Crime and the Collective

Analyse this quote and present your point of view in brief (as a comment)

When all are guilty, no one is; confessions of collective guilt are the best possible safeguard against the discovery of culprits, and the very magnitude of the crime the best excuse for doing nothing.

HANNAH ARENDT, Crises of the Republic

Abhishek on What Arendt may be saying:

 

Key ideas -
Culprit - one who commits the crime
Guilty - one who bears responsibility for the crime

Arendt’s argument

A - Only the culprit ought to be be held guilty
B -  In a society where A is not applicable, the entire collective may be considered guilty for the crimes of an individual culprit. This is equivalent to saying that no specific culprit is considered guilty
C - The magnitude of the crime ought to determine the magnitude of the penalty
D - In the societies that where A is applicable, the penalty applies only to the culprit
E1 - In a society where A is not applicable, the penalty would apply not just to the culprit but to entire collective (which is guilty)
E2 - Therefore, a crime of greater magnitude would lead to a penalty of greater magnitude applicable to the entire collective
F - E2 would be against the interest of the collective and thus the collective would avoid implementing the penalty
G (follows from F) - A greater magnitude of the penalty (stemming from a greater magnitude of the crime) would increase the chances of the collective not implementing the penalty

Arendt’s position - Societies ought to be such that A & D are applicable, and B & G are avoided

(Look for Abhishek's supporting argument in the comments)

Analysing Agnosticism

Hey Team 2015!

Take the next quote analysis assignment on a scathing remark made by Peikoff on agnosticism. Analyse the author's point of view, her argument and hence construct your arguments in favor and/or opposition. To view previous quote analyses read here.

"The agnostic miscalculates. He thinks he is avoiding any position that will antagonize anybody. In fact, he is taking a position which is much more irrational than that of a man who takes a definite but mistaken stand on a given issue, because the agnostic treats arbitrary claims as meriting cognitive consideration and epistemological respect. He treats the arbitrary as on a par with the rational and evidentially supported. So he is the ultimate epistemological egalitarian: he equates the groundless and the proved. As such, he is an epistemological destroyer. The agnostic thinks that he is not taking any stand at all and therefore that he is safe, secure, invulnerable to attack. The fact is that his view is one of the falsest—and most cowardly—stands there can be." 

- Leonard Peikoff, The Philosophy of Objectivism lecture series, Lecture 6

Analysis by Nihar Kulkarni & Abhishek Dedhe

Note- *no. assigned to arguments, (*no.) denotes to what argument the current argument is opposing., ...for supporting a pt.

Argument of Peikoff:

• P1- Acceptance of Agnosticism is to avoid being antagonistic toward any belief.
• P2- Considering 2 antagonistic claims equal involves allotting equal possibility of being true to the false proposition as well.
• P3-Considering 2 contradictory propositions simultaneously true is irrational
• C1-Agnoscicism is irrational.( P1+P2+P3)
• P4-Agnosticism a concept in epistemology as it is defining a limit to epistemological reach i.e. impossible to `know` whether the god exists or not.
• P5-Epistemology exists to reach a valid & sound conclusion through reasoning & available evidence.
• P6-Agnostics consider to reach a conclusion to be impossible.
• P7-Agnostics deny certainty of available evidence.
• C2-Agnostics harm epistemology. (P4+P5+P6+P7)

 Counter Argument:

• Assumption wrong – P1.*1
• Currently person – Diff of support for any 1 claim=negligible(P4)
• Waiting for more evidence for one.(P5)
• Rationally chosen indecision.*2
• Can the result of a rational method be irrational? (C1)
• Agnosticism, Atheism & Theism are related with an individual.*3
• Allotting values to different claims depends on that individual.
• No right to any other individual to judge the allotting. (P2)
• Why not aim of epistemology Search for a conclusion rather than reach it?*4
• Also, as the assumption P1 is wrong the quote is wrong.*5
• As agnosticism allows theism & atheism i.e high level of tolerance of both.
• Wouldn’t world be more peaceful if more people were agnostics?*6

• Counter to counter arguments:

• If the claim is that there may be something you do not know, how do you know that that something exists.
• Rational stand is to have a conclusion from what you know.*7
• Is the stand to reject changing the beliefs for the sake of individuality correct?
• Growth of individual & society hampered.
• Result of rational method applied to a consideration starting from an irrational claim can be irrational.*8
• In reality 2 kinds of agnostics-
• A)Temporary Agnostics-Confusion whether to choose theism or atheism, but they do choose at some point of time.
• B)Permanent Agnostics-They choose not to arrive at any conclusion.
• Every person consciously choosing a belief system was a temporary agnostic at some point.
• Opposition is to permanent agnostics for the reasons mentioned in *7 & *8.....*9.
• Plenty of reasoning for Atheism & no reasoning nor evidence for theism.
• Pt of negligible diff for any claim meaningless.(*1)
• Once you decide to reach no conclusion at all despite evidence & reasoning, no longer the decision is rational *9. (*2)....C1
• Different isms exist because every belief tries to portrait reality in the way they see.
• The picture of their reality could only be complete & absolute truth when others do not hold any other contradictory reality to be true.
• Involving others in our beliefs a fundamental part of any ism.
• So existence of uninfluenced individual beliefs unrealistic.(*3)
• Also, if the agnostics become powerful enough they may start opposing theists & atheists.
• The basic claim is that it is impossible to know the existence of god.
• The people claiming possible in opp to them. (*6)
• The aim of all kinds of sciences including philosophy is to reach certainty at the fundamental level possible.
• Epistemological methods are a mean to do so.
• Though searching for a more fundamental certainty an inseparable part of epistemology,
• the search for next fundamental certainty starts by holding the current one as basis.
• i.e. at each step, you have to choose one most rationally reasoned & evidential possibility by eliminating others.
• Not choosing one means not being antagonistic with any other...P1,(*1)
• Agnostics refuse to do so i.e. they do not apply epistemological methods,
• though limit the reach of epistemology.
• This stance is misleading & harm the epistemological reasoning of the individuals who hold Agnosticism to be a righteous epistemological stance...C2. 

Chosen Side –Supporting Peikoff. 

An assignment on the application of Ethics / Metaphysics to Psychology

“There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide.” – Albert Camus

Work on this quote, while I work on the responses to the earlier (Aristotle's) quote. Try to finish by the 6th evening

Another assignment

Understand this quote and frame an argument for or against it, say by 3rd March 2013 evening.

"The worst form of inequality is to try and make unequal things equal" - Aristotle

For previous such analyses see the posts with label Quote Analysis.

The topic was:
“The investigation of the truth is in one way hard, in another easy. An indication of this is found in the fact that no one is able to attain the truth adequately, while, on the other hand, no one fails entirely, but everyone says something true about the nature of all things, and while individually they contribute little or nothing to the truth, by the union of all a considerable amount is amassed.”
― Aristotle, Metaphysics

Analysis by Abhinav Menon: (and my comments and questions to Abhinav)

 

I have split my argument into Aristotle's argument, Sec A is my analysis of Aristotle's Arg, Sec B and C are further discussions. 

Aristotle’s Argument

P1. Every individual can say ‘something true’ about nature of things in virtue of   ‘things’ existing
P2. Truth is an all-encompassing concept (How) – thus an individual alone cannot comprehend the vastness of truth (Why)
P3. Truth as a concept is being investigated and thus so is the nature of truth. Investigating the nature of truth contributes to the investigation of truth. (Does he mean concept OR individual truths?)
(P1 + P2 => C1.) The union of all P1s leads to a larger portion of the truth (indicated in P2 + P3) being discovered
C2. Physics (saying something true about the nature of things) (i.e. facts, often named as truths) is different from Metaphysics (investigation of truth) (i.e. the concept or 'Truth', what constitutes Truth?, what characterizes it?, How do we arrive at it?)
(C1 + C2 + P3 => C3.) Truth in its entirety cannot be known. All we can say is that we can know a large part of truth by knowing about the nature of things. (I think he means that sum of knowledge of ALL men gives us a large portion of the Truth and not one man's knowledge)

Sec A
A1.’Investigation of the truth’ (what you mean is the Truth in such and such a case, i.e. an instance of truth and not Truth as an idea?) affirms a something/concept called truth with certain properties, which form its nature
A2. Things have elements of truth in them (this follows from ‘the nature of all things’ argument) and only by piecing together the elements of truth and taking its union can we arrive at an understanding/attainment of truth
A3. Inherent in truth’s nature is that it encompasses everything (this is a restatement of P2)
(A1 + A2) A4. A3 is inconsistent and Aristotle’s reasoning is circular. He is in a process of investigating something called truth, and yet he is able to assign a property like “all-encompassing” to truth without fully investigating its nature. I.e. he has defined truth but he is still in search of it.
(I think Aristotle would be unhappy with this unfair interpretation. I think you are confusing the 'idea' with the 'instance')

Sec B
B1. A definition of the notion of truth is not clear in Aristotle’s argument (i.e. truth is some sort of an abstract entity not well defined)
B2. If truth is everything under the sun then why call it truth? (If existing objects have element of truth in that, they are, as they appear, why do we need a separate notion of truth.)
B3. If purpose of philosophy is to ‘investigate truth,’ then what is, ‘to say something true about the nature of things?’ (is it science). What is the purpose of this distinction and can one lead to another?
(B4) Say something true about nature of things is saying: - the ball is red
B5. If I were to call a red ball blue, the fact does not change.
(B4 + B5 = B6) Truth is unaffected by what people may say about it or perceive it as (however they may do so) (This is the notion of objectivity of Truth. Some philosophers may not agree on the basis that your only means of perceiving truth are your senses and cognition, both of which could be faulty. Hence the TRUTH you perceive, may not be THE Truth. So it may change from person to person or from time to time. Science on the other hand {or real/rational/empirical philosophies} agree on objectivity. So you should state your position before asserting 'a fact')
B7. What everyone says about the nature of all things may not be necessarily true. Thus unions of all is not necessarily lead to a ‘considerable amount.’
(Agreed. However, let us say that 1 out of a million persons spoke 0.1% truth about a certain issue/situation/human condition/etc.; then in the entire span of history, given that there have been at least a few ten's of billion people who have lived and died and transmitted their ideas to the next generation - the amount of truth thus amassed adds up to nearly 100%. Of course 'truth' is not so simply seen and transferred. Their are losses in transmission due to religious / political interferences in history or simply due to people's neglect of the responsibility of handing over the truth to the next gen. Also, perceptions may be equally faulty for many of the truth seekers and the actual percentage of truth amassed may be reduced greatly.)
 Sec C
C1. Truth can be broken down into constituents.
C2. Each constituent can be analyzed, providing better understanding of truth.
C1 + C2 = C3) Truth is fundamental atomic facts. When a fact (a true proposition) is broken down, there are individual elements of the proposition which create meaning by referring to particulars/concepts/universals (clearer definition needed here)
C4) In a certain sense Aristotle’s quote can be seen as discussing the nature of propositions however the whole truth can be attained and affirmed through analysis of individual propositions.
(More discussion on how this links to empiricism)
 (Now, that's where the problem of Truth lies. Can we actually atomize truth, always? Sometimes, even as the truth is obvious, its difficult to analyse/atomize it. e.g. A mother loves her child. You can point out many ways in which she indicates this love. But does that prove her love as a truth? What about the times when she hits the child? What if there is a disaster and only one of them would survive? What if she survives by accident? Would she then commit suicide for her child? Then again - does dying for the one you love show the Truth of your love? If not sacrifice, then what proves love? O.K. leave all that, can we compare the love of one mother towards her child, with another mother towards hers? So how do you go about atomizing this further? But, don't you accept this as a general Truth of humanity? How come?)

Most facts of human interactions (a domain of sociology) are impenetrable in this manner. It is difficult to be deductive about them as an idealist would try. Now empiricism is somewhat the answer and I guess that's what Aristotle is trying to say. Empirically you observe (human nature or human interactions) and collect data, pass it down generations, until a huge amount of data is collected. Humans are not capable of retaining ALL data, such as Every Mother's EVERY Act of love towards her child. Hence they form truths by interpolating and extrapolating from the limited observation and hand these over to the next gen. Next gen further refines and redefines the conclusions with their  own observations. and so on....

Also, Truth about any matter needs to be observed with keen and faultless senses of one individual and then the next and thus many to consider it coherent with reality. "Truth" has to be found to be consistent with the other "truths" known to Man. And then again, the "Truth's" need to be analysed in reference to other known truths to understand their origin and nature. This demands a great effort and is seldom possible for any one Man in his lifetime. Hence, Aristotle says that men perceive fragments of truth.

Thus, the process of discovery and transmission of Truth as described by Aristotle is fine. But you could question his assertion that THAT is how Truth is. So maybe our process of discovery needs to be refined with objectivity and logic. Our process of transmission is already better with books and other technology (unfortunately, facebook un-does that, :-( ...) So maybe Truth can be formed more completely and definitively now.
OR ... you could argue that Truth is a metaphysic myth. Its purely relative and subjective. :-o

Hobbes on need of Government

Hereby it is manifest, that during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition, which is called war; and such a war as is of every man, against every man. (Hobbes, Leviathan, Ch. XIII) 


Hobbes Argument (probably)

A) Each man follows his principles / ideals
B) Society consists of many men where
  1) the ideals of two people are the same
  2) they are different
  3) they are in opposition
C) Men are not rational (either impulsive / not clear enough reasons / ignorance of other possibilities) hence not tolerant; hence believe in
ideological superiority
D) A + C + B2/B3: disharmony  / conflict since the only way to remove differences is through coercion
E) Common Power: Authority which poeple hold in awe
  1) Fear of being harmed if you dont agree with the authority
  2) In your own interest to hold the superiority of the authority in order to gain benefits from it
F) Common Power needs to be just or else corruption & injustice will lead to more conflict
G) C + F: Objectivity required in resolving conflict
F) Common Power can keep people away from conflict,disharmony or "war"

My Counter-Argument
If a "common power" is feared by the people, it will eventually lead to corruption of the power. For it to be just and objective, it needs to be transparent and thoroughly rational. Such a power wont be feared but respected and would actually solve conflicts.

Sartre & Human Impotence (Incomplete)

The decisive argument which is employed by common sense against freedom consists in reminding us of our impotence. Far from being able to modify our situation at our whim, we seem to be unable to change ourselves. I am not “free” either to escape the lot of my class, of my nation, of my family, or even to build up my own power or my fortune or to conquer my most insignificant appetites or habits. 

(Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness)

Sartre's Argument 

A) Freedom consists of being able to change one's state of existence, without coercion by any external entity and only via our rational thinking.

A1) "Social Freedom" consists of being able to change our state of existence without having to confirm to the ideas of any group (family, friends, class, nation, ...)

A2) "Economic Freedom" consists of being able to acquire wealth (change state) without having to succumb to attempts at control and misappropriation by others

A3) "Personal Freedom" consists of being able to change our physical / mental desires (change state)

B) Our potentials lies in changing our states of existence, i.e. exercising our freedom and our goal should be to achieve to the best of our potentials

C) By observation - We cannot achieve freedom in either of the senses given in A1, A2 and A3, i.e. we are impotent.

F) Free Will does not exist OR the idea of Free Will is illusory

Arguments in Support

Necessitarianism / Determinism) Actions are predestined or consequences of previous actions by self and others. Hence our state of existence is bound to be affected by external causes/entities. Free Will is an illusion.

Pragmatism) Things may be deterministic or otherwise, but in any case, its too complex a calculation to decide what to do next. Hence Free Will is a meaningless proposition.

Kant) Moral judgement needed to change state; which in turn depends upon categorical imperatives which themselves are beyond the control of Man. Hence, acts appear to be out of free will, while actually being governed by divinity / society / innate moral sense.

Locke / Hume) "... man is not permitted without censure to follow his own thoughts in the search of truth ..." - Locke; No innate thoughts or ideas - every knowledge / thought has to be acquired via experience; hence change of state is not possible without being influenced by surrounding entities.

Arguments against Sartre

Liberatianism: All actions are allowed except those that inflict or encroach upon the rights of other people (He is still allowed to perform actions inflicting upon his own rights). This limitation is required to omit the problem of contradiction and anarchy among the actions of the people. Hence, the actions of the people are not bound by any other external cause. Therefore, free will is not illusory.

Internalism: No external agent can affect the action of an individual since only he has control over his thoughts and emotions.Hence, there are no restrictions over his actions. Therefore, free will is not illusory.

Individualism/personalism: The thought or opinion of an individual is supreme. Man is selfish. Hence, he will perform those actions beneficial to him. Therefore, the external opposition against his opinion do not matter. free will is not illusory.

Anarchism: Absence of Government allows all actions, even those which inflict upon the rights of others. Govt. should be absent since laws are broken and crime takes place even in the presence of a govt. Hence, there are no restrictions whatsoever, in any form. Man is absolutely free.

Accidentalism: Opposite to indeterminism. Man has no control over some events. This is beyond the capacity of a human to perform and not, rather, any limitation to the actions of a person. Hence, no restrictions bound but some events are out of control of ANY other being. However, the man still falls under the defintion of a free person.

compatibilism: Possible to achieve free-will and be deterministic at the same time without any contradiction. Man is free to follow and move on the path that is already pre-destined. Their notion of freedom is different. Acc. to their notion, there should be no restriction. Hence, free will is not illusory.

Chitra on Wittgenstein's meaning of Meaning and another topic

A) For a large classes of cases – though not for all – in which we employ the word “meaning” it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language. 
(Ludwig Wittgenstein)


 For a large classes of cases – though not for all – in which we employ the word “meaning” it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language.
Think About This-
other cases- different from meanings different from definition, thus the mentioned sense clarified.
etymology of 'word'- what does stand for, purpose of having words 
consider words having anything apart from straightforward meaning, reconsider words having more than one meaning- is there similarity between those concepts
Backward Approach-
Language- define, holds what??? Again purpose of words- thus limiting the meaning of meaning as far as language is concerned.
Therefore-
what could meaning otherwise imply? or how to define a concept and ascribe words for it-analyze the process. Does 'meaning ' serve anything more than convenience or contextual definitions? examples again


B) Does science need philosophy?
Who needs philosophy? What does mean by 'need philosophy'? Define philosophy, its purpose- it is because that's the way it is or it is the way it's ought to be or it helps us understand how it is. which of these can apply to science.
How does science develop? how does philosophy develop? overlaps , interdependence and interactions- which of these?
discuss instances where philosophy had had its impact on science- from anecdotes to greek mythology to Kuhn. establish these instances to have alternate explanations
Would science perish without philosophy? obviously not!!!! [or will it] 
Further suggest according to what you have to say about this question, with examples.
Avoid the customary format for this essay- DONT give your abstract before the main content of the essay  because you'll have to go for Y or N

On Love & Knowing

Try to frame arguments for the following two quotes (previous IPO topics).
Will discuss them online today evening (2 May, at 5 IST) at the tinychat chat room (link on the right side bar)

1) To know a thing we must love it, and to love a thing we must know it.
(Kitaro Nishida)


How I would Define Love
All kinds of love have a common cause, i.e. they are a form of achieving something for one-self - whether physical pleasures, mental satisfaction or spiritual peace of mind; and thus are a manifestation of loving oneself. Nishida's "Love" has two distinct meanings - First clause) Passion to know, Second clause) Considering one-self worthy of achieving and acquiring.

Is Truth an Error?

"Truth is a kind of error without which a particular kind of living creature could not live. The value for life is ultimately decisive." - Friedrich Nietzsche

T) Truth is the idea that our thoughts correspond with reality
A) Man (or any living creature capable of thought) needs an idea of "truth" - Creatures cannot hold an idea without having the "idea about something", i.e. existence has to be taken as a priori.
B) Truth may not be "real" - i.e. Things may not have truth value and they need not be absolute - since any investigation into the "truth" of something ends up in having to take certain things for granted, w/o knowing their truth value.
C) T + A + B: In absence of "truth", no basis for thought OR ideas cannot be validated via "reality checks"
Nietzsche) T + A + B: Assuming things are "true" leads to false assumptions of existence. Hence the concept of truth is a wrongly held belief. + C: validation of ideas (a process required to decide about the correctness of any object - whether psychological/mental or material) is done by evaluating the "Value for Life" the creature holds (read selfishness). Nietzsche's target "ideas" was (sic) Morality

Arguments in Support
Skepticism) B cannot be disproved, since the process of finding the truth about something inherently demands acceptance of things which may not be true.
Nihilism) C can imply that their is no reality Or at least Man's conception of reality is spurious. However, may also argue that the value for life is ill-founded and can be arbitrarily different for different people, thus may not lead one (or many) to a rational end.
Mysticism) Since C, therefore the mind fabricates reality. This implies that reality may not exist or also that one has no way of knowing what is real; hence any "grasp" of reality would be illusory and any decision taken on the basis of such a illusory basis would necessarily be in error. In such an ideological vacuum, decisions can be taken on any arbitrary basis and that is what Man does. The preferred basis could be derived from divinity or self-interest.
Pragmatism) B implies that it is not always useful to investigate the Truth. "Value for Life" is a practical way to decide about things. (read: moral judgments)

Arguments in Opposition
Realism)  B is false. Reality exists regardless of your wishes or knowledge of it. Thus A is the only way to "know" and think about something and hence the only way to live. If not then you could live in your hypothetical/imaginary world and your desires (arbitrary sense of Value for Life) could bear out to be "real" / applicable. This doesn't happen.
Rationalism / Empiricism / Representational-ism) Variants of Realism: Truth can be observed by trusting the senses or finding the logic to necessitate the existence of it. In effect whatever we conceptualize after a reasonable investigation is "The Truth".C would imply a negation/denial of our own existence.
Objectivism / Naturalism) Goes further from the above to claim that reality cannot be other than what is observed and perceived by us and to claim that Truth may not exist is a "criminal" error as it would completely nullify Man's faculty for thinking and render Man impotent, thereby creating severe impediment in realizing the Value for Life. It maintains that "Value for Life" cannot be contradictory with Truth (or reality) and thus would be equally (or rather synonymous-ly) decisive about moral judgments.

I adhere to the last point of view

About Perceptions & Reality

Hello Young Philosophers,
Here's an assignment for the team and others who are interested.

Question: What can we trust more: a) our perception of the world Or b) our perceptions of the world?

My Argument

A) "Our" could imply that the perceptions are of one and the same person Or
Ax) "Our" implies that of humanity
B) "perception" => process of using sense data to form ideas about the world outside
C) "perceptions" => individual implementations of the process in (B) either spread out in time or 'maybe' spread out between different people (although the second does not sound very correct)
D) The process of perception is known to falter due to cognitive bias or incomplete or faulty sensory data
E1) However for most individuals it falters in the same way each time
E2) For others - may falter differently
Skepticism) A + B + D + E2: You can give NO garunty of what you know
Coherentism) A + B + D + E1: There would always be some bias in Knowing
Foundherentibilism) A/Ax + B + D + E1/E2: You need to establish "Reliable" methods which are in turn "Founded" on "Coherence" between common perceptions of most people. (requires C and not necessarily an efficient way, however, its the only path towards human knowledge)
Pragmatism/Empiricism) Ax + C + D + E1/E2: Will have sufficient confidence in knowledge after having got the same picture from most people in areas where knowing is essential (read tangible/practical/useful)
Rationalism/Realism/Objectivism) A +  C + D + E1/E2: Only way to for you to know is to check for "Consistency" & "Coherence" between different ideas; "Rely" upon your past perceptions; judge your perception using these evidences; hence trust your perception.

Conclusion) For us to know  - Realism ... requires us to rely more upon C than B
ConclusionX) For us to know as mankind - Foundherentibilism requires us to rely more upon C than B