Our mental states seem to elicit certain paradoxes; for example, how can it be that my mental state can be abstract yet located where my body is? The mind's temporal nature, on the other hand, seems more straight forward. The mind came into existence at a point in time, thoughts follow one another in succession, etc.
Colin McGinn, a prominent philosopher of mind, makes the case for the non-spatial nature of mental properties:
"It is hard to deny that Descartes was tapping into our ordinary
understanding of the nature of mental phenomena when he formulated the
distinction between mind and body in this way - our consciousness does
indeed present itself as non-spatial in character. Consider a visual
experience, E, as of a yellow flash. Associated with E in the cortex is a
complex of neural structures and events, N, which does admit of spatial
description. N occurs, say, an inch from the back of the head; it
extends over some specific area of the cortex; it has some kind of
configuration or contour; it is composed of spatial parts that aggregate
into a structured whole; it exists in three spatial dimensions; it
excludes other neural complexes from its spatial location. N is a
regular denizen of space, as much as any other physical entity. But E
seems not to have any of these spatial characteristics: it is not
located at any specific place; it takes up no particular volume of
space; it has no shape; it is not made up of spatially distributed
parts; it has no spatial dimensionality; it is not solid. Even to ask
for its spatial properties is to commit some sort of category mistake,
analogous to asking for the spatial properties of numbers. E seems not
to be the kind of thing that falls under spatial predicates. It falls
under temporal predicates and it can obviously be described in other
ways - by specifying its owner, its intentional content, its phenomenal
character - but it resists being cast as a regular inhabitant of the
space we see around us and within which the material world has its
existence. Spatial occupancy is not (at least on the face of it) the
mind's preferred mode of being." (1995)
According to McGinn, our mental states do not warrant the same spatial talk that we make of physical states. Does it make sense for me to say that my smelling the coffee first thing in the morning is located 2 cm above my right ear? But we talk about the spatial dimensions of physical objects all the time. It makes just as much sense to talk about the spatial properties of numbers as it does mental states.
But if our intuitions strongly tell us that mental states are non-extended in space then it is also quite obvious that they are, nonetheless, located in space. To borrow McGinn's example, my act of perceiving, although non-extended in space, is located where my brain and eyes are and not at the Grand Canyon. This has troubled some philosophers like Jerry Fodor who think its a strike against dualism:
"The chief drawback of dualism is its failure to account adequately for mental causation. If the mind is non-physical, it has no position in physical space. How then, can a mental cause give rise to a behavioural effect that has a position in space? To put it another way, how can the nonphysical give rise to the physical without violating the laws of conservation of mass, of energy and of momentum" (1994: 25)
The hylomorphist can respond to this by pointing to individual substances which seem to contradict this. Recall in earlier posts I pointed out that the form is just the organisation of the matter. Contrary to dualism, the form is not an additional substance to the matter. Take the parts of a disassembled table. Do they weigh anything more after assembly? No (this point is also made by Kathrin Koslicki, 2008: 177). Is the total length or surface volume of the parts anymore on assembly than before? Of course not. But it is hard to deny that something new has come into existence when a table is assembled. The table has been added to our ontological inventory of items in the universe.
This must mean that the form is a non-physical thing that is non-extended in space and yet it is located in space. The form does not exist at any one particular point on the object but is distributed throughout the entirety of that object as it is the organisational state of the matter. Just as the abstract proposition that is embodied in the word 'cat' is distributed throughout the inscription and order of its letters.
Fodor finds it incredulous that mental states that are non-physical can act on bodily states that are located in space. But if we take forms to supervene on matter organised in a particular way then we do not have to talk as if the mental is 'acting on' or 'causing' the physical. For example, sets supervene on their members (Armstrong 1989: 11), yet we would not say that sets 'act on' their members. A set and its members forms a metaphysical unity of one entity over many (at least two). Indeed, the constitution relation, like marble relative to a statue, counts as supervenience (Crane 2001: 58).
Thus there are paradigmatic examples, like propositions, sets, and artefacts, where it is readily apparent how a non-physical thing can be located in space but non-extended. But it requires seeing forms (which is equated with the mind for Aristotelians) as the non-physical, organisers of bodies as a whole.
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Krugman and Economics
Paul Krugman is the Nobel Prize winning New York Times columnist and
Keynesianism's greatest defender. But I wonder if there is a Nobel Prize
for idiocy, because he would be a top contender if there were. This
man's solutions, in column after column, is - spend more money, spend
more money. When a stimulus doesn't work his reasons are always that not enough was spent originally - he is impossible to falsify.
Here are numerous explicit quotes from Krugman specifically calling for the Fed to keep interest rates low in order to create a housing bubble. E.g.
“Post-terror nerves aside, what mainly ails the U.S. economy is too much of a good thing. During the bubble years businesses overspent on capital equipment; the resulting overhang of excess capacity is a drag on investment, and hence a drag on the economy as a whole.
In time this overhang will be worked off. Meanwhile, economic policy should encourage other spending to offset the temporary slump in business investment. Low interest rates, which promote spending on housing and other durable goods, are the main answer. But it seems inevitable that there will also be a fiscal stimulus package” (emphasis added)
And...
"There is room for the Fed to create a bubble in housing prices, if necessary, to sustain American hedonism. And I think the Fed has the will to do so, even though political correctness would demand that Mr. Greenspan deny any such thing." (emphasis added)
One thing he should be given credit for is that he actually does recognise that artificially low interest rates were largely responsible for the housing bubble and American's consumption binge. Recent crashes are a symptom of the US and its ineluctable drive for more and more consumption and spending and less and less saving.
More idiocy from Krugman. This time from the economist, John Lott jnr.
Here are numerous explicit quotes from Krugman specifically calling for the Fed to keep interest rates low in order to create a housing bubble. E.g.
“Post-terror nerves aside, what mainly ails the U.S. economy is too much of a good thing. During the bubble years businesses overspent on capital equipment; the resulting overhang of excess capacity is a drag on investment, and hence a drag on the economy as a whole.
In time this overhang will be worked off. Meanwhile, economic policy should encourage other spending to offset the temporary slump in business investment. Low interest rates, which promote spending on housing and other durable goods, are the main answer. But it seems inevitable that there will also be a fiscal stimulus package” (emphasis added)
And...
"There is room for the Fed to create a bubble in housing prices, if necessary, to sustain American hedonism. And I think the Fed has the will to do so, even though political correctness would demand that Mr. Greenspan deny any such thing." (emphasis added)
One thing he should be given credit for is that he actually does recognise that artificially low interest rates were largely responsible for the housing bubble and American's consumption binge. Recent crashes are a symptom of the US and its ineluctable drive for more and more consumption and spending and less and less saving.
More idiocy from Krugman. This time from the economist, John Lott jnr.
"Krugman’s predictions were no more accurate for other
countries. He criticized the reduction in German government spending in June
2010 as a 'huge mistake,' and said: 'budget cuts will hurt your economy and
reduce revenues [by reducing economic growth].' Yet, more than a year later,
Germany’s unemployment rate continued falling, dropping by 0.7 percentage
points between June 2010 and August 2011. And as of June 2011, German GDP
during 2011 grew at 3 percent, almost twice as fast as our own GDP growth.
Germany accomplished the lower unemployment and higher growth rates without
burdening its children with the massively higher debt that Obama and Krugman
advocated.
But you get some idea why Krugman predictions have so been
consistently wrong by understanding that he just thinks government spending is
free. He also thought that the 9/11 attacks 'could even do some economic good'
by stimulating the economy because “all of a sudden, we need some new office
buildings' and 'rebuilding will generate at least some increase in business
spending.' undefined Let’s the buildings
and spend the money on something else.
Digging ditches and filling them in again leaves people no
better off. Krugman has a different view: 'If we discovered that space aliens
were planning to attack and we needed a massive buildup to counter the space
alien threat and really inflation and budget deficits took secondary place to
that, this slump would be over in 18 months. And then if we discovered, oops,
we made a mistake, there aren’t any aliens, we’d be better off.'"
Its
not just the future debt passed on to our children that should worry
us. Government spending diverts precious, wealth producing capital
(land, factories, machines, etc) away from the far more efficient
private sector and greatly retards growth. Known in economics as "crowding out".
But Keynesians are loath to admit this with their fanatical emphasis on
spending and increasing the money supply - as if these chimeras for
wealth are any substitute for the real thing.
UPDATE: Incidentally Krugman has just written a piece attacking the Austrian economist, Peter Schiff, here Now if he is going to attack Schiff in his opinion piece why does he repeatedly refuse to debate him and other Austrians like Robert Murphy (even when a substantial amount of money is offered to charity)?
Krugman's taking the Austrians to task for their supposed failed hyperinflation predictions. I'd like to see Schiff's response but here is my initial thoughts. The reason inflation is yet to appear in any great quantity is time. When the federal reserve prints money it is not as if it is dropped like manna from heaven into everyone's lap all at once so that prices go up immediately. Rather, what happens is that money enters the economy through various portals usually the banks) and it is only later that it shows up as increased prices. The second point is that it may already be happening. The US Consumer Price Index (CPI) doesn't count all goods in its inflation tally. Food and oil, for example, are not counted. In addition, goods that show technological advancement such as the iPhone 5 are (erroneously) seen as deflation because there is more computer power for the same price. Hence the CPI may be masking the real level of inflation.
UPDATE: Incidentally Krugman has just written a piece attacking the Austrian economist, Peter Schiff, here Now if he is going to attack Schiff in his opinion piece why does he repeatedly refuse to debate him and other Austrians like Robert Murphy (even when a substantial amount of money is offered to charity)?
Krugman's taking the Austrians to task for their supposed failed hyperinflation predictions. I'd like to see Schiff's response but here is my initial thoughts. The reason inflation is yet to appear in any great quantity is time. When the federal reserve prints money it is not as if it is dropped like manna from heaven into everyone's lap all at once so that prices go up immediately. Rather, what happens is that money enters the economy through various portals usually the banks) and it is only later that it shows up as increased prices. The second point is that it may already be happening. The US Consumer Price Index (CPI) doesn't count all goods in its inflation tally. Food and oil, for example, are not counted. In addition, goods that show technological advancement such as the iPhone 5 are (erroneously) seen as deflation because there is more computer power for the same price. Hence the CPI may be masking the real level of inflation.
Windschuttle on Hobsbawm
There's a nice piece by the Australian, maverick historian Keith Windschuttle, on the Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm. Evidently, plenty of academics and politicians praised him on the news of his death on the 1st of October this year. The left were particularly fawning but some conservatives praised him, at least for his historical achievements. What raised the ire of some, however, was that he was not only an avowed Marxist, but he was also a supporter after word of the communist butchering of millions, in both the Soviet Union and China, got out.
Windschuttle is indignant on this, characterising Hobsbawm's historical work as little more than odes to Marxism dressed up as history. He was a slave to his ideology, his Marxist coloured glasses tainted everything he wrote:
"Once an historian adopts a model like this, his task is not all that difficult. He goes hunting for evidence to support the conclusion he has already decided. In newspapers and secondary sources he finds incidents and social trends, and interprets them within the same framework, thereby 'verifying' his model. Hobsbawm was able to write his 'great tetralogy' of European history because Marx had already given him its framework. He never had to study everything available on a topic and then comprehend it all within an original narrative. He simply took the theoretical colouring book provided by Marx, and filled it in. This is not how you should do history, and it is certainly not how you produce great history."
He also tells the story of the fascinating debate Hobsbawm lost on the benefits of the Industrial Revolution to working class wages.
"In what became one of the most gripping intellectual clashes of the Cold War, Hartwell crushed Hobsbawm completely, both in the way he conceptualised the question—it was quite implausible to argue that real wages fell, Hartwell argued, at a time when other indices showed rapid economic growth and rising labour productivity—and the wide range of data he produced to authenticate it. By 1968, Hobsbawm’s fellow Marxist historian E.P. Thompson, whose book The Making of the English Working Class devoted a chapter to the same debate, had withdrawn graciously in defeat: 'My comments on the exceedingly complex and developing research in demography are trivial: and the reader who wishes to inform himself on this, or the problems of health, housing, and urban growth, must on occasions turn to the work of those economic historians whose assumptions are, in this chapter, under criticism.' But Hobsbawm never found the courage or the decency to do the same. More recent analyses, especially by Peter Lindert and Jeffrey Williamson in 1983, found that in the thirty-two years from 1819 to 1851, real wages in Britain actually doubled."
One last point Windschuttle makes is on the economic determinism of Leftism. One that continues to this day I might add (income inequality hurts the self-worth of the poor, crime and suicide bombing is caused by poverty and lack of jobs):
"Their position as wage earners purportedly determines how workers think, what they value and the kind of institutions they create; and their position as capitalists determines how employers think, what they value and the very different institutions they create. The notion that ideas might be autonomous, or even historically causative, is simply bourgeois naivety. Meanwhile, capitalist growth produces periodic crises and generates class conflicts that cripple the entire system."
But if economics determines the course of history then what explains the Marxist ideology? What economic situation caused Hobsbawm to adopt Marxism as opposed to some other ideological system
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Saturday, November 24, 2012
Hylomorphism Overcomes the "Grain Problem"
In the two installments on "Physicalism and Hylomorphism" I explained my own take on hylomorphism that's somewhat unique today (perhaps in a later post I will explain just how it differs from other versions by David Oderberg, Kathrin Koslicki, Kit Fine, Etc). My version specifically identifies the form of an object with the way its material parts are arranged. One example from Aristotle is the syllable 'cat'. The proposition embodied by the word 'cat' is made manifest by the way the letters are arranged. The proposition is dependent on the letters and the syntax of the word for its instantiation in the world, but that is not the same as saying it is identical to its material parts. The form of a chair is revealed through the way the Oak is arranged, it is not identical with the Oak itself.
One advantage to hylomorphism is that it solves what Wilfred Sellars called the "grain problem" in his 1965 paper, "The Identity Approach to the Mind-Body Problem". Specifically, Sellars took this as a problem for materialism: how could it be that the world is exhausted by physiological events yet our experience of that world is homogenous. The material world is exhausted by heterogeneous parts and yet our experience is of a smooth, homogenous world. E.g. when we look at water we have, for all intents and purposes, a homogenous experience of one liquid substance (or some may call it a 'lump' like gold). But water is made up of two parts hydrogen, one part oxygen; two heterogenous parts that are not perceived when we experience water.
The hylomorphist has a ready answer to this conundrum. What we perceive when we look at a liquid like water is a bunch of heterogenous parts organised in such a way that they compose one thing. The parts, in a sense, become one. Just as the word 'cat' is one proposition made up of three parts organised in the appropriate way so too with any substance made up of form and matter. The form is what gives any bunch of heterogeneous parts its unity. Just as when we listen to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony we don't describe a C- here or a D note there we talk about the melody as a whole and any reference we might make to single notes is only to complement how they fit into the rest of the melody. Each heterogeneous part then, is only important in the context in which it finds itself relative to the whole.
So if the world is built on the Aristotelian model then we wouldn't expect a completely grainy world but one that is largely homogeneous.
One advantage to hylomorphism is that it solves what Wilfred Sellars called the "grain problem" in his 1965 paper, "The Identity Approach to the Mind-Body Problem". Specifically, Sellars took this as a problem for materialism: how could it be that the world is exhausted by physiological events yet our experience of that world is homogenous. The material world is exhausted by heterogeneous parts and yet our experience is of a smooth, homogenous world. E.g. when we look at water we have, for all intents and purposes, a homogenous experience of one liquid substance (or some may call it a 'lump' like gold). But water is made up of two parts hydrogen, one part oxygen; two heterogenous parts that are not perceived when we experience water.
The hylomorphist has a ready answer to this conundrum. What we perceive when we look at a liquid like water is a bunch of heterogenous parts organised in such a way that they compose one thing. The parts, in a sense, become one. Just as the word 'cat' is one proposition made up of three parts organised in the appropriate way so too with any substance made up of form and matter. The form is what gives any bunch of heterogeneous parts its unity. Just as when we listen to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony we don't describe a C- here or a D note there we talk about the melody as a whole and any reference we might make to single notes is only to complement how they fit into the rest of the melody. Each heterogeneous part then, is only important in the context in which it finds itself relative to the whole.
So if the world is built on the Aristotelian model then we wouldn't expect a completely grainy world but one that is largely homogeneous.
The Virtues
There is a great piece here by one of Australia's best columnists, Miranda Devine (even Mark Lathem has praised her writing!) The reason I bring it to your attention is that she mentions C.S. Lewis and the superiority of the virtue of humility versus the modern truncated version, modesty. Devine writes
"There is no such ambivalence with humility. It is the grandest of the stern virtues that used to be so prized. It is what the ancient Greeks knew to be an essential quality of heroes, a product of courage and self-knowledge.
It has been the mainstay of Christian societies and central to the Protestant ethic, the core value of people who built great wealth and created moral capital for future generations, the antidote to hubris.
Modesty is a strangled, anaemic version of humility that has been bleached through the acid of political correctness, excessive tolerance and gender neutrality into a modest little morsel of itself.
CS Lewis once wrote in his essay The Weight of Glory, that: 'Perfect humility dispenses with modesty. If God is satisfied with the work, the work may be satisfied with itself'"
What we need is greater humility which isn't self-deprecating to the point where we can't speak out boldly for what is true. It isn't even opposed to humility to honestly acknowledge one's own virtues. When one downplays one's abilities falsely, that isn't real humility it is false humility. Pride and arrogance are when one praises oneself or is over confident in one's abilities. In other words, when one is deluded about one's standing in the world. Nowadays a sense of modesty compels one to reject any notions of absolute truth out of fear of being labelled 'arrogant' or 'bigoted' or whatever.
There is another terrific piece on the Cardinal Virtues (and their modern inversions) by the philosopher Ed Feser here.
"There is no such ambivalence with humility. It is the grandest of the stern virtues that used to be so prized. It is what the ancient Greeks knew to be an essential quality of heroes, a product of courage and self-knowledge.
It has been the mainstay of Christian societies and central to the Protestant ethic, the core value of people who built great wealth and created moral capital for future generations, the antidote to hubris.
Modesty is a strangled, anaemic version of humility that has been bleached through the acid of political correctness, excessive tolerance and gender neutrality into a modest little morsel of itself.
CS Lewis once wrote in his essay The Weight of Glory, that: 'Perfect humility dispenses with modesty. If God is satisfied with the work, the work may be satisfied with itself'"
What we need is greater humility which isn't self-deprecating to the point where we can't speak out boldly for what is true. It isn't even opposed to humility to honestly acknowledge one's own virtues. When one downplays one's abilities falsely, that isn't real humility it is false humility. Pride and arrogance are when one praises oneself or is over confident in one's abilities. In other words, when one is deluded about one's standing in the world. Nowadays a sense of modesty compels one to reject any notions of absolute truth out of fear of being labelled 'arrogant' or 'bigoted' or whatever.
There is another terrific piece on the Cardinal Virtues (and their modern inversions) by the philosopher Ed Feser here.
A Saying...
Here is a great saying I heard recently: Socialism doesn't hurt the rich as much as it prevents the poor from becoming rich.
Think about this for a while. Higher taxes, minimum wage laws and excessive regulation, don't really hurt the rich. Most of their wealth is tied up in capital investments, not in lavish homes and overseas trips. The government can't really confiscate much that the wealthy already owns. But the more the government expands the less they will invest, which means less jobs for the poor. Higher taxes, minimum wage laws and excessive regulation are job killers.
Here is my saying: If you are wealthy there is probably little the government can do to reverse that but if you are poor there is probably a lot the government can do to prevent that.
(This is why its so phony for billionaires like Warren Buffett, celebrities like Stephen King, and the "Patriotic Millionaires" to call for increased taxes on the rich. More taxes means less wealth reinvested which means less jobs and less wealth for all. See Peter Schiff on this too).
Think about this for a while. Higher taxes, minimum wage laws and excessive regulation, don't really hurt the rich. Most of their wealth is tied up in capital investments, not in lavish homes and overseas trips. The government can't really confiscate much that the wealthy already owns. But the more the government expands the less they will invest, which means less jobs for the poor. Higher taxes, minimum wage laws and excessive regulation are job killers.
Here is my saying: If you are wealthy there is probably little the government can do to reverse that but if you are poor there is probably a lot the government can do to prevent that.
(This is why its so phony for billionaires like Warren Buffett, celebrities like Stephen King, and the "Patriotic Millionaires" to call for increased taxes on the rich. More taxes means less wealth reinvested which means less jobs and less wealth for all. See Peter Schiff on this too).
Friday, November 23, 2012
The Case For Israel
This post is in response to the claim that the Palestinians are justifiably outraged because they have been displaced from their traditional land. Much of this is summarised from the leftist, human rights lawyer, Alan Dershowitz's "The Case for Israel" (John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2003)
- Israel was originally settled by refugees who came with shovels and ploughs, not guns, and ammunition. They were not extensions of imperialism but were themselves fleeing persecution and discrimination.
- Jews have maintained a significant presence in Israel since at least the Middle Ages. Maintaining significant populations in Jerusalem, Hebron, and Acre. They were a majority in places like Jerusalem since at least the middle of the 19th century.
- The immigration of Jews to Israel first occurred in the 1880's (called Aliyah) and from this point on experienced persecution and unprovoked attacks from neighbouring Arabs.
- The first Jewish immigrants largely purchased their land from absentee landlords and real estate speculators.
- As even anti-Israeli historians have reported, the number of Arabs displaced by these land purchases have been overstated - it was, in fact, only a few thousand and as Mark Twain recounts, the area was vastly underpopulated.
- There was never a large, monolithic Arab population in that region prior to Israeli immigration. Many ethnicities, including Greeks and Egyptians, had moved there during the 19th century. The Arab population there was small and largely transitory; many moved out and didn't return.
- Many Muslims immigrated to the area for the jobs on offer from the settling Jewish families and more came later as they were attracted to the improvement in basic sanitation, hospitals, and water supplies.
- The Israelis transformed what was largely unarable land and mosquito infested swamps into productive land.
- Given these facts it is hard to draw the conclusion that there was a large Palestinian-Arab population with generational connections to the land that were forcibly displaced by the Israelis.
- The Jews were given only 1/4 of Palestine. The remaining 3/4 was "Trans-Jordon" (meaning "across the Jorden River") that was supposed to be the Palestinian homeland.
- U.N. Resolution 181 allocated this 1/4 as the Jewish-Palestinian state and the remaining as the Arab-Palestinian state which included modern day Jordon.
- The Jews accepted this but the Arabs did not. Israel declared their own state and they were subsequently invaded by Syria, Egypt, Jordon, Lebanon, etc. This was the cause of the fleeing of the palestinian Arabs in the area. The inhabitants of those regions anticipated war and were fed propaganda about Jewish atrocities by the Arab leaders. Whats more, they (wrongly) expected imminent Arab victory and to be able to return and reclaim their land and the newly acquired Jewish areas.
- The Jewish state was created out of the 1948-1949 war. The Arabs occupied all of Jordon, Gaza, the West Bank and Jerusalem. This was 85% of the original Palestine and the Arabs were still not happy.
- During the 1967 war, when Israel was again attacked by several Arab armies, the Israelis took back the territories of Gaza, the West Bank, and Jerusalem. These were the spoils of war but they were also held by the Israelis because their territory was too narrow to defend otherwise. The borderlines were too close and mountainous, providing easy access from enemy aircraft or rocket launches.
- There were no calls for a Palestinian state whilst Jordon occupied the West Bank and Egypt occupied Gaza. But all of a sudden there was a need for one after the Israelis took control.
- The PLO was established in 1964 before Israel occupied the disputed territories which means it was not formed with the intention of liberating the Palestinians.
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Racist Or Just Feral?
This video on a public bus in Victoria (?) shows a bunch of feral idiots shouting abuse at some poor French girl singing at the back of the bus. There was some outright racist comments that we have to take the commentator at his word on, but much of it seemed to me just the anti-social, thuggishness of the Australian underclass (a useful term coined by the inimitable Theodore Dalrymple). What's more, the French aren't usually your typical target for racist Aussies.
Why does this matter? Here is why. I know from my uni days that the Left loves to paint the average Aussie as racist and demonstrations like this one showing a feral culture at work with some national overtones are used to paint all Australians as racists. See this on the Cronulla Riots, for example. This piece - "Australia - a racist backwater - was assigned reading for my politics unit. Typical hate-Australia leftism. But this is a lie. As Andrew Bolt puts it Australians "made ethnic Fijian Trevor Butler winner of Big Brother, and Malaysian-born Guy Sebastian and part-Aboriginal Casey Donovan winners of Australian Idol."
Sure there are racists in Australia but there are racists in every country and there is less in Australia than just about anywhere else in the world.
Why does this matter? Here is why. I know from my uni days that the Left loves to paint the average Aussie as racist and demonstrations like this one showing a feral culture at work with some national overtones are used to paint all Australians as racists. See this on the Cronulla Riots, for example. This piece - "Australia - a racist backwater - was assigned reading for my politics unit. Typical hate-Australia leftism. But this is a lie. As Andrew Bolt puts it Australians "made ethnic Fijian Trevor Butler winner of Big Brother, and Malaysian-born Guy Sebastian and part-Aboriginal Casey Donovan winners of Australian Idol."
Sure there are racists in Australia but there are racists in every country and there is less in Australia than just about anywhere else in the world.
Marxism in the Classroom
Here is a little thought experiment I learned off Peter Schiff for university students, some of which are Marxists being taught by Marxists (the university is the perfect bubble from which to spout such nonsense away from the real world with all of its inconveniences).
How would we go implementing Marxism in the classroom? So every student would be given the same grade, or whatever grade determined by need, regardless of the effort put in. Some 80%, some 90%, some 60%, some 50%. This is essentially the Marxist system. One works not for one's own gain but for the collective. Each is given according to some abstract concept of "need" (who knows how that would be determined).
How hard would students study if the grade they were going to get would be the same no matter what? Of course most would not study at all but this just illustrates the pie-in-the-sky idiocy of Marxism.
How would we go implementing Marxism in the classroom? So every student would be given the same grade, or whatever grade determined by need, regardless of the effort put in. Some 80%, some 90%, some 60%, some 50%. This is essentially the Marxist system. One works not for one's own gain but for the collective. Each is given according to some abstract concept of "need" (who knows how that would be determined).
How hard would students study if the grade they were going to get would be the same no matter what? Of course most would not study at all but this just illustrates the pie-in-the-sky idiocy of Marxism.
Monday, November 19, 2012
Leftist Governments and Inequality
There are competing conceptions of the good between the Left and the Right. The former generally prefers equality at the expense of total prosperity where the latter prefer freedom even if it comes at the expense of equality. To put it crudely and perhaps a little simplistically, the Left loves equality even if it is equality of poverty. The terms of this debate has generally been accepted and usually it is conceded by both sides that center Right governments will create greater inequality, where center Left governments will create greater equality even if the total economy and performance of the latter suffers.
The emphasis from the conservative side is less on equality but on mobility. So gaping income inequality doesn't matter as long as people have the freedom through their own hard work, saving and thrift to climb the economic ladder. Thomas Sowell points out that there is great economic mobility in the US and Judith Sloan says the same about Australia. But its always particularly delicious to me to see that often under center Left governments, like the current Rudd/Gillard government, there is the same if not more inequality under their watch
"INCOME inequality has increased slightly on Wayne Swan's watch, despite the global financial crisis pulling back some of the gains of the very rich from the first phase of the mining boom.
Lower- and middle-income households in the first six rungs of the ladder have 0.5 per cent less of the nation's income between them than they did a decade ago, while upper-middle-income earners, on the seventh and eighth rungs, have slipped by another 0.3 per cent. The top 20 per cent of earners on rungs nine and 10 lifted their share at everyone else's expense, after counting for the setback of the GFC....
...But the reality of income distribution in Australia since the economy was deregulated in the 1980s has been patchy, with neither side legitimately being able to claim that its policies have been more egalitarian than the other's.
Lower- and middle-income households were relatively more equal during the Howard years, a fact first identified by NATSEM researcher Ann Harding in 2005, and Australia has yet to suffer the large gaps between top and bottom that the Treasurer worries about."
Similar results have come out of the US with states controlled by the Democrats more unequal than those controlled by Republicans
The emphasis from the conservative side is less on equality but on mobility. So gaping income inequality doesn't matter as long as people have the freedom through their own hard work, saving and thrift to climb the economic ladder. Thomas Sowell points out that there is great economic mobility in the US and Judith Sloan says the same about Australia. But its always particularly delicious to me to see that often under center Left governments, like the current Rudd/Gillard government, there is the same if not more inequality under their watch
"INCOME inequality has increased slightly on Wayne Swan's watch, despite the global financial crisis pulling back some of the gains of the very rich from the first phase of the mining boom.
Lower- and middle-income households in the first six rungs of the ladder have 0.5 per cent less of the nation's income between them than they did a decade ago, while upper-middle-income earners, on the seventh and eighth rungs, have slipped by another 0.3 per cent. The top 20 per cent of earners on rungs nine and 10 lifted their share at everyone else's expense, after counting for the setback of the GFC....
...But the reality of income distribution in Australia since the economy was deregulated in the 1980s has been patchy, with neither side legitimately being able to claim that its policies have been more egalitarian than the other's.
Lower- and middle-income households were relatively more equal during the Howard years, a fact first identified by NATSEM researcher Ann Harding in 2005, and Australia has yet to suffer the large gaps between top and bottom that the Treasurer worries about."
Similar results have come out of the US with states controlled by the Democrats more unequal than those controlled by Republicans
"This week, to some media fanfare, a liberal think tank called the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
released a state-by-state study of income inequality. The Census-based
data sure are interesting, but not in the way the authors seem to think.
Their conclusion is that a
growing gap between rich and poor since the 1970s warrants more
redistributionist policies on the state level: a higher minimum wage,
more generous welfare and unemployment insurance policies, and more
"progressive" state tax systems. But if such policies are effective, one
has to wonder why the CBPP's helpful map of inequality—those states
with the largest gaps are actually coded in darkest blue—looks so much
like the Obama Electoral College victory map. California, New York,
Massachusetts and Illinois all rank in the top 10 for 'greatest income
inequality between top and the bottom.'"
Indeed it may be that the states in the US in the best fiscal shape may also present the most opportunities to the poor which is why the worst performing US states are also the most likely to hold Democratic majorities like California, New York and Illnois;
"Want to know which states are in the worst financial condition? One
telling indicator that might not immediately come to mind is whether
most of its citizens identify themselves as Democrats."
Production Versus Consumption - Regime Uncertainty
Those more enamoured with the Austrian view of economics emphasise production over consumption as a means to wealth creation and a viable economy. This seems like common sense to me, after all, isn't human demand unlimited? Aren't resources scarce? Isn't technological development only incremental? The Austrian economist Peter Schiff writes
"But as usual, they have it exactly backwards. The savings that they find so unproductive is actually the foundation upon which the economy rests. Nothing can be consumed until it is produced. The act of spending is meaningless without something to buy. The savings of the rich forms the capital that funds business investment which increases productivity. The more that society produces, the more that can be consumed. The key here is the supply, not the demand. The grass that feeds the zebras comes from seeds, not rain. Capitalists provide the surplus seeds that are planted.
Demand always exists and does not need to be stimulated by cash redistribution. 21st century Americans are no more desirous of cell phones than their parents were. But in 1980 cell phones were in very limited supply and were therefore very expensive. They were the trophy possessions of the super-rich. The reason why they are now as ubiquitous as key chains is not that government stimulated demand, but that industry figured out how to supply them far more efficiently. The supply satisfied the demand. Investment in the telecom sector, which came from real savings of Americans, allowed for that increased productivity."
In light of this, government activity that discourages investment, either through direct encroachment via taxation or other confiscatory means, or mere threats on private property, can make a society worse off. Therefore, the most efficient tax systems should target consumption as did John Howard's GST (though not perfect as Henry Ergas points out, and significantly weakened by the Australian Democrats at the time) as here admitted by this Australian Treasury report. Far less efficient taxes target production such as a progressive income tax, wealth taxes, or Australia's industry punishing Carbon Tax.
Ominously, many economists both of the Austrian and non-Austrian kind have been sounding the alarm about what Robert Higgs calls 'Regime Uncertainty' - the fear amongst prospective investors that future policies by government will harm the returns on their investment. Thomas Sowell writes
"The short-run quick fixes that seem so attractive to so many politicians — and to many in the media — create many unknowns that make investors reluctant to invest and employers reluctant to employ. Politicians may only look as far ahead as the next election, but investors have to look ahead for as many years as it will take for their investments to start bringing in some money.
The net result is that both our financial institutions and our businesses have had record amounts of cash sitting idle while millions of people can’t find jobs. Ordinarily these institutions make money by investing money and hiring workers."
Higgs has also argued, in line with Sowell, that RU helped prolong the depression and that the weak US recovery in recent years may also be so attributable due to the intrusive nature of the Bush and Obama regimes and the Federal Reserve's ever willingness to debase the currency. Other economists like John Taylor concur. Very recent news from the WSJ;
"Corporate executives say they are slowing or delaying big projects to protect profits amid easing demand and rising uncertainty. Uncertainty around the U.S. elections and federal budget policies also appear among the factors driving the investment pullback since midyear. It is unclear whether Washington will avert the so-called fiscal cliff, tax increases and spending cuts scheduled to begin Jan. 2.
Companies fear that failure to resolve the fiscal cliff will tip the economy back into recession by sapping consumer spending, damaging investor confidence and eating into corporate profits. A deal to avert the cliff could include tax-code changes, such as revamping tax breaks or rates, that hurt specific sectors."
"But as usual, they have it exactly backwards. The savings that they find so unproductive is actually the foundation upon which the economy rests. Nothing can be consumed until it is produced. The act of spending is meaningless without something to buy. The savings of the rich forms the capital that funds business investment which increases productivity. The more that society produces, the more that can be consumed. The key here is the supply, not the demand. The grass that feeds the zebras comes from seeds, not rain. Capitalists provide the surplus seeds that are planted.
Demand always exists and does not need to be stimulated by cash redistribution. 21st century Americans are no more desirous of cell phones than their parents were. But in 1980 cell phones were in very limited supply and were therefore very expensive. They were the trophy possessions of the super-rich. The reason why they are now as ubiquitous as key chains is not that government stimulated demand, but that industry figured out how to supply them far more efficiently. The supply satisfied the demand. Investment in the telecom sector, which came from real savings of Americans, allowed for that increased productivity."
In light of this, government activity that discourages investment, either through direct encroachment via taxation or other confiscatory means, or mere threats on private property, can make a society worse off. Therefore, the most efficient tax systems should target consumption as did John Howard's GST (though not perfect as Henry Ergas points out, and significantly weakened by the Australian Democrats at the time) as here admitted by this Australian Treasury report. Far less efficient taxes target production such as a progressive income tax, wealth taxes, or Australia's industry punishing Carbon Tax.
Ominously, many economists both of the Austrian and non-Austrian kind have been sounding the alarm about what Robert Higgs calls 'Regime Uncertainty' - the fear amongst prospective investors that future policies by government will harm the returns on their investment. Thomas Sowell writes
"The short-run quick fixes that seem so attractive to so many politicians — and to many in the media — create many unknowns that make investors reluctant to invest and employers reluctant to employ. Politicians may only look as far ahead as the next election, but investors have to look ahead for as many years as it will take for their investments to start bringing in some money.
The net result is that both our financial institutions and our businesses have had record amounts of cash sitting idle while millions of people can’t find jobs. Ordinarily these institutions make money by investing money and hiring workers."
Higgs has also argued, in line with Sowell, that RU helped prolong the depression and that the weak US recovery in recent years may also be so attributable due to the intrusive nature of the Bush and Obama regimes and the Federal Reserve's ever willingness to debase the currency. Other economists like John Taylor concur. Very recent news from the WSJ;
"Corporate executives say they are slowing or delaying big projects to protect profits amid easing demand and rising uncertainty. Uncertainty around the U.S. elections and federal budget policies also appear among the factors driving the investment pullback since midyear. It is unclear whether Washington will avert the so-called fiscal cliff, tax increases and spending cuts scheduled to begin Jan. 2.
Companies fear that failure to resolve the fiscal cliff will tip the economy back into recession by sapping consumer spending, damaging investor confidence and eating into corporate profits. A deal to avert the cliff could include tax-code changes, such as revamping tax breaks or rates, that hurt specific sectors."
Some Unknown Facts on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
- How come the Tibetans who have been treated far worse by the Chinese Communists haven't become terrorists? (Read Dennis Prager's masterful column on this) Why were the hundreds of thousands of Jews expelled by Arab countries in recent decades resettled by tiny Israel, yet the far greater Arab countries couldn't resettle the Palestinians, preferring to use them for propaganda purposes against the Jews.
- Screams of "war crimes" against the Israelis when civilians are killed in the cross fire, yet civilian causalities are a tragic by-product of all war, e.g. the Allied Dresden bombing of Germany during WWII that killed tens of thousands of civilian.
- Israel is expected to hold to the Geneva Convention and International Law yet Hamas flouts these rules; using guerrilla tactics, fighting in civilian clothes in urban areas and using human shields (This New York Times piece on Hamas tactics, like booby trapped apartment buildings). During WWII German spies wearing American uniforms were shot, no questions asked.
- The body counts of civilians verses combatants can't be trusted because many of the "civilians" are really combatants dressed up as civilians.
- Israel makes every effort to avoid civilian casualties, sometimes even to its own detriment. Like the GBU-39 smart bomb designed to minimise civilian deaths and the 'knock at the door' non-exploding missile designed to scare civilians from roof tops.
- Hamas wants Palestinian casualties. They put women and children near rocket sites or launch attacks near playgrounds, mosques, hospitals, homes, etc., to use them as fodder for propaganda purposes after the inevitable Israeli retaliation.
- The Palestinians often use fake images and deception, often of dead children like this, to fool the gullible western media.
- Fathi Ahmad Hammad, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, has admitted to just such tactics; "[The enemies of Allah] do not know that the Palestinian people has developed its [methods] of death and death-seeking. For the Palestinian people, death has become an industry, at which women excel, and so do all the people living on this land. The elderly excel at this, and so do the mujahideen and the children. This is why they have formed human shields of the women, the children, the elderly, and the mujahideen, in order to challenge the Zionist bombing machine. It is as if they were saying to the Zionist enemy: "We desire death like you desire life."
- Why is it automatically concluded that because Israel inflicts more casualties that it is in the wrong? The Allies inflicted more casualties on to the Germans and Japanese yet the latter were unquestionably the aggressors.
- Israel left behind greenhouses and other facilities that were looted and destroyed once the Palestinians took over. They have also squandered and their leaders have embezzled millions in aid, buying weapons and arms instead of food and medicine for their people.
- The sick Jew hating culture of the Middle-East should be indicative of who is the real aggressor here;
- Mein Kampf and Protocols of the Elders of Zion are top sellers in the ME and the latter is cited by Hamas in its Charter.
- Palestinian children are brainwashed into hating and killing Jews.
- Hamas brutalizes its own people such as shooting and bashing civilians for the crime of singing and dancing at weddings.
- Arafat's mentor and hero was the Hitler co-conspirator, al-Husseini, who helped recruit Bosnian Muslims for the Waffen-SS.
- A proud Hamas saying is "You love life, we love death". Indeed the whole raison d’être of Hamas is the destruction of the Israeli state.
- The Hamas Charter and statements by Hamas officials are full of vile, anti-Semitic Jew hatred and the hopelessness of diplomatic or peaceful solutions (see article 13).
- Islamism in its modern tradition is a totalitarian and aggressive ideology; "The well known Egyptian scholar, Sayyid Qutb, notes four stages in the development of jihad: 1. While the earliest Muslims remained in Mecca before fleeing to Medina, God did not allow them to fight; 2. Permission is given to Muslims to fight against their oppressors; 3. God commands Muslims to fight those fighting them; 4. God commands the Muslims to fight against all polytheists."
Saturday, November 17, 2012
Physicalism and Hylomorphism - Not as Incompatible as You Might Think (Part 2)
I introduced a somewhat unique conception of hylomorphism in the first part of this series and it is worth a basic recap before diving into more substantive issues. Form, as I described it, is the particular way that matter is arranged in any given individual. There is a tight nit dependency relationship between form and matter, form is dependent on matter for its realisation. Form is not reducible to the individual pieces of matter that make it up but it is entirely dependent on them for its realisation and existence in the world. Along these lines, for any substance there is a very tight metaphysical unity between form and matter. In fact, form and matter become one in any individual. We are only able to speak of form or matter as separate things through abstraction. That is, we can speak of form by mentally ignoring matter, and we can speak of matter by mentally ignoring form. As such the sheer intimate relationship between matter and form is different from the various forms of dualism, such as Cartesian Dualism, that takes the mental to be an entirely separate substance from the material.
This approach has some unique implications for reductionism and there is a way of looking at the latter which is not entirely at odds with hylomorphism. Remember that any substance is a special unity of form and matter in such a manner that form is just the organisational structure of the latter. Now how does this relate to reductionism? Take the example of a chair made of oak. The chair has the property of withholding my weight. What explains this property? No doubt it is the density of the oak that makes up the chair. So in a sense this property reduces to the property of the material components. Another example; a water molecule, H2O, has the ability to dissolve NaCl (Sodium Chloride) through the use of its electrons and the specific dipole structure of the molecule. It is the electrons doing the brunt of the work as it does in any bonding relationship. For dissolution to occur there is need for electrons but there is also need for a molecule with a bonding angle of 105°.
Would it be true to take the logical leap from these examples and say that there is nothing to these substances but there material components? No, because these functions are dependent on their respective parts being organised in specific ways. Take the chair example, it only make sense to ask the question as to whether my chair is capable of withholding my weight in the first place if the chair is suitably structured. Its the same with H2O which is structured in such a way that there are slight net negative and positive charges at either end of the molecule. In other words, the electron can only do its work in the bonding relationship because of the peculiar structure of the molecule.
Now within the physicalist literature it has become possible to tell the story about the success of physics whilst not attributing that success to the individual parts. This is a way of taking the exhaustive explanatory power of physics yet dispensing with the atomistic tendency to explain a whole in terms of its isolated constituents. This is brought out most clearly even by dyed-in-the-wool physicalists like Jaegwon Kim and David Papineau but it will take a bit of explaining to unpack this.
First, Kim distinguishes within the hierarchies of nature between "levels" and "orders". An example of "levels" might be that between the domain of physical particles like hydrogen and oxygen and the chemical domain encompassing molecules such as H2O. Obviously H2O as a molecule of water has properties and causal powers that the individual atoms of hydrogen and oxygen do not have. This was the worry that some critics like Lynne Rudder-Baker, William Lycan and Ned Block had when discussing Kim's take on mental causation - that is, if the physical properties of the brain usurp or preempt the mental properties of the mind, leaving the latter as superfluous in the causal process, then that would render all higher level causal powers as superfluous in nature and the end to the once considered autonomous fields of science such as chemistry, geology and biology. This is labelled by Kim as the "generalization" problem. The concern is that the reductive physicalist has bitten off more than he can chew!
Kim's response here is instructive. His method of avoiding generalisation is to say that within each individual the distinction of levels is irrelevant. Take his example of the sleeping pill and its property of dormitivity (the ability to induce sleep). What is this property except the chemical properties that actually cause sleep in a person? Dormitivity as a property is reducible to these chemical properties and it is hard to deny this. But if we talk about dormitivity 'reducing' to these chemical properties then that does not mean that one level has preempted another because we are talking about the same entity, namely the sleeping pill. As far as mental properties go the reason the reduction of mental properties to the physical properties of the brain is not a reduction from the psychological domain to the chemical domain is because we are talking about the same organism. That is, my mental state of desiring a drink of water, M1, may be realised by the brain state, B1, but this is not a reduction between levels because the same individual that is thinking M1 has the brain state B1.
What does this all mean? First, Kim thinks that levels talk relative to any individual is irrelevant. But he thinks that in any causal process the physical constituents are the main causal players. But Kim clearly doesn't want to eliminate the causal autonomy of the various levels in the sciences (1998; 83-85). His cites the familiar example of water which clearly has properties that its individual atoms do not have. But there are parts of the water molecule that are still involved in its causal activities. Take the bonding property, B, which for argument's sake we will say is instantiated by the micro-property, E, which stands for the electron. Kim thinks that the molecules having B is fixed once the micro-constituents - the protons, neutrons, electrons, etc., - and their properties and the relations between them are fixed. That is, the micro-property plays the role but only because it is part of a system of constituents that are related together in such a way that as a whole that system produces properties that the individual parts do not have on their own. So micro-based properties such as bonding are really macro-properties because although they involve the constituents they are really only possible as properties of the structure as a whole. Kim writes
"A micro-based property therefore is constituted by micro-constituents - that is, by the micro-parts of the object that has it and the properties and relations characterizing these parts. But we should be clear that such properties are macroproperties, not microproperties." (84)
This explanation isn't so different to the one I gave earlier of the relationship between form and matter since form is really just the relations or organisational structure of the matter. The hylomorphist believes in the causal autonomy of the non-physical sciences but where the form and matter is highly integrated. This is all the more evident on my take of hylomorphism where the form is just the organizational structure of the individual. The physical/material properties are still in use yet they are harnessed to the organisational power of the form.
This approach has some unique implications for reductionism and there is a way of looking at the latter which is not entirely at odds with hylomorphism. Remember that any substance is a special unity of form and matter in such a manner that form is just the organisational structure of the latter. Now how does this relate to reductionism? Take the example of a chair made of oak. The chair has the property of withholding my weight. What explains this property? No doubt it is the density of the oak that makes up the chair. So in a sense this property reduces to the property of the material components. Another example; a water molecule, H2O, has the ability to dissolve NaCl (Sodium Chloride) through the use of its electrons and the specific dipole structure of the molecule. It is the electrons doing the brunt of the work as it does in any bonding relationship. For dissolution to occur there is need for electrons but there is also need for a molecule with a bonding angle of 105°.
Would it be true to take the logical leap from these examples and say that there is nothing to these substances but there material components? No, because these functions are dependent on their respective parts being organised in specific ways. Take the chair example, it only make sense to ask the question as to whether my chair is capable of withholding my weight in the first place if the chair is suitably structured. Its the same with H2O which is structured in such a way that there are slight net negative and positive charges at either end of the molecule. In other words, the electron can only do its work in the bonding relationship because of the peculiar structure of the molecule.
Now within the physicalist literature it has become possible to tell the story about the success of physics whilst not attributing that success to the individual parts. This is a way of taking the exhaustive explanatory power of physics yet dispensing with the atomistic tendency to explain a whole in terms of its isolated constituents. This is brought out most clearly even by dyed-in-the-wool physicalists like Jaegwon Kim and David Papineau but it will take a bit of explaining to unpack this.
First, Kim distinguishes within the hierarchies of nature between "levels" and "orders". An example of "levels" might be that between the domain of physical particles like hydrogen and oxygen and the chemical domain encompassing molecules such as H2O. Obviously H2O as a molecule of water has properties and causal powers that the individual atoms of hydrogen and oxygen do not have. This was the worry that some critics like Lynne Rudder-Baker, William Lycan and Ned Block had when discussing Kim's take on mental causation - that is, if the physical properties of the brain usurp or preempt the mental properties of the mind, leaving the latter as superfluous in the causal process, then that would render all higher level causal powers as superfluous in nature and the end to the once considered autonomous fields of science such as chemistry, geology and biology. This is labelled by Kim as the "generalization" problem. The concern is that the reductive physicalist has bitten off more than he can chew!
Kim's response here is instructive. His method of avoiding generalisation is to say that within each individual the distinction of levels is irrelevant. Take his example of the sleeping pill and its property of dormitivity (the ability to induce sleep). What is this property except the chemical properties that actually cause sleep in a person? Dormitivity as a property is reducible to these chemical properties and it is hard to deny this. But if we talk about dormitivity 'reducing' to these chemical properties then that does not mean that one level has preempted another because we are talking about the same entity, namely the sleeping pill. As far as mental properties go the reason the reduction of mental properties to the physical properties of the brain is not a reduction from the psychological domain to the chemical domain is because we are talking about the same organism. That is, my mental state of desiring a drink of water, M1, may be realised by the brain state, B1, but this is not a reduction between levels because the same individual that is thinking M1 has the brain state B1.
What does this all mean? First, Kim thinks that levels talk relative to any individual is irrelevant. But he thinks that in any causal process the physical constituents are the main causal players. But Kim clearly doesn't want to eliminate the causal autonomy of the various levels in the sciences (1998; 83-85). His cites the familiar example of water which clearly has properties that its individual atoms do not have. But there are parts of the water molecule that are still involved in its causal activities. Take the bonding property, B, which for argument's sake we will say is instantiated by the micro-property, E, which stands for the electron. Kim thinks that the molecules having B is fixed once the micro-constituents - the protons, neutrons, electrons, etc., - and their properties and the relations between them are fixed. That is, the micro-property plays the role but only because it is part of a system of constituents that are related together in such a way that as a whole that system produces properties that the individual parts do not have on their own. So micro-based properties such as bonding are really macro-properties because although they involve the constituents they are really only possible as properties of the structure as a whole. Kim writes
"A micro-based property therefore is constituted by micro-constituents - that is, by the micro-parts of the object that has it and the properties and relations characterizing these parts. But we should be clear that such properties are macroproperties, not microproperties." (84)
This explanation isn't so different to the one I gave earlier of the relationship between form and matter since form is really just the relations or organisational structure of the matter. The hylomorphist believes in the causal autonomy of the non-physical sciences but where the form and matter is highly integrated. This is all the more evident on my take of hylomorphism where the form is just the organizational structure of the individual. The physical/material properties are still in use yet they are harnessed to the organisational power of the form.
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Physicalism and Hylomorphism - Not as Incompatible as You Might Think (Part 1)
It is a fairly straightforward piece of wisdom from modern science that objects are all ultimately made up of physical components. What is a molecule of H2O but two Hydrogen atoms and one Oxygen atom bonded in a certain way? Pry open my scull and you won't find any piece of mental ectoplasm or Cartesian Ghost floating amongst the material grey matter. Indeed, ultimately everything is exhaustively composed out of physical matter, and by that I mean bits of stuff that are susceptible to the laws of physics. So although there are, as Jaegwon Kim puts it, different ontological levels in the hierarchy of objects;
"Things of this world, and their properties, are pictured in a vertically organized hierarchical system, micro to macro from the elementary particles of microphysics to atoms and molecules, and their aggregates, and then upward to cells and organisms, and so on..." (1998: 79)
But ultimately, beneath it all;
"...entities belonging to a given level, except those at the very bottom, have an exhaustive decomposition, without remainder, into entities belonging to the lower levels." (15)
This is what Tim Crane calls 'the generality of physics' (2001: 44) and I happen to accept such a picture as a true characterisation of the world. But I am not a physicalist in any traditional sense of the term. That is, I don't believe that all there is to the world can be described in the language of physics. Actually my philosophical beliefs probably more closely resemble that of Thomas Aquinas than Kim. So how do I square this with the above picture?
My solution is to propose that although every object is ultimately composed of physical particles, each object's particles are composed in a certain way that makes it the unique object that it is. There is no property, part or power that the object has that does not exhaustively involve its physical components. But the key distinction to remember is that those particles are organised in such a way that each has a unique place or context in the object as a whole. So the physical components of an object are a necessary condition for its functions but not a sufficient condition. You need the physical parts but they are not enough on their own to get us the unique attributes of objects.
Philosophers of science Robert Bishop and Harald Atmanspacher spell out such a view in what they call Contextual Emergence;
"The description of properties at a particular level of description (including its laws) offers necessary but not sufficient conditions to derive the description of properties at a higher level. This version, which we propose calling contextual emergence, indicates that contingent contextual conditions are required in addition to the lower-level description for the rigorous derivation of higher-level properties." (2006)
To offer an analogy, a chair may be exhaustively composed of oak, there is no part of that chair that does not share the same density or colour as oak. You couldn't point to a part of the chair that does not share oak's colour or density, for example. But a chair and oak are not the same thing. There needs to be a design plan or blue print that is the abstract, formal component of the chair. This formal component consists in the entirety of the physical components organised in a certain way. There is no part of the chair that is not physical, yet the formal component is not itself physical, but abstract. The total weight and volume of the materials are no more assembled then when they were separate parts. Yet something ontologically distinct comes into the world when a chair is built. The best way to describe the form is to say that it is expressed, or manifested, through the physical components and their specific arrangement.
This is how I propose we think of the hylomorphic relationship in Aristotelianism/Thomism and its a novel way of analysing the form-matter relationship. The formal component is obviously the form, the matter is the physical components. Put another way, the form is the way the matter is arranged. To borrow an analogy from Aristotle, take the syllable 'cat'. The material parts are the letters 'c', 'a', and 't'. But 'atc' or 'atc' or 'tac' is not the same as 'cat'. Aristotle writes
"Since that which is compounded from something so as to be one and a whole – not in the way that a heap is, but as a syllable is – where a syllable is not its elements, since the syllable ‘ba’ is not the same as ‘b’ and ‘a’, nor is flesh the same as fire and earth (since when they are dispersed, the wholes – that is, the flesh and the syllable – no longer exist, whereas the elements – the fire and the earth – do exist). What a syllable is, then, is not only the elements, the vowel and the consonant, but also something else, and the flesh is not only fire and earth, or hot and cold, but also something else." ((Met. 1041b11–19)
The hylomorphic relation for any particular object may be written as a, b, c, .../R, where a, b, c, are the material components arranged (R) in a unique, sui generis fashion (/). The sui generis relation between the material components is the form but form is not contentless as some Aristotelian scholars like Frank Lewis have stressed. This is why I characterised the form as the blue print or design plan.
Part two will show how some of the insights from Kim and other physicalists like David Papineau are not that incompatible with hylomophism (at least my version of it) after all...
"Things of this world, and their properties, are pictured in a vertically organized hierarchical system, micro to macro from the elementary particles of microphysics to atoms and molecules, and their aggregates, and then upward to cells and organisms, and so on..." (1998: 79)
But ultimately, beneath it all;
"...entities belonging to a given level, except those at the very bottom, have an exhaustive decomposition, without remainder, into entities belonging to the lower levels." (15)
This is what Tim Crane calls 'the generality of physics' (2001: 44) and I happen to accept such a picture as a true characterisation of the world. But I am not a physicalist in any traditional sense of the term. That is, I don't believe that all there is to the world can be described in the language of physics. Actually my philosophical beliefs probably more closely resemble that of Thomas Aquinas than Kim. So how do I square this with the above picture?
My solution is to propose that although every object is ultimately composed of physical particles, each object's particles are composed in a certain way that makes it the unique object that it is. There is no property, part or power that the object has that does not exhaustively involve its physical components. But the key distinction to remember is that those particles are organised in such a way that each has a unique place or context in the object as a whole. So the physical components of an object are a necessary condition for its functions but not a sufficient condition. You need the physical parts but they are not enough on their own to get us the unique attributes of objects.
Philosophers of science Robert Bishop and Harald Atmanspacher spell out such a view in what they call Contextual Emergence;
"The description of properties at a particular level of description (including its laws) offers necessary but not sufficient conditions to derive the description of properties at a higher level. This version, which we propose calling contextual emergence, indicates that contingent contextual conditions are required in addition to the lower-level description for the rigorous derivation of higher-level properties." (2006)
To offer an analogy, a chair may be exhaustively composed of oak, there is no part of that chair that does not share the same density or colour as oak. You couldn't point to a part of the chair that does not share oak's colour or density, for example. But a chair and oak are not the same thing. There needs to be a design plan or blue print that is the abstract, formal component of the chair. This formal component consists in the entirety of the physical components organised in a certain way. There is no part of the chair that is not physical, yet the formal component is not itself physical, but abstract. The total weight and volume of the materials are no more assembled then when they were separate parts. Yet something ontologically distinct comes into the world when a chair is built. The best way to describe the form is to say that it is expressed, or manifested, through the physical components and their specific arrangement.
This is how I propose we think of the hylomorphic relationship in Aristotelianism/Thomism and its a novel way of analysing the form-matter relationship. The formal component is obviously the form, the matter is the physical components. Put another way, the form is the way the matter is arranged. To borrow an analogy from Aristotle, take the syllable 'cat'. The material parts are the letters 'c', 'a', and 't'. But 'atc' or 'atc' or 'tac' is not the same as 'cat'. Aristotle writes
"Since that which is compounded from something so as to be one and a whole – not in the way that a heap is, but as a syllable is – where a syllable is not its elements, since the syllable ‘ba’ is not the same as ‘b’ and ‘a’, nor is flesh the same as fire and earth (since when they are dispersed, the wholes – that is, the flesh and the syllable – no longer exist, whereas the elements – the fire and the earth – do exist). What a syllable is, then, is not only the elements, the vowel and the consonant, but also something else, and the flesh is not only fire and earth, or hot and cold, but also something else." ((Met. 1041b11–19)
The hylomorphic relation for any particular object may be written as a, b, c, .../R, where a, b, c, are the material components arranged (R) in a unique, sui generis fashion (/). The sui generis relation between the material components is the form but form is not contentless as some Aristotelian scholars like Frank Lewis have stressed. This is why I characterised the form as the blue print or design plan.
Part two will show how some of the insights from Kim and other physicalists like David Papineau are not that incompatible with hylomophism (at least my version of it) after all...
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