If that’s what you’re getting at, I’m going to need some demonstration that human action and human systems are linear. In my experience, there’s very little on the face of the Earth that’s LESS linear….

This is where my issue with knowability comes into play. Even if this is an abstract argument that will never again matter in my actual life, it’s important (to me, at least) to consider the principles I’m living by.

Now when we look at today’s political stage, the philosophical matters a lot less, I agree. It’s not like Bush and McCain are presenting us with a lot of tough calls, either morally or practically, huh?

People want to make this complicated, as if there is some opposition between the pragmatic thing; the right action morally and the right end morally. In the vast majority of cases, there isn’t, if your ends are truly moral.

Why have philosophy at all? For that matter, why think at all? Let’s forget Mill and Kant for a moment. What about Descartes? If our senses are suspect, then absolutely nothing we perceive to exist may exist. In which case, there can be no reputable data acquired by our senses, which means there is no grist for the intellectual mill.

Really, why bother? If the ultimate conclusion is that there is no meaning and can be no meaning, why have philosophy at all? If what you say is true, then wouldn’t it follow that philosophy itself, as well as all other forms of intellectual human endeavor, are futile?

They’re [Mill and Kant] foundational figures who were responsible for some important moments in the history of thought.

Indeed, they are and I hope I didn’t offend. I responded because it is rare to find a literate discussion of philosophy on the web. I had not intended a critique but, rather, a perspective on the conundrum.

They’re taught in our colleges and their precepts underpin a variety of ethical codes in play in the world today.

Indeed, they are, though I am less temperamentally inclined to Kant. If we differ, it is our ’slant’ (if you will) on utilitarianism, i.e., that the end justifies any means may not follow necessarily from utilitarianism.

it’s impossible to argue that much of social reality is constructed and it’s even more impossible to argue the central role of language in the reality-forging process.

That has never been more relevant. Propaganda and advertising may operate on two levels. 1) sheer repetition and Arbitron ‘ratings’, ‘cumes’, and gross ratings points”. 2) At a deeper level, various deliberate techniques make it possible to change the language itself. Language is how we think. When political forces debase language, they change thought itself.

There is obviously a great deal of wisdom in this research, of course – it’s impossible to argue that much of social reality is constructed and it’s even more impossible to argue the central role of language in the reality-forging process.

Indeed!

the idea that meaning doesn’t exist, can’t exist, is a consensual hallucination of some sort, etc., is not demonstrable fact, nor is it obvious truth. It is, instead, a shared dogma resulting from particular cultural and institutional dynamics.

I respectfully disagree that it is mere “shared dogma”. What is needed is the logical ‘rescue’, if you will, of Ayer. Bronowski will always be a hero for having given it his best shot. But the fault was not with Bronowski –but Ayer! Without this piece de resistance, we are still adrift and vulnerable.

Thanks for the literate and intelligent article and blog. If you don’t mind, I will add a link to my blogroll at the Existentialist Cowboy.

You comment is both technically accurate and largely beside the point. It also makes some questionable assumptions about what I have called the “de-meaning project.”

For starters, there’s no attempt here to present Kant and Mill and the latest and most modern in philosphical thought. They’re foundational figures who were responsible for some important moments in the history of thought. However, it’s not proper to dismiss the contemporary relevance of the debate presented here, as these core perspectives are still very much alive in the world of professional and personal ethics today. They’re taught in our colleges and their precepts underpin a variety of ethical codes in play in the world today.

As for language and meaning, yes, we know this. Believe me, I’ve suffered through structuralism, post-structuralism, deconstructionism, postmodernism, and the fait accompli place that social contructivism occupies in the modern research academy. There is obviously a great deal of wisdom in this research, of course – it’s impossible to argue that much of social reality is constructed and it’s even more impossible to argue the central role of language in the reality-forging process.

However, the idea that meaning doesn’t exist, can’t exist, is a consensual hallucination of some sort, etc., is not demonstrable fact, nor is it obvious truth. It is, instead, a shared dogma resulting from particular cultural and institutional dynamics. It is a project that serves a particular set of masters and goals, and we’re as foolish to buy it uncritically as we are to insist that there is such a thing as objective social reality (or, at least, that we are capable at this moment in our history of apprehending whatever social reality may exist at an objective level).

Note this thread, for instance, and in particular comment #9.

Alas, Socrates was right. We know nothing!

But this is precisely the kind of ethical quagmire good journalists wrestle with (the bad don’t bother, of course). I’m saving this post to use when I teach media ethics. (Hey, stop laughing, you guys. I really teach ethics. Honest! With the dean, even.)

2 great posts in one week….you’re on a roll.

Jeff

Or maybe “I nerd, therefore I am.”

The Philosophy of Language, is this your area of expertise?

I feel compelled by some of the other comments here to to suggest that any serious modern philosopher must be comfortable with the notion that there is no basis for meaning and that the search for meaning is a naive endeavor.

Whew! Thanks! I’m really glad to hear this. I can quit thinking now and just put a bullet through my brain.

just because you can’t have perfect knowledge of something (position and momentum in the case of particles, both of which could be given analogues in the realms of morality, society, culture, etc.), that doesn’t mean you can’t have a) good knowledge of one at the cost of the other and b) a statistical understanding that is sufficiently nuanced to still be meaningful.

Bravo, my nerdy friend.

Of course, the ability to pin down the exact beginning of the journey or to lay down the “musts” of modern philosophical investigation is currently beyond me and will likely continue to be so. Certainty is a tricky thing, isn’t it? Almost as slippery as meaning.

But as elegant as your observation is and as well worded as you put it, I feel compelled by some of the other comments here to to suggest that any serious modern philosopher must be comfortable with the notion that there is no basis for meaning and that the search for meaning is a naive endeavor. It simply does not matter that there is no basis for meaning and being a philosopher means being comfortable with that much like learning to swim means no longer needing to stand in the water. Getting past that need to pin down meaning and suddenly change one’s world view in a eureka moment is the beginning of the journey of philosophy. That is when you have learned to swim.

This is not to say, by any means, that Mill and Kant are irrelevant. Rather, it means that battling them as if they were super heroes with clashing super powers is no longer the the focus of philosophical investigation.

I think the Boids model also puts in an excellently understandable format… a group of actors working along Kantian lines … if you’ve found a good set of rules for them to go by… could much more likely produce a desirable outcome (and be a lot nicer to live with) than individuals entirely governed by ‘ends justify the means’ principles.

like so much in life I imagine it will remain a messy compromise but hopefully as we refine both our ethical systems and predictive models we can reduce the conflicts between the two and find ways to make means to the end more uniformly consistant and ethical… and that refinement, to which you bring to the point of attention here… is probably the sum of goal of philosophy and civilization really….

*deposing the democratically elected and popular (though suspected of being mildly pink) government of Iran to replace them with the repressive but ‘pro-western’ and right wing repressive government the Shah… followed by Islamic fundementalist Ayahtollah backlash

As an engineer, I work every day to ensure that my designs behave predictably, and just because I can’t exactly know what a given circuit output will be on an individual level, I can absolutely predict, within certain bounds, how a circuit will behave. An unity-gain buffer will give me the same output voltage as the voltage I input into the buffer, but with some predictable biases and some statistically-estimated noise. This intersects this philosophical discussion when you realize that, just because all exact outcomes cannot be predicted, many, many, many outcomes, and especially the general outcome, can be predicted nonetheless.

I’d personally consider adding the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle to your discussions as well, Sam. Just because you can’t necessarily predict an outcome at one scale doesn’t mean you can’t predict an outcome at a different scale. And just because you can’t have perfect knowledge of something (position and momentum in the case of particles, both of which could be given analogues in the realms of morality, society, culture, etc.), that doesn’t mean you can’t have a) good knowledge of one at the cost of the other and b) a statistical understanding that is sufficiently nuanced to still be meaningful.