[gerard.casey]

Dear Patricia,

Slavery has to be one of the oldest and most widely accepted social and political institutions. The issue of self-ownership and its relation to the possibility of self-enslavement is a complex one. Historically, people have in fact sold themselves into slavery whether or not that was something that was either ethically desirable or even ethically possible.

I’ve read the Medaille’s passages but, frankly, I don’t understand just what point he is trying to make.

Could you perhaps frame your dilemma in your own words so that we can see as clearly as possibly just where your perplexity lies?

Best wishes,

Gerard Casey

[gerard.casey]

Dear George W:

Thank you for that question. Clearly, SAP and SIP are not equivalent propositions. For one thing, one is universal and the other particular, and while the truth of SAP implies the truth of SIP, the truth of SIP doesn’t imply the truth of SAP.

When I say that eduction generates equivalent propositions, I’m talking about the three kinds I deal with, namely, (simple) conversion, contraposition and obversion. I confine my account to these three because other forms of eduction (e.g. conversion by limitation – from SAP to SIP to PIS) can be arrived at by means of a combination of the three kinds of eduction I mention and the inferences deducible from the square of opposition.

My account is a somewhat simplified treatment of the subject (but not falsified!) and it is so for pedagogical purposes. Just as one can get most of the information one needs for the operation of an electronic device from about 5-10% of a manual, so too, most of what one needs from the logic we’re dealing with here can be had from a slightly trimmed account. It may take a little longer to get where we need to go but the demands on memorisation and use are significantly less.

There isn’t, then, any conflict between my account and that of Joyce.

I hope this clarifies matters? If you have any remaining doubts, please do get in touch with me.

Best wishes,

Gerard

[gerard.casey]

Efrem,

C.S. Lewis used to refer to this kind of position as ‘chronological snobbery, a term that osgood410 mentions as well.! At its worst, in the context of moral or political debate, it amounts pretty much to the claim that moral and political claims are, as it were, a matter of fashion. ‘That’s so last year, darling!’ Of course, the only important issue in evaluating an idea is its truth, not its originator, not the date of its origination. This fallacy belongs in the category of irrelevance.

[gerard.casey]

Hello John D.

I’ve just tuned in to your original question. I see it has generated quite a response but without any disrespect intended to your other interlocutors, let me begin by trying to answer your original question.

You ask what my opinion is regarding the ontology of abstract objects – do they really exist? are they fictions? etc.

As I’m sure you are aware, there are 3 basic positions on this question: 1. what are called abstract objects (numbers, properties) are as real if not more real than the objects of our sensory experience [metaphysical realism]; 2. abstract objects do not exist except as a function of our language – to think otherwise is to make the mistake of thinking that our language and reality are correlated in a kind of one-to-one relationship [metaphysical nominalism/(sometimes conceptualism]; and 3. abstract objects do exist in a sense (answering to certain aspects of reality) but not in the same way as your cat exists [modified metaphysical realism].

If I had to choose a position on this issue, it would be modified metaphysical realism. As the responses to your original post demonstrate, this seemingly abstruse issue has theological ramifications. If you or any of the other contributors to this thread would like to repeat questions of interest, I will do my best to respond. To make sure I respond reasonably quickly, it helps to send me an email alert to gerard.casey@ucd..ie

All the best,

Gerard Casey

[gerard.casey]

Dear Jeff,

The notion of ‘supposition’ (or rather its modern equivalents denotation, connotation, reference, meaning) is now treated in most Philosophy Departments under the rubric of Philosophy of Language and in that dispensation, is no less controversial than it was for the medievals. The subject is enormously complex and controversial and no two thinkers treat it in exactly the same way. The account in McCall is (necessarily) simplified and streamlined. (Apart from material, real and logical supposition, other thinkers discuss absolute and personal supposition!)

All that being said, the distinction between material supposition and all other kinds is pretty obvious. The problems arise in trying to distinguish between real supposition and logical supposition. One test is to ask yourself whether the predicate in a proposition can apply to the particulars that lie under a subject. If it can, then the supposition of the subject term is likely to be real rather than logical.

Your question pertains to a proposition such as ‘Justice is a virtue’ and here, the test doesn’t yield an obvious solution. It seems odd to think of their being particular justices but, if there were any such, they would each be virtues. That being so, the supposition here is real rather than logical.

Maritain’s book doesn’t cover informal logic.

Most handbooks on logic contain little more than you find in McCall. If you really want to investigate this topic, you need to go to specialist texts or back to the originals. In terms of drawing a contrast between logic as it was traditionally conceived and modern logic, Maritain’s book is good but the book that specifically deals with the topic is Henry Veatch’s Two Logics.

Let me give you a specific example of how the two logics differ.

In classical logic, the relationships on the square of opposition all hold completely independently of whether or not the terms in the propositions actually refer to anything in reality or not. The logical relationships are, as it were, meaning relationships, and questions of existence are not relevant..

In modern logic, only contradiction on the square of opposition holds. The reason for this is that for this logic, universal propositions are taken hypothetically and, as such, are deemed to be true even if the antecedent clause of the conditional is false! So, ‘All unicorns are wonderful’ would, for modern logic, be a true proposition. Bu the subordinate proposition, ‘Some unicorns are wonderful’ wold not be true unless there were in fact unicorns. So, for modern logic, the universal could be true but the subordinate proposition false.

For classical logic, however, the question of existence doesn’t arise here.

This has been a long response to a short question and may give you more headaches than it cures. The topics you are raising are important and controversial but with respect to gaining a facility in the formal side of logic, they are not completely relevant.

Best wishes,

Gerard

[gerard.casey]

You wrote: “It sounds like singular concepts are concepts that extend to one specific thing (I want to avoid using the word “individual” here), while individual concepts are universals, extending to an infinite number of singulars, that are taken individually – or maybe it’s better to say “taken one at a time?””

Singular terms {I’m not sure I’d want to use the expression ‘singular concept’ as concepts by their very nature are usually taken to be applicable to more than one entity. Here, however, Leibniz and some other philosophers might want to start an argument) are terms that refer to a unique entity. Individual concepts, McCall’s examples suggest, are restricted universals which, as I suggested in my last post, appear to function logically as if they were singular terms.

You wrote: “McCall said earlier in the chapter that as comprehension increases extension decreases. Does an individual concept side step this inverse relationship? I can see how saying “this man” might call to mind the image of a specific man and his unique traits, whereas saying the term “my father” limits the universal concept “father” to just one of its many singulars without at all changing the image of the universal concept. It seems a bit “gentler” or “less restricting” I suppose. Is this correct?”

What you are suggesting seems reasonable to me though I would have to think about it quite a bit more before I’d commit to a definitive answer. I repeat what I said in my last post – ‘Fortunately, for our purposes in formal logic, we don’t have to have an airtight grasp on it – much of this material really belongs to what would now be called the philosophy of logic/epistemology.’

You wrote: “I have just one other question about the chapter on Terms and wanted to see if I could first grasp the singular concept vs. individual concept distinction.”

Regardless of whether you are completely clear on the matter in hand, please go ahead and ask your next question.

Best wishes,

GC

[gerard.casey]

Dear Daniel,

You wrote:

“Consider the following arguments:

1. If you didn’t pass the test, then you didn’t pass the course.
2. You did pass the test.
3. You did pass the course.

How should I reconstruct/evaluate this argument? The pattern of argument is called “Denying the antecedent” and looks like this:

1. If P then Q.
2. ¬P.
3. ¬Q.

How do I interpret the negations of “pass the test” and “pass the course”? Can I also interpret it like this:

1. If ¬P then ¬Q.
2. P.
3. Q.”

Yes. It’s the same pattern. P is equivalent to ¬¬P (which is the negation of the antecedent), and Q is equivalent to ¬¬Q which is the negation of the consequent.

You also wrote:

“I have another question concerning validity in this example:

1. All logicians are dull.
2. Irving is not a logician.
3. Irving is dull.

Pattern:

1. All As are Bs
2. x is not an A
3. x is B

Now, does this follow from the premises?”

No. Any valid syllogism with a negative premise must have a negative conclusion so x is B cannot be a valid conclusion from those premises.

I’m not sure what you mean by saying “Shouldn’t it be the invalid pattern:

1. All As are Bs.
2. x is not an A.
3. x is not a B”

There can be more than one invalid conclusion from any given set of premises. However, if what you are suggesting is the “x is not a B” is the more plausible invalid conclusion, then I would agree with you. At least it is negative and so would at least pass rule 4.

Thank you as usual for your questions.

Best wishes,

GC

[gerard.casey]

There are three ways to think about the relationship between the legal and moral realms. First, either they perfectly coincide so that everything legal is moral (and everything illegal is immoral), or second,they don’t overlap at all or, third,they partially overlap so that some actions, such as murder would be both illegal and immoral while other actions, such as adultery might be immoral without being illegal and yet other actions, like insider trading, might be illegal without being immoral.The history of man shows some interesting differences between societies and within societies over time in what is and what isn’t adjudged to be a matter of both legal and moral concern.

I would think that most people would consider the rejection of murder to be something that falls within the scope of both legality and morality. The NAP, then, would be a moral principle which ought to (and frequently does) form the core of the law of most functioning societies. What is unique to libertarianism (at least, libertarianism of the Rothbardian variety) is that it holds that only actions prohibited by the NAP ought to be prohibited by all and every society. Everything else is a matter of regulation to which one is free to subscribe or not as one sees fit. The rules and regulations of a chess club only apply to its members and you’re free to join or leave as you choose.

[gerard.casey]

Thank you to PatriciaColling and Organization Man for the questions on usury. If you skip ahead to the lectures on Medieval Economics you’ll find a brief discussion of usury. Throughout history, usury has been taken to be the demanding of any interest (however little) on a loan.

In the course, I don’t deal specifically with the question of whether there is some close or intrinsic link between fractional reserve banking (FRB) and usury. Let’s take the broader question: is there some intrinsic connection between banking and usury?

Consider the following: you borrow a pound of sugar from me. I lend it to you on condition that you give me back one and a half pounds. So it would appear you can have usury (as traditionally defined) without banking.

Can you have banking without usury? Yes. If one had a pure deposit bank which provided services for which one paid (protection of money, disbursement to appointed persons, etc.) there appears to be no hint of usury here. [see Huerta de Soto, Money, Bank Credit and Economic Cycles]

Can you have FRB without usury? As the concept is traditionally employed, the answer would appear to be ‘probably not’ but the concept as traditionally employed is problematic, as its history shows. There are problems with FRB but usury may not be the only or the most significant one.

What I’ve just written is speculative and I am open to further elucidation or correction.

[gerard.casey]

All that material in McCall on ‘Simple Apprehension and the Term’ is, I agree, head-wrecking! Fortunately, for our purposes in formal logic, we don’t have to have an airtight grasp on it – much of this material really belongs to what would now be called the philosophy of logic/epistemology.

Let me see if I can explain simply what McCall is up to.

Let’s take the distinction between ‘singular’ and ‘particular’ first.

A term is singular when it picks out a unique identifiable (in principle) definite entity; for example, the Library of Congress, the Statue of Liberty, etc. Note, a term can be singular even if the unique entity which it picks out is a composite of various parts. Propositions whose subjects are singular terms are singular propositions.

A term is particular when it picks out some individual indefinite entity or other and when such a term is the subject of a proposition, the proposition is particular. for example, ‘Some students have done well in the logic examination’ would be true if there is at least one student who has done well in the examination, even where we don’t know who that student is or even where there is more than one such student.

Now terms (and the concepts they express-what McCall calls ‘proper concepts’) are in themselves neither particular nor singular. The term ‘man’ and the concept it expresses is perfectly general. We can limit or restrict a term by connecting it with other terms so that, for example, ‘some men’, or ‘most men’ or ‘quite a few men’ and the like.

Now, given the examples he uses, what McCall appears to mean by ‘individual concept’ is a concept limited by some indexical expression {‘I’, ‘mine’), for example, ‘my car’ or ‘my father’. Such composite terms (and concepts) will pick out one unique individual and so, for the purposes of formal logic, are equivalent to singular terms though not quite in the same way as the examples I gave above.

I’ve had a quick look through the rest of McCall’s book and he seems to make no further use of the term ‘individual concept’.

So, what should you take from all this?

What we want to know about terms as they are used in propositions is the following: Is the term used to pick out a unique definite individual entity (whether that entity is actually simple ‘or composite)? if so, the term is singular and the proposition of which it is the subject is also singular.Is the term used to refer to all of the things that it can refer to?If so, the term is universal and the proposition of which it is the subject is also universal. If the term is neither singular nor universal, then it can only be particular and the proposition of which it is the subject is also particular.

I hope this helps?

If you have any further questions on this or any other logical matters, please do post it here and send me a quick email at gerard.casey@ucd.ie so that I can respond as expeditiously as possible.

[gerard.casey]

Dear Brendan,

You wrote “I find the philosophy of Aristotle to be particularly fascinating. However there are certain aspects that I seem to stumble over. Firstly the concept that man is a political being or animal. He says that the polis is prior to the individual. I understand by this not a desire to subjugate the individual or make the individual unimportant but rather merely to state that man is a social creature who associates by nature in societies, families, villages and other agreements. Man naturally moves towards some kind of society rather than living as an isolated hermit or individual. Would you say that that was a fair understanding of political Animal?”

GC. You have it pretty much correct. To say that man is a creature of the polis is to say that only there, in association with other human beings, can he be fulfilled.

You wrote: “The rule of this should not be done by a democracy but by a kind of aristocracy, but, if I understand correctly, we are not talking about an aristocracy by birth but really a class of people who are educated and able to reason effectively. ‘The aristocracy’ therefore refers to people who are effectively living the good life as Aristotle sees it. These are the ones who are to rule over the polis. Yet Aristotle speaks of people ruling in turns. I Don’t really follow this. How does he suggest that we rule in turns without going back either to a despotism and nepotistic ruling class, or falling back into democracy once again… Mob rule.”

GC. Aristotle believes that free men (Athenian citizens) should rule themselves. However, certain administrative tasks have to be undertaken so responsibility for these is taken by means of a kind of rota. Of course, some will want to perform these tasks, others will not; some will be qualified by expertise and ability to perform them, others will not. What Aristotle has in mind is a delicate balancing act, always in danger of falling off the wire to one side or another, into either despotism or mob rule.

You wrote: “By ‘slaves’ Aristotle does not refer to people that just happened to be working under the title ‘slave’ as many of them in Athens at the time could have been captured soldiers who are perfectly able to govern their own lives. A slave for Aristotle is a certain kind of person who is not capable of ruling themselves. How would this person be identified? Does anybody really walk around telling everybody that they are a slave? This sounds more than reminiscent of Friedrick Nietzsche and his concept of the slave and the master. The human being far from being honest with himself or about himself will never claim to be a person incapable of ruling. Somebody else must therefore lay that category upon the rest of the populous. Is this not a despot? is this not a dictator… A tyrant.”

GC. As I indicate in the lectures, Aristotle seems to have painted himself into a corner on the issue of slavery. It seems just too good to be true to suppose all those who are actual slaves in Athens are slaves by nature. The idea that society could function without slaves was practically inconceivable to our ancestors, just as to most people today the idea that we could survive without a tax-extracting state is similarly inconceivable.

You wrote: “Another problem I seem to have with Aristotle is the idea of the common good versus the individual using his own rationality in order to discover the good life. If the Purpose of the policy is to ensure the good life or the common good then how restrictive would it be upon the individual trying to discover for himself the good life? Am I to understand then that there is one good life that we are all to discover rather than a good life for each individual? An objective rather than a subjective good life? If this be the case would that not be a justification for the imposition of one particular kind of life… A tyranny that forces people to live the one, sacred, good life? I in fact, get the feeling that Aristotle is not saying this and that I am barking up the wrong tree I wonder if you could straighten me out here.”

GC. Some commentators on Aristotle take him to be saying that there is just one ideal type of life. This is, in a sense, correct, but it is not a matter of material detail but a matter of living one’s life according to reason which can, in the instance, practically differ from person to person.

You wrote: “Perhaps indeed he could be even hinting towards a libertarian idea of a polis leaving men free to rationally choose and providing a structure of law and order and respect of property and contract. If this is the case he doesn’t specifically say it does he?”

GC. No, he doesn’t come right out and say it but while his views would in certain respects be unacceptable to libertarians, in other respects they could find them quite congenial. In modern (and anachronistic) terms, his position would be reasonably close to a kind of minarchism, with elements of social conformism added to it.

Your questions are all very good and they, or variants of them, have occupied the attention of scholars for thousands of years.

Thank you for your Christmas good wishes. I hope you had a good break and that you come back to your studies (which you don’t seem to have left!) with renewed energy.

Best wishes,

Gerard Casey

[gerard.casey]

Hello Arasheed,

Thanks for notifying me about your posts. I’ve added my email address to the relevant post.

You ask if ‘Natural Argumentation’ is the same as ‘Informal Logic”.

There’s no consensus on this matter but, as I use the terms, natural argumentation refers to all the modes of reasoning we employ before undergoing logical training. Informal Logic, on the other hand, is a term I use to signify that part of our natural reasoning which is not amenable to formal analysis.

Re your second question, whether the notion of inference applies only to formal logic and not informal logic:

The term ‘inference’ comes from the Latin very meaning to carry or bear, and the basic sense of the term is that if one starts with certain premises which are true, the truth is ‘carried over’ to the conclusion. Inference, properly speaking, pertains to formal logic but it can be used in a weighted sense (i.e. more or less, to a greater or lesser degree, etc) in informal logic.

Best wishes,

Gerard Casey

[gerard.casey]

My email address is: gerard.casey@ucd.ie

BTW, the ‘notify me’ button seems to have disappeared!

Gerard Casey

[gerard.casey]

Hello Brendan,

Thanks for the post and for your kind remark about the course. I hope you find the remainder of the lectures informative.

We don’t have much material on Callicles so what can be said about him is to a large extent speculative. (You might find it helpful to take a look at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/callicles-thrasymachus/)

All the Sophists in one form or another made a distinction between the natural and the conventional. Many of them regarded law as falling on the conventional side of the distinction and Callicles would seem to be of this opinion too. It seems to have been the case that Callicles regarded law as a device by which the weak imposed on the strong, a view sometimes attributed to Nietzsche also.

Your comment on the inculcation of morality via training is, I believe, largely correct. Callicles would seem to have regarded social norms as simply another form of training by which the strong are hamstrung.

Best wishes,

Gerard Casey

[gerard.casey]

Dear David,

I must apologise for the long delay in responding to your questions. What I have written below is far from a complete or adequate set of answers to what you ask but, rather than delay even further, I give you what follows as a brief response. I don’t address every specific question you ask but rather I try to outline a position which might explain why what is stated in the various sources you cite may be somewhat less than compelling in an obvious way.

The first point I would make is that there is a difference between the products of theoretical reason and those of practical reason. Some years ago, I wrote the following account of St Thomas’s though on this matter:

“There is a very important difference between theoretical and practical reason. The basic principles of theoretical reason and the basic principles of the practical reason are both the same for all and are known by all. The proper conclusions of theoretical reason are the same for all though they are not necessarily known to all. By contrast, the proper conclusions of the practical reason are not only not necessarily known by all, but they are not necessarily the same for all, either. The example given to illustrate this point in the discussion of law in the Summa Theologiae is the same example about the maniacal or antisocial depositor which was given to illustrate the changeability of human nature.”

Russell Hittinger writes: “The strongest suit of traditional natural-law theory is not necessarily its capacity to generate a list of precepts, which are then used to generate tables of positive laws. Such lists and tables can be, and indeed have been, done on the basis of something other than explicit natural-law theory. The long tradition of scholastic natural law has recognized that particular rules are ordinarily derived in a rather remote way from basic natural-law precepts, and that moral deliberation is usually governed by a complex network of traditions: civil, ecclesiastical, cultural. It is a mistake to expect natural law theory to constitute an over-arching tables of laws which can be straightforwardly applied to issues ranging from the use of condoms to the allocation of public monies.” Russell Hittinger, “After MacIntyre.” For a more complete discussion see, by the same author, A Critique of the New Natural Law Theory, (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1987.) [Emphasis added by me]

Hittinger’s point is, I think, vital.

The second point is this:
I want to give you an example of such variability in the products of practical reason. Take the Church’s teaching on slavery. In 340 AD, the Synod of Gangra decreed that ‘If anyone, on the pretext of religion, teaches another man’s slave to despise his master, and to withdraw from his service, and not to serve his master with good will and all respect, let him be anathema.’ This decree was incorporated into the Church’s collection of canons and was used for the next 1400 years! [see Canon 3. C. J. C. Decreti Gratiani, II, C.XVII, Q. IV, c. 37] In 1918 the selling of slaves was condemned and finally, in 1965, in Vatican II,, all violations of human integrity were condemned, including slavery. It took almost 2,000 years to get clear on this matter, part of the reason being that we are dealing with complex issues of labour, employment, political control, justice in war, and so on. It may now seem obvious to us that slavery is a gross violation of human dignity and freedom and so fundamentally unchristian but it wasn’t so obvious to many before our time. I doubt if anyone would deny that (a) we have here a change, and (b) a change for the better. This is, I believe, a remarkable illustration of the point made by both myself (quoting Aquinas) and Hittinger.

Now, let me address myself to the specific paragraphs from the CCC that you cite.

1882. Certain societies, such as the family and the state, correspond more directly to the nature of man; they are necessary to him.
The notion of what a state is is essentially contested. If this paragraph is understood to endorse the contemporary state as we have come to know and love(!) it then mankind has been deprived of this allegedly necessary institution for almost the whole of the time he has existed on this earth. If it means that some form of organisation is required for the provision of certain goods (security, justice, etc.) and this is necessary for human existence, no libertarian could disagree. What libertarians do disagree with others on is the nature of such organisations, their funding and their authority.

1898 Every human community needs an authority to govern it. The foundation of such authority lies in human nature. It is necessary for the unity of the state. Its role is to ensure as far as possible the common good of the society.
As for the previous comment.

2240 Submission to authority and co-responsibility for the common good make it morally obligatory to pay taxes, to exercise the right to vote, and to defend one’s country: […]
Libertarians believe in paying for what they contract for. If we contract for security and justice services, then we are obliged to pay for them according to our contract. If not, not.
Voting is such an historically contingent arrangement that it is difficult to see how it can be morally obligatory. Were Persian peasants in the 4th century BC morally defective because they didn’t vote!
If there are no countries (as would be the case if libertarianism prevailed) then the moral obligation to defend them becomes otiose. Again, countries as we now have them are historically contingent entities.

2354 […] Civil authorities should prevent the production and distribution of pornographic materials.
Libertarians make a distinction between the moral and the legal. Depending on the arrangements that libertarians might make, the production and distribution of pornographic material with a specific libertarian community might well be the subject of a covenant and so, within that libertarian community, legally enforceable.

To return to my main points:
1. the conclusions of practical reason are not necessarily the same for all.
2. moral deliberation (as Hittinger writes) is usually governed by a complex network of traditions: civil, ecclesiastical, cultural. It is a mistake to expect natural law theory to constitute an over-arching tables of laws which can be straightforwardly applied to issues ranging from the use of condoms to the allocation of public monies.
3. we have examples of the radical development of authoritative pronouncements on moral matters (slavery)
4. contingent social arrangements cannot be the subject of moral judgements semper et ubique (voting)
5. libertarians distinguish sharply between the realms of the legal and the moral
6. given 1-5, many (all?) of the pronouncements are capable of being interpreted in accordance with the principles of libertarianism.

Once again, I apologise for the sweeping and cursory nature of the response but I hope that it gives some indication of how libertarian anarchism and Catholicism might be reconciled.

Best wishes,

GC

[Author]

Posts