Ok, I picked up Wittgenstein's philosophical investigations, and Heidegger's Being and Time, and plan on reading them soon. I'll be posting notes from my reading periodically. I still need to figure out how to do a table of contents.

Michael Vossen

Ok, I have a good smattering of essays down, I will re-read them eventually and post my comments. Anyone visiting this site should feel free to comment as well. Hopefully I can figure out how to make a table of contents as well, I'd like to order the essays chronologically. If anyone knows how to do that, please let me know.

-Michael Vossen

Justice and the Good
Michael Vossen

In book II of The Republic, Glaucon presents the arguments “that all who practice it [justice] do so unwillingly, as necessary, but not good”(1). The argument is made of three part, first, that Justice is not good, second, that all who are just are not just willingly and third, they are just because of necessity.

Before Glaucon presents these arguments, he defines justice to be “a compact among themselves [those who cannot escape injustice and chose to be unjust] neither to do injustice nor to suffer it”(2). By this definition, justice is like a rule created by the players of a game, such as monopoly, where the players agree not to cheat (i.e. steal money from another player when they are not looking, move extra spaces to avoid jail, etc). Furthermore, this is a rule created by those who are not perfect at cheating, players who are sometimes able to steal money successfully and other times are not. Glaucon’s definition of injustice as something that is naturally good to do and naturally bad to receive (3), is also clarified by this analogy. Injustice in monopoly, such as stealing money from another player, is good to do, as the player benefits from the extra money taken from his opponent, and is bad to receive, as the opponent looses money. Glaucon’s definitions of justice and injustice are important because his argument is based on these definitions, which may vary from his audience’s ideas of what justice is, which could cause confusion because of conflicting notions of justice/injustice.
Glaucon’s first argument, that justice is not good, is rather concise. His first conclusion is that justice is between the best and the worst, with the premises that the best is “doing injustice without paying the penalty” and the worst is “suffering injustice without being able to avenge oneself” (4). Recall that justice is neither doing injustice nor suffering it. If the best is “doing injustice without paying the penalty”, then a just man would not participate in the best, as he has agreed not to do injustice. However, neither would the just man participate in the worst, suffering injustice without being able to avenge oneself. The other men would be behaving justly due to the agreement, so none of them would commit the injustice. If some outsider to the agreement did an unjust deed to the just man, the just man is assured vengeance, as the men will group together to punish the outsider because he might potentially do injustice to them. This puts justice between the best and the worst, doing injustice and suffering injustice. If this conclusion is correct, then justice is not good. Recall that doing injustice is naturally good and suffering injustice is naturally bad. If justice is between the best, doing injustice, and the worst, suffering injustice, then justice is between the good and bad.

Glaucon’s argument is further supported through his definition of good, i.e. “... the desire for the better; this is what any nature naturally defines as good”(5), and his argument that the just man and the unjust man would both pursue the same thing, the better, given the chance (6). This shows that justice is not a good in itself, but a good in so far as it can lead to a higher good. This concept is similar to Aristotle’s hierarchy of happiness; one becomes a baker not because one wants to bake, but because one thinks that through baking happiness might be achieved. In Glaucon’s argument, it works this way; one becomes just not because one wants to be just, but because through justice, some good might be achieved. If the person could achieve that profit without justice, the person would not be just. Justice can not be good then, as if it were good, and then all men would pursue justice for justice’s sake, not for the sake of something else.

This leads into Glaucon’s second argument, that all who practice justice do so unwillingly, out of necessity. First, note that he is arguing that all who practice justice do so unwillingly, not most, or some. By asserting this, Glaucon must show that it is a characteristic of everyone who practices justice. To show that it is a characteristic of everyone who practices justice, Glaucon shows that it is in human nature to for people to pursue their desires, which are what they see as good. Glaucon implies that there are two kinds of people: those who can do injustice over another, and those who are not able to do injustice over another (7). Instead of writing this difference every time, I will refer to the man capable of doing injustice over another successfully as the strong man, and the man who is not capable of doing injustice over another as the weak man. Glaucon argues that the strong man would never agree to a system of justice, because “He’d be mad”(8). What Glaucon probably means by “He’d be mad”, is that an agreement not to be unjust would not be for the best of the strong man, and therefore not for his good. It is not clear whether or not Glaucon thinks a strong man will ever practice justice. It seems like he is saying that a strong man would never practice justice, but in lines 350d1-2, Glaucon says “...if a man were to get hold of such license [the ability to be strong] and were to never to do any injustice....” which suggests that some strong men might practice justice. Glaucon might be arguing that if a strong man follows a system of justice, he is doing so because some stronger force compels him to, and thus not following the system willingly, though he never specifically says anything like this. Hence, strong men who practice justice do so unwillingly.

Now all that Glaucon has to do is show that the weak men who practice justice do so because they are not strong. To do this, Glaucon uses the story of Gyges to illustrate his premise of human nature. The story presents a situation where a man can act without punishment due to finding an invisibility ring. (9). Glaucon asserts that anyone with the ring would commit injustice (10). This is Glaucon’s characteristic of humans, that they would do injustice if they were capable of doing injustice successfully, i.e. they would be strong men if they could. He uses this characteristic to argue that the weak men who practice justice do so because they are weak, and, if they could become strong, they would then not practice justice (11). Thus, Glaucon has argued that all men who practice justice do so unwillingly

The “as necessary” clause follows the assertions made earlier and is implied. The weak are just because together they are more powerful than the strong, and it is necessary for them to be just, because on a one to one basis, the strong would commit injustice against them. The strong who are just are because the weak are stronger than them as a group, and it is necessary for them to be just if they do not want injustice committed against them. This is Glaucon’s argument for “all who practice it [justice] do so unwillingly, as necessary, but not good” (12).
Glaucon's argument is flawed in that his premises of the good being what is best for oneself, and being what one naturally desires, is flawed. Let us examine each of these in turn.
The good is not always what is best for oneself. If the good was what was best for oneself, then good is only associated with an individual. But an individual might identify themselves as a part of a group as much as they identify themselves as an individual. If they consider themselves as part of a group, then what is best for them, as an individual, and what is best for them as the group can differ. For example, a person might dedicate themselves to their country, a group of people. Suppose that the person was in the position where if they were to die, they would save the country, but if they lived, there country would be destroyed. What is best for the person is to live. What is best for the country is to not be destroyed. Thus, what is best for the person and what is best for the group come into conflict. Here a judgment must be made; is it better to do what is best for the group, or is it better to do what is best for the individual? Regardless of the answer, good cannot be the best. For if good was the best, then it could be divided. It would be good to die, and it would be good to preserve ones country. However, the good cannot be the bad, for bad is opposite to good. And if one were to live, then he/she would be doing what is good for the individual and what is bad for the country, and visa versa. Thus, it would be good/bad to die, and good/bad to live. If good is truly good, then it can only be good, and not good/bad. Thus, what is good cannot be what is best, for the good could be divided if it is what is best.

The good is not what someone naturally desires, because a person can desire something, and later not desire it. For instance, a person might desire a candy bar. Does this make the candy bar good? The person might take a bite of the candy bar, realize that it has nuts in it, or that it does not taste as good as it first seemed. A person might see waxed fruit, and thinking that it is real, bite it, then spit wax in disgust. Thus, these objects would appear to be good, and not really be good. However, it could be argued that these are not what you really desire, that you are being tricked. To this one might say that then people cannot know what the good is by desire, for if desire can trick someone into thinking something is good that is not really good, then one might not never know if they are being tricked or not. They can never be sure that what seems good now will be good later, and thus might spend their whole life pursuing what seems good at the time, never reaching it. Thus, the good cannot be defined to be what someone naturally desires.

“But”, Glaucon might says, “I said that good is doing injustice without getting caught. You seem to be arguing with some other good in mind, without much consideration of injustice. This does not directly counter my argument.” Glaucon would be correct in saying this. The previous arguments only pseudo-use Glaucon’s definition of good. To really make the arguments valid, it needs to be shown that doing injustice without getting caught is not really good, and to do this, one must have a conception of what is really good to work from. I do not have clear conception of what is really good, but I have some ideas as to what it would entail. To be really good seems to require permanence, and a degree of happiness, though happiness does not seem to totally be goodness. Injustice is not permanent. When one fulfills a desire, such as doing an unjust act, that desire is not really satisfied, it is only temporarily fulfilled. The desire after the fulfillment is usually stronger then the previous desire. For instance, say someone seeks pleasure. They might find an object or action that gives them pleasure, but with time and repetition, that pleasure is dulled, replaced with a stronger desire for pleasure. Continuing to pursue pleasure, one will get to the point where they can’t find anything that satisfies this pleasure. And desiring something without being able to have it is painful, especially over long periods of time. The person becomes ruled by this desire, and becomes miserable in not being able to fulfill it. A miserable life is not a happy life, and probably not a good life. Note that this is an inward misery, a misery inflicted by oneself, not an external torture. It seems like goodness, like this misery, comes from the inside, and not from anything truly external. However, I cannot prove to Glaucon that these ideas are right; I can only feel it inside of me. Glaucon would have to experience these things himself, and I cannot make him experience it, I can only try to help him recognize it.

Notes
1 BkII, 358c2-3
2 BkII, 359a
3 BkII, 358e3-4
4 BkII, 359a4-7
5 BkII, 359c4-5
6 BkII, 359c3-4
7 BkII, 359b1-2
8 BkII, 359b3
9 BkII, 359d-360b2
10 BkII, 360b3-c2
11 BkII, 360c2-c5
12 BkII, 358c2-3



Bibiliography
Plato. The Republic of Plato, second edition. Translated by Allan Bloom. Published by basic books. Copyright 1965, Allan Bloom.
Special Thanks to: Matt Cheruit, Kaitlin Lubetkin, and Colin Jones for editing/criticizing the paper.

On Love’s Form:
A platonic analysis of Paul’s Letters to the Corinthians.
Michael Vossen

The ideas of Love expressed in Paul’s Letters to the Corinthians and Plato’s
Symposium are, despite differences in method, purpose, and belief, remarkably similar. For both, love’s highest form is eternal, separate from material objects, and only partially comprehendible in this world, among other things. Both advocate knowing love’s highest form as a way to live a virtuous life. Their ideas are not the same, though, as Plato’s definition has a broader scope than Paul’s definition, which leads to different virtuous lives. These differences can be explained by the differences in purpose, method and beliefs held by the two authors.
Socrates makes Plato’s idea of love clear. Socrates explains that Diatoma, a priestess, taught him what love is when he was younger, and he agrees with her definition. Diatoma says “love is the desire to have the good forever.”1 ‘The good’ is the platonic form of good, and it encompasses all virtues, including beauty. Thus, the love of ideas and platonic forms is the highest form of love, because these are the only things that can be perfectly good and eternal. Material things’ beauty fades with time, people may become unvirtuous, but the virtues themselves are unchanging and eternal. Diatoma suggests that through a progression of loving things, a single person, that person’s mind/virtues, virtues in general, laws, thoughts, and finally love itself, a person might see true beauty. Diatoma’s progression causes a person to recognize that immaterial, universal things exist. This leads to knowledge of the platonic forms. This knowledge may finally fulfill the desire to possesses the good forever, for
“...when someone sees beauty with the part that can see it, that he’ll be able
to give birth not to just images of virtue (since it’s not images he’s in touch with),
but to true virtue (since it’s true beauty he’s in touch with). It’s someone who’s
given birth to true virtue and brought it up who has the chance of becoming
loved by the Gods, and immortal- if any human can be immortal”2
For Paul’s idea of love to be similar to Plato’s, love needs to be immaterial, like the form of the good, provide a virtuous life through it’s recognition, and be desirable for it’s eternalness.

Paul’s idea of love is immaterial. Love as purely bodily desire is distinguished and criticized early in both works. In the Symposium, Phaedrus’ eulogy is criticized by Pausanius for not distinguishing between a common and heavenly conception of love.3 Pausanius explains that the common notion, in which people “...are attracted to women as much as boys, and to bodies rather than minds.”4 is associated with inappropriate and unjust behavior in it’s followers. Through the rest of his speech, Pausanius concerns himself with creating laws that restrict the common notion’s inappropriate influence.

Like Pausanius, Paul is concerned with inappropriate conceptions of love. For example, Paul warns the Corinthians “... not to associate with sexually immoral persons.” 5 A sexually immoral person is a man or women who is “sexually immoral or greedy, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or robber.”6. Paul’s domain of the sexually immoral probably includes all “Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers...”7, though Paul does not explicitly identify these people as sexually immoral. Paul creates guidelines for members of his religion to restrict the immorality among them by separating immoral and moral desires and suggesting proper conduct. For example, Paul recommends that the unmarried and widows remain unmarried, as to control sexual immorality.8 Thus, both Paul and Plato concern themselves with identifying and promoting lovers’ proper conduct.

While Paul does not describe what his sexually immoral people are attracted to, Paul’s sexually immoral person appears to hold “common notions” of love, as Paul’s examples are all connected by attraction to physical things. This physical, “common” love is an inferior type of love for both Paul and Plato. Both present physical loves’ desire for material objects as leading a person possessing only a common notion of love to committing immoral actions. As both authors praise a different type of love, this distinction probably results from worries that a reader might confuse a common notion of love with the better aspect of love. The common, strictly material concept is thus distinguished and separated from love’s better conception.

Paul’s love could be like the form of the good, but what Paul means by ‘Love’ is unclear. Paul could be talking about love as a thing or love as a relationship between two things. If love is a thing, then how does one possess it? For love is not material, so it cannot be found or possessed like an object. Paul probably means love as a relation between two things. More specifically, love for Paul probably means a relation between man and God. During his talk about marriage and the duties shared by husband and wife, Paul never describes the relation between men and women as love. Furthermore, all references to love in the Letter to the Corinthians describe the love between man and God, or are directed at love itself. Thus, Paul’s love, taken literally, is the desire for God. God is like a platonic form. Paul uses God as the platonic trait’s source, or as their combination into one being. To justify this claim, it is sufficient to look back to the text.

A similarity between Aristophanes’ separated lovers and a passage in Letter to the Corinthians helps to analyze Paul’s ideas. Paul writes
“Do you not know that whomever is united with a prostitute becomes
one body with her? For it is said ‘ The two become one flesh’. But anyone
united with the Lord becomes one spirit with him.” 9
Paul’s warning against sex with prostitutes suggests that a person united with a prostitute gains the prostitute’s immoral characteristics. Aristophanes’ speech presents a similar idea: if Hephaestus offered to merge two lovers’ bodies into one,
“Everyone would think that what he was hearing now was just what he’d longed
for all this time: to come together and be fused with the one he loved and become
one instead of two.” 10

Interestingly, both see lovers as one person’s parts. The two lovers’ desire for union into one suggests that a lover recognizes and desires some characteristics in another person that they want to possess. The lovers’ union is like a merge of identity; there no longer exist two objects with different properties, but one object with both of the previous objects’ properties. Union with the Lord would therefore merge the Lord’s properties with the persons. If the Lord is virtuous, then the union is like a person seeing true beauty, as both make a person becomes more virtuous. The Lord is different from a platonic form in that the Lord is has more properties than a form. While the Lord’s unknowablity makes it hard to comprehend what all the Lord’s properties are, power, beauty, knowledge, and eternalness are a few properties possessed by the Lord. A person loving God at least becomes powerful, beautiful, knowledgeable, and eternal, for Paul writes:

“If I speak in the tongues of mortals and angels, but do not have love, I
am a noisy gong or clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and
understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to
remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my
possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I might boast, but do not have
love, I gain nothing.” 11

Paul’s love contains or is a part of beauty, knowledge, power and an act’s goodness, because the actions he describes would normally be considered beautiful, knowledgeable, powerful and good, and the only thing missing from them is love. Paul could mean that love is like the sugar in cookies. If the sugar is removed, the cookie is no longer sweet. If I bake a cookie, as to harden it, but it does not have sugar, it is a flat biscuit. If this is Paul’s argument, then love is music’s attractive, knowledge’s meaningful, faith’s powerful, and piety’s good characteristic. Alternatively, Paul may mean that love is a necessary component of attractive speech, knowledge, faith and piety. Love may not be the source of beauty, meaning, power, and goodness, simply required among other traits for beauty, power, meaning, and goodness to exist. In this case, love is like one chemical of multiple chemicals necessary for a reaction. The reaction, which would be the beauty, power, goodness, or meaning, does not come from the love, but from love’s combination with other characteristics. Since Paul’s love is directed towards God, God is either the source of beauty, power, goodness, and meaning, or God is a necessary component of beauty, power, goodness, and meaning.

This differs from Plato, whose love is not beautiful.12Plato argues that people only desire what they do not have, so love itself is not beautiful, because it desires beauty.13 For Plato, beauty and good are two distinct platonic forms. While they can both exist in an object at one time, they are not the same thing. If God is like a platonic form, then God is all the platonic forms, for if God was not, then God would be separate from some platonic form. If God is separate from some platonic form, then God is gaining that forms characteristic from something other than himself. God, as described in Genesis, created all things, so, under this assumption, everything comes from God, so it is not the case that there exists something separate from God. Thus, for Paul, God probably is all the platonic forms, and the love of God is the love of the good.

For Paul, the love of God leads to virtuous acts, through service to the Lord. It is unclear whether these acts are similar to the Platonic acts of love. Paul writes:

“The unmarried man is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to please the
Lord; but the married man is anxious about the affairs of the world, how to please
his wife, and his interests are divided.”14

,If pleasing the Lord only means praying, sacrifice, and fasting, then Paul’s actions are contrary to the Platonic lover-unless praying, fasting, and sacrifice involve rationally analyzing the Lord’s form. If pleasing the Lord means establishing religious institutions, almsgiving, and creating ethical doctrine meant to improve the communities’ morality, then the Lord’s affairs are like Diatona’s children of the mind- creating laws/programs to benefit humanity. The children of the mind are the results of love in more universal, higher, way. Laws and religious institutions are created to further the communities good. People who create these laws love all virtuous people within the community, and see beauty within all members. Paul’s idea of love could be similar to Plato’s, but, like the problems raised in the Euthyphro regarding piety, it is unclear what exactly pleases the Lord, and what the Lord’s affairs are. The actions could be good because they are pleasing to the Lord, or they could be pleasing to the Lord because they are good. If the acts are good because they are pleasing to the Lord, it is unclear what is pleasing about them. If the acts are pleasing because they are good, than goodness seems separate from the Lord, which is probably contradictory for Paul.

For Paul, good actions lead to immortality. Paul writes:

“For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable
and we will be changed. For this perishable body must put on
imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then
the saying that is written will be fulfilled.”15

, which is his premise for:

“Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling
in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your
labor is not in vain.”16

. Thus, love is desirable because of the eternalness gained through acts of love. Interestingly, marriage is no longer a means to immortality under Paul’s reasoning. If reproduction is an act of love that brings a sort of immortality, and if a person can become immortal by loving and serving God, then reproduction is not necessary for immortality. Furthermore, if the apocalypse will end this world, then marriage ceases to be a method of obtaining immortality. So, under Paul’s thought, reproduction is not an act that will help people acquire the good forever. Following this reasoning, laws, writing, noble acts, and all other material and temporal actions that are enacted to obtain the good forever are not acts of love, for they cannot obtain the good forever. Only God is good forever, thus the only act of love to perform is the act in which one unites with God.

There are many differences between Paul and Plato’s thoughts, which probably occur due to differences in purpose, method, and belief. Paul’s Letter to the Corinthians 1 is written not primarily as a discourse on love’s nature, but as an argument for communal unity directed towards Christian factions in Corinthia. As such, Paul’s purpose is to persuade the Corinthians towards this end. Thus, his language and style may be tailored to a Corinthian audience, and he may be using Corinthian concepts and ideas that are not necessarily in complete agreement with his own. The similarities may be tools for persuasion, and thus will not completely represent what Paul believes.

The apocalypse’s imminence also modifies Paul’s advice. For example, Paul advises the virgins, “...in view of the impending crisis, it is well for you to remain as you are.”17. The virgins might live differently if not for the impending crisis, assuming that the impending crisis is the apocalypse, in which the virgins are better off as virgins. So, Paul’s advice is constrained by time; the end is near, and people must recognize the truth or perish. Paul’s sincerity is questionable, because a lie or oversimplification might be justified if it can persuade someone to Christianity, which for Paul, would give the person a better life.

Paul’s love’s specificity is problematic in determining love’s scope. Paul does not create a general, encompassing definition of love, but rather cites various examples of what it is and what it is not. These specific examples are descriptively and poetically powerful, though do little to explain what love is. Paul’s description is thus ambiguous, as without defining his terms, he leaves his description open to interpretation. This is problematic in that readers may graft their own subjective notions of love into Paul’s letter. Paul may not have even had an explanation in mind. His descriptions are certainly persuasive if not meaningful, and his goal is to persuade a group to act a certain way, not to explain how one thing is. This is like the poetic descriptions of love in the Symposium.

Plato identifies problems resulting from poetic descriptions that do not accurately describe love’s meaning. Paul does not. In the Symposium, Agathon beautifully describes love in a classic eulogistic form. Agathon describes love’s virtues, writing:

“Love drains us of estrangement and fills us with familiarity, causing us
to come together in all shared gatherings like this, and acting as our leader
in festival, chorus and sacrifice, He includes mildness and excludes wildness.
He is gracious and kindly; gazed on by the wise, by the Gods; craved by those denied him, treasured by those enjoying him...”18
Likewise, Paul writes:

“ Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.
It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice
in wrong doings, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things,
hopes all things, endures all things.”19

While both descriptions are poetic, beautiful and moving, they also, unfortunately, do not accurately explain love’s meaning. Socrates’ criticism, that the speakers are claiming the best features for their subject, whether their claims are true or not, seems applicable here.20For example, it seems folly to describe love as rejoicing in the truth when it believes all things, for love then could believe contradictory things, one of which must be false. Paul could have a different truth in mind, but what that truth is is unclear.

To Paul, people’s love of the physical may not be love at all; only the love of God is called love. If the love of God is the only love, then people are not mistaking the beauty in objects as the highest beauty, but rather, their desire is some new word for not behaving in the right matter. It is strange that in talking about marriage, which seems to involve love, Paul does not actually mention love. Marriage is for those who are not able to control their passion; if a man has uncontrollable desires, it is better for him to limit them to a single women. In discussing how husbands and wives should act, Paul writes “This I say by way of concession, not of command. I wish that all were as I myself am.”21 . Paul is unmarried. So, Paul thinks everyone should be unmarried. Thus, marriage is separate from real love.

Finally, Paul’s ideas of love differ from Plato’s in that Paul’s relies on faith in the Lord’s dictates more than reason. Paul does not explain why immoral actions are wrong. Paul gives no reason other than God’s disapproval. Paul’s explanation of love comes from an unquestionable divine authority. It seems like Paul cannot explain why his description is right to his audience. People who do not understand God are not helped by Paul’s explanation and recommendations. If good actions are based on pleasing God, and a person does not understand God, that person will not know how to perform good actions. Sinners, people who commit bad actions, are expected to recognize their actions wrongness without knowledge of why the action is wrong, why God disallows one thing and allows another, and why right action is right. Expecting sinners to correct their actions based on unrelatable laws is an unrealistic expectation. Who considers an action wrong without explanation of why an action is wrong? Faith, an unquestioning acceptance and trust of an unknown principle, can be held for both true and false statements, regardless of their apparent validity in this world. Plato’s description relies on reason, which relies on the audiences’ experience and things existing in this world. If human experience, and the rationality developed from that experience is not a source of knowledge, than what can be called knowledge?


Notes
*Page numbers from the Symposium are taken from the universal notation on the side of the book, not from specific pages in the book.
1. Symposium: 206.a
2. Symposium: 212.a
3. Symposium: 180c-181.e
4. Symposium: 181.b
5. Letter to the Corinthians: 5.9
6. Letter to the Corinthians: 5.11
7. Letter to the Corinthians: 6.9
8. Letter to the Corinthians: 7.8
9. Letter to the Corinthians: 6.12
10. Symposium: 192.e
11. Letter to the Corinthians: 13.1-3
12. Symposium: 201.a-b.
13. Symposium: 200b-d
14. Letter to the Corinthians: 7.32
15. Letter to the Corinthians: 15.54
16. Letter to the Corinthians: 15.58
17. Letter to the Corinthians: 7.25
18. Symposium: 197.d-e.
19. Letter to the Corinthians: 13.4-8
20. Symposium: 198 .e
21. Letter to the Corinthians: 7.6-8

Undeveloped thoughts and unanswered questions
-God’s disapproval, rather than transcend the bad actions, reinforces them through its disapproval. The actions become rebellious, and this rebellion through committing them makes them attractive. Platonic thought transcends this problem – it does not deny the pleasure gained through the actions, but suggests that the person has not realized that the actions pleasure is incomplete, and in some cases, non-pleasure.

- Both Paul and Plato recognize that their knowledge is incomplete. A major theme in Plato’s works is Socrates’ ignorance of things other than himself. Through carefully analyzing people’s claims to knowledge, Socrates reveals moral issues inherent complexity.
“Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for
tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we
know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes,
the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I
thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an
end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see
face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have
been fully known. And now faith, hope and love abide, these three; and the
greatest of these is love. 13.8-13
What is Paul trying to say?

- (this is oversimplified and needs more thought). Plato’s notion of love is more forgiving. People love objects, people, etc because they see something beautiful/eternal/good in them that they want for themselves. Their desires are not perverse and amoral, simply incomplete, ignorant and capable of being developed. Where Paul’s flaws leads to God’s resent and eventual damnation, Plato sees human error as causing hurt to the individual, in them living a poorer life. Error in Plato is only wrong if it is not learned from- full knowledge, which leads to a full life, can be obtained from examined experience. In this way the Roman’s criticism of Christianity, that it hates humanity is correct. Only a life with minimal error, through utter adherence to Christian beliefs, can be fully called good in Christian thought. Mistakes, an important source of experience, detract from a good life. But can a life without mistakes, without pain, and trial, and joy and sexual feelings, and varieties of human experience even be called a life? Should we count unfortunate those who have never been unfortunate? Has a person who has lived with minimal error through faith overcome a desire for power, pleasure, fame, fortune and self-engrandising? Or are these desires suppressed and not spoken of? Are they enacted upon, by re-defining morality, like Nietzsche’s usurper of classical good? Discussing a good life is a topic in itself, and would stray beyond this paper’s bounds. Yet it is good to question what a good life is to Paul, and wonder if it is something we want to live.
Bibliography
The Symposium. Plato. Translated by Christopher Gill. Published by Penguin classics, 1999. Copyright Christopher Gill.

Plato, The Collected Dialogues. Plato. Edited by Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns. Published by Princeton University Press, at Princeton, New Jersey.

The New Oxford Annotated Bible. Edited by Michael D. Coogan. Published by Oxford University Press in Oxford, New York.

Plato’s Imperfection Argument

Plato’s imperfection argument tries to prove two interesting claims. The first claim is that F’s exist. The variable ‘F’ here designates concepts such as Equality, Beauty, Justness, Piety, etc, which Socrates claims to be equivalent in regards to his argument at 75c-d. The second claim is that our souls exist before our birth. I’ve tried to take what is central to his argument, and present it in a pseudo-Fitch format.

Plato’s Imperfection Argument Notes

1. We can only think of things we have
experienced.

2. We have had senses since birth.
3. Our bodies did not exist before birth
4. The sight of one thing makes us recollect
another.
5. We are able to discern the degree to which an
object is F.


6. Suppose an arbitrary perceptible
object(s) exists
7. The object(s) appears to be F
8. It is not the case that the object(s) appears to be F
9. Absurd
10. The perceptible object(s) is/are imperfectly F

11. All perceptible objects are imperfectly F.

12. An object is F if and only if it is perfectly F.

13.. We are aware of this imperfection in
perceivable objects.

14. We perceive objects to be imperfectly F.
15. If we are aware that something is imperfectly
F, then we must know of a perfect F.


1. 75 (end of page 65). Note that experience here is sense perception.
2. Suppressed Premise
3. Suppressed Premise
4. 73d-e

5. 74-b. This is not an exact discernment. Also, this may only apply to recollected, similar objects.
6-10. 74b-c. This is an attempt to show why Socrates might think 11. Eleven may simply be a suppressed premise. If this is the case, then I’m not sure what to make of the “objects appear to be F and not-F part”.

11. Suppressed conclusion. Also, objects are limited to this-life objects. (6-10 All intro).
12. 74c-d. (Stipulation or an analytical consequence of F’s)
13. 74d-e. (11, 5 analytical consequence-abbreviated as AC from here on out.)
14. (13, Reiteration)
15. 74e This is either a suppressed premise or (5, AC –we can’t discern if we don’t know a perfect F because everything would be perfectly F)
16. We know that there is a perfect Fnot just that there is one, but that we know the F

17. There is such a thing as the F itself


18. F type things exist


19. Suppose F type things exist

20. Looking at objects that are imperfectly
F reminds us of F

21. We can only think of things we have experienced.
22, If we can think of F, then we must have
experienced it at some time.
23. We haven’t experienced F after birth.


24. We experienced F before our birth.

25. Our bodies did not exist before birth

26. Something identical to us, but not our
body, that is able to sense (since it can
know things) exists.I don’t think he’ll want to say that our soul senses, though. I would rephrase this premise.
27. Call this thing the soul.



28. The soul sensed F before our life














16. (15, 13 If elimination)

17. (1, 16 AC) Alternatively, a Parmenidian principle may be in play.
18. (17, Existential introduction) Alternate phrasing is “some things are F’s”


20. (4, 19 AC) or (4, 14, 15 AC)this step doesn’t seem to be required


21. (1, Reiteration)

22. 75 (21, 20 AC)it doesn’t appear that you need step 20 to get this. All you need is step 21.

23. 75b-c (11,1, 12 AC?) Everything is imperfectly F, so no after birth experience of F.you might want to include this claim in the main argument as a set of steps. You’ll also need some claim about that which we experience after birth (in addition to 1, 11, and 12)
24. 75c (23, 21 AC)-Sketchy move?
25. (3, Reiteration) –Remember, this is a suppressed premise.
26. Suppressed conclusion
(24, 25, 1 AC)

27. Suppressed conclusion. Stipulation on 26, I’m just naming the theoretical thing.

28. 76c-d. Socrates replies to two objections to this premise here. The first is that we don’t seem to know everything. The second is the possibility we gained this knowledge at birth. The objections and responses do not play a role in the argument I’m outlining and will not be considered here.





29. The soul exists before our birth.

30. If F type things exist, then our souls exist
before our birth.

30(a) If F type things exist, then our souls exist
before we are born and F things exist in the
pre-birth realm.

31. F type things exist.

32. Our souls exist before we are born.

32(a) F things exist in the pre-birth realm






29. (27, 24, 25 AC)

30. 76d-77 (19-29, If intro)


30(a) Alternate stronger conclusion. F things exist to be sensed pre-birth, so Socrates could add this.
31. 77 (18, reiteration)

32. 77 (30, 31, If elimination)

32(a) Same as above, but suppressed



My objection to Plato:
Plato’s argument seems weakest at steps twenty-four. In step twenty-four, Plato seems to resolve the paradox created by his claim “we can only think of things we have experienced”, and the fact that we have knowledge of perfect entities (Justice, Equality, etc.) that we haven’t encountered in our lives by concluding that we must have encountered the perfect entities before we were born. Plato could have alternatively concluded from the absurdity that it is not the case that we can only think of things that we have experienced, or that we don’t really have knowledge of perfect entities. Concluding that we encounter the perfect entities before we are born introduces more problems that need to be explained, such as the existence of a soul, the soul’s location before birth, and the apparent divide between the perfect entity’s pre-birth location and real-life manifestations of them. I think that Plato should have appealed to a simpler explanation in resolving the paradox, and not have concluded that we encounter perfect entities pre-birth.

Works Cited
This webpage was helpful: http://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/phaedo.htm#imperf

Exegesis on De Anima 412b10-24*

In Aristotle’s De Anima, Book II, lines 10-24, Aristotle explains what a soul is. Aristotle writes, “It [the soul] is substance in the sense which corresponds to the account of a thing”. Aristotle tries to clarify this definition through analogy with an axe. Aristotle asks us to suppose that the axe is “natural body”. It seems like Aristotle wants us to make this distinction because an axe is normally considered as an “artificial body”, and only natural bodies can have souls. After this supposition, Aristotle notes that “being an axe” is the essence of an axe, and “if this disappeared from it, it would cease being an axe, except in name”. This passage is a bit unclear. At first glance, Aristotle seems to be suggesting that if “being an axe” disappeared from an axe, the axe would cease “being an axe”. This seems tautological, as it is trivially true that an axe minus its axeness isn’t an axe.

Further examples suggest a different reading. Aristotle asks us to “...apply this doctrine in the case of the parts of the living body.” and to “Suppose that the eye were an animal-sight would have been its soul, for sight is the substance of the eye which corresponds to the account, the eye being merely the matter of seeing; when seeing is removed the eye is no longer an eye, except in name.” This example helps clarify Aristotle’s definition, and suggests a better reading of the axe passage. Sight can be called the soul of an eye in that it is the essential, distinctive feature that the matter of an eye is arranged for. Likewise, instead of describing an axe’s essence as “being an axe”, Aristotle could have described an axe’s essence as “axeing”; that is to say, the distinctive action that an axe does, such as splitting matter like wood into halves. Also, like the eye is the matter of seeing, an axe is the matter of axeing. Here, Aristotle may be suggesting that matter is arranged so that a certain function may be carried out; the eye is spherical so as to better its seeing, and the axe is heavy on one end with a sturdy grip so that it might better carry out the function of axeing.

Interestingly, Aristotle seems to think that when the matter of an eye or an axe is not able to perform its function, the matter can only be considered an eye or an axe in “name only”. Aristotle compares these functionless objects to “...the eye of a statue or of a painted figure.” This seems a bit strange since it seems like people would still call the dull, axe shaped object that used to be an axe an axe. At most, they would describe it as a broken axe, but a broken axe still seems like an axe. Here, Aristotle seems to be departing from his usual practice of explaining how ordinary language correctly or quasi-correctly describes things. Aristotle’s account would probably benefit from an explanation of why people are confused when they speak of broken axes as a axes, and sightless eyes as eyes.

Physics 1.8

In Physics 1.8, Aristotle addresses Parmenides’ claim that “nothing that is can come to be or pass away”. Aristotle begins by presenting Parmenides proof:

“So they say that none of the things that are either come to be or passes out of
existence, because what comes to be must do so either from what is or from what
is not, both of with are impossible. For what is cannot come to be (because it is already),
and from what is not nothing could have come to be (because something must be
underlying).”

Next, Aristotle considers in what sense Parmenides and his followers are right, and the sense in which they “...were mislead in their search for truth by their inexperience.” Aristotle does this by showing that there are two ways to understand the expression ‘from what is’ and the expression ‘from what is not’.

In the case of ‘what is’, Aristotle distinguishes between ‘from what is’ and ‘what is acted on’. Here, Aristotle talks about how a doctor does not build a house qua doctor, but qua house builder. Aristotle then explains that, properly speaking, we talk about a doctor becoming or changing only when he is doing so qua doctor. In this way, when Parmenides speaks of coming to be from “what is not”, properly speaking, he refers to things becoming qua what is not. Aristotle thinks that in this sense, Parmenides is correct to say “things can’t come to be from what is not” but maintains that in the other, qualified sense, Parmenides is wrong. As we can speak of a doctor building a house outside his function, we can speak of what is coming to be from what is not. For example, a bird can come to be from what is not a bird (an egg), because the bird becomes a bird not qua what is not, but qua egg. Notice that here there is something underlying the change.

Using the same distinction between doctoring qua doctor, and doctoring qua house builder, Aristotle explains that Parmenides’ claim “nothing comes to be from what is” is right in cases where what is comes to be qua what is, but wrong in qualified cases. For example, Aristotle thinks an animal of a certain kind can come to be from an animal of a certain kind, and animals can come to be from animals. The dog Lassie (what is a dog) can come to be from the dog Rosy (what is a dog). Here, Lassie comes to be from a dog, but not qua dog, since the dog qualification caries over. In this way, what is can come to be from what is.

The main problem I have with Aristotle’s solution is that it seems to misconstrue Parmenides argument. When Parmenides talks about the impossibility of things to pass out of or into existence, he seems to be referring more to an original creation and not the generation and decay of existing things. In this way, he seems to be arguing that what exists always existed and always will exist. Parmenides might respond to Aristotle by saying that, while Aristotle might be correct about the use of man’s opinions, he has missed the point about what is or is not outside of it.

Physics VIII.4-5 Exegesis

In lines 255a24-255b31 of Aristotle’s Physics, Aristotle tries to explain the “motion of heavy and light things to their places”. Aristotle does this by explaining in terms of potentiality what an elements potential movement is. Aristotle notes, “Whenever something capable of acting and something capable of being acted on are together, what is potential becomes actual.” By this he seems to mean that when thing A, which is potentially thing B, becomes B, it becomes actually B, and potentially C. Aristotle uses this distinction to talk about the elements’ natural movements. Aristotle needs a further mechanism, though, to explain why the elements are not consistently changing. He does this by suggesting that something prevents or hinders a change. For example, Aristotle thinks that cold is potentially hot, but has something hindering its movement so that all things do not progressively get hotter. Aristotle seems to think that if you remove the thing that is hindering cold, it will go from potentially hot to actually hot. Aristotle also uses the example of potentially light things becoming light.

Aristotle also thinks that an element can change into another element and still have some other potential change. For example, Aristotle notes that water is potentially air, which is potentially light. When water becomes lighter, it goes from potentially being air to actually being air. As air though, the once-water still has the potential to become lighter, and thus rise further. All that is needed is for some hindrance to be removed. This is much like a hand cupping some air under water; the air has the potential to move upwards, but can’t since a hand is hindering it. When the hand is moved, the air actualizes its potentiality and moves upward until it meets with another hindrance.

Finally, Aristotle claims that in all cases, the element is not moving itself, but “...contains within itself the source of motion – not of moving something or of causing motion, but suffering it.” Aristotle’s motivation for making this claim is to show that the elements do not move naturally like animals and humans, but accidentally, through other causes. Aristotle explains how the elements movements are accidental by looking at some parallel examples and seeing how people talk about them. Aristotle notes that when a person removes an obstacle to a pillar’s fall, properly speaking, we say that the person caused the pillar to fall, not that the pillar moved itself. In the same way, when an element changes form, it is because something that hinders its change has been removed.

It is a bit unclear whether Aristotle thinks the removal of hindrances needs to be done by natural things. If lightning hit a tree, and removed the hindrances from being hot and dry, I’m not sure if Aristotle would say that the lightning caused the tree to burn, or if he would maintain that some natural being removed an obstacle from an element, through which in a chain of events caused the tree to burn. (i.e. a butterfly flaps its wings, removes some small hindrance in the air, which leads to the removal of other hindrances, snowballing into the lightning being formed.)

Response To Brian

Brian, in his response to Irwin’s article, argues that Irwin has erroneously associated “acting for the sake of an ultimate good” with “acting for the sake of happiness”. He does this by explaining how a human’s actions and a human should not be thought of as acting for the sake of the same thing; the human’s actions are for the sake of the something, but the human is “...for the sake of something else- “the function of man is an activity of soul in accordance with, or not without, rational principle.”” He then offers an alternate interpretation, in which human’s final cause is being rational, and happiness is the motivation for acting as a human.

My objection to Brian is that the “ultimate good” for humans should be considered as simply being an excellently functioning human. This explains why reason is required, for reason is the unique to humans. Note that here ultimate goodness is relative to a creature. In his footnote, Brian claims that if the ultimate good is rationality, then only humans can be good. This would be true if the ultimate good were the same for all beings. This does not seem to be the case in Aristotle. Since each creature has its own distinctive characteristics and end, each creature will have its own ultimate good. So, the ultimate good of a fish is different than the ultimate good of a cow. If acting in the ultimately good way a creature can act is happiness, then this explanation explains why a cow and a fish might be happy under different circumstances; it is not part of the cow’s ultimate good to swim underwater, and the fish is not happy when it is in a field of grass.

I also disagree with Brian’s claim that doing what makes a thing happy will make a thing a good thing. I think that it is the other way around; acting how you should act will make you happy. I think that Brian’s claim is correct in most situations, simply because the things which make you happy are the right type of things you should do. However, I think that there are some cases where you can act in a way that makes you happy, but still not be a good human. For instance, nutrition and sleep make people happy, but if all they did was eat or sleep, or ate and slept to an extreme, these people would not be good humans under Aristotle’s theory, since they are not fulfilling all their functions as humans.

I haven’t really argued for my position much though, and most of it relies on my intuitions. One textual reference that supports my view is Aristotle’s definition of happiness. According to Aristotle, “Happiness is the activity of the soul exhibiting excellence, and if there is more than one excellence, in accordance with the best and most complete.” (1.7) By ‘exhibiting excellence’, Aristotle probably means functioning “humanly” well, where functioning humanly primarily involves reasoning and using language. Thus, the happiness of a human consists in its soul acting in accordance to the best and most complete human function. Another consideration is that, generally, Aristotle seeks the good of a thing by examining the specific results it has. For example, the good of strategy is winning wars, and the good of medicine is producing health. While I agree that these are actions, and there is a difference between arts and humans, I think that the “good of” strategy can be applied to humans. Thus, in looking as to what the good of humans is, we should look at the unique thing they can produce. As humans are the only rational animals, humans are the only things that can reason. So, reason is unique to humans, and if it is the most excellent thing produced (I think it is for Aristotle, as reason/philosophy has no end other than itself, so is an end in itself) is the only, the ultimate good of humans. Thus, I think my view is prima facia justified.

Legal Positivism And International Law
Michael Vossen

Legal-Positivism, the dominant theory of law in the field of international law, motivates and in part justifies many international legal practices. In this paper, I will explain legal-positivism in depth, and access its adequacy in the international arena. The first section of this paper contains a formal characterization of legal positivism as a theory, with the intention of using this model as a target for criticism. In the second section of this paper, I look at some compelling objections to legal positivism as a theory, and consider the legal-positivists response. Finally, in the last section I look at some alterations and alternatives to Legal Positivism, most notably the alternatives presented by Ronald Dworkin, and consider their implications on international law.

Formally, Legal-Positivism can be characterized by three major principles. The first principle is that “what counts as law in any particular society is fundamentally a matter of social fact”1. The method used in identifying these facts is called the pedigree thesis. The second principle is that law is separate from morality in that law does not allow for the existence of moral facts; “What law is and ought to be are separate questions”2. This is known as the separableity thesis. The third principle is that judges create new law when making legal decisions on subjects not covered by the law. This is known as the discretion thesis. Note that this characterization is meant to represent the basic, essential characteristics of Legal-Positivism, and will not represent the wide number of variants that derive from the basic view; the strength and scope of each principle I present is debated among Legal Positivists, so these positions might be interpreted more or less strictly. Since these principles are by no means self-evident, an explanation of each will help flesh out the legal positivist’s position.
According to the first principle of Legal-Positivism, what law is is determined by social fact. This is where positivism gets its name; laws are not found in or derived from nature, but posited by man. Historically, John Austin developed the first social-fact recognizing model, however, contemporary legal-positivism generally uses H.L.A Hart’s method of distinction, for reasons that will soon be apparent. Austin, borrowing from Jeremy Bentham, argued that a valid legal system is distinguished by the existence of a sovereign power that is customarily obeyed by members of its society, but is not subject to any higher sovereign power. 3Austin identifies law using the following model: a rule R is a law in some society S if and only if:
1. R is commanded by the sovereign in S; and
2. R is backed up with the threat of a sanction 4
Austin’s model is a bit too simplistic for practical use. One problem Austin’s model faces is that sometimes it is impossible to trace a rule back to a sovereign. While theoretically the people or the people’s representatives lead democracies and republics, modern governments are generally pluralistic. As such, various special interest groups, including corporate, religious, and ecological entities, factions among political parties, as well as intra-governmental divisions, such as judicial, executive, and legislative branches, and the governmental institutions that enact law interact with each other such that no single individual or group is clearly “the sovereign”. 5
With regards to international law, Austin’s model commits positivism to the claim that, without some sovereign or mechanism to enforce the law, international law is not in fact law. Austin’s conditions for legal validity are thus too narrow, as they prevent many legal systems which seem intuitively to be legally valid as invalid. Under Austin’s model, for international law to be valid, either a single nation, or an entity such as the U.N. must be capable of enforcing all rules it makes. While this may be appealing to the ordinary person, students of international law will recognize that the international community works horizontally, as apposed to the vertical nature of domestic law. This means that no nation has absolute legal authority over another nation. National sovereignty motivates this situation; all nations generally respect each other’s claim to self-governance, as this protects their own sovereign powers. With the importance that nations attach to sovereignty claims, it is unclear whether international law could exist under Austin’s model, as rules created and attempts to enforce them will probably come into conflict with nations’ sovereignty.
With these considerations in mind, H.L.A Hart modified the validating mechanism of legal-positivism as to make it capable of dealing with complex power structures, and more applicable to the international community. Hart criticized Austin’s view by pointing out that there is a difference in being obliged to do something and being obligated to do it. 6 Roughly speaking, force and threat oblige people to do things but does not obligate them to do it. For example, a robber might order somebody to give her all their money, and back it up with a threat of violence. In this scenario, the person being robbed is obliged to give the robber all their money, but not obligated. In other words, even though the robber’s orders meet all Austin’s conditions for law, Hart wants to say that it is not a law. The key aspect that is missing in Austin’s conditions is an appeal to a normative force; Hart notes that obligations are normative because laws appeal to something beyond force to enforce it. Hart fills this “something” out in terms of authority; the difference between a robber and a lawmaker, according to Hart, is that the lawmaker has the authority to make laws, whereas the robber does not. Dworkin gives an apt description of Hart’s sources for law’s authority:

“(a) A rule becomes binding for a group of people because that group through
its practices accepts the rule as a standard for its conduct. It is not enough that
the group simply conforms to a pattern of behavior: even though most Englishman
may go to the movies on Saturday evening, they have not accepted a rule requiring
that they do so. A practice constitutes the acceptance of a rule only when those
who follow the practice regard the rule as binding, and recognize the rule as a
reason or justification for their own behavior and as a reason for criticizing the
behavior of others who do not obey it.

(b) A rule may also become binding in quite a different way, namely by being
enacted in conformity with some secondary rule that stipulates that rules so enacted
shall be binding. If the constitution of a club stipulates, for example, that by-laws
may be adopted by a majority of members, then particular by-laws so voted are
binding upon all members, not because of any practice of acceptance of these
particular by-laws, but because the constitution says so. We use the concept of
validity in this connection: rules binding because they have been created in a manner stipulated by some secondary rule are called ‘valid’ rules.” 7

International law clearly relies on Hart’s model, and many international practices and national policies seem to derive from it. For example, Hart’s model provides an explanation for why the standard hierarchy for sources of law is as it is. Under article 38(1) of the Statute of the International Court of Justice, general or particular international conventions that establish rules recognized by the contesting States, international custom – i.e. evidence of a general practice accepted as law, general principles of law recognized by civilized nations, and judicial decisions plus highly qualified publicists’ teachings are recognized as sources of law. 8The first two sources correspond with (b) and (a) of Hart’s model; treaties represent the secondary rule(s) that stipulate rules which are binding, and customary practices look cultural behavior patterns that represent an acceptance of a law. Due to the use of customary practice as source of law, states are careful about what practices they adhere to. For instance, the United States has repeatedly rejected the International Court of Justices claims to jurisdiction when it conflicts the U.S.’s control of its citizens. This stance can be seen as reacting to the practice of customary law, which was suggested by Hart. Legal positivism also accounts for the forth source, as will be seen after considering the third principle of positivism.
The second principle of positivism is that law is fundamentally separate from morality. This position is motivated by the philosopher David Hume’s skepticism about moral facts. Hume claimed that what is the case is logically distinct from what ought to be the case. For example, if Tina wants to claim that Sam ought not to steal from Ben, she cannot arrive at her claim through the fact that stealing from Ben causes him pain. Tina needs some further claim, such as people ought not to cause other people pain, to argue for her position. Hume’s worry is that such claims cannot be derived from scientific, empirical phenomena. From these considerations, some philosophers following Hume’s example concluded that moral facts are separate from other facts in the world. Historically, Hume used this divide against moralist rivals, arguing that whoever tries to derive laws from moral fact cannot derive law, as no moral facts exist.
Contemporarily, positivists maintain that a legal system does not necessarily rely on moral facts; that is to say, it is possible to have an a-moral or immoral legal system that is still a legal system. However, some positivists think that it is possible for morality to plays a role in a legal system, whether expressed in customs or through moral constraints on legal validity. Here, Legal-Positivism can be divided into two camps:
inclusive positivism, which tries through its rules of recognizing law to include moral constraints, and exclusive positivism, which maintains that “the existence and content of
law can always be determined by reference to its sources without recourse to moral argument.” 9
Hart is an example of an inclusive positivist. Under his rules of recognition, moral claims can be incorporated through a societies customs as criteria for legal validity. If a society accepts the rule that people ought not to steal, or that there should be an equality of voting rights, then that rule becomes law. Here, the legality of the no-stealing and equal suffrage rules are not derived from a moral claim about stealing, but from a societies’ customs and/or accepted secondary rules. Exclusive positivists, on the other hand, do not treat morality as imposing restraints on law. Instead, they argue that equality of voting rights rules force judges to consider certain positions in the process of making decisions, but the judge’s rulings, even if they are based on moral principles, are to be considered law. As such, debate about a moral principle in courtrooms is not an argument about morality, but an argument about law.
In international law, the separability thesis keeps cultural moral relativity from interfering with the creation of law, which makes positivism a more attractive legal system than naturalism on an international scale. For example, under positivism, two nations can differ radically on fundamental moral issues, yet still can create and maintain a legal system. This is because law under positivism does not depend on moral principles. Under a naturalist system, the two nations would need to agree on moral issues to avoid deriving conflicting laws. Few, if any, international laws would result from this system. International law also seems to be inclusive in that, when considering sources of law, judges consider general principles of law, which include notions of fairness and other moral considerations, as constraining a law’s validity. In this way, positivism can be flexible enough to deal with the cultural diversity present on an international scale.
The third principle of Legal-Positivism is that judges create new law when making decisions on subjects not covered by law. Dworkin gives a good explanation: “The set of these valid legal rules is exhaustive of 'the law', so that if someone's case is not clearly covered by such a rule (because their is none that seems appropriate or those that seem appropriate are vague, or for some other reason) then that case cannot be decided by 'applying the law.' It must be decided by some official, like a judge, 'exercising his discretion,' which means reaching beyond the law for some other sort of standard to guide him in manufacturing a fresh legal rule or supplementing an old one.”10 Note that judges have the discretion to create new law in absence of standards. This means that the judge’s ability to create law is contingent, and depends on the lack of a rule found by a rule of recognition (i.e. Austin and Hart’s rule identifying models). As such, this principle is only in place so far as “fuzzy” areas of law exist.
In international law, this principle is reflected in judges use and respect for the standards created by judicial decisions. Judges use all aspects of court rulings as sources of law. Even the statements of judges who dissent in cases can be used as sources of law. Thus, judges must be judicious about the reasons they present for their position. This principle also forces judges to be cautious about the standards created from the legal decisions they make, as the decisions create new sources of law that can be used in alternate cases. For example, judges in the Pinochet hearings must be cautious about revoking Pinochet’s immunity as a diplomatic official and head of state, as the rulings they make count as new law, which can be applied to other diplomatic officials and heads of state.

Legal-Positivism naturally has its critics. Foremost among these is Ronald Dworkin, who has challenged practically every principle of positivism. Gustavo Zagrebelsky, in his essay “Ronald Dworkin’s principle based constitutionalism: an Italian point of view” summarizes Dworkin’s complex position well. Gustavo notes that the target of Dworkin’s criticism is the positivist’s claim to “(a) the existence of discretion on the part of the judge who is said to operate (b) pursuant to the norms proposed by the legislator in (c) the space that the latter leaves “empty of law”.” 11Guastovo then summarizes Dworkin’s position, writing:
“There is an “open space” (corresponding to (c)...) of norms but not of law,
in the so-called hard cases ... The law governing hard cases consists of legal
principles (see (b), above) that are placed “above” the norms proposed by the
legislator, and it circumscribes the decisions of judges (see (a), above) by pointing
them in a certain direction. On this basis, the idea of judicial discretion [i.e. the
third principle of positivism] may be contested but only with the aid of an extensive
concept of law that transcends the “normative factors” (or in European parlance
the “sources of the law.” ...) formally grounded on what Hart calls the “rule of
recognition” or what others call “law of law” or “sources of the production of law.”
The refusal simply to consider the legal norms as written down in a public text of
official rules reveals the anti-positivistic nature of this theory and highlights its
reliance on a level of law lying deeper than the one carved out by any legislator.
It is within this deeper level of law, moreover, that judges can find the best answer
to legal questions left unsolved by the legislator’s law – though this does not mean
necessarily the clearest or most obvious answer.”12

An example will help clarify Dworkin’s position. When Dworkin speaks of “hard cases” he means “...those that cannot be decided by application of a recognized norm, either because such norm does not exist, or because it is unclear or not completely relevant, or in contradiction with other norms - bearing in mind that cases can end up “hard” while initially seeming “easy”, when social, ideological, or cultural conflicts muddy the waters in which rules are embedded, with the consequence that they become difficult to recognize.”13These seem correspond with areas of law in which judges are said to create new law.
Dworkin uses the U.S. cases Riggs v. Palmer and Henningsen v. Bloomfield Motors, Inc. as examples of “hard” cases.14 In Henningsen v. Bloomfield Motors, Inc , a New Jersey court was asked to rule on a case in which the plaintiff, Henningsen, had bought a car, signing a contract which stated that the manufacture’s liability was limited to replacing defective parts. Henningsen argued that the manufacturer, in his case, should be also at least be responsible for the medical expenses suffered as a result of the car’s defects. While Henningsen had no standard practice or other legal position to refute the contract, the court ruled in his favor, sighting among other reasons “Is there any principle which is more familiar or more firmly embedded in the history of Anglo-American law than the basic doctrine that the courts will not permit themselves to be used as instruments of inequity and injustice?”15Dworkin takes remarks like these to show a judge’s decision in cases where no legal standard exists is not in fact at his discretion in the sense that he freely creates laws. Dworkin thinks that principles bind judges into making certain decisions, and that this is revealed by the practice of criticizing judges who ignore principles in their decisions. For example, if a judge allowed a criminal to profit from their crimes in a case where legal precedent is absent, then their decision can rightly be challenged, even though new law is supposedly created by the judge’s decision. Dworkin thinks that these principles should be treated as a sort of law.
Finally, Dworkin explains why principles are binding, and argues that his view undermines positivism. Dworkin thinks that principles obtain authority (in the same sense Hart uses) and become binding when they make the best moral justification for a society's legal practices considered as a whole. Kenneth Himma summarizes Dworkin’s view, writting “According to Dworkin, a legal principle maximally contributes to such a justification if and only if it satisfies two conditions: (1) the principle coheres with existing legal materials; and (2) the principle is the most morally attractive standard that satisfies (1). The correct legal principle is the one that makes the law the moral best it can be.”16From these considerations, Dworkin concludes that the pedigree and judicial discretion principles of Legal-Positivism should be rejected. This is because principles are to be considered law, and are not capable of being recognized by a rule of recognition, according to Dworkin. This is also because judges are not free to posit law, but are instead bound by principles. 17
Dworkin’s position has clear analogs in international law. In the Pinochet trial, judges faced a hard decision in that two conflicting principles existed: diplomatic sovereignty and the enforcement of human rights. If either principle were ignored in the creation of new law, criticisms of the judge’s decisions would seem unjustified. Also, international law generally favors principles over rules, as principles do not necessarily conflict with state’s sovereignty and allow for more flexibility in international relations. As such, Dworkin’s criticism seems particularly applicable to international law.
One way inclusive positivists such as Hart respond to Dworkin is by arguing that principles can be incorporated into the law when they are explicitly or implicitly included by rules of recognition. Recall that inclusive positivists allow for constitutional amendments such as the 14th amendment, which calls for an equality of voting rights, to be incorporated by judges in determining whether something is legally valid. In cases involving these amendments, judges are expressly commanded by the legislators to consider moral principles in determining legally validity in a case. Positivists also note that judges can incorporate principles in through their customary practice. For example, by having multiple judges refer to some principle in their cases decisions, such as the “people shouldn’t profit from their own crimes”, that principle can become law through customary practice. The key to this response is that the moral principles are not to be considered law on their own right, but because made so by the correct social force. 18
Some other problems with Dworkin’s theory exist. One consequence in Dworkin’s theory, which seems to motivate the inclusive positivists use of judges and social practices as the real sources of law, is that if principles are to be treated as laws before formally being created by judges or lawmakers, then ex post facto protection can justifiably be revoked. People are thus obligated and bound by principles before social forces recognize the principle as law, since the principles constitute law. Also, Dworkin seems to think that a “best” or “most morally attractive” principle always exists, such that all cases involving principles can be decided. Dworkin does not give a reason as to why this is the case, and it is not self-evident either. Dworkin may think, and suggests at places with his reference to a “Herculean” judge, that after examining all principles in every type of situation, a judge will be able to come up with some hierarchy of principles that proceeds over all cases. There is no evidence that such a hierarchy exists or that conflicts between certain principles can only be solved in one way, or even that moral conflicts can non-arbitrarily be solved.
Further, these problems with Dworkin’s theory would be especially troublesome on an international scale. It is unclear whether treating principles as law in international law would break down already tentative international relations or result in analysis of the principles. While it might seem nice to clarify internationally held principles through discussion in court, it seems unlikely that countries would treat principles that go against their policies as legally binding. Dworkin’s theory seems more suitable to national legal systems, as a common cultural background would make some principles seem better. On the international scale, Dworkin’s theory is subject to the very problems legal positivists seek to avoid with the seprability thesis; different cultures treat principles with different importance. For example, one culture could treat success as a higher goal than happiness, while another treats this vis-versa. While these differences might be worked out at a local level, Dworkin will need to assume that one correct model of the hierarchy of principles exists that is common to all people if law is to be dealt with in terms of principles at an international level. Again, there is no reason to believe that only one correct model exists; it is entirely possible that multiple orderings of principles exist, such that one cultures ordering is equally valid as another cultures. Dworkin’s model does have the benefit of allowing crimes against humanity be prosecuted by appeal to principle and not to a specific law, but this comes at the price of allowing any country to prosecute based on the principles they hold, which seems detrimental to international law. Thus, even if Dworkin’s model is correct, it would be prudent for the international community to wait for a recognized “best” or “most-moral” ordering of principles before changing its sources of law.
After researching Legal-Positivism thoroughly and looking at its responses to Dworkin, my initial criticisms and worries about positivism seem less problematic. One of my initial worries about Legal-Positivism was how, using only its custom recognizing function, positivism could deal with statistical anomalies in cases? For example, I worried that some abominable practice or doctrine, if upheld and practiced enough, could become law. For instance, if the majority of countries upheld the “preventive” attack doctrine, then it seems like it can become a lawful practice. My worry was that positivism would be incapable of developing a model such that law can reject certain practices, even though those practices might be culturally dominant or establish certain practices as legal, even though the majority of nations do not act accordingly.
This worry is partially diminished through Hart’s discussion of sources of law. Recall that for Hart, “It is not enough that the group simply conforms to a pattern of behavior: even though most Englishman may go to the movies on Saturday evening, they have not accepted a rule requiring that they do so.”19 This shows that Hart’s recognition of customary practice is not based entirely on statistical regularity, which is to say, does not strictly recognize a rule based on the percentage of people following it. This makes most statistical anomaly cases irrelevant. Hart’s conditions for acceptance do seem to allow for one of my problematic scenarios, though, since “A practice constitutes the acceptance of a rule only when those who follow the practice regard the rule as binding, and recognize the rule as a reason or justification for their own behavior and as a reason for criticizing the behavior of others who do not obey it.”20 Conceivably, a bad practice could be accepted as law, though this is unlikely.
My concerns are not so problematic to positivist theory however, since they simply show that Hart’s rule of recognition needs modification if they are to address these problems. Changing the rules of recognition would also be a solution to problems with customary law, such as to identifying factors for a general practice, sorting out single instances and “instant” customary law. Also, nations could incorporate moral principles not captured under custom through additions or changes to the rules of recognition. Finally, while I’m sympathetic to Dworkin’s criticisms of the seprability of law and morality, I think that philosophy should be the field for the investigation of an ordering of moral principles, not courts, since philosophers are free to work out their theories without the practical consequences that courts face. If philosophers find a “best” ordering of moral principles, then I agree with Dworkin that law should adopt it, and that law can be seen as derived from moral principles.

In conclusion, Legal-Positivism is adequate for the needs of international law. Their is some serious doubt as to whether the seprability thesis holds for the theory, as seen through Ronald Dworkin’s criticisms, but the rules of recognition seem flexible enough to include the moral considerations that influence law. A “best “ordering of moral principles may be possible if Dworkin is correct in his theory, though there is no reason to hold this view over a plurality of principles view, and in either case Dworkin is correct in that a “Herculean” effort will be needed to come up with an ordering. These concerns are worrisome to international law in that Dworkin’s theory shows that law based on positivist theories are an artifact of man and not deriving from what true law is based on, but for pragmatic reasons international law is better off continuing as is until a universally recognized correct ordering of principles exists.

Notes
1. Green, Legal-Positivism
2. Ibid
3. Himma, Legal-Positivism
4. Ibid
5. Influenced by Taking Rights Seriously, pg. 18
6. Ibid, pg. 19
7. Ibid, pg. 20
8. Akehurst’s Modern Introduction To International Law, pg 36 9. Himma, Legal-Positivism
10. Taking Rights Seriously, pg, 17
11. Ronald Dworkin's Principle Based Constitutionalism: An Italian Point of View, pg 624
12. Ibid, pg. 625
13. Ibid, pg. 625
14. Taking Rights Seriously, pg. 28
15. Ibid, pg. 24
16. Himma, Legal-Positivism
17. Taking Rights Seriously, pg. 44
18. This section is influenced by Green’s Legal-Positivism
19. Taking Rights Seriously, pg. 19
20. Ibid

Bibliography

Dworkin, Ronald. Taking Rights Seriously, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1977

Green, Leslie. Legal-Positivism, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/legal-positivism/, 2003.

Hart, H.L.A. Law, Liberty And Morality, Stanford University Press, 1963

Himma, Kenneth. Legal-Positivism. http://www.iep.utm.edu/l/legalpos.htm, 2001

Legal Positivism as Normative Politics: International Society, Balance of Power and Lassa Oppenheim's Positive International Law
Kingsbury, Benedict ,European Journal of International Law, 2002, 13, 2, Apr, 401-436.

Legal Realism and Legal Positivism Reconsidered
Leiter, Brian ,Ethics, 2001, 111, 2, Jan, 278-301.

Malanczuk, Peter. Akenhurst’s Modern Introduction To International Law. Routeledge, 1997

Ronald Dworkin's Principle Based Constitutionalism: An Italian Point of View
Zagrebelsky, Gustavo ,International Journal of Constitutional Law, 2003, 1, 4, Oct, 621-650.

Responding To The External World Problem
Michael Vossen

The canonical argument against knowledge, first presented by Descartes in 1641, is still very much alive in contemporary epistemology. This is not to say that work in epistemology is stagnant, on the contrary, there has recently been much progress on the problem, and many responses have been put forward. In this paper, I will look at the response from content externalism, otherwise known as semantic externalism, and argue that it is currently the best response to the external world problem. Here, I take the best response to the external world problem to be the response that concedes as little as possible of our conception of ourselves as knowers and our beliefs about logic. This response also needs to be justified, and true or likely to be true. I will then analyze the problems with content externalism, suggest some possible revisions and responses to these problems, and mention how it compares with some of its competitors. First, though, I will clearly present the canonical argument as it appears today, along with the motivations for its premises.

The canonical argument claims that I don’t know that any beliefs based on my sense perceptions are true. Further, this undermines all knowledge I base on sense perceptions. This means that I don’t know that there is a glass of water in front of me, even though I am looking at one now. The reason I don’t know that their is a glass of water in front of me, the argument claims, is because I don’t know that it is not some sensory illusion, such as a hologram, a dream, or some image or sensation placed in my mind by a deceiver or scientist. Further, all of my perceptual experiences could be deceptive, not just my perception of a glass of water. And if I don’t know that my perceptions are not sensory illusions, then I don’t really know that my beliefs based on them are true. Thus, I don’t know that any of my sensory induced beliefs are true. This is the intuitive basis for the canonical argument. Contemporary epistemologists will put this argument into logical form as to elucidate its assumptions better. In logical form, the canonical argument looks like this:

C1. For a subject S to know some proposition P, S must know that they are not in
a skeptical scenario.
C2. S cannot know that they are not in a skeptical scenario.
C3. S cannot know that P2

Here, we can analyze the premises. The reasons for holding the first premise night not immediately apparent; why should anyone believe premise C1? Well, premise C1 is based on the principle of epistemic closure. It seems true that if a person knows that p and knows that p entails q, then that person knows q. For example, if a person knows what a bachelor is, and knows that being a bachelor entails being an unmarried man, then the person would know what an unmarried man is. With regards to my belief that there is a glass of water in front of me, if I know that p (there is a glass of water in front of me) and I know that p entails q (the glass of water is not a hologram), then I should know q (the glass of water is not a hologram.) If I don’t know that the glass of water is not a hologram, then I clearly don’t know that it is a glass of water. Thus, the epistemic closure principle, and the belief that something being B entails it not being a sensory illusion of B are the motivations for accepting premise C1. Finally, it should be noted that if the closure principle fails, then the current model of deductive thought is probably undermined as well. Problematic consequences with truth conditions seem to occur when this premise is rejected.

The details of premise C2 will vary comes from scenario to scenario to make the situation look more plausible, but the common theme behind this premise is to show that it is possible for all of a person’s sensory experiences to be illusions. In other words, her sensory experiences in a skeptical scenario would be identical and indistinguishable from her experiences in the real world. This premise is generally motivated by reference to real life counterparts, such as very explicit dreams, holograms, and scientist’s ability to reproduce sensory stimuli in the brain through chemicals. The skeptic will then use these to create a skeptical scenario that is or at least seems physically possible.

Finally, step C3 is the logical consequence of one and two, and if logic holds, then premise three is guaranteed to be true so long as premise C1 and two are true. Of course, if premise three is true, then we don’t know that any propositions based on our senses are true. Since our knowledge of the external world is based on these sensory perceptions, then if step C3 is correct, we do not have knowledge of the external world. As an aside, I think it’s interesting that the consequence of the canonical argument seems to deny its second premise. Take P to be the second step of the canonical argument. If the conclusion holds, then S cannot know that S cannot know that they are not in a skeptical scenario. This is only the case if premise C2 is not a-priori knowable, since the conclusion only challenges our knowledge based on sense experiences. However, we seem to use our knowledge about what is physically possible, which we obtain through sense experience, in affirming premise C2. If this consideration holds, then it seem like the canonical argument is self-refuting. 3

In addition to these considerations, it will also be helpful to keep Austin’s epistemic circularity considerations in mind for evaluating responses to the argument. Austin notes that you can’t use sense experiences or propositions based on sense experiences in responding to the skeptic, or you will beg the question against them. For example, a person could argue that we should accept our pre-skeptical model of perceptual beliefs because they somehow provide a better explanation for our beliefs than a skeptical scenario. Arguments of this form could take many shapes; they could argue that skeptical scenarios are in some way parasitic on our ordinary beliefs, that the skeptical scenarios assume more entities than our ordinary beliefs, that our ordinary beliefs are more likely to be physically possible, etc.

The problem with this type of response is that in arguing that one explanation is better than another, some explanations are considered more likely to be true. This is to say that theories that are simpler, have a lower number of entities, are physical possibility, etc are likely to correspond with our beliefs about the world. This seems to beg the question against the skeptic, for in favoring one theory over another it assumes that the world corresponds with our beliefs founded from sense perceptions. To put it another way, we think that some considerations are more likely to be true because we can deduce from our sensory founded beliefs that they are more likely. If we were in a skeptical scenario though, our sensory founded beliefs could lead us to deduce that different considerations are more likely to be true. Thus, we implicitly rely on our sensory beliefs to justify our response, and beg the question in responding to the skeptic.

Given that the canonical argument is a deductive argument to which the conclusion’s truth follows from the truth of its premises, and that an acceptance of the argument’s conclusion is incompatible with our intuitive self-conception and everyday experiences, we have three options in responding to it.4 We could either accept the conclusion, or deny one or two of the premises. If we deny premise C1, we loose the principal of epistemic closure, and thus must re-think our beliefs about logic. If we accept the conclusion, then our self-conception as knowing the external world is lost, as well as our beliefs about it. And the second premise seems obviously true to many people after reflection, such that there is doubt as to how we could reasonably reject it. We are thus faced with a dilemma as to how to minimize the loss of our intuitively held beliefs in responding to the skeptic. As mentioned earlier, I take the best response to external world skepticism to be the response in which the loss is minimized, the response is justified and true or likely to be true. Any response that can successfully challenge premise C2 would be the ideal response, as we would lose nothing in denying it. After that, responses which concede as little as possible are preferred, though they would still seem like a loss to the skeptic.

Content externalism is a response to skepticism that challenges premise C2. First developed by Hillary Putnam in his paper “Brains in Vats”, this response argues that by reflecting on the “...preconditions for thinking about, representing, referring to, etc” we can determine that skeptical scenarios, or at least the scenario presented by Putnam, are conceptually impossible.5In particular, Putnam thinks that the contents of a subject’s thoughts and utterances are determined, at least in part, by the relations they bear to circumstances in their environment.6 Putnam argues that beings who haven’t experienced trees before don’t really have the concept of trees; to obtain the concept Q, a subject must have in some way casually interacted with Q. Putnam leaves open how this is done, which leaves open the possibility for causal chains such as one subject transmitting a concept to another among other things. Putnam uses two thought experiments to motivate his claim.

In the first, Putnam asks us to imagine a planet with beings much like us, the difference being that the inhabitants of the planet have never experienced trees before. Putnam then has us imagine that a spaceship passing over the planet drops a piece of paper, on which paints have spilled in such a way as to form a perfect representation of a tree. Imagining that the planet’s inhabitants find the paper, Putnam asks whether the inhabitant’s mental image of the object represented by the picture represents a tree to him. Putnam answers that no, the mental image does not represent a tree to him, though it would to us. Similarly, Putnam asks us to imagine that a person is hypnotized such that they could speak fluent Japanese when they spoke, such that the person would correctly converse in Japanese when spoken to. Putnam thinks that this person, although he can speak correctly, does not know the meaning of his words. By combining the conclusions of these thought experiments, Putnam concludes that someone can think words which are in fact a description of X in some language and simultaneously have the appropriate mental image, but neither understand the words nor know what X is. Putnam is then able to derive his anti-skeptical argument.

Putnam’s argument against premise C2 of the canonical argument can formally be expressed thus:

P1. Either I am a brain in a vat, or I am not a brain in a vat
P2. If I am not a brain in a vat, then the thought I express by uttering ‘I am a brain
in a vat’ is false.
P3. If I am a brain in a vat, then the thought I express by uttering ‘I am a brain in
a vat’ is false.___________________________________________________
P4. The thought I express by uttering ‘I am not a brain in a vat’ is false.7

The law of the excluded middle justifies premise P1. Premise P2 seems correct on reflection; if I’m a person sitting in front of a computer, then it is false that I’m a brain in a vat, and any thought whose content expresses that I am a brain in a vat is false. Premise P3 is the most controversial premise of the argument, and the one most motivated by Putnam’s thought experiences. Premise P3 is justified because the thought ‘I am a brain in a vat’, thought by a brain in a vat, expresses a different content than the thought ‘I am a brain in a vat’ thought be the non-envated person. The thought expressed by the brain in a vat refers to the configuration of electronic impulses used by the vat system to simulate brains and vats. The thought expressed by the non-envated person refers to actual fleshy brains glassy, wiry, chemically vats. Since Putnam thinks that the words used by the brain in a vat and the non-envated person refer contingently, the brain in a vat and the non-envated person could use the same words in expressing the thought “I am a brain in a vat’, yet the sentence will have a different meaning depending on the speaker. In P3 the thought expressed is false, since the content of the thought uttered by the brain in a vat does not refers to actual fleshy brains and glassy, wiry, chemically vats, but to vat system stimulations. The conclusion P4 implies that whenever I assert that I am a brain in a vat, I am speaking a false statement. Thus, I can realize that it is true of me to think that I am not a brain in a vat. Thus I can know that premise C2 is false for any skeptical scenario in which I am a Putnamian brain in a vat.

There are some problems with the theory of content externalism, and this has lead to criticism of content externalism as a response to the canonical argument. One non-useful but strongly made criticism that underlies some criticism is that content externalism seems to simple, or is a semantic trick. For example, McGinn sarcastically writes “I can achieve the anti-skeptical result DesCartes needed God to vouchsafe by exploiting considerations about what determines content. Ah the wonders of analytical philosophy! It is an optimistic man who believes that Cartesian skepticism may be refuted in this way.”8One possible motive for this type of reply could be its target, premise C2. Some philosophers doubt that any a-priori argument cannot challenge premise C2, though the reasons for this doubt rely more on the failure of a-priori arguments thus far to produce a result rather than an explanation about the capacities of a-priori argumentation. If these philosopher’s intuitions are correct, then it might be useful in considering the canonical argument to know why such a-priori arguments must fail.

A more serious problem Putnam faces is that his conclusion as stands is somewhat limited in its scope. While his argument may refute the particular scenario he considers, in which everyone is a brain in a vat hooked up to a machine the simulates the world, some scenarios escape the argument. For example, the skeptic could argue that up until yesterday, I was in the real world perceiving objects normally. I thus would acquire all my concepts correctly; my thoughts about glasses of water that a glass would refer to the object that we treat as real. The skeptic will then argue that yesterday, governmental scientists kidnapped me while I was sleeping, removed my brain, and placed it in a vat filled with the necessary electrical equipment to reproduce all the experiences I have had since then. Thus, I might be deceived in thinking that I see my concept of water when I’m actually seeing a simulated version. This problem is potentially solved by investigating into more depth on how transferring concepts of one language to another really works; if proponents of content externalism are to respond to this criticism, they need to show that their is some noticeable change when a person’s concepts change.

Finally, the strongest criticism against Putnam’s argument is that it actually makes thinks worse, as a revised skeptical scenario could show that we don’t know the content of our own language. The skeptic could argue that I don’t know whether the thought I express when I utter ‘I am not a brain in a vat’ refers to the language of the brain in a vat, or the non-envated person. Formally, this results because in P2 and P3, Putnam has the thought ‘I’m not a brain in a vat’ refer to the language of the non-envated speaker. In evaluating this response, we should note that this reply does not refute Putnam’s view, but shows that the skeptical scenario is different if he is correct. In other words, the truth or falsity of this response does not alter the truth of Putnam’s argument. Some part of his theory of reference will need to be shown to be wrong if it is to be challenged. If Putnam’s theory holds though, he has changed the type of skepticism that we are responding to. As such, we should try to resolve skepticism with this revised argument in mind.

9One question we might ask about this new scenario is whether it needs to be resolved a priori; do responses beg the question in using sensory experiences. I think surprisingly, the answer might be no, we can use our sensory experiences in responding to this scenario. In the revised skeptical scenario, I don’t know whether I am a brain in a vat, and my language is vat language or if I am a non-envated being and my language is non-vat language. However, whatever I refer to in my language represents what it is I have experienced. For example, if I am a brain in a vat, and I think ‘there is a glass of water in front of me’, this thought refers to the vat system stimuli that I experience every time I have water. Likewise, if I’m not en-vated, my thought refers to the glass of water. In either case, my thought necessarily refers to whatever system caused it; I could not have the same thought in a different language without causally interacting with the sensory causing mechanisms in the right way. Then, I could know that a glass of water is in front of me in the same way that I think that I can know that a glass of water is in front of me without knowing what the glass is made of. The negative result of this thought is that does not do much to resolve the question of whether or not we are brains in vats. The positive result is that in a Putnam type scenario, my thoughts refer to the things that I think they do, though I still can learn about the thing’s nature. Thus, we might be justified in using empirical methods to investigate the nature of our words, though it’s not apparent that the investigation will be helpful in determining whether were are brains in vats or not as it would presumably come up with results using the same words in both languages. The main positive result of this is that we avoid the switching of realities the skeptic uses in undermining knowledge. In response to the skeptic who says that I am a brain in a vat, I could concede that the glass in front of me, in addition to having the perceptual properties I think it does, could also have the property of being produced by a vat system. This doesn’t mean that the glass is something other than what I have always thought it is; it just means that there could be more to learn about the glass.


Notes

1. I’m using all four of my extension days on this paper even though I only have three days to use them on, so imagine what one extra day would do in improving this paper when reading.
2. Taken From Class Notes
3. My apologies if there is something obviously wrong with this response that we covered, but I don’t recall anything like it, and I thought I’d throw it out there.
4. Or at least three responses in dealing with the argument’s logic.
5. Brains in Vats, pg.38
6. From Class Notes
7. Ibid
8. A Priori Knowledge of the World: Knowing the World by Knowing Our Minds, pg.76
9. I’m not convinced that this response works, but I thought it might be interesting to work out the details of this sort of reply to the revised skeptical scenario. Take this as explorative hypothesizing and not my definitive view.

Works Cited

Putnam, Hilary. Brains in Vats. In Skepticism A Contemporary Reader. Edited by Keith DeRose and Ted Warfield, Oxford University Press, 1999.

Bruekner, Anthony. Semantic Answers to Skepticism. In Skepticism A Contemporary Reader. Edited by Keith DeRose and Ted Warfield, Oxford University Press, 1999.

Forbes, Graeme. Realism and Skepticism: Brains in a Vat Revisited. In Skepticism A Contemporary Reader. Edited by Keith DeRose and Ted Warfield, Oxford University Press, 1999.

Warfield, Ted. A Priori Knowledge of the World: Knowing the World by Knowing Our Minds. In Skepticism A Contemporary Reader. Edited by Keith DeRose and Ted Warfield, Oxford University Press, 1999.