Counterfactuals: To be AND not to be? Viable Objectivist question?

Counterfactuals imply the following train of thought:

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If reality weren't like it is, then ...
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This gem is the seedbed for lunatic-fringe philosophical concepts like "possible worlds." Question: Do counterfactuals have ANY place in Objectivist epistemology?

We already know that Rand allowed for counterfactuals in art. In her Phil Donahue interviews, Rand conceded that what is counterfactual (ie. impossible) can be good, as a form of art (idealism). She mentioned that she liked the TV program Charlies Angels because it involved 3 ladies doing impossible things. In art, she felt realism was wanting, and said art should project life "long-range" (ie. Romanticism). In this respect, art seeks to answer the questions: What could life be like? What is potentially possible to man?

But is art the only proper place to discuss counterfactuals (within an objective philosophy)?

Ed

Post 1

Wednesday, October 26, 2005 - 8:06pm

Good question.

But one needs to add - in its use in art, it, properly, involves a 'could and ought'...projecting an 'ought' in the realm of an impossibility [a 'couldn't'] would be a violation of the integratedness of reality - so where, in reality, would a viable use of this counterfactual be used? and for what purpose, assuming it could be so used?

(Edited by robert malcom on 10/26, 8:11pm)

Post 2

Wednesday, October 26, 2005 - 8:17pm

Robert,

Good (rhetorical) answer. Even though you answered a question with a question -- it is clear that you answered the question. I agree with Robert's take on the matter. Does anyone (hint: Jordan, this is your cue!) disagree?

Ed

Post 3

Wednesday, October 26, 2005 - 8:19pm

Well, isn't that the..... 'Socratic Way'?

Post 4

Wednesday, October 26, 2005 - 11:45pm

"If reality weren't like it is, then ..."
Are you proposing a difference in the physical properties of reality, or are you changing the circumstance?

Post 5

Thursday, October 27, 2005 - 2:19am

If I'm teaching someone to play chess, I might say, "if I had gone there instead, then you could've captured this piece..."

If I'm trying to figure out why a relationship got messed up, I might think, "maybe if I hadn't done so and so, she wouldn't have gotten so mad."

Are these examples of "counterfactuals"?

If so, then---sure, imagining these kinds of alternate scenarios can help you figure things out and understand things better.

Post 6

Thursday, October 27, 2005 - 5:57am

What an Ed of a question...

This gem is the seedbed for lunatic-fringe philosophical concepts like "possible worlds." Question: Do counterfactuals have ANY place in Objectivist epistemology?

None whatsoever.
This 'counterfactual' jazz is just high falootin' lingo for fiction. There is no place for fiction in epistemological processes. Reason needs to work over things that are true in order to be fruitful; Garbage in, garbage out. Cognition rightly deals only in matters of fact...

Rand allowed for counterfactuals in art.
what is counterfactual (ie. impossible) can be good, as a form of art
Charlies Angels because it involved 3 ladies doing impossible things. In art, she felt realism was wanting

In aesthetics, fiction takes on the character of fact.

Good guys always shoot better than bad guys.
In the movies, heros wear clothes that dirt can't stick to.
In the movies, car wheels screech on any corner, even on dirt.
In the movies, cars will explode in all accidents.
In the movies, teenagers are always smarter than their parents.
In the movies, all Chinese people know Karate.
In the movies, everyone knows how to pick a lock with one tool.
In the movies, helocopters are attracted to mountains.
In the movies, crazed maniacs have super-human strength.
In the movies, haunted houses are never locked.
In the movies, rich people are unhappy.
In the movies, thunderstorms spontaneously create murders.
Movies based on true stories are always made up.

These fictions are put forth as facts. Not facts about the laws of physics or economics, physiology or whatever. They're facts (or claimed to be) about man's nature, facts about the dramatic universe. Of course the above ones have a questionable place in an Objectivist's dramatic universe, several or most of the above belong to other schools of thought.

If one of Charlie's Angels manages to catch a bullet in her teeth nobody is claiming this to be physically factual! But it is dramatically factual- the fact is that 'good guys always win'.
If, in a movie, Freddie Kruger is invulnerable that's also being posited as a fact. Not a fact that this character or creatures like him or his hell literally exist! It's a dramatic fact that boils down to 'bad guys always win'. In this case though the aesthetic fact is a lie! Fictitious fiction! Truly counterfactual, and not to be heeded.

If I'm teaching someone to play chess, I might say, "if I had gone there instead, then you could've captured this piece..."

Hypotheticals. The word 'if' is a dead give away. Had you said "I had gone there" or "I did go there" when the fact were otherwise then you'd'a been spouting fiction, or a 'counterfactual'.

Rick said.

Post 7

Thursday, October 27, 2005 - 6:27am

Thank you Rick... was tired last night, and just didn't feel like going into the details, much of which seems so obvious [but obviously, I guess not - to many others]...

Post 8

Thursday, October 27, 2005 - 7:28am

Dean,

As Rick so eloquently answered, counterfactuals have to contradict the facts of reality -- but hypotheticals (pure postulation of a possibility) don't necessarily contradict reality. I'd say that they (counterfactuals) are primarily used by philosophers in order to escape the limitations in the world -- something I call the Alice in Wonderland technique. Counterfactuals "assume" the impossible -- for the purpose of discussion. Counterfactuals are fictions, and my question was asking whether there are any "useful" fictions for epistemology.

Rick, Thanks for the belly laugh!

Ed

Post 9

Thursday, October 27, 2005 - 9:09am

Actually, as counterfactuals assume the impossible, they're fantasies, not fiction...

Post 10

Thursday, October 27, 2005 - 9:24am

Touche' Muouissieour Malcom!

Ed
[sorry, but my French is a little rusty -- back to my Jue ese' Houched ou' Phonique tapes]

Post 11

Thursday, October 27, 2005 - 10:39am

Hi Ed,

You answered my question in the other thread, but I'll venture into this one, as I think there's already a misunderstanding as to what counterfactuals are. Daniel, yes, yours are examples of counterfactuals.

Counterfactuals are a type of hypothetical reasoning. They are conditional (if-then) propositions where at least one of the conditionals is known (or at least assumed) to be false. Generally, they allow us to explore what might have been but wasn't. This accords with a reality-based life-affirming philosophy in several ways.

1. Counterfactuals help explain action or inaction.

Example: If I had gone to school naked, I would've had way too many secret admirers the next day. :-)

2. They help state particular causal contingencies.

Example: If the battery had died, the car would not have started.

3. Related to 2, they identify various types of ontic or conceptual necessities.

Example: If George were dead, Laura would be a widow.

4. Related to 2 and 3, counterfactuals establish causation.

Example: If Oswald had not shot Kennedy, Kennedy would not have died when and as he did.

5. Counterfactuals allow for freedom.

Example: I could have passed on the cake If I had chosen to.

(examples borrowed loosely from Frank Doring)

To be sure, not every type of counterfactual accords with a life philosophy, but poining out the fact that some do, should be sufficient for this thread. Counterfactuals are easily confused with other types of reasoning. I'll try to clarify the differences should confusion arise.

Jordan

Post 12

Thursday, October 27, 2005 - 11:07am

Counterfactuals aren't only for art. We use them virtually any time we extend our imagination or speculation beyond the concretes before us or extract a principle from experience. If she weren't already married, would you have followed the same course of action? If hypothesis B were correct, where would the iron molecules have gone? And so on.

Philosophizing about possible worlds isn't a "lunatic fringe" practice. Leibniz and Kripke are vastly more mainstream and academically prestigious than Rand. This doesn't make them right, but it makes the lunatic-fringe claim wrong.

Peter

(Edited by Peter Reidy on 10/27, 11:15am)

Post 13

Thursday, October 27, 2005 - 1:41pm

Ed Thompson:

Counterfactuals imply the following train of thought:

============
If reality weren't like it is, then ...
============

Rick Giles:

Hypotheticals. The word 'if' is a dead give away. Had you said "I had gone there" or "I did go there" when the fact were otherwise then you'd'a been spouting fiction, or a 'counterfactual'.

Seems to be a disagreement here.

Post 14

Thursday, October 27, 2005 - 7:02pm

Jordan and Peter,-

Counterfactuals are a type of hypothetical reasoning

Counterfactuals aren't only for art. We use them virtually any time we extend our imagination or speculation beyond the concretes before us

For mine, a counterfactual is an impossibility- a fiction, a fantasy. It's not just that it lacks the distinction of being a fact, these are no mere unknowns, it's that its status as an untruth is a matter of fact. They are explicitly contrary to fact. Eg 'the earth is flat', 'initiation of force is moral', 'Ed Thompson is handsome'. A counterfactual is just bollocks by another name.

Philosophy and economics abound with entire doctrines based on counterfactuals, leading to Moret C Escher-like pictures of the world. They do this precisely because they abide counterfactuals. Some schools even do this knowingly! Schopenhauer does. The New Classicals do. But there is no place for it in Objectivist reasoning at all, no good can come from it.

An hypothesis is not counterfactual, the whole point of hypotheses is to determine whether they are true or false- at which point the proposition ceases to be an hypothesis. There are no true or false hypotheses. "If she weren't already married" is not a counterfactual but "She wasn't already married" is counterfactual- for she is married.

Holmes: "Listen, the dog!"
Watson: "The dog wasn't barking!"
Holmes: "Exactly!"

Got to watch out for grammar. If the barking of a dog is a fact you might be tempted to call the absence of a positive thing, like a barking dog, a counterfactual but it is not. Silence, or a shadow, or a vacuume, is just another fact. Sherlock Holmes' deduction is based on facts, not counterfacts.

The counterfact would be 'the dog was barking'; The fact is that the dog was not barking. Counterfacts are simply fictions. Ed: "Counterfactuals have to contradict the facts of reality."

This may be of use...

5. Negative names need not be meaningless. But whether this be so or not I will not here determine, but appeal to every one's own experience, whether the shadow of a man, though it consists of nothing but the absence of light (and the more the absence of light is, the more discernible is the shadow) does not, when a man looks on it, cause as clear and positive idea in his mind as a man himself, though covered over with clear sunshine? And the picture of a shadow is a positive thing. Indeed, we have negative names, which stand not directly for positive ideas, but for their absence, such as insipid, silence, nihil, &c.; which words denote positive ideas, v.g. taste, sound, being, with a signification of their absence.
Essay Concerning Human Understanding...

Philosophizing about possible worlds isn't a "lunatic fringe" practice. Leibniz and Kripke are vastly more mainstream and academically prestigious than Rand. This doesn't make them right, but it makes the lunatic-fringe claim wrong.

Might not be socially or academically lunatic fringe, but I think Ed means that it's philosophically lunatic fringe according to the Objectivist spectrum.

Daniel,-

Seems to be a disagreement here.

Ya, just ignore that.

Post 15

Thursday, October 27, 2005 - 7:25pm

Rick,

Counterfactuals do involve premises that are counter to fact, i.e., false. But not every false premise is unuseful, as I indicated in my last post.

"If she weren't already married" is not a counterfactual but "She wasn't already married" is counterfactual- for she is married.

This is incorrect. Counterfactuals are phrased in if-then statements, usually (if not exclusively, not sure) in the subjunctive. "If she had not married, I would have pursued her." That's a counterfactual. The false premise is that "she had not married." You are correct, however, that absences of things, like the barking dogs, aren't counterfactuals. They are indicatives. Examples:

(1) If the dog had not barked, then the neighbors would not have noticed anything. (counterfactual)(the false premise is "the dog had not barked".)
(2) If the dog did not bark, then the neighbors did not notice anything. (indicative)

Again, counterfactuals are entirely appropriate for a life-affirming philosophy. Please read my examples again and tell me why they're useless.

Jordan

Post 16

Thursday, October 27, 2005 - 8:30pm

Might not be socially or academically lunatic fringe, but I think Ed means that it's philosophically lunatic fringe according to the Objectivist spectrum.

Now this guy knows me well!

Jordan,

"If she had not married, I would have pursued her." That's a counterfactual. The false premise is that "she had not married."

Hypotheticals are a broad class of conjectural conditional statements, which can be empirically tested. Counterfactuals are a narrow subset of the larger class of hypothetical statements; a subset in which a premise is known to be false -- ie. they cannot be empirically tested (as they have nothing to do with reality).

Ed

Post 17

Thursday, October 27, 2005 - 9:59pm

My previous post is not quite correct (counterfactuals aren't a even a subset of hypotheticals). Clear definition is in order here ...

hypothesis (Webster, 3rd ed.):
a tentative assertion about natural phenomena, assumed but not positively known

counterfactual:
A conditional statement with a false antecedent [a falsity that is positively known]

Ed

Post 18

Friday, October 28, 2005 - 8:40am

Ed,

When other philosophers familiar with this area and I say "hypothetical" we're referring to hypothetical syllogisms, which are if-then statements. A counterfactual is a certain kind of hypothetical syllogism. Indeed, it's one where one of the premises is known to be false. That premise is usually (if not exclusively, not sure) the antecedent.

You're right that counterfactuals can't be directly empirically tested, but that's okay because they can be indirectly empirically tested in the same way concepts can be. When we study a concept, we want to know what aspects of its referrent make the referrent essentially what it is. To do this, we mentally take away parts of the referrent. Some parts we can take away and the thing will still be essentially what it is, but eventually, we'll find some parts that can't be taken away without changing what the referrent essentially is, and that's when we've found its essential parts. In reverse, we can mentally impute what it would take make a thing, which parts are essential for its existence. For shorthand, let's call mentally taking away and mentally imputing imagination. Concepts are tested via imagination. Imagination is of course a product of our experiences. It is a recombining and seperating of stuff we've experienced, even though we haven't necessarily directly experienced the the recombinations and seperations.

Counterfactuals are tested via imagination as well. Consider, "If Jack had not shot Jill, Jill would not have died when and as she did." To test this we imagine what would've happened. Or "if the battery had died, the car would not have started." Similarly, when forming the concept for, say, "room," if we realize that if we take away walls from the referrent, it wouldn't be a room.

Now I don't want to wander off on how to study concepts. If the analogy to concepts doesn't work for you, fine. Instead, just refer to my post 11 and explain why the examples therein are useless.

Jordan

Post 19

Friday, October 28, 2005 - 1:58pm