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Warranted Doability
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 January 2009
Extract
Objectivity is not the same thing as independence from the mind. Because the word ‘mind’ has been used to cover myriad things from pains to practices, care must be taken as to just what it is independence from which is in question. The gut notion of objectivity is captured in an anecdote from the life of Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln and a political colleague were discussing how to get a policy across and the colleague suggested labelling the policy in a certain way; they happened to be near a donkey and their dialogue went like this:
‘Sir, how many legs does this donkey have?’
‘Four, Mr. Lincoln’
‘And how many tails has it?’
‘Why, just one, Mr. Lincoln’
‘Tell me, sir, what if we were to call the tail a leg; how many legs would the donkey then have?’
‘Five, Mr. Lincoln’.
‘No, sir; for you cannot make a tail into a leg by calling it one’.
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- Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1988
References
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