Saturday, February 22, 2014

"Seeing to it" as a Principle of Moral Conduct



Of what significance to moral conduct is the ability to see to (attend to, keep in mind) some task or duty that we’ve been assigned? To what extent does compliance with duty depend on the ability to “see to” some particular action’s being performed or some particular event’s taking place?
      If I say that I’ll "see to" some action A’s being performed or some event E’s taking place, then I acknowledge my responsibility to attend to the conditions that will lead to A or E, and I imply that I’ll act with a reasonable amount of care, attentiveness, and diligence in order to ensure that A is performed or that E takes place.
      If I say that I’ll "see to" something, then I also imply that I’ll follow through on "seeing to it," and that I’ll make sure, to the best of my ability, that it is actualized or brought to fruition.
      “Seeing to it” may therefore fulfill a promise, pledge, or vow to take care of something. It may also be a “seeing that” something is fulfilled or takes place.
      "Seeing to" something may represent a mode of "being addressed" to that thing. If we "see to" something, then we pay attention to it, and we address ourselves to ensuring its actualization or coming into being.
      However, there may be a practical limit to the number of things that we can attend to within a finite time frame. If we are obligated to attend to many different things at the same time, then we may have to prioritize them, so that we can deal with our most pressing and urgent obligations before we attend to less pressing and less urgent ones.
       “Seeing to it” that some action A is performed or that some event E takes place may also fulfill a directive or command that must in some cases be prioritized or structured in relation to other directives or commands.

      If I say to someone who has a right to expect me to be reliable that I’ll see to it that A is performed or that E takes place, then I may be held blameworthy if I fail to see to it that A is performed or that E takes place.
      Of course, I can only properly be said to have seen to something if I've acted in such a way that I've ensured its taking place. If I did nothing to ensure its taking place, then I cannot properly be said to have seen to it. The action or event in question need not have taken place solely due to my intervention, but I must have done something to ensure that it would indeed take place. I must therefore have been in a position of causal agency in relation to it, so that my seeing to it ensured, or could have ensured, that it took place.1
      Nuel Belnap, Michael Perloff, and Ming Xu (2001) explore the formal semantics of “stit sentences” (sentences in which a subject or agent sees to it that something is true) as a means of investigating the causal structure of agency and action. They explain that the stit sentence “α sees to it that Q,” where α is an agent and Q is any declarative sentence guaranteed to be true by a prior choice of action on the part of α, may be symbolized as [α stit: Q].2
      Similarly, they explain that the sentence “α is obligated to see to it that Q” may be symbolized as Oblg:[α stit: Q], the sentence “α is forbidden to see to it that Q” may be symbolized as Frbn:[α stit: Q], and the sentence “α is permitted to see to it that Q” may be symbolized as Perm:[α stit: Q].3
      To these sentences may be added their corresponding negations, in order to express other deontic modalities of "seeing to it" or of "not seeing to it" that Q. Thus, “α is not obligated to see to it that Q” may be symbolized as ~Oblg:[α stit: Q], “α is not forbidden to see to it that Q” may be symbolized as ~Frbn:[α stit: Q], and “α is not permitted to see to it that Q” may be symbolized as ~Perm:[α stit: Q].
      To these sentences may also be added the sentence Ought:[α stit: Q] (“α ought to see to it that Q”), and its negation ~Ought:[α stit: Q] (“α ought not to see to it that Q”).
      Direct or indirect obligation and permission to "see to it" that Q may also be expressed by such sentences as: Oblg:[β stit: [α stit: Q] ] (which may be read as "β is obligated to see to it that α sees to it that Q"), and Perm:[β stit: [α stit: Q] ] (which may be read as "β is permitted to see to it that α sees to it that Q").  Similarly, the absence of such obligation or permission may be expressed by such sentences as ~Oblg:[β stit: [α stit: Q] ] (which may be read as "β is not obligated to see to it that α sees to it that Q") and ~Perm:[β stit: [α stit: Q] ] (which may be read as "β is not permitted to see to it that α sees to it that Q"). 

      Belnap, Perloff, and Xu explain that stit sentences may be used to express such deontic equivalences as

        Frbn:[α stit: Q]    ~Perm:[α stit: Q] 
and
        Perm:[α stit: Q]    ~Frbn:[α stit: Q].4
  
      In addition to these, we might take note of such equivalences as

      •  Oblg:[α stit: Q]    ~Perm:[~α stit: Q]

      •  Perm:[~α stit: Q]    ~Oblg:[α stit: Q]

      •  ~Frbn:[α stit: Q]    ~Oblg:[~α stit: Q]

      •  Perm:[α stit: P  Q]    
                Perm:[α stit: P]  Perm:[α stit: Q]

      •  Ought:[α stit: P  Q]    
                Ought:[α stit: P]  Ought:[α stit: Q]

       •  Oblg:[α stit: P  Q]    
                  Oblg:[α stit: P]  Oblg:[α stit: Q]

and such axioms as 

      •  [α stit: P  Q]  → 
                [ [α stit: P]  [α stit: Q] ] 

      •  [α stit: [P  Q] ]  →  
                 [ [α stit: P]  [α stit: Q] ]

      •  Perm:[α stit: P]  [ [α stit: P]  
                Perm:[α stit: Q] ]  Perm:[α stit: Q]
(“if α is permitted to see to it that P, and if in seeing to it that P, α is permitted to see to it that Q, then α is permitted to see to it that Q”)

      •  ~Perm:[α stit: P]  Oblg: [ [α stit: Q]  
                 [α stit: P] ]     ~Perm:[α stit: Q]
(“if α is not permitted to see to it that P, and if in seeing to it that Q, α is obligated to see to it that P, then α is not permitted to see to it that Q”), and

      •  Oblg:[α stit: P]  [ [α stit: P]  
                  Oblg:[α stit: Q] ]  Oblg:[α stit: Q]
(“if α is obligated to see to it that P, and if in seeing to it that P, α is obligated to see to it that Q, then α is obligated to see to it that Q”).

      Interestingly, Belnap, Perloff, and Xu distinguish between “not seeing to it" that Q and “refraining from seeing to it" that Q. Refraining from seeing to it that Q entails not seeing to it that Q, but not seeing to it that Q does not entail refraining from seeing to it that Q.5   
      “Seeing to it that Q” may be paraphrased as “taking care that Q” or “taking the time to ensure that Q” or “exerting oneself sufficiently to make sure that Q” (to suggest just a few possible interpretations). Thus, the sentence “See to it that you knock before you open the door” may be paraphrased as “Be sure to knock before you open the door” or “Be careful to knock before you open the door” or “Take time to knock before you open the door.”
      The U.S. Constitution, Article Two, Section Three, says that the President “shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed, and shall commission all the officers of the United States.” Under the "Take Care Clause," the President is therefore obligated to see to it that all laws are faithfully executed, and he/she does not have the power to disregard laws or to allow them to be disregarded. Thus, the responsibility to see to it that the laws are faithfully executed may require some degree of care, attentiveness, and diligence on the part of the President.
      “Seeing to it” may be the basis of an “ethics of care.” If we see to the health, safety, and well-being of an individual, or of a group of individuals, then we attend to, are responsive to, and care for his/her/their emotional and physical needs. Our caring for an individual, or for a group of individuals, may be expressed by our “seeing to” the actualization of those conditions that promote his/her/their health, safety, and well-being.
      “Seeing to” something may thus require a kind of moral vision, which may be characterized by not only the capacity to perceive and appreciate the moral dimensions of human conduct, but also the capacity to feel and communicate a sense of moral responsibility, the capacity to honor and fulfill moral duties and obligations, and the capacity to promote moral and social understanding. Moral vision may be a vision of the way in which moral values can be reflected by individuals, institutions, and society.


FOOTNOTES

1Nuel Belnap, Michael Perloff, and Ming Xu
 explain that the assignment of moral or legal responsibility to an agent for doing something presupposes that the agent actually did something, and it also presupposes that the agent could have done otherwise. (Facing the Future: Agents and Choices in Our Indeterminist World, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 256.) 
2Belnap, Perloff, and Xu, Facing the Future, p. 6.
3Ibid., p. 17.
4Ibid., p. 64.
5Ibid., p. 41.







































Saturday, October 12, 2013

Non-Propositional Language

In the Tractatus, Wittgenstein says, “The totality of propositions is the language” (Prop. 4). But it may be argued, to the contrary, that language does not consist exclusively of propositions, and that language includes both propositional and non-propositional expressions (take, for example, emotive expressions that express feelings or emotions, but not propositions).
      Interjections such as “Oops!”, “Holy cow!”, and “Wow!” may be examples of non-propositional expressions. Such expressions may be meaningful without being true or false.
      Non-propositional speech-acts include rote recitations of numbers, times, and dates, repetitions of filler words or phrases such as "uh" and "y'know what I mean," conventional greetings such as “Hello” and “Good morning,” expletives such as "Gee whiz!" and “Damn!", and questions such as “How are you?” and “What is that?”.1
     Can language be meaningful without expressing propositional attitudes or having a propositional content?
      While propositional attitudes2 such as believing, knowing, hoping, desiring, fearing, or remembering that p (where p is a proposition) take a stand or have a bearing as to whether p is or is not the case (or as to whether p ought to or ought not to be the case), non-propositional attitudes take no such stand and have no such bearing. Are there indeed such non-propositional attitudes? Are all cognitive attitudes propositional in form and content?
      Is all thinking propositional in nature? If not, then is there some non-propositional language capable of expressing non-propositional thought? Can linguistic signs or symbols express purely intuitive or non-conceptual thinking? 
      Consider Russell’s example of a non-denoting phrase, “the present king of France.”3 If the sentence, “The present king of France is bald,” is neither true nor false because the phrase “the present king of France” doesn’t denote or refer to anything, then the sentence doesn't express a proposition. But isn’t the sentence still in some way meaningful? Isn’t the sentence a counter-example to Wittgenstein’s thesis that “The totality of propositions is the language”?
      

FOOTNOTES

1Chris Code, “Speech Automatism and Recurring Utterances,” in The Characteristics of Aphasia, edited by Chris Code (Hove: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1991), p. 158.
2Bertrand Russell, An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth [1940] (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1962), p. 18.
3Bertrand Russell, “On Denoting,” in Mind, 14 (1905): 479-493.


ADDITIONAL REFERENCES

Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus [1922], translated by C.K. Ogden (Mineola: Dover Publications, 1999).

Sunday, September 22, 2013

Recommended Philosophy Videos

Linda Martín Alcoff, 2012 Presidential Address, APA, Eastern Division

Mark Alfano and Abrol Fairweather, on virtue epistemology

Mark Alfano, "The Logic of Communities of Trust"

Danielle Allen, "Education and Equality"

Corey Anton, "Some Basic Characteristics of Language"

Corey Anton, "Language, Thought & Time"

Corey Anton, "Defining Language? Please Respond"

Corey Anton, "Boundaries between Books and Minds"

Corey Anton, "On Being a Reader"

John Berger and Susan Sontag, "To Tell a Story"



Helen Frowe, "Reductive Individualism and the Just War Framework"

Paul Fry, "Introduction to Theory of Literature"
    1.  Introduction
    2.  Introduction (cont.)
    3.  Ways In and Out of the Hermeneutic                  Circle
    4.  Configurative Reading
    5.  The Idea of the Autonomous Artwork
    6.  The New Criticism and Other Western                  Formalisms
    7.  Russian Formalism
    8.  Semiotics and Structuralism
    9.  Linguistics and Literature
    10. Deconstruction I
    11. Deconstruction II
    12. Freud and Fiction
    13. Jacques Lacan in Theory
    14. Influence
    15. The Postmodern Psyche
    16. The Social Permeability of Reader and                Text
    17. The Frankfurt School of Critical Theory
    18. The Political Unconscious
    19. The New Historicism
    20. The Classical Feminist Tradition
    21. African-American Criticism
    22. Post-Colonial Criticism
    23. Queer Theory and Gender Performativity
    24. The Institutional Construction of Literary               Study
    25. The End of Theory? Neo-Pragmatism
    26. Reflections; Who Doesn't Hate Theory                 Now?

Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, "The Subject of Language"

Julia Galef, "What is 'Rationality'?"












Lama Jampa Thaye, "Clarifying the Vajrayana"

Annabelle Lever, on "Greening Humanity"

Jennifer McWeeny, "Feminist Ontology for the Twenty-First Century"


Alvin Plantinga, "What are Possible Worlds?"

Thomas Pogge, "Global Justice: What are the Responsibilities of Citizens?"

Ryan Preston-Roedder, "Three Varieties of Faith"

Michael Puett, "On Zhuangzi in Relation to Confucius"

Avital Ronell, in "Examined Life" (2008)

Avital Ronell, "The Telephone Book @ 25"
                         
Thomas Scanlon, "Ethics of Blame"

John Searle, interviewed by Bryan Magee, on the Philosophy of Language: Section 1

John Searle, interviewed by Bryan Magee, on the Philosophy of Language: Section 2

John Searle, interviewed by Bryan Magee, on the Philosophy of Language: Section 3

John Searle, interviewed by Bryan Magee, on the Philosophy of Language, Section 4

John Searle, interviewed by Bryan Magee, on the Philosophy of Language, Section 5

Galen Strawson, "What is the Subject-Experience-Content Identity Thesis?"

John Turri, "Virtue Epistemology & Intellectual Character"

Shannon Vallor, "AI and the Shrinking Space of Moral Reasons"

Kevin Vanhoozer, "The Turn to Drama: A Proposal for a Sapiential Apologetics"

Jennifer Lisa Vest, "Gyeke. Akan Concept of a Person"

Jennifer Lisa Vest, "Hume. The Idea of the Self," part 1

Jennifer Lisa Vest, "Hume. The Idea of the Self." part 2

Edmond Wright, "Narrative, Perception, Language, and Faith"

Natalie Wynn, "A Transgender Woman Artfully Answers 'Critical Feminist' Questions About Transpeople"

George Yancy, "Ferris Reynolds Lecture"

Naomi Zack, "Applicative Justice, Race, and Mixed Race"

Linda Zagzebski, "Ancient Greek Virtue Ethics"

Sunday, September 15, 2013

Nicolai Hartmann's Outlines of a Metaphysics of Knowledge


Nicolai Hartmann’s Outlines of a Metaphysics of Knowledge (Grundzüge einer Metaphysik der Erkenntnis, 1921) is perhaps his most important work in the field of epistemology. It was published early in his career, when he was teaching at the University of Marburg (where he was a professor from 1922-1925), and it describes the relation between epistemology and ontology. It has not, as of 2013, been published in English.
      In the Metaphysics, Hartmann describes four different sides to the problem of knowledge: (1) the psychological, (2) the logical, (3) the ontological, and (4) the gnoseological. The first two sides constitute the non-metaphysical side of the problem of knowledge, while the last two constitute the metaphysical side of the problem of knowledge. The first three constitute the “wider problem of knowledge,” while the last one constitutes the “narrower problem of knowledge.”
      The metaphysical side of knowledge is also metapsychological and metalogical in orientation, and thus it is closely connected to the non-metaphysical side of knowledge.1
      The psychological side of knowledge is represented by the fact that knowledge may be described as a psychological process or event. A knowing subject, just as much as a known object, is essential to any act of knowledge. But just as psychology adheres to the side of the subject, so does logic adhere to the side of the object.2 Just as psychology is concerned with a psychological event or process in the subject, so is logic concerned with the logical contents or structure of the object. Thus, the logical side of knowledge is represented by the fact that knowledge has an objective and not merely subjective character.3
      Psychologism may be described as a tendency to see all knowledge as dependent on, or explicable in terms of, psychological events or processes, while logicism may be described as a tendency to see all knowledge as dependent on, or explicable in terms of, logical relations. Hartmann argues that both psychologism and logicism, because of their inability to address important ontological and gnoseological questions, may lead to misunderstanding of the problem of knowledge.
      According to Hartmann, the problem of knowledge is inseparable from the phenomenon of knowledge, and thus the aporetics of knowledge can only be fully illuminated by investigation of the phenomenology of knowledge. The analysis of the problem of knowledge goes hand in hand with the analysis of the phenomenon of knowledge. Since the “narrower problem of knowledge” is also inseparable from the problem of being, epistemology may be inseparable from both phenomenology and ontology.
      The phenomenology of knowledge may define the relation between the knower and the known, and between the subject and object of knowledge. In the relation of knowledge (Erkenntnisrelation), as long as the object is independent of the subject and of the subject’s knowing, the object may be said to have a being-in-itself (Ansichsein).4 The object is inseparable from the subject only insofar as it is known or knowable. As long as it has a being-in-itself, the object is indifferent toward its objectification or objectifiability.5
      Similarly, the subject in the relation of knowledge has a being-in-itself and does not simply merge into being a subject for an object. The subject’s being-in-itself is initially only a gnoseological one, but it becomes a psychological, logical, and ontological one as well.6
      The form of the object in the consciousness of the subject is determined by the subject’s grasping (or knowing) of the object. The determinations of the object that lie within the consciousness of the subject are those that are graspable or knowable by the subject. Those that lie outside the (floating) boundary of objectification or knowledge constitute the “transobjective,” and those that lie outside the boundary of objectifiability or knowability constitute the “irrational” or “transintelligible.”7
      The “transsubjective” is analogous to the “transobjective” in the relation of knowledge. Just as the object of knowledge never merges into being merely an object for a subject and always has a being-in-itself, so also does the subject always in some way subsist independently as that which is in-itself.
      The aporetics of knowedge arise from the “general aporia of knowledge,” from which in turn arise six other aporias: (1) the aporia of perception and givenness, (2) the aporia of a priori knowledge, (3) the aporia of the criterion of knowledge, (4) the aporia of the problem of consciousness, (5) the aporia of the progress of knowledge, and (6) the aporia of being (the ontological aporia behind the gnoseological aporia).
      The general aporia of knowledge arises from the dynamic and changing opposition of subject and object. This opposition is reflected by such questions as: What kind of relation can exist between the subject and object, if they transcend each other by subsisting independently outside of their relation? From what source comes to the originally separated subject and object the unity that is posited in their relation as knower and known? How is such a relation possible? Does the phenomenon of knowledge emerge from the transcendence of subject and object, or does the transcendence of subject and object emerge from the phenomenon of knowledge?8
      The aporia of perception and givenness is reflected by such questions as: If an object must somehow be given to a perceiving subject in order for its properties to be known by the subject, then how can it be given to the subject if it transcends the subject and the relation of knowledge? —Either its givenness must be merely appearance or its transcendence must be merely appearance.9
      The aporia of a priori knowledge is reflected by such questions as: How can it be that for aprioristic knowledge only logical-immanent and ideal forms of essence are given to knowing consciousness, and that these forms of essence are indifferent to the real essence of the actual?  How can that which is grasped as ideal essence be indifferent to the real essence that transcends it? This indifference, according to Hartmann, is the focal point of the problem of transcendent apriority.10 Immanent apriority, or aprioristic knowledge of ideal objects, depends on the intersubjective identity of categories of knowledge and categories of being, but transcendent apriority, or aprioristic knowledge of real objects, depends on the transcendent identity of categories of knowledge and categories of being.11
      The aporia of the criterion of knowledge is reflected by such questions as: How can the perceiving subject know whether the immanent form of the object in consciousness corresponds to the transcendent object? If the subject can only determine whether the immanent form of the object corresponds to other immanent forms and cannot determine whether the immanent form corresponds to the transcendent object, then there may be no valid criterion of knowledge. 
      The aporia of the problem of consciousness is expressed by such questions as: How is knowledge possible of that which is unknown? How can objectification of the “transobjective” occur, without the latter as such being abolished?12
      The aporia of the progress of knowledge is reflected by such questions as: From knowledge that something is unknown, how can positive knowledge of that thing be attained?  From inadequate knowledge of an object, how can we arrive at adequate knowledge of that object?
      The aporia of being is expressed by such questions as: What is the ontological relation behind the gnoseological relation of knower and known? What is “that which is” (Seinde), insofar as it is independent of all knowability? What is the positive meaning of the “transintelligible”?
      Hartmann distinguishes between the “transintelligible” and the “mystical” by saying that the "mystical" can be an object of revelation, intuition, and ecstatic apprehension.13 The "mystical" is therefore knowable, even though it may not be completely understood. The “transintelligible,” on the other hand, is incapable of being objectified, and is unknowable.


 FOOTNOTES

1Nicolai Hartmann, Grundzüge einer Metaphysik der Erkenntnis (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1921), p. 11.
2Ibid., p. 19.
3Ibid., p. 19.
4Ibid., pp. 39-40.
5Ibid., p. 40.
6Ibid., p. 41.
7Ibid., p. 47.
8Ibid., p. 49.
9Ibid., p. 51.
10Ibid., pp. 52-53.
11Ibid., p. 286.
12Ibid., p. 53.
13Ibid., p. 57.