From a8195c76edd209e2d978a833e2f652740c490d84 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: phoebe jenkins <pjenkins@tula-health.com>
Date: Thu, 16 May 2024 17:34:44 -0400
Subject: cleanup of 'some objections'

---
 essays/some_objections.tex | 51 +++++++++++++++++++++++-----------------------
 1 file changed, 25 insertions(+), 26 deletions(-)

(limited to 'essays/some_objections.tex')

diff --git a/essays/some_objections.tex b/essays/some_objections.tex
index 1954d9e..6da14fd 100644
--- a/essays/some_objections.tex
+++ b/essays/some_objections.tex
@@ -1,47 +1,47 @@
 \chapter{Some Objections to My Philosophy}
 
 
-\textbf{A.} The predominant attitude toward philosophical questions in 
+\begin{enumerate}[label=\textbf{\Alph*.}, wide, nosep, itemsep=1em]
+\item The predominant attitude toward philosophical questions in 
 educated circles today derives from the later Wittgenstein. Consider the 
 philosopher's question of whether other people have minds. The 
 Wittgensteinian attitude is that in ordinary usage, statements which imply 
 that other people have minds are not problematic. Everybody knows that 
 other people have minds. To doubt that other people have minds, as a 
-philosopher might do, is simply to misuse ordinary language. (See 
-Philosophical Investigations, \S 420.) Statements which imply that other 
+philosopher might do, is simply to misuse ordinary language.\footnote{See 
+\booktitle{Philosophical Investigations}, \S 420.} Statements which imply that other 
 people have minds works perfectly well in the context for which they were 
 intended. When philosophers find these statements problematic, it is because 
 they subject the statements to criticism by logical standards which are 
-irrelevant and extraneous to ordinary usage. (\S \S 402, 412, 119, 116.) 
+irrelevant and extraneous to ordinary usage.\footnote{\S \S 402, 412, 119, 116.}
 
 For Wittgenstein, the existence of God, immortal souls, other minds, 
-and the Empire State Building (when I am not looking at it) are all things 
-which everybody knows; things which it is impossible to doubt "in a real 
-case." (\S 303, Iliv. For Wittgenstein's theism, see Norman Malcolm's 
-memoir.) The proper use of language admits of no alternative to belief in 
+and the \textsc{Empire State Building} (when I am not looking at it) are all things 
+which everybody knows; things which it is impossible to doubt \enquote{in a real 
+case.}\footnote{\S 303, Iliv. For Wittgenstein's theism, see Norman Malcolm's 
+memoir.} The proper use of language admits of no alternative to belief in 
 God; atheism is just a mistake in the use of language. 
 
-
 In arguing against Wittgenstein, I will concentrate on the real reason 
 why I oppose him, rather than on less fundamental technical issues. We read 
 that in the Middle Ages, people found it impossible not to believe that they 
 would be struck by lightning if they uttered a blasphemy; just as 
-Wittgenstein finds the existence of God impossible to doubt "in a real case." 
+Wittgenstein finds the existence of God impossible to doubt \enquote{in a real case.} 
 Yet even Wittgenstein does not defend the former belief; while the Soviet 
 Union has shown that a government can function which has repudiated the 
 latter belief. There is a tremendous discovery here: that beliefs which were as 
 inescapable---as impossible to doubt in a real case---as any belief we may have 
 today, were subsequently discarded. How was this possible? My essay \essaytitle{The 
 Flaws Underlying Beliefs} shows how. Further, it shows that the belief that 
-the Empire State Building exists when I am not looking at it, or the belief 
+the \textsc{Empire State Building} exists when I am not looking at it, or the belief 
 that I would be killed if I jumped out of a tenth story window, are no 
-different in principle from beliefs which we have already discarded. It Is 
+different in principle from beliefs which we have already discarded. It is 
 perfectly possible to project a metaphysical outlook on experience which is 
 totally different from the beliefs Wittgenstein inherited, and it is also 
 possible not to project a metaphysical outlook on experience at all. Let us be 
 absolutely clear: the point is not that we do not know with one hundred per 
-cent certainty that the Empire State Building exists; the point is that we 
-need not believe in the Empire State Building at all. \essaytitle{The Flaws Underlying 
+cent certainty that the \textsc{Empire State Building} exists; the point is that we 
+need not believe in the \textsc{Empire State Building} at all. \essaytitle{The Flaws Underlying 
 Beliefs} shows that factual propositions, and the propositions of the natural 
 sciences, involve outright self-deception. 
 
@@ -62,7 +62,7 @@ can be provided in short order, for when Wittgenstein's central philosophical
 maneuver is identified, its dishonesty becomes transparent. It is not 
 necessary to enumerate the fallacies in the Wittgensteinian claim that logical 
 connections and logical standards are extrinsic to the natural language, or in 
-the aphorism that "the meaning is the use" (as an explication of the natural 
+the aphorism that \enquote{the meaning is the use} (as an explication of the natural 
 language). In other words, there is no reason why I should bandy descriptive 
 linguistics with Wittgenstein. Wittgenstein was wrong at a level more basic 
 than the level on which his philosophical discussions were conducted. 
@@ -72,9 +72,9 @@ literally would not arise if it were not for bad philosophers. They would not
 arise because there is nothing problematic about sentences, expressing 
 Wittgenstein's inherited beliefs, in ordinary usage. This rhetorical maneuver 
 is the inverse of what it seems to be. Wittgenstein doesn't prove that the 
-paradoxes uncovered by "bad" philosophers result from a misuse of ordinary 
+paradoxes uncovered by \enquote{bad} philosophers result from a misuse of ordinary 
 language; he defines the philosophers' discussions as a misuse of ordinary 
-language because they uncover paradoxes is ordinary language propositions. 
+language because they uncover paradoxes in ordinary language propositions. 
 Wittgenstein waits to see whether a philosopher uncovers problems in 
 ordinary language propositions; and if the philosopher does so, then 
 Wittgenstein defines his discussion as improper usage. Wittgenstein waits to 
@@ -89,8 +89,8 @@ behavioral context which constitutes a use for the question. According to
 this position, we would not encounter such problems if we would use 
 ordinary language properly. But what does this position amount to? The 
 philosopher's question has not been proved improper; it has been defined as 
-improper because it leads to problems. The reason why "the proper use of 
-ordinary language never leads to paradoxes" is that Wittgenstein has defined 
+improper because it leads to problems. The reason why \enquote{the proper use of 
+ordinary language never leads to paradoxes} is that Wittgenstein has defined 
 proper use as use in which no paradoxes are visible. Wittgenstein has not 
 resolved or eliminated any problems; he has just refused to notice them. 
 Wittgenstein attempts to pass off, as a discovery about philosophy and 
@@ -101,9 +101,7 @@ to make criticism of his inherited beliefs impossible, to give them a spurious
 inescapability. Wittgenstein's maneuver is the last word in modish 
 intellectual dishonesty. 
 
-\gap
-
-\textbf{B.} In philosophy, arguments which start from an immediate which 
+\item In philosophy, arguments which start from an immediate which 
 cannot be doubted and attempt to prove the existence of an objective reality 
 are called transcendental arguments. Typically, such an argument says that if 
 there is experience, there must be subject and object in experience; if there 
@@ -116,12 +114,12 @@ When the sophistry is cleared away, it becomes apparent that the
 attempt to attain the trans-experiential or extra-experiential within 
 experience faces a dilemma of overkill. If the attempt could succeed, it 
 would have only collapsed objective reality to my subjectivity. If it could be 
-"proved" that I know the distant past, other minds, God, angels, archangels, 
+\enquote{proved} that I know the distant past, other minds, God, angels, archangels, 
 etc. from immediate experience, then all these phenomena would be 
 trivialized. If other minds were given in my experience, they would only be 
 my mind. The interest of the notion of objective reality is precisely its 
 otherness and unreachability. If it could be reached from the immediate, it 
-would be trivial. We ask how I know that the Empire State Building exists 
+would be trivial. We ask how I know that the \textsc{Empire State Building} exists 
 when I am not looking at it. If the answer is that I know through immediate 
 experience, then objective reality has been collapsed to my subjectivity. The 
 dilemma for transcendental arguments is that they propose to overcome the 
@@ -140,11 +138,11 @@ crossed fingers.)
 Transcendental arguments are secular theology, because they are 
 addressed to a reader who wants only philosophical analyses that have 
 conventional conclusions. A transcendental argument will contain a step 
-such as the following, for example. We can have "real knowledge" of 
+such as the following, for example. We can have \enquote{real knowledge} of 
 particular things only if there is an objective relationship between descriptive 
 words and the things they describe; thus there must be such a relationship. 
 This argument is plausible only if the reader can be trusted to overlook the 
-alternative that we don't have this "real knowledge." 
+alternative that we don't have this \enquote{real knowledge.} 
 
 In the way of supplementary remarks, we may mention that 
 transcendental arguments typically commit the ontological fallacy: inferring 
@@ -157,3 +155,4 @@ psychology. But they fail as philosophy, because scientific psychology takes
 as presuppositions, and cannot prove, the very beliefs which transcendental 
 arguments are supposed to prove. 
 
+\end{enumerate}
\ No newline at end of file
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