Writing, Notes & Quotes from 2013
Writing, Notes & Quotes from 2013
January 2013
The Society of the Spectacle : Negation and Consumption Within Culture.
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Here is my initial attempt at reading this section – no doubt with some errors.
Negation and Consumption Within Culture is a fascinating chapter. For me it traces the futility of a radical culture (in itself). The reference to The Difference Between the Systems of Fichte and Schelling reminded me of reading Goethe’s correspondence with Schiller recently. Goethe/Schiller struggled to reconcile Kant’s idealism with culture. Schiller went his own way in his Aesthetic letters responding to his disenchantment with the French revolution with his Spieltrieb (play-drive) concept. The Spieltrieb would unify the Formtrieb (the formal drive) and Sinnestrieb (the sensuous drive) as differentiated in Kant’s Idealist system.
Fichte reaches for a similar unity grounded in individuation – Kant’s phenomenal world becomes a projection of self-consciousness. Everything (noumena) becomes our representation of it as phenomena. Schelling reverses this tendency in his Naturphilosophie by emphasising the primacy of a fluid, organic nature upon which we project our dogmatism (teleology).
The hopes of Schiller and Schelling for a unified culture/reality were to be dashed on the rocks of the 19th century “autonomy of culture” and the rise of criticism. Culture becomes detached (a project of … self-transcendence) – another specialism of ‘social critique’. Simultaneously Culture’s presentation is separated “as a dead object for spectacular contemplation” (184).
Debord’s reference to Eugenio d’Ors, who ‘chose “life instead of eternity.”’ perhaps reflects a sentiment that art should be “arbitrary,” or subjectivist, breaking with traditional norms. But Debord does not suggest a new unity but rather points to an actual dissolution of art. Spectacular culture as it is presented through its “modernistic pseudoinnovations” seeks to “use culture to bury all historical memory”.
Debords opposition to the structuralist project, the “writing degree zero” of figures such as Roland Barthes appears to be from a post Marxist dialectical position. Barthes critique of socialist realism only serves to further separate criticism from the subject (204).
In 206 Debord seems to present détournement in the dialectic tradition (citing Marx as achieving “the most effective use of this insurrectional style”). In 208 the superlative presentation of détournement is stated. Détournement as “the opposite of quotation” is a reminder of our “cut and paste” subversion. An echo of ‘by any means necessary’. A recognition of the existing negation of culture.
From the reddit : Chapter 8: Negation and Consumption Within Culture.
This entry was posted in Philosophy and tagged Guy Debord, Situationist, The Society of the Spectacle on Monday, January 7, 2013.
Allegory in Plato’s Republic. :Wordpress:Blogpost:
“I WENT down yesterday to the Piraeus with Glaucon the son of Ariston, that I might offer up my prayers to the goddess ; and also because I wanted to see in what manner they would celebrate the festival, which was a new thing. I was delighted with the procession of the inhabitants; but that of the Thracians was equally, if not more, beautiful. “
(Plato, The Dialogues of Plato translated into English with Analyses and Introductions by B. Jowett, M.A. in Five Volumes. 3rd edition revised and corrected (Oxford University Press, 1892). Chapter: BOOK I)
In the first few lines of Plato’s Republic Socrates relates his journey to the port town of Piraeus. Piraeus – a natural harbour where the Athenian fleet moored prior to the Peloponnesian War, connected to Athens itself by the Long Walls. Socrates journeys down to Piraeus, kateben, which the scholar Allan Bloom noted as an allusion to Odysseus’ journey into the underworld. The descent of the word katabasis may be contrasted with the ascent of the word anabasis. Anabasis can refer to an expedition from a coastline into the interior of a country while katabasis moves in the opposite direction from the interior to the coast.
So Socrates is descending with Glaucon to the transient and earthy port side. They are moving away from the city state of Athens. A Goddess is being inaugurated, Bendls, the Thracian Artemis in a new festival. “Artemis of the wildland, Mistress of Animals” (Homer, Iliad xxi 470 f.). Artemis the huntress – the Greek Diana. The “procession of the [native]inhabitants” may be surpassed by that of the novelty of the Thracians.
These lines are an airy allusion to the forthcoming themes of the Republic rather than an explicit analogy. Yet an impression is created of a dialogue rich in allusion and analogy. The descent to Piraeus is allusive but also might be an inductive experience. An experience we might learn from or draw analogies with.
Now consider Glaucon’s initial scepticism of Justice. That the appearance of being just is better than the reality of being just. We have descended to an underworld of Justice – a shadowy port side Justice.
Socrates defense of Justice is also by analogy with the health of tripartite soul of the individual with that of a just city state.
… I found this lecture useful on the symbolism, role-playing and use of analogy in Plato’s Republic.
“Introduction to Political Philosophy (PLSC 114)
Lecture 4 introduces Plato’s Republic and its many meanings in the context of moral psychology, justice, the power of poetry and myth, and metaphysics. The Republic is also discussed as a utopia, presenting an extreme vision of a polis–Kallipolis–Plato’s ideal city.”
This entry was posted in Philosophy and tagged A222, Allegory, Analogy, Plato on Monday, January 7, 2013.
'Reading Marx’s Capital’.
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I have been watching Prof. David Harvey’s excellent series of lectures on ‘Reading Marx’s Capital’ (link). This has reinforced my view that territories of expertise are essentially power relations. Where some kinds of expertise appear neutral (such as the sciences) their use or utility is not. The issue of expertise seems to be haunting philosophy at present – with much chatter about the ‘scientific turn’. Typically framed as statements such as “Who needs ethics when everything can be explained by bio-ethics” or “who needs philosophy of mind when neurobiology will provide the answers”. My response may be (I am still considering this) to require a dialectic of expertise. What is the expert trying to achieve – is it descriptive or prescriptive etc. It is naive to think such paradigms are neutral.
This entry was posted in Philosophy and tagged Karl Marx on Tuesday, January 8, 2013.
Aaron Swartz – 1986-2013.
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“Fix the machine, not the person.”
Aaron Swartz who co-authored the RSS specification at 14, helped launch Creative Commons at 15 and co-founded Reddit at 18 committed suicide last Friday. Aaron also worked with avaaz.org.
Aaron was being prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts with wire fraud, computer fraud, unlawfully obtaining information from a protected computer. Aaron had ‘stolen’ JSTOR articles as a protest against JSTOR charging large fees for access to these articles and not compensating academic authors . JSTOR later settled with Aaron in 2011. JSTOR released this statement expressing regret at the further federal prosecution .
He was facing up to 35 years in jail for this crime.
Tributes to Aaron have come from Tim Berners-Lee, Cory Doctorow, Larry Lessig (professor and founder of Creative Commons), the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium).
Here is Aaron in his own words speaking about internet freedom
Academics are posting their papers online as PDFs, in tribute to Aaron Swartz, and providing links on Twitter using the hashtag #pdftribute
This entry was posted in Technology and tagged Copyright, Creative Commons on Thursday, January 17, 2013.
Can non-Europeans think ?
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Extending the thought that “Words … are much more like values than they are facts,” – we might arrive at a kind of linguistic/ethical relativism. Or, as we seem to do a lot in philosophy, we must pay attention to what we mean by a certain term. So an ethical argument is required to say “I mean this – by saying this” as well as “This thought lead to this”.
A recent article on the Al Jazeera website “Can non-Europeans think?” argues that Kant’s ‘universal law’ is a contrived norm. Hamid Dabashi, a Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University cites Gramsci’s ‘Prison Notebooks’ …
“Gramsci’s conclusion is that the reason Kant can say what he says and offer his own behaviour as measure of universal ethics is that “Kant’s maxim presupposes a single culture, a single religion, a ‘world-wide’ conformism...”
I’m not sure if I share Professor Dabashi’s view (because I am European ?) – but may he has a point. If he is correct then the words we use to build ethical frameworks can only have a presumed or imposed universality.
This entry was posted in Philosophy and tagged Gramsci, Kant on Thursday, January 24, 2013. Edit
May 2013
Revising ‘Nights of Labour’: Talk by Jacques Ranciere.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwW_LiwCKlg
"Video recording of a public talk at Sarai CSDS, by renowned philosopher Jacques Ranciere on the release of the Hindi translation of his book Nights of Labour: Workers' Dream in 19th Century France. (Sarvahara Raatein: Unneesaveen sadi ke Frans mein Mazdoor Swapna). The book has been translated from the English by Abhay Kumar Dube. This the first in a series of translations of outstanding texts to be published by Sarai-CSDS and Vani Prakashan.
The talk on the 6th of February 2009 was followed by a workshop and roundtable with Jacques Ranciere, the next day.
Jacques Ranciere is a well known philosopher and writer. As a young student, Ranciere, co-authored Reading Capital (1968), with the Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser. Ranciere later broke with Althusser over the 1968 uprising in France. Since the 1970s Ranciere has produced a number of remarkable texts that range from working class history, philosophy, education, politics, and aesthetics. His books include The Ignorant Schoolmaster: Five Lessons in Intellectual Emancipation(1991), The Names of History: On the Poetics of Knowledge (1994), The Politics of Aesthetics: The Distribution of the Sensible Tr. Gabriel Rockhill (2004),The Future of the Image (2007).
Ranciere wrote The Nights of Labour after years of archival work. It traces the world of worker intellectuals in 19th century France, who, through their poems, music, letters, produced a world that did not celebrate work as in conventional socialist texts, but a life outside it. Radical in its style and argument, Nights of Labour, offers not just a revision of working class history, but the relation between politics, knowledge, aesthetics and equality, all of which have become topics of Ranciere's future books."
This entry was posted in Philosophy and tagged Jacques Ranciere on Sunday, May 19, 2013.
Quotes from Freud's 'Civilization and its Discontents' (Penguin Great Ideas)
* We shall always tend to view misery objectively
We shall always tend to view misery objectively, that is to project ourselves, with all our demands and susceptibilities, into their conditions, and then try to determine what occasions for happiness or unhappiness we should find in them.
/Page 33. Added on Monday, May 20, 2013, 04:11 AM./
* Man has become, so to speak, a god with artificial limbs.
Man has become, so to speak, a god with artificial limbs. He is quite impressive when he dons all his auxiliary organs, but they have not become part of him and still give him a good deal of trouble on occasion ... However, he is entitled to console himself with the fact that this development will not have come to an end in AD 1930. Distant ages will bring new and probably unimaginable advances in this field of civilization and so enhance his god-like nature. But in the interest of our investigation let us also remember that modern man does not feel happy with his god-like nature. We acknowledge, then, that a country has a high level of civilization if we find that in it everything that can assist man in his exploitation of the land and protect him against the forces of nature – everything, in short, that is of use to him – is attended to and properly ordered.
/Page 36. Added on Monday, May 20, 2013, 04:16 AM./
* Order is a kind of compulsion to repeat
Order is a kind of compulsion to repeat, which, once a pattern is established, determines when, where and how something is to be done, so that there is no hesitation or vacillation in identical cases.
/Page 38. Added on Monday, May 20, 2013, 04:20 AM./
* Communal life becomes possible only when a majority comes together
Communal life becomes possible only when a majority comes together that is stronger than any individual and presents a united front against every individual.
/Page 41. Added on Monday, May 20, 2013, 04:23 AM./
June 2013
The Ego Tunnel: Prof. Dr. Thomas Metzinger at TEDxRheinMain.
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“Brain, bodily awareness, and the emergence of a conscious self: these entities and their relations are explored by German philosopher and cognitive scientist Dr Thomas Metzinger. Extensively working with neuroscientists he has come to the conclusion that, in fact, there is no such thing as a “self” — that a “self” is simply the content of a model created by our brain – part of a virtual reality we create for ourselves.
But if the self is not “real,” he asks, why and how did it evolve? How does the brain construct the self? In a series of fascinating virtual reality experiments, Metzinger and his colleagues have attempted to create so-called “out-of-body experiences” in the lab, in order to explore these questions. As a philosopher, he offers a discussion of many of the latest results in robotics, neuroscience, dream and meditation research, and argues that the brain is much more powerful than we have ever imagined. He shows us, for example, that we now have the first machines that have developed an inner image of their own body — and actually use this model to create intelligent behavior. In addition, studies exploring the connections between phantom limbs and the brain have shown us that even people born without arms or legs sometimes experience a sensation that they do in fact have limbs that are not there. Experiments like the “rubber-hand illusion” demonstrate how we can experience a fake hand as part of our self and even feel a sensation of touch on the phantom hand form the basis and testing ground for the idea that what we have called the “self” in the past is just the content of a transparent self-model in our brains. Now, as new ways of manipulating the conscious mind-brain appear on the scene, it will soon become possible to alter our subjective reality in an unprecedented manner. The cultural consequences of this, Metzinger claims, may be immense: we will need a new approach to ethics, and we will be forced to think about ourselves in a fundamentally new way. At TEDxRheinMain 2011 he will share his thoughts on consciousness and the self and talk about the concept of the Ego-Tunnel.
Pro. Dr. Thomas Metzinger: (*1958 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany) is currently Professor of Theoretical Philosophy at the Johannes Gutenberg‐Universität Mainz and an Adjunct Fellow at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Study. In 2009 he returned from a prestigious one‐year Fellowship at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (Berlin Institute for Advanced Study), is past president of the German Cognitive Science Society and currently president of the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness. His focus of research lies in analytical philosophy of mind, philosophy of science and philosophical aspects of the neuro- and cognitive sciences as well as connections between ethics, philosophy of mind and anthropology. He has edited and published extensively in German and English, e.g. one major scientific monograph developing a comprehensive, interdisciplinary theory about consciousness, the phenomenal self, and the first‐person perspective (“Being No One — The Self‐Model Theory of Subjectivity”, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003). In 2009, he published a popular book, which addresses a wider audience and also discusses the ethical, cultural and social consequences of consciousness research (“The Ego Tunnel — The Science of the Mind and the Myth of the Self”, New York: Basic Books).”
This entry was posted in Philosophy and tagged Thomas Metzinger on Sunday, June 9, 2013.
Kathy Acker interviews William S. Burroughs.
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This entry was posted in Art and tagged Kathy Acker, William S. Burroughs on Monday, June 10, 2013.
Hubert Dreyfus Lectures on Heidegger’s Being and Time.
This entry was posted in Philosophy and tagged Martin Heidegger on Tuesday, June 11, 2013.
Daniel W. Smith – On the Sources of Normativity: A Deleuzean Account.
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“Daniel W. Smith is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Purdue University and one of the world’s leading commentators on Deleuze. He is the translator of Deleuze’s Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation and Essays Critical And Clinical, as well as Isabelle Stengers’ The Invention of Modern Science and Pierre Klossowski’s Nietzsche and the Vicious Circle. Dr. Smith is the author of Essays on Deleuze and, most recently, the co-editor of The Cambridge Companion to Deleuze.
Dr. Smith presented the following lecture, “On the Sources of Normativity: A Deleuzean Account”, at Purdue University as part of the Illuminations Lecture Series on Thursday April 4th, 2013.”
This entry was posted in Philosophy and tagged Gilles Deleuze, Kant on Tuesday, June 11, 2013. Edit
AA308 Philosophy of Mind Readings.
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I’ve put together a complete list of readings from each module of AA308 in order to get an idea of who and what comes up most frequently. For preparatory reading I would choose Gilbert Ryle’s ‘Concept of Mind’, D.M.Amstrong’s ‘A Materialist Theory of the Mind’ and major works by Daniel Dennett and David Chalmers. Overall David Chalmers and Daniel Dennett are the most prominent philosophers – which is not so surprising as they represent the Duelist/Materialist divide. Hilary Putnam and David Lewis crop up again after their brief appearance in AA222. Other prominent philosophers include John Searle, Jerry Fodor and Ned Block (of the Chinese population thought experiment fame). I was surprised that Donald Davidson is not in the readings as his ‘radical interpretation’ is quite prominent in introductions to philosophy of mind.
* 1) Aspects of Mind – Readings
Consciousness and life – GARETH B. MATTHEWS
Descartes’ myth – GILBERT RYLE
The nature of mind – D.M. ARMSTRONG
* 2) Emotion – Readings
Emotion follows upon the bodily expression in the coarser emotions at least – WILLIAM JAMES
Emotions and choice – ROBERT C. SOLOMON
What an emotion is: a sketch – ROBERT C. ROBERTS
The affect-program theory – P.E. GRIFFITHS
An argument for basic emotions – PAUL EKMAN
A constructivist view of emotion – JAMES R. AVERILL
Justifying the emotions – GABRIELE TAYLOR
Ambivalence and the logic of emotion – PATRICIA S. GREENSPAN
A theory of moral sentiments – ROBERT H. FRANK
What are emotions for? A new biological hypothesis – RONALD DE SOUSA
* 3) Language and Thought – Readings
Meaning – H.P. GRICE
What is a speech act? – J.R. SEARLE
The meaning of ‘meaning’ – H. PUTNAM
All the difference in the world – T. CRANE
Semantic engines: an introduction to mind design – J. HAUGELAND
Cognitive wheels: the frame problem of AI – D.C. DENNETT
Meaning and the world order – J.A. FODOR
Representational systems – F. DRETSKE
Advertisement for a semantics of psychology – N. BLOCK
Holism, content similarity, and content identity – J.A. FODOR and E. LEPORE
True believers: the intentional strategy and why it works – D.C. DENNETT
* 4) Imagination and Creativity – Readings
Imagination and imagery – ALAN R. WHITE
Imagining and supposing – ALAN R. WHITE
What is creativity? – MARGARET BODEN
Creativity and constraint – DAVID NOVITZ
Is imagery a kind of imagination? – GREGORY CURRIE and IAN RAVENSCROFT
* 5) Consciousness – Readings
A catalog of conscious experiences – DAVID J. CHALMERS
The easy problems and the hard problem – DAVID J. CHALMERS
The knowledge argument – FRANK JACKSON
The conceivability of zombies – DAVID J. CHALMERS
Naturalistic dualism – DAVID J. CHALMERS
The bogey of epiphenomenalism – FRANK JACKSON
The paradox of phenomenal judgment – DAVID J. CHALMERS
Panprotopsychism – DAVID J. CHALMERS
Mary and the blue banana – DANIEL C. DENNETT
The ability hypothesis – DAVID LEWIS
Mary’s room – MICHAEL TYE
The unimagined preposterousness of zombies – DANIEL C. DENNETT
Conceivability and possibility – DAVID PAPINEAU
On properties and recognitional concepts – PETER CARRUTHERS
The explanatory gap – JOSEPH LEVINE
Phenomenal content: the PANIC theory – MICHAEL TYE
The intentionality of feelings and experiences – MICHAEL TYE
A problem for FOR-theories – PETER CARRUTHERS
Explaining consciousness – DAVID M. ROSENTHAL
Multiple drafts and the stream of consciousness – DANIEL C. DENNETT
This entry was posted in Philosophy and tagged AA308 on Wednesday, June 12, 2013. Edit
The Mind’s Eye The science of consciousness and the soul.
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“For scientists and philosophers the idea of the soul has been out of fashion for two hundred years. But is it on its way back? Can science explain consciousness without it? Who watches the magic show that is experience?”
Galen Strawson
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galen_Strawson
“Professor of Philosophy at Reading and one of the UK’s leading public intellectuals, his original work on free will and the self has been widely influential.”
Nicholas Humphrey
“Theoretical psychologist whose books include Soul Dust. His study of primate psychology led him to a radical new theory of human consciousness.”
David Malone
“David Malone is a director and presenter of BBC and Channel 4 documentaries exploring the history and philosophy of science. His work includes Testing God and he is the author of The Debt Generation.”
This entry was posted in Philosophy and tagged Consciousness, Galen Strawson on Wednesday, June 12, 2013. Edit
Was Aristotle really a functionalist ?
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I came across Martha Nussbaum’s and Hilary Putnam’s discussions of whether Aristotle was a functionalist while studying the A222 – Mind book. Nussbaum linked hylomorphism to functionalism. The first book of AA308 ‘Aspects of Mind’ refers to Aristotle and then focuses on Descartes duelism with subsequent criticisms from behaviourists and functionalists. I find it fascinating that we might go in intellectual circles and, in effect, restate Aristotle in a modern context of functionalism or even Dennett’s intentional stance (compare Dennett’s intentionality as a property of mind with Aristotle’s mind as a particular [thinking] form of matter).
Anyway I found this article may be an interesting read for those interested.
This entry was posted in Philosophy and tagged Aristotle, Hilary Putnam, Martha Nussbaum on Monday, June 17, 2013. Edit
Daniel Dennett on Tools To Transform Our Thinking.
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Daniel Dennett on Tools To Transform Our Thinking. I just watched this talk given by Dennett at Royal Geographical Society as part of the launch of his new book ‘Intuition pumps and other tools for thinking’. Dennett coined the term intuition pump back in 1981 to broadly indicate thought experiments or analogies that cause (or pump) common-sense intuitions or conclusions. Dennett talks for about 30 minutes and takes questions for another 40 minutes. I don’t agree with Dennett on everything – for example he seems to imply that humans as a species are progressing in terms of cognitive thinking. I would take issue with that as a teleological presentation of evolution. Nevertheless it is an interesting talk and Dennett is a good speaker. I was struck by his statement that “All serious thinking is interpersonal.” ; which I take to mean that thinking needs another object (or person) to take itself outside of the thinkers ingrained beliefs.
This entry was posted in Philosophy and tagged Daniel Dennett on Wednesday, June 19, 2013. Edit
David Chalmers – The Extended Mind. TEDxSydney.
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“David Chalmers is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Centre for Consciousness at the Australian National University.
\index{Chalmers David}Chalmers is interested in the relationship between mind, brain and reality. He is best known for formulating the “hard problem” of consciousness and for his arguments against materialism.
His 1996 book The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory was highly successful with both popular and academic audiences. In 2010 he gave the John Locke Lectures at the University of Oxford. These will shortly be published as his book Constructing the World . He also works on language, metaphysics, and artificial intelligence.”
This entry was posted in Philosophy and tagged David Chalmers on Wednesday, June 19, 2013. Edit
July 2013
How to be normal
How to be normal - Contingent version
It is normal to be reading about being normal. Now you are normal. For the moment.
How to be normal - Modus ponens version
It is normal to be reading about being normal. You are reading about being normal. Therefore you are normal.
How to be normal - Modus tollens version
If you are reading about being normal, then you are normal. You are not reading about being normal. Therefore you are not normal.
Early Phenomenology.
Through a series of digressions I have ended up reading about the early pioneers of phenomenology Franz Brentano and Edmund Husserl in 'Introduction to Phenomenology' by Dermot Moran (1999, Routledge). I thought I would share some of my early impressions as I have not posted for a while.
Brentano emphasised a descriptive approach towards psychological knowledge. Mental acts for Brentano can only be conscious, a mental act always has an object and a subsequent built-in reflection of itself. Brentano follows Descartes at least in the self evidence of an inner mental life. Interestly both Sartre and John Searle shared Brentano's insistence on mental acts being exclusively conscious. Brentano expanded this insight to be a necessary preliminary in any examination of the basis of all the human sciences that use mental acts in their reasoning. All that seems out of reach of Brentano's mental acts are the epistemological languages of mathematics or nomological reasoning.
Husserl elaborated and expanded upon Brentano's descriptive psychology with his emphasis on the presuppositionless starting point. This procedure is also often referred to as the 'phenomenological epoche' or bracketing of philosophical or scientific presuppositions in order to be able to examine and presumably describe what is given in intuition. Such 'givenness' is always particular to someone at some time. At this point Husserl's phenomenology seems like a hybrid of the Cartesian and Kantian formulations of, respectively, the cogito or transcendental ego. But Husserl also insists on the empirical nature of a consciousness that is always caught up in the world as intentional mental acts proceed. Indeed Husserl takes aim at theoretical, objective or rationalist accounts as being essentially abstract idealisations that are 'views from nowhere' - in contrast with the existential temporal flow of human perception.
Chewing all this over a number of doubts creep in. The most obvious is whether anything presuppositionless exists or can exist as an object of knowledge. Also the assumption that all conscious presuppositions can be bracketed (which itself stems from a possibility unwarranted assumption that all mental acts are exclusively conscious) or the objection that any phenomenological description will be just another presupposition. Nevertheless despite these significant reservations I do appreciate the call to return to experience - "back to the things themselves" and the insistence on the perspectivist nature of knowledge of objects. But at this stage I cannot see how any phenomenological description will be different in kind from any other epistemological approach that keeps contingency in view.
October 2013
Politics and the mind – a common genealogy ?
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I was inspired by the ‘historical note’ passage from ‘Descartes’ Myth’ (Reading 2, pages 147-148) where Ryle suggests “One benefit bestowed by the para-mechanical myth was that it partly superannuated the then prevalent para-political myth.” to consider the genealogy of these myths in more detail.
That is, the logical forms of principles of power/politics developed in parallel with logical forms of the principles of mind. Assuming in general the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle both tended to orbit a central logical principle.
With Plato this might be said to be the theory of forms and with Aristotle teleological hylomorphism. The Platonic influence might be said to emphasise the primacy of thought as for example in the separation of nous into a existance of form/idea that is immune from the constantly changing imperfection of material things (Phaedo, Timaeus).
With Aristotle the logical principle centres on the purpose that form gives to matter. The degree to which matter is actualised to its potential form is the measure of its success. However, like Plato, Aristotle also thought nous was immaterial – which seemed to contradict somewhat Aristotle’s classification of the soul as a form of the body.
Plato’s Republic and Aristotle’s Politics each had a very different emphasis. With Plato stressing an ideal future hierarchy and Aristotle stressing an ideal existing balance of the community. Nevertheless we might agree with Ryle’s characterisation of these as “old myth(s) of Final Causes”.
Ryle suggests the the route to the ‘para-mechanical myth’ can be traced back to the the incorporation and refinement of Platonic/Aristotelian ideas into Christian theology. Politically the hierarchy of knowledge (in Plato’s Republic) becomes a divine hierarchy in Augustine and Calvin. It might be concluded that the univocal logical form of nous was fragmented in the shift to the Christian conscience. Whilst in Plato or Aristotle an individual might have degrees of knowledge – in Christianity one is either saved or damned. Nous becomes the divine mind of God – irredeemably separate from mortals.
So the separation of the body of humanity and the divine mind of God is in place prior to Descartes. As Ryle puts it Descartes simply restated this separation in the “the syntax of Galileo”. Ryle suggests that the new “para-mechanical myth” lends support to the developing “para-political myths” of the early enlightenment. That is a shift away from rigid predetermined hierarchies to autonomous political machines or models of power. From acceptance of preordained power to an investigation into the mechanics of power.
I wonder in a modern context whether the category mistakes of an occult immaterial mind might be seen to parallel category mistakes of occluded,immaterial and absolute political principles ? That is the more immaterial and nebulous a political principle or rhetoric is the more likely it is to be an illusion.
This entry was posted in Philosophy, Politics and tagged Gilbert Ryle on Friday, October 4, 2013. Edit
November 2013
I currently think that the Unknown as being neither known nor unknown.
I currently think that the Unknown (Capital ’U’ for clarity – e.g. Kant’s thing-in-itself etc.) as being (its existent status) neither known nor unknown. Because it is not possible to know something is unknown without contradiction (in bivalent logic).
Another way of expressing this in bivalent logic is that the Unknown is both known and unknown. The Unknown expressed in this way in classical logic raises the issue of [P and Not P].
So the statement ‘I know that there is an unknown’ may translate to P (I know an unknown) and Not P (I do not know an unknown).
In a normal logical sentence P must be true or false – so the statement P and Not(P) is always false whatever the truth-value of P is. In other words the statement P and Not (P) violates the laws of contradiction.
Consider If [P and Not(P)], then Q. If it is the case that [I know an unknown and I do not know an unknown] then anything Q is true. Or in other words from a contradiction, anything (and everything) follows as a logical conclusion.
Such tautologies arise because the Unknown is indeterminate and bivalent logic is determinate.
The resolution of the Unknown may be found in intuitionistic logic where a proposition is either justified, flawed or neither (tentatively translated as true/false/unknown). Whereas the essential property of bivalent logic is truth (true/false) the essential property of intuitionistic logic is justification.
If knowledge is based on justification (such as with confirmation/empirical holism) rather than just proof then we may validly compare reality-principles according to their intuitionistic logics.
So I can say I know that matter-energy has more empirical justification as a reality principle than any other (including the unknowability of the thing-in-itself) and what I do not know has no bearing on the situation (beyond waiting to be discovered).
Genealogy of Ideas.
Should the history of ideas be examined from the perspective of the development of an idea or from biological, environmental and socio-economic perspectives ?
Do societies in more extreme environments favour co-operative ideas ? Do affluent societies favour competitive and libertarian ideas ?
Is globalisation imperialism in an environmental sense ? In that homogeneity of trade is based on an affluent perspective.
December 2013
William James' Free Will.
OU:AA308:Emotion:
Youtube lecture by Bob Doyle, Associate Astronomy - Department, Visiting Scholar - Philosophy, Harvard University.
Of interest in this lecture is an account of William James' notion of free will (from James' 1896 lecture The Will to Believe) as a two stage decision process of 1) chance occurrences followed by 2) choice (or consent)of one possibility. What attracted my attention is the parallel or conformance with James' notion of emotion which also involves a two stage separation between perception and emotion (although James conceded perception->emotion and bodily cause->emotion). Carolyn Price in this respect comments "James seems to suggest that the emotion and the perception of the eliciting event are quite separate. On this view, it would be possible to experience an emotion without having perceived any eliciting event." (Price,p.21). There seems to be then two types of emotion for James' a) an emotion which has an object (and presumably conforms with James' notion of free will) and b) objectless emotions such as "attacks of anxiety" (Price,p.21)(presumably objectless emotions belong to the first stage of chance or randomness in free will terms).
Summary : Over 125 years ago, William James found today's most plausible and practical solution to the 2400-year old problem of free will and determinism. Many philosophers today think that free will is an illusion, or that free will is compatible with all our actions being pre-determined since the beginning of the universe. James thought otherwise.
Robert Frank and game theory.
OU:AA308:Emotion:
The major point Robert Frank was making was that (classical) game theory in itself is not a sufficient explanation of human behaviour. Classical game theory assumes that the players in a game have absolute positions of self-interest and a transparent knowledge of the game. In such games players will not make commitments that defer immediate rewards – because each player is only informed by their self-interest and complete knowledge of their situation (viz a viz the other player) to act immediately.
Frank argues that in practice (the real ‘natural’ world) players never have a complete knowledge of the game or of the state of play of other players. In such a scenario pure self-interest will often be self-destructive – the short term gains (provided by self-interest) will often be outweighed by the long term gains of commitment (deferring self interest).
Frank goes on to argue that emotions act as incentives that may counterbalance pure self interest. He maintains that a fundamental reward mechanism (perhaps evolutionary) is still central to human behaviour – but that this mechanism is informed by emotional incentives/disincentives as well as by ‘rational’ self-interest. He also suggests that emotional expressions (readily apparent at least in basic emotions) communicate a player’s intention to commit (or not).
George Ainslie in Breakdown of Will (2001) has explored what happens in modern societies when the fundamental reward mechanism is informed by addictive or self-destructive emotions (drug, alcohol addiction etc.). In these cases ‘irrational’ emotions override ‘rational’ emotions and (informed) self-interest. So emotions can also be subject to the commitment problem – where immediate emotional reward is favoured. Of course what counts as a rational or irrational emotion is itself contentious.
It is notable that the UK Government now has a behavioural insights team, often called the 'Nudge Unit'.
Beliefs and intentional objects.
OU:AA308:Emotion:
In paragraph 6 of Reading 2 Solomon attempts to determine some similarities and some differences between a belief and an intentional object.
Solomon states a distinction between a fact (John stole my car) which is explicit and true/false (a true/false description or in logical terms a sound/unsound proposition) and an intentional object that is opaque.
But what distinguishes an opaque intentional object from the assumption of a valid belief? That is a belief that makes logical sense (that John stole my car) but may be unsound when the facts are known.
Solomon refers to Sartre “what emotions are ‘about’ by saying that their object is ‘transformed’”. I understand this reference, following Solomon’s logic, as implying an emotion (which is an act of judgement) will judge the intentional object as a fact. Why ‘as a’ fact? Because what other transformation can be implied here other than a change in a property of the intentional object? Additionally what other properties does the statement ‘that John stole my car’ (that is the opaque content of my emotion according to Solomon) have apart from the premises and propositional structure of a factual statement?
In this respect I take opaqueness to mean that there has been some kind of rush to judgement (‘that John stole my car’) or put another way treating a valid proposition as a sound proposition (presuming the facts of the case).
However following the reference to Sartre I find in the Stanford entry on Sartre’s Existentialism - “In Sartre’s analysis of emotions, affective consciousness is a form of pre-reflective consciousness, and is therefore spontaneous and self-conscious.” And “A voluntary act involves reflective consciousness that is connected with the will; spontaneity is a feature of pre-reflective consciousness.”. So for Sartre emotions are pre-reflective, spontaneous while remaining self-conscious. An emotion such as anger is not an act of judgement but an immediate pre-judgement. It is hard to determine in Sartre what kind of self-consciousness would be pre-reflective as self-consciousness seems to imply a reflective act directed towards oneself (a consciousness of).
Solomon also refers to “D.F. Pears points to this same feature by noting that it is always an ‘aspect’ of the object that is the object of an emotion.” I haven’t been able to locate the specific source Solomon refers to here – but I have located D.F.Pear’s paper ‘Motivated irrationality’ (1982) which discusses similar issues.
“An internally irrational action is one that does not fit the factual beliefs and valuations or desires with which the agent is equipped at the time. His equipment is taken as given and no judgement is passed on it. The point is only that his action does not fit it.” (Pears, 1982, p.158).
“It is important that the dynamic part of the agent's equipment may either be a valuation or a mere desire. These two things are not the same, however closely they may be connected with one another. The examples that will be used will nearly always involve a valuation, so that internal irrationality may be examined in its most extreme and striking form.” (Pears, 1982, p.158).
Definition of Evaluate.
OU:AA308:
Evaluate - verb [with obj.]
form an idea of the amount, number, or value of; assess: the study will assist in evaluating the impact of recent changes | [with clause] : a system for evaluating how well the firm is performing.
(Mathematics) find a numerical expression or equivalent for (an equation, formula, or function): substitute numbers in a simple formula and evaluate the answer.
Only in the mathematical context (2) can evaluate be defined as ‘work out the value of’. Definition (1) refers primarily to the formation of ideas. Hence an evaluative judgement (or a process of ‘evaluating something’ in order to arrive at a judgement) is the formation of an idea in respect of a judgement.
Facts are typically arrived at through analytic or synthetic judgements. A purely abstract mathematical problem is analytic – the factual solution being an analytic judgement. An empirical problem is synthetic – the factual solution is based on induction (observation, experiment etc.).
But an evaluative judgement is not, necessarily, factual – rather it expresses an attitude to the world. As OED definition (1) expresses it the formation of an idea of. Furthermore ‘value of’ need not be quantitative but may also be qualitative. For example ethical or aesthetic judgements may be qualitative judgements.
Applying the above to Price’s examples …
The [factual] judgement that wealth is desired. This is asserting a fact (that wealth is desired) which may or may not be correct.
The [evaluative] judgement that it is desirable. This is expressing an attitude ‘that it is’. One could have such an attitude even if ‘wealth is desired’ is not a fact.
The [factual] judgement that climbing mountains is likely to injure you. This is asserting a fact (that climbing mountains is likely to injure you) which may or may not be correct. As others have noted this example demonstrates that the assertion of a fact may be incorrect or unjustified. The example can seem confusing because ‘is likely’ sounds more ambiguous than ‘will’ or ‘is’. But the assertion something is likely is a factual assertion. Note that synthetic judgements based on induction are contingent. The assertion that ‘climbing mountains is likely to injure you’ is in essence a synthetic judgement that is contingent upon evidence that will either support or deny its factual status.
The judgement that climbing mountains is dangerous. This is expressing an attitude towards ‘climbing mountains’. One could have such an attitude even if ‘climbing mountains is dangerous’ is not a fact.
See also
Three Kinds of Judgement
Solomon and Brentano’s theory of judgement.
OU:AA308:Emotion:
Robert Solomon via Husserl seems to be following Brentano’s theory of judgement in respect of emotions as evaluative judgements.
See [[http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/brentano-judgement/][Stanford entry on theory of judgement]]
“Brentano's leading question was a psychological one: What happens in our minds when we make a judgement? Introspectively it is an act quite similar to making a decision, although its behavioural effects are different. “
Brentano’s theory of judgement can be stated as …
The foundational thesis (1) concerns the relation between judgement and predication. (1) Judgements require that something (some object) is given in presentation, but not that something is predicated of it.
The polarity thesis (2) determines the place of negation in judgements. (2) Judgements are either positive or negative, depending on whether the presented object is accepted as existing, or rejected as fictitious or non-existing.
The existential thesis (3) determines a canonical form in which all judgements can be expressed. (3) Judgements are best expressed in sentences of the form “A exists” or “A does not exist”, where the term “A” denotes the presented object which is also the object of the judgement and the rest of the sentence indicates its quality.
“Of course, these claims must be seen in the context of Brentano's overall theory of mental phenomena, in particular in the context of his account of intentionality. “
“ …it is worth mentioning that the term “object of judgement”, as it is used here, always refers to an entity which is distinct from the judgement itself and not contained in it. “
“It is also assumed here that judgements have a content or subject matter, which is not separable from the act itself, and which Brentano originally called the “immanent objectivity of a mental phenomenon”.”
“The content of a judgement must not be conceived as a propositional entity, however, since Brentano explicitly denied that judgements have such entities as their contents.”
“According to Husserl judgements are intentional acts with a propositional content directed at proposition-like entities which he calls Sachverhalte. “
“Existential judgements show that predication is not necessary for forming a judgement, but neither is it sufficient according to Brentano. Many philosophers have assumed that a predicative judgement is nothing more than “the putting together of two ideas”—in the case of “S is P”—or “the separating of two ideas”—in the case of “S is not P”. This view is sometimes called the “combinatorial theory of judgement”, and Brentano was not the first to point out the deficiencies of this view. He refers to John Stuart Mill who already denied that judgements arise from a habit of associating or dissociating ideas. What Brentano adds to Mill's criticism is a precise diagnosis of the mistake: the combinatorial theory tries to locate the characteristic feature of a judgement in its content instead of locating it in its quality. When we combine a subject- and a predicate-term we just form a more complex idea which is again the content of a presentation. What is still missing is the qualitative moment of acceptance or rejection (see Psychology, p.221).”
Brentano’s existential thesis
“Brentano's third thesis says that all simple judgements (that involve only a simple act of judging) can be expressed in sentences of the form “A exists” or “A does not exist” (or “A's exist” and “A's do not exist” respectively). This thesis marks the contrast to all propositional theories of judgement. Propositional theories assume that a complete sentence (or a that-clause) is needed for expressing the content of a judgement. “
“On Brentano's theory, by contrast, only a simple or complex term is needed to express the content of a judgement, and hence a complete sentence can express both the content and the quality of a judgement. In making this claim, Brentano relies on the distinction between categorematic and syncategorematic expressions, i.e., between terms that purport to denote entities, and expressions like “is”, “and”, “or”, etc. that do not. The former specify the content of a judgement, whereas the latter are used for specifying its quality. “
“While Frege treated complete sentences as a basic unit of significance, for Brentano the basic unit of significance are singular and general terms. This focus on terms, rather than sentences, makes Brentano’s logic semantically conservative. Even so, logical rigor can be achieved also within this framework. “
“A specific strand in this history is formed by theories making use of abstract objects corresponding to complete sentences. Here Brentano’s theory stands out as an opponent that eschews such objects in its ontology. The debate about his so-called ‘reism’ divided Brentano’s pupils and became a formative element in the so-called Austrian tradition of philosophy in which Brentano plays the counterpart to Bolzano (see Rojszczak & Smith 2003, Rollinger 2004).”
“From a systematic point of view, the main question remains why one should adopt Brentano’s theory instead of following the now established view that in judging we acquire beliefs with a propositional content. Several possible routes can be explored here. One avenue is opened up by the claim that accepting a proposition is a reflective mental operation that involves more than just believing something to be the case (see Cohen 1992). “
"Accordingly, the basic act of belief-formation might be a process that is more adequately explained by a non-propositional theory following Brentano’s lines. “
“Another issue that invites further inquiry is the relation between the intentional character of mental phenomena and the nature of judgement.“
“Brentano’s explanation of intentionality is often criticized as being confused and incomplete. This criticism overlooks that his theory of judgement may hold the key for resolving some of the problems that his account of intentionality creates (see Chrudzimski 2001). “
“An equally large area of research is opened up by the relation between the concepts of judgement and truth. Brentano used his theory of judgement in arguing against the classical correspondence theory of truth, replacing it by an epistemic account (see Wolenski 1989). “
“In contemporary terms, Brentano’s strategy may be reconstructed as defining truth along deflationist lines, while proposing an epistemic criterion for separating true and false judgements (see Parsons 2004). “
“Finally, it is noteworthy that Brentano’s theory of judgement draws a close parallel between the correctness of our judgements and the correctness of our emotional attitudes, which could be taken as a starting point for exploring how epistemic and moral virtues are connected.“
A spectre is haunting Europe the spectre of thought.
All the powers of distraction already enter to wholly exorcise this spectre: dope and bar, rhetoric and belief, specialists and managers.
Where is the party in opposition that represents knowledge?
They have not touched the power of thought.
Where is the product that has defeated the reproach of knowledge, even the most advanced packaging, as well as received wisdom?
Two things result from this fact:
I. Knowledge is already acknowledged by all European powers to be itself a power even within the poverty of its ownership.
II. It is high time that openly, in the face of the whole world, we air our views, reclaim our time, our space, our tendency to reflect, and meet this retail of knowledge with free thought itself.
Xmas menu
Christmas Eve
Potato gratin Smoked mackerel Salad/rocket Freezer cake
Christmas
Baked fish in salt Lemon/cumin potatoes Spinach pine nuts Baked Fennel Chicken borscht (Chicken stock/bones, beetroot, green cabbage, soured cream, small potatoes, onions, garlic) Rice Pudding (extra Milk) Normal potatoes Hot chocolate Bananas bread etc. Fresh spinach 2 X parsnips Elderflower cordial
Boxing Day
Crusty bread Chicken borscht Apple crumble and custard
A brief overview of logics
Classical logic – often called first order broadly comprises propositional logic (or roughly ‘sentential’ expressed in sentences) and predicate logic (expressed in quantified formal symbols). Predicate logic is quantified according to absolute constraints of the existential (‘there exists’) and universal (‘for all’). Predicate logic is called ‘explosive’ in that logical consequences or steps are divided (exploded) in a bivalent tree pattern. One central concept of consistency in predicate logic that disallows contradictions is ex contradictione quodlibet (ecq) or ‘from a contradiction anything follows’. This rule is often called the law of non-triviality (as ecq states that any consequence of a contradiction is trivial).
Modal logic – primarily developed by Saul Kripke modal logic is of possibility and necessity. Modal logic in its most basic form simply adds the quantifiers ‘it is possible that’ and ‘it is necessary that’ to predicate logic. The addition of modal quantifiers to logic allows statements to be qualified by some condition. Other forms of modal logic allow the qualifications of temporality (‘was’, ‘has’, ‘will’, ‘will always’), the deontic ( ‘It is obligatory that p’, and ‘It is permissible that p’), the epistemic (‘it is known that’) and the doxastic (‘It is believed that’).
Who do you think you are ? How to construct an identity.
1 The basics
1.1 'factual' identity
1.1.1 documentary identity
1.1.2 biological identity
1.1.3 Do individuals exist ? Are you alone ?
1.2 beliefs _
1.2.1 geographical identity - how to carve up the world ? _
# 1.2.1.1 actual
# 1.2.1.1.1 local
# 1.2.1.1.2 national
# 1.2.1.1.3 regional
# 1.2.1.1.4 global
# 1.2.1.1.5 extraterrestrial _
# 1.2.1.2 virtual
# 1.2.1.2.1 place
# 1.2.1.2.2 space
# 1.2.1.2.3 dimension
# 1.2.1.2.4 extension _
1.2.2 social identity - friends or families ?
1.2.3 sexual identity
1.2.4 semantic identity
1.2.5 hybrid identities - connecting the dots
1.2.6 Others - the identity of indiscernibles
# 1.2.6.1 'I'
# 1.2.6.2 'We'
# 1.2.6.3 'Them'
#_ 1.2.6.4 'Null' - what is left over ?
2 Construction / destruction / drift
3 Activation
4 Maintenance
** 4.1 Authenticity - keeping your receipts * 4.1.1 Value / values * 4.1.2 Provenance * 5 Function - things to do with your new toy * 6 Retirement/obsolescence/death * 7 Legacy
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