Paradox and Rationality
Apr. 30th, 2006 01:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
apollianaLast spring I was thinking something like: philosophical problems arise from our not being clear on how we mean certain words, from imagining a 'general' meaning of the word that's an amalgamation of more than one of its possible uses. I never fully explored this, short of saying McDowell was using 'meaning' that way in his essays on rule-following. That, on its own, does not sound like such a big deal, and counts on the conviction that using a word in an unclear way is obviously bad.
I am no longer comfortable with phrases like "this is how philosophical problems arise"; whatever kind of error using a word in an 'amalgamated' way commits, we should be able to single it out as an error apart from its being "how philosophical problems arise." What kind of problems could it cause? There might, one would think, be problems with the inferences one makes (or the things one goes on to say) about the term in question. We might even be led to say contradictory things about it. (e.g. The table is solid; the table is not solid.) ((But I can't tell whether the 'term in question' here is 'solid' or 'table'.)) These are the "paradoxes" Wisdom talks about. But don't our words have an amalgamation of different possible uses? Isn't it a fact about language--which we need not fight against--that there are vague terms in it? It is not necessarily an indictment of our reasoning that we're led to conclude contradictory things about something.
So what I'm after here is to find out whether or not rational disagreement, within one person, about the same state of affairs, is possible; or whether or not it's some kind of indictment of that person's reasoning that they should end up with a paradox at all.
If it's obviously bad, then ordinary language philosophers (of a nonsubtle kind) are right to say that using terms in unclear ways is an indictment of one's reasoning. But it's not clear to me that it is obviously bad. First, arriving at things that seem like paradoxes and reasoning through them is an important part of intellectual life, and, I think, a common one. It should not be seen as a mistake to arrive at them. Perhaps what's important is where we go from there. The core of truth expressed by a paradox or a seeming impossibility ("it seems like one can never know the mind of another") may not be best expressed in those words. Whatever else they say about it, Cavell and Wisdom seem to agree that the core of truth in the problem of other minds is that it makes sense to talk of knowing and doubting what other people feel but not what we feel. (Doesn't it? Can't we say we're not sure what we feel? Or that we know how we feel about something? And that this is self-doubt and self-knowledge? --Perhaps pain is more tangible than feelings.) Wisdom would put it as a difference in methods of verifying statements about our own minds versus those of others. (But is it about statements, or about verification? --It's about statements insofar as how we talk is reflective of what makes sense to us, but that it is is a big claim in itself. --It's about verification insofar as the issue in question is knoweldge, and if anything general can be said about how we know, it will be relevant. (Whether the way we verify certain kinds of statements is relevant in other cases is unclear. In explaining how the same table can be both solid and not solid, we appeal to the findings of physics, and the findings of physics are certainly verified differently than ordinary statements about tables; what it takes to be sure of them is different; but perhaps all it takes for us to be sure that the table can be, in a way, not solid, is a basic understanding of physics and a little imagination.))
Words are used differently in different discourses (activities), and these uses may seem to conflict, if we don't know how one or the other of the discourses spells out the claim. But this isn't an interesting kind of conflict; the conflict goes away when we come to see solid objects in a new way. (But isn't this true of all disagreement and confusion? What makes 'philosophical' confusion different? --I want to say that philosophical problems, or what I count as philosophical problems, must also in some way be practical problems, must, in some sense be problems about how to do something. In this sense, though, any case in which we need to understand something is--to a greater or lesser degree--a practical problem. In some, I want to say, the practical problem is more on the surface; but perhaps I'm wrong, and there is no qualitative difference between "How can the table be both solid and not solid?" and "How can we seek what we don't already know?")
For instance, the question "How can someone rationally disagree with themselves about the same issue?", is a philosophical problem. It is similar to the Meno problem and the problem of external reasons. And I want to say that they can, but that each side of the disagreement must be spelled out so that the conflict goes away. I think it may not go away in cases in which the conflict is something embedded more deeply in experience than ways we might describe the world. Granted, how we describe our experience is very important; but whether the table is solid or not solid is just not a problem we will confront as frequently as we might a problem about whether the will is free, or what we can really know--problems about the limits of what we can do.
Perhaps the answer to the first question is that we go wrong not by using some term in an amalgamated way but in expressing what it is that strikes us as problematic about it, or as wanting explaining, improperly. And we are supposed to see whether what they say fits with what they do, or with other things they might say, to see if they're really saying what they mean. (I can't do this very well in life, and often say what I don't mean because of some need. --Maybe if I knew what my "real needs" were I wouldn't do this.)
If philosophy does consist in 3 activities--"to see the commonsense answer, to get yourself so deeply into the problem that the commonsense answer is unbearable, and to get from that situation back to the commonsense answer"--it seems to me that there's rarely a commonsense answer. Or at least no commonsense answer when the problem is phrased in philosophical terms. Even to state what is problematic about it we must get things into commonsense terms; from there there may be a commonsense answer ("of course I know that's a table!"). The difficulty with addressing McDowell's uses of philosophical words is that he advocates the commonsense answer about the philosophical word. (Of course meanings are in the world just like facts are! --Meanings? What would I have him say? The problem is that I don't know. But I worry that by just addressing the problem of rule-following in its ...philosophical terms the practical problem embedded in it goes unaddressed. And maybe the issue is that I don't know how to address practical problems--other than by pointing to them, describing them, and insisting that they constrain what we say philosophically.
But perhaps there is a better method for showing that a practical problem lies at the core of a philosophical one, and how it ought to constrain what we, philosophically, say.
I am no longer comfortable with phrases like "this is how philosophical problems arise"; whatever kind of error using a word in an 'amalgamated' way commits, we should be able to single it out as an error apart from its being "how philosophical problems arise." What kind of problems could it cause? There might, one would think, be problems with the inferences one makes (or the things one goes on to say) about the term in question. We might even be led to say contradictory things about it. (e.g. The table is solid; the table is not solid.) ((But I can't tell whether the 'term in question' here is 'solid' or 'table'.)) These are the "paradoxes" Wisdom talks about. But don't our words have an amalgamation of different possible uses? Isn't it a fact about language--which we need not fight against--that there are vague terms in it? It is not necessarily an indictment of our reasoning that we're led to conclude contradictory things about something.
So what I'm after here is to find out whether or not rational disagreement, within one person, about the same state of affairs, is possible; or whether or not it's some kind of indictment of that person's reasoning that they should end up with a paradox at all.
If it's obviously bad, then ordinary language philosophers (of a nonsubtle kind) are right to say that using terms in unclear ways is an indictment of one's reasoning. But it's not clear to me that it is obviously bad. First, arriving at things that seem like paradoxes and reasoning through them is an important part of intellectual life, and, I think, a common one. It should not be seen as a mistake to arrive at them. Perhaps what's important is where we go from there. The core of truth expressed by a paradox or a seeming impossibility ("it seems like one can never know the mind of another") may not be best expressed in those words. Whatever else they say about it, Cavell and Wisdom seem to agree that the core of truth in the problem of other minds is that it makes sense to talk of knowing and doubting what other people feel but not what we feel. (Doesn't it? Can't we say we're not sure what we feel? Or that we know how we feel about something? And that this is self-doubt and self-knowledge? --Perhaps pain is more tangible than feelings.) Wisdom would put it as a difference in methods of verifying statements about our own minds versus those of others. (But is it about statements, or about verification? --It's about statements insofar as how we talk is reflective of what makes sense to us, but that it is is a big claim in itself. --It's about verification insofar as the issue in question is knoweldge, and if anything general can be said about how we know, it will be relevant. (Whether the way we verify certain kinds of statements is relevant in other cases is unclear. In explaining how the same table can be both solid and not solid, we appeal to the findings of physics, and the findings of physics are certainly verified differently than ordinary statements about tables; what it takes to be sure of them is different; but perhaps all it takes for us to be sure that the table can be, in a way, not solid, is a basic understanding of physics and a little imagination.))
Words are used differently in different discourses (activities), and these uses may seem to conflict, if we don't know how one or the other of the discourses spells out the claim. But this isn't an interesting kind of conflict; the conflict goes away when we come to see solid objects in a new way. (But isn't this true of all disagreement and confusion? What makes 'philosophical' confusion different? --I want to say that philosophical problems, or what I count as philosophical problems, must also in some way be practical problems, must, in some sense be problems about how to do something. In this sense, though, any case in which we need to understand something is--to a greater or lesser degree--a practical problem. In some, I want to say, the practical problem is more on the surface; but perhaps I'm wrong, and there is no qualitative difference between "How can the table be both solid and not solid?" and "How can we seek what we don't already know?")
For instance, the question "How can someone rationally disagree with themselves about the same issue?", is a philosophical problem. It is similar to the Meno problem and the problem of external reasons. And I want to say that they can, but that each side of the disagreement must be spelled out so that the conflict goes away. I think it may not go away in cases in which the conflict is something embedded more deeply in experience than ways we might describe the world. Granted, how we describe our experience is very important; but whether the table is solid or not solid is just not a problem we will confront as frequently as we might a problem about whether the will is free, or what we can really know--problems about the limits of what we can do.
Perhaps the answer to the first question is that we go wrong not by using some term in an amalgamated way but in expressing what it is that strikes us as problematic about it, or as wanting explaining, improperly. And we are supposed to see whether what they say fits with what they do, or with other things they might say, to see if they're really saying what they mean. (I can't do this very well in life, and often say what I don't mean because of some need. --Maybe if I knew what my "real needs" were I wouldn't do this.)
If philosophy does consist in 3 activities--"to see the commonsense answer, to get yourself so deeply into the problem that the commonsense answer is unbearable, and to get from that situation back to the commonsense answer"--it seems to me that there's rarely a commonsense answer. Or at least no commonsense answer when the problem is phrased in philosophical terms. Even to state what is problematic about it we must get things into commonsense terms; from there there may be a commonsense answer ("of course I know that's a table!"). The difficulty with addressing McDowell's uses of philosophical words is that he advocates the commonsense answer about the philosophical word. (Of course meanings are in the world just like facts are! --Meanings? What would I have him say? The problem is that I don't know. But I worry that by just addressing the problem of rule-following in its ...philosophical terms the practical problem embedded in it goes unaddressed. And maybe the issue is that I don't know how to address practical problems--other than by pointing to them, describing them, and insisting that they constrain what we say philosophically.
But perhaps there is a better method for showing that a practical problem lies at the core of a philosophical one, and how it ought to constrain what we, philosophically, say.
