5 ways to critize a philosopher
Re: Fiona is revising because she does not want to be expelled A summary of chapter 6 (pages 88-117) of Jay F. Rosenberg’s The Practice of Philosophy: A Handbook for Beginners (i only read that chapter but i made a mental note of this title bc it seems v useful) and my notes from the corresponding lecture “Introduction to Philosophy” at FSU. Click “read more” if you enjoy arguing, philosophy or both. (If you are using the tumblr app rn- i am so sorry that you have to see the whole text. I wrote so much, ugh, please forgive me.)
Why would you want to criticize a philosopher? (Why wouldn’t you?) Philosophy is always argumentative and whether you want to make sure your own theories don’t provide other philosophers with targets for criticism or you want to go after a theory you don’t agree with it’s good to have something with you Rosenberg calls the Philosopher’s Toolkit. It’s basically a list of five common argumentative faults.
A good argument should be valid and sound, which means that both a) premises and conlusion interlock as a stable logical construct and b) the premises are veritable. Note that logical correctness and formal correctness are not the same thing! A formal fallacy can be the usage of a homonyme word the significance of which is changing throughout an argument (say hello to the only acceptable situation for using the phrase no homo). If possible one should primarily seek to show that an argument isn’t valid, sound or neither and question the inference’s pattern rather than the individual premises.
1. Equivocations
Within the same argument a word has to maintain its meaning. If the meaning of a word changes from premise to premise, the argument’s validity gets lost. The following example is chosen by Rosenberg himself to illustrate- yes, it’s a sexist one and yes, Rosenberg admitted this, too. Let’s say it’s a good example for an equivocation and MRA’s what-they-wish-was-logic also.
1) Only men can speak rationally. 2) No woman is a man. 3) Therefore, no woman can speak rationally.
There are two ways to ways of reading this argument, the formally valid (but practically still ineffective) one and the one with two true premises (unsurprisingly also ineffective). Let’s take a look at the first one a formal skeleton of the phrases above.
*1) Only A’s are B. *2) No C is an A. *3) Therefore, C is B. (Here: A= males, B= able to speak rationally, C= females*)
Now if you could follow me so far and either know me in person or believe me from looking at my blog, you know that i am both not male and able of articulating myself rationally- proving premise 1) wrong and therefore invalidating the whole argument although its structure is formally valid. So how would the argument look with two true premises?
**1) Only A’s are B. **2) No C is an D. **3) Therefore, C is B. (Here: A= humans, B= able to speak rationally, C= women, D= men)
Now, recognizing this fallacy as incorrect despite its two (most likely) true premises is not exactly rocket science “and this is one way of criticizing a philosopher” (Money quote: Rosenberg).
2. Petitio principii**
"God exists, therefore god exists." Nothing you can conclude is ever truly new knowledge as it’s only the bottom line of what you already think is true so the statement above is formally correct. Being identical with correct premises, a conclusion can’t be wrong. It just gets soo problematic when the premise isn’t accepted as veritable in the first place..
3. Infinite regress
Infinity is not a number in the series 1, 2, 3, 4 ,5, … but rather a number to describe the series, as there is no such thing as a biggest item in an infinite series. An infinite regress is a series of propositions where in order to be true each step must proceed from a previous step which in order to be true must proceed from a previous step which in order to be true must proceed from a previous step etc. etc.. The truth of stepn−1 depends yet again on the truth of stepn and n approaches infinity. An infinte regress is not necessarily fatal to an argumentation (apparently those who are are called “vicious”).
It’s no problem if the truth of something is reiterated in the following way in an argument:
1) You are cute. 2) It is true, that 1). 3) It is true, that 2). (…)
It doesn’t lead anywhere, but you can’t criticize what’s just true. You can criticize an interminable rational process, if:
it’s actually a regress and there is a rule somewhere that there always has to be another step before each step
the regress is a genuine consequence of the criticized concept
something is wrong about the regress or, rather, it constitutes an incoherence
An infinte regress which constitues an incoherence appears in the following theory of will:
1) A volitional act is voluntary when it’s caused by another voluntary volitional act. 2) Therefore, voluntary action must be preceded by an infinite number of voluntary volitional acts.
The regress is fatal as it does fail to establish the voluntariness of any volitional act and instead extends the question for voluntariness ad infinitum. The problem of proving the voluntariness of the cause is identical with the (here failed) attempt of demonstrating the voluntariness of its effect (the voluntary action).
4. Lost/ missing opposite/difference***
"Equality before the law." Applied to logic, this device means that equal conlusions always stem from equal premises. Consequentially, two things from which ensue two different conclusions require an actual difference in order to make a distinction to create a dichotomy. An argument with a missing difference or lost opposite does only show that two things are to be classified the same way but not which conlusion is to be agreed with.
Rosenberg provides the reader with an example from George Berkeley’s “Esse es percipi" in which two positions (personified as Hylas and Philonous) argue about existence outside the mind. In short, Hylas supports the opinion that matter is real and Philonous doesn’t. In the first dialogue, they advocate their positions on the basis of asking whether sensual qualities do exist outside the mind. Philonous asks Hylas whether he does believe in passing the same judgement in the same two questions. He agrees with Philonous, who then asks if Hylas’ flesh would tear open if stung with a needle (yes) and if it would burn if touched with a smoldering piece of coal (yes) (ouch).
Apparently this was where Hylas was trying to make a distinction earlier in the text because now Philonous uses the example to support his own position as he claims that the same way the pain is not somewhere in the needle’s pointy end the pain of being burned with it can’t be located in the coal. Philonous explains to Hylas that he can’t make a distinction where there is none as both pain and heat are felt by us.
5. Empty statement
An empty statement is a proposition from which nothing results at all. It negates or excludes nothing and is completely irrelevant and neither true nor false. Reasonable propositions need to have reasonable consequences- as this is not the case when discussing an empty statement one could as well discuss the exclamation “Ehjhkafu diuhakl Uhhhd ahdkje.” or white noises.
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* although i am aware that gender is a spectrum i didn’t want to change too much about the original argument because i am not sure how non-males would gramatically work ok. i am sorry, if you read so far and know how i could word this please feel free to message me.
** i always read this with the austrian accent of a cute classmate of mine in mind. he is wearing a bun and very chill so i just wanted to mention this. feel free to read the words petitio principii in whatever accent you like.
*** i only have access to a copy of the German translation of Rosenberg’s book where this is called “Verlorener Gegensatz”
**** i hope you enjoyed reading this summary! (i hope i conveyed and translated everything correctly!)