The Meaning, Purpose, and Value of Life

Nothing has intrinsic meaning, purpose, or value (is this supposed to be a substantive thesis?). Sounds nihilistic, but it's not. Meaning, purpose, and value are relational terms; x is meaningful to y, x's purpose is to y, x values y, etc. Now, in regard to one's own life, it is up to the individual to give meaning, purpose, and value to it. And that can be hard work, so I guess laziness about one's own life equates to a nihilistic attitude. It's your life, so make something of it.

What is Philosophy?

Philosophy, broadly speaking, is the seeking of knowledge, in so much as people ask questions and expect answers. Indeed, all the sciences are the descendants of philosophy, and I do sometimes refer to scientists as "natural philosophers" when I feel the need to point this out.

Nevertheless, philosophy proper is not a science. Scientists ask empirical questions for which there exists a method for determining the answers to those questions. This is not to say, however, that a scientist cannot philosophize, or that philosophizing is unhelpful to science. On the contrary, Albert Einstein did quite a bit of philosophizing in order to come up with the basic tenets of Special Relativity. Nor am I saying that philosophers do not have their methods, for they do, but not anything so cut-and-dried as the scientific method. Science also tends to create fodder for philosophy. Philosophers philosophize about the meanings of certain scientific discoveries and the paradigms of science.

Neither is philosophy a religion, although religion deals with many of the same questions as philosophy. Religions tend to simply state answers to these types of questions, and a real philosopher would never do that. But like science, philosophy and religion are often intertwined, and many philosophers concern themselves with questions about religion, and many religions were built upon philosophical thought.

So philosophy is neither science nor religion. It lacks a method for obtaining answers, but neither does it pretend pull answers from thin air. Philosophers have been struggling with certain questions for millennia, and are no closer to having answers. Quite the opposite, as philosophizing about these questions has brought up innumerable other questions for which we have no answers. Nevertheless, what we gain from philosophy is far greater than mere answers to questions.

Now metaphysicians and analytic philosophers (among others) are quite sure to disagree with what I am saying. And that is just as well, for I have abandoned both. What is gained, really gained, from philosophy is a greater understanding, of how misguided our questions are sometimes, of how great our misconceptions are sometimes, of how awe-inspiring this world is sometimes, etc. And that is nothing short of wisdom, for philosophy truly is, or at least is motivated by, the "love of wisdom".

Speech as Behavior

Speech acts are really just behaviors, like any other. Speech is just something we do, and as such does not have any sort of special significance that philosophers would impart unto it.

A great number of our behaviors are normally meant to be communicative. These include body language, sign language, stomping one's foot, typing, writing, drawing pictures, etc. But all these things can be done without any intention to communicate. Sometimes doing these things helps one's thinking processes, or could serve as a catharsis for something we are feeling (like writing in a diary).

But the vast majority of what we do is not normally meant to be communicative. We bathe, eat, sleep, walk, cough, scratch, build, etc. Usually these have a practical purpose but they can also be somewhat aimless. The thing is, though, even these behaviors can communicate something to others, because they can observe our behaviors. And because of this, these behaviors can be communicative on purpose as well. Sometimes we do these things to send a message to others.

So what's the difference between the former and latter types of behaviors? Nothing really. With either type there can be an intention to communicate, or that intention can be absent (or it can even be subconscious). With both types, other people can generally observe and understand our behaviors (although understanding is sometimes absent as well).

In the end there is nothing special about speech acts. And the patterns speech acts follow (language) aren't special either. It's all just behavior, and behavior communicates.

An interesting aside is that we can lie with all our behavior, not just speech. If I want you to think something about me, I just need to engage in suitable behaviors that will lead you to that conclusion. For example, if I want you to think that I am tired, I can yawn, droop my eyelids, and act listless. I might also say, "I'm tired."

Proper Names as Rigid Designators – The Case of Tom and Tim

This is a small piece of something much larger…

Tom and Tim are two people in the actual world.

First case: there is some possible world where Tom has all the physical and mental properties as Tim, and Tim has all the physical and mental properties of Tom. Everything else in this world is exactly as it is in the actual world, with one exception: in this possible world Tom is referred to as ‘Tim’ and Tim is referred to as ‘Tom’. Now, one may wonder if there is any difference at all between this world and the actual world, and the answer is decidedly “no”; that is, unless one wants to maintain that there are haecceistic differences.

Possible response: Not every property can be switched. Tom and Tim must have the same respective parents that they have in the actual world.

Second case: Same as the first, except in the actual world Tom and Tim are brothers. And so, in the possible world we are imagining, Tom and Tim are brothers as well. Thus they have the same parents in this possible world as they do in the actual world, and all their other properties are switched. Again, one may wonder if there is any difference at all between this world and the actual world, and the answer is decidedly “no”; that is, unless one wants to maintain that there are haecceistic differences.

Possible response: Well, they must at least have the same DNA as they actually do. DNA is important to an individual’s essence.

Third case: Same as the second, except here Tom and Tim are identical twins. Thus, they share the same genetic code. But twins do have distinguishing characteristics, such as unique fingerprints. In this possible world, these distinguishing characteristics are switched. And here again, one may wonder if there is any difference at all between this world and the actual world, and the answer is decidedly “no”; that is, unless one wants to maintain that there are haecceistic differences.

Conclusion: Proper names do not designate rigidly, unless one wants to maintain that there are haecceistic differences.

And why the hell would anyone want to do that?

Something to Work On

Philosophy is, for me, 99% conceptualizing. And as I am no longer in school, I haven't been forced to actually write anything lately (although I am trying to finish up a couple of papers to get a Masters). I started this blog so that I could jot things down here and there, but I find that even doing that much is, more often that not, something that I don't ever get around to doing. I need to work on that. As a poor substitute for writing something new, I will post something old. And I'll do it right now before I get lost in other things...

Opus

There is something right about rationalism, and there is something right about empiricism.

There is something right about realism, and there is something right about relativism.

There is something right about internalism, and there is something right about externalism.

What I am working on is a reconciliation rather than a sysnthesis. An abandoning of false dualities in favor of an understanding of what is going on...

But it's a bit more than that, really. By sorting these things out we can acheive a better vantage point from which to investigate the world, and our own minds.

This would have been, and should have been, the subject of my dissertation. But alas, academia won't have me, or will they? Perhaps OU was just the wrong school, but what would be the right one? Where would I fit in? Who would believe in me?

The Philosophical Method(s)

Philosophy always was about answering questions, although it is quite difficult to say what kind of questions philosophy is in the business of trying to answer. Perhaps some sort of metaphilosophy is required, but whatever, that is not the subject of this post. Philosophy is an attempt to find answers to certain kinds of questions, and always was.

Over time, however, it was discovered that certain questions could be posed in such a way that answers could methodically be found, and thus the sciences were born (i.e. natural philosophy). This breakaway includes the "hard" and "soft" sciences, as well as the mathematical sciences; but this post is not about them. This post is about what remains, those leftover kinds of questions for which there exists no such methodical way of finding or determining the correctness of proposed answers... philosophy proper.

Of course, philosophy does have its methods. And, like natural philosophy, it does have questions, along with proposed answers. But unlike natural philosophy, the bridge from question to answer is neither empirical nor logical. So-called "analytic" philosophy is all too concerned with the attack and defense of theses, and in the process forgets to say much in the way of actually supporting theses, where "support" just means what gets a person to actually believe the thesis. Analytic philosophy, with its hack-and-slash "all the other theses are wrong so mine must be right" approach is sorely lacking in this regard.

A proper philosophical method should gently guide the inquisitor in their thought processes, crossing the bridge from question to answer. Wittgenstein attempted to do this in his latter years, but was quite brutish about it. Rather than gently guiding, he poked and prodded, and hoped the reader would take the correct steps on their own. The best philosophical methods could best be described as "gentle guides to crossing conceptual bridges".

But here I have made an error; one which must be resolved post-haste. I have conflated the finding of answers with getting others to see the veracity of those answers.

In general, scientists formulate hypotheses after careful observation, using a hybrid inductive-intuitive process, for while observation and induction play an important role in scientific hypothesis formulation, it is intuition that bridges the final gap between observation and explanation. And while logic and mathematics seem to offer clear paths to their answers, computational complexity requires brilliant intuition to find a clear path amongst an infinite number of false starts. Philosophers, on the other hand, have nothing but intuition.

Thus, in philosophy proper, we have two methods: pure intuition for finding answers, and gently guiding others to see the veracity of those answers.