Date: Sat, 11 Jul 1998 11:36:37 -0700
Subject: Re: In dubium revocari


Hi Anthony,

I wanted to respond earlier, but have been getting a new computer all set
up and have been busy strangling myself with all the cords. As it is, I
still don't have time to do justice to your reply, at most can manage right
now to only skim over the surface of the issues that are indicated.

>For me, the immediate certainty of 2+2=4 has nothing to do with 
>consequences such as having to "dispense with all mathematics." Rather, 
>when I imagine two things and add two other things, I simply and immediately 
>cannot conceive of the result being anything other than four things. The 
>consequences of rejecting this result may be a further consideration, but
they 
>do not constitute the phenomenon of the immediate certainty of 2+2=4. The 
>case is the same with logical axioms, such as A=A. Further, the flipping
coin 
>example is not equivalent to the mathematical example, since I can easily 
>conceive of the coin somehow morphing as I flip it (even though I have never 
>experienced such an occurrence) so that a different face shows up after it 
>lands. That is not inconceivable, whereas it is inconceivable for me that
2+2 
>would equal anything other than 4.

Well, let's say that you have two oranges and two bananas and one of the
bananas morphs into a cucumber. Then 2 + 2 would equal what? No longer four
fruits, in other words, but four something else (four vegetables?). The
point is that some kind of identity must maintain itself over time (A=A),
otherwise there is nothing to count. The same with the flipping coin -- we
assume that the flipping coin will never morph simply because it never has.
The certitude of knowing that the coin has a head and a tail rests on this
maintenance of identity (and on the honesty of the person flipping the
coin). We assume, in other words, that a coin with a tail and a head
remains a coin with a tail and a head. The same with whatever you are
counting -- an apple remains an apple, etc., otherwise there is nothing to
count.

It seems to me that this maintenance of identity (or change according to
law, or cause and effect) signifies the very difference between reality and
a dream.  It is in the dream that apples are liable to morph into
cucumbers, and 2 + 2 may suddenly add up to 5. It is only due to this
difference, it seems to me, that we can tell the difference between the two.

Both Nietzsche and Peirce see identity in this sense as being a pragmatic
habituality that is at the root of our being able to exist at all.
Nietzsche refers to it as the "equating of the inequateable."

>The other possibility is the one supported by Aristotle - that there are
some 
>truths which are known absolutely immediately, and therefore do not at all 
>depend on anything else for their certainty, though one may propose
posterior 
>defensive arguments such as the "consequences of not accepting the 
>assertion." For example, Aristotle held that the principle of
non-contradiction is 
>absolutely primary, and although he proposes reductio ad absurdam arguments 
>in order to refute those who question it, he points out that these are not
proofs 
>because reductio arguments themselves depend on the principle of non-
>contradiction.

A first principle is by definition not an inference that rests upon a prior
premiss. The question would be, then, whether first principles can be known
to be true, or whether they are simply believed to be true. I suspect the
latter. One is perfectly free to dispute the principle of non-contradiction
-- primitives do it every day, believing their dreams to be more real than
reality. Granted that one is liable to fall into certain logical
difficulties, but if logic is not your object, then...

>Then the primary affirmation in question would be A=A, or at least that A 
>cannot be both A and not-A.

Yes, I think that is right. In the dream, A can be both A and not-A.

>For me, the problem with this (and with many of the theories proposed by 
>analytical philosophers such as Peirce) is that it is refuted by our
reaction to 
>opposing worldviews (ie, other "decks of cards"). The essence of certainty, 
>phenomenologically, is not that "if I reject this my whole world falls
apart." 
>Rather, it is that "I immediately see that it cannot be otherwise, and any 
>worldview which denies it must be wrong." If certainty were based simply
on the 
>maintainance my worldview, then part of certainty would not be the 
>condemnation of other worldviews which deny it, which is quite common.

I'm not sure that anything is immediately seen (known). It is not the
presence of knowledge here, in other words, but the absence of doubt that
is at issue. Here's what Peirce has to say:

"The feeling which gives rise to any method of fixing belief is a
dissatisfaction at two repugnant propositions. But here already is a vague
concession that there is some _one_ thing which a proposition should
represent. Nobody, therefore can really doubt that there are Reals, for, if
he did, doubt would not be a source of dissatisfaction." (_The
Philosophical Writing of Peirce_, "The Fixation of Belief," Dover, 1955, p.
19.)

This inability to "doubt that there are Reals," it seems to me, is
something other than knowledge of the real. The distinction is between the
That and the What, in other words. We cannot doubt _that_ the World exists,
but that doesn't mean that we know _what_ the world is. Or what any one
Real is. We cannot know absolutely, in other words, that any one Real is
really real, but can only rest in the assurance that there are Reals (that
some Reals are really real).

An additional point here, and one that Peirce brings up, is that the
appearance of something as a Real for us already implies that we can find
no reason for doubt. If we could find reason to doubt the appearance of a
Real, it would cease to appear real for us. That doesn't mean, however,
that a reason for doubt might not ultimately arise -- at best we can only
say that it hasn't yet, or that we can't conceive of it possibly arising in
the future. No one in their right mind, for instance, doubts the law of
gravity when standing on a ledge, although a lunatic (or somebody stoned
out of their gourd) might believe they could fly. Or that 2 + 2 = 4. This
absence of doubt, however, it seems to me, is something other than
knowledge -- we cannot know absolutely that we will not fly when we step
from the ledge, but can only admit that our experience, and probably our
instinct as well, strongly counsels us otherwise.

Best,

Steve






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