Tag Archives: philosophy

Un-authorised

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I ‘ve tried enough times to disturb some difference worth mentioning in describing my upbringing or culture to recognise I do n’t easily produce a helpful product.  ’My home is different from here in that…’  Worse yet, I found myself endlessly searching for what distinguished ‘me’.  Some of us should cede the field upon dis-covering we are not experts.

I ‘m not sure exactly why, but over the past year I ‘ve been collecting reasons not to write a book.  One is being added tonight: the best biography (=least mis-leading?) is rarely the auto-biography.  In short, I should perhaps choose not to retain sole privilege of recounting what boundaries of events and experiences distinguish me from you.  A third party may do a fairer job.

Part of the reason is because I rarely become aware of the mis-understandings which constitute my daily existence.  I react not to the world as it is, but to the world as such — as I expect it to be.  As such I am hoping the approximations produce acceptable results — but who would I be to tell you what was most important about my story?  My job is at best to invite you in to the home in which I myself am a stranger, and let you misunderstand it for yourself.

So I ‘m giving up my rights as an authorised witness in order to extend the horizons.  I do n’t doubt I could add a few ‘we don’t do that’s which might dissuade the easier misunderstandings, but I do not pretend to know who is in the best position to know how specifically I may best be misunderstood.

Not Till We Are Lost

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Not till we are lost, in other words, till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations.

~~H.D. Thoreau, Walden ‘the Village’, p. 115 (Norton ed.)

All ways it surprises me how one reading leads to another.  I am reduced, though it is my gain, to admit that in being lost one becomes more intimately aware of relations, if not relatedness itself (how such should ascend the stage would be quite the imponderable — how to raise the curtain which by nature connects all to itself?).

The best Wiki could offer

Is n’t being lost amidst a sea of pages similar to being lost amidst the calm of wintering trees?

But I am reduced in conveying the value of ‘lostness’.  How can an example be helpful if the experience itself is paramount?  Let it be understood I mean less to point at than to indicate; it is merely ironic that I should at last find an acquaintance with S. Cavell only after being dis-covered 9for all reading is being read — an idea I believe I am borrowing from Cavell here9 to Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations.

In reading one can hardly help multiplying ‘relations’ as I believe Thoreau would have them.

“““““““““““““““““““““““““`

For Thoreau ‘reading’ in such manner is seeing everything in the light of being darkened to the world which sets its watch by the locomotive and is employed not in living but in holding onto what scraps of life are allowed — turning away from that enslaving which is ownership so that the ‘read’er may find life in its sport rather than be made sport of as life runs past:

[L]et not to get a living be thy trade, but thy sport.  Enjoy the land, but own it not.

~~ibidem “Baker Farm” p. 139

The path to such reading can only be seen if one has ‘been turned round once in this world’ (p. 115).  To find oneself can only come by means of being lost.  Till then, till one is lost and finds that she is everywhere at home — till then sight must be sought.  And that is reading in its truest form.

My reading of Wittgenstein has led through Cavell and into Walden all too naturally, but it is only because I am growing used to the lost element in reading that I find them such near relations.

Ainigma

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I do n’t much like introductions.  They far too often appear to be conclusions (and writing another conclusion which resummarized the introduction was…I can’t even conclude that thought).  I was, and remain, resistant to the practice in my writing (that too sounds conclusive).

In introducing another to a process, or to a game, one does not point to what is ‘important’ or speak of ‘conclusions’.

And now we ‘ve segued to Wittgenstein.  Whew.

If Philosophical Investigations were set in the typical format, some flavor would be lost.  The struggle would n’t hang in the air.  I would be wrestling with Wittgenstein’s conclusions, not along with Wittgenstein.  He despaired of channeling such thoughts in book-form, and as such he is far more helpful.  He does n’t have to tell me what is important, just show how he is struggling (would n’t we be better teachers if we did the same).

I should not like my writing to spare other people the trouble of thinking.   But, if possible, to stimulate someone to thoughts of his own.  (preface to Philosophical Investigations)

\\         ||           //]   &

Thus I am able to treat his work as a series of notes, useful or unuseful, but cannot quite answer the question ‘Have you read Wittgenstein?’  Instead I am, in some measure, struggling alongside him toward aims not wholly his own.

Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.  (#109 from Bk. 1, ibid, p. 47)

For his thought, it seems that an appeal to the metaphysical is reprehensible insofar as it denies the fact that it is saying ‘I don’t understand’ but pretends still to be an explanation.

What ‘we’ do is to bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use.  (#116, p. 48)

And now to the thought which I ‘ve been struck by: what is this ‘everyday’?  ’Do all ordinary things strike us so?’ (#600, p. 156)  When we try to leave the metaphysical and obstinately confusing which comprises our language game, the first inclining is to turn towards its opposite.  If the philosophers are confused, let us turn to the un-philosophical or at least the non-philosophical.  Where is that?  We want to say in the ordinary.  But we can’t apply Wittgenstein’s test, ‘can you point to it?’, or can’t we?

Can’t we?  What day can we point to and say ‘this is ordinary’.  It can only be accomplished from a distance.  The ordinary retreats from view.

(**      *(        **         *)     )* *

And now that we have been introduced to the enigmatic, which leads who knows where:

My aim is to teach you to pass from a piece of disguised nonsense to something that is patent nonsense.  (#464, p. 133)

Intros to European Philosophy: Nietzsche

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FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE (1844-1900)

Previously read: Birth of Tragedy, the, ‘Seventy-Five Aphorisms from Five Volumes’, Beyond Good and Evil, On the Genealogy of Morals, Case of Wagner, the, Ecce Homo.  But, I have n’t read him in awhile: the last time was the gap-year between undergrad and masters.  Also, when the title is European Philosophers from Descartes to Nietzsche (ed. M. Beardsley), you ‘re a bit happy to finally have arrived at the end. Of the philosophers to be found therein, I feel most familiar with Nietzsche.  You could accuse me of starting this blog as a place to exercise (probably not exorcise) Nietzsche and Kierkegaard’s stirrings.

Key texts: Beyond Good and Evil (abr.)

Overall impression: Nietzsche was n’t an unfamiliar subject, but I was for once able to locate him against (often) Kant, Schopenhauer, and Hegel.

Surprises:

**’^`’ *

 

Abstrusest im-pulses

 

“Indeed, to understand how the abstrusest metaphysical assertions of a philosopher have been arrived at, it is always well (and wise) to first ask oneself: ‘What morality do they (or does he) aim at?’  Accordingly, I do not believe that an ‘impulse to knowledge’ is the father of philosophy; but that another impulse here as elsewhere, has only made use of knowledge (and mistaken knowledge!) as an instrument. (European Philosophers from Descartes to Nietzsche ed. M. Beardsley, p. 808)”

I ‘m quite partial to these sentiments regarding the ‘true vital germ’ of philosophers; they are not chosen for knowledge’s sake but in view to accomplishing some other aim, an aim which is all too often contrary to the means of communicating it.  Beware the one who is elusive in this matter.

>>-[[>

Begging the Faculty and Opiates

 

“But let us reflect for a moment – it is high time to do so.  ‘How are synthetic a priori judgments possible?’  Kant asks himself – and what is really his answer? ‘By means of a means (faculty)’ – but unfortunately not in five words, but so circumstantially, imposingly, and wish such a display of German profundity and verbal flourishes, that one altogether loses sight of the comical niaiserie allemande involved in such an answer… One can do no greater wrong to the whole of this exuberant and eccentric movement…than to take it seriously, or even treat it with moral indignation… But is that – an answer?  An explanation? Or is it not merely begging the question?  How does opium induce sleep?  ‘By means of a means (faculty),’ namely the virtus dormitiva, replies the doctor in Moliere,

Quia est in eo virtus dormitiva,

Cujus est natura sensus assoupire.

[Because it contains a soporific power,

Whose nature is to dull the senses. ~ trans. Monroe Beardsley] (p. 811)”

We should expect scalding remarks from Nietzsche; it is our weakness then to be surprised and reflect little on the content therein.  Opium induces sleep because it has a ‘soporific effect’, just as any other physical explanation fails to explain the phenomena in absence of the physical relation – the same could be said for our explanations of gravity: things fall because the smaller mass experiences the pull exerted by the greater.  We still have no idea why.  Why then we should agree with Kant, if he has ‘explained’ nothing – it does not matter, for Nietzsche, as they are in our mouths only false judgments (p. 812).

#^<—-##?

Who exactly is doing the thinking here?

“With regard to the superstitions of the logicians, I shall never tire of emphasizing a small, terse fact, which these credulous minds are unwilling to recognize – namely, that a thought comes when ‘it’ wishes and, not when ‘I’ wish; so that it is aperversion of the facts of the case to say that the subject ‘I’ is the condition of the predicate ‘think.’  Something thinks; but that this ‘something’ is precisely the famous old ‘ego,’ is, to put it mildly, only a supposition, an assertion, and assuredly not an ‘immediate certainty.’ (European Philosophers, p. 815)”

Even the something which thinks is imposed by the observer.  So much for Descartes, but then, this is what happens when Nietzsche is allowed the last word: he relishes it.

&&==;///

In a name, prejudice lurks

 

“But it seems to me again that in this case Schopenhauer also only did what philosophers are in the habit of doing – he seems to have adopted a popular prejudice and exaggerated it.  Willing seems to me to be above all something complicated, something that is a unity only in name – and it is precisely in a name that popular prejudice lurks, which has got the mastery over the inadequate precautions of philosophers in all ages. (p. 816)”

The will is certainly an important matter for both Nietzsche and Kierkegaard, a matter too much neglected in many prominent philosophical systems (Descartes, Spinoza, Kant, and to some extent Hegel), but it is certainly a complex matter.  It is not simply enough to know that the will to power or the will to action are the reason for which we think and discuss matters, we must not make the mistake of Descartes in allowing it to be simple.

~~~__^^^

The escape into normalcy

 

“That the various philosophical ideas do not evolve randomly or autonomously, but in connection and relationship with each other; that, however suddenly and arbitrarily they seem to appear in the history of thought, they nevertheless belong just as much to a system as the members of the fauna of a continent – is betrayed in the end by the circumstance: how unfailingly the most diverse philosophers always fill in again a definite fundamental scheme of possible philosophies.  Under an invisible spell, they always revolve once more in the same orbit; however independent of each other they may feel themselves with their critical or systematic wills, something within them leads them, something impels them in definite order, the one after the other – to wit, the innate methodology and relationship of their ideas. (pp. 817-818)”

Leave it to Nietzsche or Foucault to say a lot in two sentences, with a lot of Nietzschian/Foucauldian asides to mark their respective streams of consciousness, but still to wander on their way.  It makes for interesting reading and it is n’t ‘clean’ in the manner of some philosophers.  That ideas operate within a discourse and are essentially all reactions to each other (and necessarily they are always in response to some finite series of former reactions) is a point which needs making (even as a reaction, it still needs to be said again as the counterreaction is sure to come back).

Pausality

“[O]ne should use ‘cause’ and ‘effect’ only as pure concepts, that is to say, as conventional fictions for the purpose of designation and mutual understanding –not for explanation. (pp. 818-819)”

I love considering causality, and alternatives to causal explanations, but prefer to note that ‘cause’ and ‘effect’ are useful in day to day discourse as language conventions; but ought to not be thought of formally as useful descriptors.  For Nietzsche, the only helpful causality is the causality of will (because any who wills certainly expects to make a specific change – to will this thing) (p. 823) and for Ghazali it is most important that causality not limit God’s freedom.

  • This is only an aside, but in speaking of experience Nietzsche leaves this: “[E]xperience, as it seems to me, always implies unfortunate experience? (p. 833)”

 

Fear of the known

“Every deep thinker is more afraid of being understood than of being misunderstood.  The latter perhaps wounds his vanity; but the former wounds his heart, his sympathy, which always say: ‘Ah why would you also have as hard a time of it as I have?’ (p. 849)”

I have elsewhere remarked on this passage, so I only here would say that understanding, as truth or knowledge, is power-language and can so be deemed abusive by one who feels experience has given her a right to speak thusly.

Intros to European Philosophy: Comte

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ISIDORE AUGUSTE MARIE FRANCOIS COMTE (1798-1857)

Previously read: non

Key texts: General View of Positivism, the. Ch. I and VI (abr.)

Overall impression: He’s way too fond of the word ‘Positivism’ and was keen to consistently aver that it solved many problems, only he could never seem to successfully explain how.  Needless to say, I was rolling downhill in the European Philosophers from Descartes to Nietzsche and Comte warranted less mental energy than Mach (a pleasant surprise) or Nietzsche.

Surprises:

occasion for theology

“It is to the fact that theology arose spontaneously from feeling that its influence is for the most part due. (European Philosophers, ed. M. Beardsley: p. 735)”

In the previous sentence he states that the life of the individual and of the race is always based in feeling, so this is not a particularly mean or weak conception.  But he’s convinced that the new philosophy will eventually supersede theology’s place in society.  Perhaps there has been a blending such that most theology is this ‘new philosophy’, but he never satisfactorily explains for me what means he by this new philosophy – this positivism(http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/comte/).  So I’m disinclined to be so generous with my analysis.

  • trivia note, as per Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (entry by Michael Bourdeau): Brasil’s motto, Ordo e Progresso is at least in part a signal of Comte’s influence

 

atheism is too theistic

“Atheism, even from the intellectual point of view, is a very imperfect form of emancipation; for its tendency is to prolong the metaphysical stage indefinitely, by continuing to seek for new solutions of Theological problems, instead of setting aside all inaccessible researches on the ground of their utter inutility. (ibidem, p 745)”

This seems most logical; if I were atheistic I would be so in the truest sense and therefore anti-theism on theological grounds would occupy as little of my precious time as possible.  That is, true emancipation would n’t look like the antithesis of theism, but theistic concerns would be minimal at best.  In taking up the opposing point, one legitimates the opponent even as the right for the opponent to occupy that discursive space is argued.

Intros to European Philosophy: Hegel

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GEORG WILHELM FRIEDRICH HEGEL (1770-1831)

Previously read: Nothing, but I ‘ve wanted to.  After reading Spinoza for the first time I was interested to see how Hegel and Spinoza might compare as interpreters/appropriators of Aristotle.

Key texts: Introduction to the Philosophy of History and Logic (Part I of the Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences), Ch. 7, A

Overall impression: Similar to when I first encountered Nietzsche (in European Philosophers from Descartes to Nietzsche, ed. M. Beardsley), I expected a bit more naivete from Hegel.  I had heard little past thesis-antithesis-synthesis; his perspective seems more careful than I had heard from the textbooks.

Unconscious participation in the unfolding Idea – it’s an interesting conception (European Philosophers, p. 563).  For Fichte to be conscious of it and wend not where it may go…unforgivable.

Surprises:

“Every writer of history proposes to himself an original method… Instead of writing history, we are always beating our brains to discover how history ought to be written. (ibidem, p. 540)”

And, perhaps more brilliantly:

“But what experience and history teach is this: that peoples and governments never have learned anything from history or acted on principles deduced from it. (ibidem, p. 541)”

Concerning the historian:

“One Reflective History therefore, supersedes another.  The materials are patent to every writer: each is likely enough to believe himself capable of arranging and manipulating them; and we may expect that each will insist upon his own spirit as that of the age in question. (p. 542)”

`It is too easy to read history and say “why didn’t he or she see X”.  One often smacks the forehead in amazement; but fails to see the very shortsightedness with which the reader of history is himself plagued.  In reading, one sees oneself reflected and too few are appropriately disgusted.  If they were, they would be slower to read their perspective in the age in question.

ra/tio

“The only Thought that Philosophy brings with it to the contemplation of History, is the simple conception of Reason; that Reason is the Sovereign of the World; that the history of the world, therefore, presents us with a rational process.  This conviction and intuition is a hypothesis in the domain of history as such. (ibidem, p. 544)”

`Precisely what Foucault is seeking to avoid in Archaeology of Knowledge; that intuition is moreso the product of experience-histories than the means by which to construct a history.  The result is closer to the previous quote about Reflective History.

{im}part

“Even the ordinary, the “impartial” historian, who believes and professes that he maintains a simply receptive attitude, surrendering himself only to the data supplied him, is by no means passive as regards the exercise of his thinking powers.  He brings his categories with him, and sees the phenomena presented to his mental vision exclusively through these media. (European Philosophers, p. 546)”

`So much for aspirations to doing history objectively.

^~~~conduit

“Reason is Thought conditioning itself with perfect freedom. (p. 548)”  `That seems a mite naïve.  It is continued on p. 553 of European Philosophers as such:

“The History of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of Freedom…”

un["]happ["]ness

“But even regarding History as the slaughter-bench at which the happiness of peoples, the wisdom of States, and the virtue of individuals have been made victims, the question involuntarily arises: to what principle, to what final aim these enormous sacrifices have been offered. (ibidem, p. 554)”

`I love the imagery here – its poetry.  See also:

“The History of the World is not the theatre of happiness.  Periods of happiness are blank pages in it, for they are periods of harmony, periods when the antithesis is in abeyance. (p. 560)”

vo*~c~*a~*tion

“If we go on to cast a look at the fate of these World-Historical persons whose vocation it was to be the agents of the World-Spirit, we shall find it to have been no happy one.  They attained no calm enjoyment; their whole life was labor and trouble; their whole nature was nothing but their master-passion.  When their object is attained they fall off like empty hulls from the kernel.  They die early, like Alexander; they are murdered, like Caesar; transported to St. Helena, like Napoleon. (p. 564)”

`Perhaps we ought to be a little more careful of that urge to raise our children to greatness; happiness will be far off (and it won’t be a joy to the family either, but a sorrow).  It is not that nothing is worth the sacrifice, but too many want greatness without knowing to what end.

“No man is a hero to his valet de chamber…but not because the former is no hero, but because the latter is a valet. (p. 565)”

Concerning language & grammar:

“For Grammar, in its extended and consistent form, is the work of thought, which makes its categories distinctly visible therein… Exercises of memory and imagination without language are direct [non-speculative] manifestations. (p. 593)”

Grammar is the medium which orders thought and the pre-lingual is communicated only by means of such language ordered by grammar.

^v^`tempo

“Time is the negative element in the sensuous world.  Thought is the same negativity, but it is the deepest, the infinite form of it, in which therefore all existence generally is dissolved… (p. 606)”

`I ‘m not sure what exactly constitutes a ‘negative element’ in this sense.  We recognize the motion of objects and call this the progression of time.  How existence is dissolved in thought…I ‘m less clear on; but for both cases I believe I ‘ve failed to understand Hegel on these points.  As a reader the imagery appears pregnant, but to what end?

###anima

“It will now be understood that Logic is the all-animating spirit of all the sciences, and its categories the spiritual hierarchy… But things thus familiar are usually the greatest strangers.  Being, for example, is a category of pure thought; but to make “Is” an object of investigation never occurs to us. (p. 609 from Logic (Part I of the Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences))”

`At least till Heidegger…

*^**^fact*

“In common life truth means the agreement of an object with our conception of it.  We thus presuppose an object to which our conception must conform.  In the philosophical sense of the word, on the other hand, truth may be described, in general abstract terms, as the agreement of a thought-content with itself. (p. 610)”

`Perhaps I might gloss the difference as facticity (at this moment, I would define this as relation to the world of experience) versus internal consistency (in this sense, we might speak of truth as grammatical).  I do n’t know if I ‘ve done this justice, but philosophers often mean something other than common people (and often ought to; but they should meet at some point).

“The foundation of all determinateness is negation (as Spinoza says, Omnis determinatio est negation). (p. 622)”  Actually, that is n’t quite the case.  Strange that something which is Spinoza out of context becomes so key to Hegel’s logic.

Intros to European Philosophy: Fichte

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JOHANN GOTTLIEB FICHTE (1762-1814)

Previously read: nil

Key texts: Vocation of Man, Bk. 3

Overall impression: It only seems natural that philosophic discourse should finally focus its lens on will as the pendulum had swung far too to the search for knowledge.  Why do we contemplate at all?  Not for the accumulation of knowledge, but for action – for the application of will.  However, I remain surprised that such a thinker would wave aside the frustration which focus on the will to action (and therefore the frustration of being thwarted) would lead to.  If there is some world-will or Spirit guiding matters, am I to accept its whims so readily?

Surprises:

“Knowledge is not this organ [by which to apprehend the reality of Spirit]: no knowledge can be its own foundation, its own proof; every knowledge presupposes another higher knowledge on which it is founded, and to this ascent there is no end.

(European Philosophers from Descartes to Nietzsche, ed. M. Beardsley: pp. 494-495)”

Perhaps not ascent or descent, but knowledge is no set limited series of possibilities – it is a progression followed by a digression, which is occasionally an improvement.

~~“Conscience alone is the root of all truth. (ibidem, p. 495)”  As I think conscience to be our internal ideals mirrored back upon the self so that it either accepts, abrogates, or noticeably winces at the perceived reflection, my opinion differs.  Truth is culturally expressed and so is conscience; otherwise I find this definition interesting but not particularly useful.

“Our thought is not founded on itself alone, independently of our impulses and affections; man does not consist of two independent and separate elements; he is absolutely one.  All our thought is founded on our impulses; as a man’s affections are, so is his knowledge. (European Philosophers, p. 496)”

**no comment, just ponder.

“The good cause is ever the weaker, for it is simple, and can be loved only for itself; the bad attracts each individual by the promise that is most seductive to him; and its adherents, always at war among themselves, so soon as the good makes its appearance, conclude a trace that they may unite the whole powers of their wickedness against it.  Scarcely, indeed, is such an opposition needed, for even the good themselves are but too often divided by misunderstanding, error, distrust, and secret self-love…Thus do all good intentions among men appear to be lost in vain disputations, which leave behind them no trace of their existence; while in the meantime the world goes on as well, or as ill, as it can be without human effort, by the blind mechanism of Nature – and so will go on forever. (pp. 506-507)”

Very astute.  The idealist wants everyone to agree with her particular application of the ideal while wickedness offers many rewards with less personal cost (only the cost of being a person).  And Nature chugs along while Wisdom cries in the streets.

“There is no man who loves evil because it is evil; it is only the advantages and enjoyments expected from it and, in the present condition of humanity, likely to result from it, that are loved. (p. 511)”

Someone’s been reading Augustine.

~*~“Reason is not for the sake of existence, but existence for the sake of reason. (p. 513)”  Aye, only we find that existence is not a set object so that we speak of existences and, therefore, reasons which are chosen because they serve the more desired modes of existence.

**~“Alas!  Many virtuous intentions are entirely lost for this world, and others appear even to hinder the purpose they were designed to promote. (p. 514)”  I ‘ve been shewing Descartes to have fallen into this trap; in fact it is the very danger of being understood (as Nietzsche would have it).  The greatest enemies to one’s ideals are too often oneself (and close supporters).

“I am indeed compelled to believe, and consequently to act as if I thought, that by mere volition my tongue, my hand, or my foot, might be set in motion; but how a mere aspiration, an impress of intelligence upon itself, such as will is, can be the principle of motion to a heavy material mass, this I not only find it impossible to conceive, but the mere assertion is, before the tribunal of the understanding, a palpable absurdity; here the movement of matter even in myself can be explained only by the internal forces of matter itself.

(European Philosophers, p. 522)”

Oh the absurdities of life which we assume.  Likewise the following: “I see everywhere only myself, and no true existence out of myself. (ibidem, p. 529)”

Intros to European Philosophy: Kant

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IMMANUEL KANT (1724-1804)

Previously read: I used his rejection of the transcendental argument for God’s existence in a paper (though I didn’t understand it well), but mostly encountered him through secondary sources and key ideas in other people’s courses – both in undergrad and graduate studies.  It’s nice to at least dig into the abridged text of Critique here.

Key texts: Critique of Pure Reason (abr)

Overall impression: It feels like dealing with Kant in an abridged form is at once necessary and lamentable.  I’d really like to trace his complete thought, and I’m almost ready to fruitfully understand him I feel, but I must admit I don’t have the time to treat him as his status deserves.    Perhaps one day I’ll do better, for now I’ve merely sharpened my teeth a little more for that day when I can begin this task in earnest. 

His contributions to metaphysics and ethics are unavoidable even in their secondary form in academia.  So this was a frustrated but perhaps fruitful familiarizing with several important philosophical utterances sourced in one voice.

Surprises:

“There can be no doubt that all our knowledge begins with experience… In the order of time, therefore, we have no knowledge antecedent to experience, and with experience all knowledge begins. (European Philosophers from Descartes to Nietzsche, ed. M. Beardsley, p. 375)”

 

“In what follows, therefore, we shall understand by a priori knowledge, not knowledge independent of this or that experience, but knowledge absolutely independent of all experience.  Opposed to its empirical knowledge, which is knowledge possible only a posteriori, that is, through experience. (ibidem, p. 376)”

  • “Experience teaches us that a thing is so and so, but not that it cannot be otherwise. (p. 376)”  This meets well with Ghazali’s critique of the philosophers in Incoherence/Tahafut.  It’s easy to assume that a thing can be no other way than what it has been previously, but our experience is far too limited to tell us how probable or exclusive such knowledge is.  “Secondly, experience never confers on its judgments true or strict, but only assumed and comparative universality, through induction. (ibidem)” 

 

  • Analytic judgments are connected by means of identity; without identity it would be synthetic (p. 380).  So all judgments of experience are synthetic. 

 

  • Space is a pure intuition according to Kant.  To me that’s brilliant.  We necessarily intuit it in order to try to locate our world.  Even when we speak of multiple spaces, we are only representing to ourselves that one space (p. 389).  So, perhaps space is that which I project to the world around me in order to understand it.  In this sense, space may not be infinite in the sense that it is endlessly extensible but it is certainly indefinite in that it is the background against which all events in time are located.  “Space is nothing but the form of all appearances of outer sense. (p. 391)” 

 

“Permanence, as the abiding correlate of all existence of appearances, of all change and of all concomitance, expresses time in general.  For change does not affect time itself, but only appearances in time.  (Coexistence is not a mode of time itself: for none of the parts of time coexist; they are all in succession to one another.)  If we ascribe succession to time itself, we must think yet another time, in which the sequence would be possible. (p. 402)”

  • “[T]ruth consists in the agreement of knowledge with the object… (p. 404)”  Perceptio is representation with consciousness; a sensation is a perception which ‘relates solely to the subject as the modification of its state’ – we only notice a smell or a sound when it demonstrates change; knowledge is an objective perception – whether intuition or concept (empirical or pure); the pure concept is called a notion.  “A concept formed from notions and transcending the possibility of experience is an idea or concept of reason…” (pp. 414-415)  An idea, therefore, can have no sense-experience matching it.  Whew, maybe it’s easier to use Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

 

  • “Reason does not really generate any concept.  The most it can do is to free a concept of understanding from the unavoidable limitations of possible experience, and so to endeavor to extend it beyond the limits of the empirical, though still, indeed, in terms of its relation to the empirical. (p. 419 found in Ch 2: ‘The Antinomy of Pure Reason’, Section 1)”  It seems that reason makes demands of understanding, and so constrains it or reminds it of the natural boundaries, but is not itself a system by which to produce concepts.  Understanding is by way of experience and we choose concepts or recognize their value by way of reason, but reason does not itself give rise to them.  It seems interesting that reason, as Kant would have it, is the very thing which reminds us of its own division from the conditioned.  Reason is herein its own limit (or the limit of our reason-discourse).  [Nothing is ever interesting if I have to say ‘it seems interesting’, but still I offend.]

“[Humanity] is thus to [it]self, on the one hand phenomenon, and on the other hand, in respect of certain faculties the action of which cannot be ascribed to the receptivity of sensibility, a purely intelligible object.  We entitle these faculties understanding and reason.  The latter, in particular, we distinguish in a quite peculiar and especial way from all empirically conditioned powers. (p. 446)” 

This aligns, I believe, with what I have attempted to say about understanding and reason in the previous segment. 

“That our reason has causality, or that we at least represent it to ourselves as having causality, is evident from the imperatives which in all matters of conduct we impose as rules upon our active powers.  ‘Ought’ expresses a kind of necessity and of connection with grounds which is found nowhere else in the whole of nature.  The understanding can know in nature only what is, what has been, or what will be. (ibidem)” 

He goes on to say that our ‘ought’ has no meaning when applied to nature.  It is simply our projection upon our experiences – our expectations.  This is ever so like Ghazali’s critique of those who would claim causality’s rulership as part of the world rather than God’s decision in Incoherence.  Causality is a concept we impose, not something inherently true of experience – at least it cannot be determined by way of experience.

  • “Therefore there is only one categorical imperative, namely this: Act only on a maxim by which you can will that it, at the same time, should become a general law. (p. 473)”  Is it possible that any such maxim can exist?  That we should wish for its existence is reasonable enough – who could then argue with it?  But it ‘s not so simple. 

 

Concluding Remark:

This is already too long, but summarizing Kant is (at this moment for me at least) an absurd task.  Please treat these as thoughtful musings, worthy of rebuke and further instruction, which may one day reach toward some useful understanding.  As of today they are still speaking a foreign language, but one which may one day be more familiar.

Helpful links:

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant/ (Michael Rohlf)

Intros to European Philosophy: Rousseau

Posted by jrlookingbill on

JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU (1712-1778)

Previously Read: Not that I recall

Key texts: The Social Contract

Overall impression: The concept of the social contract seems to be wielded much as Kant spoke glowingly of the categorical imperative or Comte (to an amazing extent) waxed about positivism.   Or, he spoke glowingly of an idea I did n’t understand, similar to your professor’s pet philosophy term which does n’t explain what (s)he tells you it does.  Perhaps you ‘re surprised to hear me fret over misunderstanding him, but I ‘m leaning towards he did n’t understand (few of us do) what his ideas sounded like to others.

Still I admire some of his social insights piecemeal while unsure of what the social contract truly would look like in practice.

Surprises:

“Aristotle was right; but he took the effect for the cause. Nothing can be more certain than that every man born in slavery is born for slavery. Slaves lose everything in their chains, even the desire of escaping from them: they love their servitude, as the comrades of Ulysses loved their brutish condition. If then there are slaves by nature, it is because there have been slaves against nature. Force made the first slaves, and their cowardice perpetuated the condition. (European Philosophers from Descartes to Nietzsche, ed. M. Beardsley, p. 323)”

Wow. Blaming slaves for lacking the will to shake off their chains is… Wow. Stating that it is easier for the disempowered to accept their disempowerment (because they could always change their state) ignores the fact that subversive power is necessary both to establish and maintain the institution.  Having just finished 1984 again, I must say that dehumanization is a difficult process and one whose effects we should refrain from laying on the abused.

Far more sensible is:

“War is constituted by a relation between things and not between persons; and, as the state of war cannot arise out of simple personal relations, but only out of real relations, private war, or war of man with man, can exist neither in the state of nature, where there is no constant property, nor in the social state, where everything is under the authority of laws. (European Philosophers, p. 326)”

As he applies this to deny the supposed right of a state to execute its war captives (and then mercifully enslave them or ‘killing his enemy usefully’), I appreciate this. It may be I misunderstand his idea of socialization of slavery’s scope, but at least he denies this ‘right of the state’ to enslave. “Individuals are enemies only accidentally” sums this up well (accidental in the Aristotelian sense) (ibidem, p. 326).

Now that I ‘ve gone and invoked Orwell, I wonder what Rousseau would have had to say about modern warfare in the nuclear age.  It seems so unimaginable; the gulf between those who could imagine a society without war and our annihilationist age of fear which serves to justify perpetual war without relation.

“[T]ruth is no road to fortune, and the people dispenses neither ambassadorships, nor professorships, nor pensions. (p. 338)”

Love it.  That ‘s easily a favorite quote from European Philosophers as a whole.

  • Also, I enjoyed this footnote attributed to the Marquis d’Argenson: “Every interest has different principles. The agreement of two particular interests is formed by opposition to a third. (ibidem)”  ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend’ much as Oceania is alternately friend to Eastasia or Eurasia based not on some overriding relation but on anti-relation to the other.  Theology too is defensively targeted to defend principles from external and internal opposition (Cf. Ghazali).

 

And a moment of hubris:

“All my ideas are consistent, but I cannot expound them all at once. (p. 343)”

Sorry, that kind of genius is reserved for the world from whence it comes. Genius is a term given from the outside, a recognition, it is not to be bestowed on oneself when one is unable to communicate adequately. If we must accept all of your precepts pre-simultaneously, we shall reserve our energies for better pursuits.

“The question ‘What absolutely is the best government?’ is unanswerable as well as indeterminate; or rather, there are as many good answers as there are possible combinations in the absolute and relative situations of all nations. (p. 357)”

You’ll have to forgive him, clearly he didn’t feel the impending approach of God’s penultimate kingdom come to earth that is enjoyed in our country (which kingdom?). We must forgive the poor Frenchman who did not see our most glorious day.

On representation:

“As soon as public service ceases to be the chief business of the citizens and they would rather serve with their money than with their persons, the State is not far from its fall. When it is necessary to march out to war, they pay troops and stay at home: when it is necessary to meet in council, they name deputies and stay at home. By reason of idleness and money, they end by having soldiers to enslave their country and representatives to sell it… In any case, the moment a people allows itself to be represented, it is no longer free: it no longer exists. (pp. 358 & 360-361)”

Intros to European Philosophy: Leibniz

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GOTTFRIED WILHELM von LEIBNIZ (1646-1716)

Previously Read: My undergraduate research project was on Leibniz’ greatest possible world theodicy (defense of God’s justice – he invented the term). But that was by way of someone else’s approximation, so I was happy to read Leibniz in his own (translated) words.

Key texts: First Truths, Discourse on Metaphysics, and Monadology

Overall impression: I love any reading where Time and Space come into the fold. “Time too may be proved not to be a thing, in the same way as space. (European Philosophers from Descartes to Nietzsche, ed. M. Beardsley. p. 248)” Jackpot. “Space, time, extension, and motion are not things but well-founded modes of our consideration. (p. 249)”

Surprises:

  • Monads. It seems to me to be a sort of atomism, for he speaks of them as simple substances which begin in creation and end in annihilation. Change is continuous in all things – very Heraclituslike.
  • Mention of the Averroists. Leibniz avers that the church fathers were ‘always more Platonic than Aristotelian’ (European Philosophers, p. 278) and the Averroists misused the concept of God being the light of souls. “Truths of reasoning are necessary, and their opposite is impossible; those of fact are contingent, and their opposite is possible. (p. 292)”

“48. In God is Power, which is the source of all; then Knowledge, which contains the detail of ideas; and finally Will, which effects changes or products according to the principle of the best. (p. 294)”

For Ghazali, I believe these would be rearranged to Will, Knowledge, and Power. At least, that’s what I noted after reading Frank Griffel’s explanation of Ghazali’s cosmology. Interesting to note the parallel for me.

“71. But it must not be imagined, as has been done by some people who have misunderstood my thought, that each soul has a mass or portion of matter belonging to it or attached to it forever, and that consequently it possesses other inferior living beings, destined to its service forever. For all bodies are, like rivers, in a perpetual flux, and parts are entering into them and departing from them continually. (p. 298)”

As I said, very Heraclitus-like (though I seem to perpetually want to say Xenophanes or Hippocratus)

  • He noted the limit of the ontological argument, as it was rejected by Aquinas (p. 307).

From ‘Space and Time’:

“I hold space to be something merely relative, as time is; that I hold it to be an order of coexistences, as time is an order of successions. For space denotes, in terms of possibility, an order of things which exist at the same time, considered as existing together; without enquiring into their manner of existing. (p. 304)”