ELEPHANT and all,
>You wrote:
> Assuming my guess about your intentions and intelligence hold good, I
intend
> to start all over again and discover whether you have anything to say to
my
> points this time.
RICK:
I appreciate the benefit of the doubt. I don't mean to come off as being
offensive to anyone in these posts and I apologize for not responding to
your argument in more detail (I'm in law school these days and unfortunately
don't have much time to put into these posts)... Now let's get to it....
>
>
> RICK WROTE:
> > Try this quick hypothetical dialogue....
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
-- > > ------------ > > Phaedrus and Socrates meet on the road and sit to debate, somewhere within > > their dialogue the following exchange occurs.... > > > > Phaedrus: There is an exception to every rule. > > > > Socrates: Oh Phaedrus, you are quite the sophist and even a foolish old man > > like me can see that your statement is an absurdity. For your statement > > itself is a rule and if its premise is true it violates itself. > > > > Phaedrus: No Socrates, the rule is the exeption to itself and therefore its > > premise is totally consistent. > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- > > ----------- > > > > Now Platt, is Phaedrus's argument illogical....? > > > > ELEPHANT: > One might think that this discussion of the claim "there is an exception to > every rule" is a piffling prankish little game of no wider significance > whatsoever, but I don't take that veiw. I like to seize on any opportunity > that present itself for a bit of hard thinking, and the more abstruse the > better. So we begin (again), and this time I'll imagine an interlocutor > just because I'm a bit loopy like that.RICK: Quick Note: Someone asked why I choose Phaedrus for the dialogue above. Just to be clear: There was no particular reason. I could have just as easily called the interlocutors A and B... I just thought the names made it more fun....
> > > In order for the claim "there is an exception to every rule" to be > self-consistent, there would, logically, have to be an exception to the rule > "there is an exception to every rule". > > 'Yes.'
RICK: Agreed. > > And in order for there to be an exception to the rule "there is an exception > to every rule", there would have to exist exactly what the claim "there is > an exception to every rule" denies the existence of? > > 'What do you mean?' > > Well, I mean there would have to be some rule to which there are no > exceptions, wouldn't there, that is if the rule "there is an exception to > every rule" was to have an exception. Isn't that so?
'Well yes - I suppose so. But what of it?'
RICK: Yes, there would have to be one... but you already know what I'm going to say to that.... > > But don't you see, now we find that this rule requires the existence of > exactly the type of rule which it says doesn't exist! I mean, on the one > hand it's saying that all rules have exceptions, and on the other hand we > find that in order for there to be an exception to this very rule, the rule > that all rules have to have exceptions, there has to be some rule that > doesn't have an exception. So the rule is really saying both that all rules > have exceptions, and that *not* all rules have exceptions. And that's just > impossible isn't it?
RICK: There's a hidden premise here. It's impossible only if one first assumes that that the rule must include itself. When one says, "There are no absolutes" it seems silly on its face because the statement presumably means "there are no absolutes in the universe" and the statement is absolute and a part of the universe and so is self-contradictory and therefore logically false. But, think of it as descriptive from a "God's-eye" point of view... the only way our language will allow us to express the thought. It's strange, it seems that your argument allows the thoughts that "there is an exception to every rule" or "there are no absolutes" to be entirely logical as long as they aren't expressed--- for if one never asserts the rule, nothing else violates them. The only way for the rule to be consistent is not to express it??? Can that really be logical? > > 'Put like that, maybe. But aren't you forgetting something?' > > What? > > 'Well, what I said earlier, about a rule being it's own exception, and that > sorting things out.' > > I confess I didn't really follow. How does that help exactly? > > 'Well, I imagine it's like an electrical cicuit. If things pan out the way > you say, then we get a short (I mean, a contradiction). But maybe we can > plug the rule back into itself in another way, one that keeps the > logic-current flowing. Do you see?' > > Like? > > 'Like maybe the rule is the exeption to itself and therefore its premise is > totally consistent.' > > I see. So you think that it's like this: the rule has this 'exception > socket', and the rule also has 'rule plug', and if the 'rule plug' and the > 'exception socket' couple up, then there are no live wires and electrical > loose ends floating about to short and electrocute everything? Something > like that? > > 'Something'. > > That's interesting - I mean not many people would be able to come up with a > theory like that, electricity and all. But isn't there a problem?
RICK: A wonderful analogy... so clever that I cannot yet say if I agree that it represents my position. > > 'No. Well I din't think so. What?' > > Well, you never showed that it's really like you say - this is all just a > picture isn't it - and maybe not the right one to describe the logic of the > situation either.
RICK: Yes, I'm not necessarily arguing that "every rule has an exception" or "there are no absolutes" are the actuality, only that they are logically possible--- Although I invite anyone to proffer an example of rule without an exception or something "absolute", (other than themselves of course). > Because the rule you spoke of wasn't the rule: 'every > rule has one and only one exception and that is itself', now was it?
RICK: No... that is not what I spoke of. Plenty of rules have exceptions other than themselves. A good rule of thumb might be to say if the ONLY thing that "violates" a rule is its own expression you don't necessarily have a self-contradiction--- just a thought.
'No, that's true at anyrate.' > > So in point of fact we've actually got a situation where any damm exception > will do - I mean this exception socket could have any tom dick or harry > thing plug into it, given the rule we started with. > > 'Maybe'. > > So, thinking about that, all the claim "there are exceptions to every rule" > requires when it refers to itself is that there is there is *some* rule to > which there are no exceptions, and it doesn't say anything about what that > rule is, does it?
RICK: Yes, but only, as you say "when it refers to itself"... something that logic does not compel it to do. > > 'Not on the surface of it.' > > Well now, what that required rule which brooks no exceptions happens to be > just does not matter in the context of the argument I gave at the start, and > so it could be quite irrelevant to suggest that "the rule is the exeption to > itself and therefore its premise is totally consistent". > > 'I didn't get that.' > > Well think about it this way. Being an example of the rule and thus it's > own exception would not make this rule that we've been talking about > self-consistent, any more that the fact that the sentence "all sentences are > false" is itself false makes that sentence self-consistent either. Indeed > it is precisely the fact that such a sentence is *not* self-consistent that > makes it false, just as it is precisely the fact that the sentence "there is > an exception to every rule" is inconsistent (and thus false) which makes you > want to call it "it's own exception."
RICK: Hmm... I don't think this is a good example. "all sentances are false" is violated by itself by for a different reason than "rule exception" premise. One might try your plug/socket theory on "all sentances are false" and say that since it is false the premise is maintained, but that circuit wouldn't save the premise because it's still being violated by every true sentance ever strung together. > > 'Could you be more concrete about this?' > > Sure. Look, supposing a hangman became his own executioner that would not > by itself make him self-consistent, now would it? Whether the hangman is at > odds with himself in his soul is one problem, and the matter of whether the > hangman or the hangman's assistant finally pulls the leaver is quite > another. I mean the hangman's occupational plug pluging into his > head-in-noose socket isn't really going to help him. If the hangman is > mad, he is mad. That the content of his madness might take the form of > hanging himself in a "self-referential" fashion is neither here nor there on > the question of his madness.
RICK: I either really don't like or really don't get this example. What exactly does it mean for a hangman to be self-consistent? Because he kills others than himself? That's more like literary irony than logical consistency. Maybe I just don't get it.
> 'Gruesome.' > > But true. Look, if a claim is mad and self-refuting it is mad and > self-refuting because it is incompatible with that claim's being made as a > claim, not merely because it is incompatible with the content of that claim. > This is like the difference between the incoherence of the hangman's soul as > a soul, and the resultant self-referential hanging of the mad hangman by > himself. If the guy was mad, and going to kill himself, his killing himself > by his own hands isn't a way of unkilling himself.
RICK: Sorry, I still don't get this analogy.
In just this way, from a > self-contradiction, anything and nothing follows: whichever point you happen > to pick up on, the contradiction is a contradiction just the same. For > example: the claim "all sentences are false" is undoubtedly > self-referentially compatible with its content, because once uttered it is > undoubtedly an example of the falseness it attributes to every sentence. But > that compatibility of the socket and the plug doesn't show that the claim is > self-consistent. The fact that this claim "all sentences are false" is > itself a sentence requires that it be something impossible and > self-refuting: both true and false at the same time.
RICK: Once again, the circuit wouldn't save "all sentances are false" because it's premise is false whether or not it is expressed. Quite unlike the "rule excpetion" or "no absolutes" premises which are violated only by their own expression and can remain perfectly logical (they can be the actuality) only as long as they aren't asserted. The circuit salvages a thought that is otherwise unexpressable, rather than one that is "self-contradictory".
And it is exactly the > same with the sentence "there are exeptions to every rule". Once uttered > this sentence can indeed be it's own exception, so we can say that it is > compatible with its own predictive content. In order for the sentence > "there are exceptions to every rule" to be true, there would indeed have to > be exceptions to this rule, and maybe you might want to say this list of > exceptions begins with itself. So, the content of the claim as an example > of a rule is perfectly compatible with it's content as a rule, > self-referentially. We agree....
RICK: We way... I noticed you qualified your paragraph early on with "Once uttered....". What we disagree on is how logic should properly address the situation. I have been taught that to label a rule as "self- contradictory" where the only thing that violates a rule is its own expression is to commit the logical/rhetorical fallacy of "self-inclusion"--- the inclusion of the hidden premise that "logic demands rules always include themselves". > > 'Do we?' > > ...But the problem is not with the coherrence between 'the rule as a rule' > and 'the rule as an example under a rule', or between plug and socket, but > with the coherrence of 'the rule as a rule' with itself. And it turns out > that this is a rule-plug which must be false as a rule inorder to be true as > a rule, in just the way I set out to begin with. > > 'What was that again? - I'm quite lost, and sorry I asked, not that I can > remember what I did ask....' > > I pointed ou that this rule, the rule we've been talking about, the rule > that says "every rule has exceptions", that rule requires the existence of > exactly the type of rule which it says doesn't exist. I mean, on the one > hand it's saying that all rules have exceptions, and on the other hand we > find that in order for there to be an exception to this very rule, the rule > that all rules have to have exceptions, there has to be some rule that > *doesn't* have an exception. So the rule is really saying both that *all* > rules have exceptions, and that *not all* rules have exceptions. And that's > just impossible, because it's a self-contradiction just like Platt was > saying.
RICK: Everything you say is true provided --- 1. You believe (for whatever reason) that logic demands all rules must address themselves, and 2.You wish to cheat yourself out of a perfectly logical thought simply because our language is too twisted to express it properly.
Thanks for the great post, Rick
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