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Lewis's "annihilation" by Anscombe? Not so sure...

Lewis's "annihilation" by Anscombe? Not so sure...

Postby The Exodus » April 7th, 2009, 4:54 am

The question is - what DID Lewis think about his debate with Anscombe? Obviously there was disagreement, but I think his overall philosophical point was sharpened (reason rather came from a-rational/nonrational causes, rather than irrational). He didn't abandon this argument, seeing as he even revised and clarified it in the 1960 edition of Miracles, adding 10 pages after the paragraph ending "a proof which there are no such thing as proofs - which is nonsense." He also continued to write philosophical essays and read them.

Does anyone have any insight (not something they've read on google or someone's blog) about what Lewis thought about this encounter? Maybe something by Walter Hooper, or Lewis himself? I've heard all kinds of nonsense that this debate made Lewis "abandon philosophy and reason" as a means of proving God. Which I think is quite silly, considering the reasons mentioned in the above paragraph.

Anyway, this is my first post - so Hello fellow Lewis fans!
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Re: Lewis's "annihilation" by Anscombe? Not so sure...

Postby Bluegoat » April 7th, 2009, 7:57 pm

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Re: Lewis's "annihilation" by Anscombe? Not so sure...

Postby postodave » April 9th, 2009, 10:04 pm

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Re: Lewis's "annihilation" by Anscombe? Not so sure...

Postby larry gilman » May 4th, 2009, 6:12 pm

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Re: Lewis's "annihilation" by Anscombe? Not so sure...

Postby The Exodus » May 6th, 2009, 1:51 am

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Re: Lewis's "annihilation" by Anscombe? Not so sure...

Postby postodave » May 14th, 2009, 10:18 pm

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Re: Lewis's "annihilation" by Anscombe? Not so sure...

Postby larry gilman » May 15th, 2009, 12:55 pm

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Re: Lewis's "annihilation" by Anscombe? Not so sure...

Postby larry gilman » May 15th, 2009, 1:33 pm

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Re: Lewis's "annihilation" by Anscombe? Not so sure...

Postby postodave » May 17th, 2009, 4:52 pm

Hi Larry

I think he's ambivalent over this two substance business. I think he sees the problem clearly that if you have complete determinism then it's hard to see how thought gets in but I think he's more drawn to the higher level question of whether a universe created by a rational God is more suited to having reasoning creatures than one where matter was basic and gave rise to everything else. Even if the universe was created by a rational God in order to house rational creatures it might still look very like a Godless matter based universe if God had so arranged it that mind emerged from matter. On the other hand if there was some other stuff, a substance which gave rise to thought, that could also be self-existent. In both cases I don't think the nitty gritty problems would depend much on whether there was a God.

I seem to be very unimpressed with the argument from reason and I don't particularly want to be. Have you read Reppert's book?

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Re: Lewis's "annihilation" by Anscombe? Not so sure...

Postby The Exodus » May 23rd, 2009, 1:58 am

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Re: Lewis's "annihilation" by Anscombe? Not so sure...

Postby Kolbitar » May 23rd, 2009, 2:19 pm

Hey Dave, and all.

Victor Reppert states in his book The Dangerous Idea (p.57), that some people take Lewis to be implying an inferential theory of knowledge, and Victor goes on to say that it’s not necessary to assume that. Apart from Reppert’s comment, I had wondered the same thing, but concluded, likewise, that I need not assume that.

To begin, Lewis states, in a number of places, that everything but the present moment is inferred; a statement by which I think he involves our senses in a direct perception of the physical world. From that perception, moreover, we conceive ideas; this is important because he also states that knowledge must be caused by the thing known, which he confesses might be considered a (CE) cause, but a special one, having no comparison with physical (CE). The reason the two (CE) causes differ lies in the “aboutness” of the former. In other words, I don’t know my ideas, I know through my ideas – my ideas are about the thing I know, not the thing I know. Naturalism, however, implies that it’s not the thing we know, which involves a “wholly immaterial relation”, but our own mental states – that is, our own mind. Now, if we take inference to mean what Lewis elsewhere calls a chain of reasoning, then he says it involves three things: facts, intuition, and arranging the facts to produce a proof (discursiveness). If the facts, however, are not about things but are mental states, then there is nothing to arrange into “intuitable steps”, thus there is no “reasoning.”

Dave, you write:

“For the materialist or some materialists, with whom I am inclined to agree, I think the cup is there because (CE) the cup itself causes certain sensations.”

But, you see, it is the cup itself which also has to cause the idea of the cup, and this cannot be without the “aboutness” of knowledge – that ideas are about the thing, not the thing we know. Lewis consistently can be seen to imply that the objects of our ideas come through sense perception, are then discursively arranged in intuitable steps, and are in this sense inferred from sensation so that he does not mean we are not directly aware of the cup. Moreover, Lewis confesses you may call this knowing-by-the-thing-known a (CE) cause, but, he says, it’s entirely unique, and is, I believe, how he solves the fact that it must be an event (CE) cause as well as a (GC) cause. In fact, as I tiredly go over some of his arguments I have before me, it seems to me the whole of the argument is not (CE) vs. (GC), but also includes the one, unique type of (CE) involved in (GC) vs. the other type of (CE). Given the unique type of (CE), it is the thing itself which we know about, which is the cause of our ideas; however, given the non-rational (CE), devoid of “aboutness”, it must be our mental state itself, that is, our own mind, of which we are aware. However, “mind” is inferred, that is, it must be known about, and since there is no aboutness therefore there is no mind for my ideas to be “about”.

I think this agrees with what he says elsewhere, “It is as if… when I knocked out my pipe, the ashes arranged themselves into letters which read: ‘We are the ashes of a knocked-out pipe.’ But if the validity of knowledge cannot be explained that way, and if perpetual happy coincidence throughout the whole of recorded time is out of the question, then surely we must seek the real explanation elsewhere.” And, “If so, then all our present thoughts are mere accidents — the accidental by-product of the movement of atoms. And this holds for the thoughts of the materialists and astronomers as well as for anyone else’s. But if their thoughts — i.e. of materialism and astronomy — are merely accidental by-products, why should we believe them to be true? I see no reason for believing that one accident should be able to give me a correct account of all the other accidents. It’s like expecting that the accidental shape taken by the splash when you upset a milkjug should give you a correct account of how the jug was made and why it was upset.”

To put it in more modern terms, if thought is an epiphenomenon of matter, that is, a projection on the screen of our minds caused by matter, then it’s the projection itself of which we’re immediately aware. But once you admit that it’s the projection itself of which we’re aware, then there’s no possible way outside of that claim, for to go outside of it would be to claim aboutness of the object of knowledge -- “aboutness” always includes the object of which the idea is about. Again, to say our mental representations are the sole objects of knowledge is to admit, at the same time, that that which they supposedly represent remains outside of knowledge, a statement which, therefore, has no meaning – for by definition you don’t, and can’t, “know” them.
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Re: Lewis's "annihilation" by Anscombe? Not so sure...

Postby postodave » May 23rd, 2009, 9:36 pm

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Re: Lewis's "annihilation" by Anscombe? Not so sure...

Postby Kolbitar » May 27th, 2009, 11:11 pm

Hey dave.

::He says it is not necessary to assume an inferential view of knowledge to affirm the argument from reason; he does not say Lewis does not hold that view.

In the footnotes on page 57 he does say that “what [Lewis] says seems perfectly compatible with the idea that we perceive physical objects directly, without performing inferences in so doing.”

::If you do not hold that view it makes the problem for the naturalist much less severe than Lewis implied.

I don’t agree that the problem is much less severe. Every noun is a universal idea in our mind; every noun that doesn’t have an immediate perceptual instance in our experience, like Nature, and Universe, is a result of drawing inferences from those that do. In the case of those that do, Lewis says that they can be (CE) caused, though uniquely, and that they can be arranged in a series of intuitable steps leading to logical conclusions (GC), i.e., discursive reasoning -- presumably including both deductive and inductive conclusions (though he seems mostly to deal with the latter).


::But there were things said in the discussion following the Lewis/Anscombe debate that suggest that other people thought Lewis was holding an inferential view of knowledge and Lewis claimed he was not - but the sense in which he is not seems to be the autobiographical one.

I don’t follow that last part. Do you mean that when he recounts the process he admits that he believes there are real physical objects causing sensations, but that he has already cut himself off from saying that by somehow admitting sensations are the object of knowledge, and not the physical thing -- like, say, Descartes?

::Which seems to be going a bit too far with the whole inference thing; do I really infer the past or do I remember it? is memory really a form of inference?

To be, presently, IN the memory is not an inference. But, to think about the memory you were just in as a memory of the past is to be outside that memory, and in an inference.

::But does he mean by that whatever I am aware of in the present moment which could be sensations as easily as entities.

I tend to give a mind like Lewis’ the benefit of the doubt :-)

::::Naturalism, however, implies that it’s not the thing we know, which involves a “wholly immaterial relation”, but our own mental states – that is, our own mind.

::I don't see why naturalism implies this. Hence I don't see why this follows

Given the naturalist assumption, mental states are the result of the function of the brain: “The brain secretes thought like the liver secretes bile.” If naturalism is going to allow for a faculty that can apprehend immaterial truths, then naturalism is going to have to allow for an immaterial faculty. In short, if naturalism is going to admit, with Lewis, that this faculty is dependent upon the brain to think, but does not use the brain to think, then that’s well and good -- but it’s also tantamount to redefining Naturalism in such a way that it’s hardly distinguishable from a supernatural worldview.

::So is Lewis simply making a distinction between sensation and perception and seeing perceptions as inferences. If so I think it makes more sense to say it is the sensations that are infererred from the concrete experience of perception rather than vice versa. I am not sure how the word intuition is being used.

As far as I know, Lewis would say that sensations attend perception. However, sense perception, in itself, does not include the “species”, that is, the concept, which is an essential part of reason. To conceive the idea (species) “sensation” is to know it intellectually a.k.a., rationally; to conceive the idea “perception” is to know it intellectually, a.k.a., rationally; etc.

By “intuitable steps”, I mean intuition in the intellectual sense, that is, as the self evident “seeing” of logical connections.

::And here I lose you again. To re-use the argument Larry uses above a leaf print is 'about' a leaf in the sense that it accurately reflects it and there is no mind involved. Where I can perhaps see a problem is in terms of I-ness. Where is the I that is perceiving and how does it differ from the mental images perceived?

As I see it, the problem with Larry’s leaf print argument is that the metaphorical leaf print would have to be the supposed mental representation of which we’re aware. There is, then, no way to infer that the mental object is a representation of a real leaf, for the idea “real leaf” isn’t about the real leaf, but is itself our own mental entity which is the direct object of awareness. On the other hand, if Larry wants to say that our “leaf print”, i.e., idea about the leaf, is the aboutness of the leaf itself, then he’s tacitly admitting a relation to the leaf that requires a faculty which would convert his naturalism to a supernatural, um, naturalism :-)

::::I think this agrees with what he says elsewhere, “It is as if… when I knocked out my pipe, the ashes arranged themselves into letters which read: ‘We are the ashes of a knocked-out pipe.’

::But the ashes can tell you something; they do image the event that caused them but not linguistically.

If there’s no connection between the objects of our knowledge, which in this case are our own mental entities, and real entities outside those mental entities, then everything you think exists is as likely really to exist outside what you know (which is your own mental entities) as the ashes are to arrange themselves in the manner Lewis described.

::But there is no reason on the basis of evolutionary naturalism for thinking of thought as an accident. I can concede that there is a problem of explaining how such very abstract thought has become possible but on an evolutionary basis thought as such is not accidental. It has to be at least accurate enough to aid survival.

That’s assuming thought can be about the object of thought, in which case we’re talking about a dimension to reality which naturalism has never acknowledged (though it assumes it in order to come to its conclusions).

::I don't see why a naturalist can't claim that there is aboutness. It would seem essential to the evolutionary framework that thoughts can be about things out there. What I cannot see is whether you are advocating a dualism of mind and matter and if so how you see the two relating.

Let’s remember, scientists have no problem accepting the conflicting data of micro and macro physics; the irreconcilable interpretations of the two fields, in one way or another, merely awaken us to our own limitations. Likewise with the facts of mind and matter. Naturalists like to frame the debate as naturalism vs. Descartes’ “ghost in the machine”, but this is nothing but a dogmatic construct arbitrarily imposed upon their opposition. I don’t proceed from the criteria that clear and distinct ideas are so many natures, and that therefore mind and matter are entirely separate substances. Instead, I proceed from the fact that I have sense and intellectual knowledge, am one substance, and therefore any view which discounts these facts (I must add, all the while assuming them) is a truncated view, the problem of which ultimately boils down to the temper and will of the individual holding it.

Peace,

Jesse
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Re: Lewis's "annihilation" by Anscombe? Not so sure...

Postby postodave » May 30th, 2009, 9:50 am

I think I'm going to bow out of this one graciously. There seem to be gaps in your argument but I don't doubt you could fill them. But then I think the whole picture might be too big for me to grasp. I am not sure I would be able to pursue this with the level of attention the subject deserves. And I don't want to descend into a series of squabbles about detail.

But peace indeed

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