1 e4 b6 2 d4 Bb7 3 Nc3 d6 4 Nf3 e6 5 Bc4 Nd7 6 O-O a6 7 Ng5 Qe7 8 f4 h6 9 Nxf7 Qxf7 10 f5 Ngf6 11 fxe6 Qg6 12 exd7+ Kxd7 13 d5 Re8 14 Bd3 Qf7 15 Qf3 Be7 16 Ne2 Rhf8 17 Qh3+ Kd8 18 Nd4 Bc8 19 Nc6 mate.

My older nephew M. later asked me about that, while we were at Dairy Queen getting ice cream.  He wanted to know why it was funny.  And I laughed and then told him that while I got the joke, I wasn’t sure how to explain it.  Eventually, I told him a bit about Jean-Paul Sartre’s title Being and Nothingness, and about how some existentialists seem to concern themselves with nothing and nothingness (a mistake, I explained, since nothing or nothingness is not a thing but is simply the lack of anything and the word “nothing” does not denote an object but is simply a word meaning, “not anything”), but it wasn’t until my sister C.—the converted-to-Islam mother of my nephews—mentioned something about nihilism that I realized that the joke probably had to do with the attitude of despair that, in the popular mind, characterizes existentialism—the attitude that life is pointless and worthless and has no meaning.  And then I explained to him the following extremely important point:  Existentialism says that life has no intrinsic meaning and the universe has no intrinsic purpose, not that an individual person can find no meaning in the living of his life or that an individual person can find no purpose in the world around him.  For those who, like me, spent years searching for Ultimate Truth, such a realization—that there is no Meaning of Life or Cosmic Purpose to be found by introspection or by sitting around saying om over and over or in any other way—is initially discouraging.  But when one further realizes that meaning is always meaning to someone, and that purpose is always purpose to someone, so that one creates his own meaning and chooses his own purposes in living his life, then the existential realization is liberating—it is freeing. 

So, Maxwell Smart’s blank space was appropriate just to the extent that it expressed the realization that there was no intrinsic meaning or purpose to life; but if it was meant to express the popular despair of thinking that there was no meaning or purpose at all in life, then it went too far.  But it was funny.

What I didn’t say, though, was that the mistake some religious people make is in thinking that we should all ascribe what they think are God’s purposes to ourselves.  (Notice that one might easily think that it isn’t really a mistake for people to adopt religious purposes for themselves; we all choose our own meanings and purposes, and if those are the ones they want to adopt, well, why not?  I do wonder if it matters whether our meanings and purposes are chosen on the basis of justified beliefs about reality or not.  I’m inclined to think it does, but that might be my high valuation of truth showing, or perhaps my high valuation of reasons.)  First, why should someone else’s meanings or purposes be ours, even if that someone else is God?  God might find it meaningful to have people worship him, but why should people find it meaningful to worship God?  Meaningfulness to God shouldn’t be mistaken for intrinsic meaningfulness.  The reply would presumably be that one shouldn’t have God’s purpose, but rather the purpose that God thought best for him—he, being vastly knowing, ought to know better than anyone else what purpose would best suit a person, so one should listen to him when he tells him what that purpose is.  But, second—and, I think, rather devastatingly—how can one know what purpose God thinks is best for him?  If a holy book is then cited, how can it be known that the holy book is reliably relaying God’s thoughts on the matter?  I don’t see how it’s possible to know.

But if we assume the existence of a foreknowing God, that changes. Propositions about future events must then be taken as already having truth-values, which God already knows (although we don’t). The fatalistic argument I gave there, then, must go through:

1. p v ~p (Premiss, by the Law of the Excluded Middle)
2. p—>O(E) (Premiss: If it is true that E occurs at time t, then E has an occurrence-value)
3. ~p—>O(E) (Premiss: If it is true that E fails to occur at time t, then E has an occurrence-value)
4. O(E) (1, 2 ,3, Constructive Dilemma)

This applies to any future event E of which a foreknowing God has knowledge, whether it’s the result of human choice or not. And although one may still argue that God’s foreknowledge is like his looking through a time-telescope, so that he is not bringing about event E (or not-E) but is simply observing it or aware of it, one can no longer argue that event E’s occurrence-value isn’t yet fixed.  One can no longer argue that future contingent propositions are neither true nor false.

Oddly, both wins have come out of the opening.  Last week’s game, Johnson-Jin, began 1 e4 c6 2 Nc3 d5 3 Nf3 dxe4 4 Nxe4 Bg4 (4…Bf5, as in the Classical Variation, gives White a big advantage after 5 Ng3 Bg6 6 h4 h6 7 Ne5 Bh7 8 Qh5 g6 9 Bc4 e6 10 Qe2) 5 Bc4 Nf6? (5…e6 was necessary) 6 Ne5!  My opponent then thought for half an hour before the game continued 6…Qd4 7 Bxf7+ Kd8 8 Nxg4 Qxe4+ 9 Ne3 (Black has limited her losses to a pawn and the loss of her castling privilege) Nbd7 10 d3 Qd4 11 Bd2 (I don’t have Fritz; one might want to analyze the variations following 11…Qxb2 12 Rb1 and 13 Rxb7 Nb6, with the threat of …Kc8, trapping the White rook; at the time, I trusted that she wouldn’t take on b2) Ne5 12 Bc3 Qf4 13 Be6 Kc7 14 Qe2 (threatening Nd5+ and Bxe5+, winning the Black queen) Ng6 (now both king bishop and king rook are locked out of play) 15 g3 Qd6 16 Nc4 Qc5 17 O-O-O Nd7 (I expected 17…Nd5, allowing 18 Be5+ Kd8 [18…Nxe5 19 Qxe5+ Kd8 20 Ne3 wins a pawn for White]) 18 f4 Rd8 19 f5 Black resigns.

This week’s game, Park-Johnson, also featured an early win of material:  1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 c5 3 Nf3 g6 4 Nc3 Bg7 5 e4 cxd4 6 Nxd4 Nc6 7 Bf4 d6 8 h3? Nxd4 9 Qxd4 e5, forking bishop and queen.  Play continued 10 Bxe5 dxe5 11 Qxd8+ (I expected 11 Qxe5+) Kxd8 12 Rd1+ Ke7 13 c5 Be6 14 b3 Rhd8 15 Ra1 Rac8 16 b4 Rd4 17 a3 a6 18 f3 Bh6 19 Kf2 Rd2+ 20 Be2 Rc2 21 Na4 Rd8 22 Rad1 Rxd1 23 Rxd1 Bc4 24 Nb6? Rxe2+ 25 Kg1 Be3+ 26 Kh1 Bb5 27 Nc8+ Kf8 28 Na7 Ba4 29 Rb1 Bc2 30 Ra1 Nxe4 31 fxe4 Bxe4 32 Rg1 Bxg1 33 Kxg1 Rxg2+ 34 Kf1 Ra2 White resigns

I can’t help being pleased with my opening play in these two games—in particular, with my noticing the wins of material.  We’ll see how I do at the quads next weekend—not this weekend, as the club doesn’t want to compete with the World Open and therefore delays its July quads to the second Saturday of the month.  I managed to drop seventy-one rating points, from 1838 to 1767, in the course of seven games (including the first of the two wins).  We’ll see how quickly I can get back to 1800—and we’ll also see if I’m ever able to reach 1900!

Chad McIntosh (of Doxazo Theos—see links) thinks that the problem with my second argument is that God’s foreknowledge isn’t necessary. He says that I’d be hard-pressed to find a theist who agreed that it was. But I was just reading Alvin Plantinga’s The Nature of Necessity, and he argues for just that point—he thinks that in order for a possibly existing entity to count as God, it can’t be omniscient in one possible world but not in another, or omnipotent in one possible world but not in another, or morally perfect in one possible world but not in another. He thinks that God must be maximally great—i.e., maximally excellent in all possible worlds—necessarily maximally excellent. If foreknowledge is part of omniscience, then at least one prominent theist thinks it’s necessary.

Still, I agree that if it’s not necessary, then the second argument, in its short form, fails, since N(Kx) is a premiss of the short form; and I assume that Chad would say that the third premiss of the second argument in its long form, N(Kx) v N(K(~x)), was false, so that it, too, would fail. Denying the necessity of God’s foreknowledge is indeed a way of rendering the arguments unsound.

But I suspect that Chad has in mind not that God isn’t necessarily foreknowing, but rather that his foreknowledge is contingent rather than necessary—that whether God foreknows x or foreknows not-x depends on the agent S’s choice, and is not “written in metaphysical stone” independent of S’s choosing. It is not God’s foreknowing that is contingent; it is what God foreknows that is contingent. And that’s how N(Kx) is false: it’s not N(K(something)) that’s false, but rather N(K(specifically x)) that’s false. Chad might then agree to the truth of N(Kx v ~Kx) but not to N(Kx) v N(K(~x)).

(Chad also notes that God needn’t be foreknowing because there are possible worlds in which, for example, God has not created time; but I am restricting myself to consideration of all possible worlds in which there are human beings making choices. The notion of necessity involved will then be one of relative necessity—necessity relative to a restricted class of possible worlds. Since the class of possible worlds in which there are human beings making choices is exactly the class in which freedom matters, necessity relative to this class seems strong enough to be opposed to freedom.)

I agree with Chad when he writes, “Were S to refrain from x and performed [sic] y instead, God’s foreknowledge would have been different.” I have, in fact, written a defense of that very view here.

What I don’t yet agree with is the necessity of deriving Nx (or Nx v N(~x)). Looking at the first argument I gave:

1. N(Kx—>x) (Premiss—to know that x will occur at t requires that x will occur at t)
2. Kx—>x (1, modal axiom M [or T], i.e., Np—>p)
3. Kx (Premiss—it is known that x occurs at t [since God has complete foreknowledge])
4. x (2, 3, modus ponens)

It seems clear to me that in every possible world in which God foreknows that agent S will choose to perform x at t, agent S will in fact choose to perform x at t, and in every possible world in which God foreknows that agent S will choose to perform not-x at t, agent S will in fact choose to perform not-x at t; agent S’s choice of whether or not to perform x at t is fixed once God’s foreknowledge of which he will perform is fixed. The argument works just as well the other way, of course: Once S’s choice is fixed, so is God’s foreknowledge; and since the relevance of the argument is usually with respect to human freedom of choice, we naturally want to say that as a causal or compulsory matter, that is the way it really works—that God’s foreknowledge is like his looking through a time-telescope and seeing what will happen, rather than like his reaching out and forcing events to occur as they do; and I agree with that; but I do observe that as a strictly logical matter, God’s foreknowledge seems clearly to fix S’s choice. In no possible world can we have both Kx and ~x, and in no possible world can we have both K(~x) and x; what we have, for any possible world in which freedom is a live issue, is N([Kx^x] v [K(~x)^(~x)]). The two—God’s foreknowledge and S’s choice—logically fix each other. This isn’t causation or compulsion, but once you have one, you also have the other. If freedom is supposed to mean that at any time before the choice, the choice is not yet fixed, then this seems to defeat human freedom.

But the real problem with the view that it is S’s temporally later choice of x at time t that causes God’s temporally earlier foreknowledge that S will choose x at t comes about if one tries to combine it with the view that God can interact with the universe in any way whatsoever. If one allows God, who foreknows that agent S will choose to do x at t, to tell agent S beforehand of his future choice, there seems to be a problem: Why can’t agent S, having been informed of his future choice, now decide to behave contrarily and to do not-x at t? Obviously, he can’t so choose, for to do so would violate God’s foreknowledge; but how is he free if he can’t so choose? This argument has force even though Nx would normally be thought of as false. If choice x is the choice to put on a green shirt, we would normally think of it as entirely within S’s power to put on a green shirt and also entirely within his power to put on a blue shirt instead. Even if God foreknows that S will put on a green shirt, it may still be that what God foreknows is really that S will freely choose to put on a green shirt. But if God foreknows S’s choice and also tells S about it, why can’t S choose instead to put on a blue shirt, if he is still free? It seems that the sort of interaction that might lead to S’s choosing differently than foreknown is denied to a foreknowing God, if S is thought to remain free; and it seems that S loses his freedom if a foreknowing God does take part in such an interaction.

Perhaps I need to look around for some characterizations of freedom.

The Moorean Shift takes an argument whose form is modus ponens and converts it into one whose form is modus tollens, shifting premiss and conclusion in the process.  Thus, the argument

1.  p—>q
2.  p
Therefore,
3.  q

one of whose premisses is p and whose conclusion is q, becomes the argument

1.  ~q—>~p
2.  ~q
Therefore,
3.  ~p

one of whose premisses is ~q and whose conclusion is ~p.

The idea is that while accepting the premiss p—>q (which is rewritten in its equivalent contrapositive form ~q—>~p), the person making the Moorean Shift finds ~q more likely than he finds p, so instead of arguing from p’s truth to q’s truth, he argues from q’s falsity to p’s falsity. 

I see nothing wrong with this approach.  When evaluating an argument’s soundness, we must evaluate the truth-values of its premisses.  If one finds q more likely to be false than p is to be true, then he will be more inclined to view the second argument as sound than the first one; conversely, if one finds p more likely to be true than q is to be false, then he will be more inclined to view the first argument as sound than the second one.

For example, one might argue

1v.  If tigers are vegetarians, then tigers do not eat meat
2v.  Tigers are vegetarians
Therefore,
3v.  Tigers do not eat meat

But, while accepting premiss (1v), one might think that premiss (2v) is simply not true, and that the argument is therefore unsound; and if he also thinks that the conclusion (3v) is true, he might construct the new argument

1c.  If tigers eat meat, then tigers are not vegetarians
2c.  Tigers eat meat
3c.  Tigers are not vegetarians

Naturally, one finds the second argument sound but the first one unsound.

The difficulty with the Moorean Shift isn’t the Shift itself, which is entirely legitimate, but rather a linguistic problem in Moore’s use of it against philosophical skepticism that has nothing intrinsically to do with the Shift.  The philosophical skeptic thinks that one cannot know that he isn’t dreaming, or hallucinating, or a brain in a vat, or otherwise deluded about what appears to be true.  G.E. Moore argued against philosophical skepticism by holding up his hand and saying, “Here is a hand before me,” and claiming that since he knew his hand was before him, he knew something about empirical reality, and therefore philosophical skepticism was defeated.  He argued, in other words, in the following way (see Wikipedia entry Here Is a Hand):

Let S be an epistemic agent; let p be some skeptical possibility, like S’s dreaming or hallucinating or being a brain in a vat; let q be a knowledge claim about the world, like S’s hand being held before him.  Then the philosophical skeptic argues that

1s.  If S doesn’t know that ~p, then S doesn’t know that q  (If S doesn’t know that he isn’t dreaming, then S doesn’t know putative fact q about the world—in particular, S doesn’t know that his hand is held out before him)
2s.  S doesn’t know that ~p  (S doesn’t know that he isn’t dreaming)
Therefore,
3s.  S doesn’t know that q  (S doesn’t know putative fact q about the world—in particular, S doesn’t know that his hand is held out before him)

and Moore replies

1m.  If S knows that q, then S knows that ~p  (If S knows putative fact q about the world—in particular, that his hand is held out before him—then S knows that he isn’t dreaming)
2m.  S knows that q  (S knows putative fact q about the world—in particular, that his hand is held out before him)
Therefore,
3m.  S knows that ~p  (S knows he isn’t dreaming)

Moore holds out his hand in front of him and says, “Here is a hand.”  Since, he thinks, he knows that there is a hand before him (”S knows that q”), he also knows that philosophical skepticism is false (”S knows that ~p”). 

Put this way, it seems that a simple linguistic or conceptual mistake is being made.  The philosophical skeptic says that if one cannot know that he is not, say, a brain in a vat (or some other skeptical possibility, like being a dreamer or a self-generator of the appearances), then he cannot know any empirical fact; and then claims that one cannot know that he is not, say, a brain in a vat; and therefore one cannot know any empirical fact.  Moore says that one can know an empirical fact, and therefore can know that the skeptical possibility is false; but the philosophical skeptic’s use of the word know and Moore’s use of the word know seem to differ.  The philosophical skeptic’s use of the word seems intended to imply complete and utter certainty, beyond Cartesian doubt.  Moore’s use of the word seems only intended to imply everyday certainty, beyond everyday doubt.  (We don’t, after all, walk around muttering to ourselves, “Is this really my hand before me?”) 

It would be hard to believe that an acknowledged great philosopher like Moore would have missed this, so perhaps we can read his Moorean Shift, as applied to the philosophical skeptic’s argument, differently.  Perhaps all he means is that he finds it more likely that the everyday assertion that there is a hand before him is true than that the pathological assertion that, say, he is a brain in a vat, is true, and that he therefore accepts (1m)-(3m) rather than (1s)-(3s).  Unfortunately, that just seems like another way of saying that his use of the word know doesn’t imply complete and utter certainty, beyond Cartesian doubt, but only implies everyday certainty rather than philosophical certainty.  Lots of philosophical skeptics, I’m sure, would also accept (1m)-(3m), on that same everyday use of the word know—philosophical skeptics don’t go around muttering to themselves, “Gee, I wonder if this is a hand before me,” in everyday life, either.  The philosophical skeptic’s argument is directed at the conceivability of Cartesian doubt—at the conceivability of our being brains in vats, for example—but I imagine that most philosophical skeptics would nevertheless endorse Moore’s argument for the everyday sense of know.  So, it still seems that Moore and the philosophical skeptic are simply not addressing the same point.  Moore seems not to be addressing Cartesian doubt at all. 

But the Moorean Shift remains a perfectly reasonable way of choosing among deductively valid arguments, since what one wants to accept are sound arguments, which involves assigning truth-values, or at least likely truth-values, to a valid argument’s premisses.  And that’s all the Moorean Shift does:  It says, “I find this premiss more likely than that one, and therefore find this argument more likely to be sound than that one.”

Plantinga’s argument takes differing forms.  For technical reasons, he puts it in terms of the exemplification of properties in possible worlds, rather than in terms of the existence of entities in possible worlds, and in its more detailed form, he puts it in terms of properties that entail other properties.  None of that will really affect my objections to the argument.  I’m going to present the simpler of the forms Plantinga presents in The Nature of Necessity.

Let maximal excellence (ME) be the property of being omniscient, omnipotent, and morally perfect—i.e., Godlike.

Let unsurpassable greatness (UG) be the property of necessary maximal excellence—of being maximally excellent in every possible world—of being Godlike in every possible world. 

Notice that in the widely accepted modal logic S5, which Plantinga uses, any statement that is necessarily true in one possible world is necessarily true in each possible world.  This is because if we had Np in world W[1] but ~Np in world W[2], we would have both P(Np) and P(~Np) (because truth in some possible world is what possibility means, in possible-worlds semantics)—but in S5, P(Np) collapses to Np and P(~Np)=P(P~p)=P~p=~Np, so we wind up with Np and ~Np, a contradiction.  In S5, a necessary truth in one possible world is a necessary truth in all other possible worlds, too.

Let a universal property be one which is instantiated in every possible world or in no possible world.  Note that UG is a universal property.  If UG is instantiated in any possible world, then N(ME) is instantiated in that possible world, so that N(ME) is instantiated in every possible world (because what is necessary is necessary in every possible world), so that UG is instantiated in every possible world.  Hence, either UG is instantiated in every possible world or in none of them.

1)  There is a possible world in which unsurpassable greatness is exemplified.     (Premiss)
2)  The proposition a thing has unsurpassable greatness if and only if it has maximal excellence in every possible world is necessarily true.    (Definition of UG)
3)  The proposition whatever has maximal excellence is omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect is necessarily true.      (Definition of ME)
3a)  Unsurpassable greatness is a universal property.  (As noted above)
4)  Possesses unsurpassable greatness is instantiated in every possible world.    (1,3a)
5)  Possesses unsurpassable greatness is instantiated in the actual world.  (4, universal instantiation)

And any being possessing unsurpassable greatness in the actual world is clearly an actually existing God.  Q.E.D. 

What is wrong with the argument?  Well, perhaps nothing is really wrong with it; but it certainly doesn’t give any reason to believe in God.  When one defines UG=N(ME), and then uses the premiss P(UG), he is using the premiss P(N(ME)).  But if he is working in S5, in which P(N(ME))=N(ME), it’s hardly surprising that the assumption of the possibility of the exemplification of universal greatness gets him the existence of God.  Defining UG as N(ME) guarantees, as Plantinga well realizes, that UG is a universal property:  Either UG is exemplified in all possible worlds or in none of them.  P(UG) seems like a tempting premiss, because it’s easy to confuse logical or metaphysical possibility with epistemic possibility.  One might think, “Gee, all I have to assume is that UG’s exemplification is possible?  That’s not much to ask!”  But it is a lot to ask when UG is defined as N(ME).  If one instead assumed the possibility of UG’s non-exemplification, a “proof” of God’s nonexistence would follow:

1)  There is a possible world in which unsurpassable greatness is not exemplified.     (Premiss)
2)  The proposition a thing has unsurpassable greatness if and only if it has maximal excellence in every possible world is necessarily true.    (Definition of UG)
3)  The proposition whatever has maximal excellence is omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect is necessarily true.      (Definition of ME)
3a)  Unsurpassable greatness is a universal property.  (As noted above)
4)  Possesses unsurpassable greatness is instantiated in every possible world.    (1,3a)
5)  Possesses unsurpassable greatness is instantiated in the actual world.  (4, universal instantiation)

1.  P(~UG)      (Premiss)
2.  In some possible world, ~UG.   (Definition of possibility in possible-world semantics)
2a.  UG is a universal property.   (As noted above)
3.  In every possible world, ~UG.     (1,2a)
4.  N(~UG).      (Definition of necessity in possible-world semantics)

Therefore, an unsurpassably great being does not exist in any possible world, so there is no God.  (The conclusion that there is no God requires the ascription of unsurpassable greatness to God.  Without it, one simply has P(~N(ME))=P(P(~ME))=P(~ME), so that in some possible world there is no God, but might be one in the actual world.)

The use of unsurpassable greatness, defined as necessary maximal excellence, is a trick.  One might use it to “prove” the existence of unicorns.  Let maximal unicornness (MU) be the property of being one-horned, white, equine, and so on; let unsurpassable unicornness (UU) be the property of necessary maximal unicornness (UU=N(MU)).  Notice that UU, just like UG, is a universal property.  Then

1)  There is a possible world in which unsurpassable unicornness is exemplified.     (Premiss)
2)  The proposition a thing has unsurpassable unicornness if and only if it has maximal unicornness in every possible world is necessarily true.    (Definition of UU)
3)  The proposition whatever has maximal unicornness is one-horned, white, equine (and so on) is necessarily true.      (Definition of MU)
3a)  Unsurpassable unicornness is a universal property.  (As noted above)
4)  Possesses unsurpassable unicornness is instantiated in every possible world.    (1,3a)
5)  Possesses unsurpassable unicornness is instantiated in the actual world.  (4, universal instantiation)

And, therefore, unicorns exist. 

Well, obviously not.  The point is that one must have some reason, in Plantinga’s “proof,” to prefer P(UG) to P(~UG).  The two are jointly inconsistent, so you can’t have both.  But one cannot give any reason to prefer P(UG) that is independent of the conclusion that God exists.   So, even if the argument is valid—and the making of St. Anselm’s argument into a valid one is the reason for Plantinga’s labeling it “victorious”—we have no reason to think it is sound.  But more than that, we have no reason to accept its crucial premiss:  P(UG).  Plantinga seems to think that it is rational to accept that premiss, and therefore rational to accept the conclusion that God exists.  But since P(UG)<—>N(UG), it is precisely as rational to accept P(UG) as it is to accept N(UG); how rational can it be to accept N(UG) without reason?  I am not claiming that it is more rational to accept P(~UG); only that I can see no rational reason for accepting either P(UG) or P(~UG).

The discussion was about essential and accidental (necessary and contingent) properties.  Kneale’s anti-essentialist argument was, in my reconstruction from memory, that one couldn’t say that the number twelve was essentially composite, because surely it is only a contingent fact that the number of apostles was twelve, so the number of apostles couldn’t be essentially composite; but since the number of apostles and the number twelve are the same number, twelve can’t be essentially composite.

I’ve rendered it in more detail than he did in the quoted passage.  But one can easily see the mistake:  An equivocation on the meaning of “The number of apostles.”  Does “the number of apostles” mean “the actual number of apostles (i.e., twelve),” or does “the number of apostles” mean “the possible number of apostles (i.e., twelve or eleven or thirteen or…)”?  “The number of apostles” and “twelve” denote the same number only if “the number of apostles” is intended as “the actual number of apostles (i.e., twelve)”; if one intends “the number of apostles” as “the possible number of apostles (i.e., twelve or eleven or thirteen or…),” then one can no longer equate twelve with the number of apostles.  One may either say

1. Twelve is a composite number.
2. The (actual) number of apostles is twelve.
3. Therefore, the (actual) number of apostles is composite.

or

1. Twelve is a composite number.
2. The (possible) number of apostles might be twelve but might be some other number, like eleven or thirteen.
3. Therefore, the (possible) number of apostles might be composite but might not be.

In the first case, “the (actual) number of apostles” is a Kripkean “rigid designator,” if I’m remembering his terminology correctly, always equalling twelve and therefore always composite, just like twelve—rendering the argument against essentialism toothless.  In the second case, “the (possible) number of apostles” is a non-rigid designator, not always composite but also not always equalling twelve—again rendering the argument against essentialism toothless.  Only if one could argue that the number twelve had the kind of fluidity of designation that “the (possible) number of apostles” has could one go on to argue that twelve is not necessarily composite—but, of course, that can’t be done.

Quine’s argument, again in my reconstruction of it, was that whether or not a property is thought to be necessary depends on how we describe the property-bearer—that properties of objects are not essentially necessary or non-necessary but are, rather, only necessary or non-necessary relative to our descriptions of those objects.  His example is as follows:  We might normally say that, in some sense, mathematicians are necessarily rational but are not necessarily bipedal, and that cyclists are not necessarily rational but are necessarily bipedal.  (Let’s set aside any question about either the rationality of all mathematicians or the bipedality of all cyclists.)  But suppose a mathematician is also a cyclist.  Then are we to say that he is both necessarily rational and not necessarily bipedal and also not necessarily rational but necessarily bipedal—a contradiction (a pair of them, really)?  Our assessment changes with our change in description:  We say that the mathematician-cyclist is both necessarily rational and necessarily bipedal.

I’m sure I’m not rendering his argument as persuasively as he did, but its main point is the contradiction given.  Two points can be made about this:  First, it may be that saying that mathematicians are not necessarily bipedal, and that cyclists are not necessarily rational, is saying something too strong.  We do not know of all mathematicians that they are not necessarily bipedal; perhaps some of them (like the mathematician-cyclist) are necessarily bipedal, while others aren’t.  (Similarly for cyclists and the non-necessity of their being rational.)  What we can justifiably say is that mathematicians are necessarily rational and possibly bipedal (and similarly that cyclists are possibly rational and necessarily bipedal).  But then the contradiction vanishes:  The mathematician-cyclist is necessarily rational and possibly bipedal, and he is possibly rational and necessarily bipedal, and that doesn’t contradict his being necessarily rational and necessarily bipedal.  Second—and, in my view, the more important point, and the one that qualifies Quine’s argument for inclusion in a post entitled “Silly Philosophical Mistakes”—is that while it is true that we make our descriptions on the basis of what we know, or on the basis of our present interests or purposes, rather than on the basis of what is true, and that for that reason our ascriptions of modal status with respect to different properties will seem to vary according to our present interests and purposes—in contradiction to the essentialist view that necessary properties, at least, are essential to entities—it is nevertheless also true, in opposition to Quine, that while what we know of an object may change (so that we realize, when we learn that a mathematician is a cyclist, that he is not only necessarily rational, as we had thought, but that he is also necessarily bipedal), and that while our choice of description may vary according to our interests or purposes (so that we may know very well that a mathematician is also a cyclist but may or may not choose to ignore it for the moment, resulting in our sometimes describing the mathematician-cyclist as necessarily rational and possibly bipedal and in our sometimes describing the mathematician-cyclist as both necessarily rational and necessarily bipedal), neither our knowledge change nor our choice of description implies that what is true of the object changes or is somehow malleable.  At best, Quine’s is an argument for description-relativism; it isn’t, as he appears to want it to be, an argument for fact-relativism (or for relativism of modal facts to description).  (Even if Quine thinks that we know the facts about objects, that simply means that a description of the object that expresses those facts must be complete in order to capture all of those facts—an incomplete description, chosen for our own reasons, might fail to capture all of those facts.)   

I don’t expect perfection.  Really, I don’t.

But when I realize that I live in the only major industrialized nation that lacks guaranteed health care for everyone; when I realize that I live in a nation that restricts not only how many people one may marry but also whom; when I realize that I live in a nation that elected a man who deliberately ignores the scientific consensus on global warming president not once but twice; when I realize that I live in a country whose system encourages the working of overtime and the buying of completely unneeded goods while at the same time permitting some children to go to school in buildings that are falling apart; when I realize that I live in a nation whose mass media seem to care more about a presidential candidate’s preacher than about his political record; when I realize that I live in a country where the death sentence is still allowed; when I realize that European countries seem to care more about the quality of life than the United States does; well, my assessment of this “best country in the world” is tarnished.

And when I then read an article like the one in the May twenty-sixth Newsweek about the protests and resignations not of defense attorneys but of prosecutors at Guantanamo Bay—well, should I be pleased that some people are speaking up and refusing to use coerced confessions or to allow their integrity to be compromised, or should I despair because their superiors are trying to get them to do so?  It isn’t just President Bush.  It’s a subculture that says that it’s somehow OK to capture, imprison indefinitely, torture, prosecute on the basis of coerced confessions, convict, and quite happily execute people.  These are human beings, and it is not all right to deny them due process; these are human beings, and it is not all right to mistreat them, or to let their mistreatment go on for months and years.  The dearth of actual charges brought and cases tried should tell us that we’re not dealing with obviously guilty terrorists; as Newsweek puts it, “From the start, [Air Force lawyer Lt. Col. Robert] Preston says, there was a gap between Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s public portrayal of the Guantanamo detainees as the ‘worst of the worst’ and the evidence contained in the files.  Most of the detainees appeared to be low-level Qaeda and Taliban suspects whose prosecution for anything substantial would prove difficult.”  Even if we were, they would still be human beings, and human beings should be treated fairly and decently, whether we like them or not.  Even if they were obviously guilty terrorists, they’re in custody, and once in custody cannot harm us; what is the excuse for our harming them?  We reduce ourselves in so doing to the level of barbarians, who have no sense of compassion for their enemies and who have no sense of decency toward their fellow human beings and who certainly have no sense of due process. 

The entire military-commission system was badly flawed from the start.  It was an excuse to ignore the legal and human rights of detainees, which is simply wrong.  And it’s a horrible idea to show other countries how fair and just the United States is by denying detainees the very rights we publicly tout.  How can we possibly expect other countries to institute the sorts of procedural protections we say we want them to if we don’t respect the human rights of detainees?  It makes our words ring very hollow indeed.  It should have been obvious to everyone right from the start that this was a bad idea.  So, why wasn’t there more of an uproar about it?  How could these commissions not have been strongly opposed right from the start?

And why was the president who instituted them re-elected?  Did half of the American populace just not care—or, worse, agree that these commissions were a good idea?  I have to hope that Americans’ apparent apathy toward the abuse of human rights that the prison at Guantanamo represents is more the result of ignorance or of having a limited amount of energy to spend on social protest than of a lack of moral outrage. 

My only consolation is that the prosecutors written about in the Newsweek story have spoken up and have resigned—which, unfortunately, leaves the people who don’t care as much about human rights to run the show.  I would think that “the best country in the world” wouldn’t commit such abuse of human rights.  I am saddened.