Hume's Fork

One of the passages in the writings of David Hume that sets out what is known as "Hume's fork" runs this way:

All the objects of human reason or enquiry may naturally be divided into two kinds, to wit, relations of ideas, and matters of fact. Of the first kind are the sciences of geometry, algebra, and arithmetic, and in short, every affirmation which is either intuitively or demonstratively certain. That the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the square of the two sides, is a proposition which expresses a relation between these figures. That three times five is equal to the half of thirty, expresses a relation between these numbers.

Propositions of this kind are discoverable by the mere operation of thought, without dependence on what is anywhere existent in the universe. Though there never were a circle or triangle in nature, the truths demonstrated by Euclid would for ever retain their certainty and evidence.

Matters of fact, which are the second objects of human reason, are not ascertained in the same manner; nor is our evidence of their truth, however great, of a like nature with the foregoing. The contrary of every matter of fact is still possible, because it can never imply a contradiction, and is conceived by the mind with the same facility and distinctness, as if ever so conformable to reality. That the sun will not rise tomorrow is no less intelligible a proposition, and implies no more contradiction, than the affirmation, that it will rise. We should in vain, therefore, attempt to demonstrate its falsehood. Were it demonstratively false, it would imply a contradiction, and could never be distinctly conceived by the mind.

That isn't the only such passage. At another place, he puts it in a more lively way:

When we run over libraries persuaded of these [empirical] principles what havoc must we make? If we take in our hand any volume of divinity or school metaphysics for instance let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it to the flames for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.

And now at least some of the people googling the phrase "Hume's fork" will find this on my blog.
Welcome! Now that you're here, I hope you look around.

Altucher and Bitcoin

Sitting in a tree.

Kay eye ess ess eye en gee.

Altucher is happy that Bitcoin "is not dependent on any one person (for instance, a Federal Reserve Chairman) or on "complicated central bank operations."

Thus, he is selling his next book "bitcoin-only for a few weeks."

More here.

Good luck, you adorable young lovers.

More on Borgias and Machiavelli

I can't really write about the Borgia family -- as I did yesterday and as I am about to do again -- without deploying my favorite quotation from The Third Man.  Restraint in this matter would do grave violence to my nature.

Harry Lime, the worst racketeer in occupied Vienna, tells an old friend who has gone to a good deal of trouble to track him down, "Don't be so gloomy. After all it's not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

What were the 30 years of Borgian dominance Harry had in mind?   I suppose you might start the clock running in 1481, when Ludovico Sforza took power in the duchy of Milan. The fates of the Borgia and Sforza families were closely intertwined (another member of the Sforza house would later become the first husband of Lucrezia Borgia.)

Skipping a lot and focusing on Florence in particular, let us note that the de facto heads of the republic there, the Medicis, lost their grip after the death of Lorenzo in 1491 and got themselves expelled in 1494. Thereafter began a period of Borgian dominance in that city.

In 1502-03, Cesare put down a conspiracy of the condottieri (literally "contractors," the fickle mercenaries of the day) and one of the leading conspirators, Vitellozzo Vitelli, was led into an ambush and strangled.

In my post yesterday I quoted a passage in which Meyer describes Machiavelli's enthusiastic approval of this way of disposing of Vitelli.

Our original date of reference was 1481. Thirty years on from that date brings us to 1511. Let's cheat a bit and make it 31 years, because that bring us to an important event showing the decline of Borgia power. It was in 1512 that Nicolo Machiavelli lost his job in Florence as head of the citizen militia. He would be arrested, tortured, released, all by the say so of the Medici, who were after a period of exile re-asserting their own control.

After that experience Machiavelli would decide to retire from politics and take up philosophy.

Anyway, from a Sforza ascension to a politician/intellectual's fall from grace, we have identified a just-over-thirty year interval that may well justify Harry Lime's allusion.

All that might perhaps at last have given you some context to understand the quote from Meyer's book that I offered yesterday, and that I'll paste again here:

"Like everyone associated with Florence's post-Medici republic, [Machiavelli] celebrated the liquidation of men as dedicated to the restoration  of the old regime as Vitellozzo Vitelli and his henchmen. For him, however, the meaning of what Cesare had done went further. The murders removed any doubt, as far as he was concerned, about Valentino being a man of destiny -- about whether his talents, ambition, strength of will, and sheer ruthless courage made him the leader for which all Italy was unconsciously yearning, the one capable of freeing the peninsula from the barbarians."

The Borgias: The Hidden History

Meyer, the author of this book, now lives in England and seems to have no academic post, though he used to teach in the US -- apparently at three different colleges -- and has his MA from the University of Minnesota.

The Borgias is aimed at a broad audience and is not particularly academic in form. It has a thin set of endnotes and (given the subject) a very thin bibliography. I say that as a matter of transparency, not that I would hold that against him. My last book had neither of those.

One enthusiastic reviewer has called Meyer's book "an incredibly interesting and quite frankly brilliant read, and one I would wholeheartedly recommend to anyone interested in learning about the history of this fascinating family."

I won't review the book, I'll just quote the following passage, which concerns the relation between the Borgia family (especially Cesare) and the philosopher Machiavelli.

"Like everyone associated with Florence's post-Medici republic, [Machiavelli] celebrated the liquidation of men as dedicated to the restoration  of the old regime as Vitellozzo Vitelli and his henchmen. For him, however, the meaning of what Cesare had done went further. The murders removed any doubt, as far as he was concerned, about Valentino being a man of destiny -- about whether his talents, ambition, strength of will, and sheer ruthless courage made him the leader for which all Italy was unconsciously yearning, the one capable of freeing the peninsula from the barbarians."

Valentino, by the way, was a nickname of Cesare's derived from the title Duke of Valentinois bestowed upon him in 1498 by Louis XII of France.

Some thoughts on the significance of this passage tomorrow.

If You Have to Explain It ... Don't

According to the FBI, as mediated by Vanity Fair, accused inside-info trader Jesse Tortora e-mailed the following to his buddies and co-conspirators:

"Rule number one about email list. There is no email list, fight club reference."

Okay, here's a rule. If you have to explain that your previous sentence (or, strictly, the first half of the sentence you're still writing) was a Fight Club reference, don't. Delete, abort, retry.

Especially since he didn't really get the allusion right, anyway.

David Friedman

I mentioned Friedman rather tangentially in yesterday's post, so I thought that before writing this one I should check up on what David F. has been up to lately.

Not much, it turns out. The last writing of his that I would describe as a contribution to the public intellectual's case for liberty was a contribution to an anthology edited by Andrew I. Cohen and Christopher Heath Wellman, Contemporary Debates in Applied Ethics. That came out in 2005 -- eight years ago.

Since then, Friedman seems to have been trying to turn himself into a novelist. His second novel, Salamander, a bit of medievalist fantasy, appeared in March 2011.

If you look at that Amazon page to which I just linked you, you'll find the book description. But in case you're feeling lazy, I'll reproduce it here:

Magister Coelus, the College’s young and brilliant theorist, finally has a student capable of learning theoretical magery at the level at which he can teach it. He invites her to help him with his current research project, which promises to funnel through the hands of one mage more power than any mage has ever had. Ellen, who knows more about both the theory and practice of magic than a first year student should know, refuses, arguing that the Cascade will do more harm than good.

When news of the project reaches Prince Kieron, brother and heir of the king and Royal Master of Mages, he insists that it be completed in secret and employed, if at all, only under royal authority. Word has also reached Lord Iolen, Kieron’s competent, cold-blooded, and ambitious nephew, with his own ideas of how and by whom the Cascade should be used. Ellen and Coelus must together face the conflicting threats and demands of two arrogant and powerful men, the peril posed by the very existence of the Cascade, and their feelings for each other.

Magister Coelus then, appears to teach at some sort of Hogwarts-like institution.  The word "mage" serves him as a generic for the people who teach or study at such institutions -- whereas Rowling stuck with the gender-specific terms "witch" and "wizard."

There is a political undertow here. A grand new source of power has to be completed in secret so that the government authorities can control it. Hmmmm.  

Sounds better than Carcium, anyway.

Stefan Molyneux and Me

Stefan Molyneux seems to be the hot new thing among young anarcho-capitalists. Not old fuddy-duds like me.

He is the author for example of Universally Preferable Behavior, a book that attempts to expound a rationally impregnable (and secular) ethical system.

I have not read that, or anything else of Molyneux's. I leave to those who have read it to pass on its merits.

I do not rely entirely upon secondary sources, though. I did spend some time listening to one of his podcasts, the beginning of a comprehensive course on philosophy he offers here.  That particular link leads you to a forty minute effort to introduce the subject matter of the remainder of a series. The gist of it, if I understand it at all, is that philosophy, in the sense in which Molyneux proposes to use the term for the duration of the course, the sort of philosophy he hopes to teach, is: a lot like empirical science -- indeed it is empirical science, writ large -- such that any inferences a philosopher reaches must be subject to the check of facticity.

I'm not interested in arguing with that definition of philosophy, but I have to say it does seem to be the consequence of a lot more hemming and hawing than it is worth. It shouldn't take 40 minutes to say what I said in the second half of the final sentence of the previous paragraph. Just say it and get on with whatever is the actual philosophizing you hope to do under that or any other definitional rubric.

He can't give me that 40 minute block of my time back, and he didn't make such a use of it as would induce me to give him more.

I must say also that what I have heard about Molyneux from sources I consider reliable, suggests that reading him or listening to further such podcasts is not really an imperative. He would seem to be re-packaging the arguments with which some of us are already familiar from the works of David Friedman or Murray Rothbard.

Still, there is room in the world for popularizers, and if he can expand the sphere of those familiar with Rothbardian ideas: good for him.  If some of the people who learn of these ideas from him come to think of them as Molyneuxian ideas -- that's okay, too

Anyway, a Facebook friend recently referred me to this, a personal message from Molyneux to his admirers about his diagnosis with cancer.

I wish him well, as I would wish any other patient in the same situation well. And I said so on the comment thread created by that FB posting. But I also had to say in all candor that I'm not one of his admirers.

I hope to be corrected if I'm wrong about him, though, while minimizing the risk of giving up further blocks of time to no effect. So: any Molyneuxians out there: feel free. Give me the elevator pitch. Why is he important?