Absurd Conclusion Research Articles

Freedom, Omniscience and the Contingent A Priori

Abstract One of the major challenges in the philosophy of religion is theological fatalism — roughly, the claim that divine omniscience is incompatible with free will. In this article, I present new reasons to be sceptical of what I consider to be the strongest argument for theological fatalism. First, I argue that divine foreknowledge is not necessary for an argument against free will if we take into account divine knowledge of contingent a priori truths. Second, I show that this argument can be generalized so that ordinary human knowledge of contingent a priori truths also leads to an argument against free will. This, I believe, results in an absurd conclusion that is unacceptable to both theists and non-theists. But if there is something wrong with this argument, there is something wrong, too, with the argument for theological fatalism. Although there is a range of possible responses, I suggest that the core issue in all cases is a closure principle — specifically, the principle that ‘no choice about’ is closed under entailment (or strict implication).

Black-Tie Optional Sorites

Sorites is the paradox which exploits the tolerance of vague language to get an absurd conclusion. The present note argues that, contrary to some other approaches, formalizing the antinomy does not serve the purpose of elucidation.

Two Moments in the Biography of Qedushah (a.k.a. Holiness)

AbstractThis paper analyzes two transformative conceptions of qedushah (holiness) in medieval Jewish thought, Moses Maimonides’s and Moses Nahmanides’s. Maimonides reduces qedushah to the Mosaic commandments which he reconceives as communal institutions to constrain bodily desires and promote intellectualist values and as training for perfected individuals to de-corporealize themselves in imitation of God. Nahmanides argues that Maimonides’s legal reduction of qedushah leads to the absurd conclusion that the perfectly scrupulous law-abiding scoundrel who exploits loopholes in the law is qadosh! He therefore reconceives qedushah as a complement to the Mosaic commandments intended to counter the problem of the scoundrel. Thus qedushah is re-born as a corrective to abuse of the Law. Nahmanides then proposes two ways to achieve this goal: i) by rabbinic enactment of more laws to fill in (loop) holes in the Law and ii) by cultivating a virtue-oriented, non-legal conception of holiness as a character-trait that leads agents to act properly and spontaneously without legislation. For Maimonides the ultimate state of qedushah is the dis-embodied state of the intellect, for Nahmanides it is a state in which the whole person, body and soul, clings to the deity.

Does everything resemble everything else to the same degree?

According to Satosi Watanabe’s “theorem of the ugly duckling”, the number of predicates satisfied by any two different particulars is a constant, which does not depend on the choice of the two particulars. If the number of predicates satisfied by two particulars is their number of properties in common, and the degree of resemblance between two particulars is a function of their number of properties in common, then it follows that the degree of resemblance between any two different particulars is also constant, which is absurd. Avoiding this absurd conclusion requires questioning assumptions about infinity in the proof or interpretation of the theorem, adopting a sparse conception of properties, or denying degree of resemblance is a function of number of properties in common. After arguing against both the first two options, this paper argues for a version of the third which analyses degree of resemblance as a function of properties in common, but weighted by their degree of naturalness or importance.

Structuralism, indiscernibility, and physical computation

Structuralism about mathematical objects and structuralist accounts of physical computation both face indeterminacy objections. For the former, the problem arises for cases such as the complex roots i and -i, for which a (non-trivial) automorphism can be defined, thus establishing the structural identity of these importantly distinct mathematical objects (see e.g. Keränen in Philos Math 3:308–330, 2001). In the case of the latter, the problem arises for logical duals such as AND and OR, which have invertible structural profiles (see e.g. Shagrir in Mind 110(438):369–400, 2001). This makes their physical implementations indeterminate, in the sense that their structural profiles alone cannot establish whether a given physical component is an AND-gate or an OR-gate. Doherty (PhilPapers, https://philpapers.org/rec/DOHCI-3, 2021) has recently shown both problems to be analogous, and has argued that computational structuralism is threatened with the absurd conclusion that computational digits might be indiscernible, such that, if structural properties are all that we have to go on, the binary digit 0 must be treated as identical to the binary digit 1 (rendering pure structuralism absurd). However, we think that a solution to the indiscernibility problem for mathematical structuralists, drawing on the work of David Hilbert, can be adapted for the analogous problem in the computational case, thereby rescuing the structuralist approach to physical computation.

Demystifying Humility's Paradoxes

AbstractThe utterance “I am humble” is thought to be paradoxical because a speaker implies that they know they are virtuous or reveals an aim to impress others – a decidedly non-humble aim. Such worries lead to the seemingly absurd conclusion that a humble person cannot properly assert that they are humble. In this paper, I reconstruct and evaluate three purported paradoxes of humility concerning its self-attribution, knowledge and belief about our own virtue, and humility's value. I argue that humility is not genuinely paradoxical and that these puzzles do not have meaningful implications for its conceptual analyses. I instead offer error theoretical explanations of humility's apparent paradoxicality.

Indefensible Self-Defense Argument

The self-defense argument maintains that, even if a fetus is a person, (pre-viable) abortion on demand is morally permissible on the grounds that the fetus is using his mother’s body in an intimate way, and, in an unwanted pregnancy, without her ongoing consent. According to the argument, this sort of use justifies lethal self-defense on the part of the mother against her unwanted fetus. I produce a counterexample to one of the premises of this argument and show that it cannot be successfully revised. I further show the underlying commitments of the self-defense argument lead to the absurd conclusion that a woman who has consensual sex that results in pregnancy thereby violates the fetus’ right to bodily autonomy and so such an act would be morally impermissible. We thereby have good reason to abandon the argument.

“Иное” в третьей гипотезе “Парменида” (Prm.158d3-6)

The main purpose of the paper is to comment on Prm. 158d3-6. Consideration of this passage is preceded by a brief overview of various approaches to “Parmenides”. The most important difference in the approaches is determined by the attitude of the researchers to the “subject” of the eight hypotheses. F. Cornford believes that “one” and “is” in Plato’s text are not unambiguous, therefore the “subjects” of hypotheses are different, and, consequently, the conclusions from these hypotheses, although different, are not contradictory. Cornford’s approach is productively developed by K. Sayre and R. Turnbull. The author’s interpretation of the “Parmenides” is based on the same premise of the ambiguity of “one” and “is”. Other researchers (R. Allen, S. Rickless, M. Tabak) disagree with this, insisting that the “subject” in all hypotheses is the same, so the conclusions of different hypotheses are contradictory, and the conclusion from the most extensive, the second hypothesis, is obviously absurd (Allen). Tabak’s point of view is particularly abrupt, assuming that Plato’s goal in the second part is a parody of the views of the Eleatics and Sophists, often presented with deliberately incorrect and absurd conclusions. Tabak believes that only the third hypothesis applies to the views of Plato himself. It is with that one that the second part of the paper is dealing, analyzig the sense of “other” in Prm. 158d3–6. The author consider what is the meaning of “nature other than eidos” in the context of the ideas of the “receptacle” and χώρa in the “Timaeus” (50d, 51a7–b1), and what is the “idea of the immensity” in the context of the reasoning about the one, many and immensity in the “Philebus” (16de). Another comment concerns the meaning of ἕτερόν τι ἐν ἑαυτοῖς γίγνεσθαι and compares several translations of this passage (Cornford, A. Hermann, S. Scolnicov, Sayre, Tabak). In conclusion, the author offers her own interpretation of “other” in connection with the seventh hypothesis of the “Parmenides”.

A new problem for internalism

I will argue that internalism about justification entails the apparently absurd conclusion that it is possible to know specific facts about the external world—for example, that there is a tree in the quad—on the basis of introspection and a priori reflection. After a brief characterization of internalism (§1), I will set out the problem (§2). I will then discuss three replies: one that denies the form of doxastic voluntarism involved in the problem (§3), one that denies that knowledge of higher-order facts about justification can justify corresponding first-order beliefs (§4), and, finally, one that involves biting the bullet (§5). I will argue that each reply fails.

The ironic syllogism: A rhetorical use of unmarked questions

Rhetorical questions are an important feature of Israelite rhetoric as exemplified in the Hebrew Bible. This paper builds on scholarship regarding rhetorical questions and irony to reevaluate one form of unmarked question. Previous scholarship called it an alarmed or surprised rhetorical question, characterized by the speaker’s heightened emotional state and linked by a vav to a previous thought to which it lies in opposition. This paper argues that the construction is better understood as a rhetorical strategy, whereby the speaker takes the opinion or suggested course of action of the interlocutor and restates it as the conclusion to a syllogism, after providing premises that make the conclusion absurd. This construction is called an ironic syllogism, as the absurd conclusion is a pseudo-quote said ironically. The pseudo-quote could still be considered an unmarked conducive question since it expects a negative reply from the addressee.

Lawful Humean explanations are not circular

A long-standing charge of circularity against regularity accounts of laws has recently seen a surge of renewed interest. The difficulty is that we appeal to laws to explain their worldly instances, but if these laws are descriptions of regularities in the instances then they are explained by those very instances. By the transitivity of explanation, we reach an absurd conclusion: instances of the laws explain themselves. While drawing a distinction between metaphysical and scientific explanations merely modifies the challenge rather than resolving it, I argue that it does point us towards an attractive solution. According to Humeanism, the most prominent form of the regularity view, laws capture information about important patterns in the phenomena. By invoking laws in scientific explanations, Humeans are showing how a given explanandum is subsumed into a more general pattern. Doing so both undermines a principle of transitivity that plays a crucial role in the circularity argument and draws out a central feature of the Humean approach to scientific explanation.

Pisarz i jego język. Przypadek Iva Andricia

A complex biography of Ivo Andrić (1892–1975) was shaped in a wide net of identity references: ethnocultural, religious, political, and linguistic. He was born to a Croatian Catholic family in Bosnia, he was a convinced supporter of Yugoslavism and a writer of the language defined as Croato-Serbian / Serbo-Croatian diasystem. In the period of his links with the cultural environment of Zagreb (1912–1919), he was writing according to the Croatian standard, later basically, in Serbian, but using environmental and stylistic diversity of the diasystem in order to stress its cognitive and artistic potential. Currently, when four national language standards are developing on the basis of the diasystem: Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin, reading Andrić in accordance with post-Yugoslav linguistic ideas, that is with the awareness and conviction about the „break-up” of the Serbo-Croatian language, would necessarily lead to an absurd conclusion that the writer created his works using the content of various languages. Literary heritage of the great writer of Serbo-Croatian language, which remains a sociocultural fact, has been used not only by Serbian culture and language, but also by global culture – thanks to translations of the works of this Nobel laureate into numerous world languages.

Macroeconomics Post-GFC

The core model of macroeconomics we teach in colleges and universities uses incredible assumptions to reach absurd conclusions. Among those assumptions are, no financial frictions such as credit rationing, individuals had rational expectations or acted as if they did, and representative agent to represent an aggregation of firm or household sector whose optimizing behaviors are micro-founded. With no financial frictions, the model fails to explain a major event such as the 2008 GFC. Why small shocks can have very large effects (amplification) that last so long (persistence), and why deep downturns can occur repeatedly with powerful spillovers and contagion effects? Constructed for analyzing only small fluctuations, the current core model is likely to provide little guidance as to what should be done in response. In this paper, I argue that the key problem with the current macroeconomics is the superficiality of its treatment towards financial sector. It is shown that financial frictions played a significant role in capital flows fluctuations, external shocks created channels of spillover and contagion across countries and across asset classes, capital flows with the presence of financial frictions made monetary policy more challenging, and they could be detrimental to financial stability and the distribution of income. Corrections and adjustments to existing core macroeconomic model should be based on empirical evidence and how the economy works, not on the esthetic riddles of established paradigm.

Relativistic Completion of Schrodinger’s Quantum Mechanics by the Ether Theory

One recalls that we have shown in our precedent publications that the ether is an elastic isotropic medium. One presents the exact equation and its non-relativistic approximation that govern the ether in presence of a Schwarzschild-Coulomb field to which is submitted a Par(m,e)  (particle of mass m  and of electric charge e ). We present the exact relativistic solution of this exact equation in the circular case. We prove that the Schrödinger equation is such a non-relativistic approximation, that is, is a particular case of the ether elasticity theory.
 
 One recalls that the Schrödinger equation was obtained by the use of operators and not from the theory of elasticity. It follows that this manner of obtaining this equation from operators is arbitrary and does not permit to obtain its complete relativistic form, but permits to reach absurd conclusions as, e.g., the cat that, at the same moment, is alive and dead. One shows then that other results ensuing from the Schrödinger equation are particular cases of the non-relativistic equation that governs the elastic ether, like for example: the Bohr-Sommerfeld condition, and the eigenstates function equation.

Paradoxos falsídicos: os primeiros enfrentamentos do conceito de infinito no contexto da ciência matemática

O artigo apresenta resultados de uma pesquisa teórica que objetivou estudar o infinito e a relação deste conceito matemático com os paradoxos falsídicos a partir de exemplos dados por Zenão, contrários a concepção atomista de tempo e espaço. Mais especificamente, estudamos os paradoxos da Dicotomia, de Aquiles, que argumentam contra a hipótese de o espaço ser dividido infinitamente. Investigamos, também, os paradoxos do Estádio e da Flecha, que contradizem a hipótese do espaço ser dividido infinitamente e questionam a possibilidade de um segmento ser formado por uma quantidade infinita de divisões. Embora, na atualidade, estejamos acostumados a lidar diariamente, mesmo que de modo intuitivo, com a ideia de velocidade e movimento, esses são, sem dúvida, conceitos abstratos e deve-se a isso a importância dos paradoxos de Zenão: por expor um primeiro pensar sistemático sobre o assumo. O paradoxo da Flecha e o do Estádio são de fato reais se o tempo for composto por unidades mínimas indivisíveis e o espaço por pontos discretos. Em contrapartida, se tempo e espaço forem considerados contínuos, surgem os paradoxos da Dicotomia de Aquiles. Dessa forma, Zenão cerca por todos os lados a ideia de movimento e de velocidade, mostrando controvérsias contundentes que por vezes passam despercebidas aos olhos já acostumados a observar o movimento. Por meio da dialética, partindo das premissas aparentemente consistentes e chegando a conclusões absurdas, Zenão apresentou argumentos para provar a fragilidade dos conceitos de multiplicidade e divisibilidade, adotados pela escola pitagórica. Esses paradoxos, fundamentados na filosofia de Parménides, apresentavam situações para sustentar a impossibilidade do movimento, considerando-o uma ilusão da percepção do mundo sensível e não uma verdade do mundo inteligível, que caracteriza o ser como único, imutável, infinito e imóvel.

Kantian constructivism and the Reinhold–Sidgwick objection

AbstractIn this paper, I give a reconstruction of the so‐called Reinhold–Sidgwick objection and show that Korsgaard‐style Kantian constructivists are committed to two key premises of the underlying argument. According to the Reinhold–Sidgwick objection, the Kantian conception of autonomy entails the absurd conclusion that no one is ever morally responsible for a morally wrong action. My reconstruction of the underlying argument reveals that the objection depends on a third premise, which says that freedom is a necessary condition for moral responsibility. After mapping the common replies to the objection, I demonstrate that none of these replies is available to Kantian constructivists. But they need not be committed to the absurd conclusion that no one is ever morally blameworthy. Kantian constructivists who want to resist the Reinhold–Sidgwick objection are well advised to subject the third premise of the underlying argument to critical scrutiny.

No Surprises

The surprise exam paradox is an apparently sound argument to the apparently absurd conclusion that a surprise exam cannot be given within a finite exam period. A closer look at the logic of the paradox shows the argument breaking down immediately. So why do the beginning stages of the argument appear sound in the first place? This paper presents an account of the paradox on which its allure is rooted in a common probabilistic mistake: the base rate fallacy. The account predicts that the paradoxical argument should get less and less convincing as it goes along—a prediction I take to be welcome. On a bleaker note, the account suggests that the base rate fallacy may be more widespread than previously thought.

The Limits of p-Hacking: A Thought Experiment

Suppose that asset pricing factors are just p-hacked noise. How much p-hacking is required to produce the 300 factors documented by academics? I show that, if 10,000 academics generate 1 factor every minute, it takes 15 million years of p-hacking. This absurd conclusion comes from applying the p-hacking theory to published data. To fit the fat right tail of published t-stats, the p-hacking theory requires that the probability of publishing t-stats < 6.0 is infinitesimal. Thus it takes a ridiculous amount of p-hacking to publish a single t-stat. These results show that p-hacking alone cannot explain the factor zoo.

Why it is Always Better to Cease to Exist

I shall argue that David Benatar’s Axiological Asymmetry of harms and benefits, when combined with (exclusively) hedonistic view of harms and benefits, entail pro-mortalism. Professor Benatar’s view that the absence of pleasure of who never exists does not deprive, while the absence of pleasure of who ceased to exist does deprive, has some absurd conclusions that judges which life is preferable one differently in present- and future-life cases. I subsequently show that Benatar’s asymmetry should be applied to post-mortem nonexistence as well, and argue so long as one’s remaining life will contain any pain, it is always preferable to cease to exist than to continue to exist.

Reductio ad absurdum from a dialogical perspective

It is well known that reductio ad absurdum arguments raise a number of interesting philosophical questions. What does it mean to assert something with the precise goal of then showing it to be false, i.e. because it leads to absurd conclusions? What kind of absurdity do we obtain? Moreover, in the mathematics education literature number of studies have shown that students find it difficult to truly comprehend the idea of reductio proofs, which indicates the cognitive complexity of these constructions. In this paper, I start by discussing four philosophical issues pertaining to reductio arguments. I then briefly present a dialogical conceptualization of deductive arguments, according to which such arguments (especially mathematical proofs) are best understood as a dialogue between two (fictitious) participants—Prover and Skeptic. Finally, I argue that many of the philosophical and cognitive difficulties surrounding reductio arguments are dispelled or at least further clarified once one adopts a dialogical perspective.