Words and Philosophy

Many of my posts get into questioning Gangadean's definitions. I've come to recently think that so much of our dispute comes to a fundamental difference in how we think about and use key words. I've sometimes referred to Gangadean as a "semantic chauvinist" or as merely asserting a definition without ever justifying it. Sometimes in ordinary discourse, you hear someone say, "that's just semantics" to which they mean to convey that some potential dispute is nominal because the two parties are using some terms in slightly different ways making for an appearance of disagreement only. Once definitions are clarified, there will be no genuine dispute. But that's not what I think is going on between Gangadean and me. Indeed the semantic differences are deep and philosophically important at least that's what I'll try to show.

To begin, here is a list of just a few of the words or expressions which Gangadean either explicitly defines or at least tacitly assumes a particular definition of.

1) 'Knowledge'

2) 'Reason'

3) 'Cause'

4) 'Eternal'

5) 'Good'

6) 'Evil'

7) 'Human'

8) 'God'

9) 'Meaning'

10) 'Authoritative'

11) 'Clarity' (or 'clear')

12) 'Can' (or 'could')

13) 'Potential' (or 'capacity)

14) 'Justification'

15) 'Self-attesting'

16) 'Self-evident'

17) 'Basic'

18) 'Affirm'

19) 'Common Ground'

20) 'Inherent'

21) 'Free will' (or 'freedom')
22) 'Inexcusability'
23) 'Historic Christianity'
24) 'Best minds'
25) 'Much discussion'
26) 'Essence' (or 'nature')
27) 'Spiritual life/death'
28) 'Justice'
29) 'Mercy'
30) 'Art'

Some of these are going to be derivative of others so that what I have to say about them will indirectly apply. Now when it comes to assessing arguments, the definition that one attaches to the words featured in the premises or conclusion is of fundamental importance. It's a Gangadeanian dictum that "meaning is more basic than truth". You can't know whether a statement is true or false unless you know what it means. Arguments are sets of statements which purport to have a particular kind of relation to one another. When an argument is deductively valid, the premises entail the conclusion. When it's inductively strong, the premises make the conclusion probable. When abductively good, the conclusion provides the best explanation for the truth of the premises. Since we're dealing with statements (linguistic entities), we cannot escape the centrality of definitions in evaluating any and all arguments. Arguments are linguistic things. 

This is why I make such a big deal out of Gangadean's definitions. Heres' the thing: Whether an argument looks to you to be deductively valid and sound will in large part depend on your vocabulary. But there are ways that people nominally use the same vocabulary, while attaching slightly different definitions to the very same set of words. And I'm beginning to think that a large reason why I could never get through to Gangadeanians was that they had come to learn to use key words like those just enumerated in a particular way. That is to say, they learned to associate Gangadean's definitions or adopt his particular vocabulary. Of course, I too, once learned to do so. I'm not suggesting that he sat us all down and had us memorize a list of such words and his definitions. We learned it in much the same way that young children learn to speak a language. It was through hearing him use the words in particular ways and in certain contexts and memorizing large statements or arguments, and reciting them repeatedly (Gangadean refers to this part of learning as the "grammar stage"). It was largely through constantly hearing and saying larger chunks of language, through actual usage, that I had come to pick up, more or less, the Gangadeanian vocabulary. Interestingly, in my nearly 5 years at the church, around the people, I never once heard disputes about the definitions. Nobody ever questioned the vocabulary. 

It wasn't till I started graduate studies in philosophy and in particular worked on issues pertaining to the philosophy of language, that I realized just how tricky language is. Here's a descriptive observation: we depend on presumptive definitions, which we presume to have a common grasp of. If we didn't, we probably wouldn't bother talking to one another. In ordinary life, these presumptive definitions often serve our purposes sufficiently because ordinary life allows for comparatively wide margins of error, although of course even in ordinary life we hit bumps which get us talking about definitions. But within a philosophical context, where we want to get as precise as possible, there are more commonly key junctures at which disputes arise and such presumptions get called into question. Often enough two people looking at an argument will disagree about whether it's a good argument. In particular, they can look at a single argument and one will think it is deductively valid and the other will not. Or one will find a particular premise to be "obvious" while the other will not which then determines whether one views it as ultimately a sound argument or not. Again all of this is very germane to determining whether an inference is valid and whether an argument is a good one or not and ultimately which beliefs you take to be reasonable or rational to have. For instance, consider how Gangadeanians criticize someone like Lawrence Krauss for his claim that the universe came from "nothing". The main objection is that Krauss' definition of 'nothing' is all wrong. Or at the very least, he's using that word in a way that departs from the way that Gangadean uses it and perhaps large sections of other competent language users. That is to say, they are using different vocabulary. Of course noting the difference is not enough. There's a normative or evaluative claim here. Gangadean and other critics will want to say that Krauss' definition of 'nothing' is in some way less"correct" or less "appropriate" than his own. 

Sometimes Gangadeanians say things like, "it doesn't matter what we say about an argument, what matters is what Reason says". And maybe they'd say the same thing about which vocabulary is right or which vocab we should adopt at any rate. The problem is that this isn't in the least helpful. When I disagree with Gangadean on a substantive matter, including issues about which definition of 'knowledge' is the right one or best, I believe that reason is on my side and he believes reason is on his side. For either of us to respond to this by stating that we should just care what "Reason says" is useless. That's the very thing under dispute.  

I had a really good conversation yesterday with a friend that is sympathetic to Gangadean's worldview. But in the course of talking with him about my objections I found that my friend kept using some of the words I enumerated above in ways that I no longer adopted or at the very least in ways that I didn't take for granted as the de facto correct ways. And this led to substantively different evaluations of the arguments that we were discussing. Somethings struck me as "obviously" bad inferences while it struck my friend as "obviously" correct. And we had to spend a lot of time trying to hash out our respective vocabularies. This lead us to try and adopt a neutral vocabulary. For instance, my friend disagreed with how I was using the word 'intuition' and I disagreed with how he was using the word 'self-evident' or 'clear to reason' (in either case there was theoretical baggage with our respective uses of the terms). We were trying to describe one and the same phenomena (as far as we could tell) like the means by which you know things like, "every thought presupposes a is a". I noted that in order to know something like that, you had to think about thoughts and derive some property about the set of all thoughts. I said that ultimately that depended on intuition while my friend wanted to describe the process as deriving something that was 'self-evident' via the 'use of reason'. We tried using 'immediate' or 'non-inferential' as a kind of neutral expression. Sometimes my friend would use the word 'thought' in a way that made it definitionally true that all thoughts presuppose the law of identity. So it was, by his lights (but not mine), a trivial matter that without the law of identity, there would be no thinking. Then we got to talking about knowledge. And my friend had a really hard time separating 'knowledge' from (epistemic) certainty because for him, certainty is part and parcel of the very definition of 'knowledge' (the Gangadeanian definition). But for me, knowledge doesn't entail certainty and so it's not part of the definition (note I don't take it for granted, but think there are very good reasons to adopt my definition). These are just some of the concrete ways that definitions matter to philosophical discourse and ultimately to which arguments or inferences we accept as good ones and thus which beliefs we take to be acceptable. 

What this made me consider is the possibility that Gangadeanians and I (and their other disputants including perhaps the philosophical world at large and those they deem as "popular Christians") just have sufficiently dissimilar vocabularies. That's why their arguments look to them to be so obviously right and they look to me (and others) to be so obviously wrong. So much so that we may never see eye-to-eye. Maybe in this light it makes sense that our discussions would not be fruitful. Although this last result doesn't necessarily follow. As my friend and I attempted to do, we could recognize the subtle differences in our definitions, try to get clearer on our respective vocabularies and then try to adopt something that is sufficiently neutral. It's hard work for sure. Often times we use words which we've never defined to ourselves or seem beyond non-circular, definitions. We tacitly assume definitions because of the fallible and rather clumsy way that we learn a language, namely, via usage. (Things might be somewhat different when it comes to learning a second language, since we associate the meaning of the target language with words in our native tongue, but again the native tongue is in large part learned via usage rather than via explicit definition so ultimately the second language is going to be affected in the same way). So we could try as my friend and I did yesterday. What I hope was evident to my friend is that I wasn't trying to deny reason or anything of the sort (indeed even the ways we define 'reason' differ!). We were operating from subtly different vocabularies that are similar enough for us to cooperate and get by in ordinary contexts, but dissimilar enough to affect philosophical discourse in significant ways. So the discussion needed to shift to or at least centrally incorporate issues about how we might come to determine which vocabulary is correct or most appropriate or whatever--at least insofar as we're going to use language in giving and evaluating arguments. 

I don't see this ever happening between the Gangadeanian camp and me. While I'm at least willing to try and address the question of "which vocabulary is the best one to adopt?" I don't see Gangadean making such a concession. From what I can tell, his is a closed door policy. He's got the right definitions, he's got the last word on which vocabulary we should adopt (his own)---that's beyond dispute and his people will likely not call it into question because it's so deeply ingrained in their worldview. 

Moreover, this observation about the importance of semantic differences is likely not one that a Gangdeanian will appreciate because it threatens their worldview. If some of our important differences depend on our adopting different vocabularies, then we need a way of principally determining which vocabulary is the "correct one". And unless this is settled in favor of the Gangadeanian vocabulary, they will have to admit that it's at least possible that they've got it wrong. Hence it's at least possible that their argument for say God's existence, is unsound. That threatens the clarity of God's existence thesis without which the entire ministry is threatened. Furthermore, I think it will be hard to get to the bottom of this issue without employing further presumed definitions to words, and at root, immediate, non-inferential (what I call 'intuition') knowledge and empirical methods (seeing how people "out there" actually use words!). That itself undermines much of Gangadean's basic beliefs. 

Importantly, none of what I've said is self-undermining or self-referentially absurd (no doubt, we might even use those terms differently in subtle ways). So I hope not to see more comments from the Gangadeanian camp to the effect that I assume that I know the "right" meanings of words in order to call that very thing into question. Remember, Gangadeanians and I attach different definitions to 'know'. I'm not after certainty in the Gangadeanian sense with anything that I say. So I'm not claiming or presupposing that I am certain or even that it's clear to reason that my vocabulary is the correct one in order to raise the question about which vocabulary is correct. And again I think there are ways to make progress on this question and indeed Gangadean (perhaps without realizing he is doing so) employs some of them (whenever he thinks about the meaning of a word to form an analysis of something like knowledge or good, he's using his own intuitions). However, these methods are not going to sit well with Gangadean's fundamental views concerning reason and clarity. It's entirely compatible with my worldview that I adopt presumptive definitions to words, employ intuitions, while allowing the possibility that I'm in some way mistaken. And it's compatible with my understanding of the word 'know' that I'm even in a position to know that my vocabulary is favorable to Gangadean's even if I can't be certain, even if it rests on presumptions and a posteriori methods.

Additionally, and maybe I'm being foolish here, but a part of me reserves the slightest of hopes that some Gangadeanians might get what I'm saying here and realize that things are far more complicated than they had originally thought. That the rabbit hole is very deep and that persons that are equally committed to reason might reasonably disagree with them. That the language issues I raise are quite serious and fundamental and can explain how rational persons might disagree on basic issues. Which basic vocabularies we adopt largely influences our evaluations of arguments and what we take to be "true by definition" and it's no simple or straightforward matter when we get to talking about which vocabulary we ought to adopt. But I'm not holding my breath because this would require radical revision to their worldview.


{Footnote: I'm using 'definition' throughout to be a broad term to include things like 'analysis', 'theory', 'truth conditions' and the like. Philosophers sometimes shy away from using 'definition' in this sense, but I find it much more relatable for people outside of academic philosophy.}

A recurring mistake by some Gangadeanians...

I'm so tired of this following move which was instanced in a recent comment left by, no doubt, a Gangadeanian or at least a sympathizer.

You assume clarity/certainty in saying anything. So insofar as I am going to take what you have to say seriously, we both have to agree that there is clarity/certainty at the basic level. If you deny that, you're being inconsistent. Bam. Gotcha.

This is so wrong headed. My undergraduate students with a single philosophy course under their belts can spot why this sort of move fails. But for some reason, at least some Gangadeanians have a really hard time spotting the problem. And I've written several posts about this. But the mistake persists in various formulations.

Recently I was challenged by someone about the kind of confidence I seem to have in my own ideas. The idea was roughly that I criticize others for the confidence they have in their views and yet in so criticizing them, I exemplify the very confidence I find troubling. Same basic structure. Gangadeanians get stuck on this basic move which is to try and show that their opponents assume certain things in order to criticize the very thing assumed. Then on pain of inconsistency the thing challenged must be true just because all parties agree.

So let me try one more time to clear the air.

1. I criticize Gangadean for his claims to having certainty at the basic level. I present reasons for why such a view leads to bad results for his own worldview. I don't assume I have certainty in order to do so. I don't need it. Nothing I've said rests on anything being certain/clear in the sense that Gangadean has in mind. For the Gangadeanian who demands that I must have it in order for my objections to be intelligible, they need to show that this is so without begging the question. Good luck.

2. I am quite confident that I'm right about the things I write on this blog. I'm confident about a lot of things and not confident about a lot of others. And there's a bunch of stuff in between. For the things I am confident about, I try to give reasons in favor of them. Just as I give reasons for questioning the confidence that Gangadean and his people have in some of the things they believe they have certainty about.  I don't have a problem with confidence just poorly placed confidence. Gangadean, on my view, has poorly placed confidence. Again, there's nothing inconsistent about this.

3. When I criticize Gangdean's theory of knowledge and show that his requirements are too stringent so that his view, consistently held, leads to skepticism, I haven't shown that skepticism is true thereby undercutting everything I say. It's a hypothetical claim of the following sort. If Gangadean's theory of knowledge is correct, then skepticism (about all kinds of things) follows. If Gangadean's requirements for clarity at the basic level are true, then skepticism follows. Of course, I deny the antecedents of both conditionals. So skepticism doesn't necessarily follow. I'm not committed to skepticism. Gangadeanians seem to have trouble understanding the difference between their conception of knowledge and everyone else's. To show that the former leads to skepticism is not to show skepticism is true. Again, there's no inconsistency, here.

4. To assume something is true for the purposes of some project like talking or thinking or building a theory is not the same as knowing that thing with certainty. One can assume all sorts of things for various purposes. When someone gives a reductio argument, one assumes a premise that one disagrees with to show that it leads to a contradiction. But one doesn't thereby know with certainty that that premise is true! By stipulation, one doesn't even believe it! Assuming that p is not equivalent to affirming that p is true, believing that p, or knowing that p (and a fortiori, knowing that p with certainty). You can assume that p even if you think, believe, or know that p is false. Furthermore, the standard Gangadeanian claim that one necessarily needs to assume certain things like the laws of thought in order to think, is not something that can be proven.

On a related note, I recently heard a comment that there was something weird about how I sometimes present objections against Gangadean's arguments for some view despite admitting that I might even agree with the view. In other words, I object to Gangadean for holding to some belief, despite having the same belief myself.  Let me say that this is plainly false. I don't ever argue that a position is false and then admit that I think it's true or that I believe it--that would be strange. Instead I've sometimes criticized Gangadean's statements about how he thinks one can know some proposition, while admitting that I might believe that very proposition is true. In teaching philosophy I've noticed that students have an incredibly hard time seeing a bad argument when they already agree with the conclusion. And it takes a while for many to realize that pointing out that an argument is bad doesn't entail that one disagrees with the conclusion. Likewise, agreeing with the conclusion of an argument doesn't entail evaluating the argument as a good one. That brings us to my last point.

5. To say that I accept that 'a is a' or believe it or even know it is one thing. To say that Gangadean has failed to provide anything like a proof for such a claim, or that he's failed to show that it is clear to reason (that 'a is a' is true) is quite another. There's the question about whether a proposition is true or worth believing on the one hand and the question about how anybody could know that it is true, on the other. Strictly speaking, these are separate matters! For some things, what is at issue in my disputes with Gangadean is not whether or not some proposition is true. For example, I'm not arguing with him about whether the law of identity is true. The issue is over how we know a thing like that to be true and whether or not one could "show" in any substantial way that the opposite of it is simply impossible.  And I'm submitting that on Gangadean's theory of knowledge, he can't know a thing like the law of identity. But that's not actually denying the law of identity. Nor is there anything inconsistent about this stance. It's like agreeing with an empiricist that the proposition, 'I exist' is true, but disagreeing with them that I know it is true via my sense experience. There's nothing inconsistent about that. Indeed Gangadean agrees with most theists that the proposition, 'God exists' is true, but he disagrees with them about what it takes to know it.

Does Gangadean even know what he means?

According to Ganagdean, "must something be eternal?" is the most basic question a person can ask. Or he means that it's the most basic question, period. Do questions exist without their relation to questioners? I'm not really sure which he intends. But for my purposes either one will suffice. At any rate, so much of Gangadean's worldview is built on this question about eternality. What I want to briefly explore is how someone could come up with an answer to this question. If we follow Gangadean, meaning is more basic than truth. That means before we can even begin addressing the question of whether something must be eternal, we must figure out what we mean by 'eternal' (at least given a plausible assumption called the compositionality of meaning). Ask yourself, how would one come up with an answer to the question, what is the meaning of the word 'eternal'?

When we get into the meaning of words, things get complicated. It seems like language is conventional. Had the history of the world gone a little differently, my label for a table might have been 'chair' or any number of other words that are not in fact associated with tables. It is likely the case that someone, somewhere introduced the word 'table' to denote tables and then it got accepted (tacitly) by other language users and stayed that way. But suppose a person had tried to introduce the word 'table' to denote tables, and nobody accepted it for whatever reason. Then we'd be hard pressed to think that the word 'table' denoted or perhaps meant tables. Maybe you're thinking that it could very well have denoted or even meant table for that person, but it is far from obvious that meaning is so subjective. I might proclaim that from here on out, I will refer to dogs whenever I use the word 'table', but it isn't clear I would succeed. At least it's far from obvious what I will have meant in the given scenario in saying the following: "I want a table for a pet." Did I mean that I want a dog for a pet? If so, what makes that true? Is it because I had in mind, a dog when I was using the word 'table'? If so, then meaning seems to be subjective and sort of "in the head." Most philosopher reject this subjectivist kind of theory. Meaning is thought to be more objective in some sense, but it isn't as if anybody has got knock down arguments for it. Instead, philosophers working on these issues depend on certain intuitive reactions to scenarios like the the one I just presented. Theories are meant to accommodate such intuitions and are accepted on such grounds. 

The point is, when we ask ourselves what the meaning of a word is, it's a bit tricky to figure out how we go about answering it. What methods do we employ and how do we know that those methods are veridical? It's not like we have a perceptual faculty dedicated to figuring out the meanings of words. This relates to my analysis of Gangadean's views because the word 'eternal' is of no exception. Indeed all of the many key words and expressions that Gangadean uses to make his arguments are no exception. Presumably, the word 'eternal' entered into our vocabulary at some point in history. It was in some way associated with some state of affairs that persons at least thought to reflect reality.

A side note: there's just no guarantee that the words in our language actually refer to anything that exists. 'Phlogiston' for example is a word that was thought at one time to refer to something that all combustible bodies had and which got released when burned, but we no longer believe that such a things exists (or ever existed for that matter). True, the meaning of a word is thought not to be exhausted by the thing it refers to (see Frege on Sense and Reference). But there's at least some intimate connection between meaning and reference/denotation/extension. It's standard to think that the sense or intension of a word is something like a condition which fixes the referent/extension of the word.

Now the word 'eternal' presumably gained tacit acceptance and was passed down from generation to generation like the word 'chair', 'horse' and the like. Of course, there's no way for us to know for sure that the meaning was stable with every generation nor can we know for sure that it was passed down faithfully. Relatedly, there isn't anyway for us to be sure that when I say 'eternal' I have in mind exactly what you do when you use the same word. I can't get inside your head as it were. Of course, you can start to spell off other words to try and see if we are thinking the same thing when we use the word, but that leads to a regress: if I use other words to try and tell you what I am thinking when I use the word 'eternal', then one will wonder whether we are in the same kind of mental state when we use those other words. In the case of a word like 'chair' you might think that I could via enumeration or ostention help you get to what I mean (or at least intend on meaning) when I use it. I could for instance point to a particular object (hopefully a chair) and say, 'chair!'. But notice that my pointing is anything but an infallible means of getting you to adopt or realize what I intend on meaning. After all, pointing is far from precise. In all likelihood, I can at best, point to a particular space-time chunk of the chair or perhaps in some general vicinity. Even physical contact faces this issue. You as the observer can of course make your best estimation as to what object in the world I might be referring to, but it will be anything but clear or certain (in the Gangadeanian sense). So there's a separate though related question emerging about how we determine what a person at least thinks they mean, when they use a word.

Now the main issue with what I'm calling subjectivist views of meaning, where the meaning of a word is just what the speaker intends in using the word, is that it's hard to say that anybody ever uses a word incorrectly. And again, philosophers depend on intuitive reactions to thought experiments, here. They think of cases where it just seems intuitively like a person is using a word incorrectly and take this as a datum for their theorizing. As it concerns Gangadean, I can't see how this subjectivist view would serve his purposes. If the meaning of 'eternal' is whatever each of us attaches to that word (in our heads) whenever we use it, then we could have radically different meanings, from one another and even from ourselves on any given occasion and skepticism looms. We couldn't be sure that we are following any of his arguments which depend crucially on the meaning of such words.

Maybe meaning is not subjective anyway, as most philosophers would have it. It's a public affair arising out of a language community. On such a view, a person can simply be wrong about their usage of a term insofar as it deviates sufficiently from the way other competent language users in their community use the word. This means that in order to figure out the meaning of a word, one must do a lot of surveying of how competent language users actually use the words in question. Of course, you've got to figure out what counts as a competent language user, first which is no simple task. But if this were Gangadean's view, then this seems contrary to his way of doing philosophy. As I've complained, repeatedly, Gangadean often just stipulates the meanings of words. He asserts the definitions of all sorts of things as if he's got the final say in the matter. The word 'eternal' is a prime example. Strangely he doesn't do what linguists do---searching through databases for natural occurrences of a word in published works, or by conducting sociological experiments to see how people in fact use the word. He doesn't present empirical research to support his views about what he thinks words mean--i.e., to show that the meaning he attaches to particular words is actually shared among the relevant population of interest. Moreover, even if he did, it wouldn't give him certainty---this is because such empirical work is going to be inductive at best. You've got to make lots of inferences and estimations to go from observable behavior to the meaning of an expression.

A third option is that there's something like objective meaning that is neither subjective nor determined by the practices of a language community. I'm not sure what a view like this would amount to. Maybe it's the idea that there is a dictionary according to God or something at least functionally equivalent. This flies in the face of observation (note words in a given language get introduced and removed and even seem to change meaning over time--and so such a view would have to deny that this is possible). Moreover, it suggests that words mean what they do by necessity which is to say language is not a matter of convention. That's a big bullet to bite. The most serious worry here is how one could access "God's lexicon" and furthermore, how one would ever know that one has in fact done so. I kind of think Gangadean actually acts as if this picture of language/meaning is true; whether he believes it or not is another question. He seems to think that he can just sit in his arm-chair and think about the meanings of words and then arrive at the "true definitions" as it were. This is rife with problems as it concerns certainty. The thing is, he never bothers to tell you how he knows with certainty that he's got it right. Even if there was such a mysterious lexicon of the universe, it doesn't follow that one has infallible access to it, or any access to it for that matter. 

The complexities that we introduce when we get into talk about meaning are numerous. There's a vast sea of dense literature. Contrary to appearances, it's not that easy to say what the meaning of ordinary terms like 'chair' and 'table' are.  To add insult to injury, it's not even clear how we go about determining the meaning of such words, at least if we're after certainty. How much more for a word like 'eternal' which presumably isn't something directly associated with observable phenomena (i.e., you can't point at something as say, 'eternal'). What's surprising is that Gangadean never seems to even question this stuff and you'll likely not meet a Gangadeanian who is concerned with it. Gangadean just sort of lays down the law in Aristotelian style. He tells you what a word means never once asking how he could determine a thing like that in the first place. Maybe he thinks that he speaks for everyone (at least all competent language users)---that somehow he represents all of us. But that's extremely contentious.

Now you might be wondering why am I pressing this really abstract stuff about meaning. The thing is Gangadean tries to argue for things based on the meaning of terms. For instance, there are some inferences he draws which he thinks are sure-proof because they are the sorts of things that are analytically true (or true by definition). For example, he argues that if nothing is eternal, then all is temporal. And if all is temporal, then all came into being. What might justify such inferences? Well, Gangadean thinks that they are just true by definition. It is just part of the meaning of the expression 'nothing is eternal' that all began to exist. Moreover, the very meaning of 'eternal' for Gangadean is somehow connected to the word, 'infinite'. These sorts of "true by definition" inferences that Gangadean often employs depend on him having the meanings of his terms correct. So we should care a lot about his theory of meaning and his theory about how he comes to know the meaning of his terms. Note, he might be correct concerning his meaning of 'eternal'--that's just not the point. The point is whether he would (by his own lights) count as knowing (with certainty) that it's the correct meaning of the word. After all, he doesn't think one can merely have a true belief in what is clear, but rather must know it (and knowledge is more than mere true belief) if it is to serve as the basis of other knowledge. 

So according to Gangadean, a thing is eternal only if it has no beginning and no end. That is to say, the meaning of 'eternal' is 'having no beginning and no end'. And as I've said, he will use such a definition as part of his premise in arguing against the view that nothing is eternal. Again it isn't clear how we determine that Gangadean is right about the meaning of the word 'eternal' at least if we're after certainty. That a bunch of people agree with Gangadean is at best defeasible evidence that it's the right definition. But only if we help ourselves to a lot of presuppositions. We have to presuppose that meaning is determined by consensus of a language community and that the people Gangadean has spoken to about the matter are all competent language users and are telling the truth or otherwise sincere when they speak on the matter. True, common sense would deem these reasonable assumptions. It fits nicely with my way of doing philosophy which is to allow for all kinds of assumptions via common sense and intuition. But my point is, none of this should work for a person so bent on certainty that he can't stand the sight of intuitions or common sense. That's Gangadean. 

In sum, I'll leave you with some pressing questions for Gangadean and his followers. 

1) How does Gangadean know (with certainty) what meaning (in itself) is? 

2) How does Gangadean know (with certainty) that any of his words have meaning? 

3) How does Gangadean know (with certainty) that the meaning he assigns to particular words are correct (i.e., are their actual meanings)? For instance, when he says that 'eternal' = without beginning and end, how does he know with certainty that he isn't mistaken? 

Now you might be tempted to think that he's not talking about the meaning of words or otherwise is simply not interested in semantics. He's doing metaphysics! But that won't do. According to Gangadean you can't say whether a statement is true, unless you know what it first means. Statements are linguistic entities: they are the stuff of semantics and linguistic study. And to give an argument, you've got to depend on statements. You've got to depend on the meanings of words. So you can't talk about the truth of statements (strings of expressions) without getting into issues of meaning or more generally semantics.

Moreover, if you think that concepts are in some way helpful to posit, we can, with little modification, run the same kind of arguments I've presented above for concepts. After all, concepts are things in our minds which purport to connect to things in reality in much the same way that words do. 

The philosophical payoff: If you think meaning is more basic than truth, and we need absolute certainty (clarity) for knowledge, then you need to explain how you know with certainty the very meaning of any of the words you use. After all, the legitimacy of every one of your arguments and inferences will depend crucially on the meaning of the words featured in them. And it's possible that you are mistaken. Note: if you think there's some transcendental argument to exploit, then you're mistaken. The Gangadeanian might be tempted to think in the following manner: we have to assume clarity concerning the meaning of at least some of our words in order to intelligibly raise questions concerning the meaning of ours expressions. This line falters on at least two grounds. 1) To argue in general that we must have clarity concerning the meaning of at least some of our words is not to have shown which one of those words must have clear, transparent meanings. Nor is it to show any method by which we can determine which meanings are clear. So this is of little help by itself. 2) More importantly though, there's no reason for anybody to accept the claim that in order to raise intelligible questions about meaning, there must be clarity of meaning of some of our words. What non circular, non-intuition based argument could justify such an inference?

Anyway, my point is not to drive one to skepticism about meaning and thus of determining the validity/soundness of any and all arguments. Instead, I think it's just Gangadean's commitment to clarity/certainty as it pertains to knowledge which when combined with the considerations above should lead one to a skeptical stance.  Alternatively one can abandon that sinking ship and adopt the view that Gangadean was utterly mistaken that we need certainty for knowledge to begin with. After all, intuitively, we know the meanings of the words we use, we know the meanings of the words that Gangadean uses. We know these things despite not having any way of determining conclusively (by way of deductive arguments) what they are. 

Using Intuitions Consistently.

Just to hedge off a mistaken kind of response to my objections, let me say a little bit about the current dialectic as I see it. I believe that Gangadean and his followers ultimately ground their positions in intuitions. At the most basic level, Gangadean and his people accept things not on the basis of arguments, but on immediate, non-inferential judgments they have (this is all I mean by intuition). I mean, even to determine something as more basic or less basic, requires an intuition. You just have to get the sense that 'a is a' is more basic then the claim that horses have four legs. You don't get an argument that proves it and you either "see" it or you don't.

I use intuitions, too. A lot. I think all philosophers do just as all non-philosophers do. We gotta start somewhere in theorizing about the world. Even when Gangadean claims to start from self-attesting principles, his way of determining something as a self-testing principle is direct and non-inferential. It isn't derived at via some noncircular argument, but rather an intuitive reaction. If you think he's given you a reductio argument for the claim that 'a is a' is self attesting for instance, then ask yourself how you know that each of premises of that argument are true, or how you know that the rules of inference that the argument employs are truth-preserving. At some point, you'll find intuitions. It's sometimes hard to get a grasp on what it means to believe something via an intuition. But I think in some ways it's a lot like coming to believe that a middle C has been played on the piano. You hear something and immediately "recognize" it as middle C. You might fuss over details here and push the representationalist line by saying that at best when such a note has been played on the piano it appears to you or sounds to you as if middle C has been played. But the same applies to Gangadean's apprehension of self-attesting principles. 'A is a' is supposed to be self-attesting, but to determine that it is self attesting Gangadean has to rely on his intuition. But one could analogously suggest that it merely appears to Gangadean as if 'a is a' is self attesting.

So I'm often trying to point out the places where Gangadean seems to rest his views on intuition because I think he and his people have failed to recognize where they do. Of course, he could surprise me with responses which demonstrate that he doesn't--I'm certainly open to that possibility, but currently we are without. Such proofs are not forthcoming in his published works and haven't been in my many exchanges with him and his followers. 

So I keep pointing out the fact that Gangadean seems to appeal to intuitions to get his theorizing off the ground, but by my own admission, it turns out that I, too, appeal to intuitions in order to do so. But I just want to be clear that there's no inconsistency, here.  This is because I'm holding Gangadean to his own professed standard--it's the standard he holds others to. He often complains that other attempts at arguing for God's existence for instance, have failed to provide a deductively sound proof. But again, I am of the view that all of us ultimately have to employ intuitions in our theory building, and not only in philosophy, but in every field of inquiry. If we are to come to know anything whatsoever, or come to form beliefs, we have to begin with things that are not proven to us nor are they the dubious "self-attesting" principles that Gangadean claims. Importantly, I don't see this as a problem. It's Gangadean that thinks opening the door to intuitions will ultimately lead to nihilism, not me. So I'm at least open to the idea that a person might  come to know that God exists on the basis of an intuition just like they might come to know that 'a is a' and that they exist, and that they have hands and the like. Sure, skeptical possibilities can be raised against any of these, but this alone isn't enough to impoverish us of all knowledge. My view then is that knowledge simply doesn't require certainty. I can know something without showing that the opposite is logically impossible. So there's no problem for me. It's Gangadean that finds intuitions troubling. So there's no inconsistency in my appealing to intuitions or using them at any rate, to raise objections against Gangadean. That plays nicely with my own fundamental commitments.

In contrast, there is an inconsistency in Gangadean using intuitions to build his theories, to raise criticisms against other theories while at the same time claiming that belief without proof is fideism, and otherwise criticizing others for believing things on the basis of intuition. If he's concerned with consistency as he often claims to be, then he ought to admit that his whole system of beliefs ultimately rests on intuitions and that he's been wrong in criticizing others for using intuitions. Of course, this has huge ramifications for the legitimacy of his life's work, his church and the like.

On the Meaning of Meaninglessness

Gangadeanians often talk about meaninglessness. Well, they don't quite talk about it if by that we mean that they explain it. However, they mention the notions meaning and meaninglessness. For instance, they suggest that if some things are not clear, then meaninglessness follows. But by 'clear' they mean absolute epistemic certainty. There's a lot packed into their notion of epistemic certainty, too and as a corollary into their notion of clarity and thus their concept of meaning/meaninglessness. As I've mentioned, one can push back on each of these notions. Perhaps, something can be clear without it being clear in the manner in which Gangadean and his people privilege. After all, they don't have a monopoly on our concepts or words. They need to earn such a status. Suppose I started announcing that the nature of God is one that is finite temporal and changing in much the same way that Gangadean claims that God is infinite, eternal and unchanging. You might think that my concept of God is just mistaken. At the very least you're going to want me to motivate my concept over that of alternative conceptions. I can't just tell you that from here on out, the nature of God is one that is finite, temporal and changeable or at least I can't make it the case via my pronouncements. In the same way, Gangadean can't just assert that reason is the laws of thought, or that for something to be clear, the opposite of it must be impossible and make it so. Just like he can't merely assert that knowledge is maximally justified true belief, or that the kind of knowledge that matters as it pertains to God is the kind that consists in absolute certainty. I mean he can strictly speaking say those things, but it doesn't make them true or believable solely in virtue of the fact that he's said those things. Moreover, he can't merely tell you that if nothing is clear (under his understanding of the concept of clear) that meaningless follows. He's got to argue for each of these points and he's got to provide knockdown deductive supports for each of them if he's being consistent with his own system.

It recently occurred to me that the common Gangadeanian line that if nothing is clear, then all is meaningless, is just another assertion that people tend to accept because it has the feeling of truth or seems, intuitively, correct. But the question remains whether we have good reasons to accept such a thing. Actually for Gangadean, the question is whether he's proven such things. I don't see it. One issue concerns the notion of meaninglessness. It isn't obvious what Gangadean means by meaninglessness and I've already discussed before how the word 'meaning' has various different meanings. There's the meaning of words and expressions which may be the sense and reference of a word/expression or to use contemporary terms, their intension and extension. There are the truth conditions associated with words and expressions which are standardly thought to be somehow connected to their intensions. But these are difficult matters that linguists and philosophers working in semantics have had great trouble (and minor success) at capturing. Suffice it to call this sort of meaning, linguistic meaning. Is Gangadean claiming that if some things are not clear, then we are without linguistic meaning? If so, what could justify that kind of claim other than raw intuitions? Sometimes it sounds like this is the kind of meaning that Gangadean intends. For instance, he says that meaning is more basic than truth and that you can't determine whether a sentence is true without knowing what it means. Since he's dealing with sentences and truth, it seems like he's talking about linguistic meaning. But he also seems to reach beyond sheer linguistic meaning when he speaks of meaninglessness.

For example, I take it that there is also a sort of existentialist notion of meaning which has to do with life purpose. This is the sense in which, in ordinary language, we say things like, "life has no meaning". Indeed he speaks of nihilism when rational justification is not possible in some domain of philosophy. This captures the sense in which meaning is a property of life or perhaps events. But once again I don't see how absolute epistemic certainty is required for this kind of meaning. Why can't a person live their lives with purpose without absolute certainty? Where is the argument that this is utterly inconsistent? I take it that the questionable inference is taken for granted by the Gangadeanians because it seems intuitive to them.

Finally, there's perhaps a third kind of meaning which is something very general like intelligibility. This one is a bit difficult to separate from meaning in the linguistic sense or perhaps even from the existentialist notion. After all, presumably a sentence can be unintelligible in which case we're inclined to say that the sentence is meaningless. But there is also a sense in which epistemic inquiry could be meaningless or futile. If we can't form rational beliefs, no matter how hard we try, then forming beliefs with the aim of forming them rationally might be futile. You might even say that the aim of forming rational beliefs under such conditions is meaningless. And I get hints of this from Gangadean's general system.

This makes me think that for Gangadean, meaning is a very broad, catch all notion which has aspects of linguistics, life purpose, and general intelligibility. It is this kind of meaning that we are without if some things are not clear according to him. Notice if meaning captures all three of these senses, then his claim that meaningless follows from the lack of clarity is much stronger than we initially thought. That is, meaning in the way that he thinks of it, is a conjunction of linguistic, existentialist and general intelligibility conditions. So by calling into question the link between clarity and meaning in any one of the three senses, a fortiori, we call into question the link between clarity and the conjunction of all three. Indeed I've called into question all three independently so in essence have called into question the stronger claim.

It isn't obvious to me why we need absolute certainty about anything, in order for us to have intelligibility in the world. Just like it isn't obvious why some things must be clear in order for our words to refer to things and/or propositions. Similarly, why do we need absolute certainty about things in order for our lives to have purpose?

In the end, on Gangadean's high standards for what counts as clear, it isn't clear to reason that we need clarity to begin with.

The "Laws" of Thought

I'm writing in response to this video I happened upon. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ulmvy4QczV0

The second speaker says that logic is "a description of existence" and uses the analogy of a map on the one hand and the thing that the map refers to, on the other. This is bad. Part of the problem (perhaps) is that 'logic' has more than one use. There's the ordinary usage as evidenced by statements like, "I don't agree with your logic" in response to an argument. Here, 'logic' seems to refer to something like one's line of reasoning. Of course, this is very different from 'logic' as a philosopher's and logician's term of art. 'Logic' in this latter sense refers simply to formal languages like first-order propositional logic, predicate logic, modal logics, meta-logic and perhaps multi-valued systems. The problem is, in neither of these uses of the term does it make sense to say that logic is a "description of existence." And I really don't get the map analogy. If the second speaker wants to get away from reifying rules of valid inference (qua abstract entities), then this analogy is not helpful because by his own words, the map represents things that exist. So if the rules of a formal system are to reality what a map is to the things it represents, then we would actually expect the rules of a given logic to represent things (and what else could they be, but either concrete objects or abstract entities?).
Moreover, 'the laws of thought' need not be coextensive with the rules given in various logical systems, but this exchange seems to presuppose this very thing. There is much debate in the philosophy of logic (this is the subfield of philosophy that studies logic) about just what formal systems like first-order propositional logic are meant to represent (though nobody I know of says it "describes existence"). We know that logics are formal, artificial languages. We also know that natural languages (e.g., English) suggest to us certain patterns of reasoning---that is to say, there seem to be certain rules beyond mere syntax which we presume are in some fashion, truth-preserving which is to say that we can get from one statement or set of statements that are deemed 'true' and then, in some suitable sense, "get to" another statement that is also true. But this is really complicated terrain. I just think whoever talks about the "laws of thought" should not conflate that with systems of logic. I have similar complaints about the first speaker as well, but it'll needlessly lengthen this post. The point is, neither of them seem to be well-versed in philosophy or logic, but it doesn't stop them from using technical jaron, and the result is confusion.

Which brings me to the Gangadeanian at the beginning of the video who raises the question, "do you accept the laws of thought?" Gangadean and his people talk a lot about the laws of thought. They enumerate them as the law of non contradiction, the law of excluded middle, and the law of identity. Gangadean draws the analogy between the laws of nature and these laws. Insofar as the physical laws of nature cease, life ceases and so it is with the laws of thought--if they cease, thinking ceases, so he claims. Notice this isn't a deductive argument. You've got something resembling an argument from analogy (at best an inductive argument). Lest I be accused of misrepresenting Gangadean and his crew, just keep reading and I'll get to ways that they try to motivate this claim. Anyway, with this analogy, you're suppose to just hear this and somehow "recognize" that it's true and that the analogy is apt. It's a picture he paints for you to elicit a certain kind of response. Again, none of this is proof of anything.

Now importantly, it's not a settled matter what a law of nature is to begin with. So this analogy is not going to prove that helpful anyway. There's considerable and ongoing debate concerning laws of nature. A Humean for instance thinks that laws of nature are purely descriptive regularities of the way that nature tends to behave. Or at the very least the Humean thinks we have no epistemological grounds to say more than this about laws of nature. Humeans question whether laws are anything more than a generalized trend based on a bunch of observations. In a terribly simplified example: a lot of things drop to the ground and so we reason that there is this tendency for things to fall to the center of the earth and call it the law of gravity. But there isn't something like a law over and above the regularity denoted. It's certainly not like you can bump into a law of nature. So they don't seem to be concrete entities by anyone's lights. Of course laws of nature could be abstract entities, but it's hard to say much more if we go down that route. The very nature of abstracta is really murky and mysterious. Abstract entities are supposed to be things that exist without being "in" spacetime. They are acausal. They don't interact with anything else that exists. But they are thought to exist nonetheless or be real in some mysterious sense but are usually posited for purely theoretical reasons (for instance, the existence of numbers is one straightforward way to account for how it is that mathematical formulas can be true). And there are other views. Some tend to reify laws of nature as if they are robust, exceptionless rules that all physical stuff "follows." But at best we use words like 'law' and 'follow' and 'rule' loosely. We have some idea of what it takes to be a man made rule like the rules of grammar, or the legislative laws or even social mores---they are prescriptions and proscriptions that cover a particular domain of behavior. But it's not like these laws actually control what people do. Instead they tell us what people should do given certain interests after all, people violate the norms of grammar all the time (and still manage to communicate). But presumably laws of nature are supposed to exert more "control" on their objects. But it's hard to say precisely what this amounts to.

Anyway, the point is not to get into a substantive debate about the nature of laws in general. It's a fascinating issue, but highly complex. The point I want to drive home is that contrary to how the Gangadeanian's present things, the notion of a law of nature is not something we have a satisfying account of. It's not a settled matter that for instance, Humean's must necessarily be wrong in their deflationary account. Laws of nature might simply be generalizations or regularities that we observe or they might not be, but the jury is still out. If the Gangadeanian disagrees, she had better be in a position to disprove any alternatives to her view and explain just what she takes laws to be ontologically speaking.

What this means for present purposes is that the analogy is not very elucidating. If laws of thought are to thinking as the laws of nature are to life, then we need to first settle the matter of the nature of the laws of thought. And part of that will involve determining whether a Humean analogue to the laws of thought is correct. That is, minimally, we need to figure out whether the laws of thought are merely descriptive generalizations about the way that humans characteristically think. If both kinds of laws end up being merely regularities that are determined inductively by observation, then the normative import is inclined to be limited. We have to make room for exceptions (generalizations after all admit to these and are formed by instances and counter-instances). More precisely, it would seem that we would have to put less credence in the notion that every rational being must necessarily think in accordance with them insofar as they are actually thinking.

Now faced with this issue the Gangadeanian is likely to pull the transcendental move. They will ask you to give them one instance of a thought which does not instantiate the laws of thought. They will say, "look, take any thought, aren't you assuming 'a is a' in having that thought? Can you give an example where you don't?" And they will think that they have proven something substantial. The correct response to this is to point out that they've done nothing more than appeal to intuition or common sense. For anybody to determine that a particular thought instantiates the law of identity (or not) for instance, requires that they just immediately "see" it as such. There's no argument. It's an immediate apprehension of sorts. So the Gangadeanian should recognize that they are resting ultimately on intuitions which won't satisfy the skeptic they are always intent on answering.

More crucially, my inability to provide an example of a thought that doesn't (intuitively) instantiate the laws of thought is not any proof that the laws of thought are not merely descriptive generalizations. That simply doesn't follow. Here's an analogy. Suppose you claim that every raven is black. That is you make an absolute claim about all ravens just as the Gangadeanians make a claim about all thought. Suppose I question you. I point out that it isn't obvious to me that all raven's are black. It does nothing to prove your point, if you merely ask me to produce a non-black raven even if I am unsuccessful. Sure, provided that I have access to a large sample of ravens, my inability to produce a counter-instance of your generalization does provide some inductive evidence for it. But that's not the same as proving your categorical rule! 

In response, the Gangadeanian will attempt to pull a reductio. They will say. "Ok let's assume that the laws of thought are merely descriptive generalizations of the way that people tend to reason. If so, then there's no reason why people should adhere to them. But all arguments presuppose that people should adhere to certain principles of reasoning otherwise there's no point. So, you see, you actually accept that they are more than purely descriptive generalizations." Unfortunately, this is just another pull on your intuition strings. The claim that all arguments presuppose that people should adhere to certain principles is far from trivially true. It's stated as a platitude, but that doesn't make it one. The problem is that you've got to just intuit that what was said is true. Once again I don't even know what would count as a proof here. What would possibly prove that all arguments presuppose that certain principles be adhered to? At best what we can say is that all the things we so far have determined to count as arguments appear to presuppose certain principles. But that's not nearly strong enough to support the line we're considering. So here too, the Gangadeanian would have to rest their case on intuition.

Another criticism is that the Gangadeanians seem to be generalizing from a limited sample to the whole which not only definitionally falls short of proof, it's bad induction in the form of a hasty generalization. In other words, you might challenge them on grounds that they have at best weak inductive evidence for their claim that all thinking requires the laws of thought. This is because they have experience with only those thoughts they've encountered in their lifetimes. And suppose we ignore the fact that they are merely using their intuitions to make generalizations about this set of thoughts--still this is a tiny subset of the set of all thoughts in the universe (present, past and future). So it's no good to conclude from this limited sample, anything general about all thoughts.

In response Gangadeanians are inclined to say something about "grasping a concept." Gangadean claims, but has no way of proving, that we grasp the essences of things whenever we "have" a concept. He just says this is so. Hence he and his followers sometimes claim that they grasp the concept of thought---and just by sort of thinking about thinking, they uncover the categorical truth that all thought presupposes or requires or exemplifies the laws of thought. But here again, this is little more than banking on their own raw intuitions. There's no argument given for the claim that "in a concept, we grasp the essence of things." More importantly, how does one argue or prove that one's concept is correct over another's? Suppose that you think it's essential to the nature of water that it is composed of hydrogen and oxygen molecules and I disagree because I think that water in a fundamentally different universe might have been composed of different elements. How can you possibly prove me wrong? There's no basis in argument about whether water is necessarily H20. 

Another move they might try in response to the charge of generalizing hastily is to say that thoughts come in types. That is, they concede the point that they couldn't possibly have encountered a sufficient number of thought tokens to make a good case for their claim about all thoughts. So they might try to claim that they have at least experience of a sufficiently wide range of the kinds of thoughts that there are and they generalize from there. Of course, this still falls short of deduction--it's induction. But it's also very dubious for other reasons. First of all, they would need infallible access to the properties of every single kind of thought there is--which would beg for a comprehensive taxonomy (for proof of concept). What counts as an argument type? Moreover, there's still just no way to know that we've nailed down every type of thought that there is, possible. And again, if there are any debates about what counts as a thought type (which there are bound to be), there would be no way of demonstrably settling it.

So don't be impressed by Gangadean's claim that the laws of thought are transcendental, or are preconditions to thought and that all thinking would cease without them. Or at least don't take his word for it that he knows these things with certainty (or that these things are absolutely clear to reason). He hasn't shown us that much.  True many philosophers accept the law of identity, and the law of non-contradiction (while fewer except the law of excluded middle). But they don't claim absolute certainty regarding them and freely admit that they accept them on the basis of intuition not via some deductively sound argument. My point here is not to say that the laws of thought are bad in some way to accept. My claim is that Gangadean should admit that he's got no privileged epistemic position regarding them. In the end, if he's consistent, he's just an intuitionist like the rest of us.

Christian doctrines as incentive/support for more basic beliefs?

In my previous post, I mentioned that the Gangadeanians sometimes speak as if their theory of knowledge is correct or at least that the kind of certainty they equate with knowledge is attested to by certain Christian doctrines. When faced with the challenge of differing accounts of the nature of knowledge, they sometimes respond with, "well, fine but the kind of knowledge I'm interested in and the kind of knowledge that we ought to have regarding God's existence, is absolute certainty." And I pointed out how this seems to be a fallacious move. This move depends on presupposing the bible (or at least particular segments of it) to be true. For example, the thinking is that not-knowing God leads to maximal consequences, and so it must be maximally clear (knowable with certainty) that he exists. But the issue of which theory of knowledge is correct, and what kind of knowledge (whether absolute certainty or not) we ought to have with respect to our most basic beliefs, is logically prior to beliefs about whether the bible is the word of God and thus offers any divine insight. So you've got to answer the more basic ones first, and not refer to the less basic issues to support claims about the more basic ones at least unless one thinks this kind of circular reasoning is perfectly acceptable. This has gotten me thinking about certain conversations I've had with Gangadeanians during my departure from the congregation.

When I raised challenges or objections to core doctrines of the church, that is, on matters that they deemed to be most basic, I was sometimes met with the following response. "You know, if you go down that path, you will end up eventually denying Christianity."  Further, on more than one occasion, I've heard Gangadeanians point out that persons who had similar questions as I did, eventually ended up in "bad places" where bad places meant walking away from the faith. The more I think about this approach, the more I think it's entirely illegitimate in just the way that I highlighted above. It sounds a lot like appealing to the bible and Christian doctrine (which are comparatively less basic) to support more basic issues---the very issues that are logically prior and supposed to provide the basis for the less basic issues. Perhaps it's also an appeal to fear.

Any way you cut it, one ought not to evaluate my objections on the basis of what they imply about the Christian faith, the veracity of scripture, lifestyle and the like. This is because my objections are more rudimentary---they have to do with issues that are logically prior to whether Christianity as a worldview is a cogent one. Indeed the kind of move that I'm speaking of actually sounds like a very different kind of presuppositionalism from the kind that Gangadean endorses, namely, the kind that takes the tenants of Christianity as the starting point of all inquiry. To forget about this and to allow for the kinds of reasoning I am calling into question is to lack intellectual integrity, at least by Gangadean's standards. But this is just the sort of thing I've heard from more than one Ganagdeanian on more than one occasion.

Objectivity in Art: Another symptom of the Gangadeanian chauvinism.

I've written before about how Gangadean and his kin tend to make bold assertions about definitions or otherwise make equally audacious claims about analyses of concepts and the like. We saw this with respect to the meaning of the word 'knowledge' as well as Gangdean's unsupported theory of knowledge. Gangadean doesn't argue for his theory of what knowledge is, instead he just "lays down the law". He says knowledge is such and such, but never tells you why you should agree with him. The same goes for his theory of the nature of reason. The same with free will. The same with God, goodness, evil, sin and a host of other concepts, words and things. He gets a tad warmer when he tries to defend his view (the Aristotelian view) that humans are rational animals--but as I've noted in a previous post, his justification fails his own standard. Since Gangadean and his followers are always big on denying a view whenever that view means that one cannot settle disputes, perhaps we have good grounds on this consideration alone to deny their way of doing philosophy. Case in point, Anderson argues that externalism about knowledge leads to irresolvable disputes about whether a person knows or not and this is taken as a reason to deny externalism.

That is, suppose that Gangadean's way of "laying down the law" (e.g., merely asserting analyses) represents one way that he does philosophy. But if he can do it, then it seems like anybody ought to be able to merely state definitions or theories for concepts, words, or things like knowledge. But now this will lead to unresolvable disagreements whenever the definitions/theories/analyses disagree. For instance, Gangadean merely says that knowledge = maximally justified true belief, but doesn't present arguments for why he thinks that this is correct. But it turns out that most philosophers disagree with him about this. So they might also "lay down the law" with their own theories or definitions. And now we're stuck with an unresolvable disagreement. The moral that I want to draw here is that it inconsistent for Gangadean to ever merely assert a theory (of a thing) or definition (of a word) or an analysis (of a concept) because this will be in tension with his view that reason ought to settle disputes. And now this places a heavy burden for him to rationally defend each theory, each definition, each analyses as the correct theory/definition/analysis. When he fails to do so we have no reason to accept his claims. And you will notice that these theories, definitions and analyses do a lot of heavy lifting in his central arguments in the form of premises.

I first caught wind of this problem of "laying down the law" when Gangadean spoke about the "objective standards for art." If you talk to a Gangadeanian about art they will be quick to draw a distinction between mere decoration and art. Not every pretty thing that you frame and hang on the wall counts as art according to them. And different artists are objectively better than others just as certain pieces of art are objectively better than others. I found this view highly contentious and still do. But it gained currency quickly among the Gangadeanians. Now it is their view that art should express the universal (foundational messages that transcend time, gender, race, social class etc). Further it should instantiate some level of complexity and mastery of the trade. However, these details are not important for the point I'm making. The important point is why we should accept their standards as the correct ones? Gangadean merely proclaims that there are objective standards to art and then tries to spell them out. From what I can gather this is an attempt to get an intuitive reaction out of people. But this is not the same as giving a rational justification for 1) the claim that there is objective standards of art and 2) that their specific construal of these standards is correct.  Again, there are many that disagree with Gangadean on either 1) or 2). But the Gangadeanians are merely laying down the law again. Which means those that disagree should be able to as well. Which means we have an insoluble disagreement and something will have went wrong (according to Gangadean). So Gangadean is committed to the view that he is rationally obligated to defending (rather than merely stating) each of his definitions, theories, and analyses on pain of consistency with his own worldview. But since he hasn't done this it appears he's being inconsistent. 

Much of what I've said here is reminiscent of other posts. So my apologies for repeating myself. But the bit about art has not been featured on this blog yet and I think it brings out nicely how the philosophical chauvinism that I've accused Gangadean of is no isolated case. It afflicts even "less basic" matters. Indeed, it even infects his heurmeneutics. That is, I listened on more than one occasion at his interpretation of certain passages in scripture where he claimed that his was the only correct interpretation. To be fair, he was pressed on at least one occasion to prove his reading of a certain passage and he attempted to motivate his reading, but what he didn't do was give a demonstrative proof that this was the case though he certainly acted as if he had.

If a view or position fails because accepting that view and putting into practice means there will be irreconcilable disputes, then merely stating definitions/theories/analyses will not do.  If Gangadean can merely state rather than defend his definitions, theories, analyses, then anybody can. And where there are disagreements arising as a result (e.g., where people disagree about what knowledge, free will, or human nature consists in) there will be no settling such disputes via the method of merely laying down analyses or theories in the way that Gangadean does. Thus, Ganagadean ought to either stop complaining about views that lead to irresolvable differences or else he should give up his practice of merely stating definitions/theories/analyses i.e., being philosophically chauvinistic. Chauvinism leads to dogmatism, and the dogmatist is simply not in the business of settling disputes. 

Gangadean Responds to Critics?

Here is a website that the Gangadeanians have put up.  This morning I encountered this post, which is an attempt to answer critics regarding the necessity of common ground. I was excited to see this since I have been pressing Gangadean and his people to defend some of their views about common ground. Specifically, I have been interested in the following inquiries.

1) Precisely which propositions count as common ground? 

2) How do you justify your answer to 1)? (i.e., how do you know with certainty that your answer to 1) is veridical?). 

3) What is the method or process you use to determine your answer to 1) and 2). 

4) What is the propositional attitude that two persons must have with respect to a proposition in order to have that proposition as common ground? (I.e, is it belief? knowledge? knowledge in the Gangadeanian sense?). 

5) What justifies your answer to 4)?

Unfortunately, we are without with the exception of 1). I take 2) through 5) to be questions that reveal certain assumptions that Gangadean helps himself to in drafting a document of the sort featured on their blog. In other words, there are presumably more basic issues than what he addresses there.
Still, I want to make a few remarks about the document since at least some of its contents appear to be inspired either by my blog or my personal interaction with Gangadean.

The first statement in the document is the following.

Common Ground (CG) is the set of conditions necessary for thought and discourse. To engage in discourse without CG is to engage in meaningless disputes.

This is an assertion in need of rational justification. Gangadeanians often say things of this sort as if it is just obvious (perhaps they think it's self-attesting?). And it's a little bit weird that they do so given their views about what it takes to know things (provided it isn't self-attesting). One of the quirky requirements on knowledge for Gangadean is that in order to know something you have to be able to prove that thing (show that it is true via a sound deductive argument). But then again he doesn't show you everything---the above statement is a case in point. So then how are you supposed to know it if he doesn't give you the proof for it? Also shouldn't we hold him to the same standard? If he knows that "common ground is the set of conditions necessary for thought and discourse" then he had better be in a position to prove that this is so (i.e., show it). So my first move is to ask him to justify his assertion about the necessity of common ground. In fact, I've raised these challenges here and here.

Gangadean next follows this up with more assertions.

1. Reason as the laws of thought (identity, non-contradiction and excluded middle) is the test for meaning and is self-attesting.
2. Integrity is a commitment to reason as a concern for consistency.
3. Rational Presuppositionalism (RP) affirms the necessity to address the more basic before the less basic.
4. The Principle of Clarity (PC) affirms: some things are clear; the basic things are clear; the basic things concerning metaphysics (about God and man) and ethics (about good and evil) are clear to reason— epistemology

I hope it's clear by now what you ought to say in response. You should ask him to justify or show that 1 through 4 are true. As is they are no little more than assertions. To be fair, his book, Philosphical Foundation, is an attempt to argue for point 4 (and I take issue with many of those arguments in this blog), but the first 3 principles are simply asserted rather than argued for.

Gangadean then goes on to say.

For skeptics, to deny CG is to deny any possibility of knowledge, which is self-referentially absurd. For theists, to deny clarity is to deny inexcusability (of unbelief) and the need for redemptive revelation (emphasis mine). 

First, in accordance with 4. above, we should ask do some things have to be clear if we are to avoid skepticism? What Gangadean means by 'clear' is absolutely certain. And on that understanding of the word 'clear' I just don't see why denying that some things are clear should lead one to skepticism. Of course, if we assume that knowledge requires certainty of basic things, then skepticism seems to follow rather trivially from the denial of clarity. But Gangadean has not given us any reason to assume that knowledge requires certainty. So there's no threat of skepticism with the denial of number 4 above.

Secondly why should we think that skepticism is self-referentially absurd? As I've mentioned in my previous posts, one can intelligibly doubt that the kind of knowledge Gangadean is after (i.e., absolute certainty) is possible without undermining one's own view in the process. You might even say that you believe or believe strongly or know (without certainty) that absolute certainty is not possible. But there's nothing incoherent about any such position. The only way for it to be self-referentially absurd is to say that you know with absolute certainty that absolute certainty is not possible---but who is saying that?!

As to whether a theist denying clarity of the "common ground" denies inexcusability of unbelief and the need for redemption. This too needs to be argued for and I've resisted this point in this post. There, I basically point out how even if God's existence is clear, on Gangadean's own view about the desire to know being necessary for knowledge, unbelief turns out excusable (because on Gangadean's view one's desire to know or not is determined entirely by God. So if you're not regenerated by God you will not seek to know him. Which means you can't possibly know God and it's entirely out of your control. And this sounds like a pretty good excuse for unbelief or at least no worse than "it wasn't clear").

Furthermore, there's something funny going on here. The need for redemption and inexcusability can't be used in defense of the principle of clarity--there's something circular about that. Let's remember what he's trying to do here. Gangadean is attemping to support the principle of clarity (to theists) by appealing to reason alone--i.e., what can be known apart from revealed religion. He's got to make the case to both theists and non-thesists alike that "the basic things are clear." For him to say, "well, look if you don't have clarity, then unbelievers have an excuse (i.e,. that the inexcusability of unbelief thesis is false) is not going to seem like a cost to anybody if we're ignoring revealed religion in the first place. That's because it's a theological doctrine which is informed by a particular interpretation of certain passaged in the bible (e.g., Romans 1:20), that the unbelievers are without excuse for their unbelief. Without presupposing that the Romans 1:20 is true (or at least his reading of it), he can't cite it as a reason to believe that some things must be clear.

Next we turn to some of the objections/responses Gangadean considers that have in part been inspired by my criticisms. Sadly his "responses" fall short of anything resembling an answer or anything that causes any problems for my position. Further, he seems to misunderstand the objections in the first place. I take them in turn.

First is one that is inspired by my posts on the memory objection.

Objection 2: We cannot know a is a; we may have an incorrigible memory lapse (fallibilism). Yet the claim a is a is probably true. 

Response: If there is no rational basis for certainty (re: a is a), there is no rational basis for certainty about anything, including probability.

First of all, I never say that we cannot know that a is a.  He really ought to be more careful than this. Instead, I questioned how it is that we could have the kind of certainty that Gangadean associates with knowing. See for yourself. In that post, I merely call into question how it is that we can know (with certainty) any proposition which is the conclusion of an argument given the fact that assessing an argument's soundness depends on our memorial faculties faithfully reporting information. And the moral was that we must (in some suitable sense) presume that our memorial faculties (among others) are functioning faithfully albeit, defeasibly. The fact that we rest our beliefs on presumptions of this sort calls into question the kind of worldview that Gangadean promulgates--the kind that depends on a kind of rationalistic certainty.

Now I already anticipated and addressed Gangadean's "response" here. The gist: I fully agree that if there can be no certainty per se, then one cannot be certain about probabilities--this seems to be a trivial claim. But since I don't claim to be absolutely certain about the probabilities we should assign to various propositions, Gangadean's remarks just miss the target--they don't show any problem with my view. I think that Gangadean is somehow confusing my view with his own--he assumes that we need certainty, not me.

The last objection/response also misses.

Objection 4: Nothing (including reason) is self-attesting, therefore nothing is certain.  

Response: Pure skepticism is self-referentially absurd (SRA): is it certain that nothing is certain? Or, can any degree of certainty (probability) be distinguished with certainty?

First of all, before we draw sweeping conclusions about what follows if nothing is "self-attesting", we need to know precisely what Gangadean means by "self-attesting" (after all, meaning is more basic than truth says, he). Further, as I've mentioned before, we need to know the method by which one determines whether something is self-attesting or not (argument? perception? intuition?). If you're tempted to say that when a proposition makes questioning possible, then it is self-attesting, then you have just pushed the problem back a step---we now need to know how we know when something makes questioning possible! Importantly, Gangadean also owes us a justification for his method of choice being the correct one.

Again, since I'm no skeptic that claims to be certain that certainty is not possible, if this is intended as some sort of answer to my criticisms, it misses its mark. What Gangadean hasn't shown is that there is anything inconsistent about a person, like myself, that thinks, believes or perhaps entertains the possibility that certainty of the sort that Gangadean is after, is unattainable. I am in effect saying, "I have doubts that absolute certainty is possible, but I wouldn't say I am absolutely certain that absolute certainty is impossible." I've been quite explicit about this throughout my blog.

So it turns out that these objections/responses do nothing to address my main worries nor do they show that there is anything incoherent about my views. In fact, I think they only raise more problems for Gangadean or at least make the problems plaguing his worldview more pronounced. In this case, the cure is worse than the disease.

What counts as having common ground?

"Common ground" happens to be one common phrase that Gangadeanians use. It certainly isn't Gangadean's concoction. It's a pretty common saying among philosophers. But the way it is used by Gangadeanians (as the basis of excluding or including people in conversations) makes me think they have a rather different notion than that of most of the philosophers ("on the outside") that I have encountered.

Gangadean often asks whether there is any common ground between his interlocutors and himself. Only if there is, will there be "room for discussion." Without "having" common ground he claims that further discussion is pointless. As with pretty much anything in philosophy, all of this might appear at first glance as a rather straightforward idea. You might be thinking, what is so tricky or unclear about "the need for common ground in advancing discussions? If we don't have enough in common, then we won't get anywhere in talking about things." But it turns out this is anything but simple and straightforward. When Gangadean asks whether there is sufficient agreement, or whether he and his conversation partners have common ground, we need to ask what it means in the relevant sense to agree on claims or what it means to have certain claims in common.

There seems to be a sense of having "common ground" as it pertains to a particular conversation. Say that you go into an ethics seminar and you pronounce that there is no point in discussing ethics and you stick with this sort of disposition. Your assertion and the sorts of objections you will raise (if you follow your disposition through and through) will no doubt prove disruptive. You have a meta ethical view that denies one of the unspoken presuppositions of the ethics class--people engaged in an ethical discussion have it as common ground (in some suitable sense) that ethics is within the realm of things worth studying.

But the crucial issue is how we should characterize the sort of propositional attitude** that two people must be in with respect to a proposition or set of propositions, in order for them to count as "having" the proposition(s) as common ground.For instance, do each of the speakers have to believe that ethics is a worthwhile field of study for that claim to count as common ground between them? If they have any doubts about the matter, at any time, does it no longer count as common ground and thus render talk about ethics pointless?

Or do they have to know (rather than merely believe) that ethical inquiry is worth pursuing in order for it to be part of the common ground between them?

Or do we require that they have to know with certainty (as Gangadeanians seem to)?

Of course there are many many gradations to take note of given the complexity of mental states like belief, doubt and the like. Some believers are just more confident in their beliefs than others. Provided that you accept that beliefs come in degrees, we would also need to consider all the different varieties of belief and again ask whether believing to each degree in the common ground proposition, counts as "having" common ground. Or we could speak of beliefs as it pertains to the various levels of support they have via the subject's evidence (which could get us a number of gradations as well). We should also consider cases of doubting and its various degrees. A person might have slight to serious doubts about whether ethics is a worthwhile study, but desire to dialogue about ethical theories in an effort to see where it might lead. They might even come convinced by seeing the fruits, that ethical inquiry is a worthy task even if they weren't at the outset. My point is, it isn't clear which of these attitudes (doubting, believing, knowing, knowing with certainty) two persons must be in with respect to some proposition(s) for it to count as a case of having that proposition(s) as common ground.

In my experience, Gangadeanians seem to think it is knowledge with certainty, which is the most stringent of the one's we've considered. This state is such that once you "accept" a proposition, you cannot intelligible call it into question, ever again. The laws of thought, basic distinctions (as Gangadean defines them), causation, that reason is ontological, and the like must be known with certainty and never doubted gain by those involved in talking with a Gangadeanian for discussions to be meaningful. My last encounter with Gangadean, in his office was basically him asking me if I agreed to certain "truths." When I said that I believed many of them, but didn't take myself to be certain of them, he found this unacceptable and grounds for ending discussion.  [The sharp reader will consider why the Gangadeanians stop at epistemic certainty. Might not there be an more stringent of common ground like diachronic certainty--such that in order to count has having common ground, two persons must know propositions with epistemic certainty and immutability. In other words, why stop where the Ganagadeanians have chosen to draw the line?]

But this not only seems entirely wrong, it is also unsupported. Again, just why should we accept where Gangadean has drawn the line (why not think that common ground regrading some proposition consists in merely acknowledging for the purpose of the discussion at hand, that the common ground propositions are assumed to be true)? Again, they have drawn a line, but it seems arbitrary. To be clear it seems like the Gangadeanians believe that common ground is necessary for worthwhile discussions. But to have common ground in some proposition or set of propositions requires that each side knows the proposition(s) in question with absolute certainty. Thus worthwhile discussion is only possible if the members of a given discussion each know with absolute certainty the common ground propositions.

Let me try to explain why I think this is a bad view. Philosophers often entertain the views or presuppositions of others in order to try and show that a view is not internally inconsistent. This is a really common practice in professional philosophy. To be sure, this doesn't mean that they actually believe, (let alone know or know with certainty) the presuppositions of their interlocutors. They just assume them for the purposes of discussion in order to show how under those very assumptions, problems arise.In the same vein, consider reductio ad absurdum arguments or proofs by contradiction. You certainly don't buy into the premises of such argument types. Instead you set out to draw out a contradiction that follows from accepting the premise(s). Sometimes you might simply be on the fence about whether a premise is true and you try to derive a contradiction which will show you that it is not true. Other times, you suspect or even know that the premise can't be right, and you just want to show someone else explicitly how it leads to a contradiction.

So these are cases that I take to be fruitful dialogues. After all, they point out inconsistencies or contradictions that may follow logically from taking certain things for granted. And there is a very weak sense in which there is common ground. The persons involved in such dialogues at least assume (for the purposes of discussion) certain claims, including the premises that one person hopes to show leads to contradictions. But none of this requires anything like knowing the common ground propositions with absolute certainty.

So why should we think Gangadean is right in thinking that in order for two or more persons to have a fruitful dialogue, the participants must all know with absolute certainty certain propositions (i.e,. common ground propositions)?


**Note a propositional attitude is often thought of as a mental state which has as its content, a proposition. You might believe that the sun is warm, just like you might remember that the sun is warm, or see that the sun is warm, or desire that the sun be warm, or even know that the sun is warm. Each of these sentences expresses the idea that you are in a kind of mental state which has a proposition as its object--the thing expressed by the clause following 'that' in each instance. That's what I roughly mean by a propositional attitude.