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paul krugman like a father to me september 2009 paul krugman like a father to me 1 paul krugman is right 2 if ever you think paul krugman is wrong refer to rule 1 sunday september 27 2009 chicago please make it stop posted by david jacobs at 9 48 pm no comments iran here posted by david jacobs at 9 43 pm no comments thursday september 24 2009 i am so embarrassed for the university of chicago when will it end posted by david jacobs at 11 40 pm no comments thursday september 17 2009 wtf like many much conquered countries not least italy iran loves artifice the dressing up of truth in elaborate layers it will always favor ambiguity over clarity what does that even mean cohen posted by david jacobs at 11 07 am 1 comment wednesday september 16 2009 thursday deutsch blogging ergreifen realität mit beiden händen das ist alles posted by david jacobs at 11 20 pm no comments tuesday september 15 2009 wilson and king it is the sign of a diseased political culture when people like peter king joe wilson and all their wild eyed brethren are given a public platform i keep waiting for the american people to realize how reckless and dangerous the republican s and their allies in the news media are it really looks like there is nothing you can say no lie you can pass along no calumny you can spit that will get you banned from official discourse democracy and freedom of expression cannot work unless those who lie who demagogue who deceive are punished for their deceit liars and rabble rousers are rewarded for their efforts because people enjoy the drama and drama drives the ratings and fills the coffers of the corporate entities that run our media outlets protecting freedom of speech means not just guarding against censorship it also means responding vigorously to those who would seek to undermine freedom of speech by divorcing it from intellectual honesty and good reasoning posted by david jacobs at 3 27 pm no comments saturday september 12 2009 for the love of god stop quoting william butler yeats s second coming posted by david jacobs at 8 46 pm no comments social insurance here h t mark thoma posted by david jacobs at 3 50 pm no comments sunday september 6 2009 read read read read and then read some more i m going to have to change the name of the blog if all my posts keep coming from delong like this one posted by david jacobs at 9 45 pm no comments striking clarity here h t brad delong posted by david jacobs at 9 13 pm no comments read newspapers to learn clarity of exposition this person has obviously not had much experience with the state of our newspapers posted by david jacobs at 6 57 pm no comments making something one s own in philosophy there is a curious problem that occurs when one encounters an argument whose conclusion one does not like but one nonetheless cannot seem to defeat one is presented with a dilemma do i accept the results of this argument or do i reject them the curious problem that results is that people often refuse to accept the argument even with no apparently good reason to do so let me explain this scenario a little further for those who are not familiar with the way argument works in philosophy it actually works this way in all disciplines but it is not often as explicitly laid out as it almost always is in an academic philosophy setting philosophers are very proud of their mastery of logic the discipline that investigates valid argument and reasoning and are likely to appeal to two facts about logic when presenting or critiquing an argument 1 there are two ways you can defeat an argument a you can question the validity of the form of the argument or b you can question the truth of one or more of the premises 2 if you cannot do either of the things mentioned in 1 then you must accept the conclusion of the argument i am tempted to use ought instead of must to demonstrate the normative aspect of the rationality criterion however i imagine for most readers the difference will be elided so i won t bother but keep in mind that the sense in which one must accept the conclusion of an argument is more of a moral duty than an example of strict causal necessity this will be important later let s call 1 logic 101 and 2 the criterion of rationality logic 101 is basically accepted by everyone if you can show that an argument doesn t have a valid argument form i e modus ponens modus tollens among other classics then you don t have to take the argument seriously additionally if you can reasonably object to the truth of one or more of the premises you have additional reason to reject the argument there does not seem to be much room to argue with the principles of logic 101 2 the criterion of rationality is additionally almost universally accepted however i think it is far more questionable i should perhaps attenuate my statement that it is universally accepted in anglo american analytic philosophy there is almost no controversy as to the truth of the criterion of rationality those in other disciplines and or styles of philosophy might not be so willing to embrace this idea let s think first of all about what a logically valid argument entails for a argument to be logically valid it must be the case that if the premises are true it is not possible for the conclusion to be false the truth of the premises guarantees the truth of the conclusion notice that nothing in here says anything about accepting the results of such an argument most philosophers take the implication of this fact about logically valid arguments to say that one must accept the results of a sound argument a sound argument is an argument that has a valid argument form and all true premises but does this follow it certainly seems crazy to deny it or at least irrational indeed this is often how philosophers explain what is going on when someone is presented with an indefeasibly sound argument yet they refuse to accept the consequences of said argument the person in this situation is behaving irrationally but are they while i don t have a fully developed response to this claim it seems to me that there is a sense in which one must own an argument before it can reach that level of acceptance one cannot be compelled purely by the formal majesty of logic and it seems incorrect to accuse those not so compelled of irrationality there is something deeply rational in its positive normative sense in delaying judgment even in the face of such apparently inescapable evidence the type of acceptance the philosopher thinks logical argument imposes is supposed to be relatively simple the acceptance of a proposition before you heard this argument you believed that p now you believe that not p or maybe you had a void which p now fills sounds straightforward enough right this is a ludicrous symbolization of how beliefs work however our beliefs are not atomistic in this sense unattached to other beliefs this is controversial in philosophy but let s just go with it for now to borrow a phrase from quine they exist in an interlocking web with all our other beliefs i have some qualms about belief talk but it s really not worth making this any more complicated than it already is so let s just press onward a change in belief is a traumatic episode especially if one s belief is central in one s web of beliefs is it really rational to rip apart one s web of beliefs in the face of such uncompelling evidence as a sound argument doesn t the conclusion have to seize one in a manner more meaningful that the inexorability of logical necessity philosophers need to think about this problem far more seriously than they have to date and not just accuse those who fall prey to it of irrationality it is far more pervasive and important as a phenomenon i think than has been heretofore acknowledged i will stop at this point having taken this as far as i can at the moment for those who care i was inspired by an essay by james conant in this collection entitled nietzsche s perfectionism a reading of schopenhauer as educator while not explicitly about this problem i think nietzsche s idea of becoming what one is as a centrally moral concept a becoming that occurs only with extreme difficulty and after much denial of what one is is a useful place to begin illuminating the question of why it is that logic is not enough for rationality or maybe rationality isn t enough for being human update i just wanted to include a quotation from heinrich von kleist who nietzsche approvingly cites in schopenhauer as educator not long ago i became acquainted with the kantian philosophy i have no reason to fear it will shatter you so profoundly and painfully as it has me if the point of this thought does not penetrate your heart do not smile at one who feels wounded by it in the deepest and most sacred part of his being posted by david jacobs at 2 49 pm no comments koan ii the education of a scholar is an extremely difficult problem if his humanity is not to be sacrificed in the process friedrich nietzsche schopenhauer as educator posted by david jacobs at 2 09 pm no comments saturday september 5 2009 koan one can only become a philosopher not be one as soon as one thinks one is a philosopher one stops becoming one friedrich schlegel athenaeum fragments posted by david jacobs at 11 39 pm no comments friday september 4 2009 i have an idea how about pointing out how insane these people are how about not just uncritically repeating every crazy thing they say urging kids to stay in school and study hard since when is working hard socialism the danger in this speech is clearly the possible formation of an obamajugend trained to spy on their parents and share their crayons with other kids oh the horror posted by david jacobs at 4 06 pm no comments wednesday september 2 2009 this is why i study philosophy these definitions coincide with the terms which since greek antiquity have been used to define the forms of government as the rule of man over man of one or the few in monarchy and oligarchy of the best or the many in aristocracy and democracy to which today we ought to add the latest and perhaps most formidable form of such dominion bureaucracy or the rule by an intricate system of bureaux in which no men neither one nor the best neither the few nor the many can be held responsible and which could be properly called the rule by nobody indeed if we identify tyranny as the government that is not held to give account of itself rule by nobody is clearly the most tyrannical of all since there is no one left who could even be asked to answer for what is being done it is this state of affairs which is among the most potent causes for the current world wide rebellious unrest h t glenn greenwald posted by david jacobs at 7 56 pm no comments newer posts older posts home subscribe to posts atom my blog list eschaton obsidian wings grasping reality with both hands philosophy et cetera economist s view beat the press the edge of the american west salon glenn greenwald taibblog rss posts atom posts all comments atom all comments paul krugman like a father to me loading contributors chimaera david jacobs blog archive 2010 7 march 1 february 1 january 5 2009 187 december 4 november 6 october 35 september 16 chicago please iran i am so embarrassed for the university of chicago wtf thursday deutsch blogging wilson and king for the love of god social insurance read read read read striking clarity read newspapers to learn clarity of exposition making something one s own koan ii koan i have an idea this is why i study philosophy august 66 july 32 june 28
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