Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of All Trades

Setting the stage and introducing the characters.

Early one Saturday afternoon, near the end of my years at university, four friends and I saw a film together at the local theater. This film featured a dystopian future in which the United States of America had become a totalitarian state backed and controlled by a unified fundamentalist Christian church. The Church and the State were the ostensible villains of the story, and the intrepid heroes were a motley alliance of disenfranchised urban youths, backed by the expertise of a cadre of ivory-tower academics and surviving on the resources of a coalition of backcountry farm folk.

Through an engaging series of events too intricate to recount here, the protagonists of the story led this unlikely alliance to victory in their revolution against the American theocracy. The resolution of the film left the future of that future uncertain: though the theocracy was overthrown and freedom returned to the land, each of the factions of the rebel alliance had their own thoughts on how the new government should be formed — or whether there should be one at all — and these differences of opinion threatened to turn as violent as their shared hatred of the theocracy had been.

While I found this ambiguous ending quite satisfying and thought-provoking, and most of the friends accompanying me were happy with the resolution (though not, it turned out, for the same reasons), our friend Tina found the movie offensive, and expressed to us her dissatisfaction with the direction its plot had taken. She contended that the purported heroes of the story were in fact an alliance of villains, and that the ostensible villains, the American theocracy, were in fact — though admittedly quite flawed themselves — the victims of a tragic injustice at the hands of even greater foes, who in turn had accomplished the destruction of American civilization.

Tina was what you might call a preppy: an upstanding all-American citizen with excellent grades from a private college-preparatory school, and even better grades here at the university. She was by far the cleanest, most well-mannered, organized, and best prepared of all my friends. As a business-law major with eventual political aspirations, she knew where she was going in life and had mapped out how to get there, and she wasn't going to let sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll get in her way. This disciplined and dedicated attitude was in fact the only thing which really held our friendship together, as I shared a similarly clean lifestyle (unlike most of my other friends), but beyond that our differences of opinion were vast. Had it not been for our adjacent seating in a class on Philosophy of Law, I doubt we would ever have met.

You see, quite unlike myself, Tina was an avowed theist and statist who happily supported the mixing of church and state; though she did so with the best of intentions, of course. While I could mostly agree with her on what she would consider moral issues of lifestyle choice, our thoughts quickly diverged on the question of why those choices were superior; and especially on whether they should be choices at all, or rather mandatory as she would prefer.

For Tina, faith in her religion was the core of her entire outlook on life. She believed the Christian Bible was the absolute, literal truth, handed down from God himself; that it contained all the answers to life's most important questions; and that a morally legitimate state ought to enforce its law here on Earth. To deny the legitimacy of the Bible was to attack the foundation of her entire philosophy; to her, it was tantamount to declaring the world a meaningless, amoral chaos. In Tina's worldview, faith in her sacred text was the only hope of escaping such nihilistic despair, and the only hope of finding truth and goodness in the world.

Normally Tina was civil enough not to proselytize to those she knew did not share her faith, but this film had so offended her that she had to voice her objections:

I mean, yeah, she said, of course the government in that movie wasn't that great — they were written to be the villains, of course they're going to be nasty bad guys. But the so-called good guys all made it out like that was all the fault of their religion. They may as well have blamed all their problems on Jesus himself for how blantant an attack on faith that was.

At this point another friend of mine, Frank, felt compelled to chime in:

But it was the fault of their religion, he said. That's always what happens when you get religion in your government; freedom goes right out the window. America wasn't the only theocracy in that movie; the Muslim countries they were fighting abroad were exactly the same, just with a different holy book. There's not just a problem with any particular religion; there's a problem with religion, period.

Frank was about as different from Tina as you could possibly imagine. He was a "punk" with a mohawk and piercings, who smoked like a chimney and drank like a sailor. He had never declared a major when his parents sent him here to school, and he had finally dropped out last fall after three grueling years of barely slacking his way through classes. He had stayed in town rather than return home to face Mom and Dad's wrath, and had been couch surfing in the local punk community ever since they had cut off his rent.

But for all his academic failings, Frank was far from stupid. In fact he was quite bright, and read plenty of philosophical literature in his own free time; his favorite place to sleep was at the local anarchist book store. He only faltered in school for lack of effort, not for lack of talent. He didn't care where he was going in life and saw no point in jumping through so many hoops to reach a destination that was ultimately meaningless. You see, Frank was not only a self-professed atheist and anarchist, but a complete nihilist, a solipsist, and an egoist, who thought everything was exactly as Tina faithfully held it wasn't — meaningless and amoral — and he thought her a deluded fool for believing otherwise.

While Frank was never shy about voicing his criticism of politics and religion, it was rare that he and Tina would be found in the same crowd, and so this incident sparked a rare philosophical debate that I will remember for all my years to come.

To Frank's assertion, Tina replied, Maybe that's how you think things are in real life, but at least in that film the Church was far from the villain. In fact I'd say they were as much a victim as anybody else. Their Church had been hijacked by elite monied powers, merely as a means to sway the decadent and inattentive populace into enacting laws and policies more favorable to their corporate overlords. It's like, there's three kinds of people in the world: wolves, sheep, and shepherds. Ideally everyone would be shepherds, figuratively speaking: we would guide and protect each other together. Unfortunately, most people are sheep, weak and helpless, and many people are wolves, cruel and dangerous. If it weren't for the few shepherds, who are neither weak nor cruel but rather strong and gentle, the wolves would devour the sheep. Real churches are just associations of shepherds; but in that film, it was not the shepherds themselves who were to blame. Rather, the wolves had devoured the shepherds, donned their clothes, and in that guise lead the gullible sheep to the slaughter. Had more of the people been shepherds, rather then ignorant sheep or savage wolves, things wouldn't have gotten nearly so bad. The rise of the Church to power wasn't at fault for that dystopia; the fall of the Church from power was! Religion was just a scapegoat.

At this point the other two friends present, Johnathan and Jacqueline, tuned in to the conversation, as Tina had just mentioned both of their respective personal peeves, namely elite monied powers and an inattentive and decadent populace.

I think you skipped over the real villains there, Tina, said John. Yes, the wolves as you call them did instigate the changes that lead to the film's dystopia, and yes, they were merely wearing the vestments of religion as a way of rallying popular support — but the people who were ultimately responsible for all that mess were the people, who as you point out are nothing but a lot of decadent and inattentive sheep. I'm sure there are some good shepherds like you in the churches somewhere, but clearly on the whole religion is just a front for self-affirming majorities to cloth themselves in some illusion of genuine legitimacy. And that sheep-like nature of the people, always following the rest of the herd wherever the shepherd guides them, is exactly what led to that mess. If those people had thought for themselves and not just done whatever their pastors and politicians told them, the wolves would've just been fringe jerks without any traction to push their agendas on such a large scale.

This line of argument was common for John, who as something of an overachiever had always looked down on average folk as ignorant and backward, especially after his mistreatment as an unpopular "geek" in his youth. Driven to prove himself, anything less than perfect scores on any test he took were simply unacceptable to him, and so he pushed himself forward even harder than Tina did. He was a skilled computer programmer and something of a mathematical genius by now, but he applied his efforts here at the university to the more practical major of aerospace engineering with the ultimate goal of helping pioneer mankind's expansion to other worlds beyond the Earth.

Quite the contrary, Jackie was an easy-going social butterfly in most respects, who somehow was friends with just about everyone, no matter how different they might be from her or each other. Though no slouch at other subjects, she perferred to dedicate her life to art, music, and generally making beauty wherever she could. Here at the university primarily for self-enrichment, she was majoring in art history, about which she was quite passionate. Her passion for beauty was exceeded only by her passion for social justice; like Frank, she was very anti-establishment, but whereas his expression thereof was to ignore the law or break it out of spite, she was a revolutionary socialist who sought to inspire a democratic uprising and drastically reform society for the better. Being the archetypical "hippy", her ultimate goal in life was to help return everyone to a quiet rural life style, where they could live in touch with the land and with their families and each other. She thus disagreed with John quite vehemently on many issues, though she was tactful enough that it did not compromise their friendship.

I don't know, John, Jackie replied. I think you're putting too much blame on the people there, who were, after all, the ultimate victims of the film's plot. It's true that had they been wiser and more thoughtful they could not have been manipulated so, but to blame them for being easy targets is like blaming a rape on the way the victim dressed. We've got to put the blame right where it belongs, on the heads of those wolves, who exploited peoples' trust and lead them nearly to their doom. I will agree with you, however, that the Church cannot be let off so easily as Tina would like. Religion has always been used as a tool for the rich and powerful elites to control the good people. It's just another hierarchical power structure to keep the lower classes in line, so it's no wonder they were in bed with the evil corporate overlords who were behind the whole thing.

By this time we had been standing in the plaza outside the theater for quite some time discussing this, and as the afternoon wore on we began to get hungry. Frank, satisfied to leave this point as the conclusion of our discussion, suggested that we should move on to other things.

Well, I'm just happy that most of us can agree that religion is bad, he said. Wolves are bad, sheep are bad, and shepherds are just wolves in sheeps' clothing. Now as interesting as this has been, can we go order some lunch before I drop dead of starvation?

Tina evidently was not too happy with dropping the conversation right here, but we were all hungry and John and Jackie were satisfied enough with this as a place to stop, so we went into a nearby restaurant and ordered ourselves some food.

A dialectical discourse on faith and doubt.

[After ordering, Tina brings up the conversation again: her point being that we can all agree that sheep and wolves are bad, and the so-called Church in that movie was bad, but can't we all agree that a real church, staffed with real shepherds, would unquestionably be a good thing?]

Tina says that without the guiding authority of religion, we'd be left with the kind of chaos that Frank purportedly advocates, and out of that the things that both John and Jackie most fear would come about. There would arise concentrations of power in the form of capitalist robber-barons or literal warlords asserting right by might, who would then use their influence to sway the gullible masses and drag all of society down to it's doom. To prevent that sort of mess, some sort of authority is necessary, and since people are never all going to unanimously agree to consent to the same authority, sometimes that authority must be imposed by force.

Frank points out how in imposing themselves on those who do not follow them freely, her chosen authority is no different from the mob-swaying warlords she claims it exists to prevent, and that perhaps she is part of what's dragging down society.

Clearly, some things are good and others bad, some things are true and others false, declared Tina. But of course people disagree about which is which. The only way to find out who is correct is by appealing to some authority on these issues, and the ultimate authority is who we call God, who makes what's good, good, and what's true, true, by his word alone. This text here is the genuine word of God, and therefore to answer questions of true or false, good or bad, we must turn to the evidence in this text.

Your claims of authority are suspect, replied Frank, supported only circularly by the very authority in question. Anyone else may claim the same degree of authority on the same basis, and yet disagree with you. There is no reason to think that your text is the word of God, or even that God exists, other than that your text says so; and there is no reason to accept what your text says other than it supposedly being the genuine word of God, who is again only infallible according to sources attributed ultimately to him. Therefore we must conclude that there is in fact no God, and therefore no ultimate authority to appeal to, therefore there is no good or bad, no true or false; there are just differing opinions, all equally baseless, some merely more popular than others, or backed by more powerful interests.

A critique of the relevance of authority.

But Frank, I said, You're still essentially buying into the Tina's whole system, and only attacking the keystone of it, bringing the whole thing toppling down with nothing to take its place. Frank nodded in agreement, as that was the whole point of his nihilism. And conversely, Tina, I continued your position in many ways collapses to Frank's position with only the almighty God to give you reason to think or act differently from him.

My position collapses to Frank's!? she asked incredulously. How is that so?

Well for example, I replied, it is your position that what is good equals what God commands, correct?

That's right she answered.

And what if someone were to ask you why anyone should do what God commands? I asked. And don't say 'because God is all good' — I know you're smarter than to make a circular argument like that.

Well... she said, and thought a moment. If they won't do it just because it's the right thing to do, I guess I'd say they should obey God's commands because God will punish them for doing otherwise.

Exactly! I replied That, I would argue, is ultimately a reduction to ethical egoism, just like Frank's position. Frank smiled almost smugly, before I turned to him and said, I'm not agreeing with you either, Frank.

He raised an eyebrow in mild confusion, and said It sure as hell sounds like you are.

No, I said. That's my whole point. While I agree you are right to attack that keystone of divine authority, you do not go the extra step of attacking the fundamental design of the system which so depends on it. Your philosophy is just Tina's philosophy minus God, which, since Tina's philosophy is built entirely around God, leaves nothing. But what we need is a new system which does not depend on the existence of an ultimate authority like God to separate good from bad and true from false.

Both Tina and Frank looked at me with cautious interest, while John and Jacqueline listened on and smiled, almost knowingly. I continued: Tina, you intuit that there is an absolute truth, and then infer that someone must know it, and make a leap of faith as to who. Because you have such faith in the correctness of your own opinion, you are highly critical towards differing opinions, and quick to challenge them wherever faults may be found. She opened her mouth about to protest, but I interrupted: That's not a bad thing. She looked at me quizically, as though unsure whether she understood my response to her unspoken objection. Frank, I continued, you on the other hand deny all such leaps of faith; you deny that anyone has access to the absolute truth, and from there you deny that there is any absolute truth at all. You are thus extremely liberal toward others' opinions, seeing them all as equally worthless as your own. He nodded in agreement.

I say, I continued, that both of your intuitions are correct, but both of your arguments rest on the same, backward, hidden inference: namely, that if there is an absolute truth, then someone knows it; or conversely, and equivalently, that if no one knows the absolute truth, then there is no such thing. While it is obvious that if someone genuinely knows the absolute truth, there must be some such thing, the inverse does not follow; there might be some such thing even though no one knows it. Likewise, if there is no absolute truth, then obviously no one could know it, but the inverse does not follow there either; just because no one knows the truth does not mean that there is none. I hold, like Tina, that there is an absolute truth; but, like Frank, that no one has direct access to it; we are all just making our best educated guesses — some of those guesses better than others, but none of them infallible — based on our limited experience.

Thus, I concluded, for our quest for truth to be properly conducted, we must concern ourselves not with who is or is not an authoritative source, or even whether or not any such an authority exists, but on some method of determining, independent of the authority of any particular source, what is true and what is false, what is right and what is wrong; or at least, which of our ideas are more true or more false, better or worse, and so on. We must, like Frank, hold no opinion on unshakable faith; and in doing so we must always be open to the potential viability of other possible opinions. But, like Tina, we must believe something, even though we cannot prove ourselves correct; and we must keep a keen eye out for the faults of all those various possibile opinions, including our own favored ones, slowy weeding out the worst of them, and narrowing in ever closer to the truth of the matter, whatever it may turn out to be.

A dialectical discourse on the wisdom or folly of crowds.

[Need to rework this into a real, readable dialogue.]

[Our food arrives here.]

John considers himself to be rejecting fideism without buying into nihilism. On factual matters he leans more toward Tina's side of things, affirming the existence of a mind-independent reality, but rather than Tina's transcendental realism, John's factual position is partly phenomenalized — (factual) materialism, the position that only things which have some empirical impact are real, though they have an existence beyond that appearance as well. Because he fails to distinguish between facts and norms, and because norms per se have little or no empirical presence, on normative matters he leans more toward Frank's side of things, denying all normative authorities, but rather than Frank's egoism, a concern about populism leads John's normative position to be partly objectivized — meritocratic individualism.

But Jackie contests that John goes too non-objective in his rejection of morality, and he doesn't go phenomenal enough in his rejection of transdendence, seeming to equate pure empiricism with solipsism; the latter of which, combined with a sense of elitism in reaction to his concerns about populism, leads him dangerously close to fideism about factual matters, in the form of scientism, or at least so Jackie claims.

Jackie too considers herself to be rejecting fideism without buying into nihilism. On normative matters, she leans more toward Tina's side of things, affirming the existence of a morality beyond personal desires, but rather than Tina's austere moralism, Jackie's normative position is partly phenomenalized — (normative) materialism, the position that only things with some impact our quality of life are morally relevant, though they have moral relevance beyond just the pleasures and pains they induce. Because she too fails to distinguish between facts and norms, and because facts per se have little or no normative import, on factual matters she leans more toward Frank's side of things, denying all factual authorities, but rather than Frank's solipsism, a concern about elitism leads Jackie's factual position to be partly objectivized — a social constructivist, she views reality as something of a "collective dream", a social fiction existing only as a power relation between groups, most properly defined by majority consensus.

To this, John retorts that Jackie goes too non-objective in her rejection of reality, and she doesn't go phenomenal enough in her rejection of austerity, seeming to equate pure hedonism with egoism; the latter of which, combined with a sense of populism in reaction to her concerns about elitism, leads her dangerously close to fideism about normative matters, in the form of communism, or at least so John claims.

A critique of the relevance of popularity.

John and Jackie are both on the right track, rejecting authority, appealing to independent reason and the senses in factual arguments, and to the physical wellbeing of the common man in normative arguments, but neither takes their starting principles to their logical conclusions, which are in fact the same. Instead both veer dangerously close to the pitfalls of Tina and Frank.

Tina is a transcendental realist and an austere moralist - objective but not phenomenal in both factual and normative matters - and thus she is a fideist. Because she is internally liberal but not critical (fideist), she is externally critical but not liberal (authoritarian) "We don't have to answer to you, we're right, so do/think as we say".

Frank is a solipsist (thus implicitly an empiricist) and an egoist (thus implicitly a hedonist) - phenomenal but not objective in both factual and normative matters - because he is a skeptic. Because he is internally critical but not liberal (nihilist), he is externally liberal but not critical (anomist) "think and do whatever you want, but we're all equally wrong".

Jackie claims John goes too non-objective in his rejection of morality, and he doesn't go phenomenal enough in his rejection of transdendence; the latter of which, combined with a sense of elitism in reaction to his concerns about populism, leads him dangerously close to fideism about factual matters, in the form of scientism. But John flatly denies his adherence to scientism, though he still shows inklings of it in his distrust of popular opinion; and when pushed, he concedes there are undue traces of transcendence implied in his (factual) materialism as stated.

John claims Jackie goes too non-objective in her rejection of reality, and she doesn't go phenomenal enough in her rejection of austerity; the latter of which, combined with a sense of populism in reaction to her concerns about elitism, leads her dangerously close to fideism about normative matters, in the form of communism. But Jackie flatly denies her adherence to communism, though she still shows inklings of it in her distrust of private enterprise; and when pushed, she concedes there are undue traces of austerity implied in her (normative) materialism as stated.

[They both make the error of assuming objectivity requires at least some transcendence/austerity, (though they both require some empiricism/hedonism as well) and of assuming that criticality requires at least some authority (though they both require some liberty as well). They also both make the error of conflating facts and norms as the same type of judgement. Where they differ is on whether norms reduce to facts (John) or facts reduce to norms (Jackie), and whether majorities (Jackie) or minorities (John) make better authorities.]

[Talk about Rousseau's statistical proof of majority correctness, and my inversion of it.] Unlike Fideist vs Nihilist, both John and Jackie are (implicitly) using the same correct inference but opposite premises, the conclusions only reinforcing their initial biases. People in the majority find the average person more credible than not, and so statistically conclude that larger groups are usually more correct. People in the minority find the average person less credible than so, and so statistically conclude that larger groups are usually less correct. The resulting concerns about populism and elitism are what lead John and Jackie astray from the convergent ends of their respective trains of thought.

If, as John holds, property rights are absolute and inalienable, then every contract constitutes a morally invalid surrender of rights, and without contracts many of the classic institutions of capitalism become untenable, resulting in a sort of propertarian socialism. Similarly if, as Jackie holds, it is wrong to impose your notions of morality on others, then majority rule is exactly the sort of might-makes-right imperialism they deride, and moral relativism collapses to an individualistic liberal anarchism.

Likewise, as materialism eschews the unwarranted notion of 'material substances' and turns to plain physicalism, and idealism eschews the equally unwarranted notion of 'mental substances' and turns to plain phenomenalism, the two converge into a physicalist phenomenalism or empirical realism like that of the logical positivists.

[Introduce the four axioms - Objectivism, Phenomenalism, Criticism, and Liberalism - segued from the above]

Wherein the scope of the problem is established, and a way forward proposed.

[We finish eating.]

But so what? said Tina. You say Frank and I make a common error despite our great differences, as if to dissuade us from our opinions by showing them to be like those of our rivals. And you critique these two, and sway them to your opinion, by showing how they veer close to one or the other of us. But what is wrong with those assumptions which you claim we have wrongly made? Are not you simply assuming their negations in turn?

You've got me there, Tina. It would seem, then, that we are at an impasse, for a valid logical argument can never contain anything in its conclusion that was not already present in its premises. A valid argument merely demonstrates to the listener beyond a doubt that those things in its conclusion actually are in its premises. Thus at some level of discourse, some set of premises must be simply agreed upon by all involved parties, or else no one will be able to convince anyone else of anything and the discourse will go nowhere. Because of this, it is impossible to have a logical argument about the most fundamental of premises: the axioms of one's philosophical system.

But that does not mean that no justification can be offered, and that we are doomed forever to either complete skepticism or, ultimately, blind faith. It means only that any fundamental justification must be an extra-logical one — a justification based not on appeal to logic per se but on appeal to something else beyond logic — and I propose now a pragmatic justification; that is, a justification appealing to practical concerns.

However, I do not propose that we take what is useful or practical in just any sense at all to be assumed true. More precisely, I propose that we assume true all and only those propositions which are necessary to conduct a search for the truth. In other words, I propose that any proposition whose assumption would impede our ability to conduct a philosophical discourse must be assumed false, and its negation thus assumed true. While the negation of such axioms may in the broadest sense remain possible, inasmuch as we can offer no sound logical disproof of them, we cannot assume those negations without undermining our ability to even attempt to make philosophical progress. And as philosophy lays the groundwork for all other intellectual endeavors, without the ability to make philosophical progress we lose also the ability to make any scientific or social progress.

An analogy can be made here between logical reasons and temporal causes. If a highly unexpected event occurs, one person [here I looked at Tina] might pronounce it a miracle, say "God did it", and investigate its causes no further. Another [and I gestured to Frank] may shrug it off on the notion that the universe is weird and random, with no causes to be found, asking rhetorically "who really knows why anything happens anyway?". In either case, we learn nothing; and perhaps there is in fact nothing more to learn, either because God just did it and that's that, or because there really is no explanation to be had at all. But if we approach the event curiously, saying "that was strange! I wonder why that happened?" — and following up on that wonder by investigating the world to try to find an answer, working thus under the assumption that there is some answer there to be found — then we might actually learn something, if there is indeed anything to learned.

Likewise, therefore, we must assume such axioms as are necessary to conduct a philosophical investigation in order for it to remain even possible for us to make any progress in knowledge or justice whatsoever. It may be the case that such progress is in fact impossible, and all our philosophical efforts in vain. But if we assume that that is the case, then it certainly will be; while if we assume the opposite, we retain some hope of making progress, if progress indeed is possible. The opinions of those people who are unconcerned with making progress toward wisdom can be safely disregarded for the purposes of those who are concerned with such progress.

Philosophy is philos sophia, the "love" of, or attraction to, wisdom. The practice of philosophy is thus literally the quest for, or pursuit of, wisdom; the action upon one's love thereof. Wisdom, in turn, we may define as the ability to discern the true from the false, the good from the bad; or at least the more true from the less true, the better from the worse; the ability, in short, to discern superior answers from inferior answers to any given question.

Thus the ultimate practical aim of philosophy, the end product of philosophical discourse, is a means of commensurability: a means of comparing the correctness of prospective answers to various questions. The superiority of a system of philosophy may thus be judged on the basis of its success at reaching this goal of commensurability. Any so-called philosophy which halts the quest for wisdom and fails to provide a means of commensurability is no philosophy at all, and may better be called phobos sophia, the "fear" of, or aversion to, wisdom.

There are two categorical types of such phobosophy: the type whereby one holds that wisdom is unattainable, and it is therefore futile in the first place to seek it; and the type whereby one appeals to something arbitrary in order to prematurely claim that full wisdom has already been attained — where by arbitrary I mean to say that one could appeal to something different with just as much justification, and yet arrive at different answers, thus failing to conclusively answer anything. These two errors are committed by nihilists such as Frank and fideists such as Tina, respectively.

But even a perfect system of philosophy will not give the answer to every question, for philosophy is not about what is nor what ought to be, but about how to tell what is and ought to be. Thus a perfect system of philosophy will always give a way, in principle, for any valid question to be answered, and a way to tell which questions are valid to begin with. That is, it will tell us either where to find our answers, or it will tell us that there are none and not to bother looking. But there is a set of essentially philosophical questions, questions which any complete system of philosophy must answer, for these questions concern the means of asking and answering all other questions:

First, to properly answer a question, we must first understand what exactly it is that we are asking. To do so we must understand how to ask our questions clearly and precisely, if only to ourselves. Thus philosophy must answer questions regarding linguistic matters such as logic and semantics, not so much as they concern the communication of thoughts to others, but more so as they concern the organization of our own thoughts.

To fully address the what it is to think something, we must also address the fundamental nature of the subjects or people doing the thinking; answering questions about the mind (that faculty of a person concerned with what is) and the will (that faculty of a person concerned with what ought to be).

Having answered what it is we mean when we think that something is or that something ought to be, we must address what it means for such an opinion to be correct; what it means for something to actually be real or moral. We must thus address the fundamental nature of the objects or world being asked about, answering questions about reality (concerning the world that is) and morality (concerning the world that ought to be). That is, we must ask ourselves on what criteria we base our judgements about what is and what ought to be.

We must then of course address the methods of assessing those criteria, the methods useful to the end of answering our questions, the means by which we attain wisdom, knowledge and justice.

We must then address the operation and structure of the institutions which are to utilize such methods, and how they may do so in a fashion consistent with those methods themselves.

Finally, we must address the practical means of inspiring the use of such methods and the establishment of such institutions.

For each of these questions, I propose that the answer be sought via critical, a priori analysis of the topic at hand, with the goal of determining what practical function in philosophical discourse it concerns. The answers which, if assumed true, would impede our goal of commensurability, must therefore be assumed false, and their negations thus taken as the axioms of our philosophy.

I call this metaphilosophical approach Analytic Pragmatism, and I call the following system of philosophy Commensurablism.

A pragmatic analysis of the structure of cognition and volition.

[Everybody asks what the heck I believe, then.]

[I suggest we go for a walk since it'll take a while to explain in full]

Let us begin by establishing a clear and precise terminology by which we may refer to different kinds of thoughts and related mental activities, beginning with the notion of an opinion:

Opinion

An attitude toward an idea.

Idea

A mental image, or analogous for non-visual qualities, of a way the world maybe is, or maybe ought to be.

Attitude

A disposition or inclination, in this context meant in relation to an idea as it regards people and the world.

We will first undertake an analysis of the structure of ideas. Ideas may be referred to by other names to indicate that they are being considered as objects of one sort of attitude or another:

Concept or Theory

An idea considered as an object of cognition; something that might be perceived or believed. Referred to as a concept in the case of relatively simple ideas, and as a theory in the case of relatively complex systems of ideas.

Maxim or Strategy

An idea considered as an object of volition; something that might be desired or intended. Referred to as a maxim in the case of relatively simple ideas, and as a strategy in the case of relatively complex systems of ideas.

With this terminology established, we may now begin to analyze the formal language we will use to structure such thoughts. But first, a note on notation: All formulae in this system of logic are constructed as operations on lists, which may in turn be members of other lists. Whether these lists are treated as ordered or unordered depends upon the operation upon them.

A list is denoted as a series of members contained within parenthesis and separated by vertical bars. For example, the list containing x, y, and z is denoted (x|y|z). A list containing only one element is equivalent to that element simpliciter; for example, (P) is equivalent to just P.

Any string of characters unbroken by whitespace immediately preceding a list denotes a operation operating on that list, with the list members being the variables the operation's value is dependent upon. For example, the operation F operating on the list (x|y|z) is denoted F(x|y|z). A nullary operation, or in other words a constant, is denoted simply by its name, in this example F, although formulations such as F() are also acceptable.

Qualification

Junction

Approximation

Variation

Situation

Quantification

Formulae using only the above operations merely "paint a picture in words" - they describe a state of affairs, or some range of states of affairs, but they do not propose that it is so or that it be so; they are devoid of grammatical mood.

Moodless formulae merely encode ideas. Mood operators encode attitudes. Formulae with mood operators thus encode complete opinions.

We are concerned here with three categorizations of attitude: thoughts as opposed to feelings (differentiating by our attitudes toward an idea as it regards other people), cognitions as opposed to volitions (differentiating by our attitudes toward an idea as it regards the world), statements as opposed to questions. As the last distinction is straightforward enough — merely the difference between the sentences "It is raining outside." and "Is it raining outside?" — we are most concerned with the first two distinctions.

Feeling

An opinion held in direct response to an experience, without reflection or universalization; that is, without concern for whether other people should hold the same opinion, or for their opinions about your opinion.

Thought

An opinion held reflectively and universally (that is, with concern for whether other people should hold the same opinion, and for their opinions about your opinion), but not neccessarily in direct response to an experience.

Cognition

An attitude toward an idea disposing a person to change that idea as neccessary to match the world.

Volition

An attitude toward an idea disposing a person to change the world as neccessary to match that idea.

By combination of the aforementioned types of attitude, we can establish four types of opinion:

Perception

A cognitive feeling; a theory formed intuitively, in direct response to sensations.

Desire

A volitional feeling; a strategy formed emotionally, in direct response to appetites.

Belief

A cognitive thought; a theory accepted consciously.

Intention

A volitional thought; a strategy accepted willfully.

To add grammatical mood to our moodless, we can use any of a series of eight mood operations differentiated by these same three criteria, each describing one aspect of the speech-act being performed: indication/imperation (denoted d/p), impression/expression (denoted i/e), and proposition/inquisition (denoted !/?).

• di!(P) impresses a belief that P is so
• de!(P) expresses a perception that P is so
• pi!(P) impresses an intention that P be so
• pe!(P) expresses a desire that P be so
• di?(P) asks (requests impression of a belief) whether P is so
• de?(P) wonders (requests expression of a perception) whether P is so
• pi?(P) asks (requests impression of an intention) whether P ought to be so
• pe?(P) wonders (requests expression of a desire) whether P ought to be so

By proposition/inquisition I mean to merely distinguish between statements and questions.

By expression/impression I mean to denote the difference between sentences whose function is merely to demonstrate the mental state of the speaker, and sentences whose function is to effect a change in the mental state of the listener. Assertions are impressive propositional sentences, or put another way, assertion is the speech act of impressing a thought, rather than merely expessing a feeling.

(c.f. Moore's Paradox: saying "P is true but I don't believe P" or "P is good but I don't intend P" is like screaming in a rage "I'M NOT ANGRY!" What you express by your statement performatively contradicts what you impress by it, so either you are lying, or simply incorrect, about your mental state, or you are pretending, or accidentally appearing, to have a different mental state than the one you really have. However, one may still perceive P and yet hold P to be false, or desire P and hold P to be bad, so long as one does not conciously or willfully accept those perceptions and desires, which is to say, believe or intend their contents).

By indication/imperation I mean to denote the "is"/"ought" or "fact"/"norm" distinction. All assertions impress propositions, however:

• "Indicative" assertions (those denoted "di!") impress factual propositions (or, when such assertions are correct, facts simpliciter). That is to say, one proposes that something is some way, copula in the indicative mood. Indicative or factual assertions are meant to impress cognitive thoughts, or beliefs.
• "Imperative" assertions (those denoted "pi!") impress normative propositions (or, when such assertions are correct, norms simpliciter). That is to say, one proposes that something be some way, copula in the imperative mood. Imperative or normative assertions are meant to impress volitional thoughts, or intentions).

I call this approach Psychological Semanticism.

While this analysis of linguistic mood tells us what we mean to do in making factual or normative assertions, it does not tell us when, if ever, we are correct (or incorrect) in doing so. That is the question for a later topic.

But first, throughout this section we have used psychological terms such as consciousness and willpower, intuition and emotion, reflection and experience, to define different types of attitude. Thus, to fully understand these attitudes, we must first analyze these psychological ideas.

A pragmatic analysis of the subjects of cognition and volition.

By experience we mean a subjective impression of the world as it seems to a person that it is, or as it seems to a person that it ought to be. There are two corresponding kinds of experience:

Sensation

An experience which induces a cognitive attitude in a person.

Appetite

An experience which induces a volitional attitude in a person.

But it may also be useful to distinguish the phenomenal experiences of certain complex functional systems (those with pattern-recognition, memory and anticipation) from those of simpler entities, and these we may term perception and desire, respectively. An entity with these functional attributes, a feeling thing, we call sentient.

By reflection and universalization we mean a person's consideration of his opinion from the perspectives of various other (actual or hypothetical) people, or equivalently, a person's consideration of his opinion as if it was held by various other (actual or hypothetical) people, thus objectivizing the attitude of the opinion. The two faculties of a person concerned with reflection or universalization we term thusly:

Consciousness or self-awareness

The mental faculty of reflection upon cognitive opinions.

Willpower or self-control

The mental faculty of reflection upon volitional opinions.

Such functional faculties of consciousness and willpower are just reflexive versions of perception and desire: having (accurate) cognitions about our cognitions, and (effective) volitions about our volitions. An entity with these functional attributes, a thinking thing, may rightly be called sapient or a person.

But certainly there is more to the mind and the will than such functionality. Clearly at least something has subjective, so-called "phenomenal consciousness", which is just what it's like to be a subject of sensation, to be acted upon; and "phenomenal willpower", which is just what it's like to be a subject of appetite, to be disposed to act. If nothing else does, we people clearly do. But what of everything else? Either everything besides us also has such mental attributes, or only things sufficiently like us do. The latter requires an arbitrary line to be drawn somewhere, and leads thus to fideist incommensurability. We must thus conclude the former: that everything is a subject of "experiences" of some sort of another, however simplistic they may be.

(I call this approach to the philosophy of mind and will Functional Subjectivism).

A pragmatic analysis of the objects of cognition and volition.

Ontology concerns what factual sentences propose to be - the objects of reality, 'substances' - and which such substances actually are real. It answers the question "What (in general) exists?"

Teleology concerns what normative sentences propose to be - the objects of morality, 'purposes' - and which such purposes actually are moral. It answers the question "Why (in general) exist?"

Any commensurable basis of comparison of opinions must be phenomenal to avoid the pitfalls of fideism. The term phenomenon derives from the Greek phainomenon, meaning "that which appears", and thus by "phenomenal" I mean "as things appear" or "as things seem". We must take as true what seems to be true, and take as good what seems to be good, rather than taking what seems to be as some illusory veil over what "actually" is, and what seems good as some base diversion from what is "actually" good. Thus the basis of comparison for our opinions must be empirical, regarding perceptions or sensations, in the case of opinions on reality; and hedonistic, regarding desires or appetites, in the case of opinions on morality.

But though phenomena are to some extent inherently subjective, some notion of objectivity is necessary to avoid the pitfalls of solipsism and egoism. Objectivity may be understood in a way reconcilable with phenomenalism as that toward which subjective opinion converges through the practice of the proper methods of opinion comparison and criticism, the nature of which is to be established next.

I call this approach to ontology and teleology Phenomenal Objectivism.

Translated into separate statements regarding factual and normative matters, this implies:

• Empirical realism: What is true is just what seems to be true, and would seem so to anyone else as well. Loosely put, something is true if and only if an omniceptive (roughly "all seeing") empiricist would believe it. (A substance is just a bundle of attributes, so attributes cannot "represent" substances as there is no distinction between them.)
• Hedonistic moralism: What is good is just what seesm to be good, and would seem so to anyone else as well. Loosely put, something is good if and only if an omnipathic (roughly "all feeling") hedonist would intend it. (Every means is a purpose in itself, so no purpose can "justify" a means as there is no distinction between them.)

A pragmatic analysis of the methods of knowledge and justice.

Epistemology concerns the methods of knowledge and reason, comparing and contrasting concepts and beliefs with the aim of believing all and only what is real.

Deontology concerns the methods of justice and duty, comparing and contrasting maxims and intentions with the aim of intending all and only what is moral.

Justificationism leads to the problem of infinite regress, which leads ultimately to skepticism. (INSERT AGRIPPA'S TRILEMMA HERE). Fideism likewise leads straight to assuming some arbitrary answer as correct for no reason. The solution is a liberal yet critical approach, both for epistemology (justification of beliefs) and deontology (justification of intentions): liberal to circumvent the skeptic's problem of infinite regress, and critical to circumvent the fideist's problem of irrationality.

You do not need to justify your beliefs or intentions to yourself; you are free to hold them non-rationally, for no reason; but only for as long as they can withstand rational criticism, that is, so long as there is also no reason contrary. To justify your beliefs or intentions to another person - to get them to agree with you - you need only appeal to some common ground between you, and the 'depth' of this foundation may be arbitrary, may vary between dialectic partners, and may even be non-logical, as is the pragmatic justification underlying this whole philosophy.

The principles of reason and duty derive from conception and compassion, respectively. That is to say, abstraction from one's present beliefs and intentions to what is universally possible or permissible. Loosely speaking, something is possible if and only if some omniceptive person could believe it, even if an omniceptive person in this world would not; and likewise, something is permissible if and only if some omnipathic person could intend it, even if an omnipathic person in this world would not.

"Something is, and ought to be" - By default, only the universal disjunction ("P or not P or Q or not Q or R or not R...") must be believed and intended. Something is true; something is good. Something exists, and something ought to.

Which implies "My point of view is not special." - The principle of reciprocity, or non-hypocricy, guides both epistemological and deontological duty, and is the liberal component of this system. We must be just as liberal, and just as critical, toward the opinions of others as we are our own - no more and no less - instead of either privileging or disparaging our own beliefs and intentions. We must grant others the liberty to express their beliefs and intentions (by speaking and acting upon them without contrary speech or action, respectively), so long as they do likewise; and then we must correct them only to the extend of restoring such equal footing (that is, only to verbally defend someone's verbal expression of their beliefs from unwarranted verbal attack, or to physically defend someone's physical expression of their intentions from unwarranted physical attack).

"Nothing is that is not, or ought to be that ought not to be" - The principle of consistency, or non-contradiction, guides both theoretical and strategic reason, and is the critical component of this system. As experience weeds out options (showing some to be false, or some to be bad), progressively fewer and fewer nigh-universal disjunctions remain possible or permissible, narrowing in (by negating disjuncts and thus affirming their negations) on the one conjunction which is perfectly true, or the one conjunction which is perfectly good.

[TO DO: write more on correction/punishment. Re deontological punishment: make sure the victim loses nothing in the end, or gains enough else to compensate for any irreversible loss; and make sure the perpetrator gains nothing in the end, or loses enough else to compensate for any irreversible gain. Re epistemological correction: what is the equivalent?).

Which implies "And that's final." - The effects which definitions and contracts can have on necessity and obligation are highly limited; neccesary truths and obligatory goods are only so given some assigned meaning of words and some assigned ownership of property. Definitions can change the meaning of words, and contracts can change the ownership of property, but that is it; purely formal necessity and obligation, independent of or meaning or ownership, cannot be changed by definition or contract, respectively.

(Putnam's causal theory of reference mirrors Nozick's historical theory of ownership. Terms and properties must have a history of justified acquisition and transfer of referents and owners, respectively, in order for their present nominal referents and owners to be legitimately so, and thus the necessities and obligations depending on such meaning and ownership to be legitimate. [Statute of limitations?: Uncontested use of a term or property may constitute implicit transfer of reference or ownership. But how long must the use go uncontested?] Also: All truths regarding particular individuals are necessary truths in virtue of the fixed reference of names, and all goods regarding particular individuals are obligatory in virtue of the ownership of oneself).

"With one caveat..." - We can't think nothing or do nothing; we must have current best working theories and strategies. In dealing with imperfection, sometimes you have to use a theory known to make some false predictions because of all theories yet considered that one is the best; and sometimes you have to act upon a strategy known to have bad consequences because of all strategies yet considered that one is the best. This doesn't mean accepting the false things as true or the bad things as good; it just means dealing with the false predictions or bad consequences because there's no way apparent to avoid the falsity or badness without incurring even more falsity and badness. In short, when only wrongs are available, the least wrong option is the best, though not necessarily the right, solution. (Define "least evil" in terms of minimax? Or "let justice be done [by me at least] though the heavens fall"? Both somehow? Morally intractible situations? [and if so, what is epistemic analogue?])

(TO DO: Write more on perfect and imperfect reasons, ala perfect and imperfect duties).

I call this approach to epistemology and deontology Criticoliberalism.

A pragmatic analysis of the institutes of knowledge and justice.

Academics concern education and enlightenment.

Politics concern correction and empowerment.

(TO DO: This used to be Religion & Politics. Need to reorganize; where to put the stuff about deities and polities? Maybe after academics and politics proper; to segue into inspiration, mysticism and romanticism. Religion concerns academics and politics equally.)

Panautotheism (all is God; all are 'gods'):

[TODO: reorganize this into god/church/priests/enlightenment. With no legitimate god, there is no legitimate church; instead, everyone is the "church", and its "priests" are only so by degree of enlightenment].

The very concept of an entity beyond the universe is invalid; as per the metaphysics earlier, the truth, and thus the object of reason, just consists in universally observable phenomena; and there is thus no legitimate reason to accept the existence of such entities as an abstract god purportedly above and beyond the universe. Some may argue that the existence of such a god can be proven by definition, arguing that the perfect being is defined in part by existence, and as such necessarily exists. However, as per the earlier stated epistemological limits on establishing facts from definition, one cannot define any arbitrary entity into being.

"Gods" composed of parts of the universe are possible, but are not legitimate gods. Some may argue that the existence of such an entity is neccesary to explain the creation of the universe, but the same question can then be pushed back to such a god; what created it? As such a question can be asked indefinitely, the only solution is to accept that there is no ultimate first cause; only an infinite web of mutual causation. ("Creation" is the act of making some state of affairs true [by fiat?]).

The only thing that could legitimately be "God" is the universe itself - and the universe could fulfill all the functions usually attributed to God. But unless the universe is perfectly united into a single cohesive mind, then such a legitimate universal god does not exist. Because such unity is such an unlikely state of affairs - and because if it does in fact obtain, doing so will necessarily serve such a god anyway, everyone's individual mind being cohesive with such a universal god's mind by definition - it is best to assume that every individual must do his or her part as one of many surrogate deities on behalf of the hypothetical one true god, "the universe", though with overlapping jurisdictions, none of them can be true "gods" in the classical sense.

The closest possible approximation to the mind of such a universal god will then emerge from the aggregate effects of such behavior; though it does not therefrom follow that beliefs of the majority represent the greatest truth, for minority opinions may still represent relevant but neglected perspectives, and so should not be discarded simply in favor of the opinion of the majority.

Scientists - that is to say those who fastidiously apply critical empirical realism to compare different proposed theories and figure out which implies the most truth - are the universe's natural priests, and all it takes to be a successful scientist is to be enlightened.

Enlightenment is the state of the mind being (or the process it of becoming) fully conscious or self-aware and self-critical. You cannot enlighten someone just by telling them facts, even if they're asking you for facts which will enlighten them; for enlightenment is not a set of beliefs but a mode of operation of the mind. You cannot simply tell them to operate their mind in that way either, for there is a bootstrapping problem there; they couldn't do that unless they were already enlightened to begin with. Instead, you must somehow inspire them to exercise their mind, give them - both in fact and just as importantly in their perception - opportunity and motive to think for themselves of their own accord. It will of course take much of such inspiration for such enlightenment to stick permanently.

Panautocratism (everyone together is the State; every single individual is a 'state'):

[TODO: reorganize this into state/government/governors/empowerment. With no legitimate state, there is no legitimate government; instead, everyone is the "government", and its "governors" are only so by degree of empowerment].

The very concept of an authority beyond the people is invalid; as per the metaethics earlier, the good, and thus the object of duty, just consists in popularly pleasurable phenomena; and there is thus no legitimate duty to obey the commands of such authorities as an abstract state purportedly above and beyond the people. Some may argue that the authority of such a state can be established by contract, arguing that a political body is contracted into a position of authority, and as such is owed certain obligations. However, as per the earlier stated deontological limits on establishing duties by contract, one cannot contract any arbitrary authority into being.

"States" composed of parts of the people are possible, but are not legitimate states. Some may argue that the authority of such an entity is neccesary to maintain governance and order amongst the people, but the same question can then be pushed back to such a state; who governs it? As such a question can be asked indefinitely, the only solution is to accept that there is no ultimate high authority; only an infinite web of mutual authority. ("Governance" is the act of making some state of affairs good [by fiat?]).

The only thing that could legitimately be "the state" is the people themselves - and the people could fulfill all the functions usually attributed to the state. But unless the people are perfectly united into a single cohesive will, then such a legitimate popular state does not exist. Because such unity is such an unlikely state of affairs - and because if it does in fact obtain, doing so will necessarily serve such a state anyway, everyone's individual will being necessarily cohesive with such a popular state's will - it is best to assume that every individual person must do his or her part as one of many surrogate polities on behalf of the hypothetical one true state, "the people", though with overlapping jurisdictions, none of them can be true "states" in the classical sense.

The closest possible approximation to the will of such a popular state will then emerge from the aggregate effects of such behavior; though it does not therefrom follow that intentions of the majority represent the greatest good, for minority opinions may still represent relevant but neglected perspectives, and so should not be discarded simply in favor of the opinion of the majority.

Mediators - that is to say those who fastidiously apply liberal hedonistic morality to compare different proposed strategies and figure out which implies the most good - are the people's natural governors, and all it takes to be a successful mediator is to be empowered.

Empowerment is the state of the will being (or the process of it becoming) fully free or self-directed and self-controlled. You cannot empower someone just by telling them what to do, even if they are asking what to do to be empowered; for empowerment is not a set of intentions but a mode of operation of the will. You cannot simply tell them to operate their will in that way either, for there is a bootstrapping problem there; they couldn't do that unless they were already empowered to begin with. Instead, you must somehow inspire them to exercise their will, give them - both in fact and just as importantly in their perception - opportunity and motive to take the initiative of their own accord. It will of course take much of such inspiration for such empowerment to stick permanently.

I call this approach to religion and politics Panautonomism.

A pragmatic analysis of the inspiration of knowledge and justice.

Mysticism and Romanticism help inspire enlightenment and empowerment, respectively.

While reason is the correct adherence to abstract rules of cognition, mysticism goes beyond (but not against) reason to the unmediated, undifferentiated appreciation of the beauty of the world. Mysticism thus drives the quest for the diverse contingent truths beyond the necessary truths of mere reason.

While duty is the correct adherence to abstract rules of volition, romanticism goes beyond (but not against) duty to the unmediated, undifferentiated appreciation of the drama of the world. Romanticism thus drives the quest for the diverse supererogatory goods beyond the obligatory goods of mere duty.

Mysticism inspires curiosity which leads to enlightenment. Romanticism inspires nobility which leads to empowerment.

"Art" is anything created or presented with the aim of evoking some reaction from an audience. "Good art" is art which succeeds at evoking the desired reaction.

Beauty is elegance; consistency amidst complexity. Drama is heroics; positivity amidst gravity.

Appreciate the beauty and elegance of the world, don't just analyze it.

Make your life not only just, but full of love and heroics.

The world is a great work of art, and life is a great adventure.

I call this approach to aesthetics and poetics Rational Romanticism.

[We arrive at the beach at sunset by the end of our walk]