Serving the Quantitative Finance Community
Enron and Metaphysics
I will begin my replies to the Copleston Russell metaphysics issue here and then tie into Enron.
Enron and Metaphysics
Before we start, a little warmup reading for those following along at home:
http://www.anova.org/bio/we-barrett.html
http://www.anova.org/bio/we-barrett.html
Enron and Metaphysics
Mr. H, you *do* understand the difference between good and evil, don't you? 
BTW, I wonder what Barrett would have thought about Penrose's Emperor's New Mind ... sounds like a kindred spirit in some ways. Looking forward to the tie into Enron, though I can somewhat see where this is going now and I like it.
BTW, I wonder what Barrett would have thought about Penrose's Emperor's New Mind ... sounds like a kindred spirit in some ways. Looking forward to the tie into Enron, though I can somewhat see where this is going now and I like it.
Enron and Metaphysics
Almost forgot, Copleston also tangled with A.J. Ayer so some Ayer links will also prove useful background before I launch my summation as regards Enron and metaphysics. [Athletico, I certainly understand the difference between good and evil.....but I don't want to give away the ending just yet].
http://www.btinternet.com/~glynhughes/squashed/ayer.htm
http://www.heartfield.demon.co.uk/analytic.htm
http://www.thenewrepublic.com/012901/bl ... 12901.html
http://www.btinternet.com/~glynhughes/squashed/ayer.htm
http://www.heartfield.demon.co.uk/analytic.htm
http://www.thenewrepublic.com/012901/bl ... 12901.html
Enron and Metaphysics
".....but I don't want to give away the ending just yet"
Why not? Is it a striptease?
Why not? Is it a striptease?
Enron and Metaphysics
>Why not? Is it a striptease?
Freud would have fun with you..
Freud would have fun with you..
Enron and Metaphysics
Russell and Copleston;
[Editorial note: There is a book covering the transcript of this debate but I have yet to read it, so if something I say is at variance with the transcript please let me know]
Unlike most intellectuals and philosophers of the day, Bertrand Russell was not seduced by the intellectual attractiveness of communism or Naziism. This is certainly to his credit, as many others sang the praises of Stalin [rather naively as it turns out].
So, it was quite surprising when Copleston was able to trip Russell up on a fundamental conundrum caused by his logical positivism. While Russell was convinced that Naziism was wrong, he could not bring himself to condemn it.
In Copleston's biography, he was too modest to gloat about this convincing point. So, if it was mere intellectual victory that motivated Copleston it certainly didn't show through in his own biography. As well, late in Ayer's life, Copleston became Ayer's closest friend.
Illogical.
[Editorial note: There is a book covering the transcript of this debate but I have yet to read it, so if something I say is at variance with the transcript please let me know]
Unlike most intellectuals and philosophers of the day, Bertrand Russell was not seduced by the intellectual attractiveness of communism or Naziism. This is certainly to his credit, as many others sang the praises of Stalin [rather naively as it turns out].
So, it was quite surprising when Copleston was able to trip Russell up on a fundamental conundrum caused by his logical positivism. While Russell was convinced that Naziism was wrong, he could not bring himself to condemn it.
In Copleston's biography, he was too modest to gloat about this convincing point. So, if it was mere intellectual victory that motivated Copleston it certainly didn't show through in his own biography. As well, late in Ayer's life, Copleston became Ayer's closest friend.
Illogical.
Enron and Metaphysics
Can u be a bit more explicit on this "trip up"?!
You can find the transcript in the book Why I am not a Christian
You can find the transcript in the book Why I am not a Christian
Enron and Metaphysics
So, it was quite surprising when Copleston was able to trip Russell up on a fundamental conundrum caused by his logical positivism.Can u be a bit more explicit on this "trip up"?!
He was also tripped up on the question of how a positivist can come to "know" good from evil -- and again Copleston proved to be a gentleman by failing to absolutely pin Russell to the mat after the following exchange:
(Paraphrasing from memory)
Copleston: Do you know the difference between good and evil?
Russell: Yes I do
Copleston: And how do you know this?
Russell: (snort) Just as I would differentiate between red and blue
Copleston But you differentiate between red and blue by looking, right? How do you differentiate between good and evil?
Russell: (feebly) Well, it's based on a feeling.
Copleston could and probably should have grilled him on this, for it would have amounted to a checkmate in that debate (against Russell's position that God, morality and metaphysics are not needed in a universe where only measurable quantities are knowable).
By the way, if I may indulge in some opinion, what happened to Russell in this debate is what happens when one philosophy is proclaimed to be The Way, and why I often find philosophers a bit annoying ... but I do admire Ernst Mach (a dyed-in-the-wool positivist) for unintentionally contributing to relativity theory, as Einstein was profoundly influenced by Mach's Principle.
Russell really kind of jumped on the positivism bandwagon when it became fashionable didn't he?
He was also tripped up on the question of how a positivist can come to "know" good from evil -- and again Copleston proved to be a gentleman by failing to absolutely pin Russell to the mat after the following exchange:
(Paraphrasing from memory)
Copleston: Do you know the difference between good and evil?
Russell: Yes I do
Copleston: And how do you know this?
Russell: (snort) Just as I would differentiate between red and blue
Copleston But you differentiate between red and blue by looking, right? How do you differentiate between good and evil?
Russell: (feebly) Well, it's based on a feeling.
Copleston could and probably should have grilled him on this, for it would have amounted to a checkmate in that debate (against Russell's position that God, morality and metaphysics are not needed in a universe where only measurable quantities are knowable).
By the way, if I may indulge in some opinion, what happened to Russell in this debate is what happens when one philosophy is proclaimed to be The Way, and why I often find philosophers a bit annoying ... but I do admire Ernst Mach (a dyed-in-the-wool positivist) for unintentionally contributing to relativity theory, as Einstein was profoundly influenced by Mach's Principle.
Russell really kind of jumped on the positivism bandwagon when it became fashionable didn't he?
Enron and Metaphysics
Athletico,
Well done. And you saved me a trip to the bookstore as well. As a small sidebar, the quotation "you can judge a man's metaphysics by his morality" was from Nietzche of all people.
I was perusing the Great Philosophers Series summary hardcover, which covered Bertrand Russell....I think its important to bear in mind that Russell's move into philosophy was precipitated by his "failure" in reducing all mathematics to logic.
I think he viewed philosophy as his "second chance" to establish a firm reality to philosophy based upon logic. Consequently, he felt an intuitive need to wipe out metaphysics to establish this, which explains his harsh tone toward theologians in his History of Western Philosophy.
Unfortunately, as you so aptly point out, when a person attempts to eliminate metaphysics, a checkmate using elementary Aristotelian logic, becomes quite easy to do. I suspect the ease with which a Thomistic scholar [of which Copleston was most assuredly one] is able to pin someone on this matter, is what makes it seem to trivial to mention or to trumpet in his biography or later writings.
One further point: I assumed many years ago, that studying formal logic as truth tables in a Set Theory and Logic course, made it unnecessary to study Aristotelian logic and the reductio absurdums and english language arguments. I was terribly wrong. This is also the same mistake that Bertrand Russell made, which is why he walked right into it with his gloves down and leading with his chin.
Russell did indeed jump on the bandwagon and thought it was his best chance at redemption. I don't think it worked.
Well done. And you saved me a trip to the bookstore as well. As a small sidebar, the quotation "you can judge a man's metaphysics by his morality" was from Nietzche of all people.
I was perusing the Great Philosophers Series summary hardcover, which covered Bertrand Russell....I think its important to bear in mind that Russell's move into philosophy was precipitated by his "failure" in reducing all mathematics to logic.
I think he viewed philosophy as his "second chance" to establish a firm reality to philosophy based upon logic. Consequently, he felt an intuitive need to wipe out metaphysics to establish this, which explains his harsh tone toward theologians in his History of Western Philosophy.
Unfortunately, as you so aptly point out, when a person attempts to eliminate metaphysics, a checkmate using elementary Aristotelian logic, becomes quite easy to do. I suspect the ease with which a Thomistic scholar [of which Copleston was most assuredly one] is able to pin someone on this matter, is what makes it seem to trivial to mention or to trumpet in his biography or later writings.
One further point: I assumed many years ago, that studying formal logic as truth tables in a Set Theory and Logic course, made it unnecessary to study Aristotelian logic and the reductio absurdums and english language arguments. I was terribly wrong. This is also the same mistake that Bertrand Russell made, which is why he walked right into it with his gloves down and leading with his chin.
Russell did indeed jump on the bandwagon and thought it was his best chance at redemption. I don't think it worked.
Enron and Metaphysics
Ernst Mach admiration....logical positivism
I agree that positivism was a powerful tool. The University of Chicago economics school and F.A. Hayek were positivists as well, and they were certainly a powerful secular antidote to rampant communism and socialism.
However, its only a tool and a libertarian, secular positivist has the same problem in economics, which is to say, you can't eliminate regulation completely, so where is the line drawn?
For those who fail to see the irony in our present day situation, contemplate for a moment the effect that Enron is having on the profession of accountancy, with the knock on effects on capital markets.
The US legal system is to my knowledge, at the US Supreme Court level, subscribing to a positivist philosophy now[and has been for quite some time] so you will have to keep discussion of morality out of any legal briefs that you are submitting.
Best of luck.
I agree that positivism was a powerful tool. The University of Chicago economics school and F.A. Hayek were positivists as well, and they were certainly a powerful secular antidote to rampant communism and socialism.
However, its only a tool and a libertarian, secular positivist has the same problem in economics, which is to say, you can't eliminate regulation completely, so where is the line drawn?
For those who fail to see the irony in our present day situation, contemplate for a moment the effect that Enron is having on the profession of accountancy, with the knock on effects on capital markets.
The US legal system is to my knowledge, at the US Supreme Court level, subscribing to a positivist philosophy now[and has been for quite some time] so you will have to keep discussion of morality out of any legal briefs that you are submitting.
Best of luck.
Enron and Metaphysics
There is a book covering the transcript of this debate but I have yet to read it(...)And you saved me a trip to the bookstore as well >>
So you have made your opinion on this debate without having read it?!
Russell really kind of jumped on the positivism bandwagon when it became fashionable didn't he? (...) Russell: (feebly) (...) Russell did indeed jump on the bandwagon and thought it was his best chance at redemption >>
I didn't hear the debate so i can't comment on old Bertrand's voice. But this type of comment (he chose his ideas in order to to be fashionable) are not only disrespectful but also completely irrelevant. When you mark a maths exam you don't judge it on how shaky the hand writing is, do you? You don't try to find out the motivations of the student, do you? You just judge the ideas themselves. So why don't you do it when it comes to this debate about the moral argument? Is it because you are short of real arguments?
Copleston could and probably should have grilled him on this, for it would have amounted to a checkmate in that debate >>
You make me think of football fans who say "Oh if he had scored we would have won...". In Copleston's biography, he was too modest to gloat about this convincing point >> Don't you think it's funny that the transcript is published in Russell's book and not in Copleston's?!
Copleston proved to be a gentleman by failing to absolutely pin Russell to the mat after the following exchange >>
Yes, surely Copleston had the opportunity to prove he was right and Russell wrong but he just didn't do it cos he's a gentleman!! Why don't u copy what follows in the debate? Russell explains more in details his position. Is it because Russell's position makes perfect sense ans so you don't want to quote it?
"know" good from evil >>
But let's go back to the moral argument! Please contradict me if i'm wrong. Copleston claims that moral values are absolute - not relative. And he claims that it shows the exixtence of God. I guess you agree with him. So, are you saying that right and wrong are the same in all places and at all times? And how do you know good from evil?
So you have made your opinion on this debate without having read it?!
Russell really kind of jumped on the positivism bandwagon when it became fashionable didn't he? (...) Russell: (feebly) (...) Russell did indeed jump on the bandwagon and thought it was his best chance at redemption >>
I didn't hear the debate so i can't comment on old Bertrand's voice. But this type of comment (he chose his ideas in order to to be fashionable) are not only disrespectful but also completely irrelevant. When you mark a maths exam you don't judge it on how shaky the hand writing is, do you? You don't try to find out the motivations of the student, do you? You just judge the ideas themselves. So why don't you do it when it comes to this debate about the moral argument? Is it because you are short of real arguments?
Copleston could and probably should have grilled him on this, for it would have amounted to a checkmate in that debate >>
You make me think of football fans who say "Oh if he had scored we would have won...". In Copleston's biography, he was too modest to gloat about this convincing point >> Don't you think it's funny that the transcript is published in Russell's book and not in Copleston's?!
Copleston proved to be a gentleman by failing to absolutely pin Russell to the mat after the following exchange >>
Yes, surely Copleston had the opportunity to prove he was right and Russell wrong but he just didn't do it cos he's a gentleman!! Why don't u copy what follows in the debate? Russell explains more in details his position. Is it because Russell's position makes perfect sense ans so you don't want to quote it?
"know" good from evil >>
But let's go back to the moral argument! Please contradict me if i'm wrong. Copleston claims that moral values are absolute - not relative. And he claims that it shows the exixtence of God. I guess you agree with him. So, are you saying that right and wrong are the same in all places and at all times? And how do you know good from evil?
Enron and Metaphysics
related to the topic, here is what Russell said in his essay Why I am not a Christian on the moral argument:
Now we reach one stage further in what I shall call the intellectual descent that the Theists have made in their argumentations, and we come to what are called the moral arguments for the existence of God. You all know, of course, that there used to be in the old days three intellectual arguments for the existence of God, all of which were disposed of by Immanuel Kant in the Critique of Pure Reason; but no sooner had he disposed of those arguments than he invented a new one, a moral argument, and that quite convinced him. He was like many people: in intellectual matters he was skeptical, but in moral matters he believed implicitly in the maxims that he had imbibed at his mother's knee. That illustrates what the psycho-analysts so much emphasize -- the immensely stronger hold upon us that our very early associations have than those of later times.
Kant, as I say, invented a new moral argument for the existence of God, and that in varying forms was extremely popular during the nineteenth century. It has all sorts of forms. One form is to say that there would be no right and wrong unless God existed. I am not for the moment concerned with whether there is a difference between right and wrong, or whether there is not: that is another question. The point I am concerned with is that, if you are quite sure there is a difference between right and wrong, then you are then in this situation: is that difference due to God's fiat or is it not? If it is due to God's fiat, then for God himself there is no difference between right and wrong, and it is no longer a significant statement to say that God is good. If you are going to say, as theologians do, that God is good, you must then say that right and wrong have some meaning which is independent of God's fiat, because God's fiats are good and not bad independently of the mere fact that he made them. If you are going to say that, you will then have to say that it is not only through God that right and wrong came into being, but that they are in their essence logically anterior to God. You could, of course, if you liked, say that there was a superior deity who gave orders to the God who made this world, or could take up the line that some of the agnostics ["Gnostics" -- CW] took up -- a line which I often thought was a very plausible one -- that as a matter of fact this world that we know was made by the Devil at a moment when God was not looking. There is a good deal to be said for that, and I am not concerned to refute it.
Now we reach one stage further in what I shall call the intellectual descent that the Theists have made in their argumentations, and we come to what are called the moral arguments for the existence of God. You all know, of course, that there used to be in the old days three intellectual arguments for the existence of God, all of which were disposed of by Immanuel Kant in the Critique of Pure Reason; but no sooner had he disposed of those arguments than he invented a new one, a moral argument, and that quite convinced him. He was like many people: in intellectual matters he was skeptical, but in moral matters he believed implicitly in the maxims that he had imbibed at his mother's knee. That illustrates what the psycho-analysts so much emphasize -- the immensely stronger hold upon us that our very early associations have than those of later times.
Kant, as I say, invented a new moral argument for the existence of God, and that in varying forms was extremely popular during the nineteenth century. It has all sorts of forms. One form is to say that there would be no right and wrong unless God existed. I am not for the moment concerned with whether there is a difference between right and wrong, or whether there is not: that is another question. The point I am concerned with is that, if you are quite sure there is a difference between right and wrong, then you are then in this situation: is that difference due to God's fiat or is it not? If it is due to God's fiat, then for God himself there is no difference between right and wrong, and it is no longer a significant statement to say that God is good. If you are going to say, as theologians do, that God is good, you must then say that right and wrong have some meaning which is independent of God's fiat, because God's fiats are good and not bad independently of the mere fact that he made them. If you are going to say that, you will then have to say that it is not only through God that right and wrong came into being, but that they are in their essence logically anterior to God. You could, of course, if you liked, say that there was a superior deity who gave orders to the God who made this world, or could take up the line that some of the agnostics ["Gnostics" -- CW] took up -- a line which I often thought was a very plausible one -- that as a matter of fact this world that we know was made by the Devil at a moment when God was not looking. There is a good deal to be said for that, and I am not concerned to refute it.
Enron and Metaphysics
>So you have made your opinion on this debate without having read it?!
I've read excerpts which may or may not be accurate. Since, according to what you posted, Russell never did answer Copleston's question, I can see that I wasn't missing anything.
Blaise Pascal is quoted as saying that if he read everything that he wanted to discuss he'd have to suffer through many bad books, so he gets his friends to read them. Which is what I've done, since I assume that you've read it.
>But this type of comment (he chose his ideas in order to to be fashionable) are >not only disrespectful
Disrespectful. According to my Oxford Dictionary you are asserting that the individual [now deceased] has a right to respect, since obviously you cannot disrespect an idea. Without agreeing with your assertion that questioning the manner of delivery in an oral debate is perfectly unfair, I am curious as to the absolute value of that right. I'm also curious as to how a person who is now deceased exists in any manner other than a metaphysical sense, and therefore how they suffer disrespect.
Take your time, as I read slowly.
I've read excerpts which may or may not be accurate. Since, according to what you posted, Russell never did answer Copleston's question, I can see that I wasn't missing anything.
Blaise Pascal is quoted as saying that if he read everything that he wanted to discuss he'd have to suffer through many bad books, so he gets his friends to read them. Which is what I've done, since I assume that you've read it.
>But this type of comment (he chose his ideas in order to to be fashionable) are >not only disrespectful
Disrespectful. According to my Oxford Dictionary you are asserting that the individual [now deceased] has a right to respect, since obviously you cannot disrespect an idea. Without agreeing with your assertion that questioning the manner of delivery in an oral debate is perfectly unfair, I am curious as to the absolute value of that right. I'm also curious as to how a person who is now deceased exists in any manner other than a metaphysical sense, and therefore how they suffer disrespect.
Take your time, as I read slowly.