Nobody here but us chickens…
So, yes, it’s been intolerably quiet here at Arbitrary Marks. Or “on” Arbitrary Marks, depending upon how you understand the semantics of blogs. Since I am working on reading and haven’t been (yet) formulating my thoughts into coherent arguments, below are a couple of topics that I’m considering. They’re set out in very sketchy terms, but in a few months, there should be a more substantial argument to them:
Through reading Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations, I’ve become interested in the discussion of giving reasons and providing causes when justifying and/or explaining action (two different things, of course). Donald Davidson’s causal theory of action, in which reasons are causes under a different description, was a response to the neo-Wittgensteinian view, as I understand. In the Wittgensteinian approach, we interpret behavior against a socio-linguistic background. We’re not giving causes under another description when we provide reasons, and talking about mental states as causal isn’t part of Wittgenstein’s shtick. In fact, he studiously avoids this talk. (There’s a question of disentangling the epistemic claims from the ontological ones in this debate–and in the PI, this is tough, since even finding a *claim* is tricky business.)
While I find myself attracted to Davidson’s view, I am also reading this discussion against the background of Nagarjuna, who might have said, had he been asked, that the ontological monism of Davidson is misguided (even while perhaps endorsing the view that psychological descriptions can’t be reducible to physical-causal ones). If causal powers are problematic for Nagarjuna because of looming regress, what does that entail for our rational conversation about actions and giving reasons? That is, for any cause I cite as an explanation, I must then provide another cause B to explain cause A. To stop the regress requires an uncaused-cause, or a self-caused cause, or a cause caused by both self and another cause–the general form of Nagarjuna’s objections to causation as reified phenomena.
Another question I’m finding interesting has to do with philosophy of language. There are, of course, ontological questions crowding their way in there, too, but basically the upshot is: what relationship holds between “natural kind” terms and the world? Is there a way to recognize the deep implications of human social concerns in how we “carve” the world without lapsing into an incoherent nominalism? Again, Nagarjuna seems promising, but with his being appropriated by Graham Priest (who many would charge with incoherence at crucial points), I’m wary.
Right now, I’m working through a few sources on Nagarjuna, along with some Tyler Burge, Hilary Putnam, Donald Davidson–along with reading Wittgenstein, some classics of philosophy of language (Russell, Frege, Grice)–and dipping into some discussion of comparative projects.
The questions I have continue to circle around connected areas, certainly the LEMMings aspect of analytic philosophy, and in particular problems about causation and language, content of thought and rationality in general. Once I have something more interesting to say about these topics, I hope to post. And I’m debating turning my del.icio.us auto-blogger back on, since my effort at a “lighter” blogging schedule is obviously not going to work!
October 1st, 2008 at 1:29 pm
Reasons and actions is, believe it or not, what I do.
I don’t find Davidson’s story compelling, though. There’s a number of other approaches in the literature which don’t have some of the oddities of his approach. For example, he assumes that when two or more reasons are present which could explain an action, we pick out the -actual- reason by looking for the action’s cause. But this assumes that actions can’t be done for multiple reasons; and, as Robert Gordon has pointed out, it assumes that the causal story is the best way to pick out -the- reason (Gordon gives a counterfactual story which he finds superior).
FWIW, according to my supervisor — who knew Davidson — “Actions, Reasons and Causes” was written in reply to a series of “little red books” that defended a teleological view of reasons for action. I’m not sure if this teleological view was supposed to be pulled out of Wittgenstein or not. Anscombe, AFAIK, didn’t directly trace the teleology in Wittgenstein (I’m no expert on Anscombe, though, so I could easily be wrong).
October 1st, 2008 at 10:56 pm
ADHR, thanks! I’ve been reading some articles on Wittgenstein which reference Davidson as one of the major responses to his view. And Davidson does cite Wittgenstein in “Actions Reason and Causes” at least once (but not more than twice, I don’t think).
However, maybe you’re right that Davidson isn’t really thinking of Wittgenstein–if that’s the case, then I need to find a better interlocutor for this paper (since it’s in a Wittgenstein class).
I think, though, that the philosophy of action is an area of interesting overlap with Nagarjuna. In the MMK, he uses “emptiness” of movement as one of the motivating cases for why everything is empty (including and especially causation). Maybe Gordon is someone to look at then, for that perspective–that causal is not necessarily always the story we’re telling.
October 2nd, 2008 at 6:31 pm
That’s always the problem with dealing with “responses to Wittgenstein”, though — are they responses to Wittgenstein, or are they responses to followers of Wittgenstein (or, worse, are they about “Kripkenstein”)? I think Davidson could be read as a reply to Wittgenstein, as long as some understanding of reasons for action can be wrung out of the Investigations. But it would take some work.
There’s a big literature on reasons; not as much on explanations (it tends to get tacked on to a story about reasons), but there’s some. Scott Sehon is a very recent figure who advocates a teleological view; you may want to check him out as well. Rüdiger Bittner is another recent voice; he defends what he calls a “historical” view (his Doing Things for Reasons), although how this is not causal is never really made clear. And then there’s Dennett and his intentional stance approach, which he’s been pushing for years. These are all supposed to be non-Davidsonian views on the issue.
In what sense does Nagarjuna hold that movement is empty? (Or is that a really complicated question?)
October 3rd, 2008 at 2:35 pm
ADHR, yeah, in some of the literature I’ve read, they refer to “neo-Wittgensteinians” which doesn’t help if I want to do exegesis of ol’ Witty himself. We’ll see what approach works out best.
So, Nagarjuna…he’s got sections in the MUlamadhyamakakArikA on motion, the agent/action, cause, etc. Basically, he’s targeting the idea that there is some property “moving” which can be attached to things, and which has an existence outside of moving things.
He has a general way to approach reificationists, which is to look at ways in which some property can be said to exist essentially:
If motion is an essential thing, it is either:
1. Identical with the thing moved
2. Different from the thing moved
If motion is identical with the thing moved, then agents are identified with their action and we have new agents every time a new action occurs.
If motion is different from the thing moved, then you could have a “moved thing” without there being motion, or motion without a moved thing.
Another attempt is to say that motion is both identical and different, but that brings up the same problems.
His positive conclusion (assuming he has one, which is contentious) would be something like movement isn’t a property of things, but we call things “moving” based upon conventional notions of positions changing at different times. There aren’t great metaphysical foundations to this, though.
At least, that’s how I understand it…it is difficult, since the idea of “emptiness” can be read as very nihilistic and glossed as “non-existing.”
October 4th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
Interesting… sounds a bit like Russell’s at-at theory of motion. Although I’m not sure about the extension of the point to agency. Something like Davidson’s anomalous monism seems an overlooked possibility, i.e., that the concepts which apply to moving things are one thing, and the concepts which apply to intentionally acting agents are another. (FWIW, I’ve always thought there’s more than a hint of Ryle’s conceptual dualism in that claim from Davidson.) This would require denying that motion is in any way essential, though; motion and related concepts becomes just another classificatory scheme among others.
October 4th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
My MA thesis was on Whitehead and Dharmakirti (a later Buddhist philosopher) on time - there are definite points of similarity between East/West traditions. Interesting things in philosophy of language with regard to names and reference, philosophy of mind with duration of consciousness, pain/mental states, etc.
And yeah, that is precisely why I thought Davidson and Nagarjuna might have some consonance. However, it seems like Davidson does privilege the causal ontologically, which Nagarjuna doesn’t, at least as I read him.
October 24th, 2008 at 2:46 am
But what is a chicken?
Where does it begin and end?
Each chicken is a temporary modification of indestructible primal energy, and is totally emdedded in a universal pattern of relationships, every feature of which arises spontaneously and simultaneously.
There is not a jot of separation to be found any “where”.
As Gertrude Stein discovered there is only here and hence no “there”.
October 24th, 2008 at 4:28 pm
Um, Sue, you’re joking, right? “temporary modification of indestructible primal energy”?