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2 2006 Department of Philosophy, Brigham Young University Printed in the United States of America

3 APORIA A STUDENT JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY volume 16 number 2 fall 2006 Brigham Young University Provo, Utah

4 APORIA A STUDENT JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY Editor Russell Farr Associate Editors Alan Feuerlein Adam Green John Griffey Erin Swigart Caleb Waugh Aporia is published twice each year by the Department of Philosophy at Brigham Young University and is dedicated to recognizing exemplary philosophical work at the undergraduate level. The spring issue each year includes the winning essays of the annual David H. Yarn Philosophical Essay Competition, which is open to BYU undergraduates only, along with other outstanding philosophical essays submitted by undergraduate philosophy students from around the world. The winners of the Yarn Competition are selected by a faculty committee independent of the student editors and staff, who make all other publishing decisions. The fall issue is published online and consists of papers selected by the editorial staff. Submissions are welcome from all undergraduate students, both at BYU and elsewhere. The Aporia staff is especially grateful to those who support makes this journal possible. Special thanks go to Professor Daniel Graham, chair of the Department of Philosophy, and Professor David Jensen, our faculty advisor. Aporia is funded by a generous contribution from the David H. Yarn Endowment. Those wishing to contribute to this fund may do so by contacting the BYU Department of Philosophy. Opinions expressed herein are those of the respective authors, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, the Philosophy Department, or Brigham Young University.

5 APORIA A STUDENT JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY volume 16 number 2 fall 2006 By Gödel I Do Not Mean Schmidt 1 JASON DAYLEY Free Will In War and Peace 13 NICKOLAY TUGUSHEV A Kripkean Response to John Searle 25 TULLY MINOSKI The Direct Argument for Incompatibilism 37 STEPHEN MAHAFFEY Democritus Parmenidean Influence 51 JASON DAYLEY

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7 Aporia vol. 16 no By Gödel I Do Not Mean Schmidt JASON DAYLEY In Naming and Necessity, Saul Kripke attacks the descriptivist theory of proper names made popular by Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, and P.F. Strawson. Kripke proposes several examples that point out weaknesses in the descriptivist theory as well as a more accurate picture of how names achieve reference to objects. Among Kripke's examples is a counterfactual situation in which Kurt Gödel does not produce the incompleteness theorem but fools the world into thinking that he has. There is some question in the descriptivist theory whether a person who only knows Gödel as the author of the incompleteness proof refers, using the name "Gödel," to the person Kurt Gödel or to the actual author of the incompleteness theorem. John Searle, in "Proper Names and Intentionality," responds on behalf of the descriptivists both to Kripke's better picture of naming and specifically to the Gödel example. While Searle believes that Kripke has mischaracterized the descriptivists and adopted their method into his own, Searle himself has misrepresented Kripke's argument and given a descriptivist answer that only strengthens Kripke's point against such theories. Consequently, Searle's reply to Kripke's Gödel example misunderstands the implications of this example for the descriptivist theory, and Searle fails to give an adequate reply. Advocates of a descriptivist theory of proper names believe that names achieve reference by use of a definite description. There is some variety of opinions among these advocates as to how this occurs. Frege wrote that every name has an associated definite description that is the Jason Dayley is a senior majoring in philosophy with a minor in logic at Brigham Young University. After graduation in December 2006, he will attend law school.

8 2 JASON DAYLEY manner or sense in which it refers to the intended object (Frege, "On Sense and Nominatum" 200). Russell wrote that names are merely placeholders or abbreviations of definite descriptions and that the denoting phrase, rather than the object itself, is the constituent of a sentence (Russell, "On Denoting" ). Russell did allow that if an object is known by a direct acquaintance, its name may simply present the object named, but problems with this theory pushed him to later reduce the set of names that work in this way to ostensively defined sense data like "red here." So what we commonly call a name, at least for Russell's latter theory, is merely a disguised definite description. The example of the name "Plato" may help to clarify the way names work according to these theories. "Plato" refers to an object because it contains or is the abbreviation of a definite description. "The man who was a student of Socrates and taught Aristotle," is such a definite description that seems to pick out the object we would normally want to refer to by the name "Plato." This definite description is the sense in which the name is used. A name may have more than one sense, but only one sense can be meant in any one use of the name. A descriptive sentence containing the name "Plato" asserts that what is referred to by the intended sense of this name has the properties indicated by the predicate of that sentence, or if the subject is predicated as the referent of a definite description, then the sentence asserts that the predicate description picks out the same object as the definite description which is the sense of the name used as the subject. Take the sentence "Plato is my favorite philosopher." According to Frege's theory, this sentence seems to show that the sense of "Plato," "the man who was a student of Socrates and taught Aristotle," picks out the same object as the predicate description, "my favorite philosopher." Russell's theory makes this work more directly. The sentence, according to Russell, should be understood as "the object which was a man, learned from Socrates, and taught Aristotle, is the same object as my favorite philosopher." So, generally, Frege and Russell assert that a name serves only to pick out an object by means of an inherent definite description. Strawson criticized Russell's understanding of how definite descriptions work, though he maintained a descriptivist theory of proper names. Strawson clarified that a description itself does not refer, but the use of a

9 BY GÖDEL I DO NOT MEAN SCHMIDT 3 description by a person does (Strawson, On Referring ). While Strawson says little about names specifically, his criticism of Russell seems to be relevant to the descriptivist theory. Since Strawson was a descriptivist, it follows from his use distinction of descriptions that names also do not refer. Only the use of a name by a person refers. The important point here is that for Strawson the definite description by which a name achieves reference is not part of the name, but is part of the intention of the speaker. If my seven-year-old son were named Plato, it is not likely that my command "Plato! Come and pick up your toys" would be directed to the student of Socrates who in turn taught Aristotle. This idea, that the definite description associated with a name is a reflection of the speaker's intention, will be returned to in discussing Searle's response to Kripke. Kripke attacks the descriptivists with a number of counterexamples; one of which serves as the focus of this paper (Kripke, Naming and Necessity). 1 Kurt Gödel is most often known for producing the incompleteness of arithmetic theorem. Following the descriptivist theory, when a person uses the name "Gödel" he is able to pick out a certain person by an implied use of the definite description "author of the incompleteness proof." When I write the sentence, "Gödel was a mathematician," I mean that the author of the incompleteness proof was a mathematician. It may seem obvious that the author of the incompleteness theorem was a mathematician, but if this is what is commonly known about Gödel then my original statement is just as obvious. In any case, the descriptivist theory's treatment of this situation seems to reflect my intention in using the sentence. To show the problem with this picture, Kripke describes a hypothetical situation in which the definite description used picks out someone other than the person intended. Say, for example, that Gödel was a brilliant man who did everything a biography says he did, except that he did not create the incompleteness proof. Suppose instead that his brilliant though obscure friend Mr. Schmidt actually came up with the entire proof, 1 Kripke s book will hereafter be cited by the author s name followed by the page number. 2 There is a problem with circularity when the definite description associated with a name also contains a name (Kripke 81 82). For this reason, Kripke writes that a better example would be of a person who "actually states a certain theorem, which he attributes to Gödel as the discoverer" (Kripke 83). For the purpose of this paper, it should be understood that the name "the incompleteness proof" inside the denoting phrase associated with Gödel should really be replaced with Gödel's proof of arithmetic's incompleteness in its entirety.

10 4 JASON DAYLEY only discussing the matter with Gödel. Before having a chance to show anyone else, Mr. Schmidt mysteriously vanishes and is never found. Gödel, who it turns out was not such a good friend, takes Schmidt's manuscript and publishes it as his own. Now, when I say "Gödel was a mathematician" and mean "the author of the incompleteness proof was a mathematician," do I actually mean to indicate that Schmidt, whom I have never heard of, was a mathematician? This may be the case if I am using the name and associated definite description in what Keith Donnellan called the referential use; that is, if I mean to say that whoever authored the incompleteness proof was a mathematician, but this is not always the case (Donnellan, Reference and Defininte Descriptions 285). A clearer example may be someone saying "I had Gödel's class at Princeton." Clearly this person does not mean she had a class from Schmidt; so, there is a problem which the descriptivist's must answer. A descriptivist may respond to this apparent problem that the person, who was able to refer to Gödel directly rather than referentially, knew more about Gödel than just that he created the incompleteness proof. Hence, she could have intended another definite description or only the person who fits most of the properties she associates with the name "Gödel." Rather than explain why a cluster of properties is no more consistent in referring than a single property, let us modify the example to someone who only knows of Gödel that he authored the incompleteness proof and that he was introduced to him once at a party. 3 The day after the party this man may say to his wife, "Last night I was introduced to Gödel." Superficially, he could mean, "Last night I was introduced to the author of the incompleteness proof," but he could not mean that last night he was introduced to Schmidt, whom he has never heard of and certainly never met. It may be objected that the reference does not hold in such situations because the description is not of a necessary property and should not be expected to work in counterfactual situations. However, it is undoubtable that such situations, i.e. those in which we are mistaken as to whom a description refers, occur in the actual world and we would merely have to find one to show that this objection cannot hold. Furthermore, it would be impossible to rationally believe that names refer using only necessary 3 Kripke discusses the cluster theory in his book (Kripke 64 68).

11 BY GÖDEL I DO NOT MEAN SCHMIDT 5 properties. Kripke admits that certain properties of a person are necessary such as the time in which they lived (Kripke 62), their parents, or their identity as a human (Kripke 46). Neither the time period of a person's life nor their identity as a human being could ever pick out a unique individual; 4 hence, such descriptions could never explain how a name is able to refer directly to a unique individual. Perhaps if we gave the exact second of a person's being born or that person s birth order relative to the person s parents, i.e. second born of Michael and Susan Jones, we could pick out a unique individual by necessary properties, but surely we do not know such information about every person to whom we refer using a name. One may object that a different type of definite description would solve the problem. For instance, the partygoer may refer to Gödel as "the man introduced to me as Gödel" rather than by his original knowledge of Gödel as "the author of the incompleteness proof," but this at best describes the picture Kripke gives for the way names work. The objector may say that by "Gödel" I mean "the man called Gödel," but this is blatantly circular and hence problematic (Kripke 72). If instead "Gödel" is to mean "the person whom I learned from an acquaintance is called Gödel," then this becomes an example of the picture Kripke gives. According to the alternative picture of naming given by Kripke, a person or object is ceremoniously given a name. 5 It is only important here that there is a first use of the name in which it is given to an object. The name is then told to others by fixing the referent either by ostensive definition or by use of a definite description. So, the partygoer learns the name of a specific object, in this case a specific person, by being shown the reference, while in the original example the name was learned by being told it refers to the person who authored the incompleteness proof. In the first case, it seems obvious that the partygoer refers to a certain person whether or not he has any property other than being the man to whom I was introduced. In the second case, the description used to fix the reference could have been faulty, but I still 4 While it may be that during a single second, or whatever unit of time one takes to be atomic, only a single individual was born, it is epistemically impossible that anyone, even one present at the delivery, could know this and use it for the purpose of referring. Since reference occurs as a person uses a name or description, and no one could ever know they were picking out someone uniquely by specifying the second they were born, the objection that unique reference by time of birth may be possible if one were specific enough is erroneous. 5 While Kripke uses the image of a ceremony, it is unclear wheter he means more than ostensibly assigning an arbitrary name.

12 6 JASON DAYLEY understand Gödel to be Gödel and not Schmidt. Suppose I learned the name "Gödel" from a Mr. Smith, who was introduced to the man by those who named him, his parents. 6 Smith knows that I am not acquainted with Gödel's parents but that I know something about math, so Smith states the result of the incompleteness theorem and then that it was Gödel who proved this. If we are all mistaken and Schmidt actually authored the proof, then the name still refers, through a causal chain, back to Gödel himself. This picture of how names work shows why a person, who was told that Gödel is going to give a lecture and who only knows Gödel as the author of the incompleteness proof, does not expect upon going to the lecture to hear from Schmidt. Searle asserts in "Proper Names and Intentionality," that Kripke has mischaracterized the descriptivist theory and that his picture seems to only work in a descriptivist way. Searle clarifies that the question these theories are trying to answer is, "How in the utterance of a name does the speaker succeed in referring to an object?" (Searle, Proper Names and Intentionality 309). 7 Searle goes on to characterize the descriptivist answer: "The answer given by the descriptivist is that the speaker refers to the object because and only because the object satisfies the Intentional content associated with the name" (Searle 309). Searle seems to believe, along with what was inferred earlier from Strawson, that names are able to refer to objects by use of a description which the name's speaker has in mind as he uses the name. In other words, when I say the name 'Gödel," it is my intention to speak of the person who authored the incompleteness theorem, and so I am able to refer to that man with use of this name. Searle tries to show that the causal theory is not a better picture of the way names work by demonstrating that the causal theory relies essentially on descriptivism in two ways. First, when a name is given in the initial naming ceremony, it must be given by description. When a man gives an object a name he either gives an ostensive description to what is to receive the name, like "this infant in our arms," or he gives a unique 6 It will probably not be the case that most people learn the name Gödel from someone who knew his parents, but there must always be some chain back to them. This is especially true when one considers that Gödel learned his own name from his parents. In all cases, then, there will be a chain of people who heard the name from someone who heard the name etc., until we get to those who named the man Gödel. 7 This article will henceforth be cited by the author s name followed by the page number.

13 BY GÖDEL I DO NOT MEAN SCHMIDT 7 description using known properties, like "the highest peak of that mountain range." In the latter case, it would not even be important that the man were acquainted with the thing named. It seems that Kripke would have to admit this point, but this only shows an initial reliance on description, not that this description must be in the mind of the person using the name in every case. In fact, it surely is not since most uses of the name will not be by those aware of the procedure of an object s naming ceremony. Second, Searle tries to show that the causal chain by which names are learned is not free from descriptivist intentionality. Kripke mentions that a speaker must have the intention to use the name the same way as the person from whom he learned it. Hence, to use the name Gödel, which I have learned from Mr. Smith, I must have as part of my intention the description "the person referred to by Mr. Smith using the name 'Gödel'" (Searle 310). We may now understand why Searle believes that Kripke's Gödel example cannot be used against the descriptivist theory. Searle admits that in the counterfactual situation given when I use the name "Gödel," I am "referring to Gödel and not the man who satisfies this description" (Searle 318). However, Searle believes that the name must still carry the intentional content "the person called Gödel by those from whom I have learned the name." Now, there are times when the name is used in what Donnellan calls the referential sense. 8 For example, I may say that I believe Gödel's proof was the most important achievement in math since Euclid. In this case, it seems clear that by "Gödel" I mean whoever authored the proof of incompleteness, whether or not it was actually Gödel. Therefore, whenever I use the name Gödel, I have a definite description as part of my intention. Thus, Kripke's theory can be reduced to descriptivism; hence, this example and the larger picture of naming that it was intended to support cannot be used to refute descriptivism. Kripke's theory easily defends against Searle's response to the Gödel example. It has been established that there are two types of descriptions which may be part of a speaker's intention when using a name. First, there is the type of descriptions classically used by descriptivists such as "the author of the incompleteness proof." If this type of description were the way in which a name achieved reference, then names are only used in the attributive sense; they can only refer to whomever fits their implied definite 8 Searle calls this "secondary aspect uses of proper names" (Searle 318).

14 8 JASON DAYLEY description. However, the Gödel example shows that when I use a name, I usually want the name to function like a referential definite description; I want it to pick out a certain object no matter what descriptions that object may actually fit. There may be examples where I want to use a name in an attributive sense. In the statement, "Gödel's proof is the greatest achievement in math since Euclid," the name "Gödel" seems to mean whoever wrote the proof rather than the actual man Gödel whether or not he was the author. It should be noted, however, that the subject of this sentence is not "Gödel," it is "Gödel's proof." This subject is a definite description which functions referentially since it picks out a certain proof whether it was actually created by Gödel or not. There may be another example in which we look at a version of the incompleteness theorem and say, "Gödel was a genius." This does seems to be attributive; it seems to mean that whoever wrote the proof was a genius. If Schmidt wrote the proof, then I mean Schmidt was a genius. However, this is not the way I always use a name, nor is it the most common way. It cannot, therefore, be said to generally be the way in which names achieve reference. Furthermore, it seems that in most cases of this last type, rather than saying that the speaker was right and merely using the name "Gödel" referentially, we would usually say that the speaker is mistaken. Here the Gödel example makes the problems of a purely descriptivist theory of names apparent. When I say something like, "Gödel taught at Princeton," if we were to understand "Gödel" as functioning attributively, then it seems I mean that Schmidt taught at Princeton. I clearly do not mean this. I mean that a specific person, to whom we refer using "Gödel," taught at Princeton. In this case we want to use the name referentially as the subject of a sentence, and as I have shown, this is usually the case Searle proposes another type of definite description which answers the Gödel example. An example of this type would be like the partygoer's description, "the person who was introduced to me as Gödel." This may be stated more generally as "the person called Gödel in my community," to avoid the problems of having forgotten where I learned the name Gödel (Searle 310). It seems that when I say "Gödel taught at Princeton," I may mean "the person called Gödel in my community taught at Princeton."

15 BY GÖDEL I DO NOT MEAN SCHMIDT 9 Kripke admits that a person using a name he has learned must have an intention to use the name in the way he heard it used. Searle interprets this intention as a definite description of the partygoer's type. It seems that if the name requires such a definite description in the intention of the speaker to function, then the descriptivist theory is correct (Searle 310). In fact, this points out how names could always function attributively, though this type of description does not seem to be the type Frege, Russell, and Strawson had in mind. Ignoring that this response by Searle seems ad hoc, the question remains whether, after admitted that names require intentionality, Kripke's Gödel example can be used to show that the descriptivist theory of naming is faulty. In explaining their theories, Frege, Russell, and Strawson never make reference to a description like, "the person called Gödel in my community." Perhaps this was because such a description is circular; it picks out the name Gödel by a description which contains the name "Gödel." There may be a question as to why this description seems to work in picking out the reference if it is indeed circular. The description has this ability because it does not refer to the object named; it refers to the causal chain by which the name is learned. The description "the person called Gödel in my community" was used in place of "the person whose name I learned from Smith was Gödel" to account for the fact that we may use a name when we are not sure from whom we learned it. In any case, I, or the members of my community, have learned the name from someone and so what is meant in this description is, "the person called Gödel by whomever I learned that name from." So, what did that person mean when they told me the name of the author of the incompleteness proof was Gödel? Normally, Smith would mean "the person called Gödel by whomever I learned that name from." Recall that in Mr. Smith's case, this means "the person called Gödel by the parents of Gödel." Who do the parents mean when they use the name Gödel or introduce this name to Gödel himself or to another person? They mean "the person who, as an infant, I took in my arms and said, 'I name this infant Kurt Gödel,'" or however they pronounced the ceremony. Therefore, the name Gödel merely presents the person so named and only secondarily requires an intention to use the name as it was learned. This intention may translate into a definite description, but this

16 10 JASON DAYLEY definite description is only a secondary requirement and in fact refers to the causal chain from which the name was learned, not to Gödel himself Kripke repeatedly mentions that this idea of a causal chain of naming does not give a new theory of naming; it simply offers a better picture. The Gödel example demonstrates that this picture is better. To say that names achieve reference by the use of a definite description must be wrong if we mean that they use a description like "author of the incompleteness theorem." To say that names achieve reference by the use of a definite description is deceptive if we mean that they use a description like "the person called Gödel in my community." If this second type were the type of description used in the vast majority of cases, to achieve reference, then Searle's descriptivist theory, which includes such descriptions, is deceptive. The idea that the name "Gödel" presents the object so named directly, and that this name was learned through a causal chain is more accurate. A description like "the person called Gödel in my community," may still be part of our intention, but stating that this description is the primary means by which the name Gödel receives reference is problematic. Kripke's Gödel example shows that the causal picture of proper names is better than the picture given by the descriptivists. If in using the name "Gödel," part of my intention is the definite description by which the reference was fixed when I learned the name, such as "the author of the incompleteness theorem," then there are clearly cases in which it seems I should mean Schmidt when I actually mean Gödel. If instead, the only description which is part of my intention in using this name is "the person who was called Gödel by whoever first taught me that name," then there will be no such mistake. Kripke's picture shows that names only rely secondarily on intended definite descriptions. While this shows that there is some merit in the descriptivist theory, it is clear that saying this theory explains how names are able to refer to objects is deceptive. When using a name, a person may require a definite description as part of her intention if the name is able to achieve reference, or she may require a definite description to fix the referent of a new name. However, the Gödel example shows that in Kripke's picture names achieve reference only as they are learned from a causal chain, giving a better picture of the way names actually work.

17 Works Cited Or Consulted Donnellan, Keith. "Reference and Definite Descriptions." Philosophical Review. 75(1966): Frege, Gottlob. "On Sense and Nominatum." In A.P. Martinich, The Philosophy of Language. 4th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, Kripke, Saul. Naming and Necessity. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, Russell, Bertrand. "Mr. Strawson on Referring." Mind. 66 (1957): Russell, Bertrand. "On Denoting." Mind. 14 (1905): Searle, John. "Proper Names and Intentionality." In A.P. Martinich, The Philosophy of Language. 4th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, Strawson, P.F. "On Referring." Mind. 59 (1950):

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19 Aporia vol. 16 no Free Will in War and Peace NIKOLAY TUGUSHEV In the next to last paragraph of War and Peace Leo Tolstoy makes the following rhetorical statement, "true, we are not conscious of our dependence but if we were to allow that we are free we arrive at an absurdity, whereas by admitting our dependence on the external world, on time and on causality we arrive at laws" (1444). 1 The statement is a relatively straightforward summary of a reductio ad absurdum argument graciously given to us by the author himself. Yet, given the sheer breadth of the work, a very natural question to ask is whether this summary is fair. And more importantly does the argument from reductio work as prescribed? On the one hand, it is the author himself who summarizes the argument. So, at the very least, Tolstoy intended to demonstrate that assuming the existence of freewill leads to an absurd conclusion, and that the opposite assumption must be true that we are governed by deterministic laws. On the other hand, if one assumes that the reductio argument is a central argument of the text, then surely many more assumptions, postulates, and side arguments went into this larger argument than just those regarding freewill. If so, then any one of these assumptions might as well have been the source of the 'absurd conclusion'. Hence, we come to the second part of the problem: does Tolstoy's reductio argument actually demonstrate that an assumption of freewill is erroneous? The intention of the present essay is to argue for a negative response to this question, and to show that rejecting another of Tolstoy's latent assumptions circumvents the 'absurd conclusion'. Moreover, it is 1 This book will be cited simply by the page number. Nickolay Tugushev is a philosophy student at Temple University. Upon graduation he plans to graduate school in philosophy.

20 14 NIKOLAY TUGUSHEV actually this other assumption that leads Tolstoy to reject freewill and embrace determinism throughout War and Peace. The presupposition responsible for Tolstoy's erroneous conclusion must have been so fundamental to his thinking that doubting it was for him impossible. Otherwise, it would be necessary to challenge his reasoning and competence as a thinker. This course, besides being overly ambitious, would most likely fail. Instead, it will be fruitful to investigate the concerns that drive Tolstoy's inquiry and to uncover features of the paradigm from which these concerns arise. In the explicitly philosophical portions of War and Peace, Tolstoy inquires into the unfolding of history and criticizes contemporary historians. With regard to the War of 1812 he asks, "What brought about this extraordinary occurrence? What were its causes?" (715); and similarly with respect to the Battle of Borodino Tolstoy asks, "Why was the battle of Borodino fought?" (895). In the epilogue Tolstoy arrives at the conclusion that certain laws govern behavior of masses of people. Whether these laws are known or even knowable are legitimate questions for Tolstoy, questions that he addresses at different parts of the novel (1168). However, at this point, it is more important to examine the framework required to pose these questions of 'causes' in the way that he does. Whether the answers to these questions are the sums of infinitely many causes, laws governing human history, or the one cause responsible for reality as such, each question presupposes an answer that simply exists out there in the world. Thus, for Tolstoy, there is some actual cause or law or reason responsible for the War of Whatever Tolstoy's answer is, its correctness or incorrectness is a function of the actual state of affairs in reality. Such a paradigm of thought might be considered a truism, one from which the very act of questioning arises. Hence it may be argued that Tolstoy is not only justified in adopting this axiomatic stance, but rather that he could not avoid adopting it same as anyone else. Yet for Tolstoy, postulating a reality that exists in a specific state in its entirety is not merely a prerequisite for inquiry, but moreover it is a direct source of some of his conclusions. As when he states:

21 FREE WILL IN WAR AND PEACE 15 The problem lies in the fact that if we regard man as a subject for observation from whatever point of view -theological, historical, ethical or philosophic- we find the universal law of necessity to which he (like everything else that exists) is subject. But looking upon man from within ourselves -man as the object of our own inner consciousness of self -we feel ourselves to be free (1427). Tolstoy seems to regard it possible to refer to the entirety of what exists and to make generalizations about the whole of reality. Further, he must think that there is something like an actual state of all existent things at any given time a totality of being. These two axioms are interdependent and imply much more than the mere statement that one can be correct or incorrect about the state of affairs in the world outside one's body. It is as if one could clearly inscribe within a boundary the set of 'all existent things'. Otherwise, without this kind of boundary, referring to reality as such in its entirety seems difficult to comprehend. As when one refers to the 'set of all tulips' one has in mind a criterion for discriminating between these particular flowers and everything else that isn't a tulip. In that case, the criterion itself does meaningful work. However, the set of 'all existent things' is a special referent to say the least, primarily because it is hard to comprehend its implied criterion for discriminating between members and non-members. At this point the reader might object that Tolstoy is being dragged into an abstract metaphysical debate, one in which he would not want to take part. This is not borne out by the text, however, as Tolstoy himself uses the phrase 'external world' in his summary of the reductio argument. It is possible that he intends to refer to everything that is not us, but again it is the entirety of the external world that he does refer to. Therefore, it is safe to say that Tolstoy entangles himself in this cumbersome metaphysical debate. One clue which might shed light on why this entanglement occurs is the subject matter that he begins to address as the metaphysical questions begin to mount: freewill and determinism. Quite quickly, in the transition from discussion of history and historians to that of free will, Tolstoy is led to make difficult and often puzzling statements. He must introduce a

22 16 NIKOLAY TUGUSHEV distinction between consciousness and reason, which, according to him, are separate from each other and can yield independent and often incompatible self-knowledge (1427). Nonetheless, he writes, "man learns from a succession of experiments and reflections that he, as the object under observation, is subject to certain laws" (1427). These claims seem to be dubious, since a man is a conscious entity that cannot become entirely an object of his own observation for the simple reason that consciousness is itself implicated in the process of observation. Hence, it is difficult to discern what being an object of observation really means. Even Tolstoy's hypothesized science of history one that would sum up an infinite number of factors contributing to an event belies a belief in a finite limit as well as a general conception of a specific state of all such factors at any given moment in time. Consequently, he conceives of reason as having limited access to objective knowledge of actual states of affairs. Reason of the sort discussed towards the end of War and Peace goes hand in hand with a certain view of science and of physical law a view which was prevalent in Tolstoy's time. Within this philosophical framework laws are descriptions of natural phenomena (1427), and through knowledge of these laws, the principles that govern objects may be disclosed indubitably. In this sense laws are similar to rules that relate the movement of reality from some initial state to a subsequent state. Based on such an understanding of science, reality is a necessitated progression of states of all existent things, and through reason we become adapt at discovering laws that govern this progress of reality. Tolstoy seems to have internalized this view, as evidenced by his statement "reason gives expression to the laws of necessity" (1438). Hence, according to him, questions of 'why' and 'what' with respect to events must be resolved by answers given in terms of laws. Causal factors are then just conditionals that connect temporally separate states of reality. Given the outlined network of axiomatic beliefs regarding the nature of reality, reason, and laws, it follows necessarily that reality is deterministic. So much so, in fact, that one who adopts these views may be led to a very hard-lined form of determinism: a view that if all of reality is in a particular state N at time t=0, then one and only one state N' will correspond to a particular subsequent moment in time t, so that the initial state of

23 FREE WILL IN WAR AND PEACE 17 reality N determines all subsequent states. If the following three conditions hold: 1) all of reality is governed by laws, 2) the whole of reality is in some definite initial state, and 3) human beings are part of this reality; then any state of a human being is necessarily determined by the initial state of reality and the laws that govern its unfolding. Tolstoy comes into very close contact with this hard-lined view, and at times he adopts it outright. For example he writes about causality: The third element influencing our judgment is the degree to which we can apprehend that endless chain of causation demanded by reason, in which every phenomenon capable of being understood (and therefore every human action) must have its definite place as a result of what has gone before and as a cause of what will follow (1434). However, he avoids full commitment to this ultra-determinism when he says that, despite our best attempts, it is impossible to "conceive of either complete freedom or complete necessity" (1436). Thus, Tolstoy appears to be acutely aware of the complexity and indeterminacy of the questions regarding freedom that he raises. Despite this intuition the conceptual framework within which he operates constantly pulls him in the direction of determinism. He is so entrenched in the distinction between reason and consciousness that he does not stop to ask what faculty is involved in the act of 'conceiving' of man as either free or determined. Is it the limit of our reason that prevents us from conceiving of complete necessity or is it our consciousness? The uncertainty, which he himself admits and which he must face, may itself be the result of an ambiguity in the distinction between reason and consciousness. Tolstoy's predispositions form a metaphysical bedrock that constrains the philosophical approaches available for addressing the problem of freewill. His views of reason, laws, and reality spur each other on in such a way that one supposition necessitates the others. At the heart of Tolstoy's metaphysics lies an unyielding clarity of what 'totality of existence' actually means. It stands to reason along these lines that if all of reality is in some definite state at any given moment, then all things that constitute this reality must posses a definite nature. In turn, the definite nature of things

24 18 NIKOLAY TUGUSHEV dictates that there must be laws governing the way an entity exhibits its inherent nature. In other words, the two beliefs that laws disclose the nature of things and that reference to the entirety of existence is in principle possible mutually support and necessitate one another, and Tolstoy embodies both. From this position a clear conception of knowledge and description of reality sprouts fourth in a natural way. It becomes easy to suppose that reason is able to trace the nature of things and subsequently, in the limit of infinite reason, to know the future states of all of reality. Tolstoy discloses as much about his metaphysical views when he discusses infinite summation of causes and taking account of all conditions underlying an event (1437). He imagines that, at least in principle, a complete description of reality is feasible. It is difficult to understand what justifications are given for accepting Tolstoy's metaphysical beliefs. He provides almost no justification for his most fundamental metaphysical convictions within War and Piece. Instead, they seem to be paradigmatic and indispensable for his thought, and so it is likely that in his mind they did not require support at all. Yet, these assumptions are the very ideas that push him towards his conclusions regarding determinism; however, a reductio ad absurdum argument requires that other possible assumptions of the original position are examined as well. The most difficult of these assumptions to accept is the idea of the totality of being the capacity to refer to everything that exists. For one, there appears to be no good empirical reason to suppose that such a reference is meaningful. After all, we always refer to some part of reality in relation to some other part, and we ourselves partition the range of possible experiences in order to make our discourse meaningful. Hence, we talk of experiences of a house or a tree, rather than all the sensory data available at a given moment. When one smells a flower it would be distracting and absurd to have to mention the feel of the ground as it exerts pressure on one's feet. Just taking a closer look at everyday sensory experience demonstrates the implausibility of referring to everything that exists. Furthermore, such reference involves a logical leap which consists in extrapolating from human capacity to refer to particulars, universals, and sets of universals, an additional ability to refer to everything that exists. Although such a leap may go unnoticed and feel very natural, extending a given capacity out to infinity may lead to numerous philosophical traps.

25 FREE WILL IN WAR AND PEACE 19 In addition, the idea that the entirety of reality can be referenced and held in one's mind is not supported by physical science. Neither is it supported by the physics of today, nor was this conceptualization any more plausible on physical grounds during Tolstoy's own time. One of the better attempts along this line lies in conceiving of the totality of all the energy in the universe; this would make as reasonable a boundary for physical reality as anything else. From the law of conservation of energy, which was accepted in Tolstoy's time, it can be supposed that a constant unchanging amount of energy is always present in the universe. From this supposition we can formulate the boundary of all existent things in terms of this constant. The first difficulty for such an approach is that a circular definition underlies the attempt. The concept of energy depends on the conservation law for its meaning. In other words, energy is typically defined as the quantity which is conserved under certain changes. Thus defining the bounds of reality in terms of energy depends on the definition of energy, which in turn depends on where the boundary of the universe is drawn for which a certain value is constant; this is a clear case of circular definition. Not to mention, the constant value of total energy is zero according to the leading science. Hence, in light of this approach, the state of reality N at time t=0 exactly determines all subsequent states of reality for the simple reason that the amount of energy in the universe is always the same mainly zero. In any case, the remainder of such a generous attempt to circumscribe 'everything that exists' is nothing like what Tolstoy could use for a discourse on determinism. In fact, referring to everything in terms of energy is almost completely uninformative for the issues of history and personal freedom addressed in the epilogue of War and Peace. In the epilogue the attempt to meaningfully discuss the set of all existing things becomes even more perplexing. Tolstoy seems to want to refer to all the people, all the bullets, all the cannons as well as all the planets and atoms in one sweeping shot. Another implication is that he would also need to refer to all those things we currently don't even know about. Thus history would need, like physics and mathematics, to "set out upon the new process of integrating the infinitesimal unknown" (1441). This of course assumes that history would deal with converging sums. Even with his apparent awareness

26 20 NIKOLAY TUGUSHEV of the issues' complexities, still Tolstoy believes that "however accessible may be the chain of causation of any action we shall never know the whole chain, since it is endless, and so again we never get a conception of absolute necessity" (1437); a statement that further demonstrates Tolstoy's inability to part with the assumption that referring to 'it' as a single chain of causes is meaningful and justifiable. Throughout the epilogue of War and Peace no support for this dubious assumption is ever attempted. Yet it has several significant implications for the discussion presented at the end of the book. Reason, as conceived by Tolstoy, must be something that operates in transcendent space where it can gaze at all of 'it' the entire chain of necessitated causality. Though human beings don't have full access to such omniscient reason, enough reason is nonetheless postulated that we can know that reality as a singular entity may, if only potentially, be taken up in a single gaze. One implication that follows directly from believing that there is such a thing as 'totality of reality' is that all events are determined and states of all entities are necessitated. Essential to note are those notions that are excluded by this assumption. Specifically, it is impossible that spontaneous self-caused events can take place. Otherwise the possibility of referring to a definite state of affairs of reality would be undermined. At any given moment, a spontaneous event one uncaused by previous states of reality may take place, and then the actual state of reality becomes otherwise than the one being considered right at that very moment. Furthermore, self-causation would run counter to every acceptable conception of law, natural or otherwise. Description and prediction of nature in terms of laws would have to cease, since any such prediction would be susceptible to erratic alteration and falsification, thereby making predictions worthless. As Tolstoy himself points out, "if there is even one heavenly body moving freely then the laws of Kepler and Newton are negated and no conception of the movement of the heavenly bodies any longer exists" (1440). He then goes on to say in the next line, "if there is a single human action due to freewill then not a single historical law can exist, nor any conception of historical events" (1440). This is a very curious yet definitive statement, which unequivocally discloses the meaning of freewill as it stands for Tolstoy. He thinks of freewill as a self-caused force

27 FREE WILL IN WAR AND PEACE 21 arising out of nothingness: "consciousness says: I am independent of cause, since I feel myself to be the cause of every manifestation of my life", and "to imagine a man perfectly free and not subject to the law of necessity we must imagine him alone, outside space, outside time and outside dependence on cause" (1438). At this point the set of claims becomes a bit overwhelming. Why should anyone imagine freewill as a self-caused act arising out of nowhere? It is unclear why Tolstoy feels that self-consciousness provides us with a feeling of instantaneous self-causation. On the contrary, as is frequently evidenced by the mental life of the characters in War and Peace, people perceive themselves as making decisions for which they construct justifications based on past events, future aspirations, and the affairs of the world. Never does a feeling of being in a mental vacuum overwhelm any one of the characters in the epic. In cases of amnesia due to shock of a wound or a paralyzing event, one grasps for memories in order to feel oneself back in control. So, if anything, consciousness seems to give us a feeling of being in control of ourselves. As Tolstoy skillfully argues, this perception of control is most often overestimated, but not because people feel themselves in possession of a spontaneously arising force. In connection with the question of freewill, another very ancient philosophical question is raised. The issue of personal freedom is closely tied to the problem of personal identity. Who is Napoleon or Czar Alexander? What does it mean to refer to a particular person? These questions naturally arise whenever it is debated whether any person exhibits freewill; it then must be examined whether memories are parts of a person or not. If memories are parts of a person's identity, and hence precedents for decisions, then freewill no matter how conceived is not spontaneous and unprecedented. Rather, there is a chain of causations and interconnections among memories, which constitutes another realm of causal interaction. These issues are never taken up explicitly by Tolstoy, and it is hard to see how the reductio argument may be convincing without addressing such concerns. Returning to the reductio argument, it is long overdue to examine what 'absurd conclusion' Tolstoy could have in mind, which for him follows from the assumption of freewill. Given the larger agenda in War and Peace of discrediting historical methods which rely on powers of individuals