On the logic of values

This article argues that Nietzsche's transvaluation project refers not to a mere inversion or negation of a set of values but, instead, to a different conception of what a value is and how it functions. Traditional values function within a standard logical framework and claim legitimacy and bindingness based on exogenous authority with absolute extension. Nietzsche regards this framework as unnecessarily reductive in its attempted exclusion of contradiction and real opposition among competing values and proposes a nonstandard, dialetheic model of valuation

Quietism, Dialetheism, and the Three Moments of Hegel's Logic

The history of philosophy risks a self-opacity whereby we overestimate or underestimate our proximity to prior modes of thinking. This risk is relevant to assessing Hegel’s appropriation by McDowell and Priest. McDowell enlists Hegel for a quietist answer to the problem with assuming that concepts and reality belong to different orders, viz., how concepts are answerable to the world. If we accept Hegel’s absolute idealist view that the conceptual is boundless, this problem allegedly dissolves. Priest enlists Hegel for a dialetheist answer to the problem with assuming that truth and falsity are mutually exclusive, viz., how certain sentences are both true and false. If we accept Hegel’s dialectical view that certain contradictions are necessary, this problem allegedly dissolves. For both McDowell and Priest, we find a true friend in Hegel. I argue that McDowell’s and Priest’s appropriations of Hegel overestimate Hegel’s affinity with quietism and dialetheism. McDowell reads Hegel as a quietist who silences metaphysical claims and the skeptical questions they raise against commonsense, but neglects Hegel’s adaptation of ancient skepticism against commonsense. Priest reads Hegel as a dialetheist who subordinates formal logic to dialectical logic by affirming the truth of certain contradictions, but neglects Hegel’s commitment to resolving contradictions for the sake of truth qua whole. I diagnose their misreadings in terms of what Hegel regards as the three moments of logic and argue that while McDowell jumps to its third moment, Priest stalls at its second moment. According to Hegel’s Encyclopedia Logic, logic has three “moments”: the abstractive moment of the understanding, which “stops short” at fixed categories; the negative moment of dialectic, which discovers the “genuine nature” of the categories, viz., that each “passes over, of itself, into its opposite”; and the positive moment of speculation, which grasps the “unity” of categories through the “dissolution” of their inner opposition. Hegel warns that if these moments are “kept separate from each other […] they are not considered in their truth”. I suggest that quietist and dialetheist readings of Hegel fail to consider truthfully the unified moments of his logic. In his quietist critique of metaphysics, McDowell enlists Hegel to dissolve the problem with assuming the duality of concept and reality. But McDowell helps himself directly to the third moment of logic, where the unity of the categories, and hence the boundlessness of the conceptual, would be fully articulated. Since he arrives at the third moment prematurely, ignoring its prior moments, he obscures its truth (§1). In his dialetheist critique of formal logic, Priest enlists Hegel to dissolve the problem with assuming the duality of truth and falsity. But Priest restricts himself gratuitously to the second moment of logic, where contradictions within the categories are not yet resolved. Since he stalls at the second moment, severed from its final moment, he obscures its truth (§2). I argue we can extricate Hegel from quietist and dialetheist misreadings only if we grasp the truth of the three moments of logic

The Case of Dialetheism

The concept of dialetheia and the claim of dialetheism has been examined and compared to such related concept as contradiction, antinomy, consistency and paraconsistency. Dialetheia is a true contradiction and dialetheism is the claim that there exists at least one dialetheia. It has been observed that dialetheism is equivalent to the negation of the traditional principle of contradiction. Hence, dialetheism itself is no new idea in whatsoever. The novelty of dialetheism consists in the arguments delivered for its case. Key justification the partisans deliver for dialetheism has been examined and evaluated: antinomies, an alleged Gödel’s paradox, and existence of limits of thought. The structure of those arguments has been analyzed. It has been claimed that they share one and the same simple structure which may be called reverse paradox. The vital content dialetheists add to the traditional paradoxes is only the thesis of reliability of the vernacular prima facie knowledge. Three objections have been raised against the justification of dialetheism: firstly, it has been claimed that exactly the same argument supports principle of contradiction, secondly, it has been questioned whether the arguments preserve their value when logic is subject to revision, and thirdly, it has been claimed that the underlying logic of dialetheism is classical

Review of I Am a Strange Loop by Douglas Hofstadter (2007) (review revised 2019)

Latest Sermon from the Church of Fundamentalist Naturalism by Pastor Hofstadter. Like his much more famous (or infamous for its relentless philosophical errors) work Godel, Escher, Bach, it has a superficial plausibility but if one understands that this is rampant scientism which mixes real scientific issues with philosophical ones (i.e., the only real issues are what language games we ought to play) then almost all its interest disappears. I provide a framework for analysis based in evolutionary psychology and the work of Wittgenstein (since updated in my more recent writings). Those wishing a comprehensive up to date framework for human behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my book ‘The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle’ 2nd ed (2019). Those interested in more of my writings may see ‘Talking Monkeys--Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet--Articles and Reviews 2006-2019 3rd ed (2019), The Logical Structure of Human Behavior (2019), and Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st Century 4th ed (2019

Realist Magic

Object-oriented ontology offers a startlingly fresh way to think about causality that takes into account developments in physics since 1900. Causality, argues, Object Oriented Ontology (OOO), is aesthetic. In this book, Timothy Morton explores what it means to say that a thing has come into being, that it is persisting, and that it has ended. Drawing from examples in physics, biology, ecology, art, literature and music, Morton demonstrates the counterintuitive yet elegant explanatory power of OOO for thinking causality

Realism and Anti-Realism Are Both True (and False)

The perennial nature of some of philosophy’s deepest problems is a puzzle. Here, one problem, the realism–anti-realism debate, and one type of explanation for its longevity, are examined. It is argued that realism and anti-realism form a dialetheic pair: While they are in fact each other’s logical opposite, nevertheless, both are true (and both false). First, several reasons why one might think such a thing are presented. These reasons are merely the beginning, however. In the following sections, the dialetheic conclusion is directly argued for by showing how realism and anti-realism satisfy Priest’s “inclosure schema”. In the last section and the conclusion, the conscious mind’s role in creating realism and anti-realism is discussed. This role further supports the conclusion that realism and anti-realism form a dialetheic pair

The Greatest Philosophical Question Answered: ∞ = [A+Dt ∥ X] = Mt

Because you know you exist with the cogito (I think therefore I am), you possess the fundamental capability to prove your own existence (science) and how you emerged (metaphysics). The act of 'metatheos' then, a metaphysical activity, serves to help you understand your own consciousness and its limitation, while simultaneously understanding God, what it is, and its limitlessness. God hereby, should begin to be conceivably understood as something well beyond our abilities to perceive, while also proving the definition that it is everything, including nothingness. This eliminates the anthropomorphism of fundamentalist religions and the infinite regress of the material reductionists, as it makes them both valid and compatible

Naturalism and Process Ontology for Rhetorical Theory and Methodology: Reconsidering the Ideological Tautology

Rhetorical Theory and Criticism primarily features modes of close reading that reconstructs the meaning of a text by constructing meaning through contingent textual moments within a theoretical perspective, typically ideological criticism. The dominant mode of ideological critique projects ideology as an anterior and universal cause; this projection strips individual and group agency from within various systems by totalizing them under one system. I strive to answer how we can preserve descriptive acuity while opening and exploiting contingent gaps to make scholarship more efficacious for social justice. Chapter one explores the inevitability of infinite regress in response to problems of vagueness endemic to the philosophical enterprise. Chapter two explores Bergson’s Retrospective Illusion: strict modes of ontological necessity in a transcendental reasoning pattern produce tautological ontologies in which an effect becomes projected backwards as universal but, ultimately, illusory cause. Chapter three maps out Bergson’s solution to the “Retrospective Illusion” and names it the “Prospective Illusion.” In short, chains of sufficient reasoning are projected out towards tendencies in becoming such that universals are always in construction and never fully actual. Ontologies founded upon spatial necessity are replaced by a process ontology closely attuned to scientific process that folds space and time topologically into tendential becoming. Chapter four applies both illusions to rhetorical theory in its ideological and new materialist modes to argue for the usefulness of both models in breaking rhetorical theory out of its tacit methodological reliance upon reconstructive close reading and by re-evaluating some of rhetorical theory’s ontological assumptions. The project concludes with prospective directions in methodology