Brandon Oto
11/30/08

Structural Assumptions in Philosophical Arguments

One inevitable observation by anyone who spends a soupçon of time in the verdant fields of philosophy is exactly how little tends to get done there. Certainly we have more theories available for the choosing today than yesterday, and a regular cornucopia of obscure terminology, but it seems difficult to call this “progress” given that the oldest theories have not actually gone away. To compare, this would be a little like the purveyors of science discovering Newtonian physics while still keeping around the theory of ether as a useful and equally-valid alternative.
Physicists, of course, would point out that the difference lies in what pools we allow our evidence to be drawn from. Theirs is physical science, which although hardly infallible is at least objectively concrete; ours is theoretical, which has a habit of surviving any assault. Certainly we would be tickled pink to have empirical evidence at hand to answer philosophical questions, and sometimes it can be relevant, but generally speaking the questions we ask are called “philosophical” exactly because they are the sort of questions for which physical evidence is unavailable.
Nevertheless, it would seem that even within these restrictions, a rather better job of analysis might have been achieved by now. In my view, the reason it has not is because the magnates and interlocutors of philosophy are very frequently, and perhaps unbeknownst to them, discussing altogether different things. In other words, the problem is not merely that they come to disagreement about specific points that cannot be settled without (generally unavailable) physical evidence; if we could get even that far, it would be a radical coup. Rather, the situation is more akin to Philosopher A declaiming, “I feel that the best material for roofing is shingles,” and Philosopher B responding, “No, no—surely the best surf is found in Miami.”
I will attempt here to illustrate some of these structural differences in the distinct descriptions of human consciousness presented by Kant (in Critique of Pure Reason) and Nietzsche (in Will to Power and The Gay Science). I will not make any effort to weigh in on the truth-value of either case; indeed, neither Nietzsche nor Kant is the real focus of this piece, but rather they are used to demonstrate a few of the confusions that would, if they were put in a room together, likely prevent them from reaching any sort of accord. This is far from a comprehensive analysis, but it should highlight the sort of thing I am suggesting.

Universal positions

There are essentially two categories of notion here: points of theory that both parties share, and points of theory where both parties differ. These vary significantly depending on the debate and on the debaters, but there are two specific matters where virtually everyone is in agreement.
First of all, it is almost unimaginable to have a philosophical argument that does not rely on basic deductive logic. This is the lingua franca of the craft, and while occasional debates do occur on the nature of logic itself, trying to exorcise it—at least the most essential elements, such as implication and conjunction—would be self-defeating and impossible. Of course, some arguments may feature logical errors by accident or ambiguity, but these are precisely the sort of flaws that opponents freely point fingers at; for everyone the logical model is the understood ideal.
The second point of general accord is what might be termed logical closure. This is little more than a generalized notion of Occam’s Razor, and is implicit in every argument that attempts to offer any sort of positive theory. Logical closure is the assumption that the explanans provided by the author is sufficient and necessary to wholly capture the explanandum. In other words, no additional creations need be imagined, nor further processes posited; the analysis as offered is the whole deal. No philosopher would offer a theory that only included three of four necessary premises; this would obviously be invalid and meaningless. This does not preclude the existence of some other facets—most philosophers would willingly allow that their case is not an “exhaustive” description of the explanandum—but it precludes the existence of other necessary components, such that any further premises must be optional if they are to be introduced. 

Starting points

Three essential questions must be addressed in any philosophical argument, although they are usually answered implicitly (and hence prone to confuse).

1. What are we interested in finding?

On the surface this is no different than asking “What is are you talking about?”, but it goes deeper. The surface answer for both Kant and Nietzsche is that they are interested in discussing a theory of consciousness. More fundamentally, though, the questions must be asked: What does “consciousness” mean to you? What kind of theory are you looking for? And what level of evidence would you require to validate it?
Kant’s project has several facets, the most prominent of which is the outlining of a cognitive theory of phenomenal awareness. He wants to tell us what consciousness is, where by “consciousness” he means the moment-to-moment experience of being a subjective being with an active brain and working senses. He also wants to tell us how this process happens. Importantly, he wants to tell us this only to one degree; he does not ask “how” a second time and attempt to explain the inner workings of each module of apperception. (This would be a task for neuroscientists, one assumes.) Rather, it is a sort of functional description, in the same way as a programmer might sketch a block-level design flowchart before actually writing lines of code for each included function.
Since his task is high-level theoretical, the only requirements of Kant’s project is that it fit the explanandum; it must “make sense” and explain how consciousness as we perceive it could exist. In other words, it is a search for a contingent theory of consciousness, one that is capable of explaining the phenomenon. It is not necessary to show (and Kant does not) that this is exact process actually takes place in our heads, although Kant would probably like to think there is something at least functionally very similar; certainly there is no requirement to show that no process but this one could explain consciousness in any possible world. It is merely a search for an available theory, one that is not manifestly wrong.
Nietzsche is after something much further along the spectrum in the direction of the real world. He makes it quite clear that his aim is naturalized and specifically focused on human beings, or at least intelligent animals. As such, he purposefully pushes aside the kind of hyper-theoretical investigations Kant makes use of. Strictly speaking, much of Kant’s apperceptive machinery is actually compatible with Nietzsche’s theories, as a description of the specific manner in which perception and understanding occurs, but it is not especially relevant. He is interested more in the practical nature of consciousness, in terms of its external relations to the person and to the world; he is “zoomed out” one more step than Kant. What Nietzsche is interested in is the overall purpose of the system; why does consciousness exist and what role does it play?
Nietzsche is therefore looking for a theory that is more grounded in reality than Kant’s, but less so than science. His theory is still purely conceptual in the sense that it does not rely on empirical confirmation (and likewise is not open to empirical falsification), but in the existentialist tradition, it is at least linked to this reality and the actual human race; he would presumably be open to other sorts of living things with a different sort of consciousness or none at all, whereas Kant’s theory attempts to be nearly a priori, something  “necessarily found in all cognition” (B127), a condition of possibility for a being to be called “conscious” at all.
In terms of direction, the “consciousness” Nietzsche refers to is more of an access than a phenomenal consciousness (in Ned Block’s terminology); it is the “head space” of internal language and conscious thoughts. He gives no real attention to the process of perception.
In the end, it can also not be denied that Nietzsche uses a fundamentally different approach to his arguments than Kant. Although he is undoubtedly a philosopher (albeit “of the hammer”), his goal as both stated and implied is as much to break down the existing constructions of that field as it is to lay out a rigorous new model. Therefore, as a practical matter the intellectual standards of his case are rather looser; he uses more emotion than logic and more rhetoric than bulletproof reasoning. If he were communicating in the same vein as Kant, this would amount to a poor argument, but taken in its own way (a Nietzschean blend of irreverence and assault on the intuitions, held together with enough support to be compelling), it stands adequately.

2. What assumptions will be made?

Very few philosophical arguments attempt to illuminate more than one broad point at a time. This is for simplicity’s sake if nothing else; an argument that tried to do all things at once would be unwieldy to produce as well as to understand. But what this means, of course, is that in order to focus on the topic of interest, a great many other premises must be taken as given.
Assumed points tend to be of two types. A premise is either assumed because the author takes it to be intuitively obvious, or because he has overlooked it. Frequently both are true, in that something is overlooked exactly because it seems so obvious. But these are two distinct types. Overlooked assumptions can be called up by critics, then debated in their own right; this is one of the standard methods of posing an objection. Points taken to be intuitively obvious, however, are generally dead-ends; they can be objected to by those who find them less obvious, and frequently are, but since there is very little that will defuse strong intuitions, it is rarely the case that even a well-built counter-argument has any purchase. The closest alternative is usually to show the reason we hold an intuitive-but-false belief; however, this may or may not slay the intuition itself, so many debates die on these points.
One final subcategory of assumptions are those that lack adequate justification, but that must be assumed true for practical argumentative reasons. For instance, Kant and Nietzsche both share one of the most widespread assumptions, which is the rejection of skepticism. There are not many philosophical arguments that assume skepticism, or even brook its possibility; this is not so much because it is obviously wrong—indeed, for logical reasons it is next to impossible to debunk—as because any argument that accepts skepticism tends to get no further. Strictly speaking, therefore, all such arguments should be seen as conditional proofs, true only as far as the truth of their assumptions, but this does not bother very many people—since, per the above, their intuitions usually deny possibilities like skepticism anyway.
It seems that both Nietzsche and Kant accept something like physicalism, or at least monism. This is difficult to establish, since for both of them their interests lie elsewhere, and they talk at length about functional concepts without much regard to their ontological nature, but it is never suggested that any of their constructs would require bases in anything but physical reality. (Both reference God and spirits and so on, but not in any relevant way.) Nietzsche’s theories in particular dovetail rather well even with modern science.
One critical point of deviation in assumptions is that Kant accepts as true that “we” exist, in the sense of a transcendental ego or apperceiving self. He focuses very critically on this issue, of course, since characterizing it is the topic of much of his work, but there is nevertheless an underlying assumption present that this sort of consciousness is a self-sufficient, coherent entity, creating observable phenomena for “someone.” For Nietzsche, this is off-base; he challenges this assumption, suggesting that there is no such magical construction. Thus, rather than describing the character of this thing, he instead builds up a model of an animal of a sort that can be deluded into the impression that it is a thinking thing, although in fact it is merely a collection of animal drives (which can perhaps be thought of as a “thinking thing” in its own way, but is certainly not what we imagine when we use that term).

The assumption of one single subject is perhaps unnecessary; perhaps it is just as permissible to assume a multiplicity of subjects, whose interaction and struggle is the basis of our thought and our consciousness in general? A kind of aristocracy of “cells” in which dominion resides? To be sure, an aristocracy of equals, used to ruling jointly and understanding how to command? (Will to Power §490)

The distinction is subtle, but the precise reason why Nietzsche’s model seems somewhat unusual is that it denies this assumption on Kant’s part. Rather than implicitly accepting and trying to describe the unified self, he scuttles it altogether, undoubtedly leaving some to think that he has not answered the question so much as changed the subject.
A final important difference in assumptions is the relative amounts of respect paid to the truth-foundational qualities of conscious cognition. The Cartesian tradition is to challenge the certainty of perceptual sensations; perhaps they do not accurately reflect the external world, as there are ample ways for our perceptions to be mistaken. But this tradition also holds as inviolable the actual contents of our thoughts; we can be mistaken in thinking that a perception holds true to reality, but we can never be mistaken in the fact that our perception does exist, seems a certain way, and is coherent. This whole theme of assigning high privilege to the internal processes of mentation is a common one and Descartes uses it as a foundation to extrapolate the rest of reality. Kant does not go so far—for him, reality (the noumenal) is properly sacrosanct, unavailable to us altogether—but he does still assume the truth of our internal states. “For I am indeed conscious to myself of my representations; thus these exist, and I myself, who has these representations.” (A371) Conscious thoughts are where it’s at; it is quite senseless to suggest that one could be mistaken in what he thinks or sees, and all the more so for perceptions of the self (introspection), which may tell you things that are illusory (as they are still only phenomenal), but they will at least cohere to your overall apperception.
Nietzsche challenges this as well. The activity of conscious thought is not fundamental to anything; the “aliveness” of the person exists in his automatic drives and behaviors, not in the conscousness, which is fairly unimportant to our overall functioning.

The problem of consciousness . . . first confronts us when we begin to realize how much we can do without it . . . for we could think, feel, will, remember, and also “act” in every sense of the term, and yet none of all this would have to “enter our consciousness” . . . consciousness in general has developed only under the pressure of the need to communicate. (The Gay Science §354) 

Furthermore, not only does the consciousness not play a vital role in our biological goings-on, the understanding it weaves about both the self and the external world is more wrong than right. Because conscious thoughts must be translated into symbols such as words, the things they purport to represent are stripped of their true qualities and turned into shallow descriptions.

At bottom, all our actions are incomparably and utterly personal, unique, and boundlessly individual, there is no doubt; but as soon as we translate them into consciousness, they no longer seem to be. . . . the world of which we can become conscious is merely a surface- and sign-world, a world turned into generalities and thereby debased to its lowest common denominator . . . (§354)

There is nothing fundamentally true or certain about states of the mind; why would there be? It is merely a tool to facilitate communication, an activity which is often facilitated by not reflecting the truth. Far from being an “organ for knowing, for truth,” (§354) consciousness is very nearly the opposite.

3. To what extent are we prepared to deny the intuitions?

As previously noted, to a large extent laying the groundwork of a philosophical theory consists in determining which matters will be taken for granted and which will be challenged. However, there is a broader point here, which is that reliance on intuition is a thread woven through almost every argument, not just as the unquestioned support for its basic points, but also as an overall standard for coherence and “common sense.”
This is important, because this backdrop of intuition is at once a thorn in the side and a necessary evil. To make any point of real weight, we must deny at least some intuitive truths; if there were not prima facie reasons to think both ways on the issue, it would not have survived so long as a vexing topic of philosophical inquiry. On some level, everyone acknowledges this, and is willing to play the game of “hunt-the-intuition.” However, everyone also has their own threshold in this unnatural endeavor, and at some point must say, “I cannot see the flaw in your argument, but I am unwilling to accept any theory that asserts x.”
This functions not as a step in the debate, but as an end to it; certainly intuitions can be used as a helpful “sniff test” at earlier stages, to help tell us whether we may have inadvertently made an error that our subconscious recognizes, but that is a different application. Rather, in this role the intuition serves as a holistic test for accepting a theory at all; logical soundness is one criterion we use, but whether it violates our maximum tolerance for non-intuitiveness is another.
One of the key points where Nietzsche and Kant differ is on the setting for this threshold. Kant can be understood as denying some intuitions, such as the layman’s belief that what one perceives is in fact objective reality, but on the whole his model is not too unsettling to the average educated philosopher. Nietzsche takes a far more radical approach. The difference in his theory is not merely that it is more unusual than Kant’s; the difference is that when everything unpacks, it entails conclusions of such severity that they run counter to the intuitions of almost everyone. Nietzsche is not the most rigorous analyst, but this is not an issue with his rigor; rather, it is the inevitable result of producing a theory that tries to change the parameters of our very identity. Kant tells us why we are what we think we are; Nietzsche tells us we are not that at all. Anyone with a lower intuition tolerance than Nietzsche will take this as a self-defeating argument by way of reductio ad absurdum, whereas anyone whose tolerance is equal or greater will have no qualms. This is a low-lying distinction that makes itself known before a single word of the actual argument can be heard.

Conclusions

The theories of both Kant and Nietzsche are philosophically rich and toothsome; none of the above is meant to minimize the value of their ideas on the field of thought. Rather, my point here is that certain decisions are inevitably made, usually implicitly, whenever a theory is presented, and without recognizing these decisions, it is not clear what the theory is actually about. These decisions and assumptions take place before the argument and will therefore not necessarily come under scrutiny in the ordinary course of analyzing its merits; however, if they are never brought to light, then the fact can completely escape the attention of all parties that their passionately-held positions are not actually in disagreement. Consequently, the debates continue to rage—because how can anyone ever settle whether surfing in Miami is better than tiling a roof with shingles?
 Explicitly recognizing these “invisible” elements of a theory does not get us any closer to settling the theory’s soundness, but it is a necessary condition for it. Before we march forward, we must make the preparations to do so correctly; we must not be so eager to make progress that we end up making it in the wrong direction.