This account of circularity expresses at least a sufficient condition for a kind of circularity in argument that undermines the effectiveness of the argument.
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It is most dubious, though, as a statement of conditions that are both necessary and sufficient for circularity. One would be hard pressed to find any argument proposed by a reputable philosopher that failed because its proponent failed to spot the conclusion hiding, explicitly, among the premises. Likewise, analyses rarely, if ever, fail because the very concept to be analyzed was used in the analysis.
In analyses, it is more likely that one concept is analysed in terms of others and the crucial concepts in the analysandum and the analysans form a tightly-knit family of concepts and, furthermore, the legitimacy of the entire family is the matter of philosophical dispute. To say that A is necessary if and only if it is not possible that not-A is certainly to avoid the first, simple-minded, kind of circularity and it would be uncharitable to think that the circularity at issue was one so easily avoided.
So, if our theory of the modal is to be a conceptual analysis and if the issue is whether the entire family of modal concepts is philosophically respectable, then the standard analysis of necessity in terms of possibility and negation that one finds in textbooks is clearly inadequate. Though the explicit rationale for taking philosophy to be conceptual analysis was the elimination of metaphysics and all intellectual things insufficiently answerable to experience, the focus on metaphysics, ethics, and religious belief obscured the primary value that was to be maximized via conceptual analysis, i.
Furthermore, one important means of gaining agreement to a metaphysical claim by way of rational persuasion was unavailable. Consequently, metaphysics gave the appearance of being unmoored, of being the project of constructing systems with no generally-accepted means of adjudicating between them.
If philosophical claims are about the interrelations among concepts, and if conceptual content is sufficiently transparent, then with the guidance of an expert philosopher we could come to see that some philosophical claims deserved our assent and others did not. The project of analysis was gradually replaced, partly because of critiques of the ideological foundations of conceptual analysis [Quine ] and partly, I suspect, because fewer issues were settled than one might have expected if conceptual content were sufficiently transparent to us.
As a result, metaphysics was revived and other domains took on the appearance of metaphysics at least to this extent: It was no longer what the content of a concept was. Perhaps our concepts are not well-behaved, or they are poorly structured, or they are otherwise inadequate for all of our intellectual endeavours. We are really interested in what it is for two events or facts to be causally related, or what it is to have rights by nature, or what it is to know something.
Whether the relevant information has ever been packed into our concepts is irrelevant, if upon investigation we could arrive at an acceptable theory of the relevant phenomenon. If the offending theory is supposed by its proponents to be a conceptual analysis, then the charge of circularity is relevant.
If the theory is not intended as a conceptual analysis and if it is to be a theory of what it is, in reality, for something to be necessary, then some further account of a different defect, perhaps so analogous to the two kinds of circularity canvassed above that it deserves the same name, must be given.
It is a commonplace now to concede that these notions form a family of inter-definable notions, so long as we have purely logical notions like negation to hand. Because of their inter-definability, it is difficult, if not impossible, to maintain that necessity is the conceptually fundamental member of the family while the others are defined in terms of it. If the task of a theory of the modal is to provide a route into understanding one concept in terms of others that can be understood prior to the concept analysed, then perhaps the phenomenon of inter-definability prevents success.
One either has mastery of all members of that modal family or of none at all. Blackburn, however, is not concerned with the success of this project. He objects neither that he or others fail to understand the concepts nor that understanding does not begin with a single conceptual ancestor for the rest of the family. He takes for granted that we have the appropriate understanding, however it is achieved. His concern is the substance behind our sensible and competent use of the concepts, and for that he provides his quasirealist alternative.
So, while the dilemma he poses would be sufficient to prevent success in completing this kind of task, this task is not his target. That structure is well-founded, if it has foundations, i. If it is assumed that the modal structure is a superstructure, then the modal superstructure requires non-modal foundations.
On such a picture, the family of inter-definable concepts is inadequate to supply these foundations, since each member of the family is part of the superstructure.
Why not, rather, think that it is part of the foundations of any sophisticated conceptual structure? If modal concepts are not definable in terms of non-modal concepts, that is evidence that when we reach those concepts we have reached conceptual bedrock. If so, then the inter-definability of modal concepts is unsurprising.
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Point, line segment, line, plane. Pick one and with uncontroversial resources, the others can be defined. These four concepts form a tightly-knit family of inter-definable notions. No philosopher of mathematics, however, is exercised over the legitimacy over Euclidean geometry on the basis of the inter-definability of these concepts. Instead, all take the family to form part of the conceptual basis for geometry. It is an interesting question how one can come to grasp concepts that form a small conceptual circle, but the geometry case demonstrates that whether we provide a satisfactory theory of how this is done, the lack of such a theory in no way provides grounds for thinking that the phenomenon does not occur.
It manifestly does and all parties find this so obvious in the case of fundamental geometric concepts that the issue is rarely raised. Modalists look at this horn and see not only nothing troubling, but they also see nothing surprising. This horn of the dilemma, then, is inadequate by itself. Were the horn supplemented with some further considerations, it might form part of an overall basis for rejecting modalism in particular and truth conditional theories of modality in general. Perhaps the considerations that motivated the early Analytic philosophers could be invoked here and arguments could be given that there is too little agreement on modal matters to think that we employ modal concepts to good effect for expressing truths.
Perhaps, there is no good modal epistemology that could form part of an overall modalist framework. Perhaps our use of modal discourse fails to show the signs of the kind of truth and objectivity that the typical modalist wants [Wright ]. His dilemma is supposed to be sufficient to see off of any truth conditional theory of modality, even one that takes modal notions as enabling us to express basic features of the world.
Once we were to have seen that there is something deeply misguided by the entire truth conditional approach, we were to be open to the quasi-realist alternative. Were we to go no further, we have grounds for thinking that—so far as Blackburn has argued—there are at least two going alternatives in the theory of modality: David Lewis made clear that his project was not conceptual analysis [Lewis, ]. If it had been he would not have relied as he did on inference to the best explanation as the main means of providing warrant for his version of the ontology of a plurality of concrete worlds.
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Lewis recommended using inference to the best explanation to justify his theory partly because it showed philosophical justification to be similar to the means of justification used by scientists. This parallel with scientific justification could not have been maintained plausibly had Lewis thought his project to be that of the conceptual analyst. Whereas conceptual analysis is the pursuit of a set of concepts that means precisely what that to be analysed means, inference to the best explanation is meant as an evidence-providing exercise that, if successful, raises the probability of the conclusion which articulates that which is to be the best explanation for the phenomena reported in the premises of the inference.
Perhaps the circularity is not really conceptual, but metaphysical. Not just any old set of worlds will do. Blackburn does not make this particular point explicitly, though something like it has been made in [Lycan ], [McGinn ], and [Shalkowski ].
If there were impossible concrete worlds or if the plurality were missing some worlds that are possible, then the analysis would not be extensionally adequate. Ruling out such states of the plurality, perhaps, could be done only after one had accepted the general Lewis-style account. Likewise, inferring that it is necessary that A from the premise that it is necessary that A will never lead one from truth to falsity.
So, what is the problem supposed to be? The faulty analysis need not be false and the faulty argument need not lead to a conclusion that is false. A necessary condition for an argument being persuasive is that one believes the premises and understands that the premises provide good grounds for the conclusion. Acceptance of the conclusion needs to be on the basis of a prior acceptance of the premises.
A circular argument prevents this priority condition on rational persuasion from obtaining. Hence, circularity is an argumentative defect and the defect is epistemic. A circular argument fails to impart entitlement to embrace the conclusion to one who accepts the conclusion on the basis of that argument.
The schematic theory is that it is necessary that A if and only if F , for some non-modal F. Any defence of this theory will either make plain that F is sufficient for the necessity of A by way of circularity, or else the argument will fail to demonstrate that A really is necessary in virtue of F. The strategy was to specify things for which philosophers want theories, show that if the thesis about a plurality of worlds were true, we could provide a single, unified theory of those things. Certainly, there are competing theories for the truth conditions of modal claims, the semantics for counterfactual conditionals, the natures of properties and propositions, etc.
Each of those competing theories is, however, a single-issue theory. As scientists take theoretical unification as a mark of scientific truth, so Lewis takes philosophical unification as a mark of philosophical truth. The inference to the best explanation generates no more circularity for metaphysical theories than it does for physical theories. So the first horn of our new dilemma can be avoided, if inference to the best explanation is legitimate in metaphysics. Any theory stating that the truth conditions for a necessary A in terms of some non-modal F inadvertently renders the A unnecessary.
The A is supposed to have modal force, but the F is not. Let us bracket any question of the modal status of scientific reductions, since scientists may or may not think that the scientific reductions they propose are necessary. When asked what lightning is, we are told that lightning is the discharge of static electricity either between clouds or between clouds and the surface of the earth. Here we have a theory of lightning in non-lightning terms.
If there is a problem for theories of modality that are given in non-modal terms, it is not that they are theories of A -things in terms of non- A -things, where we categorize A -things and non- A -things on the basis of the concepts we use to specify them. Projectivism is best thought of as a causal account of moral experience. Consider a straightforward, observation-based moral judgment: Then there is Jane's sensory perception of this event she sees the youths, hears the cat's howls, etc.
Jane may form certain inferential beliefs concerning, say, the youths' intentions, the cats' pain, etc. All this prompts in Jane an emotion: In David Hume's words: Putting aside any doubts about the plausibility or even coherence of projectivism, what relation does it bear to noncognitivism? Even if we construe noncognitivism in a mentalistic manner—as a thesis concerning what kind of mental states moral judgments are—there is no obvious implication relation.
Although an emotional episode is a central component of the whole projectivist chain of events, it doesn't follow that the moral judgment must or should be identified with that component. Projectivism, after all, implies an account of moral phenomenology: It implies that moral properties appear as if they are in the world.
Perhaps sometimes we know better; perhaps sometimes although we cannot help but experience the world as containing some quality, we don't believe that it really does just as we know that the stick in the water is straight although we cannot help but see it as bent. But it is widely accepted by projectivists that often we don't know better—that we are taken in by our own projectivist tendencies. And if this is so, then it is natural to assume that ultimately Jane believes that the action is impermissible: Her emotional projection results in a belief.
And since this belief is at least as good a candidate as the emotion for being identified as the moral judgment, projectivism is perfectly compatible with cognitivism understood as a thesis concerning what kinds of mental states moral judgments are. See Joyce b. The same argument holds, mutatis mutandis, if we choose to characterize noncognitivism as a thesis concerning sentences or speech acts. But if they are asserting such things—that is, expressing their beliefs on the matter—then they cannot simply be expressing their emotions.
It is also possible to accept the projectivist account of moral experience while identifying impermissibility say with some feature of the world: One might even hold that she should be interpreted as asserting that the act of hurting the cat has the power to prompt a certain act of emotional projection.
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And since the act may indeed have this property, her assertion may be true. Whether this will count as a form of moral realism depends on how we choose to specify the relevant in dependency relation between moral facts and our mental activity to be discussed in section 5 of main entry. But certainly on some such specifications this will count as a form of moral realism.
Thus not only is it a mistake to think that projectivism is the province solely of the noncognitivist; it would be equally mistaken to assume that it is the province solely of the moral anti-realist. See Craig for an argument for the compatibility of projectivism and realism in Hume's views on causality. See also Sainsbury Blackburn is not only a noncognitivist and a moral projectivist, but a quasi-realist. See also Gibbard