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The dataset generation failed
Error code: DatasetGenerationError
Exception: ArrowInvalid
Message: JSON parse error: Missing a closing quotation mark in string. in row 1
Traceback: Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/packaged_modules/json/json.py", line 153, in _generate_tables
df = pd.read_json(f, dtype_backend="pyarrow")
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pandas/io/json/_json.py", line 815, in read_json
return json_reader.read()
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pandas/io/json/_json.py", line 1025, in read
obj = self._get_object_parser(self.data)
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pandas/io/json/_json.py", line 1051, in _get_object_parser
obj = FrameParser(json, **kwargs).parse()
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pandas/io/json/_json.py", line 1187, in parse
self._parse()
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pandas/io/json/_json.py", line 1403, in _parse
ujson_loads(json, precise_float=self.precise_float), dtype=None
ValueError: Trailing data
During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/builder.py", line 1997, in _prepare_split_single
for _, table in generator:
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/packaged_modules/json/json.py", line 156, in _generate_tables
raise e
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/packaged_modules/json/json.py", line 130, in _generate_tables
pa_table = paj.read_json(
File "pyarrow/_json.pyx", line 308, in pyarrow._json.read_json
File "pyarrow/error.pxi", line 154, in pyarrow.lib.pyarrow_internal_check_status
File "pyarrow/error.pxi", line 91, in pyarrow.lib.check_status
pyarrow.lib.ArrowInvalid: JSON parse error: Missing a closing quotation mark in string. in row 1
The above exception was the direct cause of the following exception:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/src/services/worker/src/worker/job_runners/config/parquet_and_info.py", line 1529, in compute_config_parquet_and_info_response
parquet_operations = convert_to_parquet(builder)
File "/src/services/worker/src/worker/job_runners/config/parquet_and_info.py", line 1154, in convert_to_parquet
builder.download_and_prepare(
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/builder.py", line 1029, in download_and_prepare
self._download_and_prepare(
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/builder.py", line 1124, in _download_and_prepare
self._prepare_split(split_generator, **prepare_split_kwargs)
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/builder.py", line 1884, in _prepare_split
for job_id, done, content in self._prepare_split_single(
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/builder.py", line 2040, in _prepare_split_single
raise DatasetGenerationError("An error occurred while generating the dataset") from e
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pred_label
string | pred_label_prob
float64 | wiki_prob
float64 | text
string | source
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|---|---|---|---|---|
__label__wiki
| 0.67115
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You are here: Home / Massachusetts / Ted Kennedy passes on
Ted Kennedy passes on
by Bryan Strawser · Aug 26, 2009
Senator Edward M. Kennedy passed away yesterday. The New York Times talks about his last few months:
But the senator’s condition took a turn Tuesday night and a priest — the Rev. Patrick Tarrant of Our Lady of Victory Church in Centerville, Mass. — was called to his bedside. Mr. Kennedy spent his last hours in prayer, Father Tarrant told a Boston television station, WCVB-TV.
Mr. Kennedy had told friends recently that he was looking forward to a “reunion” with his seven departed siblings, particularly his brothers, whose lives had been cut short.
“When he gets there, he can say ‘I did it, I carried the torch,’ ” Mr. Delahunt said. “ ‘I carried it all the way.’ ”
His politics were not mine, but no matter how you look at it – a great man and one of the last of the that generation of Kennedys has passed on.
Filed Under: Massachusetts, New England, Politics
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__label__wiki
| 0.572262
| 0.572262
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Millionaires Again Less Bearish than Affluent: Spectrem
Date: Thursday, June 5, 2008
Author: Christopher Faille, Senior Financial Correspondent, Hedgeworld.com
CHICAGO (HedgeWorld.com)—Respondents to the Spectrem Group's surveys in May returned to normalcy in one respect, after an anomalous showing in April. Once again, the narrower millionaires' families segment of the population indicated that it is more bullish (or, rather, less bearish) than the broader affluent families' segment.
Last month, the millionaire reading stood at negative 14, the affluent index at negative 13. But the latest results show millionaire sentiment up to negative 9; affluent sentiment stuck where it was.
Spectrem's Affluent Investor Index is based on a survey of households with $500,000 or more in investable funds, which places their sentiment on a scale from positive 30 to negative 30, with neutral ground running from positive 10 to negative 10. Since mildly bullish or bearish terrain begins at 11 and ends at 20 on either side of the scale, the affluent at negative 13 are in the mildly bearish zone, while the millionaires have moved, just barely, into neutrality.
But even with the improvement, the millionaires' mood is still 29 points below where it was last June, and 17 points below where it was in December. It is at its third-lowest record ever.
"With concerns over increasing gas and oil prices spiking for both groups in May, the investment sentiment of the wealthiest Americans is moving into the summer on anything but a high note," said George H. Walper Jr., president of the Spectrem Group, in a statement.
In response to an open-ended question about the news story most affecting their economic outlook, affluent investors in May cited increasing oil and gas prices 45% of the time. The second most frequently cited story (housing and real estate) was far behind that, at 13%. The last time this question was asked, in February, only 6% chose increasing oil and gas prices.
Millionaires, asked the same question in May, expressed somewhat less concern than the affluent with oil and gas prices, although for them too it still ranked as easily their greatest worry. Forty percent of them named it as such. They also were concerned about housing and real estate, 17%; and election results, 11%.
Mr. Walper is the author of a book with Catherine S. McBreen, Spectrem's managing director, about the wealth accumulation secrets of America's richest families, titled, Get Rich, Stay Rich, Pass it On.
The results of these surveys are announced on the first Wednesday of every month. Spectrem Group is a strategic consulting firm that specializes in the affluent and retirement markets, integrating proprietary research with expertise in building business, marketing and acquisition strategies.
CFaille@HedgeWorld.com
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cc/2022-05/en_middle_0058.json.gz/line4
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__label__wiki
| 0.734373
| 0.734373
|
Browse Now . . .
A nation’s productive—and moral, and intellectual—top is the middle class. It is a broad reservoir of energy, it is a country’s motor and lifeblood, which feeds the rest. The common denominator of its members, on their various levels of ability, is: independence. The upper classes are merely a nation’s past; the middle class is its future.
“The Dead End,”
The Ayn Rand Letter , I, 20, 3
The middle class is the heart, the lifeblood, the energy source of a free, industrial economy, i.e., of capitalism; it did not and cannot exist under any other system; it is the product of upward mobility, incompatible with frozen social castes. Do not ask, therefore, for whom the bell of inflation is tolling; it tolls for you. It is not at the destruction of a handful of the rich that inflation is aimed (the rich are mostly in the vanguard of the destroyers), but at the middle class.
“The Inverted Moral Priorities,”
The Ayn Rand Letter , III, 21, 2
See also: Capitalism; Inflation.
Copyright © 1986 by Harry Binswanger. Introduction copyright © 1986 by Leonard Peikoff. All rights reserved. For information address New American Library.
Excerpts from The Ominous Parallels , by Leonard Peikoff. Copyright © 1982 by Leonard Peikoff. Reprinted with permission of Stein and Day Publishers. Excerpts from The Romantic Manifesto , by Ayn Rand. Copyright © 1971, by The Objectivist . Reprinted with permission of Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. Excerpts from Atlas Shrugged , copyright © 1957 by Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead , copyright © 1943 by Ayn Rand, and For the New Intellectual , copyright © 1961 by Ayn Rand. Reprinted by permission of the Estate of Ayn Rand. Excerpts from Philosophy: Who Needs It , by Ayn Rand. Copyright © 1982 by Leonard Peikoff, Executor, Estate of Ayn Rand. Reprinted by permission of the Estate of Ayn Rand. Excerpts from “The Philosophy of Objectivism” lecture series. Copyright © 1976 by Leonard Peikoff. Reprinted by permission. Excerpts from Alvin Toffler’s interview with Ayn Rand, which first appeared in Playboy magazine. Copyright © 1964. Reprinted by permission of Alvin Toffler. All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. Used by arrangement with Plume, a member of Penguin Group (USA), Inc.
About the Lexicon
Introduction by Leonard Peikoff
Preface by Harry Binswanger
Conceptual Index
About Ayn Rand
Books About Ayn Rand
The Ayn Rand Institute
The Ayn Rand Institute eStore
Objectivist Conferences
Ayn Rand® Org
Web site design by Michael Chiavaroli & Associates. Please report technical issues to webmaster@aynrand.org.
Copyright © 2022 Ayn Rand® Institute (ARI). All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part is prohibited. ARI is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Contributions to ARI in the United States are tax-exempt to the extent provided by law.
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cc/2022-05/en_middle_0058.json.gz/line6
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__label__cc
| 0.683527
| 0.316473
|
Airdrie Ladies Fastball
2019 AGM MInutes
Available Volunteer Position(s)
Forfeits and Adding Players 2019
Umpire Communication
2020 League Rules
2021 AGM & League Meeting Minutes
2021 June 8 League Meeting Minutes
2021 ALFL Teams
AIRDRIE LADIES FASTBALL LEAGUE WAVIER AND RELEASE
In exchange for the right to participate in the Airdrie Ladies Fastball League, the undersigned hereby releases and forever discharges Airdrie Ladies Fastball League as well as its employees, administrators, agents, representatives and all other persons, firms, corporations and educational institutions that may be acting for or on behalf of Airdrie Ladies Fastball League (collectively all of the foregoing are a "Released Parties") from any and all claims, demands, actions, causes of action and suits of any kind and nature whatsoever and howsoever arising, that may in any way relate to any injury, damage, loss or death, whether to person or property, whether arising as a result of accident, negligence or otherwise, which is claimed or alleged to have arisen as a result of any act or omission of any of the Released Parties, whether in the course of any social, educational, athletic event or activity or otherwise that Airdrie Ladies Fastball League plans, sponsors, hosts, participates in or is otherwise involved with in any manner, whether now or in the future. This Waiver and Release also applies to any injury, damage or loss that may arise in the course of traveling to and from any such event or activity. The risks set out above include those foreseen and unforeseen, known and unknown. This Waiver and Release is binding on the heirs, executors, assigns and administrators of the undersigned.
This Waiver and Release is a complete waiver and release and the undersigned hereby waives any and all rights he or she may now have or which may arise in the future that may in any way act to limit the application or scope of this Waiver and Release, whether by estoppels, waiver or otherwise.
If you do not fully understand the provisions of this Waiver and Release you are encouraged to review the same with legal counsel and you agree and acknowledge that you have been provided with an opportunity for the same. The undersigned hereby declares that he or she has read and completely understands the terms of this Waiver and Release and is signing it voluntarily.
There has been an error and your form has not been submitted. Please contact us
I have read, understand and agree with all of the foregoing.
Witness (Not the same name as above)
You were (18) years of age at the date of signing this Wavier if no is selected here provide the Parents Full Name above
Team LOOKING FOR A TEAM RENEGADES BREWERS SWEET HEAT CHARGERS TNT FOXES TWISTED SISTERS
Players/Coach Code of Conduct (Please acknowledge all checkboxes)
I will not have unrealistic expectations. I will remember that we are not professionals and cannot be judged by professional standards.
I will respect the officials decisions and communicate with them in an appropriate manner and I will encourage my team mates to do the same.
I will encourage my team mates to play by the rules and to resolve conflicts without resorting to hostility or violence.
I will exhibit good sportsmanship.
I will never ridicule or yell at my team mates, opponents, coaches or officials for making a mistake.
I will applaud players & performances on both teams.
I will never question the official judgment or honesty in public.
I will support all efforts to remove verbal and physical abuse from sporting activities.
I will not consume alcohol or smoke cigarettes or marijuana on, or near the vicinity of the players & benches.
I will not use bad language, nor will I harass opponents, coaches, officials or spectators.
I will be knowledgeable of the rules and regulations.
I will respect the rights of other players, coaches, fans & officials
I will be responsible for my own behavior.
I will have respect for all the facilities and equipment used in the sport.
Airdrie Ladies Fastball League © 2022
We will be playing evenings from June 27th to August 15th in 2021. Sundays (5:15 pm and 7:30) at the Chinook Winds south diamonds.
Airdrie Chinook Winds Ball Diamonds
airdrieladiesfastball@yahoo.com
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cc/2022-05/en_middle_0058.json.gz/line21
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__label__cc
| 0.518251
| 0.481749
|
212 80 Elgin Street
Port Moody Centre Port Moody V0V 0V0
With open & spacious floor plans, timeless heritage architecture & high-quality materials, the residences at Sophia Living come standard with all the features you've always wanted in a home. Complete with the luxurious extras like designer selected finishes, private outdoor spaces & tons of natural light, these homes go above & beyond to enhance livability & create a private oasis for you & your family. With historic character, nature all around & convenient transit options like the West Coast Express & Evergreen Skytrain, it's easy to see why Port Moody has become one of the most sought after communities in Greater Vancouver to live, work and play. We look forward to meeting you at the Presentation Centre: 3032 St. John Street, Port Moody. Please call us for opening hours.
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cc/2022-05/en_middle_0058.json.gz/line25
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__label__wiki
| 0.972624
| 0.972624
|
Lily Williams
Email Lily Williams
Playwright and writer for film and television
Sonya Kelly is an Irish writer for theatre and TV.
Her debut solo play, The Wheelchair on My Face, won a Scotsman Fringe First Award Edinburgh Fringe 2012, and received a Critics’ Pick in the New York Times.
Her second play, How to Keep an Alien, won Best Production at the Dublin Fringe, 2014. It toured nationally and to the Brisbane Festival, Traverse in Edinburgh, Soho Theatre, The Irish Arts Center in New York, and the Auckland Arts Festival in New Zealand. Telling the love story of Sonya and her partner through their search for a visa, it's a funny and moving romance comedy.
Sonya's play, Furniture, was developed and produced by Druid Theatre in 2018 for the Galway International Arts Festival and Irish national tour. In 2019 it won the Stewart Parker Trust Award and Irish Writers Guild award for Best New Theatre Script.
Her latest play, Once Upon A Bridge, was produced by the Druid, and streamed online to an extraordinary response. It has been nominated for a Writers Guild of Great Britain Award for 'Best Play'.
She is currently working on theatre and TV projects with BBC Scotland, Wildfire Films, Green Pavilion and Treasure Entertainment.
Once Upon A Bridge
WGGB Award nomination for Best Play
Director Sara Joyce
New play for the Druid Theatre. Inspired by real events, this is the story of an incident one morning on Putney Bridge where three strangers' lives collided.
Live streamed from The Mick Lally Theatre (Galway)
Director Cathal Cleary
Druid Theatre
Future Simple
Rough Magic Theatre Company
The Wheelchair on My Face
Winner: Fringe First, Edinburgh Fringe Festival
Producer Marketa Dowling
Director Gina Moxley
Theatrical memoir about Sonya's myopic childhood
ABSOLUT Fringe
How To Keep An Alien
Best Production at the Tiger Dublin Fringe 2014
Producer Rough Magic
Justin Murphy
A funny and tender memoir about how Sonya secures an Irish visa for her Australian partner that won Best Production at the Tiger Dublin Fringe 2014.
Playing at The Traverse Theatre during The Edinburgh Festival 2015.
Project Arts Centre / Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh / Soho Theatre
Seeing Violet
Drama set in Glasgow
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__label__cc
| 0.746263
| 0.253737
|
One arrested for sailor attack
(CNS): A 28-year-old man was arrested earlier today (Friday 12 March) for Tuesday’s attack and attempted robbery of a crewmember of the US Coast Guard cutter Bear, which was visiting the Cayman Islands. Police said that at about 2:10 am on Tuesday 9 March, a man allegedly struck the 21-year-old American sailor on the face in North Church Street, George Town, and demanded cash. According to police, the victim fell to the ground and his friend yelled at the assailant, who then jumped into a dark coloured Jeep Cherokee and sped off empty handed.
The victim sustained head injuries and was detained in hospital overnight. CNS understands that the victim and his companion, who are serving aboard the USCG ship, were not wearing uniform at the time as they were enjoying an evening’s shore leave. The vessel left Grand Cayman Tuesday 9 March.
RCIPS officers arrested the suspect for attempted robbery following an operation in the Bodden Town area. He is now in police custody and enquiries are ongoing.
Anyone with information about this crime should call George Town police station on
949-4222 or Crime Stoppers 800-8477 (TIPS).
Category: Headline News
Sunday 14; 10:21 You have hit the nail on the head with your comments- well said. The Bicycle travelling all hours of the night is becoming a nightmare to Bodden Town residents – Do these people have anywhere to call home. Needs some domr monitoring and pulling down.
Attempted robbery?…….. what about assault causing bodily harm???
Nothing no more on any investigations on the two individuals who were brutally attacked last month on courts road. I guess another "unsolved crime" added to the many that are already there!!!!
Whoever the idiot was that did this should be dealt with by the full force of the law.
TennisAce says:
Good work RCIPs. Very good work. Kudos to the people of Cayman who are now stepping up and assisting the police in their efforts to combat crime and violence on the Island.
Well done, now let this individual if found guilty of said crime to cool his heels in Northward for a couple of years and perhaps learn a valuable lesson.
A couple? Banging a visitor on the head without provocation should get you ten minimum, and since that costs so much, we should sub it out to Cuba.
frank rizzo says:
What is the obsession with Cuba? Do you think for one minute that Cuba will take our prisoners without strings? Ok, suppose we strike a deal at $xxx per prisoner, Cuba takes the $$ and 500 prisoners and sends us 1000 of theirs. $$ is only one factor in the equation and the Castros are not idiots.
OK Frank – Jamaica then.
The string in this case is that they get handsomely paid by their standards (say EUR15,000 per annum per prisoner) to keep those of our prisoners who should be serving ‘hard labour’. What would be the point in messing up a good deal by sending prisoners to us? There is nothing wrong with the idea except that the British Govt wouldn’t allow it because of Cuba’s human rights record.
Anonymous1(:0:) says:
Lets hope that this is true that they really got one of the animals that are terrorising this island. cage them and declaw them.
And neuter them (please?)
I am very glad to know that an arrest has been made. Well done to the RCIPS.
Hopefully the right person has been arrested and if this individual is ultimately convicted of this crime I sincerely hope that the courts send a very very strong message with sentencing.
name and nationality please.
and that is important because? you think the americans care ? it happened here irrespective of nationalty Cayman gets the bad name
If they are Caymanian I want social services to investigatehow he came to be so screwed up and propose solutions to save future idiots from themselves and us from them.
If they are Expatriates I want immigration to investigate how he came to be so screwed up in my country and propose solutions to save us from other countries idiots in future.
If they recently received an immigration permission, I want the Attorney General to investigate what shortfall in our systems let the bad apple through and propose solutions to prevent more bad apples slipping through.
And, if they are expatriates or recently received an immigration permission, I want to be sure that the plane door hits them in the arse (once they have done their time in Northward).
Is any of that unreasonable.
It matters because it helps to identify the root of the problem and therefore to help solve it. It’s not about whether Americans care.
19:08 Friday 3rd… By the way, you are so right – 99.9% of the timeit is always the a person with no nationality!!! Like the murder that took place at Kirks Warehouse … the report said a "Bodden Town man". It was just someone residing in Bodden Town – Can they not get these things straight or don’t post anything at all until they are positive. It turned out to be Citizen of Cayman. Very misleading to the public.
No such thing as a Citizen of Cayman. You can be a British Overseas Territories Citizen, including having a Cayman Passport, and not be Caymanian and have no right to live and work here. Similarly, you can be Caymanian and have no right to a Cayman Passport.
If someone says they are a Naturalised Caymanian, they are likely to still be an expat, liable to deportation etc..
Not that your Bodden Town Resident was not Caymanian, but given our screwed up system, detail is actually quite important when trying to determine whether someone is Caymanian or not.
Dream on . . . says:
The prospects of the Cayman Islands being able to deport a naturalised Caymanian is zero.
There is no such thingh as a Naturalised Caymanian. Only Naturalised BOTC’s with a connnection to the Cayman Islands, and yes they can be (and have been) deported.
You are very naive. The Secretary of State in the UK has stripped naturalized citizens of their citizenship and then deported them where it is deemed to be in the public interest for crimes committed.
*British Nationality Act 1981 (c. 61), s. 40(2).
« Games symbol heading to CI
Murder “not gang related” »
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cc/2022-05/en_middle_0058.json.gz/line29
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__label__cc
| 0.52776
| 0.47224
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الاستفتاء الآن
الحقيقة بدءاً من لبنان : 2
رسالة مفتوحة الى رئيس الحزب السوري القومي الاجتماعي الأمين علي قانصو
نقل العنف إلى الساحة الآروبية
استراتيجيا الحرب على المجتمعات
منهجية نظر في المشروع العربي
عولمة الرعب
رواية 11 أيلول
الملحق السادس
عدم جدوى الردّ العسكري
يوسف الأشقر, نشر على الإنترنت : الثلاثاء 24 كانون الثاني (يناير) 2006
الفصل الأول
الفصل الرابع
الفصل الخامس
الملحق الأول
الملحق الرابع
الملحق الثاني
الملحق الثالث
الملحق الخامس
الملحق السابع
النظريات والآراء التي لا تؤيد الردّ العسكري، وتعدّد الشروط التي يجب أن تتوفّر له، والعقبات التي تقف في طريقه
أسباب ترجّح استبعاد الرّد العسكري أو استبعاد التسرّع فيه
التأخّر في التوصل إلى تحديد هوية ومسؤولية الفاعلين
Dilemma of the would-be retaliator: when to respond?
“Acceptance of the need to justify any military reprisal…has one serious drawback….”
“From the point of view of both domestic public opinion and international politics, any military retaliatory action must be launched relatively soon after the act of terrorism that triggered it.”
“…a long time may pass before sufficiently clear proof is obtained concerning the identity of the perpetrators. The delay associated with applying highly protective criteria for accountability for terrorism may often exclude military reprisal as a countermeasure…”.
Heymann, p. 71, par.3.
عقبات أخرى قد تثير الخلاف ومعارضة الرّد العسكري إمتناع أميركا عن كشف مصادر الدليل إمتناع أميركا عن كشف الدليل ذاته عدم وجود جواب متّفق عليه لبعض الأسئلة الأساسية
Significant problems
“These are significant problems, [1] for state sponsors of terrorism often do their best to conceal their involvement…[2] the actual perpetrators may spread false leads…. [3] Even when the evidence is clearest, as when unimpeachable intelligence sources implicate the sponsoring state, the would-be retaliator may be unwilling to reveal the sources of that unimpeachable evidence or even the evidence itself to anyone other than its closest allies”.
Heymann, p. 71, last par.
الجدل والتحفّظ حول مخاطر الرّد العسكري وتبريره إمكانية الخطأ في تحديد المسؤولية إمكانية الإنزلاق إلى تصعيد الحرب
Justification of self-defense
“Even in this context, there is substantial debate as to whether self-defense can be used to justify a response to anything other than an armed incursion by identified troops into the defender’s territory. Some argue that only such incursions are clear enough acts to justify self-help: that in all other cases there is too likely to be a mistake about who is responsible for terrorism and too little urgency about resolving that matter to justify a form of military retaliation that may lead to escalation and war.”
الرّد العسكري قد يزيد في العمليات الإرهابية بدلاً من أن يردعهاأو يُنقصها
Bruce Hoffman, Director of the Center for the Study of Terrorism and Political Retaliation, asserts that, in some cases, the target of retaliation “not only resumed but actually increased its international terrorist activities.”
Heymann, p. 75 (Original Source: Bruce Hoffman and Caleb Carr, “Who is Fighting Whom”, World Policy Journal, Vol. 14, No.1, Spring, 1997.
“There are many plausible reasons and a good deal of historic evidence to demonstrate that frequently a military response will not deter a state from sponsoring terrorism”
Heymann, p. 76.
إشكالية الرّد العسكري: العقبات والأسباب التي قد تجعله غير مبرّر. (مستوى الرعاية-مستوى المسؤولية-مستوى الدليل)
“There is no clear international understanding of where…a state becomes so responsible as to be subject under international law and practice to sanctions or military response… nor is there any international agreement as to what level of proof is necessary for a response. Indeed, in light of the realities of foreign relations, a nation is likely to demand a higher level of proof of complicity before acting against some nations than against others.
Obstacles to a military response:
There is substantial debate as to whether self-defense can be used to justify a response.
“It is difficult to define and prove the level of sponsorship of terrorist acts that would warrant retaliation in self-defense…the responses of U.S. administrations suggest that the US would hold a country responsible for a terrorist act only if sufficient proof existed that the country’s own agents were assisting the attack”.
عدم جدوى الرّد العسكري
Does retaliation deter terrorism? Does it serve other purposes?
“In what ways might deterrence... fail, and how likely is this state of affairs?
Consider the many possibilities. [1] The state sponsoring terrorism may lack the capacity to stop the terrorist group. [2] It may consider the actions necessary to stop the group more dangerous to the state safety than the retaliatory strike. [3] The administration of the sponsoring state may find that the retaliatory strikes have political benefits, for example, uniting the public behind it. It may decide to continue sponsoring terrorist behavior but more secretly.” “…[4] The message sent by the retaliating state may not be clear…. The state sponsoring the terrorist activity may regard that [retaliatory strike] as a ruse to cover other objectives of the retaliating state. [5] Even if the message is clear, the sponsoring state may react with hatred and aggression rather than fear and submission, perhaps understanding the confrontation as challenging its very autonomy rather than a particular policy…. [6] The strike may weaken internal political opposition to the main foreign policy direction, including hostility toward the retaliatory state, of the government. National pride is always a powerful incentive for a public.”
Heymann, pp. 73-74.
أسباب أخرى تظهر عدم جدوى الرّد
Strictly rational calculations in assessing the prospects of success or failure of a military response
“Doubtless there are other reasons why retaliation that appears promising on its faith might fail or even backfire”.
“My point is not to prove that retaliation to deter state sponsorship of terrorism will generally fail. It is simply to recognize that even without considering the possibility of irrational responses, a variety of perfectly rational reasons may defeat the specific deterrence that justifies, politically and legally, retaliatory military strike. A decision to use a military response depends on more than the determination of the true responsibility for acts that are sometimes carefully hidden; on more than an assessment of the complicated moral question raised by the likelihood of hitting innocent targets; and on more than difficult calculations of international law and international support. It also depends on a judgment of the prospects of being successful in terms of specific deterrents. And that obviously requires an intricate understanding of the culture, needs, goals, and politics of the target of retaliation.
خيارات غير الرّد العسكري والمشاكل المتعلّقة بهاالعقوبات الإقتصادية والدبلوماسية إمكانية الخلاف بين أميركا والحلفاء حول تلك الخيارات
Dealing with terrorism “requires intelligence more than passion, and calculation more than anger.”
Heymann, p. XIII.
“A democratic nation wants life, liberty, unity as the products of its policies for dealing with terrorism, not just physical security. Focusing exclusively on a very popular desire for revenge- treating terrorism as if were nothing but a common crime- is likely to provide too little liberty and unity to be a sensible policy. Urged on us [the U.S.A.] by Israel’s Prime minister Netanyahu, this policy has not served his country well.”
Heymann, p. 153.
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Doggie Diner Dogheads
Kickstarter Press
Kickstarter Campaign to Restore the Doggie Heads
Deacon Melmoth Speaks
Dogminician Order
Tales of the Doggie
Head Trip – Doggie Diner Dogheads trip across the US to NYC
Doggie Art Gallery
Behold Da Dog
For tenants in San Francisco (over 2/3 of us rent), it is cat city, owing to the paucity of green open spaces. Dog owners are an embattled minority. Their animals’ soil coat every square inch of grass, making lawn play a dangerous pastime.
Even so, perhaps inevitably: Dogs are the objects of worship, and contention- both as living beings, and as kitsch icon. There remains one darling dachshund-on-stick where it was left behind on Ocean Beach by the defunct Doggie Diner chain. (Other Doggie Diner heads are in private hands.) Atop a rusted pole at the corner of 46th Ave. and Sloat is the sole surviving shill on location since 1965.
Doggie Diners were among the first of their kind in the years following WWII. The chain was based in Oakland. In its hey day, thirty outlets served up hotdogs and hamburgers around the greater Bay Area. No visit to the zoo or Playland-at-the-Beach was complete without a stop at the DD.
I never had the pleasure of eating there in its original incarnation, but the successor Carousel Restaurant is a reasonable facsimile. For patrons today, it provides the same inexpensive comfort food without frills or pretension.
An unlikely combination of local history buffs, carnivore nostalgists, and humorous icon-worshippers have mounted a campaign to save this Dog on location, now that the land is owned by the Sloat Garden Center, which is interested in further developing its property. 100 or so supporters turned out on a rainy Sunday to rally in support of the Dog.
“If this were the last Starbucks, we’d fight to preserve that,” said author Gil Bates, whose filmscript Dogalypse Now is forthcoming from Modem Times Press.
Bates’ luncheon companion paused over a chile dog to reflect. “Not since Bummer & Lazarus-those canine sidekicks of Emperor Norton-has there been such an outpouring of affection for a San Francisco mascot,” said San Francisco history buff Ford Henry.
Perhaps the Dog sign is just one more bit of 20th century detritus waiting to be replaced by its Y2K dot commie equivalent. In response to the threat of removal supporters of the Dog and civic history have lobbied for landmark status to be conferred on this totemic mutt.
At a follow-up meeting next Tuesday, February 29, supporters of the Dog hope the Supervisors get the message to let this sleepless Dog remain on its post with diner intact. The alternative, they dread, is that both will be removed and replaced either with a parking lot, or condos.
Again, I never got to Playland-at-the-Beach, but I see only too clearly the condos that replaced it. There’s no doubt in my mind which I would prefer see on trips to the beach.
In January a tentative deal was brokered which would allow this Dog to remain till 2005…but the Dog’s future is anything but assured. Supporters of the Dog will be watching the City’s Supervisors to see how they respond to yet another threat to the material evidence of San Francisco’s ever evanescent history. (Also at risk further up the coast is the Camera Obscura by the Cliff House.)
Not everyone’s nostalgia is linked to the passion of carnivores for dead meat in a tacky grease-pit. Many who missed the Doggie Diner’s sanguine offerings (the last one closed in 1986) see in the Dog the Ideal Animal: well-dressed, happy, eager to attend to soul needs as it once did one’s flesh-eating appetite.
The sign of the Dog has become part of the genius loci of its Ocean Beach neighborhood. To separate the two would be to let that much more the City go-to the lower case dogs.
This Dog could be the best friend we’ll ever have, so why mess with it? As Marcelle Clements has observed, in a book bearing this title, The Dog is Us. To turn our back on the Dog would be to spite ourselves, allowing another much-loved relic of our living past slip into the memory hole.
–D.S. Black
This entry was posted in Uncategorized on January 7, 2014 by kevin.
← Deacon Melmoth Speaks – the Doggie Diner Blog Ode to the Doggie Diner Sign →
See the progress of the Doggies revitalization!
Doggie Heads Valentine’s Celebration with Mayor Lee of San Francisco
Cartoons by Bill Griffith in Zippy the Pinhead
Ode to the Doggie Diner Sign
Follow John and the Dogs on Twitter
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Histoire@Politique : Politique, culture et société
Vari@rticles
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The Last of the Self-Righteous: Claude Lanzmann’s version of Benjamin Murmelstein
Films | 18.09.2014 | Anna Hájková (University of Warwick)
There is a wealth of problems with Claude Lanzmann’s recent film The Last of the Unjust, on Benjamin Murmelstein, the last Elder of the Jews of Theresienstadt. Yet the most aggravating of them is that it portrays Murmelstein as someone who he was not, namely as a heroic figure. In styling Murmelstein as a tragic hero, Lanzmann projects his own personality, as he would like to be seen himself, onto his material. With all due respect to Claude Lanzmann, this projecting is quite problematic.
Murmelstein, who has become one of the eponyms for “Jewish collaboration,” was born 1905 in what is today Ukrainian L’viv, studied in Vienna and worked there as a rabbi. After the Anschluss in 1938, he started working in the Jewish Community, organizing the emigration, and quickly he was established as a skilled organizer and problem fixer who rose to serve as the deputy chairman. [1] In January 1943, as the SS moved to liquidate the Jews remaining in Greater Germany, Murmelstein was deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto. Feared and unbeloved already in Vienna, his reputation preceded him to the ghetto, where he became the deputy Elder of the Jews and stepped forward with what was his strong suit: organizing masses of people under extreme circumstances. [2] In late September 1944, one month after the liquidation of the Lodz ghetto, the SS killed the acting Elder of the Jews, the German Paul Eppstein, and installed Murmelstein as his successor to lead the Jews of Theresienstadt through the subsequent period of transports, which brought two thirds of the ghetto population to Auschwitz. Both the Theresienstadt ghetto and Murmelstein survived until the liberation by the Soviets on May 9, 1945. Subsequently, Murmelstein spent the next eighteen months in Czechoslovak custody, charged with collaboration. He was released, but until today, his name is used to exemplify Jewish collaboration.
As a high-ranking Jewish functionary, Murmelstein was one of a decimated species. However, he was by no means the only one: in Theresienstadt survived also Leo Baeck, the chair person of the Reich Association of German Jews, with whom Murmelstein had a strained relationship; David Cohen, one of the two chairmen of the Amsterdam Jewish Council; whose colleague, Abraham Asscher, was liberated in Bergen-Belsen. [3] Dov Weissmandl and Andrej Steiner, two prominent members of the Working Group of the Slovak Jewish Council, survived in Bratislava. [4] David Gertler, the head of the Jewish police in Lodz, survived Auschwitz. [5] In Vienna, the Red Army liberated Josef Löwenherz, the chairperson of the Viennese Jewish Community and Murmelstein’s old boss. Many of these men (and they were all men; Gisi Fleischmann, the female head of the Working group, was killed in Auschwitz) were keen to tell their version of events: some of them wrote memoirs or were interviewed. Indeed, Lanzmann interviewed Andrej Steiner, but, like much of the material, including items on Jewish Councils, self-administration, and the everyday life in the Holocaust, it did not make it to the Shoah.
At this point, I would like to emphasize that for myself, as a historian of the Holocaust who teaches the topic to university students, Lanzmann’s achievement with Shoah is monumental; the film established the Holocaust in the midst of the public eye. Lanzmann’s years of research, his dogged persistence in tracing the survivors of annihilation camps as well as leading perpetrators, getting them to speak, and contrasting the various perspectives, offered a powerful presentation of the destruction of the European Jewry. This meticulousness, however, is unfortunately missing in The Last of the Unjust. The film is based on Lanzmann’s interview with Murmelstein from 1975, combined with contemporary material from Vienna, Nisko, Bohušovice, Prague, and Terezín, and Lanzmann’s occasional reading from Murmelstein’s 1963 memoir. [6] Murmelstein’s statements are presented as historical truth. This uncritical approach leads to many problems, blatant historical mistakes, but most importantly, makes for an awkward way of treating a testimony. [7]
It is unfortunate that Lanzmann made the film without experts’ knowledge on Theresienstadt; the place of which in the German plans is well-researched. There is no need to, for instance, claim that the founding of Theresienstadt was heralded in newspapers, when in fact the German newspapers were prohibited to write about deportations of Jews, and hence also about Theresienstadt. Similarly, as the late Miroslav Kryl and myself have argued, Paul Eppstein had learned about the mass killings in Auschwitz, and in this context that we should understand his speech of September 1944. [8] Eppstein, who together with a few Jewish functionaries learned from a careless remark of a SS man about the forthcoming transports of 5,000 men to Auschwitz, appealed to the population to stay calm under his stewardship. The commandant, Karl Rahm, knowing of Eppstein’s established leadership, had him killed. Rahm replaced Eppstein by the unpopular Murmelstein, the pragmatist and organizational genius, knowing well that he was too unpopular and would never incite anyone to revolt; rather, Murmelstein got the job (indeed nearly any job) done. Lanzmann quotes Eppstein’s speech in detail in an imposing shot at the gallows of the Small Fortress, erroneously concluding from the “courageous” speech to the motivation of the SS in killing Eppstein.
Violence often carries a logic, functioning as a script; rather than destructive, it can be constructive, establish a new social order. [9] This was one of the reasons why the SS killed Eppstein; to make clean slate for their absolute rule during the transports of fall 1944. This is also why, in the first months of the ghetto, in January and February 1942, Siegfried Seidl, the first commandant, had sixteen young men hanged for futile misdeeds. In an emotionally charged shot of the Ústí/Aussig barracks, Lanzmann misguidedly claims that the execution was a moment of the moral failure of the first Elder, Jakov Edelstein.
Illustration 1 The long short at the (misnamed and mispronounced) Ústí barracks
Such an interpretation puts the event in a mistaken moralizing light, instead of recognizing it for what it was: the SS assuming total control, establishing themselves as sovereigns who can kill, without a reason. In moments like these, the Jewish functionaries experienced profound powerlessness – a defining experience for Holocaust victims. Depicting the functionaries as unheroic is not only a historic, but, moreover, it misses the interesting societal mechanism at hand.
Every narrative is a social product: we tell stories to fit to our social surrounding, to create a logical past, and, in case of people who experienced violent, traumatic situations, to recount the story in a way endowing them with agency, with a sense of control. For a macher like Murmelstein, a choleric, alpha-male loner, to experience absolute impotence was extraordinarily upsetting. Therefore, in his postwar testimonies, he narrated agency into his actions; this is why he told that his perpetrators paid attention to and respected him. Murmelstein repeatedly brings up the chair episode: in a meeting with Eichmann in 1938, the later commandant, Karl Rahm, was ordered to provide a chair for Murmelstein. In this rendering, Rahm never recovered from the chair incident and treated Murmelstein with the respect. The problem is that Lanzmann presents the story at face value, while we know from testimonies of others that Rahm let Murmelstein wait for their meetings standing outside of his office for hours in the cold, and more than once beat him, giving him a black eye. [10] Asymmetries of power influence who thinks about whom, and who remembers whom, and in how much detail. Just as a graduate student obsesses about his or her professor’s gestures, so did the Jewish functionaries overthink the commandant’s psychology, and the prisoners that of the guards’. Rahm and Eichmann spent few thoughts on Murmelstein’s views: for them, he was less than a human, a useful tool.
This discrepancy is particularly striking in Rahm’s and Eichmann’s trial records (1947 and 1961-1962). Unfortunately, Lanzmann chose not to examine the archival records, most unfortunately the trial materials of the Czechoslovak investigations against Murmelstein. In June 1945, Murmelstein was arrested on the prodding of the Communist party Terezín. This investigation is the founding stone for anyone who wants to understand Murmelstein or Theresienstadt. Moreover, Theresienstadt, as much of the Holocaust, was a profoundly transnational place: In the ghetto Jews and people of Jewish background from Czechoslovakia, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Austria, and Hungary created an enforced, yet deeply interconnected community. To understand Theresienstadt, one must be fluent in Czech, German, and Dutch. Using contemporaneous Czech sources would have allowed to sketch out Murmelstein’s personality. Karel Fleischmann, a Czech physician who was Murmelstein’s colleague in the Health Services, the medical department, described Murmelstein in a poem from 1943 as “Polish marching pudding” who often screams but “doesn’t have an evil bone in his body.” [11] Sources like these show the real people beyond the clichés of collaboration or heroism, allowing us instead to discern the victims for who they were: real people, full of ambivalences.
A troubling aspect of The Last of the Unjust is the exoticizing, denigrating way Lanzmann presents what he sees as “Eastern Europe.” In a long opening shot, the director stands at the platform of the Bohušovice train station, from where until June 1943 the deportees had to walk to the ghetto.
Illustration 2 The opening shot at Bohušovice
The camera suggests a desolate, forlorn periphery (not showing the memorial plaque). Later, in Nisko, Lanzmann makes a dig at the local night club.
Illustration 3 Night club in Zarzece
These asides strike me as cheap: is French countryside so mondaine? Are the RER stops – just to say Le Bourget – so charming? This exoticization of the location is particularly troublesome in the lingering shots at the Small Fortress, the Gestapo prison near the ghetto for political prisoners, independent, both administratively and practically, from the ghetto in the Great Fortress, located in the actual town. However, the filming location is not always marked as such. The eery atmosphere of the former prison has often been used to illustrate the ghetto, while in fact, mixing up two entirely different things. A picture of Lanzmann’s at the Small Fortress’ gallows was used as a key promotion image. This historical sloppiness seems to be symptomatic of Lanzmann’s approach to the entire film.
Illustration 3 Gallows in the Small Fortress where the Jews from the ghetto were not killed
Lanzmann, who shot the film well into his 80s, has grown somewhat self-indulgent. When promoting the film, he wrongly claimed that in 2007, a Viennese symposium at the Film Museum with the Murmelstein materials left him “totally outraged. I felt as if I’d been robbed. I thought: ‘it was me who did all that!’” [12] I was one of the presenters in Vienna; Lanzmann was happy that people were interested, for the audience hanging on his lips. Instead, I believe that he set out to turn the materials into a film because he did not want his work to be overshadowed by historians. This would be fine, as long as the result were historically accurate.
Lanzmann, quite similar to Murmelstein, is also an alpha-male, but a charming, accomplished, smart one. Therefore, we see the two men bonding during the interview in Rome – even though Lanzmann knew little about Theresienstadt and Murmelstein was also continuously tutoring him. Viewing the material, we are sucked in into two dominant men bickering, bonding, joking, and it’s a pleasure to watch. That’s the key to the interview’s success. And yet it is important to know the context: other reviewers argued that we see a rare emotional bond, a unique moment when Lanzmann persuaded Murmelstein to talk. This is not the case at all: Pierre Genée, a Viennese historian who interviewed Murmelstein in the 1980s, remembered how Murmelstein was keen to get his view across; he was all too happy to be persuaded to be interviewed. [13] A close look at the final scene of the film, at the Titus Arch, shows Murmelstein incessantly talking to Lanzmann, who, rather than listening, puts his arm around his much shorter companion.
Illustration 5 Titus arch, where Murmelstein points out the wealth of archival material on himself “the archive of the Red Cross; the Rahm trial
Lanzmann argues that Murmelstein was the smartest and most courageous among the Theresienstadt Elders; his rendering shows Murmelstein as a hero. Such moralizing characteristics are deeply amiss: They lead us astray from understanding people. While I am glad that a filmmaker of the caliber of Claude Lanzmann has questioned the concept of Jewish collaboration, it is important to note that he has done so with fifteen years of delay after Dan Diner, Doron Rabinovici, and Beate Meyer. [14] What we need today is radical demystification, going beyond legends, showing Holocaust victims as the people they were, in a society changed by fear, desperation, and violence. Telling stories about heroic Jewish Elders, as understandable as it is, is in fact only another legend.
[1] Doron Rabinovici, Instanzen der Ohnmacht. Wien 1938–1945: Der Weg zum Judenrat (Frankfurt am Main: Jüdischer Verlag, 2000).
The author will present on the Lanzmann’s movie on April 1, 2015, at EHESS at Florent Brayard’s colloquium: http://crh.ehess.fr/document.php?id=1257.
[2] Anna Hájková, “Der Judenälteste und seine SS–Männer: Benjamin Murmelstein, der letzte Judenälteste in Theresienstadt und seine Beziehung zu Adolf Eichmann und Karl Rahm,” in "Der Letzte der Ungerechten:" Der Judenälteste Benjamin Murmelstein in Filmen 1942-1975, eds. Ronny Loewy and Katharina Rauschenberger (Frankfurt/Main: Campus, 2011): 75-100.
[3] See Hájková, Prisoner Society in the Terezín Ghetto, 1941-1945 (PhD dissertation, University of Toronto, 2013): 80-86; David Cohen, Voorzitter van de Joodse Raad: De herinneringen van David Cohen (1941–1943), ed. by Eric Somers (Zutphen: Walpurg Pers, 2010).
[4] The footage is today at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) Washington, STORY RG-60.5010, FILM ID: 3414-3419. See also the three-part documentary film on the Working group directed by Martin Šmok and Petr Bok, Among Blind Fools, 3 parts, Verafilm 1996-97; Katarína Hradská, Gizi Fleischmannová: Návrat nežiadúci (Bratislava: Albert Marenčin, 2012).
[5] David Gertler was interviewed by Isaiah Kupferstein in Munich in 1974; the interview (in Yiddish as an digitized sound file) is part of the Kupferstein collection (RG 697) in the YIVO YIVO Institute for Jewish Research (NY, USA). Andrej Angrick, Falkensee, is working on Gertler.
[6] Benjamin Murmelstein, Terezin: Il ghetto-modello di Eichmann (Rocca San Casciano: Cappelli, 1961).
[7] Sylvie Lindeperg, the author of La voie des images : Quatre histoires de tournage au printemps-été 1944 (Lagrasse: Verdier, 2013), which examines the propaganda film shot just before the beginning of the transports of fall 1944, was the only voice to point out Lanzmann’s lack of source criticism. Le Monde, November 12, 2013.
[8] Miroslav Kryl, “Die Deportationen aus Theresienstadt nach dem Osten im Spiegel des Tagebuch Willy Mahlers,” Theresienstädter Studien und Dokumente (1995): 69-92, 75; Hájková, “Prisoner Society in the Terezín Ghetto, 1941-1945” (PhD Diss, University of Toronto, 2013), chapter 1.
[9] See Walter Benjamin, “Zur Kritik der Gewalt,” Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik, 47 (1920/21): 809–832.
[10] Statements of Ela Becková and Edvard Kurz, ABS [Archiv bezpečnostních složek, Prague, Czech Republic], 305-633-1 (investigations Murmelstein and other Terezín “collaborators”).
[11] Karel Fleischmann, “Pudding pochodówy,” YVA, O64, 74.
[12] Since that year the videos are accessible to scholars at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) in Washington, DC; I was the first visitor to view them.
[13] Pierre Genée and Gabriele Anderl, “Wer war Dr. Benjamin Murmelstein? Biographische Streiflichter von Pierre Genee und Gabriele Anderl,” David 38 (September 1998): 9–20.
[14] Dan Diner, “Historisches Verstehen und Gegenrationalität. Der Judenrat als erkenntnistheoretische Warte,“ Zivilisation und Barbarei. Die widersprüchlichen Potentiale der Moderne. Detlev Peukert zum Gedenken, eds. Frank Bajohr, Werner Johe, and Uwe Lohalm, (Hamburg: Christians 1991): 307–321; Rabinovici, Instanzen; Beate Meyer, Tödliche Gratwanderung: Die Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland zwischen Hoffnung, Zwang, Selbstbehauptung und Verstrickung (1939–1945) (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2011).
Anna Hájková (University of Warwick)
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Biraj’s Notes
28 April 2014 Update
Apr 28, 2014 By Biraj Bora in Editorial
Hello Everyone. Good set of games on Sunday. The games seemed well played, and great job with the monitoring. We’re on our way with the playoffs, and each week we will get closer to seeing which teams could win their respective Divisions. Reminder that no new players can enter the league. Teams bringing in new players will be defaulted out of the playoffs. So far, no issues as captains have done a great job with using lower Division players when needed.
A few players have asked about Divisional movement for next season. Because of the new playoff structure, it’s a bit early to finalize team movement, however, certainly the winners and finalists of Div. 2 and 3 will move up a Division.
The league social was held on Saturday, and I heard it went well. My apologies for not making it, although I had planned on being there. I am a bit forgetful these days, but hopefully in time I will be back to normal. Please see note below from Corey who put in her usual huge effort to make the social happen:
“Thank you all of the players who attended the KBL Social on Saturday night. We had about 40 to 50 people come out to support the event which was greatly appreciated. A special thank you to Kalisha of Usual Suspects for assisting in hosting the event and donating some G/C from The Colony, and also a big shout out to Brian from Blaze who donated numerous door prizes. An event like this can never be successful without support from the players from the League. Lomas made it out this year, along with Rim Touchers, Blaze, Abusement Park, RTown and Usual Suspects…thank you to the Captains. Good luck to everyone during the Playoffs.”
As well as the social went this year, I think we will move away from holding socials at sponsor pubs, which we’ve done for the past 12 or 14 years. We will continue to support sponsor pubs, however, we may try a league specific event if players are inclined to try this.
Have a great week, and see you Sunday. Biraj
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Posts Tagged Television
By Barbara Sostaita • 5 years ago
Our Shackles Aren’t Invisible or An Illusion: A Response to Gina Rodriguez
Earlier this summer, Jane The Virgin star Gina Rodriguez teamed up with Clinique for their “Difference Maker” campaign. In the promotional video for the campaign, Gina shares her success story, hoping to inspire other young, disadvantaged kids like herself. A colored pencil, a yellow highlighter, a stack of books, and other school supplies flash across the screen and an empty notebook suggests that our lives, like Gina’s, are bursting with potential; it is simply up to us to direct them.
Earlier this summer, Jane The Virgin star Gina Rodriguez teamed up with Clinique for their “Difference Maker” campaign. In the promotional video for the campaign, Gina shares her success story, hoping to inspire other young, disadvantaged kids ...
By Maya Dusenbery • 5 years ago
Quote of the Day: Samantha Bee Reveals Secret to Creating a Diverse Staff
The hilarious Samantha Bee — whose new late-night show Full Frontal, the first ever to be hosted by a woman, premiered last night — brings us what I’ll call the Nike Theory of Increasing Diversity: just fucking do it.
The hilarious Samantha Bee — whose new late-night show Full Frontal, the first ever to be hosted by a woman, premiered last night — brings us what I’ll call the Nike Theory of Increasing Diversity: just fucking ...
By Feministing • 6 years ago
New TV series honors Celia Cruz, la Reina de Salsa
Ed. note: This piece is by Emilly Prado and was re-published with permission from Bitch Magazine.
The work of Celia Cruz is being honored this year in an astonishing 80-episode long series from the Spanish-language network, Telemundo.
The work of Celia Cruz is being honored this year in an astonishing 80-episode long series from the ...
Chart of the Day: Women get only 2-3 percent of TV sports news coverage
According to the latest update in a 25-year-long study, TV sports news and highlights shows, like ESPN’s SportsCenter, devote under 5 percent of their coverage to women’s sports. That’s actually less than it was back in 1989.
New Favorite Tumblr: Saved by the bell hooks
It’s exactly what it sounds like: Images from the ’90s sit-com captioned with the words of the great bell hooks. Need I say more?
Watch: Viola Davis accepts SAG award and talks diversity in Hollywood
At the Screen Actors Guild Awards last year, Viola Davis won the title of outstanding lead actress in a drama and gave this great speech on diversity and representation in Hollywood, thanking the creators of How to Get Away With Murder for believing that a “sexualized, messy, mysterious woman could be a 49-year-old, dark-skinned, African-American woman who looks like me.”
At the Screen Actors Guild Awards last year, Viola Davis won the title of outstanding lead actress in a drama and gave this great speech on diversity and representation in Hollywood, thanking the creators of How to Get ...
Shonda Rhimes expertly shuts down fan who complained about the “gay scenes” in Shondaland
Shonda lays it down in reponse to a Tweeter with some unsolicited editorial advice:
. @Dabdelhakiem There are no GAY scenes. There are scenes with people in them.
— shonda rhimes (@shondarhimes) October 19, 2014
@Dabdelhakiem If you are suddenly discovering that Shondaland shows have scenes involving people who are gay, you are LATE TO THE PARTY.
. @Dabdelhakiem If u use the phrase “gay scenes”, u are not only LATE to the party but also NOT INVITED to the party. Bye Felicia. #oneLOVE
I love all you Tweeples. Even the ones who still need to grow. And remember that at some point, someone ...
Stories begetting stories: How pop culture reinforces abortion stigma—and can help end it
Ed. note: This story is part of a joint reporting project on reproductive rights in pop culture that includes Feministing, Bitch Media, and Making Contact. This work is part of a Media Consortium collaboration made possible in part by a grant from the Voqal Fund. Read the other stories in the series here and here.
One in three women in the US have an abortion in their lifetimes, while nearly 40 percent of Americans claim they do not know anyone who has had an abortion.
I left the latter group, not coincidentally, around the same time I joined the former. When I got pregnant as a 20-something in Brooklyn five years ago and started telling ...
Ed. note: This story is part of a joint reporting project on reproductive rights in pop culture that includes Feministing, Bitch Media, and Making Contact. This work is part of a Media Consortium collaboration ...
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Andre Bridget Dies
Andre Barker Bridget, also known in fandom as A.J. Barker, passed away December 23 at the age of 64.
She was married to Bill Bridget. They were active in the Southern Fandom Press Alliance in the 1980s.
[Thanks to Andrew Porter for the story.]
Update 12/30/2011: Fixed decade of SFPA activity per Rich Lynch’s comment.
Posted in In Passing | Tagged SFPA
2011 Business Meeting Video
Kevin Standlee has uploaded video of the 2011 Worldcon Business Meeting’s three sessions:
Preliminary Business Meeting
Main Business Meeting
Kevin says the last two are low-res, so don’t be surprised.
Posted in Worldcon | Tagged Kevin Standlee, Renovation, WSFS
WFC 2013 Names Mathesons as GoHs
Richard Matheson (Twilight Zone’s “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet,” The Legend of Hell House) and his son Richard Christian Matheson (TV, movie and short story writer) are the first authors to be announced as Guests of Honor at World Fantasy Con 2013.
The con takes place in Brighton, England over Halloween Weekend 2013.
The full press release follows the jump.
Posted in Conventions | Tagged Ray Bradbury, Richard Christian Matheson, Richard Matheson, World Fantasy Convention
Rusty Hevelin (1922-2011)
Rusty Hevelin at a Boskone in the 1970s. Photo by Andrew Porter.
James “Rusty” Hevelin, a winner of First Fandom’s Sam Moskowitz Archive Award (2003) and a past Worldcon Guest of Honor, died December 27 at the age of 89. He was hospitalized a few days ago with poor circulation in his legs. When a planned surgical intervention was cancelled because Rusty’s condition worsened to the point where his surgeon and doctors concluded that he’d be unlikely to survive the surgery, he spent his last days in hospice care.
As a teenager living in Riverside, California, Rusty somehow discovered the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society. He attended a meeting in 1941 (– and from that experience deemed Laney’s “Ah, Sweet Idiocy” not grossly exaggerated!) Later in the year he hitchhiked to Denver to attend the Worldcon. (See his conreport here.)
After the con, Rusty moved to Philadelphia where he soon was elected President of the PSFS. He also began publishing a newzine, Nebula. Once World War II began he joined the Marine Corps and served in the Pacific as a meteorologist.
When Rusty came back from World War II he resumed his role as an active fan organizer. Still the last President of PSFS, he suggested a merger of Philadelphia’s two small sf clubs. He also served as a director of the National Fantasy Fan Federation during its tempestuous postwar era, the N3F having been founded in 1940 at the suggestion of Damon Knight.
At the same time, Rusty took over publication of StefNews from Jack Speer. Other zines he published over the years include Aliquot, H-1661, and Badly.
A curious measure of the ebb and flow of Rusty’s role in fanhistory is the way Harry Warner’s All Our Yesterdays repeatedly cites him as a mover and shaker in 1940s fandom, yet judging by A Wealth of Fable in the following decade the only historic thing he did was keep Bob Tucker from stalking out of the 1956 Worldcon after missing Al Capp’s speech. (Tucker was one of the victims of events which produced the catchphrase “Dave Kyle says you can’t sit here.”)
Tucker and Hevelin were great friends. Tucker enjoyed introducing Rusty as his “Dad”, winking at the fact he’d been born in 1914 and Hevelin in 1922. Tucker would also say, “Some people wonder out loud why dad’s surname is not the same as mine. It’s a simple answer. He didn’t marry my mother.”
Rusty did eventually marry and has four sons, John, Scott, Bruce and Will.
After a long hiatus that ended in the mid-Sixties, Rusty became active in fandom again and began huckstering at conventions.
He was always popular. Rusty was elected the 1975 Down Under Fan Fund delegate and attended the first Australian Worldcon. For his trip report he created a slide show and presented it at conventions around the U.S.
Though Rusty kept his hand in as a huckster and conrunner as the years went by (assuring that Pulpcon kept going after its first year, 1972, with the aid of Lynn Hickman and Gordon Huber), his memory really rests on his reputation for friendliness and the good times people had in his company.
Rusty’s contributions to fandom were celebrated by Denvention 2 (1981) where he was Fan Guest of Honor.
[Thanks to Bill Higgins, Steven Silver, Keith Stokes and Andrew Porter for the story.]
Update 12/29/2011: Two corrections. (1) I’ve learned Rusty never joined First Fandom although, of course, his fanac began early enough to make him eligible. And it was pointed out he therefore might not have wanted to be identified as a member. (2) Also corrected the description of his role in the beginnings of Pulpcon — thanks to Walker Martin. In fact that explains the phrasing of the info in Lynn Hickman’s obituary which I used as a source, intended to convey that they kept Pulpcon from being a one-shot.
Posted in 80s Fanhistory, In Passing, Worldcon | Tagged Denvention 2, LASFS, PulpCon, Rusty Hevelin
“Flash Mobs” in Wired
“#Riot: Self-Organized, Hyper-Networked Revolts – Coming to a City Near You” in the January issue of Wired analyzes the role of communication technology in recent public violence. The author, Wired senior editor Bill Wasik, says when he held the first flash mob in 2003 he thought Niven’s phrase was a bad fit for his benign cultural happenings. Now, in 2011, he appreciates Niven’s foresight:
One reason the term “flash mob” stuck back in 2003 was its resonance…with a 1973 short story by Larry Niven called “Flash Crowd.” Niven’s tale revolved around the effects of cheap teleportation technology, depicting a future California where “displacement booths” line the street like telephone booths. The story is set in motion when its protagonist, a TV journalist, inadvertently touches off a riot with one of his news reports. Thanks to teleportation, the rioting burns out of control for days, as thrill-seekers use the booths to beam in from all around to watch and loot. Reading “Flash Crowd” back in 2003, I hadn’t seen much connection to my own mobs, which I intended as a joke about the slavishness of fads. I laughed off anyone who worried about these mobs getting violent. In 2011, though, it does feel like Niven got something chillingly correct. He seems especially prescient in the way he describes the interplay of curiosity, large numbers, and low-level criminality that causes his fictional riots to grow. “How many people would be dumb enough to come watch a riot?” the narrator asks. “But that little percentage, they all came at once, from all over the United States and some other places, too. And the more there were, the bigger the crowd got, the louder it got—the better it looked to the looters … And the looters came from everywhere, too.”
Wasik devotes most of the article to probing the psychology of the participants, and I feel one comment resonates with the early history of sf fandom:
One might call this the emergence of mega-undergrounds, groups of people for whom the rise of Facebook and Twitter has laid bare the disconnect between their real scale and the puny extent to which the dominant culture recognizes them.
Doesn’t this also apply to the 1930s, and that disrespected popular genre whose pulp magazines were nevertheless selling 200,000 copies a month? When the magazines started letter columns to help market themselves, they also created a channel of communication between the fans of this fiction that allowed them to realize they were far from alone. While hardly a flash mob, limited by the speed of second-class mail and Greyhound buses, the revelation of an sf mega-underground led to a fannish convergence at the first World Science Fiction Convention.
[Thanks to Martin Morse Wooster for the story.]
Posted in Heard Online | Tagged flash mobs, Larry Niven
Rusty Hevelin in Hospice
Rusty Hevelin is now in end-of-life hospice care at the VA Hospital in Dayton. The Cincinnati Fantasy Group’s Michaele Jordan wrote:
While his mind is still sharp, his body is shutting down and the pain medications are also taking a toll. How long will we have him? Days, probably; weeks, still possible.
She says visitors are welcome. His address in the hospital is:
James Hevelin (Rm. 140, 9th Floor)
c/o Dayton VA Medical Center
4100 W. Third Street
http://www.dayton.va.gov/visitors/directions.asp
She also believes cards can be sent there.
Lorena Haldeman offers her blog as a place to leave stories and memories of Rusty which she says Gay Haldeman, who is in Dayton overseeing Rusty’s care, can read aloud to him.
Lorena Haldeman wrote:
I love Rusty. He is a rapscallion, and a tease, and gives a good back or foot rub, and he reminds me of a dinner roll because he’s hard and crusty on the outside and soft and gooey on the inside. He’s pragmatic, and practical, and is a “show, not tell” kind of guy. I don’t think he’s ever told me he loves me; but he shows up, and isn’t that what love is? He doesn’t need to say the words because he shows you all the time. He’s been to every Christmas, Thanksgiving when we still celebrated it, birthdays when Aunt Gay and I used to have joint parties at Tarrytown or Merritt Island, random month-long visits, both of my weddings, my fathers death, Uncle Joe’s illness. He’s full of stories and I’ve gotten to hear a good portion of them. He’s Santa’s Evil Twin, he’s the Wise Old Man, he’s Gandalf and the Trickster and a librarian and a font of knowledge all rolled into one twinking-eye’d Old Man. He’s the best Grandfather a girl could choose to have.
[Via Leah Smith.]
Posted in Heard Online | Tagged Rusty Hevelin
Free Ebooks for Christmas
Long-time File 770 letterhack Joy V. Smith sends these holiday wishes:
“Merry Christmas to friends and family! For those of you who got an ebook reader for Christmas — or couldn’t wait — here are three of my ebooks. Or you can read them on your computer.” Your choices:
Pretty Pink Planet
Lori, an agent of SOESFOL (Search Out and Establish Sentient Forms of Life) visits Prism, a popular tourist destination, to track down planet pirates and rescue aliens, if she can find and talk to them.
Link: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/93615
[No coupon code necessary]
Hot Yellow Planet
In the sequel to Pretty Pink Planet, Lori and Chiing continue their adventures, meeting up with Chameleons, Ghosters, Splurts, and other aliens and humans.
Link: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/94029
Your coupon code is UX77Y (not case-sensitive).
Remodeling: Buying and Updating a Foreclosure
How we coped with selling a house–at last, looking for a new house, buying a new house that was a foreclosure and needed lots of work, and then remodeling it since it didn’t even have a kitchen sink!
Your coupon code is YP83R (not case-sensitive)
Note: Coupon codes expire January 2, 2012
Posted in Like Show Business | Tagged Joy V. Smith
Hamit Makes Audiobook Deal
Francis Hamit reports, “We have just signed our first two co-production deals for audio books. These will be shorter pieces , less than three hours, and new editions of [my] short story ‘Buying Retail’ and his novella ‘Sunday in the Park with George’ both of which can be read on Amazon Kindle.”
The narrator will be Michael Ward of Chicago. The deal was done through ACX.com, an Amazon company which promises that its products will be available through the three biggest online sellers of audiobooks, Audible.com, Amazon.com, and iTunes.
More details and release dates to be announced later.
Posted in Like Show Business | Tagged audiobooks, Francis Hamit
2012 Williamson Lectureship
Daniel Abraham and Carrie Vaughn will be the guests of honor at the 36th annual Jack Williamson Lecture, to be held March 29-30 at Eastern New Mexico University. This year’s theme is Urban Fantasy. All events except the luncheon are free.
Daniel Abraham writes epic fantasy set on other worlds (The Long Price Quartet and The Dagger and the Coin series) and as “MLN Hanover” he writes urban fantasy set in something very like our world (The Black Sun’s Daughter series.)
Carrie Vaughn is the New York Times bestselling author of the “Kitty Norville” series (the 10th novel, Kitty Steals the Show is due Spring 2012).
Connie Willis, Misstress of Ceremonies for the event, is herself fresh from winning the Nebula and Hugo Awards for the newest novel in her Oxford time travel series (published as two volumes: Blackout and All Clear).
See the schedule and full press release following the jump.
Still available from Haffner Press is Thirty-Five Years of the Jack Williamson Lectureship, a collection of transcribed speeches and presentations by a variety of Lectureship guests since its beginning.
[Thanks to Stephen Haffner for the story.]
Posted in Conventions | Tagged Carrie Vaughn, Connie Willis, Daniel Abraham, Haffner Press, Jack Williamson
What to Give People Who Hate Sci-Fi
Last-minute holiday shoppers gravitate to quickie gift suggestions like “Sci-Fi Books for People Who Hate Sci-Fi” Alex Knapp’s book-buying guide at Forbes.
With one quick click online, we can send a book to our mom’s iPad without a hitch. But what to send? Obviously, as a science fiction fan, I like to try to get other people as excited about science fiction as I am.
It’s not an easy task. A lot of people are simply averse to the science fiction genre, whether it’s because of the association with nerd-dom or an aversion to space and lasers.
As a fellow fan I am perfectly satisfied with Knapp’s mix of classic authors – Heinlein, Bester – and contemporary legends – Scalzi, Sawyer, Resnick. Unfortunately, his premise breaks down immediately in the face of reality. The thing about people who are adamant in their dislike of sci-fi is that as soon as they detect a sniff of it they indignantly spout something that translates to, “I say it’s spinach and I say to hell with it.” To suppose that quality sci-fi, however carefully chosen, will fly under their radar is absurd. Especially a bright orange paperback with a BEM on the cover. (What were you thinking, Alex?)
If you’re a fan who’s desperate for a gift idea, why get sidetracked into unwelcome evangelism? Profit from your knowledge of the best sf novels by making them your guide to non-genre works people will love to receive. Here’s what I mean.
Impressed with Heinlein’s Starship Troopers? Then don’t lose a minute gift-wrapping a copy of Eugene V. Sledge’s autobiographical account of his WWII service, With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa. Truly, when I read it this summer I was utterly impressed by its narrative flow and dynamic style, beyond anything I’ve ever found in a historian (even David McCullough). I also suspected I’d discovered the literary roots of Heinlein’s most famous combat novel – until I saw that Sledge’s was first published in 1981. If there’s an influence at work, it must be Heinlein influencing Sledge. And there’s no question the old master would have been proud to acknowledge Sledge as a student, if such is the case, given the brilliant result.
The Guns of the South came out just a couple of years after I’d read Shelby Foote’s account of the Civil War. Reading Harry Turtledove’s novel I remembered Foote’s coverage of The Wilderness well enough to be impressed by Harry’s detailed historicity of his fictionalized battle. He faithfully replayed the battle until the point where his Confederates turn the tide using AK-47s. For armchair strategists Foote’s The Civil War: A Narrative is just what the doctor ordered. (A Ph.D, that is.)
So that’s the plan – backtrack from your favorite sf novels to the great books that equipped you to enjoy them and the people on your gift list will think you’re a genius.
Posted in Book Reviews | Tagged Alfred Bester, Harry Turtledove, John Scalzi, Mike Resnick, Robert Heinlein, Robert Sawyer
David Goldfarb on Dave Farland Wolverton (1952-2022)
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By : Nata Kesuma | Tuesday, May 18 2021 - 23:05 IWST
Construction of RISHA housing units. Photo by: PR of Ministry of Public Works and Public Housing.
President Jokowi to Inaugurate Dams during E. Java Working Visit
President Jokowi to Receive Indonesian G20 Presidency
Turkish President Erdoğan to Visit Indonesia
INDUSTRY.co.id - Ministry of Public Works and Public Housing has started the reconstruction of permanent housing for communities affected by flash floods and landslides in the Province of East Nusa Tenggara.
“The approach is ‘build back better’. We are not building (the houses) with the same vulnerability to disasters, but building better and safer than those of before,” Minister of Public Works and Public Housing Basuki Hadimuljono said as quoted by the Ministry’s website, Monday (17/05).
In accordance with the instruction of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, the earthquake-resistant houses with Healthy Modest Instant House (RISHA) technology will be constructed in two regions, namely Lembata Regency (700 units) and East Flores Regency (300 units).
The construction is expected to be completed by the end of September this year. The development of RISHA’s innovation is based on the need to accelerate the provision of livable housing for the victims of disasters in accordance with the Indonesian National Standard (SNI).
The RISHA housing units in Lembata Regency will be built in Waisesa I village and Getto village with a budget of Rp 85.5 billion, while the RISHA housing units in East Flores will be built in three areas in Adonara district, namely Oyangbarang village (1.2 hectares), Saosina village (4.5 hectares), and Nelelamadike village (1.4 hectares) with a budget of Rp 37.8 billion.
After the physical construction of the permanent housing is completed, the settlement process will be regulated by each regional government. The Government will also immediately build RISHA permanent housing units in other regencies affected by disasters in accordance with the approval of Minister of Public Works and Public Housing.
2019 Ponemon Study on Automation and Cybersecurity Staffing in Asia…
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Fauci: US Reevaluating Travel Ban on African Countries
Top infectious disease scientist IN THE us Anthony Fauci (photo from archive).
Americas - Live News - News - World
Top US infectious disease official Dr. Anthony Fauci has said the United States will “hopefully” be able to lift its travel ban on African countries “in a quite reasonable period of time,” which the United Nations has denounced as “travel apartheid.”
In an interview with CNN on Sunday, Fauci said that the US is re-evaluating the travel ban, a week after he said the ban would give the US time to prepare for the highly contagious omicron variant of coronavirus.
The White House chief medical adviser said some early data about the omicron data is “a bit encouraging,” and added that now the travel ban could be lifted.
“That ban was done at a time when we were really in the dark,” he said. “We had no idea what was going on, except that there seemed to have been an explosion of cases of omicron in South Africa.
“So when the ban was put on, it was to give us time to figure out just what is going on,” he added. “Now … as we’re getting more and more information about cases in our own country and worldwide, we’re looking at that very carefully on a daily basis. Hopefully, we’ll be able to lift that ban within a quite reasonable period of time.”
The administration of US President Joe Biden last week implemented a ban to restrict travel from South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique, and Malawi.
The administration said that the measure was taken out of an abundance of caution in light of the new variant.
The decision sparked an immediate backlash from the international community and public health experts, who say it is ineffective and punitive against African countries.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres called the US response “travel apartheid.”
He said that travel restrictions imposed over COVID-19 that isolate any one country or region as “not only deeply unfair and punitive – they are ineffective.”
Guterres stated that the only way to reduce the risk of transmission while allowing for travel and economic engagement was to repeatedly test travelers, “together with other appropriate and truly effective measures,” according to Reuters.
World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Wednesday said it was “deeply concerning” that African countries are being “penalized” with travel restrictions after detecting and reporting the omicron variant.
Anthony Fauci Omicron UN US WHO
Early Warning Systems Warned North Korea Missile Could Hit US
Abdollahian: US, ‘Israel’ Disrupting Political Settlement Process in Syria
Iran Calls for Intensified UN Efforts to Remove Syria Bans
19:04 NATO, Ukraine sign deal to ‘deepen’ cyber cooperation
18:52 Russia Warns against Politicization of Nord Stream 2 as Germany Links Project to Ukraine Crisis More..
3 Dead, 6 Injured in Abu Dhabi Tanker Fire, Drone Attack Suspected
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Shamkhani Warns of US-Israeli Plot to Create Security Crisis in Syria
Iran - Live News - Middle East - News - Top
Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani cautioned against a plot hatched by the US and the Zionist regime to provoke security crisis in Syria.
In a meeting with Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad, held in Tehran on Tuesday, Shamkhani said the US is extremely angry at the dissolution of the Daesh (ISISL or ISIS) terrorist group in Syria and Iraq and at the resistance front’s victories that have boosted its strategic power.
That is why Washington seeks to foment new crises, he said.
The Iranian official warned of a US-Zionist plot to create a security crisis in Syria and the dire consequences of the crisis that could harm the security of the entire region.
Shamkhani also condemned the Israeli regime’s acts of aggression on the Syrian soil as a continuation of the brutal Zionist crimes against Palestine and Lebanon.
“Resistance and coercive struggle are the only ways to remove the cancerous tumor of Zionism from the region,” he stated.
For his part, Mekdad expressed gratitude to Iran for supporting the Syrian people and government.
He said the defeat of terrorism and establishment of stability in Syria has opened a new chapter in cooperation with Iran.
Denouncing the Israeli regime’s repeated military attacks on Syria as a brazen example of state-sponsored terrorism and a provocative move, the foreign minister said, “Terrorism, military aggression and the cruel sanctions cannot undermine the Syrian nation’s determination to resist against the enemies’ bullying and excessive demands.”
“The US seeks to revive terrorist cells to prevent sustainable stability in Syria,” Mekdad warned.
In an interview with Tasnim last month, the Syrian foreign minister said the US was supporting armed terrorist groups in northeastern Syria to put pressure on Damascus.
Syria has managed to achieve great things in the fight against terrorism, yet Washington wants to prevent Damascus from taking advantage of this great success, he said.
Mekdad had also said that an increasing number of Arab nations were willing to revive their diplomatic and political relations with Damascus, stressing that the West has failed to impose its will on Damascus through using terrorism, and direct military intervention.
Faisal al-Mekdad Iran Shamkhani Syria Zionist regime
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Find Enlightenment
CONTEMPORARY VERSIONS OF FOUNDATIONALISM
2.2 From Descartes to C.I. Lewis
2.3 Chisholm's foundationalism
2.4 Moser's foundationalism
In this chapter I present an overview of contemporary foundationalism, with special focus on two prominent versions. I will not present a taxonomy of all possible foundationalist positions, because most of them are not defended nowadays and because those that are defended, I will argue, are variations on the same basic theme.[1] I have selected the two most prominent versions, those of Roderick Chisholm and Paul Moser, as representative. Since there haven't been many foundationalists in the second half of the 20th century, and still fewer prominent foundationalists, it has been a relatively simple task to isolate Chisholm and Moser as foundationalism's current leading advocates. Both bear a historical debt to C.I. Lewis, who, along with some of the early Logical Positivists, was one of the very few foundationalists in the earlier part of this century. Foundationalism has not been a popular position in the recent history of philosophy. I will first put contemporary foundationalism in historical context, then present Chisholm's and Moser's accounts, isolate the differences and similarities between the two accounts, and then criticize them.
Like everything else in modern philosophy, the story of contemporary foundationalism starts with Descartes. Prior to Descartes, foundationalism was the dominant view — one might almost say that, to the extent that epistemological views were discussed, foundationalism was taken for granted.[2] Yet with Descartes foundationalism acquires a different and distinctly modern flavor. For the same reasons that Descartes can be seen as sending philosophy off in a new direction, he can be seen as giving to modern foundationalism its nonclassical features, the most fundamental of which are maintained to this day in contemporary versions, with very few exceptions. Descartes, for instance, made answering skepticism the most pressing epistemological question. Descartes also argued that we must start by taking our subjective psychological states, including our percepts, as primary and then proceed to argue our way to an external world. And Descartes argued that mental events bear no necessary relation to physical things, thus implicitly accepting a nonrelational view of consciousness. These three related Cartesian features — skepticism as occupying the dominant position, representationalist or indirect methodologies as the proper way to go, and viewing consciousness nonrelationally — all of which I reject — form a legacy accepted in varying degrees by virtually all contemporary foundationalists.
Descartes's foundationalism can be summarized in three statements:
1. We start with the obvious and certain, i.e., clear & distinct ideas.
2. We can justify other ideas by deducing them from the obvious.
3. Together, 1 & 2 give us most of our common sense ideas.
Descartes's is a foundationalist view, since we get a set of basic beliefs or propositions which do not depend upon others for their legitimate acceptance, and we get a method to derive all other justifiable propositions from them.
Both points 1 and 2 have come under attack, and as a result many of the details of Descartes's account have been abandoned. Disagreements over what is obvious have been unending to the point that philosophers hesitate to call anything "self-evident." What is taken as obvious is not nearly as much as Descartes thought and, other than the Cogito, Descartes's candidates, most of them metaphysical principles, have been viewed with suspicion.
Later foundationalists are also split over whether what is basic need be certain. Lewis and Chisholm follow Descartes in requiring certainty, though some such as Moser drop this requirement. More will come up on this as we discuss each version.
Descartes has also been seen as being overly restrictive in allowing deduction as the only method to generate further justifiable beliefs. Why only deduction? Cannot various inductive methods also be brought to bear upon the obvious, yielding further justified beliefs? Descartes was of course concerned with what can be justified with certainty, and it has been a common view that induction cannot yield certainties, so this perhaps explains Descartes's limiting us to deduction. Most later foundationalists have been willing to allow inductive methods to generate justified beliefs, though generally agreeing with Descartes that the highest degree of justification can be conferred only by deduction.
From the perspective of most contemporary foundationalists, the problem with the specifics of Descartes's program is that if we restrict ourselves to what is truly obvious and certain, then we can't deduce much, and then we end up not knowing or being justified in believing very much — and certainly nowhere near as much as common sense holds that we either know or are justified in believing.[3] Accordingly, much of Descartes's program has been abandoned.
But let us now raise those aspects of the Cartesian approach that have had an enduring impact on later foundationalisms.
Descartes is the source for the common view that the foundational propositions must be reports of subjective psychological states. Take perception as a prime example. One cannot, on this view, have a basic proposition of the form "I perceive an X" or "There is an X." The basic propositions must be of the form "I seem to perceive an X," for only these can be certain.[4] One starts by being aware of one's subjective psychological states, which gives rise to propositions that are reports on one's psychological states. On the basis of these propositions, one tries to make inferences to propositions about an external world, i.e. those of the form "There is an X." We start, then, subjectively with the "priority of the first-person case" or the "immediate certainty of consciousness,"[5] and only indirectly get to anything existing independently of the first-person or consciousness.[6]
There are three sorts of Cartesian considerations behind making subjective propositions basic, the first of which is also the leading one for contemporary foundationalists: pressure from skepticism. For any perceptual experience, for example, a skeptic will point out the possibility that that experience is an hallucination or an illusion. Given such possibilities one would be unjustified in taking the object of one's experience to be an object that exists independently of one's experience. One could, for instance, experience kiwi-fruitly even when there is no real kiwi fruit in one's mouth. Some mischievous elves could be playing games with you, or some university researchers could be doing experiments on you. Or your consciousness could be generating its own contents, as in dreams and hallucinations. Who knows? So one can't start off assuming one is aware of some external, physical reality.
Such skeptical considerations do not arise in a vacuum; they depend on a certain model of mind, a certain theory of the nature of consciousness. They depend on the claim that perceptual contents could occur just as they do even if there were no corresponding external fact.[7] There is thus no essential or necessary relation between perceptual contents — or, more generally, mental contents — and an external world. Views that hold conscious events to be essentially dependent upon, or necessarily related to, external reality are called relational theories of mind, so let us call the view that there is no such essential dependence or necessary connection the nonrelational theory of mind. It is in part this background view that allows Descartes to grant so much weight to skeptical considerations, and thus to the view that we must start with a prior certainty of consciousness. This nonrelational view is a premise common to both representationalist and idealist views of consciousness in general, and therefore of their analyses of perception. We will find the nonrelational view playing a prominent role when we come to look at Chisholm's and Moser's contemporary foundationalisms.
The nonrelational view of consciousness need not be a philosophical primary, and I suspect that in Descartes's case it isn't, for there are two other Cartesian considerations that can lend it support, one coming from Descartes's interest in parts of Christianity's world-view and one coming from a philosophical interpretation placed on the scientific facts about perception. These are the second and third of the considerations mentioned above as motivating the view that we must start with subjective first-person propositions.
In Descartes's case, his mind/body dualism fits neatly with such a nonrelational view. If the mental and the physical are different and self-sufficient realms, then what occurs in one need not be explained by reference to what occurs in the other. There may be contingent relations, but these are not essential to either. Hence percepts, being on the mental side of things, bear no necessary connection to external, physical reality, and whether a given percept does bear a relation to a physical object is a fact that needs to be established. The perceptual experience itself is not enough evidence. Thus, Descartes's tentative ontological commitments motivate a nonrelational account of consciousness,[8] thus motivating an initial acceptance of skeptical considerations, thus leading to starting with subjective propositions about one's psychological states.
The scientific source is the causal story about perception and the philosophical representationalist theory of perception it can lead to. Science teaches us, to take the case of vision, that light strikes the retina after being reflected from some physical object; it is then converted to a different form of energy and sent along the optic nerve to the visual cortex for further processing. At some point one has an experience of seeing. In attempting to interpret these facts, the representationalist view argues that since there is processing involved, the subject cannot be directly aware of the physical object at the start of the causal chain. Instead the subject must be directly aware only of the end result of the processing — which is taken to be some sort of representation of the physical object at the start of the causal chain. The physical sense organs, on this view, are intermediaries between the object and the subject. This view can be integrated with dualism, as it is in Descartes's case, if one thinks of the mind as something distinct from the senses and as waiting at the end of the road, so to speak, to see what the senses are going to present to it; yet one need not be a dualist to accept the representationalist interpretation.
Perception is also not the primary source of foundational propositions for Descartes, since he puts more weight on rationalistic metaphysical premises; so the representationalist interpretation of perception is only a contributing factor in his endorsement of the nonrelational view. For empiricist versions of foundationalism, however, perception is the only source of knowledge, so the fact that representationalist accounts of perception have lent impetus to nonrelational views takes on more importance for analyzing those views. Yet whether affiliated with empiricist or non-empiricist general approaches, representational theories of perception lead to the conclusion that propositions about sensory/perceptual states do not entail the existence of what the person seems to be experiencing. Thus one must initially say "I seem to taste something bitter" and not "I taste something bitter." The experience could be a dream or an experimental byproduct, which is to say we are once again implicitly endorsing the nonrelational view.[9]
This Cartesian representationalist project, which shares important features with Locke's empiricist representationalist project, was generally seen to have been a failure by the time of Hume and Kant. There is no way, starting only with premises about internal states of mind, to make valid or even meaningful inferences to an external world. Even if, for example, we posit an external world merely as the best causal explanation for our subjective experiences, how did we even get the idea of "cause" without first having access to an external world? Or, supposing we can derive a concept of causality from phenomenal states, on what grounds can we then say that it also applies an external world? The external world starts to drop out of the picture. Upon the recognition of this, there were two responses to the failure of the representationalist project: the Humean and the Kantian.
Hume gives up the representationalist project. If there is no way to ground normative epistemological standards like truth and justification upon an objective reality, then there is no way for epistemology to be a normative discipline. All epistemology can do is describe how people arrive at the beliefs they do. Epistemology becomes a radically descriptive field of study, on this view, so Hume can be said to be the first modern to "naturalize epistemology," to use Quine's phrase.[10]
Kant, on the other hand, wants to retain epistemology's standing as a normative discipline, though he agrees entirely with Hume that it is impossible to derive an external world from propositions about subjective experiences. One certainly cannot validate one's conceptual scheme by reference to an independent reality, but this doesn't mean the only alternative is to exorcize epistemology's normative elements. Another alternative is to view the scheme as having normative standards within it. Our schemes are subjective products, granted, and this simply means that objectivity is internal and relativized to us.
Until the 20th century Kant's general approach set the tone. The dominance in the 19th century of versions of idealism and the corresponding shift away from correspondence accounts of truth and justification to coherence versions of each, bears witness to Kant's influence.
With the rejection of idealism in the first part of the 20th century came a revival of empiricist and realist philosophies, some direct though most indirect or representationalist. Along with this revival came a modest interest in some versions of foundationalism. Logical Positivism, for example, started off as a foundationalist project, though in the hands of Neurath and Carnap it quickly evolved into a more coherentist program.[11] C.I. Lewis, with the publication of his Mind & the World Order in 1929, also reintroduced a more lasting systematic foundationalism into the 20th century debate. Lewis, however, did not find much support until about the time of his death, when Roderick Chisholm entered the scene. But from about 1960 until the mid-1980s, Chisholm had to carry the foundationalist ball alone, virtually right up to his retirement.[12] Paul Moser has emerged in the mid- to late-1980s with a systematic foundationalist program, though he too has not — at least, has not yet — been able to alter significantly the antifoundationalist tide.
And it has been a tide. Foundationalism has been rejected by virtually every major epistemologist and philosopher of science of the last half of the century, from the later Wittgenstein to Popper to Sellars and Quine.[13] In place of foundationalism, two alternatives have been developed. Sellars, Rescher, Lehrer, Rorty, and Bonjour all offer broadly coherentist alternatives. Quine, some of the evolutionary epistemologists, and eliminative materialists such as the Churchlands, have pushed rather for the rejection of epistemology's normative aspect and the assimilation of what remains by the natural sciences.
So we have had offered in the 20th century three major alternatives. In my view, the history of 20th century philosophy has been a sophisticated replay of the history of modern philosophy from Descartes to Hume and Kant. We are offered Cartesian representationalist approaches in the foundationalisms of Lewis, Chisholm, and Moser. In the spirit of Hume, we get naturalized epistemologies in Quine and the evolutionary epistemologists. And in the broadly Kantian spirit, we have linguistic versions of idealism in Sellars and Rorty.[14] This is certainly a broader historical thesis than I will be able to defend in this essay, though I think it is true, and I will be able to offer at least some preliminary indications of its truth as we proceed.
While foundationalism has been in the very small minority, it has been there. Antifoundationalists still devote considerable amounts of energy to refuting it, and in some quarters work is being done to advance foundationalism. For the remainder of this chapter, we will investigate the two major foundationalisms now available, i.e. Chisholm's and Moser's.
The latest and most finely tuned incarnation of Chisholm's foundationalism appears in the 1989 third edition of his popular textbook, Theory of Knowledge. Over the years, three philosophically global constraints have guided Chisholm's presentation of foundationalism. The first is that skepticism cannot be defeated. For any claim to knowledge or even justified belief, the skeptic can raise the usual brains-in-a-vat objections, effectively undermining the claim. Ultimately, Chisholm concludes, one must either accept skepticism and its consequences or, if one is to have such a thing as a theory of knowledge, beg the question against it and get on with the project.
The second constraint is the apparently vicious circle the problem of the criterion generates. The problem is that in generating an account of knowledge, one has to decide whether method or content has priority. One can either assume that one has knowledge and work backwards to the methods and principles that make it possible ("particularism") — or one can assume some methodological principles and derive justified beliefs in accordance with them ("methodism"). But, Chisholm points out, neither option is defensible. How can one claim to know something without being able to answer questions about how one knows? And how can one establish under what conditions one knows without reference to actual instances of knowing? Both seem impossible. But without adopting one of them, no epistemological project can get off the ground. Hence one must either abandon epistemology ("skepticism") or arbitrarily choose to adopt either particularism or methodism. These are the only options.[15]
The third and decisive global constraint is Chisholm's G.E. Moorean conviction that common sense knowledge of the external world exists. This conviction works in conjunction with the other two constraints, for it gives him the moral support he needs in begging the ultimate questions from the skeptic and stepping around the problem of the criterion in adopting particularism.[16] Chisholm chooses not to accept skepticism or its consequences: If the choice is between skepticism and knowledge, why not accept the position that best squares with one's natural inclinations? Chisholm's inclinations dictate that he does know some things, so he is willing to beg the question against the skeptic (at least a little bit). In making this leap, Chisholm points out that Santayana was entirely correct in claiming that "our knowledge involves an element of animal faith."[17] Against those who charge that begging the question is never a satisfactory response to a problem,[18] Chisholm responds that that is the best we can do and that the onus is on the skeptic to demonstrate that the faith is misplaced. And since the only alternative is skepticism, it is hard to see that one's faith could be better placed.[19]
As for the problem of the criterion, since we've eliminated skepticism, that leaves only particularism and methodism. There's no solution to the problem, so again one has to opt for whichever position seems best.[20] And again, Chisholm feels that common sense is best: people seem first to know things and only upon reflection grasp the methods and principles involved. So he opts for particularism.
Chisholm's epistemological method, then, given the three constraints, is to assume that we do know some external world propositions and to work backwards in figuring out how we know them. He assumes that we do have justified beliefs and instances of knowledge and seeks the principles that must underlie them. Ordinarily, when we ask what justifies a given claim, we presuppose that there is a justification for it, that we are justified in many of our beliefs, and that we know (at least vaguely) the difference between justified and unjustified beliefs. In the case of any particular belief, when we ask the question and then investigate, we learn what particular justification we have for the claim in question, and we learn more clearly what the general criteria of justification are. The justification is already implicitly there and simply needs to be brought out into the open. This is the method of particularism.
My procedure in this section will be to lay out Chisholm's program step by step and then to raise criticisms of it at the end of the section.
Putting particularism into practice, Chisholm follows in the tradition of Descartes and C.I. Lewis in holding that while justification is often a matter of degree, all justification must terminate in something certain. "If anything is probable for S, then something is certain for S."[21] If everything were only probable, we would get either an indefinite regress or a circle, and thus no genuine probabilities. Hence, we need to find something certain.
Chisholm's candidates for indubitable certainties are first-person propositions about one's experiences. Experiences are "self-presenting properties." One undergoes them, and if one reflects upon one's experience, then the proposition that one is experiencing in a specific way is certain for one.[22] Self-presenting properties are either intentional (thinking, hoping, fearing, intending) or sensible (the various ways in which we sense).[23] The important point here is that sensations, according to Chisholm, are non-intentional. (More on this later.) Both species, however, are such that if one has them, and considers oneself having them, then it is certain for one that one has them. For example, if one is wondering about what to have for dessert, then it is entirely justifiable for one to believe one is wondering what to have for dessert.[24] That one is wondering is thus certain and indubitable for one. This is an important point, for we have now introduced epistemic properties. In the case of self-presenting properties, the epistemic property of certainty supervenes on non-epistemic facts, i.e., one's conscious states.
In this way, self-presenting experiences are a source of certainty. One cannot be mistaken that one is having an experience, whether intentional or sensuous. One immediately apprehends it. But, and this is the important point, all that one is justified in believing one has access to immediately is the experience. What is certain is not that one is experiencing something out there in the world; that would be too grand a begging of the question against the skeptic, for it would assume a direct realist view of perception. For certainty, we must restrict ourselves to data about our own conscious states. Only our conscious states are self-presenting.[25] "I seem to see a lime" is indubitable for me, for example, but I could go astray if I say "I see a lime." I don't know initially that I am seeing a lime; I know only that I am having an experience that is lime-seeing-ish. If we are to start with certainty, then we must start with subjectively qualified appearance propositions. Only these are "self-justifying." Self-presenting properties are the source for these self-justifying propositions, for while they "may mislead us about other things, they are not a source of error about themselves."[26]
As with much of Chisholm's technical terminology, his use of the phrase "self-justifying proposition" is somewhat misleading since it is not in accord with common usage. The propositions in question do not themselves form their justification, contrary to what the phrase suggests. The presented experience and one's reflection upon it are necessary ingredients, for only in the context of their occurrence does a proposition become self-justified. Chi-sholm would perhaps be more comfortable with saying that the experiences generate justified propositions rather than that experiences transmit justification,[27] since the latter implies that experiences themselves have justification. He doesn't want to say that self-presenting experiences have justification; they are what confer evidence, but they themselves are pre-evident. They are "prime movers" in this sense: they confer evidence without being themselves evident. This is what he means by holding the resulting proposition to be "self-evident." Chisholm is thus registering at least partial disagreement with the common antifoundationalist premise that justification is solely a propositional phenomenon.[28]
But it is crucial for Chisholm's account that only propositions about first-person psychological experiences can be justified in this manner. For example, of the two statements "I am hungry" and "I see a key," "we may say that the first is self-justifying and the second is not."[29] The first is internal, the second external. The general rule, then, is to formulate propositions about one's experiences non-relationally, i.e., without presupposing that there is an external object to which one's conscious state is related. That there is such an object will be a conclusion to be arrived at later. "To arrive at what is self-presenting in these [i.e., perceptual] cases, we must remove the reference to the external thing" — for example, "to the wine in 'This wine tastes sour to me'."[30]
This was also Descartes's procedure. One starts with knowledge of one's own conscious states, this knowledge being certain and incorrigible; and then one goes on to make inferences about an external world. Chisholm, therefore, is following the broadly Cartesian representationalist pattern. The primary difference between Chisholm and Descartes is that Chisholm places much more emphasis upon empirical sources for the initial certain knowledge, while Descartes relies more heavily upon innate or a priori principles.[31]
Thus far Chisholm has an account of how experience can generate justified propositions. He has, therefore, satisfied the weaker of foundationalism's claims: that it is possible to derive some justified propositions that do not depend upon other propositions for their justification. The stronger foundationalist claim — that all justified propositions are justified, at least in part, by basic propositions — has yet to be established. Yet the bulk of the justified propositions we are interested in (our common sense beliefs) are propositions about external reality, and not merely about our subjective psychological states. So we need to see how Chisholm thinks external world propositions can be justified on the basis of subjective propositions. And for this we need to investigate in greater detail Chisholm's views about the nature of perceptual evidence. For while Chisholm does not accept a representationalist account of perception, his views on the import of skepticism and of consciousness in general condition his method of proceeding in deriving justified propositions about the external world.
Sensory experiences are usually said to present both other things and themselves. The former claim is problematic, since it raises the question of whether direct realism is true. Due to the standard problems of illusions and hallucinations, Chisholm feels that one cannot assume at the outset that there exists an external object corresponding to one's experience. Therefore, when propositionalizing one's experience one cannot straightforwardly assert that one is perceiving an X, where X is an external object. The proposition must be qualified subjectively.
On the other hand, in order to subjectively qualify the proposition, traditional representationalist theories of perception typically introduce intermediary objects of perception, e.g. sense data. If, for example, one is hallucinating a pink mouse running up the wall, there is no real pink mouse corresponding to the hallucination. But the subject of the hallucination takes himself to be perceiving one. The representationalist analysis concludes that there must be a pink-mousish sense datum that is the actual object of one's experience.
Chisholm also rejects representationalist theories of perception. Sense-data theories raise a host of questions their advocates have not successfully been able to answer: "can sense-data exist unsensed? Can two persons experience numerically identical sense-data? Do sense-data have surfaces which aren't sensed? What are sense-data made of? Are they located?"[32]
So neither direct realism nor representationalism is acceptable for Chisholm as a starting point for his foundationalism. His solution is to attempt to present his foundationalism entirely neutrally with respect to any theory of perception. The trick then is to formulate the basic propositions subjectively without adopting or even suggesting the adoption of a representationalist theory of perception. This is where his use of adverbial formulations enters.
For example, suppose one seems to see a kiwi fruit. Considering the fact that one's experience could be an illusion or hallucination, the proposition that is justified for one cannot be, "I see a kiwi fruit." Nor does Chisholm want to say that the justified proposition in this case is, "I see an apparent kiwi fruit," since that sort of talk invites sense data. The solution is to drop the talk of objects of perception altogether and instead to formulate the proposition as a report of one's experiencing: "I sense kiwi-fruitly" would be appropriate in this instance. What the proposition formulates is an activity of consciousness, with the adverbial ending indicating a modification of the manner of that activity.
Adverbialism thus attempts to solve the problems hallucinations or after-images pose for any theory of perception without having to suppose sense-data. Adverbialism shifts the focus away from what the apparent objects of experience are, to the subject and the subject's manner of experiencing.[33] This maneuver thus leaves entirely open the question of the connection, if any, of the experiential state to the external world.
For Chisholm, this maneuver falls out of his general non-relational view of consciousness, of which perception is a special case.[34] In the case of perception, one should not think of an experiential act as necessarily relating one to an object, whether an object in the external world or a sense datum. One can think of something non-relationally, and one can experience non-relationally: "It just does appear white — and that is the end of the matter."[35]
At the outset, then, there is no commitment to an independent X. One starts knowing only that one is in an experiential, adverbial state; in general, the pattern is "I am appeared to X-ly." Then the project is to discover that the experiential state implies the presence of an external object. Once attained, one's justified belief can be expressed in a proposition of the form "There is an X."
It is important to note that while Chisholm rejects representationalism in perception, he still is committed to a representationalist theory of justification. The same indirect pattern of deriving external world propositions from antecedently known subjective propositions is followed. This representationalist pattern is explored and criticized in Chapter 3.
Adverbialism is incomplete as an analysis of perception. Chisholm still needs an account of what the subject is perceiving in the normal case. But for Chisholm this is an issue to be dealt with separately. His foundationalism is intended to be neutral with respect to the question of the directness of perception.
The next question brings us to the heart of Chisholm's enterprise: How does one discover that experiential states imply the presence of external objects? What epistemic principles can bridge the gap between propositions about subjective sensory states and propositions about the external world? The needed principles are, logically enough, called "bridge principles."
Another angle on the same problem comes from Chisholm's above-mentioned distinction between intentional self-presenting properties and sensible self-presenting properties. Thinking, hoping, fearing, intending, and so on, are intentional. The ways in which we sense or are appeared to are sensible properties, yet propositions generated by these have been formulated adverbially to remove any sort of intentional object. So we need to bridge the gap between the two.
We are looking for criteria of the form: "So-and-so-tends to make it evident to S that he is appeared to by an F."[36] Then, if the criteria obtain, S will be justified in believing he is appeared to by an F; and if he is appeared to by an F, then he will be justified in believing the proposition, "There is an F." This is the way that people proceed. "In the case of being appeared to, there is something, one's being appeared to in a certain way, that one interprets as a sign of some external fact."[37] So the question is, Under what circumstances can one take one's experiences as a sign of a real object and not merely as an illusion or hallucination?
What makes this the heart of Chisholm's enterprise is that this is the standard exceedingly difficult problem representationalists since Descartes and Locke have had to grapple with. As a working example, take the transition from "I am appeared to mauvely" to "There is a mauve thing before me" as an example. The transition from the subjective proposition to the external-world proposition cannot be justified deductively, for all that follows deductively from propositions that are directly evident, i.e. propositions about one's subjective states, are further propositions about one's subjective states. Nor can enumerative induction justify the transition (supposing one had formulated a series of subjective propositions), for in an enumerative induction based solely on subjective propositions one has only a series of singular propositions about experiences and not any sort of proposition about an external world by which to assert a connection. So getting to the external world requires faith plus a "hypothetical induction." The conclusion "There is a mauve thing before me" must be viewed as the best explanation for the fact asserted by the self-justifying appearing expression — in this case, "I am appeared to mauvely."[38] Belief in the external world is thus an inductive hypothesis, and realism requires a dose of Santayana's animal faith. One cannot establish conclusively that the hypothesis is true; for this reason, of all empirical propositions, only self-justifying propositions about subjective experience will have the highest degree of certainty; external world propositions derived by the faith/hypothetical induction method will have something much less.
The animal faith is not unlimited, however: Chisholm is careful to delineate the principles that yield justified propositions from hypothetical inductions from those that result from rather wilder leaps of faith. And since justification comes in degrees, the principles he offers attempt to reflect those degrees. If there are such things as justified propositions about the external world (believing that there are is the faith element), then the principles will catalog the steps that must obtain. It would be a misunderstanding to hold that the principles Chisholm offers are intended as a way of arguing one's way to an external world; rather they are intended as formulations of the principles that must obtain given that one already accepts that there are justified propositions about the external world. The G.E. Moorean faith is bedrock.
The principles are intended to capture degrees of justification descending along a continuum from "certainty" to "counterbalanced," where "counterbalanced" means that one is as justified in believing a given proposition as its negation and vice versa.[39] Self-justifying propositions are of course certain for one. Being "obvious" is the next level down from certainty, followed successively by "evident," "beyond reasonable doubt," epistemically in the clear," "probable," and finally "counterbalanced."[40]
In making the transition from certain subjective propositions to external world propositions, the first step up the hierarchy is to a proposition that is "probable" for one. "Probable" is the first positive degree of justification stronger than "counterbalanced," and is defined as follows:
D2 p is probable for S =Df S is more justified in believing p than in believing the negation of p.[41]
The principles that capture this notion of minimal probability are his Material Principles 2 and 3:
MP2 Accepting h tends to make h probable
MP3 If S accepts h and if h is not disconfirmed by S's total evidence, then h is probable for S.[42]
The claim here is that a proposition about an appearing tends to make probable a proposition about the external world. And if the external world proposition is both accepted by the subject and the rest of the subject's beliefs do not go against it, then the proposition in question has been made probable for the subject. Accepting an external world proposition under these circumstances gives it prima facie probability.[43]
The accepted proposition achieves a higher degree of justification under the following circumstance: If the denial of the proposition is not probable given all of the propositions that are probable for the subject, then the proposition is "epistemically in the clear" for the subject.[44] This higher degree of justification Chisholm labels "epistemically in the clear," and it is defined as follows:
A proposition is said to be epistemically in the clear for a subject S provided only that S is not more justified in withholding that proposition than in believing it. This definition introduces the notion of "withholding," which is defined as follows: A person may be said to withhold a proposition h provided he does not believe h and does not believe the negation of h.[45]
Putting all this together, believing a proposition h is epistemically in the clear for a subject S if: (a) S accepts h; (b) h is not disconfirmed by all of the evidence available to S; and (c) given all of the propositions that S accepts and that are not disconfirmed by all of the evidence available to S, not-h is either not accepted by S or disconfirmed by the propositions that are not disconfirmed by all of the evidence available to S. Then and only then is believing h more justified for S than believing neither h nor not-h, which is the degree of justification the concept of "epistemically in the clear" is intended to capture.
Chisholm continues in this vein. One more level up the hierarchy will suffice for our purposes, for then a fairly strong level of justification — "beyond a reasonable doubt" — will have been achieved for external world propositions, and we will have a clear enough picture of the general procedure Chisholm is using as a basis for evaluating it.
Three additional definitions are required for the principle that governs propositions that are justified "beyond a reasonable doubt." The first is that of "taking":
S takes there to be an F =Df (1) S is appeared — to;
(2) it is evident to S that he is appeared — to; and
(3) S believes that there is only one thing that appears — to him and that that thing is F.
This definition requires the concept "evident," which is defined as follows:
p is evident for S =Df For every proposition q, believing p is at least as justified for S as is withholding q.
The concept in question also needs a definition.
p is beyond reasonable doubt for S =Df S is more justified in believing p than in withholding p.[46]
Finally, Material Principle 5:
If S takes there to be an F, and if it is epistemically in the clear for him that there is an F which he takes to be an F, then it is beyond reasonable doubt for S that he is perceiving something to be F.[47]
The basic and apparently straightforward intuition behind this complex formulation is, according to Chisholm, that "The wise man will make use of whatever apparently probable presentations he encounters, if nothing presents itself that is contrary to that probability."[48] Let's work this through step by step.
We suppose that a given external world proposition, "There is an F," is epistemically in the clear for S, as explained above. Now, if S also takes there to be an F — which requires that S be appeared to X-ly, that the proposition "I am appeared to X-ly" be evident for S (which means that for no other proposition would S be more justified in withholding belief in that proposition than believing "I am appeared to X-ly"), and S believes that only one thing appears X-ly to him and that the thing that appears X-ly is F — then Chisholm holds that it is beyond a reasonable doubt for S that he is in fact perceiving something to be F. And from that it follows in due course that the proposition "I perceive an F" or "There's an F" is justified for S. So for S an external world proposition has been justified beyond a reasonable doubt on the basis of subjectively qualified, self-justifying propositions about experience.
Chisholm's account is at least minimally foundationalist. There are such things as propositions that do not depend upon other propositions for their justification. And some other propositions (at least) depend for their justification upon those basic propositions. Thus, at least part of the structure of justified propositions is both hierarchical and terminal. Does it follow from this that the stronger foundationalist claim — that "every justified [empirical] statement, about what we think we know, is justified in part by some statement that justifies itself"[49] — is true? As far as I can tell, Chisholm does not give an argument for this stronger claim.
The account is foundationalist, yet as we have seen the foundation consists in part of epistemological faith in the face of skeptical objections. If we're going to be reasonable, Chisholm believes, i.e. if we believe we're able to acquire knowledge and be consistent in our beliefs, then we have to accept his principles. The only fundamental alternative is skepticism, and that's the only fundamental argument that can be made for the principles.[50] This doesn't undermine the skeptic, let alone prove the skeptic wrong. But that project is impossible; that is the "epistemic predicament." All we can do is affirm the central presupposition of the epistemological project:
I am justified in believing that I can improve and correct my system of beliefs. Of those beliefs that are about matters of interest or concern to me, I can eliminate the ones that are unjustified and add others that are justified; and I can replace less justified beliefs about those topics by beliefs that are more justified.[51]
Let me now raise criticisms of Chisholm's account.
In the first place, his response to skepticism is certainly problematic. He grants that the skeptic cannot be beaten, which means he is unable to find any flaws in the skeptic's arguments. What, though, is the reasonable thing to do in the face of unanswerable arguments? Accept them. Instead Chisholm overthrows his rational judgment in favor of a faith he says cannot be rationally defended.[52] This puts Chisholm in a paradoxical position. He claims to be giving an account of justification, yet nothing can be said to be justified if it rests on an act of faith. And if one's faith requires ignoring apparently compelling arguments, then any plausible sense of justification is undercut.
Chisholm is forced into this by his pessimism about the possibilities of overthrowing skepticism. Yet he does not beg the entire question against the skeptic, for the apparent force of skeptical objections also leads him to condition his methodology by making subjectively qualified appearance propositions the foundation. This in turn leads him to adopt the standard representationalist project of making justified belief in external world propositions indirect. But if it should turn out that skepticism is not unbeatable, and if representationalism must fail necessarily, then it follows that Chisholm's entire project is misguided. I think both of these antecedents are true; my investigation of them comprises Chapter 3
An equally serious problem, to my mind, is his admittedly arbitrary adoption of particularism in response to the problem of the criterion. Particularism as a method is certainly invaluable in many cases as a means of determining consciously and in retrospect how exactly one arrived at a given conclusion. Yet Chisholm presents the options of particularism and methodism as an exclusive disjunction. In presenting the options, the common premise is that only one or the other can have priority. Yet why can't both proceed simultaneously? The possibility that content and method go hand in hand, that neither has priority, is not explored.[53] In Chapter 5 we will do so.
This point is not unrelated to the issue of Chisholm's representationalist methodology, so the issues discussed in Chapter 3 will bear upon it. The assumption of the problem is that as an adult one has a set of beliefs and a set of methodological principles, and that from the "inside" one must find some way to determine which are reliable. Chisholm recognizes that on these grounds there is no way to determine which set is reliable, and so he concludes that one simply has to arbitrarily choose one set over the other. The assumption is that we have no direct access to reality to ground or validate either the content of the beliefs or the methodological principles in question. That assumption is the representationalist premise, which I challenge in Chapter 3.
The above two points concern Chisholm's general positioning of himself philosophically. Let us turn now to five points of detail.
First: for Chisholm the proper foundational proposition is of the form "I am appeared to X-ly." The key concept here is that of "appearance." Grasping the concept "appearance," though, requires a prior grasp of the concept "reality." That is to say, before one can understand what it is for something to appear a given way one has to have grasped the sophisticated point that appearance and reality can sometimes diverge. This implies that in using appearance concepts as foundational, Chisholm is either smuggling in an implicit reference to reality or presupposing other concepts. This is a dilemma, for the former alternative is contrary to his representationalist methodology of working from the "inside" to the "outside," while the latter alternative means that no proposition of the form "I am appeared to X-ly" can be foundational, for understanding the proposition requires antecedent knowledge.
Chisholm is aware of this line of criticism, but he rejects the view that "appears" is parasitical upon "is." "Appears" language is not necessarily used as a hedge, i.e., as a way of indicating one's awareness of the fact that things may not be as they appear to be. It can be, instead, descriptive of ways of self-presenting appearing.[54]
In the context of defending C.I. Lewis's foundationalism against the same charge, Roderick Firth adopts the same strategy that Chisholm does. Firth phrases the problem this way:
[I]f the coherence theory of concepts is correct and we cannot fully understand 'looks red' unless we possess the contrasting concept 'is red,' then it would seem that it is not logically possible to have the concept 'looks red' before we have the concept 'is red.' This is clearly a problem for the Lewisian approach: It is these expressive judgments [e.g., 'It seems to me as if I were seeing something red'], according to Lewis, that enable us to escape the coherence theory of justification; and if it should turn out that these judgments all make some covert reference to physical objects, then — depending on the kind of 'covert reference' — it may no longer be possible to make the epistemological distinction which Lewis requires.[55]
Chisholm's program also requires the distinction. And if "appearance" concepts depend upon "reality" concepts, then appearing statements smuggle in a reference to reality, and then Lewisian/Chisholmian foundationalism cannot work.
Firth attempts to resolve the problem by noting that the "looks red/is red" distinction is the adult distinction between appearance and reality, and by claiming that children have prior to this a more primitive concept of "looks red" which is not dependent upon the adult concept of "is red." If this is true, then it will allow Lewis's program to preserve its required starting point of "it seems to me" without any physical object presuppositions being built into it.
The question then is: Is there a primitive "looks red" concept? In general, are appearance concepts prior? Is it possible, as Firth and Chisholm claim, for "appears" concepts to be used entirely independently of "is" concepts?
Firth's argument for this point begins by noting that a child will call things "red" whether the things are "really red" or only made to look that way (by, for example, the child's looking through red glass). "In fact," Firth continues,
at this stage the child says 'red' just in those circumstances in which we, as adults, could truthfully says [sic] "looks red to me now," so that it would not be unreasonable to assert that the child is using 'red' to express a primitive form of the concept "looks red."[56]
This argument is completely inconclusive, for if the child also uses 'red' when adults use 'red' — as Firth recognizes — then it could as easily be that the child has a more primitive concept of "is red." And this would seem to be the more reasonable assumption, since it seems that children proceed as direct realists, always taking there to be real objects of experience. That one can make more limited claims of the purely phenomenologically descriptive sort seems to be an acquired skill, learned much later.
So while it is certainly true that adults have such a purely descriptive use of "appears," as Chisholm points out, the use of such a concept for a defense of foundationalism is not satisfactory, for it only pushes the initial criticism to a deeper level. A necessary component of the purely descriptive "appears" is that it eschews external object commitments; it limits the resulting description to the features of the experiential state. But this is not part of the child's understanding: he or she behaves as a direct realist. So in using "appears" only as a description of self-presenting experiences, Chisholm (or anyone in this context) is adopting the philosopher's context of knowledge: he has made the distinction between appearance and reality, between subject and object; he can focus upon the way things appear in abstraction from any consideration of the way things really are; and thus he can formulate a technical use of "appear" designed to capture experiencing from the subjective side. So we as philosophers certainly can speak of "appearances" without implying a direct actual or possible contrast with reality, just as Chisholm claims. But this technical noncontrastive use of "appears" presupposes the more general contrastive use of "appears."[57]
If this is correct, then Chisholm's foundationalism is not neutral with respect to questions of realism, contrary to his hopes. And this means that propositions of the form "I am appeared to X-ly" cannot be foundational, since they presuppose prior distinctions.
A more general point can be made about this problem with Chisholm's approach to foundationalism: That it is not possible to do epistemology entirely neutrally. In the case of foundationalism, questions about the hierarchical structure of justified belief can be addressed in abstraction from questions about the nature of perception, but they cannot be addressed neutrally, i.e., without making either implicit or explicit commitments to some view on the nature of perception.
Second: I believe there is also a lacuna in Chisholm's account of how self-presenting experiences generate self-justifying propositions. An experience is a concrete phenomenon: it is determinate and particular — one experiences, for example, a particular dog of a particular size, shape, color, and so on. A proposition, by contrast, is abstract and (sometimes) universal — it utilizes concepts of entities and attributes that refer to more than one entity. In propositionalizing an experience, one uses abstractions in subsuming the experience to a universal type. This means that one is connecting this particular experience to other particular experiences. If so, then forming a proposition on a given occasion means doing more that simply summing up the experience; more is going on than an isolated statement. This presents two problems for Chisholm's account. The first is that he introduces a new level of conscious phenomena — concepts, abstractions — without an account of what validates their use, particularly in connection with their relation to given experiences. This lacuna could be closed if Chisholm presented a theory of abstraction, though this is not something he has done to date.
The lacuna, however, is in part a product of Chisholm's abovementioned allegiance to a non-relational view of consciousness. If each proposition is a self-contained phenomenon, if one can think of a given cognitive item without necessarily making connections to other cognitive items,[58] then there is no need to present an account of how this particular use of the proposition "I am appeared to quadrilaterally" relates to other uses of the proposition.
I do not think that a given judgment about one's experience merely sums it up in isolation from the rest of one's experiences.[59] In using abstractions, one is integrating the experience of the moment with previous similar experiences. I do not think that this integrative phenomenon entails any form of coherentism, as I will explore in Chapter 5. Yet I think Chisholm thinks it does, which I think explains his resistance to the notion that a theory of concept-formation is needed.
Third: another possible lacuna falls out of Chisholm's non-relationalism. Nelson Goodman's problem of imperfect community, though usually raised in the context of metaphysical bundle theories, also bears upon the issue of the abstractness of the resulting self-justified propositions and their relations to the experiential given. Suppose one is confronted with a red pyramid sitting on a blue cube. All of the following propositions will be self-justifying for one: "I am appeared to redly," I am appeared to bluely," "I am appeared to triangularly," "I am appeared to squarely." Some account is needed of why the propositions "I am appeared to red-triangularly" and "I am appeared to blue-squarely" will be justified while the propositions "I am appeared to red-squarely" and "I am appeared to blue-triangularly" will be unjustified. The latter four propositions are conceptually compound, and their derivation from conceptually atomic propositions or directly from experientially atomic states is not obvious.
Fourth: Chisholm's account formally divides into two sets of propositions: a set of definitions of terms indicating locations along the justification continuum, and a set of principles governing the use of those terms in particular situations. Let me raise one general criticism each of the offered definitions and of the principles.
On the "definitions" side, Chisholm's ostensible purpose is to provide an account of the concept of "justification." Yet most of the offered definitions of the degrees of justification ("probable," "beyond reasonable doubt," "evident," and so on) use the concept "justification" in their definition. This at the very least makes the account circular,[60] which is a certainly a weakness in an account of epistemic justification. Perhaps the best response to the charge of circularity is that Chisholm sees this wing of his project as merely clarificatory. Just as we have the Moorean faith that we know some things, we have going into the project a pre-analytic sense for what justification is all about, and the project's goal is simply to make more precise our use of the term. Thus Chisholm's definitions are only paving the way for future investigations of what the root concept of justification really is. But if this is so, then Chisholm has left entirely open questions about whether our pre-analytic notions of justification are adequate, whether yours are the same as mine, and if not, whose are better.
Fifth: On the "principles" side, I think his MP2 and MP3 are symptomatic of a central problem with Chisholm's approach.
MP2 Accepting h tends to make h probable.
MP3 If S accepts h and if h is not disconfirmed by S's total evidence, then h is probable for S.
If MP2 read "Accepting h makes h probable," then it would clearly be invalid; it would be a form of "Believing makes it so," and thus be a form of the "epistemic conservatism" Chisholm is concerned to avoid.[61] People come to accept propositions for all sorts of bizarre reasons and because of all sorts of strange causes, so the fact that someone accepts something by itself confers no probability. MP2, however, makes less of a claim by adding the "tends to" qualifier. What does it mean to say that accepting a proposition "tends to make" that proposition probable? "What is intended by the locution, 'e tends to make h probable,'" Chisholm states, "may be put somewhat loosely by saying, 'If e were the only relevant evidence you had, then you would also have some justification for accepting h.'"[62] Now, MP2 claims that "Accepting h tends to make h probable". If we perform the relevant substitutions, the acceptance of h is the e in question, for the only relevant evidence available is the fact that one accepts h. And this is once again simply to say that the mere believing of a proposition confers probability upon it for the subject.
Clearly the import of MP2 is to confer upon accepted propositions some minimal level of probability based merely upon the fact that the proposition is accepted. But this then is a watered-down version of "Believing makes it so." One can only claim that accepting a proposition tends to make it probable if the mechanism by and context in which the proposition was accepted are such that they tend to make propositions probable. But if we know that people can and do accept propositions for utterly ridiculous reasons, then we cannot confer any degree of probability, however minimal,[63] upon a proposition given only that it has been accepted. We have to know something about the mechanism by which the proposition is accepted and the context in which it is accepted — and this is what principles of justification should spell out for us.
MP2 is Chisholm's first positive link between subjective propositions and external world propositions. The propositions that people find themselves accepting are external world propositions, and Chisholm is searching for a way to justify them. Yet the fact that people accept realism does not make or even tend to make the propositions involved probable.
MP3 claims that a genuinely positive degree of justification is conferred upon a proposition given two conditions: it is accepted and none of the evidence available to the subject disconfirms it.[64] The first condition alone is invalid, for the reasons given above. The second alone is also problematic, for it claims that a lack of evidence against a given proposition translates into a positive degree of probability for the proposition. The fact that none of the evidence available to me disconfirms the proposition that one of the moons of Jupiter is inhabited by eight-celled organisms that eat frozen methane does not make the proposition probable for me. Argumentum ad ignorantiam is a fallacy at any level. The only remaining possibility is that the two conditions together can yield probability. This does not seem plausible; two fallacies do not a valid inference make.
This concludes my presentation and initial criticism of Chisholm's foundationalism. Let us now turn to Moser's account.
Paul Moser's 1989 Knowledge and Evidence is a synthesis and expansion of material presented in his many journal essays published in the 1980s. As the title suggests, he is offering a general account of the conditions for knowledge, of which his account of the conditions for epistemic justification forms only one part. That one part is the major part, however, being dealt with at greatest length in the book's central chapters. Since my concern is only with Moser's foundationalist account of justification, we can pass over the details of his account of the nature of belief and truth, his remarks on practical rationality and on the nature of knowledge in general, in order to focus on his account of justification. I believe Moser's version of foundationalism to be the most sophisticated of its type, so it is well worth investigating.
To begin, let us highlight the major features of Moser's foundationalist account.
Moser accepts the traditional definition of knowledge as justified true belief.[65] In the context of this minimal definition he presents his analysis of what is required for the justification condition to be met. If a proposition is to be counted as knowledge, then it must be justified. So, what makes a proposition justified for someone? Moser actually starts by asking a simpler question: What makes a proposition justifiable for someone? First we must distinguish a proposition's being justifiable for S and S's being justified in believing a proposition. There is a difference between justification as justifiability and justifiedness, the former requiring weaker and the latter stronger conditions. If we can lay out the lesser requirements for justifiability, then we can focus our efforts on what must be added for justification.
Moser first connects the concept of justification to the concept of probability. We speak of propositions as being more or less justified, indicating a connection between justification and probability. So we can recast the question: What makes a proposition probable?
Moser rejects all accounts of probability that involve propositions' being self-probable, propositions' depending for their probability upon an infinitely regressing chain of probable propositions, or propositions' being made probable by a circular chain of propositions.[66] The most common reasons for rejecting these have been well-rehearsed in the literature, and Moser is not concerned to repeat those reasons. His primary objection to all such accounts is that — even supposing they could meet all the commonly raised objections — they are much too narrow to be general accounts of probability. All such versions make probability solely a matter of relations between propositions, and Moser is concerned that they leave out of the picture any sort of nonpropositional probability-makers. The reason for his focus on nonpropositional probability-makers is two-fold. First, most foundationalist accounts of justification attempt to ground justification in some nonpropositional psychological states, such as sensation or perception, and Moser places himself in this tradition. Second, Moser takes the failure of all entirely propositional accounts of probability as indicating that a complete account of probability will have to involve an account of nonpropositional probability-makers.[67]
ejects externalist versions (1989a, pp. 71-77).]
Since Moser's foundationalism attempts to ground justification in experience, his candidates for nonpropositional probability-makers are subjective experiential states. Seeming to sense and seeming to perceive are such states.[68] (Moser includes both sensation and perception in his discussion, but for brevity I will shorten "sensation and perception" to "perception.") Perceptual states are taken by Moser as subjective because they are states of the subject and do not necessarily involve the objective existence of the apparent object of sensation or perception. (This manner of describing the status of sensory/perceptual states will be the subject of one of my major criticisms of Moser's foundationalism.) Such experiential states are also nonconceptual states, since being in such a state does not involve the application of a concept. Concepts, on Moser's view, are classificatory structures or items that a subject can impose upon his sensory or perceptual experiences.[69] One way of making the distinction between sensuous/perceptual states and conceptual states is to note that the subject is psychologically passive in the former in comparison with the latter. Moser may not want to say that perception is an entirely passive process, but it does not involve active manipulation or classification of what is presented. Conceptual states involve precisely such active manipulation and classification.
Perception and conception are distinct modes of awareness. Even if one does conceptualize one's perceptual experience, Moser notes, this does not alter one's perceptual experience.[70] There is interaction between the two sorts of states, since conception draws at least some of its material from perception and since conception can direct where one focuses one's perceptual mechanisms, but the two are modularized states.
Taking sensory/perceptual states as nonconceptual, a further distinction must be made. It is possible, Moser notes, for one to perceive something without noticing that one is doing so. One can, for example, be reading a book and not notice at all the constant rumble of road traffic outside one's window. And then, a moment later, one can attend to the sounds of the traffic. Both of these are perceptual states, and yet the distinction between the two is crucial for Moser's account of nonpropositional probability making. Moser takes an internalist position, which requires that one be aware of whatever is justifying evidence for a proposition if that proposition is to be justified for one. In the case of a subject who never noticed the rumble of traffic, the fact that his ears were stimulated by the sounds would not be evidence for him that trucks and cars are driving past his window. For perceptual awareness to make a proposition probable, the subject must attend to it. We want to have more going on in justification of basic propositions than just passive stimulation of sensory receptors, and yet we don't want that extra justificatory activity to be conceptual.[71]
Moser uses the concept "attention-attraction" to designate the psychological relationship of a subject who is alert to his perceptual states.[72] The subject has his attention drawn to some feature of his experience. Once his attention is so drawn, that experiential item can play a justificatory role. This is distinguished from attention-focusing. Attention-focusing is a more active process on the part of the subject; the subject initiates and maintains the focus. The difference between attention-attraction and attention-focusing is, for example, the difference between one's psychological state that results from a nearby car unexpectedly backfiring and one's psychological state when one stares at some feature of one's visual field. One is attending to some feature of one's perceptual field in each case, but one is psychologically active in the latter case in a way one is not in the former.
Perceptual attention-attracted states are at the base of Moser's justificatory structure. They justify propositions that stand in a certain relationship to them. In one sense, the relationship between a proposition such as "That's an orangutan" and a perceptual state such as seeming to see an orangutan seems unproblematic. As James Van Cleve puts it, "if I am having the experience of seeing a tree but not that of seeing an elephant, am I not (other things being equal) more justified in believing in a tree than an elephant?"[73] Yet it is just such justifying relationships that nonfoundationalists have traditionally denied, and it is against such denials that Moser presents his new (at least in this context) account of the nature of that justifying or probable-making relationship.
Moser's proposal is to make explanatory relationships the source of the justification for a proposition given a perceptual state.[74] Moser reverses the usual procedure of cashing out explanation in terms of making-probable by explaining making-probable (i.e., justifiable) in terms of explanation. The central thesis here is that propositions attain some minimal probability simply in virtue of having explanatory power relative to some experiential state.
[O]ne's subjective nonconceptual contents can make a proposition, P, evidentially probable to some extent for one in virtue of those contents' being explained for one by P in the sense that P is an essential part of an explanation for one of why those contents exist, or, equivalently, why those contents occur as they do.[75]
If a proposition can explain to some degree one's subjective perceptual states, then it is to that degree probable for one. And since justification is a matter of being made probable, the proposition is thus justifiable for one to that degree. This is not yet to say that the proposition is justified for one or even that the proposition is a better explanation for one than any or all other possible propositions. The proposition has so far acquired only some minimal probability — but this is a big step, for we now have connected propositional probability to nonpropositional perceptual states. Now the project is merely to show how to "jack up" the degree of probability of a proposition to the point that it is justifiable for one to believe it, and then to add whatever it takes to get one to the point where one is in fact justified in believing it. This will involve, as the next two steps, stating what an explanation is and explaining what it is for a given proposition to be a better explanation than another.
Explanation is explained in terms of making understandable.[76] A proposition explains when it makes the thing being explained understandable to some extent.
a proposition makes certain subjective contents' occurring as they do understandable to some extent if and only if anyone who assents to that proposition as a direct result of directly experiencing those contents will thereby understand why those contents occur.[77]
The subjective perceptual state is taken as something requiring explanation. A proposition explains the state to some degree if it can make the subject understand why he is in the state he is in. A proposition capable of conferring such understanding is thereby minimally probable, or justifiable to some extent, for the subject. So Moser has connected justification to making-probable, grounded making-probable in explanatory relations between perceptual states and propositions, and cashed out explanation in terms of making understandable. Next we need criteria for better and worse explanations, in order to be able to isolate those propositions it is most justifiable for a subject to believe. We will of course have to have notions of better and worse explanations that do not depend on the notion of probability in order to avoid circularity, since probability is being cashed out in terms of explanation.
To clarify the notions of better and worse explanations, let us work through two related cases: why ordinary external world propositions are better explanations for one's perceptual states, and how Moser uses his explanatory account to defeat skepticism.
First, ordinary physical-object propositions. Suppose Mr. Doxas seems to smell an apple pie. His attention is attracted to the scent-experience. None of Mr. Doxas's other beliefs or other features of his experiential state lead him to doubt the proposition, i.e., there are no underminers. Then Mr. Doxas's sensory state is best explained by the physical object proposition that there is an apple pie around. Accordingly, that ordinary, external-world object proposition is justifiable for him.
So, the proposition "There's an A," where A is some posited physical object, is justifiable for S if
(i) S's attention is attracted by an apparent perception of an A,
(ii) the proposition "There's an A" can make understandable why S seems to perceive an A, and
(iii) nothing in S's experience suggests to S that no A is present or that the explanatory relation of (ii) does not hold.[78]
In such cases, the proposition "There's an A" is the best explanation of S's experience, and that is all there is to justifiability. The subject has an experience. Given that experience, some propositions — those with explanatory power relative to those experiences — will have some probability given the experience, but one of those propositions will better explain the experiences and so will be more justifiable for the subject than the rest. In the normal perceptual case, the best explanatory proposition will be an ordinary external-world proposition. Thus, ordinary external-world propositions come to be justifiable for a subject.
This is not yet to say that the subject is actually now justified in believing the proposition; that requires more to be laid out shortly. But what we have so far is enough to see how Moser takes his account as answering the skeptic.
About a given apparent perceptual experience you may have, skeptics will offer any number of explanatory propositions. It could be, for example, that you are dreaming or hallucinating. Or you could be a brain in a vat. Or an evil demon could be playing a little joke on you. Or it could be that you are perceiving a physical object that exists independently of you. Given all of these possibilities, how could it be justifiable for you to believe any one of them and not the others? Moser's point is that your experience all by itself gives you something to go on in evaluating the merits of these proposed explanatory hypotheses. To grasp the general pattern, compare the evil demon proposition with the physical object proposition. Both have some explanatory power given the experience, but not equally so because the evil demon proposition makes reference to items not contained in any sense in the given experience. It posits gratuitous entities, while the physical object proposition does not. As such, given the experience, the evil demon conjecture has less going for it and so is not as good an explanation.[79] Thus the physical object proposition is a better explanation and so more justifiable.
Better explanations do not posit gratuitous entities. A gratuitous entity is one not represented in any manner whatsoever in the item to be explained. Any skeptical explanations that arbitrarily posit entities are thus explanatorily weaker. Moser does not take the arbitrariness of skeptical objections to rule them entirely out of court, but he does claim that it is legitimate to set aside as weaker the skeptical explanations when compared to the explanations provided by ordinary object propositions. Better explanations for one's perceptual experiences are ordinarily provided by physical-object propositions, and so the skeptic is simply wrong to conclude that it is unjustifiable ever to believe physical-object propositions. If one proposition is clearly a better explanation than another, then it is more justifiable to believe it.[80]
So far we have an account of what it is for a proposition to be justifiable for a subject. The traditional definition of knowledge that Moser wishes to uphold requires that the proposition be justified for the subject and not merely justifiable. So we need to seek out what in addition is required in getting from justifiable propositions to justified propositions. There are three conditions.
First, a minimal condition: the proposition must be more probable, given the evidence, than its denial.[81] This rules out one's being justified in believing a proposition when one has only weak explanatory hypotheses available.
Second, the subject has to consider and understand the proposition.
Third, since justifiability does not require that the subject has associated the proposition with its supporting evidence (the subject only has to have the evidence for justifiability)[82], and since Moser wants to add the internalist requirement of the subject's grasping in some sense the relation between the evidence and the proposition it justifies, justification requires justifiability plus the subject's having associated the proposition with its evidence. Some sort of awareness of the connection between the two is required. This is where things get tricky.
If Moser were an externalist, then his account of justification could end with the second condition added to justifiability. The subject would have an experience, one proposition would be a better explanation for that experience, the subject would consider and understand that proposition and thus be justified in believing it. But as an internalist Moser wants something more: the subject must grasp the significance of the nonpropositional experiential evidence relative to the proposition it justifies, the subject must be aware of the connection between that evidence and that proposition, the subject must believe the proposition because it stands in a certain relation to the evidence — the point can be stated a number of ways. This requirement raises a difficult question, though: What exactly is involved in this grasping of the relation between evidence and proposition? So far this notion is vague.
Before exploring this as yet vague notion and the possible criticisms of Moser's position that arise from it, let us end this expository section by summarizing Moser's account of justification, highlighting its foundationalist features and contrasting its distinctive features with those of other prominent foundationalist positions.
Moser's position is foundationalist because all justification stems from a starting point: all justification (at least, all empirical justification) is traced to nonpropositional, perceptual experience. Not all justification is a matter of relations between propositions, contrary to the claims of coherence theories of justification, for one species of justification is a matter of relations between nonpropositional experiential contents and propositions. Perception can give rise to justified propositions if those propositions have strong explanatory power relative to the perceptual experiences. Then, given such basic, justified propositions, other propositions can be justified by means of deductive and other inductive inferences. Justification, then, on Moser's account, exhibits the two-tiered structure typical of foundationalism.
Moser's account is not typical in all respects. No certainty is required at the basis of the justificatory structure, in contrast to the foundationalisms of Descartes, Lewis, Chisholm, and others. All that is required is that the proposition be a decisively better explanation than its possible competitors. Nothing in the system requires or makes use of self-justifying propositions, in contrast to one way of interpreting Chisholm. Subjects also don't have to start with explicitly subjectively qualified propositions such as "I seem to perceive an X," as the subjects of Chisholm's & Lewis's systems do. Such propositions can be incorporated into the Moserian account, but subjects can also start with propositions of the form "There is an X"; and given the fact that most people proceed as direct realists, cutting out intermediate subjective propositions and proceeding directly to external-world propositions allows the system to be psychologically more realistic than versions having only propositions of the form "I seem to perceive an X" as the basis. And it seems to allow for a tidier disposal of skepticism,[83] in the process allowing young cognizers and those who have never taken philosophy courses to have justified beliefs without ever having worried about Cartesian demons and being brains in vats.
Let us return to the question of the nature of the subject's grasping of the relationship between the experience and the proposition justified by it, for this is a natural lead in to several possible criticisms of Moser's approach.
First let us combine the conditions for justifiability with those for justification to work out an illustrative example. Suppose our subject, Ms. Credo, is facing a blue book in normal light with her eyes open. In stages, then, what happens is as follows:
1st: Ms. Credo experiences blue-bookly.
2nd: Ms. Credo's attention is attracted to the blue-bookish experience.
3rd: Ms. Credo conceptualizes her experience with the appropriate appearance qualifiers.
4th: She asks herself, Why am I experiencing blue-bookly?
5th: She generates at least one explanatory hypothesis in propositional form. In this case the proposition will most likely be something like "There's a blue book."
6th: Ms. Credo understands the proposition(s).
7th: She evaluates the explanatory merits of the proposition(s).
8th: She believes the best one, in this case most likely "There's a blue book."
This doesn't seem to be what Moser wants. For one thing, unless Ms. Credo is a high-powered epistemologist, it is psychologically unrealistic to expect that she will go through all these stages. That is just not the way people function, as Moser and many others are well aware.[84] This sort of construction would raise a host of hard questions. What is the source of the necessary concepts and qualifications required by the third stage? Does she already have to know or believe or be aware in some form of the fact that sometimes there are hallucinations and illusions and sometimes there are veridical perceptions, and that the former two are epistemically dangerous but not the latter? How, in the fourth stage, does Ms. Credo come to conceive of her experience as something requiring explanation? What explains her grasp, in the seventh stage, of the criteria for better and worse explanations? The problem, generally, is that this construction requires that cognizers have an entire epistemology at their disposal prior to having a single justified belief. It overintellectualizes the process, and unless one is a nativist in a big way this is not an appealing option.
The flip-side of the problem with this construction is that if a theory insists that cognizers actually go through all of these stages prior to having actually justified beliefs, then it runs the risk of being, in Moser's words, inexcusably unkind to children and other possibly intelligent animal species by implying that they have no justified beliefs.[85] If it is unrealistic to expect adults to go through all eight stages, then it is wildly so to do so for children and some animal species. For Moser's purposes, this reconstruction won't do, so some less demanding criteria are required.
The major problem seems to be with the seventh condition, involving Ms. Credo's evaluating the explanatory merits of the proposition(s) in question. There is a tension here, for on the one hand Moser's internalism leads one to expect that subjects must be aware of the significance of the evidence to the proposition, which, given his account of justifiability, seems to imply that the subject must have some background grasp of what counts as a better or worse explanation; while on the other hand, Moser positively does not want to have his account presuppose any form of background knowledge on the part of the subject, because doing so would make his account circular and also cause his view to be unkind to young cognizers. Propositions are to be justified solely on the basis of experience, so no background knowledge can enter the picture. But if explanatory relations are the crux of justification, then internalism requires that the subject have a handle on explanatory relations, and it is hard to see how this "handle" could be anything other than a form of conceptual knowledge. The tension, then, is between Moser's internalism and his explanatory account of justification.
Moser is aware of this tension and takes care to deny explicitly that the "handle" is any form of conceptual belief or knowledge. Subjects, he notes, do not have to have the concept of a probability-maker for probability-makers to be so for them. In other words, a subject doesn't have to have a belief that experiential contents X make probable proposition P in order for X to make P probable for that subject.[86] The grasping, however we cash it out, must be entirely nondoxastic; it will be de re and not de dicto.
Perhaps an account of concept-formation could help fill the gap. One line of criticism of Moser's account is that it leaves unexplained subjects' abilities to come up with propositions, which are necessarily conceptual. He has provided an account of the relationship between percepts and propositions, but propositions are structured series of individual concepts. Where do the necessary concepts come from? What is their connection to perceptual experience? What legitimates their use? Moser is not the only foundationalist to whom these questions can be addressed, since most foundationalists do not provide an account of concept-formation or seem to think one is needed in a theory of justification.[87] Accounts of concept-formation try to account for how subjects abstract from and universalize their determinate and particular perceptual experiences, and whatever is involved in the process must involve some nondoxastic, nonconceptual form of sorting and integrating perceptual contents. If Moser were to explore further this apparent lacuna in his account, it could clarify his notion of nondoxastic awareness of the relationship between experiential evidence and propositions.
Another alternative open to Moser, in order to go straight through both horns of the dilemma, is to posit the nondoxastic awareness as an irreducible primary. Subjects can grasp connections between their nonpropositional experiences and propositions, and that's that. So instead of having to describe in detail what sort of grasping it is and what it depends upon, one can only indicate the philosophical pressures and considerations that lead one to posit it, describe it in general (and negative) terms — it's nondoxastic, nonconceptual, nonpropositional — end of story.
Or perhaps Moser could get rid of the problem by adopting a position we might call "externalist inter-nalism." Externalism in general gives criteria too weak for justification, according to Moser. At best externalism gives criteria for justifiability. If the subject experiences X-ly, understands the proposition "There is an X," there are no underminers of that proposition in the subject's experiences or beliefs, and the subject's believing the proposition resulted from his experiencing X-ly via some nondeviant causal chain — then according to externalism the proposition is justified for that subject. This does not require that the connection between experience and proposition be grasped by the subject; for all the subject knows, the connection between the two could be entirely fortuitous; and so internalism wants something more: the entire justificatory story has to be within the subject's cognitive grasp — including the explanatory relationships, on Moser's account. What if we said the following? The explanatory relation has to be present to the subject's awareness, but we don't have to demand that the subject attend to it. All we have to require is that the subject has access to it in principle. In principle the connection would be accessible, so pure externalism is avoided, yet we satisfy internalist requirements while avoiding the pressures of making the awareness of the connection a doxastic state.[88] So the subject needn't be aware of the full explanatory significance of the proposition relative to his experiences and can still be justified in believing the proposition. This squares with one of Moser's statements to the effect that the subject does not have to be aware of the fulfilling of a condition for justification (in this case, the explanatory relationship is strong); the subject just has to be aware of the evidence.[89] The fact that the proposition explains the evidence is accessible to the subject, should the subject come to attend to it, so it is not in principle external to the subject's awareness.
Yet this may be giving more to externalism than Moser wants, since it could be pointed out that from the standpoint of the subject, the connection between evidence and proposition could still be fortuitous. In addition, if Moser concludes the justification need only be accessible to the subject in principle, then he is concluding that the subject has access in principle to the fact that his perceptual experiences are subjective states and that they are items requiring explanation. But these, I do not think, are accessible in any significant way to the average subject. These are very sophisticated philosophical conclusions. (Witness introductory philosophy students.)
Further, such an externalist internalism does not square with Moser's more strongly internalist statements to the effect that the connection has to be more than available in principle, when he says that the subject must associate the proposition and the evidence in the appropriate manner.[90] In his central section discussing the transition from justifiability to justifiedness, he characterizes justified propositions as those which are justifiable and for which the subject has related the evidence E and the proposition P in a certain way; the certain way is characterized by two conditions:
(i) the subject has a de re awareness of E's supporting P, and
(ii) the subject is in a dispositional state such that if he were to consider the evidence for P, he would focus on E.[91]
Condition (i) states the stronger internalist requirement. Since the justificatory support in question is P's explaining E, this means the subject has a nondoxastic awareness of explanatory relations.
If this is the right way to interpret Moser, then we are still left in need of a clarification of what a nondoxastic grasping of explanatory relations is like. This project sounds difficult. Explanation seems a conceptual phenomenon in the most easily understood cases: relating one conceptually identified phenomenon to a broader context. This presupposes a why-question, which is another conceptual phenomenon. Explanation thus seems more a coherence phenomenon, and so seems out of place at the basis of a foundationalist account. Moser of course denies that explanation generally is either a conceptual or a coherence phenomenon. But unless it is made clear what this awareness is like, we can't evaluate this aspect of his account. And Moser is not altogether clear on this. We get some idea of what it is not supposed to be: no knowledge is involved, no beliefs are involved, no epistemic elements in general on pain of a regress.[92] On the positive side, we know it does involve some notion of evidential support, but that is all. Moser's account is poised on the borderline between conditions for justifiability and justification, and it seems that if he makes the conditions stronger, he must smuggle in conceptual background understanding; but if he leaves the conditions weaker, no conceptual background understanding is presupposed but we end up with only justifiable beliefs; and if he adds a nonconceptual grasp, we seem to be left in the dark as to what it is. None of these options are satisfactory, given Moser's stated purposes.
The above questions arise from Moser's attempt to combine internalism with an account of nonpropositional justification in terms of explanation. As such, they focus on features specific to Moser's account. Yet I do not take these to be the most important problems. What I take as most problematic features are not those which distinguish him from other foundationalists, but rather the same general approach to defending foundationalism that he shares with virtually all other foundationalists this century. It is in the context of identifying this shared approach and criticizing it that I will continue my critique of Moser's foundationalism.
[1]foundationalist positions.
[2]programs.
[3]contemporary versions.
[4][1958, p. 187]; emphasis added).
[5] The first phrase is Scruton's (1981, p. 37), the second Windelband's (1901, pp. 276-ff and 390-ff.).
[6] It is significant that the subtitle of Descartes's second Meditation is "Concerning the Nature of the Human Mind, and
how it is more easily known than the Body."
[7] Kelley (1986, p. 184) makes this point.
[8]problem of interaction for dualism.
[9]take subjective propositions as the foundation.
[10] Quine (1969).
[11]of science, are clearly antifoundationalist.
[12]entist wilderness."
[13]133-134, and p. 19).
[14]it to me in discussion.
[15] According to Chisholm (1982, p. 69; 1988, p. 232).
[16] Chisholm (1989, pp. 72-73).
[17] Quoted in Chisholm (1982, pp. 186-187).
[18] For example, Moser (1989, p. 11).
[19] Chisholm (1989, pp. 1-4; also 1982, p. 75).
[20] Chisholm (1988, p. 232).
[21]probability, must themselves be certainties."
[22] See Chisholm's Material Principle 1 (1989, p. 62).
[24]parallel case for perceptual appearing.
[25](1989, p. 19)].
[26]to be mistaken about the given in some cases.
[27] Van Cleve (1985, p. 100) is clear on this point.
[28]epistemically 'move' itself?" (1978, p. 5).
[29]or subjective subject matter" (1982, p. 155).
[30] Chisholm (1989, p. 22).
[31]the same general approach "Cartesian empiricists."
[32]essay.
[33] See also Moser (1985b, p. 14).
[34]Chapter 5 of this essay.
[38]in the next section.
[39] Chisholm (1989, p. 9).
[42] Both from Chisholm (1989, p. 63).
[43]makes it so."
[44](1989, p. 64).
[45] Chisholm (1989), p. 16 and p. 8, respectively.
[46] Chisholm (1989), pp. 41, 11, and 11, respectively.
[48] The words are Carneades's, as quoted in Chisholm (1989, p. 66).
[49](1977, pp. 82-84).
[52]its very nature a faith cannot be rationally defended.
[53] Sosa (1980, p. 561) thus suggests that perhaps we can reject the dichotomy.
[55]proaches. Chapter 3 argues this point.
[56] Firth (1964, p. 547).
[57](1981, p. 11). I agree.
[58] Chisholm (1982, pp. 141-145).
[59]ics." This issue is discussed in detail in Chapter 4.
[60] Chisholm grants that the phrase "at least as justified as" is taken as undefined (1989, p. 12).
[63] The minimal level Chisholm has in mind is prima facie probability (1989, p. 63).
[64]552]).
[65]Chapter Six of his (1989a).
[66] Moser (1989a, pp. 52-63).
[67] Moser goes into the details of the shortcomings of entirely propositional accounts in his (1988a).
[68] Moser (1989a, p. 7).
[69] Moser (1989a, p. 80).
[70]through 4.6
[71] See for example, Moser (1988b, p. 193).
[72] Moser (1989a, pp. 81-ff).
[73] Van Cleve (1985, p. 95).
[74]explicit in Lewis' writings."
[77] Moser (1990, p. 132); also see his (1988a, p. 242).
[78] See, for example, Moser (1990, pp. 131-132).
[79]posit is gratuitous. (Moser 1989a, pp. 162-163.)
[80] Moser (1989a, pp. 97-98; for details see pp. 158-165). Also see (1988f, pp. 138-ff) and (1990).
[81] Moser (1989a, p. 126).
[82] Moser (1990, p. 132).
[83]section 3.5.
[84] Moser (1989a, p. 145); Alston (1976a, p. 178); Pollock (1986, pp. 175-177).
[86] Moser (1989a, pp. 106-107).
[87] This issue is dealt with at greater length in Chapter 5 of this essay.
[88] Alston (1989, pp. 233-234), generates an infinite regress from any sort of doxastic requirement added at this point.
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