62-501: On Truth is a 2006 book by Harry Frankfurt , a follow-up to his 2005 book On Bullshit . It develops the argument that people should care about truth , regardless of intent to be truthful. It explicitly avoids defining "truth" beyond the concept commonly held, which corresponds to reality . This article about an ethics essay or essay collection is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Harry Frankfurt Harry Gordon Frankfurt (May 29, 1929 – July 16, 2023)
124-437: A bestseller , which led to his making media appearances such as on Jon Stewart 's late-night television program, The Daily Show . In this work he explains how bullshitting is different from lying, in that it is an act that has no regard for the truth. He argues that "It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bullshit requires no such conviction." In 2006, he followed up with On Truth ,
186-515: A neurological disorder compelled them to do it. Frankfurt has rejected the principle of alternative possibilities based on a series of counterexamples, the so-called " Frankfurt cases ". In one example, Allison's father has implanted a computer chip in Allison's head without her knowing. This chip would force Allison to walk her dog. However, Allison freely decides to do so and the chip is thus not activated. Frankfurt argues that, in this case, Allison
248-628: A "contrary-to-fact conditional" – speculate on the possible outcomes of a different past; and ask "What might have happened if A had happened instead of B?" (e.g., "If Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz had cooperated with each other, what would mathematics look like today?"). The study of counterfactual speculation has increasingly engaged the interest of scholars in a wide range of domains such as philosophy, psychology, cognitive psychology, history, political science, economics, social psychology, law, organizational theory, marketing, and epidemiology. Semifactual thought experiments –
310-426: A certain attitude of the will: He/she sees the entity in question as important to them. For Frankfurt, what we care about reflects our personal character or who we are. This also affects the person on the practical level concerning how he/she acts and leads his/her life. In the academic literature, caring is often understood as a subjective attitude in contrast to importance as an objective factor. On this view,
372-504: A companion book in which he explored the dwindling appreciation in society for truth. Among philosophers, he was for a time best known for his interpretation of Descartes 's rationalism. His most influential work, however, has been on freedom of the will (on which he has written numerous important papers ) based on his concept of higher-order volitions and for developing " Frankfurt cases " (also known as "Frankfurt counter-examples", which are thought experiments designed to demonstrate
434-424: A forecast model after an event has happened in order to test whether the model's simulation is valid. The activity of retrodiction (or postdiction ) involves moving backward in time, step-by-step, in as many stages as are considered necessary, from the present into the speculated past to establish the ultimate cause of a specific event (e.g., reverse engineering and forensics ). Given that retrodiction
496-445: A light beam, leading to special relativity . This is a unique use of a scientific thought experiment, in that it was never carried out, but led to a successful theory, proven by other empirical means. Further categorization of thought experiments can be attributed to specific properties. In many thought experiments, the scenario would be nomologically possible , or possible according to the laws of nature. John Searle's Chinese room
558-589: A new name, Harry Gordon Frankfurt. His adoptive parents, Bertha (née Gordon) and Nathan Frankfurt, a piano teacher and a bookkeeper, respectively, raised him in Brooklyn and Baltimore. He attended Johns Hopkins University , where he obtained his Bachelor of Arts in 1949 and Doctor of Philosophy in 1954, both in philosophy. Frankfurt was professor emeritus of philosophy at Princeton University. He previously taught at Ohio State University (1956–1962), SUNY Binghamton (1962–1963), Rockefeller University (from 1963 until
620-438: A particular future end-point to the present to determine what policy measures would be required to reach that future. According to Jansen (1994, p. 503: Within the framework of technological development, "forecasting" concerns the extrapolation of developments towards the future and the exploration of achievements that can be realized through technology in the long term. Conversely, the reasoning behind "backcasting" is: on
682-747: A patterned way of thinking that is designed to allow us to explain, predict, and control events in a better and more productive way. In terms of their theoretical consequences, thought experiments generally: Thought experiments can produce some very important and different outlooks on previously unknown or unaccepted theories. However, they may make those theories themselves irrelevant, and could possibly create new problems that are just as difficult, or possibly more difficult to resolve. In terms of their practical application, thought experiments are generally created to: Generally speaking, there are seven types of thought experiments in which one reasons from causes to effects, or effects to causes: Prefactual (before
SECTION 10
#1732765655915744-532: A person acts according to a first-order desire that he/she does not want to have on the second order. For example, a struggling drug addict may follow his/her first-order desire to take drugs despite having a second-order desire to stop wanting drugs. The term " moral responsibility " refers to the forward-looking moral obligation to perform certain actions and to the backward-looking status of being worthy of blame or praise for having done something or having failed to do so. An important principle in this regard
806-405: A second-order volition if it is effective, i.e. if the agent is committed to realizing it by fostering the corresponding first-order desire. Frankfurt sees this as the mark of personhood because entities with second-order volitions do not just have desires but care about which desires they have. So persons are committed to the desires they have. According to Frankfurt, not every entity with a mind
868-567: A social or political organization. The use of the state of nature to imagine the origins of government, as by Thomas Hobbes and John Locke , may also be considered a thought experiment. Søren Kierkegaard explored the possible ethical and religious implications of Abraham 's binding of Isaac in Fear and Trembling . Similarly, Friedrich Nietzsche , in On the Genealogy of Morals , speculated about
930-415: A stone larger than that which before moved with a speed of eight. Hence the heavier body moves with less speed than the lighter; an effect which is contrary to your supposition. Thus you see how, from your assumption that the heavier body moves more rapidly than the lighter one, I infer that the heavier body moves more slowly. The common goal of a thought experiment is to explore the potential consequences of
992-451: Is nomologically possible. Some thought experiments present scenarios that are not nomologically possible. In his Twin Earth thought experiment , Hilary Putnam asks us to imagine a scenario in which there is a substance with all of the observable properties of water (e.g., taste, color, boiling point), but is chemically different from water. It has been argued that this thought experiment
1054-470: Is a person. He refers to such entities as "wantons". Wantons have desires and follow them but do not care about their own will. In this regard, they are indifferent to which of their desires become effective and are translated into action. Frankfurt holds that personhood is an important feature of humans but not of other animals. However, even some humans may be wantons at times. Various of Frankfurt's examples of such cases involve some forms of akrasia in which
1116-410: Is a process in which "past observations, events, add and data are used as evidence to infer the process(es) that produced them" and that diagnosis "involve[s] going from visible effects such as symptoms, signs and the like to their prior causes", the essential balance between prediction and retrodiction could be characterized as: regardless of whether the prognosis is of the course of the disease in
1178-486: Is an ideal search toward determining the nature and scope of the technological challenge posed by sustainable development, and it can thus serve to direct the search process toward new – sustainable – technology. Thought experiments have been used in a variety of fields, including philosophy, law, physics , and mathematics. In philosophy they have been used at least since classical antiquity , some pre-dating Socrates . In law, they were well known to Roman lawyers quoted in
1240-462: Is morally responsible for walking her dog even though she lacked the ability to do otherwise. The crux of this and similar cases is that the agent is morally responsible because he/she acted in accordance with his/her own will. This is so despite the fact that, usually unbeknownst to the agent, there was no real alternative. This line of thought has led Frankfurt to advocate a form of compatibilism : If free will and moral responsibility do not depend on
1302-435: Is the principle of alternative possibilities . It states that "a person is morally responsible for what she has done only if she could have done otherwise". Having this ability to do otherwise is usually associated with having free will . So under normal circumstances, a person is morally responsible for stealing someone's lunch at the cafeteria. However, this may not be the case under special circumstances, for example, if
SECTION 20
#17327656559151364-539: Is the subject of a substantial number of citations. More recently, he wrote on love and caring in The Reasons of Love . Frankfurt was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1995. He was a Visiting Fellow of All Souls College , Oxford University ; he served as president, Eastern Division, American Philosophical Association ; and he has received grants and fellowships from
1426-515: Is wide disagreement, both within the academic discourse and between different cultures about what the essential features of personhood are. One influential and precisely formulated account of personhood is given by Frankfurt in his "Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person". He holds that persons are beings that have second-order volitions . A volition is an effective desire, i.e. a desire that
1488-425: The imaginary conduct of a real experiment that would be subsequently performed as a real physical experiment by his students. Physical and mental experimentation could then be contrasted: Mach asked his students to provide him with explanations whenever the results from their subsequent, real, physical experiment differed from those of their prior, imaginary experiment. The English term thought experiment
1550-543: The Digest . In physics and other sciences, notable thought experiments date from the 19th and, especially, the 20th century; but examples can be found at least as early as Galileo . In philosophy, a thought experiment typically presents an imagined scenario with the intention of eliciting an intuitive or reasoned response about the way things are in the thought experiment. (Philosophers might also supplement their thought experiments with theoretical reasoning designed to support
1612-778: The Guggenheim Foundation , the Andrew Mellon Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities . According to Frankfurt, a lot of the philosophical discourse concerns either the domain of epistemology , which asks what we should believe, or ethics , which asks how we should act . He argues that there is another branch of inquiry that has received less attention, namely the question of what has importance or what we should care about. An agent cares about something if he/she has
1674-676: The substantiality of the soul . Scientists tend to use thought experiments as imaginary, "proxy" experiments prior to a real, "physical" experiment ( Ernst Mach always argued that these gedankenexperiments were "a necessary precondition for physical experiment"). In these cases, the result of the "proxy" experiment will often be so clear that there will be no need to conduct a physical experiment at all. Scientists also use thought experiments when particular physical experiments are impossible to conduct ( Carl Gustav Hempel labeled these sorts of experiment " theoretical experiments-in-imagination "), such as Einstein's thought experiment of chasing
1736-441: The 19th and especially the 20th Century, but examples can be found at least as early as Galileo . In thought experiments, we gain new information by rearranging or reorganizing already known empirical data in a new way and drawing new (a priori) inferences from them, or by looking at these data from a different and unusual perspective. In Galileo's thought experiment, for example, the rearrangement of empirical experience consists of
1798-521: The ability of a hypothetical finite being to violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics . It is a common element of science-fiction stories. Thought experiments, which are well-structured, well-defined hypothetical questions that employ subjunctive reasoning ( irrealis moods ) – "What might happen (or, what might have happened) if . . . " – have been used to pose questions in philosophy at least since Greek antiquity, some pre-dating Socrates . In physics and other sciences many thought experiments date from
1860-419: The ability to do otherwise, then they could even exist in a fully deterministic world. Frankfurt cases have provoked a significant discussion of the principle of alternative possibilities. However, not everyone agrees that they are successful at disproving it. Harry Frankfurt was first married to Marilyn Rothman. They had two daughters. The marriage ended in divorce. He then married Joan Gilbert. Frankfurt
1922-440: The absence of treatment, or of the application of a specific treatment regimen to a specific disorder in a particular patient. The activity of backcasting – the term backcasting was coined by John Robinson in 1982 – involves establishing the description of a very definite and very specific future situation. It then involves an imaginary moving backward in time, step-by-step, in as many stages as are considered necessary, from
On Truth - Misplaced Pages Continue
1984-498: The agent has a wrong belief that the object of their caring would affect their well-being. In one example, the agent follows a charlatan's health advice to avoid a certain type of food. Benbaji argues that this constitutes a counterexample because the person cares about avoiding this food even though it has no impact on their health or their well-being. Persons are characterized by certain attributes or capacities, like reason, moral responsibility, and self-consciousness. However, there
2046-400: The agent is committed to realizing. Not all desires become volitions: humans usually have many desires but put only some of them into action . For example, the agent may have one desire to eat an unhealthy cake but follows their other desire to have a healthy salad instead. In this case, eating the cake is a mere desire while eating the salad is a volition. Frankfurt places great importance on
2108-507: The application of the term thought experiment once it had been introduced into English. Galileo's demonstration that falling objects must fall at the same rate regardless of their masses was a significant step forward in the history of modern science. This is widely thought to have been a straightforward physical demonstration, involving climbing up the Leaning Tower of Pisa and dropping two heavy weights off it, whereas in fact, it
2170-448: The basis of an interconnecting picture of demands technology must meet in the future – "sustainability criteria" – to direct and determine the process that technology development must take and possibly also the pace at which this development process must take effect. Backcasting [is] both an important aid in determining the direction technology development must take and in specifying the targets to be set for this purpose. As such, backcasting
2232-482: The benefit of others. Here, the relevant question is not whether the action is moral or not, but more broadly whether a moral theory is correct that says morality is determined solely by an action's consequences (See Consequentialism ). John Searle imagines a man in a locked room who receives written sentences in Chinese, and returns written sentences in Chinese, according to a sophisticated instruction manual. Here,
2294-408: The caring attitude brings with it a need. Because of this need, the cared-for thing can affect the person's well-being and has thereby become important to them. Yitzhak Benbaji terms this relation between caring and importance "Frankfurt's Care-Importance Principle". He rejects it based on the claim that at least some cases of the caring attitude are misguided. This usually involves situations in which
2356-409: The circumstances of the present into the future. According to David Sarewitz and Roger Pielke (1999, p123), scientific prediction takes two forms: Although they perform different social and scientific functions, the only difference between the qualitatively identical activities of predicting , forecasting, and nowcasting is the distance of the speculated future from the present moment occupied by
2418-432: The desired intuitive response.) The scenario will typically be designed to target a particular philosophical notion, such as morality, or the nature of the mind or linguistic reference. The response to the imagined scenario is supposed to tell us about the nature of that notion in any scenario, real or imagined. For example, a thought experiment might present a situation in which an agent intentionally kills an innocent for
2480-573: The difference between first- and second-order desires. Most regular desires, like the desire to eat healthy food or to buy a car, are first-order desires. Second-order desires are desires about desires. So the desire to have a desire to eat healthy food is a second-order desire. Entities with first-order desires care about what the world around them is like, for example, whether they own a car or not. Entities with second-order desires care also about themselves, i.e. what they themselves are like and what mental states they possess. A second-order desire becomes
2542-434: The emphasis was on the conceptual, rather than on the experimental part of a thought experiment. Johann Witt-Hansen established that Hans Christian Ørsted was the first to use the equivalent German term Gedankenexperiment c. 1812 . Ørsted was also the first to use the equivalent term Gedankenversuch in 1820. By 1883, Ernst Mach used Gedankenexperiment in a different sense, to denote exclusively
On Truth - Misplaced Pages Continue
2604-404: The fact) thought experiments – the term prefactual was coined by Lawrence J. Sanna in 1998 – speculate on possible future outcomes, given the present, and ask "What will be the outcome if event E occurs?". Counterfactual (contrary to established fact) thought experiments – the term counterfactual was coined by Nelson Goodman in 1947, extending Roderick Chisholm 's (1946) notion of
2666-425: The future to the present to reveal the mechanism through which that particular specified future could be attained from the present. Backcasting is not concerned with predicting the future: The major distinguishing characteristic of backcasting analyses is the concern, not with likely energy futures, but with how desirable futures can be attained. It is thus explicitly normative , involving 'working backward' from
2728-461: The historical development of Judeo-Christian morality, with the intent of questioning its legitimacy. An early written thought experiment was Plato 's allegory of the cave . Another historic thought experiment was Avicenna 's " Floating Man " thought experiment in the 11th century. He asked his readers to imagine themselves suspended in the air isolated from all sensations in order to demonstrate human self-awareness and self-consciousness , and
2790-453: The importance of something determines whether it is appropriate to care about it: people should care about important things but not about unimportant ones. Frankfurt defends a different perspective on this issue by arguing that caring about something makes this thing important. So when a person starts caring about something, this thing becomes important to them even if it was unimportant to them before. Frankfurt explains this in terms of needs:
2852-464: The original idea of combining bodies of different weights. Thought experiments have been used in philosophy (especially ethics), physics , and other fields (such as cognitive psychology , history, political science , economics, social psychology , law, organizational studies , marketing, and epidemiology ). In law, the synonym "hypothetical" is frequently used for such experiments. Regardless of their intended goal, all thought experiments display
2914-404: The person's character. According to Frankfurt, a person is someone who has second-order volitions or who cares about what desires he or she has. He contrasts persons with wantons. Wantons are beings that have desires but do not care about which of their desires is translated into action. In the field of ethics, Frankfurt gave various influential counterexamples, so-called Frankfurt cases , against
2976-433: The philosophy department was closed in 1976), Yale University (from 1976, where he served as chair of the philosophy department 1978–1987), and then Princeton University (1990–2002). His major areas of interest included moral philosophy , philosophy of mind and action , and 17th-century rationalism . His 2005 book On Bullshit , originally published in 1986 as a paper on the concept of "bullshit", unexpectedly became
3038-472: The possibility of situations in which a person could not have done other than he/she did, but in which our intuition is to say nonetheless that this feature of the situation does not prevent that person from being morally responsible). Frankfurt's view of compatibilism is perhaps the most influential version of compatibilism, developing the view that to be free is to have one's actions conform to one's more reflective desires. Frankfurt's version of compatibilism
3100-442: The principle in question: Given the structure of the experiment, it may not be possible to perform it; and, even if it could be performed, there need not be an intention to perform it. Examples of thought experiments include Schrödinger's cat , illustrating quantum indeterminacy through the manipulation of a perfectly sealed environment and a tiny bit of radioactive substance, and Maxwell's demon , which attempts to demonstrate
3162-488: The principle that moral responsibility depends on the ability to do otherwise . His most popular book is On Bullshit , which discusses the distinction between bullshitting and lying. Frankfurt was born David Bernard Stern at a home for unwed mothers in Langhorne, Pennsylvania , on May 29, 1929, and did not know his biological parents. Shortly after his birth, he was adopted by a middle-class Jewish family and given
SECTION 50
#17327656559153224-534: The relevant question is not whether or not the man understands Chinese, but more broadly, whether a functionalist theory of mind is correct. It is generally hoped that there is universal agreement about the intuitions that a thought experiment elicits. (Hence, in assessing their own thought experiments, philosophers may appeal to "what we should say," or some such locution.) A successful thought experiment will be one in which intuitions about it are widely shared. But often, philosophers differ in their intuitions about
3286-416: The scenario. Other philosophical uses of imagined scenarios arguably are thought experiments also. In one use of scenarios, philosophers might imagine persons in a particular situation (maybe ourselves), and ask what they would do. For example, in the veil of ignorance , John Rawls asks us to imagine a group of persons in a situation where they know nothing about themselves, and are charged with devising
3348-400: The slower will be somewhat hastened by the swifter. Do you not agree with me in this opinion? Simplicio . You are unquestionably right. Salviati . But if this is true, and if a large stone moves with a speed of, say, eight while a smaller moves with a speed of four, then when they are united, the system will move with a speed less than eight; but the two stones when tied together make
3410-521: The term semifactual was coined by Nelson Goodman in 1947 – speculate on the extent to which things might have remained the same, despite there being a different past; and asks the question Even though X happened instead of E, would Y have still occurred? (e.g., Even if the goalie had moved left, rather than right, could he have intercepted a ball that was traveling at such a speed?). Semifactual speculations are an important part of clinical medicine. The activity of prediction attempts to project
3472-420: The user. Whilst the activity of nowcasting, defined as "a detailed description of the current weather along with forecasts obtained by extrapolation up to 2 hours ahead", is essentially concerned with describing the current state of affairs, it is common practice to extend the term "to cover very-short-range forecasting up to 12 hours ahead" (Browning, 1982, p.ix). The activity of hindcasting involves running
3534-490: The work of the physicist Ernst Mach and includes thoughts about what may have occurred if a different course of action were taken. The importance of this ability is that it allows the experimenter to imagine what may occur in the future, as well as the implications of alternate courses of action. The ancient Greek δείκνυμι , deiknymi , 'thought experiment', "was the most ancient pattern of mathematical proof ", and existed before Euclidean mathematics , where
3596-461: Was a logical demonstration, using the thought experiment technique. The experiment is described by Galileo in Discorsi e dimostrazioni matematiche (1638) (from Italian : 'Mathematical Discourses and Demonstrations') thus: Salviati . If then we take two bodies whose natural speeds are different, it is clear that on uniting the two, the more rapid one will be partly retarded by the slower, and
3658-451: Was an American philosopher. He was a professor emeritus of philosophy at Princeton University , where he taught from 1990 until 2002. Frankfurt also taught at Yale University, Rockefeller University, and Ohio State University. Frankfurt made significant contributions to fields like ethics and philosophy of mind . The attitude of caring played a central role in his philosophy. To care about something means to see it as important and reflects
3720-441: Was an amateur classical pianist. He started taking piano lessons from an early age, initially from his mother who hoped that he might pursue a career as a concert pianist. Frankfurt continued to play piano and receive lessons throughout his life, alongside his philosophical career. According to Frankfurt, becoming a professor of philosophy was acceptable to his mother, seeing as it was "close enough" to her other ambition for him, which
3782-437: Was coined as a calque of Gedankenexperiment , and it first appeared in the 1897 English translation of one of Mach's papers. Prior to its emergence, the activity of posing hypothetical questions that employed subjunctive reasoning had existed for a very long time for both scientists and philosophers. The irrealis moods are ways to categorize it or to speak about it. This helps explain the extremely wide and diverse range of
SECTION 60
#17327656559153844-550: Was to become a rabbi. Frankfurt died of congestive heart failure in Santa Monica, California, on July 16, 2023, at age 94. Thought experiment A thought experiment is a hypothetical situation in which a hypothesis , theory , or principle is laid out for the purpose of thinking through its consequences. The concept is also referred to using the German-language term Gedankenexperiment within
#914085