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Originally Posted by JayUtah
The Pentagon withheld the video for a long time. That is inescapable fact. There are a number of hypotheses being put forward to explain the delay. That is, there are propositions alleging motive.
One proposition is that they did not wish to taint Z. Moussaoui's trial.
Another is that the Pentagon felt evidence contained in it would challenge the official story or support some conspiracy theory.
Yet another argues that it was done to bait conspiracists into making a claim that the video would refute, in order to discredit them.
We can continue to hypothesize ad nauseam, but the point to all of this is that each hypothesis we pose is by nature an allegation of fact. Any allegation of fact is subject to objective examination. That is, each hypothesis is either true or false according to historical occurrence. It is not subject to belief or to normative requirements.
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No. Attributing a motive is a matter of interpretation: fitting their act with previous acts, and telling a plausible story about it. This is why people may be confused or mistaken about their own motives.
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Originally Posted by JayUtah
This is something that scientists understand easily, but over which philosophers habitually stumble. Philosophers are uncomfortable with the notion that there exists an absolute truth. I do not wish to discuss the questions above in any sort of subjective framework, and you have several times now attempted to steer this discussion into normative territory. This is not a question of what is believed to have happened, but what actually happened and how we can come to know it. The account of what actually happened is a matter of absolute fact and exists independent of any belief for or against it.
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Incredibly patronising. Scientists easily understand it, philosophers don't, therefore what scientists think they understand must be true?
I have no trouble conceding that absolute truths exist; just not in this case.
Scientists like you find it hard to concede that in certain areas no absolute truths exist, and discussion will have to be on normative territory.
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Originally Posted by JayUtah
I'll remind you of a similar argument you made earlier and conceded. We disagreed over the intent behind a certain statement that appeared in the NIST report. You interpreted it as claiming a certain thing, and I interpreted it as specifically avoiding any such claim. At first you argued that you were not interpreting it. Then we discussed various possible interpretations and you conceded that you were indeed applying an interpretation. Then you attempt to argue that the interpretation of a reader would supplant, in some ways, the original intent of the author. But there again you were forced to concede that the author's intent behind a statement remains intact regardless of what others may believe the intent of it to have been. This prompted your as-yet unsuccessful inquiries at NIST.
You conceded in the above argument that the author's intent is an absolute truth. It does not change character as others' belief about it changes, or as evidence suggests one thing or another about it.
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I have no memory of conceding that. I may have not taken you up on it any further, since I believe that such intent is not relevant to the meaning of the public statement.
I contacted NIST to give them a chance to clear it up; a further public statement might have made it clear how to interpret the earlier statement.
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Originally Posted by JayUtah
Now here we draw an important distinction. I illustrate it best by a contrasting example. We had a lively but largely pointless discussion here earlier about your motive in continuing to post here. There was a lot of speculation, observation, rendition of opinion, argument, and inference. But you, as an individual, are the only authority on your intent as it exists absolutely. You may not exhibit any exterior evidence that leads someone else to know your intent. It is purely internal.
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No. As you may have gathered above, I deny this. A well-worn topic in the philosophy of mind, which is one area well within my expertise.
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Originally Posted by JayUtah
However, when we consider entities such as "the government" or "the Pentagon" that are corporate in nature, if they are said to have a motive then it must be a unified motive in order for the argument to hold. Otherwise we consider the unapproved actions of rogues, not a concerted course of action. A unified corporate motive must be the product of deliberation, and that deliberation will be externalized. That is, if the motive of "the Pentagon" was, in fact, to bait conspiracists into an untenable position, then in order to assign the motive as such, there must be a meeting or discussion or statement or other instrument by which the corporate nature of that motive was established.
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No, it's not as simple as that. Motives of organizations: a well-worn topic in business ethics. What I deny is that it 'must be a unified motive'. An organisation's act may be deliberate, even as it is the product of a number of individuals each acting with their own motive. And it may be a deliberate act of baiting, if the resulting act is one of baiting, even if that rests upon the motive(s) of one or two individuals.
That, in fact, is to my mind the most plausible line a conspiracist would take here.
So the evidence would then consist of looking at the acts of that individuals (those few individuals), and providing a plausible interpretation fitting those actions. That is a normative discussion. And it would first require identifying the relevant individuals (and their actions) which I have no idea how to do.