Clayton has created a new blog, PhightClub, where philosophers debate. The idea, Clayton tells us, is that the two philosophers spar in response to a philosophical question of current interest. Philosophers will be able to use video conferencing tools, like that used by bloggingheads.tv (that reminds me, see Clayton and Juan Comesana’s talking about epistemic justification on bloggingheads.tv here). I suppose it’s going to be a lot like this series from Wiley-Blackwell (Cf. here, here, here, and here). I’m a big fan of the Wiley series, so I’m imagining that I’ll be a frequent visitor to and enthusiastic supporter of PhightClub.
Brandon has an interesting post (here) on an argument about infinites in mathematics and the existence of God, which appeared in Aquinas’s Summa Contra Gentiles. He also discussed an argument appearing in Malebranche. There’s a tricky turn of phrase in the Aquinas passage Brandon cites. Aquinas writes, “But this order of our intellect to an infinite would be in vain were there not some infinite intelligible. And so it is necessary that some infinite intelligible exists, which must be the greatest of things.” To my mind, Aquinas here rules out there being an infinite series of causes. An “infininte intelligible” exists. That intelligent being is “the greatest of things.” If this is true, then the interpretation that suggests we move from a conception of the infinite to God’s existence doesn’t seem true to what Aquinas is talking about.
Finally, I had a nice chat with Jim Forrester, author of the paradox of adverbial murder, today about the work I’ve been doing on his paradox. A few weeks ago before we had setup the meeting I mentioned to Jim that I had formulated a solution to his paradox where I distinguished between two deontic operators, one for “ought to be” statements and the other for “ought to do” statements. He led off our discussion today with a strengthened version of the paradox meant to undermine any potential solution to it that individuates between deontic logical operators. It goes something like this:
Call this the concessive version of the paradox. Suppose that a prison chaplain and a convicted murderer are talking to one another. The chaplain says, “One ought not to murder, but given that you murdered, you ought to have done so gently.” The chaplain both accepts and rejects that one ought not to murder (in virtually the same breath). So, the range of the operator should extend over the whole sentence.
The concessive version is a problem for distinguishing between different types of deontic operators because one operator should range over the whole proposition. The chaplain virtually concedes that someone ought not to murder. Then he follows that with since you murdered, then you should do so gently.
Discussion of R2, what I mentioned in a previous post, ensued because it sounded as if the concessive version was just R2. We haven’t come to any conclusion about the formal legitimacy of R2, but we certainly see a problem with it. We’ll reconvene later in June about it. Meantime, I’m going to continue to work on the paradox.
I must be missing something about the concessive version; what about it is supposed to be different from the original? I don’t see why it would cause a problem for the operator distinction.
In the concessive version, the oughts are “ought to do.” They’re categorical rules an agent must follow. So, the chaplain is talking about what the prisoner ought to do (ought to have done). Nothing more.
OK, I see now; I think I was failing to take into account the “nothing more.”