Using Logic to Prove Propositions

Here is a brief review of philosophical propositions, previously summarized in Highbrow, June 1, 2019:

A proposition is a statement that can be said to make a claim about reality or a state of affairs.  Our examination of a proposition should seek to identify the proposition’s meaning, its sense (its meaning in context and/or in relation to something else), its verity (true or false?), it’s legitimacy (whether it is the case or is not the case) and the proposition’s appropriateness. Identifying the context in which a proposition is uttered is key to answering these questions and to coming to an understanding of the proposition.

For the nonce, let’s say that there are four types of propositions: 1) Analytic, such as, “two and two is four”; 2) Internal, such as “I have a headache”; 3) External, or Empirical, such as, “I hear a Cardinal in the trees” or “I see an error in the data"; and 4) Categorical/Subjective, such as, “stealing is wrong" or “the ‘Mona Lisa’ is a beautiful painting.” 

I am wondering if there is after all only one type of proposition that can either be true or false (or anyway that can be proven true or false with logic): Analytic. The others are rather statements of a different order. Internal propositions do not describe anything that can be logically proven: whether they are true or false has little or no bearing upon our philosophical understanding or a description of actual reality. Rather, such statements guide (or do not guide) our behavior and our utterances. External propositions can be no more than descriptive. If descriptive statements are false then they are simply nonsense, and thus are not propositions; that is, they don't inform us about anything, except perhaps that a person who vocalizes them is stupid, lacking a reliable or reasonable sensibility, or is lying. Categorical (aesthetic, moral, political) propositions—or rather the expressions of moral, aesthetic, or political views—are neither true nor false, they are simply statements about belief or conviction. The question is, are they persuasive or do people agree?

Let's dilate on these ideas through a series of questions:

1) Can you "prove" that you have a headache?  Can you imagine having to prove to someone that you have a headache?  

2) Can you prove a moral proposition?  Yes or no, and why?

3)  After thinking about these two questions, consider the following: is it possible to prove a moral proposition (stealing is wrong) the same way you can prove an analytic proposition (two and two is four)? 

First Question: Can you "prove" that you have a headache?  

Can you imagine having to prove to someone that you have a headache?

Consider being in a situation in which you were asked to "prove" that you have a headache.  Outside of a philosophy or ethics class, where a lot of curious (but also silly) questions are discussed, people do not normally need (or are asked) to prove that they have a headache.  What philosophers do is misuse language to create questions that are not really questions at all. These questions are rather "playing around with words". Philosophers are making up questions and concepts that are based on the misuse of words and language.  This is what Bacon is talking about in the Idols of the Market and the Idols of  the Theatre.  Sometimes Philosophers are not talking about the real world, but instead are talking about abstractions--using words that sound like you are talking about something, but are really just parts of the real word.  An "abstraction" is a "part".  Consider the following discussion of abstractions and conceptual confusion from Highbrow, August 6, 2019:

Philosophical Terminology, Conceptual Abstraction, 

and Confused Understanding

From "Dance Curves: On the Dances of Palucca,”
Wassily Kandinsky (1926)

Kandinsky's dynamic drawings are wonderfully pleasing. They underscore the beauty of the original subject as well as represent impressions that move us emotionally. 

They also elegantly illustrate the principle of conceptual abstraction.

Many philosophical terms and concepts are similarly abstractions. An erudite fellow in a lecture hall can equivocate endlessly about "absolutism" and "relativism", "freedom" and "determinism", but he is not talking about the real world. He is talking about abstractions--he is talking about mere "sketches" that represent only "parts" of the real world. 

Compare two-dimensional cardboard stage scenery in a theater, and picture the erudite fellow acting as though these cut-outs aren't flat pieces of scenery, but are actual buildings, real trees, three-dimensional hills hundreds of feet tall, or what have you. The lecturer can deploy all sorts of learned "examples" and "statements" (that is, effervescent terminology and exhilarating traces of cogitation concocted by other philosophers) to create the impression that these are important concepts, and he can speak and act as though his fluently equivocating upon these abstractions is discussing the real world, but the fact remains the lecturer is merely discussing abstractions--fanciful sketches that suggest or thinly evoke reality, but are actually illusions, wispy figments, evanescent nebulae, and fading imitations.

For further elaboration, see Bacon's remarks on the Idols of the Theatre in the Novum Organum, or Melville's dilation upon the images of whales in chapters 55, 56 & 57 of Moby-Dick.

If you need to review, please click HERE for a summary of Bacon's Four Idols. 

A good way to think of Bacon's Idols of the Theatre is to picture a philosopher standing on a stage with cardboard trees on either side of him. Say the cardboard tree on his left has the word "Absolutism" written on it, and the cardboard tree on the right has the word "Relativism" written on it.  These two-dimensional pieces of stage scenery resemble trees, but they are not real trees, they are abstractions. In the same way, the concepts of "Freedom" and "Determinism" can be mere abstractions.  As Bacon says in his discussion of the Idols of the Market-place:

Learned men are often in error in their definitions and explanations because words plainly force and overrule the understanding, and throw all into confusion, and lead men away into numberless empty controversies and idle fancies. 

Among moral philosophers, a subject of interest is "Absolutism vs. Relativism," but in exploring this dichotomy they are not talking about the real world, they are talking about abstractions.  "Absolutism vs. Relativism" is an example of what Bacon means by "empty controversy".   In the philosophical discussion framed by "Freedom vs. Determinism," we see another example of an "empty controversy." Very often, because they are not careful with the way language shapes their concepts, philosophers get carried away discussing abstractions that are mere two-dimensional stage scenery that resemble things in the real world, but which are not things in the real world.

Here is more of Bacon's discussion of how words are misleading and thus misused:

But the Idols of the Market-place are the most troublesome of all: idols which have crept into the understanding through the alliances of words and names. For men believe that their reason governs words; but it is also true that words react on the understanding; and it is this that has rendered philosophy and the sciences sophistical and inactive. Now words, being commonly framed and applied according to the capacity of the vulgar, follow those lines of division which are most obvious to the vulgar understanding. And whenever an understanding of greater acuteness or a more diligent observation would alter those lines to suit the true divisions of nature, words stand in the way and resist change. Whence it comes to pass that the high and formal discussions of learned men end oftentimes in disputes about words and names.

Second Question:  Can you prove a moral proposition?

I believe that the only proposition you can prove with logic is the Analytic proposition.  The other three, Internal, External/Empirical, and Moral (and aesthetic and political) propositions can not be proved with logic, but are rather issues of conviction, opinion and consensus.  Thus:

Internal propositions are statements we make as we work and live with each other. "I have a headache." Yes, sometimes an Internal proposition is a lie--people do tell lies from time to time--but they aren't really statements to be proved (or that can be proved) with logic.

External/Empirical propositions are statements people make when they are working together to assess a situation, evaluate scientific data, and so on.  We don't use logic to prove them, but rather we make statements about our observations, our disagreements, our agreements and our consensus.

Moral/Aesthetic/Political propositions are categorical, they are based upon assumptions, convictions and tastes that people hold.  We don't use logic to, strictly-speaking, prove them; but, yes, we do use logic as we present the reasons why we hold these convictions. Thus in these discussions, logic is a matter of linguistic accuracy, grammar and understanding, but not scientific proof.
 

Third Question:  Is it possible to prove a moral proposition (stealing is wrong) the same way you can prove an analytic proposition (two and two is four)?

Again, you cannot prove Moral, Aesthetic or Political propositions. We use logic to argue for our convictions and tastes, but logic cannot prove our convictions.  Kant is a memorable example of a person who thought logic and reason could be used to prove Moral and Aesthetic propositions.  He actually believed that we (or rather important philosophers) could use logic to prove that one work of art is better than another, or that one piece of music is better than another.  

In a few days, we will consider this third question in greater detail as we examine G. E. Moore's Naturalistic Fallacy. 

Until then, count on me to maintain my important efforts entertaining the Highbrow Commonwealth and the wits who make up its polity with the usual hastily-drawn bits of nonsense and ephemera that comprise the material of my fame. That is, please click the cover images on the right margin of this page, and buy my books.

Bestiary of Philosophical Conceptions: #474 Rabbit or Duck?

The Admirable Crichton 1957

I first saw The Admirable Crichton when I was a young teenager. I was impressed, as it is a very funny and well-acted film, which, at that time, seemed to me to expose the weaknesses and "buffoonery" of the British class system. To my young self, the film underscored the notion that, notwithstanding our social positions and relative wealth, we are all equal so far as our moral and spiritual capacities can take us.  

When I saw it just the other night, however, I was struck by the conservative tenor of the film, for rather than advocating some Jeffersonian philosophy of equality, the film actually represents an endorsement of the familiar schedule of Stoic "truisms" that we associate with British society, and that are drawn to a pinpoint by the English in one of their more unfortunate phrases: "That's the way it is." Kenneth Moore in the role of the Butler Crichton and the tropical island "Guv"--and not very ironically, alas--is the film's chief advocate and exponent of this principle.  While not advancing something as reprehensible as the Roman apatheia, still this film strikes me (indeed, strikes me over the head) as being politically, even metaphysically, committed, first, to the British class system, and, second, to the importance placed upon people dutifully and properly playing their designated roles in society. Somewhere--and this is articulated near the end of the film by Crichton himself--the English, and the English of all social classes, got it stuck into their heads that civilization is equivalent to playing one's role. This hardly can strike me as the foundation for a respectable--or sustainable--national ethos, but there it is.  Moreover, it is curious that the central inverter of social roles and the right-to-lead-others, the right to command, and the right to expect the "natural" loyalty and admiration of his social inferiors--is Crichton himself. His social place is determined by environmental context, and it is his duty to play his role to that context. And whatever his context--be it far-flung tropical island or stately English manor--the Guv is both philosophically and vocationally committed to the view.  In that sense, The Admirable Crichton rather leaves a distasteful impression that calls to mind the grizzly sociological lessons of The Lord of the Flies.

It remains a funny film--I suppose--but (and other than my shock at its conservative pitch), now seeing it as an adult, I am wonderfully taken with how Sally Ann Howes shines in the role of Lady Mary. Miss Howes is wonderfully beautiful here, and really much more  impressive, in a forceful sense, than she appears in her very memorable and altogether better performance as Truly Scrumptious opposite Dick Van Dyke in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.



Note: in this recording, the film ends at 1:28:50.  Some extraneous bits from the film follow hence, evidently tacked on due to error, and can be disregarded.

Breaking

Clever, ironic, subtle, pleasant...

The "Extra Pound" Limericks of Professor Hodges

I won't burden the Highbrow Commonwealth with mundane descriptions and analyses of Professor Hodges on-going "Extra Pound" limericks series, which has been running in his blog Gypsy Scholarship for some time.  Suffice it to say that these pieces are fascinating.  Please click HERE for a particularly clever installment, and click HERE for access to the blog in toto.

Horace Jeffery Hodges, PhD

Praelucidus

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"Which side runs the Village?"

Emanations 8 editing progress (and delays)

There have been some delays in editing. Last week, I moved my classes on-line, and I have since learned that teaching on-line is time-consuming. Next week, I expect things to slow somewhat, and I'll get back to the project of reading submissions and communicating with contributors.

I've sent out a number of emails already, and several stories have gone out to illustrators, so things are moving.

"We'll send armed police, and we'll be sending them with flamethrowers."

Please click the following image for videos of Italian mayors seeking to protect their citizens:

I sympathize with the mayors' sense of responsibility. They are trying to save people.

And you can see why Italian literature, art, architecture and design are so wonderful. The ability to connect to feelings and to convictions and to circumstances... the appropriate application of irony in a difficult situation.

Though he was working with theological materials and themes, seeking to both restore and reinvent Classical consciousness, and developing the metaphysics and anthropology of a new political philosophy, when it came to the exploration of new possibilities for the representation of new subject matter, Milton turned to Italian poetry.

Coagulatio

From Compendium Alchymist, 1706

Atlas descends as we turn through the heavens

Never mind foolish superstitions and folkloric fears concerning the portents of menacing comets encroaching through the ether, the advent of comet Atlas promises to be quite a show. 

There is a Dutch website, in English, that provides ample tracking maps and data tables to facilitate a detailed over-view of the course of the visitor. The diversion should prove welcome as we sit out the latest terrestrial folly. Please click HERE to examine the information.

Meanwhile, below (click for a high-resolution image) is a cosmic map representing Atlas's grand and sweeping itinerary as it enters and departs our solar system.

"Fog Tropes" by Ingram Marshall

The Art of Description: Professor Hodges is reading My Servant the Wind by Michael Butterworth

The other day in his blog Gypsy Scholar, my international Authors colleague Horace Jeffery Hodges posted a short but nevertheless engaging description of Michael Butterworth's hybrid memoir-novel My Servant the Wind. In my response to Professor Hodges' note, I remarked, "It is an excellent work, and your selection from the text and your succinct and insightful description do the book good service."

Please click HERE to view Professor Hodges' description.

And click HERE to visit the Amazon description of My Servant the Wind.

Some Levity

Emanations 8 update: the editorial team is reading submissions and organizing the manuscript

Pushing the Data General Eclipse M/600 to the limit.

Professor Hodges is Reading Emanations: Chorus Pleiades

 Please click HERE.

The Survival of Obsolescent Intermutual Obligations

HMS ships Neptune, King George V, Hercules, Colossus, Marlborough and Iron Duke

Such names evoke all the ignominy that we properly associate with imperialism, militarism, and the hegemony of state-defined identities. It might be observed, however, that we rather too automatically draw this association, and in this rapid censure we could overlook the deeper truths of our universe and our place in it. As mythical expressions of human aspirations placed in historical contexts that together express the meaning of the human condition, such names configure appropriately to the world in which we used to live; and, one wonders, the world in which we yet live; or--should we abandon an appreciation for the deeper emotional qualities of our mythologies--a world we might stumble into again?

"0.3-50 r/hr" Hmmm...