) the flourishing account. Now, (a) requires consciousness and (b) requires mind, so neither is applicable to a tree, a bacterium or the earth.

That leaves the flourishing account. But while I have some idea about canine and waspish flourishing, I have very little idea about planetary flourishing. For instance, does hosting life make a planet flourish, or to the contrary, do planets flourish more when they are devoid of life? After all, if the average member of a natural kind is likely to have a normal degree of flourishing, it appears that lifeless planets have a normal degree of flourishing. So as long as we don't literally blow the earth into pieces, it seems that whatever pollution we inflict on it, we won't push it below the normal level of well-being.

But perhaps we need to distinguish different kinds of planets, and different kinds of planets have different kinds of flourishing. Thus, maybe, a planet in a "habitable zone" in a stellar system has the support of organic life as part of its flourishing. But what kind of organic life is needed for flourishing? Is the planet better off for hosting more complex life-forms? (Is a house better off for having people rather than geckos in it?) Or for a greater diversity of life-forms? (Is a house better off for having people and cockroaches rather than just people?) It seems plausible that unless we have a metaphysical teleology, either of the Aristotelian or the theistic sort, for planets in the habitable zone, these questions have no answer. And even if we have such a teleology, the epistemology of that teleology will be difficult, because the earth is the only habitable planet we know of, and typically we learn about the teleological properties of a natural kind by observing multiple instances.

But perhaps it is a mistake to think of the earth as rocks, water and atmosphere. Rather, the suggestion goes, the ecosystem is not just hosted by the earth, but is a part of the earth. I am not sure we should buy that. While parthood might not in general be transitive, it seems plausible that since we are parts of the ecosystem, then if the ecosystem were a part of the earth, we would be parts of the earth. But surely we are not parts of the earth. We live on earth, but we are not parts of it any more than we are parts of the galaxy (though the earth is a part of the galaxy).

But let us grant that the ecosystem is a part of the earth—or maybe that "the earth" is sometimes a metonymy for the ecosystem. In that case, pollution that causes destruction of a part of the ecosystem without a compensating growth elsewhere does seem to be contrary to the flourishing of the earth. But more detailed study of flourishing still seems mired in epistemic problems. It is very hard to figure out the teleology of the ecosystem as a whole, unless we accept revelation and say that the teleology is the support of humanity.

Tarski's definition of truth-in-L

Tarski's definition is often noted—typically critically—as being applicable only to the languages he gave it in. Thus, he defined truth-in-L, or more generally satisfaction-in-L, for several cases of L. However, I think this misses something that goes on in the reader when she understands Tarski's account: the reader, upon reading Tarski, gains the skill to generate the definition of truth-in-L for other languages L (at least ones that are sufficiently formalized). One just gets it (I think Max Black makes this point). A standard way of defining A in C (where C is a context and A is a context-sensitive concept to be define) is to give some "direct definition" of the form

1. x is a case of A in C iff F(x,C).

However, Tarski's case exemplifies a different way of defining "A in C": one teaches (perhaps by example) a procedure (perhaps specified ostensively) which, for every admissible C, will generate a definition of A-in-C. Call this "procedural definition". A direct definition has an obvious advantage with respect to comprehensibility. However, a procedural P definition does advance the understanding. For instance, suppose that instead of giving a definition of a heart that applies to all species, I teach you a method which, when properly exercised upon Ks, gives you a definition of the heart-of-a-K.

Now, in ordinary cases, one can move from a procedural definition to a direct definition as follows:

2. x is a case of A in C iff x satisfies the definition of A-in-C that P would produce given C.

However, in the Tarskian case, we cannot do this for the simple reason that (2) would end up being circular if A is satisfaction! To understand what it is to satisfy a definition one needs to know that which one is trying to define. So in Tarski's case—and pretty much in Tarski's case alone—procedural definition is not the same as direct definition.

Nonetheless, a procedural definition, even when it does not give rise to a direct definition, is valuable—as long as the grasp of the procedure does not depend on the concept to be defined. And here, I think, is the real failure of Tarski's definition: one's grasp of the concept of a predicate—which is central to the method—is dependent on one's grasp of the concept of satisfaction.

Seeing cause and effect

So last night we were out observing (through telescopes; the anthropology was merely accidental), and there were some guys in the shadows apparently smoking a controlled substance. Suddenly, they get on their motorcycles and clear out. Moments later we see a police car coming into the area. So, pace Hume, we saw cause and effect. Moreover, Hume's analysis of the phenomenology is incorrect. It was not the case that seeing the cause led to (caused?!) an expectant feeling in us, because we saw the cause—the police car—after seeing the effect. (Presumably, the smokers saw it before they cleared out.)

I also saw IC 1396, M 31, M 32, M 33, M 45, M 52, M 110, the Double Cluster, NGC 6940, NGC 6960, NGC 6992, NGC 7000, NGC 7009, NGC 7027, NGC 7235, NGC 7635, Uranus and Jupiter. Of these, the Veil Nebula was particularly impressive. I had never seen it before, nor had I seen any photos of it, so I didn't know exactly what I was looking for. I couldn't find it without a filter. Finally, I put an OIII filter on my finder scope, and it showed up as a faint and large arc. With the filter on the 13", then, it looked really nice—lots of complexity. That, too, is an effect—an effect of a supernova. But while I was in a position to know the Veil to be an effect, because it was labeled "SNR" (supernova remnant) in a catalog on my PDA, I did not see it as an effect, in the way I saw the guys leaving as an effect.

A fun circularity

Yesterday, I was interested in a paper because I was interested in that paper. Here's the story. I was interested in a paper by John Norton. A colleague mentioned that he had come across a paper and described the topic it was on. It was closely related to the topic of the paper that interested me, and hence I became interested in the paper that the colleague had come across. However, as it turned out, it was the same paper, though in a revised version.

Sometimes an enthymematic explanation is circular, but the circularity disappears once the details are filled in.

Falsity

Suppose that only propositions can be true or false. In a much earlier post I expressed a suspicion of conjunctive definitions. But if bivalence is right, then the following definition of falsity seems very plausible:

• x is false iff x is a proposition and x is not true.

But this is conjunctive, so I should be suspicious of it.

I could say that the suspicious conjunctiveness shows that in fact this isn't the right definition of falsity. Instead, I should have a definition friendlier to non-bivalent views, such as that x is false if and only if not-x is true. I am not sure I want to do that, though.

Another move would be to dig in my heels and say that there are two properties. There is falsity and falsity*. x is false* iff x is not true. x is false iff x is a proposition and x is false*. Chairs are false*, but only a proposition can be false. The more basic and natural property is falsity*. But English, for whatever pragmatic reason, has a single word for "false" and lacks a single word for "false*". Thus the English "false" denotes a less basic property, but this has some pragmatic explanation. However, in philosophizing, we should work as much as possible with the more basic concept, that of falsity*. Extending truth to sentences and beliefs, we then get to say that "All mimsy were the borogoves" is false*, just as my computer and "The sky is now pink" are false*.

An argument for retribution

1. (Premise) Every basic kind of desire is either appropriate or a distortion of an appropriate kind of desire.
2. (Premise) The desire for revenge is a basic kind of desire.
3. (Premise) If the desire for x (where x is the sort of thing that can be done) is appropriate, then x is sometimes appropriate.
4. (Premise) If revenge is sometimes appropriate, retributive punishment is sometimes appropriate.
5. (Premise) The only desire that the desire for revenge could be a distortion of is a desire for retributive punishment.
6. Therefore, retributive punishment is sometimes appropriate.

Why do we dislike it when bad things happen to us?

It is easy to give a theistic answer to the question in the title:

1. Bad things should be avoided, and so it is likely that God would make rational beings dislike them.

Presumably, the naturalistic story is going to be roughly something like this:

2. We tend to avoid things we dislike (this may even be analytic), and bad things tend to be detrimental to our fitness, so there is selection for dislike of bad things.

But there is still a puzzle: Why is it that bad things tend to be detrimental to our evolutionary fitness? Is it not a great coincidence on a naturalistic account that such highly varied qualities as ignorance, loss of limb and cowardice have both the property of badness and the property of being detrimental to fitness?

Of course some folks may say that there is no puzzle here, because our belief that these qualities are bad is caused by the fact that they are detrimental to fitness. However, that only answers why it is that there is a correlation between being believed to be bad and being detrimental to fitness, while the puzzle was about the correlation between being actually bad and being detrimental to fitness. Some of the folks I am imagining will go on to say that there is no such thing as badness, only beliefs about badness, and others will go relativistic and say that to be bad is to be believed to be bad. The problems with these options are obvious and well-known.

The sensible naturalist had better be a realist about the good and the bad. And then the correlation between badness and lack of fitness is, indeed, puzzling.

How surprising is evil?

According to the argument from evil:

1. The evils of this world are much more surprising given theism than given atheism.

But if (1) were true, then we would expect:

2. Theists tend to be much more surprised by evil than atheists.

However, I do not think (2) is in fact observed, and this provides evidence against (1).

Objection 1: Theists are irrational, and irrational people may not be surprised by the objectively surprising.

Response: This proposed explanation of the non-occurrence of (2) would itself lead to a further prediction:

3. The more rational a theist, the more likely she is to be surprised by evil.

But (3) is definitely not observed. In fact, the contrary is probably the case.

Objection 2: This is a version of the problem of old evidence. In old evidence cases, one is not surprised by the evidence as one already knew it.

Response: Still, if (1) is true, we would at least expect:

4. Theists, and if not in general then at least the more rational ones, are significantly more surprised than atheists to learn of new and particularly heinous evils.

But I do not think this is actually observed.

None of this is a conclusive refutation of (1). But it does decrease the likelihood of (1).