The Importance of Philosophy and a Glance at Several Philosophical Topics, by Seyyed Nasrollah Mousavian

The Importance of Philosophy and a Glance at Several Philosophical Topics

Seyyed Nasrollah Mousavian

I teach a little philosophy. I would be remiss not to begin with a quotation from Bertrand Russell in the final chapter of The Problems of Philosophy, which I teach in almost all introductory philosophy courses:

The mind which has become accustomed to the freedom and impartiality of philosophic contemplation will preserve something of the same freedom and impartiality in the world of action and emotion. It will view its purposes and desires as parts of the whole, and with the absence of insistence that results from seeing them as infinitesimal fragments in a world of which all the rest is unaffected by any one man's deeds... The impartiality which, in contemplation, is the unalloyed desire for truth, is the very same quality of mind which, in action, is justice, and in emotion is that universal love which can be given to all... Thus, to sum up our discussion of the value of philosophy; Philosophy is to be studied, not for the sake of any definite answers to its questions, since no definite answers can, as a rule, be known to be true, but rather for the sake of the questions themselves; because these questions enlarge our conception of what is possible, enrich our intellectual imagination and diminish the dogmatic assurance which closes the mind against speculation...

(The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell, 2536 Shahanshahi, third edition, translated by Manouchehr Bozorgmehr, with slight editing)

I did not bring this introduction to point to my interest in teaching introductory philosophy courses or the importance of teaching philosophy in general; rather, I wanted to point to an aspect of philosophizing which, in my opinion, is more important than its other aspects, but I cannot address it here.

Teaching aside, the philosophical problems I have pursued or am pursuing lie at the intersection of four research areas: philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, analytic metaphysics, and philosophical logic. I pursue more or less the same types of problems in the history of philosophy, particularly in medieval philosophy, and more specifically in Avicennian and Aristotelian philosophy.

1. The "New Theory of Reference" and Empty Names:

a. Empty Names and Existence: At one time, Russell argued that proper names are analyzable in terms of, or equivalent to, definite descriptions. That is, for example, the name "Sa'di" is analyzable in terms of, or equivalent to, a definite description such as "the author of Bustan and Golestan" (or any other description that, for instance, expresses the "meaning" of "Sa'di" for you). Many, including Quine, Dummett, and Searle, have accepted this view in some form. Kripke's arguments, among others, convinced many that this view is incorrect. After Kripke, many, including Nathan Salmon and Scott Soames, expanded Kripke's view and defended its consequences as the "New Theory of Reference." Nevertheless, all cases where reference fails, or appears to do so (from the names of rejected scientific theories to fictitious historical names and the names of fictional characters), can be considered paradoxical cases for the "New Theory of Reference" (the problem of empty names). Elsewhere (Mousavian 2010), I tried to argue that the most successful views of the "New Theory of Reference," in their semantics, are metaphysically committed to accepting "non-existent or nonexistent propositions" and thus lead to a kind of Meinongianism in semantics (according to Meinongianism, "non-existent or nonexistent objects" are considered part of reality. Russell's idea, at least when he wrote the famous essay "On Denoting," was that any theory leading to some form of Meinongianism is to be rejected).

B. Empty Names and Gappy Propositions: Among proponents of the “New Theory of Reference,” some, such as David Kaplan, have proposed resolving the problems arising from empty names by introducing incomplete, gappy structures as gappy propositions, thereby assigning them the semantic and logical roles of standard propositions. This view has been elaborated by others, like Joseph Almog and David Braun, and some have even extended it to the philosophy of mind. I have argued elsewhere (Mousavian 2011) that this view yields undesirable consequences in semantics and should therefore be abandoned. Elsewhere (Mousavian, forthcoming c), I have introduced various interpretations of gappy propositions and the types of theories based on them, and enumerated the criticisms leveled against each.

C. Empty Names and Pragmatics: Another group of proponents of the “New Theory of Reference,” for instance Fred Adams, Robert Stecker, and Kenneth Taylor, have extensively resorted to pragmatics to resolve the deficiencies of this theory when confronting the problem of empty names. In two articles (Mousavian 2014a; Mousavian 2015b), I have attempted to show that this pragmatics-based research program is unsuccessful and that a pluralist view concerning the “expression” of propositions in semantics should be used instead.

D. Descriptivism and Rigidity: One of the main premises of Kripke’s argument against a type of descriptivism attributed to Russell and Frege is the rigidity of proper names. What exactly the rigidity of a proper name consists of has been discussed in detail. Defenders of the descriptivist view, for example David Sosa, have argued that the rigidity of proper names can be accepted and explained by expanding the logical scope of descriptions in the sentences in which they are used. Proponents of the “New Theory of Reference,” in response, have tried to show that expanding the logical scope of descriptions is not a successful solution. In a note (Mousavian 2015a), I have attempted to show that the arguments for or against these views, by appealing to the problem of empty names, have no advantage over one another.

2. The Nature of Concepts and Belief Reports:

In order to launch a broader project in the philosophy of language and mind, and to overcome some of the problems that none of the existing theories are capable of solving, Mark Sainsbury and Michael Tye have introduced a new view on the nature of concepts, called “concept originalism.” According to this view, concepts are individuated by their origins, including, among other things, the circumstances in which they were introduced. “Concept originalism” is a revolutionary view in that it does not individuate concepts by their semantic or logical properties. Accordingly, a concept can, for instance, exhibit different logical and semantic behaviors over time. In an article published in collaboration with Mr. Mohammad Saleh Zarepour (Mousavian and Zarepour 2018b), we have attempted to show what problems belief report sentences might pose for “concept originalism.”

3. Philosophy of Language and Meta-Ontology:

A dominant approach in analytic philosophy, whose lineage is traced through Carnap and Quine back to Frege and Russell, attempts to determine the ontology of a theory in some way from the language of that theory.

Carnap believed that such an ontology was either confused and fallacious or a trivial matter. Quine, in contrast, believed that such an ontology was neither confused and fallacious nor a trivial matter. This dispute has generated an extensive discussion about how to answer ontological questions (meta-ontology). In an article (Mousavian 2017b), I have endeavored to explain how this dispute should be portrayed from a Meinongian perspective, in which proper names and particular quantifiers carry no existential commitment, and whether there is a way to reconcile the intuitions of Carnap and Quine.

4. Philosophy of Language and Mind in the Avicennian Tradition:

a. Fundamental Propositions: Fundamental propositions, or “awwaliyyāt” (primary truths) in Avicenna’s language, are considered among the foundational principles of knowledge. Likewise, in logic, Avicenna accords special importance to fundamental propositions. As far as we have searched, these propositions have not been independently researched. Moreover, the interpretations of contemporary Avicenna scholars regarding them are conflicting and sometimes contradictory. In a joint article that Mohammad Ardeshir and I (Mousavian and Ardeshir 2018a) published, we attempted to fill this gap. One result of our research is that Avicenna’s fundamental propositions should be classified under the heading of synthetic a priori propositions (in Kantian language).

b. Avicenna and the Semantics of “Meaning”: In two articles resulting from last year’s research (Mousavian forthcoming a, b), I have tried to study the semantics of “meaning” in Avicenna from the perspective and in the language of contemporary philosophy. These two studies reinforce, among other conclusions, the result that logic and the semantics of language for Avicenna are based on the metaphysics of the essences of things, without this leading to the conclusion that these essences are epistemologically accessible in the same way. Furthermore, it seems that Avicenna distinguishes between propositions as entities independent of the mind, in their logical function, and propositions as accidental entities in the mind, in their cognitive function. I believe this preliminary sketch can show us why the semantics of “meaning” for Avicenna is not threatened by arguments in the form of Kripkean arguments against descriptivism.

c. Avicenna and the Ontology of Mind: For Avicenna, the mind is one of the faculties of an immaterial (or non-physical) substance called the “soul.” Understanding the ontology of the soul helps us reconstruct Avicenna’s view of mental entities more reliably. Unfortunately, the problem that immediately confronts us is that the details of Avicenna’s view are not clear, neither among his classical commentators, such as Khwaja Nasir al-Din Tusi and Imam Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, nor among contemporary Western Avicenna scholars, such as Dimitri Gutas and Deborah Black. In a lengthy article we published together with Seyyed Hassan Saadat Mostafavi (Mousavian and Mostafavi 2017a), we have tried to show why the common interpretations of Avicenna’s ontology of the soul, specifically concerning its “temporal origination,” are flawed and what alternative picture or pictures should be examined.

d. Suhrawardi and A Priori Concepts: Avicenna’s influence is also evident on some who tried not to be Avicennian, for example, Imam Ghazali and Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi. In two critical notes (Mousavian 2014b, c), I have addressed the literature concerning the interpretation of Suhrawardi’s fundamental concepts (or primary notions) and have tried to show where this literature goes wrong, why Suhrawardi should not be considered a proponent of a priori concepts (in Kantian language), and why this view is incongruent with Suhrawardi’s epistemological theory of sense perception.

5. Philosophy of Language and Mind in the Aristotelian Tradition:

Examining the history of the philosophy of language and mind in the Islamic tradition compels us to analyze the issues under discussion within the broader context of the intellectual framework in which these issues were raised, namely, the tradition of Aristotelian philosophy. This shift in the scope of research seems necessary because the tools and concepts by means of which issues related to language and mind are raised in Avicenna’s philosophy are largely borrowed from the Aristotelian philosophical tradition. This point neither means that other philosophical traditions, such as Stoic philosophy or the Neoplatonic school, did not influence Avicenna, nor does it mean that Avicenna did not fundamentally alter Aristotelian methods and theories. In the introduction to the collection of articles we edited with the help of Jakob Fink (Mousavian and Fink, forthcoming d), we have addressed the development of Aristotle’s philosophy of soul and mind by his commentators in the Middle Ages, from the perspective of what we call the “internal faculties” of the soul. This nomenclature itself is indebted to Avicenna. “Imagination,” for example, is considered an internal faculty or sense. How many mental faculties or internal senses we have, how we distinguish them from one another, how they relate to each other, and how objects can be perceived by them are among the topics addressed in this volume.

References:

Mousavian, Seyed N. (forthcoming a). Avicenna on the Semantics of Ma’nā. In Sten Ebbesen et al. (ed.), The Aristotelian Tradition: Cognition and Conceptualization. Brill.

Mousavian, Seyed N. (forthcoming b). Avicenna on Talking about Nothing. In Sten Ebbesen et al. (ed.), The Aristotelian Tradition: Cognition and Conceptualization. Brill.

Mousavian, Seyed N. (forthcoming c). The Varieties of Gappy Propositions. In Chris Tillman (ed.), Routledge Handbook of Propositions. Routledge.

Mousavian, Seyed N. and Jakob L. Fink (eds.) (forthcoming d). The Internal Senses in the Aristotelian Tradition. Springer.

Mousavian, Seyed N. and Mohammad Ardeshir. (2018 a). Avicenna on the Primary Propositions. History and Philosophy of Logic. Vol 39, No. 3: 201-231.

Mousavian, Seyed N. and Mohammad Saleh Zarepour. (2018 b). Concept Originalism, Reference-Shift and Belief Reports. Synthese. Vol. 195, No. 1: 269–285.

Mousavian, Seyed N. and Seyed Hasan Saadat Mostafavi. (2017 a). Avicenna on the Origination of the Human Soul. Oxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy. Vol. 5: 41-86.

Mousavian, Seyed N. (2017 b). Ontological Trivialism? How to Meinong a Carnap-Quine. Grazer Philosophische Studien. Vol. 94, No. 1: 38-68.

Mousavian, Seyed N. (2015 a). Do Apparently Empty Names Help Millianism Prevail Against Widescopism? A Note. Analytic Philosophy. Vol. 56, No. 3: 253-265.

Mousavian, Seyed N. (2015 b). Pragmatics of No Reference. Mind and Language. Vol. 30, No 1: 95-116.

Mousavian, Seyed N. (2014 a). Empty Names and Pragmatic Millianism. Thought: A Journal of Philosophy. Vol. 3, No. 1: 49-58.

Mousavian, Seyed N. (2014 b). Suhrawardi on Innateness: A Reply to John Walbridge. Philosophy East and West. Vol. 64, No. 2: 486–501.

Mousavian, Seyed N. (2014 c). Did Suhrawardi Believe in Innate Ideas as A Priori Concepts? A Note. Philosophy East and West. Vol. 64, No. 2: 473–480.

Mousavian, Seyed N. (2011). Gappy Propositions? Canadian Journal of Philosophy. Vol. 41, No. 1: 125-158.

Mousavian, Seyed N. (2010). Neo-Meinongian Neo-Russellians. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly. Vol. 91, No. 2: 229–259.