As the title suggests, this post consists of two questions about chairs. I’m back towards thinking that I have a solution, of sorts, to the problem of imaginative resistance (not the solution I proposed in the stages paper), but it turns on some questions about chairs being answered in the right kind of way. So here are the questions.

A, B and C visit a new design showroom. Many of the objects there are hard to classify into particular categories. One of them, x, is somewhat, but not quite entirely, like a chair. A thinks it is a chair, though B and C deny this. (Presumably it is possibly indeterminate whether x is a chair, but none of them think this.)

When they are asked to draw, from memory, what x looked like, A and B produce identical drawings, but C produces a drawing that is quite different. (A, B and C are all skilled draughters, so their sketches faithfully reproduce their memories.) It seems that B disagrees with both A and C. She disagrees with C about what the object looked like, what shape it was etc, and with A about whether it is a chair.

Question: How should we characterise the two differences of opinion?

I think, somewhat tendentiously, that A and B agree on the facts, but make a different judgment about the facts, while B and C disagree about the facts. This is tendentious, not to mention controversial, because it is clearly a fact (if it is true) that x is a chair. It is not as if A and B agree on the physical description of a certain action but disagree about whether it is right or wrong, for instance. It is at least controversial whether that kind of dispute even could be factual. My claim is that the chair case is not like that, and getting clear on the differences between B’s two disagreements helps see that.

More generally, I think that if x is F (or not) entirely in virtue of which determinate properties from the determinables D1, D2, …, Dn it possesses, and A and B agree about which determinate in each such determinable it possesses, then disagreement between A and B about whether x is F should be thought of as a disagreement about a matter of judgment, not a factual disagreement. And I think x is a chair (or not) in virtue of its shape and size, and perhaps whether it is maximal, and perhaps its origin and the intent of its creators, and perhaps the physical nature of the community in which the object is embedded. (Something that is not a chair here may be a chair in a community where everyone is 1000m tall.) I assume that in this case x was created with the right intent to be a chair, and is maximal, and that A and B agree more or less on the relevant socio-physiological facts that are relevant to whether x is a chair. And by hypothesis they agree on its shape and size. So their disagreement is not a factual disagreement, in some sense.

The claims in the previous paragraph turn crucially on the term in virtue of, and it would be nice to know a little more about this. So some more questions.

Consider the chair in which I am now sitting. (You presumably were not antecedently aware of this chair.) I think it is a chair in virtue of its shape. But it does not have its shape in virtue of being a chair? What explains the asymmetry here? (I presume this is a well worked field and I’m simply ignorant of the tillings, but ignorance has never stopped a blogger before.)

I think the answer here should relate to the literature on superdupervenience. Here are two kinds of claims that may be relevant to explaining the asymmetry. First, if we changed the shape of the chair a little, it would still be a chair, but if we changed its chairness, it would probably not retain its shape – depending perhaps on how we made it cease to be a chair. Secondly, it could have a radically different shape and still be a chair, but it could not be a radically different type of furniture and still have the shape it does. It could not be a bed, for instance, with just this shape. Both of these ground a kind of asymmetry between the shape properties of the chair and the furniture properties. I’m inclined to think the second is more important, but I might leave my comments on why it is more important to the morning.

So here’s my latest theory of imaginative resistance. The author’s job is to tell us what the facts are about the fictional world. (She is also obliged to do this as artistically as possible, I say, but we’re trying to ignore aesthetics here.) The reader’s job is to evaluate, or more broadly make judgments about, the fictional world. Once the facts in virtue of which some higher-level fact obtains (or not) are set, questions about whether that higher-level fact obtains become in the relevant sense judgment questions, not factual questions, so they are in the domain of the reader, not the author. Hence we will reject authorial authority in these areas. The resistance to moral claims is a special case: moral facts are (very) high level facts that obtain in virtue of lower level facts, and resistance normally arises when the lower level facts are given, but the author nevertheless insists on recording a judgment about the higher level, moral facts.

To make this a complete theory, I need to say a little more about levels, which in turn requires filling out the ‘in virtue of’ locution. And I need to say a little about how this interacts with the possibility of impossible fictions. And I may need to say a little about the division of fictional labour presumed above. But I’m feeling as confident as one ought feel at this hour that we’re making progress here, perhaps more so.

As the title suggests, this post consists of two questions about chairs. I’m back towards thinking that I have a solution, of sorts, to the problem of imaginative resistance (not the solution I proposed in the stages paper), but it turns on some questions about chairs being answered in the right kind of way. So here are the questions.

A, B and C visit a new design showroom. Many of the objects there are hard to classify into particular categories. One of them, x, is somewhat, but not quite entirely, like a chair. A thinks it is a chair, though B and C deny this. (Presumably it is possibly indeterminate whether x is a chair, but none of them think this.)

When they are asked to draw, from memory, what x looked like, A and B produce identical drawings, but C produces a drawing that is quite different. (A, B and C are all skilled draughters, so their sketches faithfully reproduce their memories.) It seems that B disagrees with both A and C. She disagrees with C about what the object looked like, what shape it was etc, and with A about whether it is a chair.

Question: How should we characterise the two differences of opinion?

I think, somewhat tendentiously, that A and B agree on the facts, but make a different judgment about the facts, while B and C disagree about the facts. This is tendentious, not to mention controversial, because it is clearly a fact (if it is true) that x is a chair. It is not as if A and B agree on the physical description of a certain action but disagree about whether it is right or wrong, for instance. It is at least controversial whether that kind of dispute even could be factual. My claim is that the chair case is not like that, and getting clear on the differences between B’s two disagreements helps see that.

More generally, I think that if x is F (or not) entirely in virtue of which determinate properties from the determinables D1, D2, …, Dn it possesses, and A and B agree about which determinate in each such determinable it possesses, then disagreement between A and B about whether x is F should be thought of as a disagreement about a matter of judgment, not a factual disagreement. And I think x is a chair (or not) in virtue of its shape and size, and perhaps whether it is maximal, and perhaps its origin and the intent of its creators, and perhaps the physical nature of the community in which the object is embedded. (Something that is not a chair here may be a chair in a community where everyone is 1000m tall.) I assume that in this case x was created with the right intent to be a chair, and is maximal, and that A and B agree more or less on the relevant socio-physiological facts that are relevant to whether x is a chair. And by hypothesis they agree on its shape and size. So their disagreement is not a factual disagreement, in some sense.

The claims in the previous paragraph turn crucially on the term in virtue of, and it would be nice to know a little more about this. So some more questions.

Consider the chair in which I am now sitting. (You presumably were not antecedently aware of this chair.) I think it is a chair in virtue of its shape. But it does not have its shape in virtue of being a chair? What explains the asymmetry here? (I presume this is a well worked field and I’m simply ignorant of the tillings, but ignorance has never stopped a blogger before.)

I think the answer here should relate to the literature on superdupervenience. Here are two kinds of claims that may be relevant to explaining the asymmetry. First, if we changed the shape of the chair a little, it would still be a chair, but if we changed its chairness, it would probably not retain its shape – depending perhaps on how we made it cease to be a chair. Secondly, it could have a radically different shape and still be a chair, but it could not be a radically different type of furniture and still have the shape it does. It could not be a bed, for instance, with just this shape. Both of these ground a kind of asymmetry between the shape properties of the chair and the furniture properties. I’m inclined to think the second is more important, but I might leave my comments on why it is more important to the morning.

So here’s my latest theory of imaginative resistance. The author’s job is to tell us what the facts are about the fictional world. (She is also obliged to do this as artistically as possible, I say, but we’re trying to ignore aesthetics here.) The reader’s job is to evaluate, or more broadly make judgments about, the fictional world. Once the facts in virtue of which some higher-level fact obtains (or not) are set, questions about whether that higher-level fact obtains become in the relevant sense judgment questions, not factual questions, so they are in the domain of the reader, not the author. Hence we will reject authorial authority in these areas. The resistance to moral claims is a special case: moral facts are (very) high level facts that obtain in virtue of lower level facts, and resistance normally arises when the lower level facts are given, but the author nevertheless insists on recording a judgment about the higher level, moral facts.

To make this a complete theory, I need to say a little more about levels, which in turn requires filling out the ‘in virtue of’ locution. And I need to say a little about how this interacts with the possibility of impossible fictions. And I may need to say a little about the division of fictional labour presumed above. But I’m feeling as confident as one ought feel at this hour that we’re making progress here, perhaps more so.