Hi dmb, Will do. On my list to take a look, just pushed for time today and the next few days. (Sitting not a million miles from you working in a hotel room in Boulder incidentally.)
I'm fan of Dennett, because he is a philosopher before he is a scientist, and although the first to wield scientific objectivity against theists (as you do too dmb), he is all too aware of the arbitrary basis in metaphysics. (Remember I read Dennett after Pirsig.) Ian On Sun, Oct 2, 2011 at 6:47 PM, david buchanan <[email protected]>wrote: > > Ian said: > The good thing about that exchange dmb & Steve, is that it's on topic. > Causation. > > dmb says: > Causation is a very key concept. No doubt about it. It's the premise behind > the majority view and the premise that Pirsig rejects and replaces. The > problem is that Steve is trying to understand Pirsig by way of that rejected > majority view. Steve is reading the MOQ's reformulation in terms of the very > thing it rejects. > > "In the past the logic has been that if chemistry professors are composed > exclusively of atoms and if atoms follow only the laws of cause and effect, > then chemistry professors must follow the laws of cause and effect too. But > this logic can be applied in a reverse direction. ..If chemistry professors > exercise choice, and chemistry professors are composed exclusively of atoms, > then it follows that atoms must exercise choice too. The difference between > these two points of view is philosophic, not scientific. The question of > whether and electron does a certain thing because it has to or because it > wants to is completely irrelevant to the data of what the electron does." > > The behavior itself is not in dispute. The action taken is just the > empirical fact to be explained. The question, quite simply, asks if one HAD > to act according to laws or not. But we have to be careful about how we use > the word "cause". If I say that I was the cause of my action, I'm denying > that the action was a result of the laws of causality. Causality and > causation is the relationship between cause and effect. It refers to a > mechanistic, law-like chain of events and the causal determinist claims that > these are the laws that determine our actions. That is the basis on which > the CAUSAL determinist denies that we can make choices, exercise free will > or human agency. There are other forms of determinism but whatever reason is > given - metaphysical, theological or common sensical - the determinist says > our actions are determined by something other than us. Causal determinism is > just the most likely form these days because it fits with the prevailing > metaphysics of substance an > d scientific objectivity. > > > "If one adheres to a traditional scientific metaphysics of substance, the > philosophy of determinism is an inescapable corollary. If 'everything' is > included in the class of 'substance and its properties,' and if 'substance > and properties' is included in the class of 'things that always follow > laws,' and if 'people' are included int class 'everything', then it is an > air-tight logical conclusion that people always follow the laws of > substance. ...All the social sciences, including anthropology, were founded > on the bedrock metaphysical belief that these physical cause-and-effect laws > of human behavior exist. Moral laws, if they can be said to exist at all, > are merely an artificial social code that has nothing to do with the real > nature of the world. ...In the MOQ this dilemma doesn't come up." > > I'd bet big bucks that the metaphysics of substance has everything to do > with the fact that Dennett's compatibilism, which represents the majority > view, is different from the MOQ's compatibilist reformulation and from > James's "comprehensive compatibilism". > > I'd definitely recommend the Doyle lecture to anyone who's interested in > this topic. > > > > > Moq_Discuss mailing list > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. > http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org > Archives: > http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ > http://moq.org/md/archives.html > Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
