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Finished the first chapter of Shakespeare: An Aristotelian and Kantian reevaluation
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Commentary on Platos’ “The Laws”: Book 4
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The book begins by considering the geographical location of the hypothetically conceived polis of Magnesia. The Athenian proposes a land-locked location on the island of Crete with 10 miles to the nearest coastline. This choice of a land-locked location appears to be the result of a judgement relating to harbours and the vices one can encounter in such trading environments. We ought to recall here that Athens was a cosmopolitan trading port, exporting and importing a wide range of goods. Grain was the only product that was regulated by the Athenian state.
Aristotle, in contrast to the view of the Athenian, as might be expected, supported a middle position between free and regulated trade but like Socrates and the Athenian stranger was opposed to unnecessary luxury and unnecessary money lending. Aristotle’s idea of wealth was that it essentially consisted in the use of things rather than mere possession of them. Money lent for interest is unnecessary he argues because it is what he calls a “sterile element”, but money can be exchanged to facilitate necessary trading transactions. Money of course is a possession necessary for maintaining life-activity: it is an instrument, a means to an end and if it becomes an end in itself, it defies its essential nature (This is the view of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle , and Kant). Indeed if it is used, for example, to buy high office in a government this is, in Aristotle’s view, a problematic corrupt practice. For Aristotle, such a practice is not in accordance with areté which demands that they who rule shall be the most qualified to rule. It is interesting to note that given the criticism of both Plato’s Republic and “The Laws” by Aristotle, there is nevertheless much agreement over the principles associated with areté, diké, techné, and epistemé. The extreme frugality of the Socratic “healthy city”where one sleeps on straw, and the extreme of the “fevered city” of Plato which abolishes wealth, separates the warriors and rulers from their children, and believes Philosophers would make the best rulers, are extremes that are both avoided by Aristotle in accordance with his commitment to “The Many meanings of Good” and “The Golden Mean”. In other words, Aristotles account of wealth would not fear the vice one encounters in particular environments such as harbours or ports.
Socrates in the Republic, in an attempt to define the meaning of “justice”, argued for the position that justice is both good-in-its-consequences and good-in-itself. Kant took this line of thinking to a logical conclusion with his different formulations of a categorical imperative which commands us universally to treat people as ends-in-themselves. One alternative ethical position to that of Socrates or Kant is onethat focuses on the consequences of action, e.g. the utilitarianism of the English empiricists (Bentham and J.S. Mill) which allows one to conceptualise ethical action in a scientific “causal” framework. This in turn focuses on “effects” rather than the maxims, intentions and will of the agent. The causal nature of this argumentation also allowed the instrumental form of argumentation used by economists to occupy the centre of the stage, politically.
There have been many arguments against the ethical position of consequentialism. The double effect argument of Aquinas , for example, points out that most actions have chains of consequences (effects that have effects), and that in some circumstances one item in the chain might be good (the injured soldier diving on a live grenade to save his fellows) whilst the effect of the effect, might be bad (the loss of the heroes life). Is, then, the action good or bad? Right or wrong? Appealing to a general principle of happiness will not help here because we cannot straightforwardly say the hero was happy to have lost his life doing his duty or that his fellows were happy that he lost his life. The ethical value of this action seems rather to revolve around the intrinsic worthiness of the action—namely that it is both good-in its consequences and good-in-itself (it was what he freely chose to do).
Polemical debates over the rights and wrongs of Capitalism also seem to attempt to rest their case on the principle of happiness as conceived by the consequentialists. The point of referring to such debates is that they are related to the issue of the role of harbours and the trading process, which might seem like an environment of vice waiting for regulation by areté, diké, arché, and phronesis: an environment, to use Socratic expressions, where the secondary art of making money has usurped the primary arts associated with a state of affairs that is both good-in-its-consequences and good-in-itself. Plato’s tactic of situating Magnesia in a land-locked environment is, then, an attempt to avoid an environment where most people feel compelled to follow the rules and tactics of the art of earning money, an art they believe is so necessary to survive.
“Modern” theories of utilitarianism sometimes make the extreme claim that the only good is related to the ultimate good of happiness which we know Kant rejected on the grounds that happiness was the principle of self-love in disguise, and such a form of love is not worthy of the dignity of man who has a duty to be concerned with what is not just good-in-its-consequences, but what is also good-in-its-itself. Kant would certainly have agreed with Aquinas’ double-effect argument against all ethical consequentialist theories. Aquinas argues that many consequences have consequences of their own and each consequence can have a different ethical value. Take the example of the badly injured soldier sacrificing his life in an enclosed space with his fellows by shielding them from the effects of a live grenade with his own body. The immediate consequence is from an observers standpoint bad–the soldier lost his life—-but the ensuing consequence is good because his fellows live on to fight another day. So one consequence is bad and one consequence is good, making the action difficult to characterise categorically. There is also the additional consideration that consequences are notoriously difficult to predict. For example, another live grenade may be thrown into the enclosed space and kill everyone present in that space. What these examples illustrate is the justificatory importance of the intention in such circumstances. The good intention flowing from the good will is what we principally use to categorise this sacrifice as a good action. The journalist writing about this incidence would certainly not criticise the heroic action on the grounds that it resulted in the death of the agent or that the hero failed to take into account the ensuing consequence (of another grenade killing everyone) for his fellows. In a war, of course, it is often the case that actions have the consequences of life or death, but even here the activity of the hero, as Aristotle would have claimed, aims at the good—however complex that aim might be. This raises an important question, namely, whether “The Laws” are primarily formulated with a view to the consequences of action, or whether these too must be just, i.e. both good-in-themselves. and good-in their-consequences. The answer ought to be obvious. A law such as that which prohibits the sale of sex, risks treating the prostitutes, (who often have had their freedom removed, by either being made dependent on drugs, or more straightforwardly the threat of violence), as means to ends and not as ends-in-themselves. Sweden has relatively recently placed the onus of responsibility upon the purchaser of sex and the final justification of such a position has to be Kantian.
The positioning of the secondary art of economics at the centre of civilisation building or cultural activity resulted in the dialectical materialism of Marxism that focusses on an economically oppressed proletariat who are suffering at the hands of an oppressor class who own the means of production. Aristotelian reasoning would reject Marxism on the grounds that in such theorising no attention is being paid to the middle class and their potential for wise constitutional rule of the polis. This class will, in the future, Aristotle argues, embody a range of virtues that will have been communicated to them via their upbringing and education. Aristotle, confronted then, with these modern alternatives of Capitalism and Communism would see them to be extremes which required focussing on a middle class that was formed with the help of the operation of the Golden mean principle.
Marx, of course, was influenced by the work of the idealist Philosopher , Hegel, who provoked a discussion of the importance of historical law in relation to the march of Spirit. Marx’s conception of “The “laws” was one which Thrasymachus of the Republic would have shared. For Marx laws were an ideological instrument of oppression for the proletariat and false representations of reality: the strong, that is, were using the laws to serve their own selfish interests. Hegel also, incidentally inspired the phenomenologists and existentialists with his reflections upon being and nothingness that generated for example Sartre’s idea of Consciousness which was a modification of the Cartesian conception. Sartre, we recall promised his readers an ethics based on his existentialist Philosophy but delivered instead a Marxist document ( Critique of dialectical reason) produced against a background of a refusal to denounce Stalin and being arrested for selling Maoist newspapers on the streets of Paris. For later phenomenologists like Merleau-Ponty who was also a Marxist, reason and rationality was supplanted by the ideas of “meaning” and “negation” in the context of the operation of the powers of perception imagination, and consciousness. Science too, was criticized for its materialistic metaphysics thus creating a form of metaphysical dualism that was also present to some extent in Hegel, which as we know aimed to turn the work of Kant upside down. We ought to also recall in the context of this discussion that Kant, like Aristotle, provided decisive criticisms of both materialism and dualism and negotiated a middle way between these two positions retaining the truths of both positions: truths that could not rationally be denied. Nevertheless phenomenologists and Existentialists of the 20th century chose to focus on the power of consciousness which, for them, was not grounded on the instincts which Aristotle, Darwin, and Freud believed were the foundation for understanding the meaning of the definition “rational animal capable of discourse”. This focus was partly complemented by the interest in the progress of empirical science in many different fields of investigation. It was, in fact, the Hegelian concentration upon conceptual concretisation or actualisation, plus his anti-metaphysical idealism, that contributed to the growing momentum of the logical atomism and logical positivism movements that swept through Europe ad the US.
Wundt and the Structuralist psychologists chose to define Psychology as the “Science of Consciousness” and sought to “discover” and quantify those basic sensations and feelings which might ground human experience and behaviour. These experiments failed to achieve their purpose and the subsequent response of those active in this field was to question whether Consciousness was the appropriate “subject-matter” for those who wished to discover the building blocks of experience. The initial response to these failed experiments was to shift focus from consciousness to behaviour, because, it was maintained, behaviour can be observed in stimulus-response framework embedded in a context of habit-formation.
Phenomenologists, inheriting the Hegelian dialectical method, as well as the focus upon Consciousness, committed themselves to the “description” of experience rather than the defence of the principles underlying phenomena connected to psuché. The scientific concern with behaviour rejected all forms of metaphysics and much of the reasoning associated with answering the question “Why did agent A do X?” Kant’s Psychology (Anthropology) used many of the groundwork assumptions embedded in Aristotelian hylomorphic Theory, but it may well have been neutralised temporarily by Hegelian dialectical logic and the anti-Hegelian “logic” of atomists and positivists. What emerged from the combination of all these “influences” was a philosophical view of Science based on a methodology that firstly, conceptualised consciousness as essentially connected to “subjective”sensations and feelings, and secondly, conceptualised behaviour (reflexive behaviour and habitual behaviour) as objectively observable and measurable. Perhaps the principle of association emerged from such investigations but this was more like an explanatory “mechanism” than something that could explain the relation between a condition of experience and a phenomenon of experience.
Marxist theory was constructed, as we noted, in an environment in which instrumentalist economic theory served as the ground to reject both Hegelian idealism and all forms of essentially philosophical argumentation in the arena of Politics. During this period economics was used also to justify the movement of economic globalisation via trade. We ought in this context to remind ourselves that for the Ancient Greeks Oikonomous was merely a secondary art designed to provide us with goods from the external world and perhaps goods for the body, or in other words economic activity focussed upon what was merely good-in-its consequences. The Primary Cultural activities of Art, Philosophy, Politics and Religion for the Greeks concerned themselves primarily with what is good-in-itself and good-in-its-consequences: such goods extend over the entire range of goods including the goods of the body, the external world and the goods for the soul.
Hannah Arendt included Cecil Rhodes in her gallery of “new men” and noted how he yearned to colonise the planets for economic purposes. The planets, we ought to note in the context of this discussion had always been objects of awe and wonder and associated with the Gods, but there is no doubt that philosophically we can also legitimately view the heavenly bodies such as the moon, scientifically, as Anaxagoras did, when he noted that the moon was merely cold stone illuminated by the light of the sun. Economics had always been an important consideration during war, but with the advent of the Industrial Revolution and the continuation of the Cartesian project of inventing war machines, it was obviously going to play an even larger role in the First and Second World Wars where the conflict was no longer between individual countries over individual territories but rather a conflict where the issue became one of militarising the whole world for political and economic purposes.
Neither Stalin not Hitler would have responded positively to Human Rights arguments or humanistic arguments demanding respect for the freedom of individual countries or individuals. Both of these tyrants thought of themselves as world-historical leaders (to use a Hegelian term) marching to the music of the Spirit of the Times, perhaps claiming the support of both historical and economic laws. Both of these tyrants committed terrible crimes and are perfect illustrations of the picture of the tyrant presented by Socrates in the Republic: both are bloodthirsty and act in accordance with their many unlawful desires.
The new men of Hegelian Dialectical Philosophy, Analytical Philosophy, Popular Science, Empirical Psychology, Machiavellian Politics and Global Economics were building upon the foundations provided by Descartes and Hobbes and all of these influences together succeeded in inverting the world-view of the masses in the name of the new supplanting the old: in the name of progressivism.
Yet it is also interesting to note that most of these dangers were already present during the time of the Ancient Greeks. They were not, however, in the ascendancy, because there remained during this time a mass belief in the sanctity and importance of authority. This belief, however, was eclipsed in modern times because, on the populist view, authority revealed itself time and again to be imperfect and this sufficed for a comprehensive withdrawal of trust insofar as all authority was concerned. Part of this process included the secularisation of religious belief alongside the dissolution of belief in Government and its various institutions (including legal institutions). There are, however, several curious phenomena worth noting:
- The thought of Plato Aristotle, Kant, Freud and Wittgenstein live on in the “academies” of the universities and contribute to a kind of subterranean counter-reformation.
- The process of globalisation continues on several different fronts and political shifts in favour of the formation of a larger well educated middle class are ongoing, as well as attempts to deal with issues of human rights and global warming on the world-stage.
- The world has experienced peace for the last 75 years up until 2014 when Russia invaded Ukraine, violating both the country’s sovereignty and international law relating to human rights.
- Weapons of mass-destruction have as yet not been used since their last use on the civilian population of Japan at the end of the Second World War.
- The internet whilst favouring populist movements also provides a platform for the distribution of academic work to a wide audience.
So the news about our world is both good and bad and we await the next phase of our cultural development. Will the middle class be given the education and power they need to control the excesses and deficiencies of the state? Will, on the other hand, the new men succeed in marginalising knowledge, justice, and freedom and the other virtues necessary for most of us to lead good spirited flourishing lives? Will the Delphic challenge to “Know thyself!” be met by the middle class or will the prophecy of “everything created by humans is destined for ruin and destruction” become a reality?
Perhaps the most important Philosophical question posed by Kant was “What can we hope for?” Kant relates this religious question to the central question of his ethics, namely “What ought we to do?” These questions have not been of primary interest to modern phenomenologists and existentialists and neither the Philosophy of Religion nor ethics have featured as areas of concern. Sartre, Heidegger and Merleau -Ponty have all failed to produce an ethical theory of significance and they have retreated into either Marxism or in Heideggers case the National Socialism of Hitler. On the other hand, Kantian ethics and political Philosophy have resulted in the abstract grounding of human rights and the establishment of concrete institutions such as the United Nations which lies behind the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Kantian duty-based ethics is the ground for the claim that there is no such thing as a right, if there is no-one prepared to honour the duty to enforce that right. So Kantian Philosophy has resulted in concrete historical results in terms of restoring the authority of the law (international law) during a time when the new me were busy dismantling traditional authoritative institutions.
We see in the earlier books of this commentary that already during Plato’s time the process of dismantling the standards in the traditional arena of music was beginning. Perhaps the prosecution of Socrates may have been a reaction to more popular attempts to dismantle well intrenched traditional structures. Now whilst Human Rights may not have been as such present on the political agenda of the Athens of this time, the foundation, however, for these rights, namely the combination of the good-in-itself and the good-in-its-consequences, was being systematically explored by Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.
A wave of Military and Economic global processes have swept over our modern world in the form of invasions and free trade. The form of our living has become permeated by technological inventions and unimagined luxuries in many regions of the world as a result of the free movement of goods and to a more limited extent, the fee movement of specialised competence. This from the Ancient Greek point of view, is a form of life that violates the oracles commandment of “Nothing too much”: a life filled with unnecessary desires. From the Kantian point of view these popular trends indicate an unnecessary concentration upon happiness or the principle of self-love in disguise.
In the continuing discussion of the geographical location of Magnesia in relation to the sea we encounter the following:
“For the country to have the sea nearby is pleasant enough for the purposes of everyday, but in fact it is a “salty-sharp and bitter neighbour” in more senses than one. It fills the world with wholesaling and retailing, breeds shifty and deceitful habits in a mans soul, nd makes the citizens distrustful and hostile not only among themselves, but also in their dealings with the world outside.”(P.159)
The Athenian continues his discourse on the conditions tied to the land if it produces more than the polis needs:
“the state would be swamped with the gold and silver money it received in return—and that if a state means to develop just and noble habits, is pretty nearly the worst thing that could happen to it, all things considered.” (P.159)
This builds upon a Socratic argument to the effect that earning money may be necessary to maintain a household but it is nevertheless a “secondary art” in relation to the primary art of helping others in need through the medium of our work. Socrates argues that the primary art of the shepherd is to tend his sheep but the shepherd also has an interest in the secondary art of earning money. Socrates also uses the example of the doctor who has a primary duty to heal his patients and this ought to override the secondary consideration of receiving payment for his work. Relevant to this discussion is the argument in The Republic against the oligarchic rule of the rich in the polis. The danger with such a form of rule is that the focus of government will centre around the unnecessary desire for the accumulation of wealth. Plato appears in The Republic to favour timocratic rule because of its focus upon the love of honour: a virtue which does not feed the polis with unnecessary desires for luxury. The Athenian, however, believes that timocratic rule is limited because it is founded only upon one virtue from the range of virtues necessary to lead a city along the road to eudaimonia (a good spirited flourishing life).
The Athenian continues his reasoning about the strategic importance of being landlocked and claims that forming a navy can in fact corrupt the fighting spirit of the polis. The Cretan is indirectly criticised for the Cretans use of their navy:
“sailors have the bad habit of dashing forward at frequent intervals and then beating a very rapid retreat.”(P.161)
Fighting at sea, the Athenian argues, is neither noble nor courageous. He continues his argument by claiming that the land battles against the Persians were more decisive and important than the sea-battles which he claims were fought by :
“a motley crew of ragamuffins” (P.162)
The argument being proposed here is that it was the fighting on land that improved the Greek character. Part of the strategy of the argument was to emphasis that the highest good for the polis is connected with a range of virtues rather than mere animal survival. The argument continues with:
“Thats all very well, but when we examine the natural features of a country and its legal system, our ultimate object of scrutiny is of course the quality of its social and political arrangements. We do not hold the common view that a mans highest good is to survive and simply to continue to exist. His highest good is to become as virtuous as possible and to continue to exist in that state as long as life lasts.” (P.162)
The setting up of the ideal state of Magnesia requires, of course, a population which in turn in this instance requires a migration of people from elsewhere. The Athenian points out that emigrant groups have the unity of a swarm of bees. The unity of Magnesia, however, will depend upon the extent to which there is a common language, a common view of law and a common religion: so presumably the emigrant population will come from other areas of Greece. It is also claimed that the history of the relation of this emigrant group to the political and social systems they left will be of importance to the new state. If their relation was rebellious this behaviour might continue in Magnesia and destabilise the new regime. Assimilation of this “swarm of bees” would obviously take a long period of time. This discussion contrasts with that in the Republic where it was claimed paradoxically that all members of the state over the age of 10 years old would have to leave the vicinity for the establishment of the new callipolis. The argument for this was that the ingrained vices of the older inhabitants might be too intractable for the required acquisition of the range of virtues that fell under “the Form of the Good”. We can see from the account given in “The “laws” how Plato changed his approach to the task of forming the callipolis. On the question of what form of rule ought to prevail at the beginning of this process, the Athenian states:
“The ideal starting point is dictatorship, the next best is constitutional kingship and the third is some sort of democracy. Oligarchy comes fourth because it has the largest number of powerful people, so that it admits the growth of a new order only with difficulty.” (P.167)
Plato in both “The Laws” and “The Republic” in spite of the different approaches, continues to believe that the passing of good laws in a sound legislative process is an important aspect of the creation of the new ideal callipolis. Religion was obviously important in both projects and we find the Athenian insisting that “God is the measure of all things” thus evoking the connection between holiness and justice that Socrates established in the dialogue “Euthyphro”.
Finally an analogy between healing and the legislative process is proposed and it is claimed that two types of doctor administer two different kinds of treatments to their patients: one prescribes their treatment dictatorially whilst the other operates more freely seeking to learn from his patients maladies and attempting to persuade the patients of the efficacy of the treatment. The interlocutors all agree that both methods of compulsion and persuasion have their respective places and both these methods ought to be used in legislative activity: i.e laws thrust upon the population ought to be accompanied by liberal persuasive preambles before the laws are finally passed. The Greek word for “law” is “nomos”, which also incidentally has the meaning of “melody”, and this reminds us of the earlier discussion relating to the dissolution of traditional standards in the creation and appreciation of music, song and dance.
The first laws that ought to be passed should, it is argued, focus upon the institution of marriage, and the well-being of children. The suggestion is that men should be pressured into marrying between the ages of 30-35. This starting point once again emphasises the importance of the social unit of the family in Ancient Greek Political Philosophy. This beginning point contrasts with that of Freud who claimed that the first laws ( instituted in the transition between living in a state of nature and living in a civilisation), ought to protect the life of the ruler.
If there is, as Kant maintains, a moral law commanding that we act toward people as ends-in-themselves, then, if there are states that use their own citizens as means to ends at best and at worst threaten the lives of their own citizens, then this moral law would appear to grant everyone that wanted to, the right to leave such a state. We, who have lived through the latter part of the 20th century, and the beginning of the 21st century, are familiar with the right of immigrants to asylum. There does not, however, seem to be any demands made upon these immigrants to speak the language of the country or share a similar cultural heritage. If asylum seekers come in large numbers from very different cultural backgrounds this would seem to threaten to destabilise the state during the assimilation phase of this process. The conclusion to be drawn from “The Laws”, is that large numbers of immigrants must meet certain conditions if the stability of the state is not to be jeopardised in the short term.
The Kantian emphasis upon the universal necessity of treating people as ends in themselves is merely an elaboration upon the the ideas of the Good we encountered in the views of Socrates/Plato/Aristotle which demanded that whatever is being praised or blamed must accord with what is both good-in-itself and good-in-its-consequences. Areté characterised as the capacity to do the right thing at the right time in the right way places the focus on action and on the idea of Right which Kant reflected upon in his work, “Metaphysics of Morals”.
“So act externally so that the free use of your choice can coexist with the freedom of everyone in accordance with a universal law.”(The Metaphysics of Morals, Trans., Gregor, M. Cambridge, CUP, 1991, P 10)
This, of course, presupposes that everyone human in the name of humanity possesses at least one innate right. The translator of the above work in his introduction elaborates:
“From the concept of a right, Kant immediately concludes that human beings, merely by virtue of their “humanity” has one and only one innate right: the right to freedom of action.” (P.11)
Applied to the idea of possession there appears to be two different forms of possession connected to the above right—the possession of a self and the possession of the objects one owns. Translated into the duties of the state, this right ensures that every state has the duty to preserve and protect the life of its citizens. This is a complex duty as witnessed by the action the Athenian state took against Socrates for philosophising in the agora. The right to the possession of the objects one owns, is of course important for economic activity of all kinds including the wholesaling and retailing activity of ports and harbours. We know that in the Athens of the time of Socrates, emigrants entered the city from the port of Piraeus. Presumably Plato perceived the form of life in the harbour to be problematic and ultimately destabilising. Presumably this was tied up with the single minded purpose of accumulating wealth at the expense of other more noble forms of life.
It is not clear exactly why Plato did not believe in gradual evolutionary political change over long periods. Was it because he felt vice was so intrenched in mans lives and Thanatos was the stronger of the battling giants so that he could not share the Aristotelian commitment to the victory of Eros? The deportation of everyone over the age of 10 years old from Plato’s ideal Republic must have appeared problematic for Aristotle from the point of view of his common good view of justice, which involved everyone getting what they deserve. No one deserves deportation after a lifetime of life and work in a state.The only way of viewing such a phenomenon is in terms of the state using its citizens as means to a highly speculative end. Aristotle’s approach to reaching the end of all citizens leading a good spirited flourishing life was to educate them over a long period of time and create an enlightened middle class that would steer clear of excesses and deficiencies. Aristotle might also have viewed the negative view of artists/composers , the cowardice of the navy, and the supposed concentration of vice around harbours with suspicion. Aristotle’s basis for his ethical and political positions can be found in his account of areté (virtue):
“Virtue (areté), then, is a state (hexis) concerned with choice (prohairetiké) being in the mean (mesoteti) relative to us (pros hemas), determined by reason (logoi), and as the man of practical wisdom (ho phronimos) would determine it. It is a mean state between two vices, one of excess, one of deficiency, and for this reason: whereas one group of vices falls short and the other exceeds what is needed, both in affections and actions, virtue finds and chooses the intermediate(to meson) (Nichomachean Ethics 2, b, 1106b36-1107ab)
Areté is, then used in relation to both doing and feeling and one can see the complexity of the formula for “The Good” above.The ideal standard is not just defined in terms of the judgement of the phronimos but also in terms of the criteria of excess and deficiency (the criteria for vice). Implied in this account is also how the phronimos might justify any action or feeling. If, for example the actions relied on complex scientific knowledge for its performance the assumption is that the phronimos will either have knowledge of the various forms of science ,or alternatively, know how to acquire it. The above formula would not be easily applicable to the circumstances envisaged by Plato insofar as starting a new ideal society from scratch was concerned. Finding a completely new territory would be marginally better than deporting the adult population, but it too has its problems when measured on Aristotelian and Kantian criteria. This latter scenario was, as we know, actually played out in the emigration of large numbers of people to America, but that required famines in Ireland and Sweden and generally miserable circumstances in the countries that were left behind. In the establishment of the USA, political Philosophy certainly played a role in forming the constitution of the country. By this time it had become evident that cities could not survive the onslaughts of nations. One can trace aspects of Plato’s “the Laws” , Aristotles political and ethical philosophy and Locke’s political philosophy, in this constitution, but it also did not meet the criteria of treating all humans as ends in themselves (e.g. the slaves), and it did not meet Kantian criteria either. This lack of attention to human rights in general meant that the indigenous populations rights were not taken spontaneously into consideration. The country was simply colonised on dubious English authority which was subsequently rejected by the early pioneering settlers bearing their Bibles and ideas of “the Good”.
Apart from this remarkable exception of the USA, most nation states were forced to adopt an evolutionary approach to social and political change (revolutions such as the French Revolution were merely instances of internal warfare that tore the country apart and appeared, for example, to Kant, as a mixed bag of the good and the bad.) Aristotles approach to Political change acknowledges the important role of education outlined in Plato’s “The Laws”. Aristotle however, in contrast, focuses on the principle of the Golden Mean and the formation of a “middle class” free of vice. It was to this class Aristotle looked for the change that was required in society: a change that was based on both the good-in-itself and the good-in-its-consequences. The Consequence of Kantian thinking and the growing middle class was the establishment of the idea of Human Rights in International Law. Kant’s thinking in turn was built upon the Aristotelian formula for Virtue in particular and hylomorphic thinking in general. Kant elaborates upon Aristotles ethics and political philosophy and created the basis for a conception of human rights based on his concepts of freedom and duty. He did this in a world that was preparing for an industrial and technical revolution that would place Economics on the agenda of every politician. The Watt Steam Engine( 1778), The Power Loom (1785) and The Cotton Gin ( 1794) were all invented during Kant’s lifetime. This industrial revolution also inspired Marx, using the dialectical method of Hegel, to construct a vision of a proletariat-based society that denied, or at least ignored, the Aristotelian idea of the Golden Middle Class.
For Marx, too, Economic Justice was high on his agenda, accusing as he did, the owners of the means of production for creating a divided society by exploiting the labour of the “working class”. The uneducated masses were seduced by the idea of being the victims in a historical process and this prepared the ground for a revolution in the name of this peculiar view of distributive justice. This Marxist form of dialectical materialism together with Hegelian idealism succeeded in temporary eclipsing the idea of human rights that was emerging from Kantian Critical Philosophy. The secondary art of economic instrumental action, i.e. eclipsed the primary issue of justice which required a categorical form of reasoning relying on moral-categorical premises. Kant’s analysis of reason acknowledged clearly the difference between the instrumental form of reasoning revered by Hegel and Marx and the categorical form of reasoning demanded by an understanding of the moral law. The ambiguous idea of happiness which for Kant was a pseudo-principle deceived us into thinking that reasoning about this ambiguous idea constituted the good-in-itself and the good-in-its-consequences.
We should recall in this context that the Existentialist Hannah Arendt, eventually after a period of flirtation, rejected Marxism on the grounds partly of its injustices and partly because of the positions relation to the right to freedom. Hannah Arendt’s contribution to political Philosophy was substantial given her commitments to existentialism. She saw clearly the emergence of the “new men” which is a judgement that could only make sense against the background of the Aristotelian/Kantian theories of “The Good”. In the context of this discussion her analysis of the character of Eichmann based on her research into the documentation associated with his trial as well as his testimony during the trial, caused considerable controversy in the Jewish community who were convinced that Eichmann was the very embodiment of evil. It was clear to Arendt, on the other hand, that what she witnessed was not an evil man but rather a man with no character– a man for whom the good was a relative matter and the lives of other people not a matter for careful consideration. Eichmann in fact invoked the moral theory of Kant as part of his defence but even in this context Eichmanns understanding was flawed and even if he appealed to duty he did so in essentially instrumental terms that ignored the rights and the lives of the Jews. As we know for the Nazis, the Jews were a problem requiring a solution. This is a way of thinking about human beings which does not acknowledge that they are essentially ends-in-themselves and ought to be treated as such, which is the fundamental message of the Kantian account. According to Arendt, Eichmann did not appear to possess the capacity to reason about his actions or think about them in categorical terms. Of course he had grown up during the worst of times when political parties were disintegrating, religion influence was waning, and philosophical thought was once again stranded on the sand banks of different forms of materialism. He grew up during the period when Psychology was attempting to reshape itself as a science and when science was attempting to persuade the masses that with the assistance of technology “Everything was possible”. He grew up during the time of Freud, the Jew who proved to be a thorn in the side of the Nazis. Freud, we know was discontent with his civilisation and its failures to to provide us with the long-promised good spirited flourishing life. In this work Freud’s eagle eye like the eyes of Janus turned westward to the USA and Eastward to the USSR and in both cases he did not like what he saw. Freud was a student of history and he could not have failed to notice that in the one case we were dealing with a nation with little History and in the other case we were dealing with a nation that had undergone a devastating revolution that rejected much of its previous history: in this latter case millions of citizens would be murdered. He was reflecting on these matters before the final solution to the Jewish problem was implemented and over 6 million Jews were murdered in cold blood.
We ought to once again recall in this context that Freud claimed that his Psychology was Kantian. Freud, of course, was not concerned with analysing the problems of philosophy but rather with the problems of his mental patients and perhaps the pathological problems of political figures and judges such as Woodrow Wilson and Schreber. In these analyses the trait of narcissism emerged and were connected with some of the characteristics of Eichmann such as the inability to understand facts, and propensity for unbridled aggression. The law, however, did not appreciate the defence Eichmann offered and he was sentenced to death for his role in the final solution to the Jewish problem.
Commentary on Plato’s “The Laws”: Book 3(Part Two)
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The hierarchy we were presented with by Socrates in “The Republic” appeared out of the blue without any discussion of the origins or History of actual political regimes. This, of course, was a reflection of the Platonic conviction that there is only one possible regime that fully manifests the range of virtues that are subsumed under the Form of the Good. Aristotle, in his reflections on Politics, disagrees with this position on the Grounds given in his Nichomachean ethics, namely, that Good has many meanings. One man, a few men or many men may all rule wisely in accordance with the Principle of the Golden Mean and the range of virtues required for wise rule. The condition of the possibility for such good government is, of course, that a range of vices including the life of luxury and arrogance have not permeated the souls of either the citizens or the rulers.
It was Aristotle’s Political vision, rather than Plato’s, which would millennia later, inspire Kantian Ethical/Political Philosophy. Kant in his political reflections also referred to human nature, claiming that men essentially manifest a characteristic he terms “unsocial sociability” which, in turn, is associated with a tendency toward antagonism in relation to his fellow man. This, for Kant, was the source of the arrogance Plato referred to in “The Laws”. Both this antagonism and arrogance have to be overcome if Aristotles ideal of friendship or fellowship between all citizens is to be actualised in the polis. Cleinias, at the opening of book 4 refers to this issue:
“But you wanted to explain what the legislator ought to aim at in the matter of friendship and good judgement and liberty.”(P.143)
The Athenians response to this is:
“There are two mother constitutions, so to speak, which you could fairly say have given birth to all the others. Monarchy is the proper name for the first, and democracy for the second. The former has been taken to extremes by the Persians, the latter by my own country; virtually all others, as I said are varieties of these two. It is absolutely vital for a political system to combine them, if (and this of course is the part of our advice, when we insist that no state formed without these two elements can be constituted properly)it is to enjoy freedom and friendship allied with good judgement.”(P.143-4)
The Athenian then engages in a narrative of the History of Persian government in which he mentions that Cyrus, a Persian ruler, was a relatively enlightened monarch allowing both free speech and the pooling of ideas from many different sources. This form of government declined into a more authoritarian form , the Athenian claimed, partly because of a problematic system of upbringing, partly because of a lack of education, and partly because of the lack of experience in running households. Authoritarianism, it is argued, deprives people of their freedom, and destroys friendship and community spirit.
The state has duties, the Athenian claims, for example, to both educate its citizens but also to praise them for manifesting a range of virtues and blame them for manifesting a range of vices but this should not be done in an authoritarian manner. The Athenian notes that neither a respect for education, nor a respect for freedom, was present in the declining Persian authoritarian regime.
The second mother constitution of Attica was then discussed against the background of the threat of the Persians, and the Athenian notes the lack of allies in the war with Persia. Spartan non-participation is especially mentioned including the late arrival of the Spartans to the battle of Marathon. Standing alone in the face of this huge threat had positive results for the Athenians, it is argued, including:
- The emergence of a spirit of friendship and solidarity
- Increased respect for their own legal and political systems
- A modest attitude toward the history and future of Athens
The Athenian then begins an account of the decline of Attica from a position of strength after the Persian wars. He begins this account, rather surprisingly, with the changes that occur in relation to the music of the period:
“In those days, Athenian music comprised various categories and forms. One type of song consisted of prayers to the gods, which were termed “hymns”; and thee was another quite different type which you might have called “laments”. Paeans made up a third category, and there was also a fourth called a “dithyramb”(whose theme I thinks was the birth of Dionysus). There existed another kind of song too, which they thought of as a separate class, and the name they gave it was this very word that is often on our lips, “nomes”. Once these categories and a number of others had been fixed, no one was allowed to pervert them by using one sort of tune in a composition belonging to another category. And what was the authority that had to now these standards and use its knowledge in reaching its verdicts and crack down on the disobedient? Well, certainly no notice was taken of the catcalls and uncouth yelling of the audience, as it is nowadays, nor yet of the applause that indicates approval. People of taste and education made it a rule to listen t the performance with silent attention right through to the end; children and their attendants and the general public could always be disciplined and controlled by a stick…..Later, as time went on, composers arose who started to set a fashion of breaking the rules and offending good taste. They did have a natural artistic talent, but they were ignorant of the correct and legitimate standards laid down by the Muse.. They jumbled together laments and hymns, mixed paeans and dithyrambs, and even imitated pipe tunes on the lyre. The result is total confusion of styles…they misrepresented their art, claiming that in music there are no standards of right and wrong at all, but that the most correct criterion is the pleasure of a man who enjoyed the performance, whether he is a good man or not. On these principles they based their compositions, and they accompanied them with propaganda to the same effect. Consequently they gave the ordinary man not only a taste for breaking the laws of music but the arrogance to set himself up as a capable judge…instead of a “musical meritocracy” a sort of musical “theatrocracy” arose.” (p.153-4)
This passage confirms the earlier Socratic argument relating to the lover of “sights and sounds” that made up the crew of a ship, each of whom believed they could replace the captain whose authority on the basis of the knowledge of mathematics and astronomy they questioned. The problem with this argument is that just as the pleasure related to sights and sounds is a more simple pleasure than that related to the Captains knowledge of navigation, so pleasures of the composers in overturning the standards regulating artistic performances are also less complex than the pleasures associated with the discipline of adhering to an accepted standard. We are also reminded of the Platonic position in the Republic which argued against allowing artists to be part of the ideal Callipolis. The artists imitation of the forms, according to this argument, would threaten the citizens respect for the ultimate standard of the form of the good: which even Homer violated by representing the gods committing violations of the moral and legal codes of the time. In “The Laws”, we see an uncomfortable juxtaposition of excessive freedom, arrogance and narcissistic pleasure. The Athenian argues that this decline in the respect for the authority of musical standards is a precursor to the decline in respect for the authority of the laws of the polis, the decline in the respect for the roles of oaths and promises as well as the respect for religion in general. The particular form of regime the Athenian is criticising is, of course, that of democracy, where excessive freedom is the vice that is associated with the other vices of narcissistic pleasure and arrogance.
In the Republic Socrates argues that the artist is using his freedom and arrogance for representations in a part of the soul that does not concern itself with the calculation of the truth :
“And thus we should at last be justified in not admitting him into a city that is going to be under good laws, because he awakens this part of the soul, and nourishes it, and by making it strong, destroys the calculating part, just as in a city when someone, by making wicked men mighty, turns the city over to them and corrupts the superior ones. Similarly, we shall say, the imitative poet produces a bad regime in the soul of each private man by making phantoms that are very far removed from the truth and by gratifying the souls foolish part which does not distinguish big from little, but believes the same things are at one time big and at another little.”(The Republic of Plato, Trans. Bloom, A.,USA, Basic Books, 1968) (P. 289)
This argument asks us to consider the excesses of the instinct for imitation and refers to the sensible power of the imagination that is regulated by a pleasure-pain principle which is at odds with the reality principle whose domain of concern is knowledge and the Form of the Good. Plato also points out in the Republic that when the poets write about a battle they do so without adequate knowledge of the principles of warfare. Such accounts, Plato, argues, are not to be trusted by those interested in seeking to understand and reason about the phenomenon of warfare.
Kant adds another dimension to this debate by pointing out even if man wishes to be a master, he is in need of a master, principally because rationality, which is an aspect of the calculating part of the soul, has not as yet actualised itself in the entire species of man–the human form of psuché. Until this actualisation occurs, man remains a discoursing animal with the potentiality for being rational. The power of Language, of course, is an important power in mans repertoire of powers but, in its spoken and written forms, it is perhaps underestimated in everyday mass communication, which appears to prize the communication of images and emotions above the truth, knowledge and respect for established traditional standards. Public performances involving language in singing, for example, becomes an important litmus test for the spirit of a society if simple pleasures become the focus of the performances.
Aristotle’s view of the Arts also grappled with this problem. Aristotle viewed Rhetoric as an art, claiming its primary telos was persuasion, maintaining that the means of such rhetorical persuasion concerned not the verbal images of the imagination, but rather the enthymemes produced by the part of the soul that houses the powers of the understanding and reason. Arousing the emotions of pity, fear, anger and other similar emotions is not the central concern of this art, which like all other arts, aims at the Good. Rhetoric, Aristotle argues, is addressed to a judge, and his example is drawn from the context of trial in a legal system. Political rhetoric, designed as it is to argue for the law and its place in the constitution, is less inclined than appeals in the courtroom, to appeal to non-essentials such as pity, fear, anger, pleasure, etc(Complete Works of Aristotle, Ed Barnes, J., Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1984( (P.2152-3):
“..persuasion is a sort of demonstration…; the orators demonstration is an enthymeme: the enthymeme is a sort of deduction; clearly then he who is best able to see how and from what elements a deduction is produced will also be best skilled in the enthymeme, when he has further learned what its subject matter is and in what respect it differs from the deductions of logic. For the true and the approximately true are apprehended by the same faculty: it may also be noted that men have a sufficient natural instinct for what is true, and usually do arrive at the truth.”(P. 2153-4)
The end of this process of persuasion is conviction on the part of the audience. It is this end which ensures that the process is educational and instructional. The supporting argument provided by Aristotle for this is:
“The underlying facts do not lend themselves equally well to the contrary views: No. Things that are true and things that are better are, by their nature, practically always easier to prove and more persuasive. (P.2154)
It is also important to point out that rhetoric is not an imitative art as is poetry which Aristotle also provides an analysis of . Poetry, he argues relates to the nature of man and his activity:
“It is clear that the general origin of poetry was due to two causes, each of them part of human nature. Imitation is natural to man from childhood, one of his advantages over the lower animals being this, that he is the most imitative creature in the world, and learns at first by imitation. And it is also natural for all to delight in works of imitation. The truth of this second part is shown by experience: though the objects themselves may be painful to see, we delight to view the most realistic representations of them in art, the forms, for example, of the lower animals and of dead bodies. The explanation is to be found in a further fact: to be learning something is the greatest of all pleasures not only to the philosopher but also to the rest of mankind, however small their capacity for it; the reason of the delight in the seeing of the picture is that one is at the same time learning—-gathering the meaning of things, e.g. that the man there is so-and-so: for if one has not seen the thing before, ones pleasure will not be in the picture as an imitation of it, but will be due to the execution or colouring, or some similar cause.”(P.2318)
Aristotle also argues that the purpose of the different arts vary with the means, manner and objects of the imitation. The objects being, “agents who are necessarily either good men or bad”(P.2317). What Plato outlined as “decline” in this book of “The Laws” is what happens when these imitations lose their cultural bearings because they function in relation to the telos of pleasure in general rather than in relation to the means which brings about the best of all pleasures (according to both Plato and Aristotle) namely, the pleasure of learning. The process of decline delineated in Plato’s “The Laws” is not merely of classical interest and because this is such a slow and complex process we still see its effects today in our so-called “Modern societies” in general and “Modern Art” in particular.
Stanley Cavell in his work “Must We Men What We Say?”(Cambridge, CUP, 1969) helps to define and articulate this nebulous idea of the “Modern”:
“The essential fact of the modern lies in the relation between the present practice of an enterprise and the history of that enterprise, in the fact this relation has become problematic.”(P. XIX)
Plato hinted at this problem early in this part of book three when he blamed the role of pleasure and arrogance for the dissolution of the boundaries of the different stylistic categories of music. Cavell identifies another factor for us, namely the lack of agreement between critics of Art, and in this context he cites Humes example of two wine critics who, asked for their opinion about a particular wine, offer seemingly different criticisms, the one claiming to detect the presence of a taste of leather and the other claiming to detect the presence of the taste of iron in the wine. It appeared to the bystanders that both could not be right but this judgement proved problematic when the barrel was drained and a key attached to a leather thong was discovered at the bottom. Cavell points out correctly that this kind of taste is not in the same category as the taste of reflection Kant discusses in his “Critique of Judgement”. This latter form of Judgement is not based on the sensations of taste but rather on the more complex powers of perception, the categories of the understanding in harmony with the power of the imagination and the harmony of these faculties, which in turn allows us to speak with a universal voice in aesthetic judgement. Cavell, in his discourse on the problems with modern art also points to the defining role of the emotions and attitudes when audiences who experience art objects that do not fall into traditional categories or genres impulsively shout “fraud” or leave the performance or exhibition without further participation. Is this arrogance on the part of the audience or is there some justification for their responses? It can perhaps be argued more convincingly that there is arrogance in those artists who produce an object which we have difficulty in even calling a “work” of art (e.g. Duchamps “ready-made urinal”).
Plato argues in these passages that the mass-responses of the aesthetic audiences he is referring to, risk contaminating other cultural arenas such as those relating to the laws of the land. These latter more serious cultural matters, if viewed from the point of view of the master who does not wish to be mastered, can have the consequence of putting into question the validity of the laws of the polis. Hence the Platonic response of excluding artists from the ideal Callipolis.
Aristotle provides us with the complex criteria for the evaluation of works of tragedy which includes the task of the mass-catharsis of pity and fear. Firstly, his argument refers to the differentiation of different kinds of performance which are distinguishable in terms of the fundamental criteria of the means, manner and objects of the imitation-activity. Rhythm, language and harmony belong to the means, and those arts using the means of language can be either dramatic or epic. The objects are characterised as follows:
“The objects the imitator represents are actions with agents who are necessarily either good men or bad…since it is by badness or excellence men differ in character. It follows therefore that the gents represented must be either above our own level of goodness , or beneath it, or just as we are.”(P.2317)
These criteria will be important in the way in which both areté and epistemé are involved in tragedy and its catharsis of pity and fear in the design of the plot which is more essential to the work, Aristotle argues, than the depiction of the characters. Plots must have a beginning, a middle, and an end, and be of a length that can be remembered. Aristotles remarks amount to a formula for the excellent design of a plot containing characters of interest for us:
“A good man must not be seen passing from good fortune to bad, or a bad man from bad fortune to good. The first situation is not fear-inspiring or piteous, but simply odious to us. The second is the most un-tragic that can be: it has no-one of the requisites of tragedy: it does not appeal either to the human feeling or to our pity or to our fears. Nor, on the other hand, should an extremely bad man be seen falling from good fortune into bad. Such a story may arouse the human feeling in us, but it will not move us to either pity or fear: pity is occasioned by undeserved misfortune, and fear by that of one like ourselves. “(P2325)
Caregories of the Understanding/Judgement and principles of reasoning are clearly evident throughout Aristotles account of aesthetic experience and aesthetic objects, but perhaps the most important fact to register in the context of this debate relates to the “form of life” to be found in Ancient Greece during Aristotle’s lifetime. Bowra gives us a detailed picture of this:
“The peculiar nature of man determines the Greek notion of pleasure. They had no ascetic or puritanical hostility to it: in some respects they regarded it as a supreme good. But at the same time they felt it must be kept in its place and not allowed to upset the harmony of either the individual or the city. They felt too that the strongest pleasures are suitable mainly for the young, and that in due course a man passes beyond them to others which are less exciting. This distinction follows the general distinction which the Greeks made between man and the gods. If the gods enjoy power and freedom, men have responsibility: and through their use of it attains their own dignity, which is different from anything available to the gods. The advantage of this system is that it combines a natural taste for enjoyment with a real respect for proved capacities in action and in thought……it also means that goodness and happiness are brought together in a balanced harmony: for the Greeks believed that if a man is good he is happy, but also that if he is happy he is good.” (The Greek Experience, London, Weidenfield and Nicholson, 1957)
Since the above was written there has been much discussion about whether there is another meaning of eudaimonia, rather than “happiness”, that is at issue, namely the meaning of “good-spirited flourishing life”. The idea of the importance of freedom to both man and the gods is also a variation on a Kantian theme which attempts to chart the connections between freedom, responsibility and dignity. The complex form of pleasure associated with the moral form of life may, however, be no simple matter to understand, requiring an account of the relation man has to the God Kant conceived of in his later work: a God that guarantees happiness only if man is worth it.
Adrain Stokes in his work “Greek Culture and the Ego” refers to the above work by Bowra and elaborates upon the above discussion in Kleinian erms:
“The Good and the Beautiful were brought closer than heretofore. I consider this accommodation, both then, and in the early Italian Renaissance; to issue from an adjustment between the good objects of the superego and the ego….The gods represent justice, the superego, also the id….Human dignity is founded partly in the pursuit of an integrative balance or Mean. The alarming envy of man imputed to the gods is a guilty projection of mans envious attitude to their bountiful powers: the pursuit of the Mean will instruct that cycle. It would not be temperate, however, to refuse pleasure nor to obscure the face of death: the ego disregards them at the peril of some mastery in the psyche.” (P.81) (The Critical writings of Adrian Stokes, Vol. 3., London, Thames and Hudson, 1978)
Both Stokes and Freud point to the danger of excessive enveloping experiences that blur the fundamental distinction between subject and object. This is, Stokes argues, always involved in the invitation that Art extends to its appreciators. In authentic great works of art this invitation is always complemented with a work of the mind which constitutes a self-sufficient independent object as illustrated by the QuattroCento artists of the Renaissance period. Since this period, however, the role of the artist and objects of art in society have changed dramatically, sometimes so radically that some audiences have even questioned whether particular putative objects of art are what they claim to be, namely “works of art”.
For Stokes, Freud, and Melanie Klein the ideas of Eros, Thanatos and Ananke play decisive roles in the harmony and unity of mans thought speech and action as manifested especially in the four virtues of courage, temperance, justice, and wisdom:
“The truest wisdom lay in the properly balanced personality, in which neither side triumphed at the expense of the other. What this meant can be seen from the place given to eros, which means , in the first place passionate love, but extends its meaning far beyond physical desire, to many forms of intellectual and spiritual passion. For Parmenides it is the child of necessity and the force which makes men live and thrive: for Democritus it is the desire for beautiful things: for Euripides it is the inspiring spirit of the arts: for Pericles it is what devoted citizens feel for their city: for Socrates it is the pursuit of noble ends in thought and action. these different forms of eros agree in making it a power which drives a man to throw his full personality into what he does, which sustains him in powerful exertions and impels him to unusual efforts which sets his intelligence fully and actively to work and gives him that unity of being, that harmony of his whole nature, which is the spring of creative endeavour… if the complete force of mans nature works as a single power, he is a full man, and no Greeks of the great days that this was the right and natural way to behave.”(Bowra)
Stokes connects the above form of reasoning to the enveloping characteristic which Freud characterised as the “oceanic feeling experienced by the infant whilst breast feeding:
“but he made no connection with the surrender in favour of massive identifications of which he had written in “Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego”. He, there stressed that all groups are based on some exercise of this identification process. The enveloping bias of primitive mechanisms, whether passive to active, introjective or projective, is as essential to understanding civilisation, and to human intercourse as the bias of the integrated ego in favour of self-sufficient objects. But it seems likely that even a passive identificatory mechanism where it is culturally exalted at any expense—we shall see that one side of the aesthetic process strongly partakes of it–will connect with the manic merging of ego with superego and with all overriding superego attitudes.”(Greek Culture and the Ego, P.85)
In the political context of the Group it is the mark of the “Integrated ego” that it possesses a capacity to deal with the persecutory anxiety that threatens such integration. Stokes notes a support of this position from the biological level from Klein when she cites Ferenczi who claimed that all life forms react to unpleasant stimuli through a fragmentation of powers rather than an integration, and this becomes a threat to the flourishing life we all wish for.
The formation of the superego through the defence mechanism of identification is, according to these theories, the condition of the problematic group behaviour of the masses that are politically mobilised by populist politicians preaching a message of “everything is possible” to a mob that has come to believe that nothing was possible. The advantage (in this context of discussion) of hylomorphic theory is its explanatory power across all forms of group-life as well as its validity in explaining the different phases of development of a form of life. Groups can be more easily fragmented than living organisms and even when formed, are prone to regression to the primitive. The identification of a group with its leader becomes more likely when simple emotions such as fear and anger are mobilised in the name of descriptions of states of affairs that may be inaccurate. Hannah Arendt in her work on Totalitarianism has charted this process both psychologically and historically.
Group behaviour and discourse is not located in a unitary body and integration of powers are therefore more difficult. The tendency toward the more simpler negative emotions such as pity, fear, and anger and the presence of manic states of exaltation all relate to the absence of an inhibitor mechanism in the group itself. All inhibition is up to the judgement of the leader. Needless to say there is no understanding of the complex meaning of death since groups die only metaphorically and this might partly explain the lack of the presence of the more complex defence mechanisms such as sublimation which we find encoded in Greek myths. Sublimation, according to Freud is the non-sexual substitute form of satisfaction which contributes positively to ego-integration (an ego whose first priority is to protect the body). Greek myths also, however, contain a form of idealisation that sometimes has narcissistic connotations. One test of whether narcissism is present in any pattern of behaviour or thought process is the tendency in the agent toward melancholia (clinical depression) upon the loss of any highly idealised valued object. Narcissists do not go through the normal mourning process/work in such circumstances, which, if successful, strengthens the ego against further loss by installing anxiety free “memories”. For Freud the ego is defined as the precipitate of lost objects, and this is evident in his triangle of demand-refusal-wounded ego. The artist who is using the defence mechanism of sublimation is, according to this account, striving after the substitute satisfactions that his created objects provide for both himself and his appreciators. The object, must, of course, be capable of invoking more than simple sensations of pleasure and be more connected to the more complex form of aesthetic pleasure we find articulated in Kant’s Critique of Judgement.
Paul Ricoeur, in his work “Freud and Philosophy An essay in Interpretation.”(Trans. Savage, D., New Haven, Yale University Press,1970) points out that Sublimation is a vicissitude of the instincts but he also points out that, according to Freud the inner causes of this vicissitude (or “constitutional disposition) are unknown. Ricouer develops a theory in which Sublimation is related to what he calls the “symbolic function”:
“symbols represent the projection of our human possibilities onto the area of imagination. These authentic symbols are truly regressive-progressive: remembrance gives rise to anticipation: archaism gives rise to prophecy….True symbols are at the crossroads of the two functions which we have by turns opposed to and grounded in one another. Such symbols both disguise and reveal. While they conceal the aims of our instincts, they disclose the process of self-consciousness…Because of their overdetermination symbols realise the concrete identity between the progression of the figures of spirit or mind and the regression to the key signifiers of the unconscious.”(P.497)
The symbolic function, Ricoeur insists, is formed by language, and relates to spheres of meaning such as possession, power, and worth (Kantian areas of value). These three arenas of activity were very present in Plato’s Republic as well as in Aristotle’s “The Politics”. Ricouer, however, then goes on to invoke the Phenomenology of Hegel, rather than the Critical Philosophy of Kant:
“The sphere of power is likewise constituted in an objective structure. Thus Hegel used the term “objective spirit” to designate the structures and institutions in which the relation of commanding-obeying, essential to political power actualises and engenders itself; as we see at the beginning of the Principles of the Philosophy of Right man engenders himself as spiritual will by by entering into the relation of commanding-obeying. The “feelings” centring around this “object”, which is power, are specifically human feelings, such as intrigue, ambition, submission, responsibility: so too the alienations are specifically human alienations. The ancients already described these alienations in the figure of the tyrant.”(P.509)
Socrates in the Republic notes how the vices connected to tyrannical figures also include bloodthirstiness, persecution complexes, and other manifestations of the death instinct. The tyrant is a tragic figure well represented in the literature in general, and Shakespeare in particular. Modern conceptions of power, however, are culturally laden and centred upon the ideas of worth: freedom, duty, dignity and human rights of individuals. The Kantian picture of man needing a master he does not want, also plays an important role. There is in this account antagonism against those wanting obedience to commands. This picture, however, does not quite fit our modern political situation where modern constitutional democracies run by a large middle class have neutralised the divisive effects of the rich vs poor-conflict. Yet we do not have to travel that far back in time to witness how fragile our constitutions are. and how easy it is for potential tyrants to become actual tyrants using the democratic process to their own evil ends.
Freud, we ought to recall, claimed that his Psychology was Kantian, and thanks to his work we have a more technical and up-to-date academic psychological understanding of the phenomenon of the tyrant. In the light of such knowledge we have modified many institutions such as The Law to reduce the risk of tyrants obtaining and using constitutional powers. As Plato noted art, literature, and philosophy are also important contributors to the strengthening of those institutions which mirror the strength of the Ego and its degree of harmony with the external world, the id, and the superego.
As we claimed above Groups do not possess a corporeal body with organs, limbs, hands and a nervous system, sensations, appetites, consciousness, etc. The wishes, fears and suffering of the individual therefore do not correspond symmetrically to the wishes, fears and suffering of the group. Freud notes , in this connection, that being part of a group alters the mental state of the individual. Does it even make sense to say of the group that it has an ego when there are no internal stimuli to regulate in relation to the protection of the body? The group is not strictly speaking a form of life but rather a collection of life forms tied together by non biological psychological bonds, e.g. language. Perhaps though we can attribute powers to a group, insofar as it manifests group behaviour initiated not by the leader, but spontaneously. The problem of characterising group behaviour is reminiscent of the problem of correctly characterising the behaviour of computers and artificial intelligence. The computer may have a corporeal unity because it is an enclosed system, but the nature of this system is not that of a living system . Any self-protective behaviour the computer is programmed to manifest may not actually deserve that description, since a computer cannot die if it is not alive. Yet the group would appear to be more intimately related to the soul because it might be, if large and complex enough, in Socrates words, “the soul writ large”. It does, however, have the power to alter the mental state of the individual.
We know Freud was influenced by both Darwin and Anthropological studies of primitive societies, and that as a consequence believed that the origin of our life in groups began in a primitive horde ruled violently by a dominant male. The next stage of the groups development, for Freud, was constituted by a band of brothers murdering their leader. Very soon afterward they were struck with the realisation that the leaders fate would inevitably be the new leaders fate unless some change was made to the structure of the group. This change was initiated by laws of the group prohibiting certain specific actions.
Freud notes that a groups aim can be altruistic, especially if there is a group awareness of the importance of obeying the laws. This recalls Aristotle’s claims that the citizens of the polis ought to be bound by ties of friendship or fellowship which, of course, is far more likely if they are ruled by a Phronimos, rather than a dominant male leading a primitive horde. The suggestion is that given that a group is a collection of objects that are not internally stimulated to act by, for example, an act of will, as is the case for the individual, the alternative is to “bind” otherwise separate entities together by an external cause such as The Law. This recalls the Latin word “ligare” which means to bind and of course the Latin “religio” which means to re-bind. It is not clear, however that this is what Aristotle thinks is important in his claim that it is friendship or fellowship driven by eros that is important for a state to be self-sufficient. The Law, Institutions such as Universities and Schools, Government departments and aesthetic objects(including written works) are all Eros and Ego-related objects created with reference to areté, diké, arché, eistemé, and techné. Such entities all possess the characteristics of being both good-in-their-consequences and good-in-themselves. Kant claims that a government has duties to its citizens given the fact that they possess innate human rights, and many of our modern governments are measured by both this criterion and the extent to which they respect the freedom of their citizens to lead independent self-sufficient lives.
Adrian Stokes complains about ugly architecture and its numbing affect on our senses. Space, time and appropriate function seem to disappear and leave us with a sense of emptiness or loss.Unjust laws can have a similar effect with an added element of irritation of the wasted effort which is then added to the sense of pity for the “victims” of this wasted effort: victims that have suffered under such laws. What is missing in such phenomena is eros working through an integrated ego capable of bringing seemingly opposed states together into a good unity that is both good-in-itself, and good-in-its-consequences. Such an ego is capable of restorative activity without any idealisation of its objects, and without the involvement of any destructive impulses. Such an integrated ego may be important for scientific activity, Stokes argues, a search which ought to aim at a theory that is both good-in-itself and good-in-its consequences. The good object is obviously more valuable than the idealised object, and this might serve to differentiate the aesthetic object from the scientific object. For Freud the psychoanalyst, it is obvious that Science did not meet his criteria for the satisfactory explanation of the phenomena he was being forced to deal with in his consulting rooms. He was in need of a Psychological form of Medicine which did not exist at the time he was active. The science of Freud’s time tended toward either positivism or atomism and it in its turn did not appreciate the Freudian return to hylomorphic and Kantian Critical Theory. This was a time in which Psychology attempted to distance itself from Philosophical reflection by focussing on empirical, experimental, inductive science via a materialistic reductionist approach that sought to investigate sensations, feelings, and behaviour in the laboratory.
Stokes points out correctly that theory at an unnecessarily high level of abstraction has an enveloping quality that blurs the distinction between the subject and the object and therefore cannot be regarded as Knowledge as defined by the Greeks: Justified True Belief. It is important to note here that both the logical atomists and the logical positivists of Freud’s time regarded the theories of both Aristotle and Kant as idealistic abstractions. This was a curious position given the fact that both Philosophers synthesised the materialism and idealism of their time. Freud’s later view of science (along with gardening) was to regard it as a deflection from the serious business of living and the serious business of providing an account of The Good. These deflections are substitute satisfactions which attempt to diminish our misery and discontent with the lives we lead and the civilisations we live in. Aristotle and Kant would never accept that the science they embraced was some form of substitute satisfaction. For them a correct view of science was essential for engaging in the science of Psychology which was one important area of knowledge for the Delphic oracle who challenged humanity to “Know thyself”. The key idea for the grounding of such knowledge is that of arché (principle). William James we know, wrote a work entitled “Principles of Psychology” but instead of the knowledge we were looking for, what we were provided with was a plethora of instincts and emotions which were ambiguously described rather than essentially characterised in their essence (via Principles). The definition of Psychology that James provided us with, namely, “The science of mental life: its phenomena and conditions”, in its turn gave good descriptions of relevant phenomena but there was no clear structure relating the conditions to what is conditioned. Perusal of the index of both volumes reveals, for example, that there are no recorded references to Aristotle and only one reference to Plato’s realm of ideas which is described on P 462 as “stiff and immutable”. Part of the problem with providing content for the definition of Psychology by James was that of acknowledging that knowledge of psuché needed to stretch over a number of Aristotelian “fields” (Theoretical, practical, and productive science). Another problem, solved by the account provided by Freud, was to correctly determine the role of consciousness in the integrated account of mans powers. James to some extent provided us with an account of the function of the will and the brain which was to provide useful in later theorising but even here there was a tendency toward phenomenological description embedded in a context of exploration/discovery, rather than Critical reflection upon the conditions of phenomena (arché--principles) in a context of explanation/justification.
Commentary on Plato’s dialogue, “The Laws” Book Three(Part one)
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We pointed out in our commentary on Book two that History as a scientifically organised discipline did not exist as such during Ancient Greek Times. Aristotle, in fact, was the first thinker to systematically refer to the thoughts of previous thinkers in his arguments for his various positions( E.g. De Anima). But the two works of most significance for scholars interested in this question are “The Politics” and “The Constitution of Athens”.
We know that Aristotle’s Lyceum collected over 150 constitutions from different city-states as part of a research project into the art of government. This empirical collection of “evidence” was a surprising move on the part of this rationalist thinker, but this method was, in fact, in accordance with the Aristotelian account of the scientific method that accumulated evidence in order to formulate the basic terms of a theory. This stage of classification precedes the later stage of theory formation in which the search for principles and laws begins in earnest. Aristotle was well aware that these collected constitutions were more than just a totality of facts or descriptions of events and processes. They manifested an awareness of the relations of important ideas such as diké (getting what one deserves) areté (doing the right thing in the right way at the right time) and arché (principles or laws).
According to Raymond Weil, in an essay entitled “Aristotle’s View of History” ( Articles on Aristotle, 2. Ethics and Politics, Ed Barnes, J., Schofield, M., and Sorabjy, R.,(London, Duckworth, 1977), Aristotle prefers the term “constitutional” to the term “democratic” and he also makes some surprising claims such as, Solon, the lawgiver of Athens, was a “middle-class” leader and his work initiated the “constitutional” form of government. Solon, that is, according to Aristotle, embodied the principle of “The Golden Mean”. For Aristotle, this negotiation of a pathway between extremes insofar as the moral virtues were concerned was a desirable characteristic of political administrators and demonstrated “sound judgement”.
Plato’s work “The Republic” presents a hierarchy of political administrations featured his ideal Callipolis at the zenith, followed surprisingly by timocracies such as Sparta and Crete, followed by oligarchies, followed by democracies at the bottom of the hierarchy. Aristotle, on the other hand appears to reject the term “timocracy” in his system of classification and Plato in his dialogue “The Laws”, also seems to be raising questions about a form of government that places the virtue of courage above all the other virtues.
The Aristotelian schema of political administrations as we pointed out earlier was based on research into 150 different constitutions collected for the purpose of comparison and analysis. What emerged was a six-fold schema of rule by one person, rule by a few people, and rule by the many. For Aristotle, all of these three forms of government could be good if wisdom prevails among the lawmakers and rulers, but insofar as that did not happen, and the process of government became corrupted by arrogance or a love of luxury there were perversions of each form of government which he named as tyranny, oligarchy and democracy. So, for both Plato and Aristotle, democracy was an inferior form of government insofar as it was associated with an excessive desire for freedom and disbelief in the traditions and laws based on the “nothing too much” principle. Electing polis officials with complex responsibilities by a lottery system was criticised in the Republic from the point of view of leaving to chance whether or not these officials possessed the best capacities and abilities to perform these state-functions. Aristotle must have shared these concerns given the importance he placed upon areté, sound judgement, and the golden mean principle in his overall Theory of Change. For Aristotle the law-giver must be a great-souled man (Phronimos) with an understanding of History and Philosophy. Weil highlights the theoretical aspects that are involved in this:
“It is true that in Aristotle’s explanation of historical facts, there emerges the scheme of the four causes. In the city, for example, we can observe a material cause(the different estates), a formal cause(the form of the constitution), an efficient cause (the legislator) and a final cause (a good life).”(P.203)
Weil hints at the complexity of a hylomorphic theory of History but does not elaborate upon this aspect any further. The fact, for example, that the estates are composed of a constellation of villages, which, in turn, are composed of a constellation of families with patriarchal heads, is suggestive of underlying material and forms which in turn have shaped our desires and our powers of thought, understanding, judgement and reasoning.
The above also presupposes the importance of the ideas of areté, diké, arché, epistemé and techné for the evolution of the polis. The desire for the good life is undoubtedly a powerful and important desire that incorporates biological, psychological social and political needs which are difficult to fully satisfy and may well lead to the discontentment Freud reported in his work “Civilisation and its Discontents” ( The Penguin Freud Library, Volume 12, Translated Strachey, J.,(London, Penguin, 1976). This is not, however, an argument for the abandonment of this telos of the Good Life which is the answer to the Kantian question “What can we hope for?”: an answer that contains moral, political, and eschatological dimensions.
History, however, embracing as it does, a way of conceiving both what is going on in the present but also what has happened in the past and what might happen in the future, is nevertheless about the facts which occur in what Aristotle called the media of change(namely, space, time, matter). The events the historian studies, occurs in these media and these events sometimes leave physical traces that can be discovered long after the events have happened, e.g. archaeological findings of the buildings, settlements or cities which have been the sites of different political regimes. Yet it is only to the extent that documentation can be connected to these sites that we can begin to accumulate knowledge as to what kind of government ruled these sites or what kind of ethos prevailed amongst the inhabitants. Only documentation could provide us with the constitutions that may have guided lawgivers in their creation maintenance and implementation of “The Laws”. Of course documentation of various kinds are vulnerable to the destructive powers of natural disasters (e.g. floods, fires etc). If this is the case, then we find ourselves in the realm of hypotheses about the facts, the realm of probabilities, rather than certainties. Aristotle is prepared to speculate about such circumstances at the risk of being proven wrong: If, for example, documentation that was thought to have been destroyed is discovered. In this context Weil accuses Aristotle of collecting evidence and interpreting that evidence in accordance with the theories he has formed. He conceded that Aristotle never juggles with the facts but he does juggle with ideas. If the context is one in which there is no physical documentation then ideas about what happened must be theory laden, and the question then becomes whether hylomorphic theory is a better guide than for example, Platonic theory, or more materialistic theories. If the circumstances do not permit the articulation of facts then the judgments may be less historical and more philosophical, but it can be argued, nevertheless, that these judgements carry some political weight or force. Hylomorphic theory does not limit itself to characterising the world, but is also a theory about us, rational animals capable of discourse. We are, that is, forms of life constituted of a particular configuration of organs-limbs-hands that has lifted us out of an animal form of existence tied to a specific space and time, into a form of life where we can sit in a library and speculate about what Socrates, Plato or Aristotle thought, becoming thus, in Aristotles eyes the best of animals.
Book three begins in Aristotelian fashion with the claim that all investigations into the origins of political systems requires that we take into consideration the development and decline of such systems over long periods of change. The Athenian begins by appealing to History and Tradition, and claims that:
“The human race has been repeatedly annihilated by floods and plagues and many other causes, so that only a small fractions survived.”(P.119)
In the case of the legend-based occurrence of The Great Flood, the Athenian speculates that perhaps a few mountain-side shepherds (with no knowledge of the rat-race form of existence in the cities) survived. Given that all documentation of these political systems probably was wiped out, all the civilised structures and institutions of community life had to be recreated or reinvented. The shepherds on the mountainsides that survived still possessed their homes and their animals and were therefore not thrown into poverty by this cataclysmic event. But they were not rich either, and thus qualified for the middle-class status so favoured by Aristotelian theory. These survivors, the Athenian argued, accepted without cynicism the “doctrines they heard about gods and men” (P.122). These survivors will also have lacked the technology to be found in cities, especially those items designed to harm and kill human beings.In these surviving communities we are more likely to encounter good spirited activity and judgement and less likely to encounter hateful aggressive behaviour such as lawsuits, it is argued.
There is in fact today archaeological evidence of a devastating catastrophic flood ca 7500 years ago when the Mediterranean sea “roared into the Black Sea”. There is, that is, considerable evidence of the flood referred to in the Bible where almost all animal and human life perished in a flood which came after “40 days and 40 nights” of torrential rain. This, according to the physical evidence must have resulted in a thick layer of water transported sand, silt, and mud moving over vast areas of the earth. Huge boulders were also displaced. So, what for a considerable amount of time was regarded as a myth devoid of objective content, actually happened. In the biblical story of Noah we can, however, wonder whether he would have had the time to construct such an enormous ark but this too would have been possible if, for example, there had been longer periods of rain resulting in rising water levels prior to this cataclysmic event.
The Athenian continues his narrative of post-flood existence and claims that the first forms of government to be created were probably autocracies: a community form resembling the form of rule of households with a patriarchal head. After a period of time a large number of families might amalgamate to form larger communities that would be more likely to meet the growing changing needs of larger groups of people. Such larger groups would be aiming at creating a state of self sufficiency and independence. Traditional social and religious standards would be appealed to, but the patriarch would rule in his own way with his own conception of the rules and laws that he required subjects to folllow. As the community increased in size, representatives would be elected to review the different sets of rules and laws used by a number of different patriarchal heads . This would be for the purpose of creating a commonly accepted system (a system Plato calls an aristocratic system-the rule by a few representatives).
The Athenian moves on to discuss the example of the city-state called Ilium, built on a beautiful plain and situated at the source of several rivers: created long after the legendary flood. After the flood, three estates were formed with Sparta being perhaps the most important. Each ruler promised the other assistance in the case of attack or being wronged in some undefined way If one estate became the aggressor, the other two states would protect the victim. Unfortunately Sparta of the plains was the only estate not to succumb to corruption and the alliance ultimately failed. This, the Athenian argues was caused by the fact that the legislation of all of these cities of the plains was based on only one virtue out of a range of virtues, namely courage. This meant that these city-states were rife with vice of all kinds. The Athenian regarded this as fundamentally a knowledge issue:
“we maintain that crass ignorance destroyed that great empire, and that it has a tendency to produce precisely the same results today”(P.136)
Millennia after these words were spoken they still ring out their message today in our communities in which knowledge is built into the very fabric of our institutions. What we are encountering above is both a political and a historical argument and, of course, an argument for the importance of wisdom associated with sound judgement in the passing, maintenance and implementation of the laws of the polis. So, in this work “The Laws”, it is the “Form of The Good” that is the fundamental form of knowledge the Phronimos needs to perform his good work. History too, is also of importance for this work, but it differs as a form of knowledge from Poetry and Philosophy because it is based on particular truths which are the essential conditions for many of its judgements. Insofar, however, as History must be not just theoretically enlightening but also enlightening in a practical sense there must be judgements of value, (e.g. the value of a war for a particular society at a particular time) functioning as regulative ideas.
The Athenian then presents a number of arguments for the title to authority:
1. title of parents over children and descendants
2. title of those of high birth over those of low birth
3. title of elders over youth generally
4. title of master over slave.
5.title of the stronger over the weaker
6. title of the wise over the ignorant.
When however, those with any of the above titles to authority succumb to the thousand headed monster of our appetites and live a life of unnecessary luxury or succumb to arrogance born of hate, the Athenian “diagnoses” such conditions as “infectious” or “diseased”. This knowledge of The Good was certainly operative in Plato’s other Callipolis, “The Republic”, where, in order to come to terms with the evil of succumbing to ones appetites, Plato suggested that a prohibition be placed on the ideal rulers of this ideal polis: a prohibition that prevented the rulers from owning any money or property.
The Athenian also discusses the problem of endowing those who do not possess the necessary knowledge with too much authority. Such souls, it is argued will become puffed up with arrogance an injustices will follow as quickly as it does with those souls corrupted by a life of luxury. The Phronimos or lawgiver, the Athenian argues must possess a knowledge of the Good which includes a range of virtues plus a sense of proportion if one is to avoid a decline into “fevered” forms of government. Remarkably, in illustration of this point, the Athenian maintains:
” a man who combined human nature with some of the powers of a god observed that your leadership [of Sparta] was still in a feverished state, so he blended the obstinacy and vigour of the Spartans with the prudent influence of age by giving the twenty-eight elders the same authority in making important decisions as the kings.”(P.140)
The context of the above quote is what the Athenian referred to as the “age of destruction” of the empire of the Plains which included the Persian naval attack on Greece, and here again we encounter the combination of the Philosophical idea of the Good with a description of historical events and processes. We should also note, however, the religious element of the debate when the Athenian claims that Lycurgus(who created the Spartan Council of elders), manifest the divine power of sound judgement (the panacea for all forms of “fevered” government).
The Athenian also notes that another measure designed to curb the fevered judgment of the young was the introduction of “oaths of office”. This, he argued, would hopefully prevent them from becoming tyrannical.
Finally, the Athenian includes another surprising characteristic of the good state:
“One should always remember that a state ought to be free and wise and enjoy internal harmony, and that this is what the lawgiver should concentrate on in his legislation”(P.142)
This suggestion of the rational idea of freedom would become more important in the moral accounts Immanuel Kant would give in his duty-based ethics which we have argued elsewhere accepts many of the critical assumptions of Aristotelian hylomorphism. There is, for example, no doubt that Freedom played a large part in the determination of the Greeks in their fight against the Persians.
Commentary on Plato’s “The Laws” Book 2
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Book two opens with an examination of “the nature and purpose of education” and we propose therefore to put this discussion in a modern context in which the Aristotelian and Kantian conceptions of education in particular and normativity in general are in focus. R.S. Peters and P. Hirst in their work “The Logic of Education” define Philosophy in a way that aligns with the above criteria but also aligns with the type of Socratic investigations into these matters that we encounter in Plato’s dialogues:
“Philosophy, in brief, is concerned with questions about the analysis of concepts and with questions about the grounds of knowledge, belief, actions and activities.”(Hirst, P., and Peters, R., S., The Logic of Education, London, Routledge Kegan Paul, 1970, P3)
The above authors, in engaging upon an analysis of the concept of education, suggest an important connection between the reasons/justifications given in the fields of medicine and education. The doctor, in attempting to restore the body to a desirable state of health is aiming at a set of desirable qualities. The educator, similarly, in aiming to shape the minds of his students is aiming at a set of desirable qualities which are, however, perhaps somewhat more holistic, being connected with the desire to lead a flourishing worthwhile life (psuché). This issue of what exactly constitutes a worthwhile flourishing life connects to the Platonic criticism of the Spartan and Cretan views of how one ought to live in order to lead such a life. Hirst and Peters take up this theme via a discussion of the concept of an educated man which they argue would not apply to someone educated in Sparta because the Spartan militarised education is, in their view, too specialised to lead to the “broadening of the mind” that a more general eduction strives to achieve. This view is shared by the Athenian, the principal character of Plato’s dialogue “The Laws”.
The Athenian claims that the Spartan skills-based society has as its main aim, preparation for war, and this is to be contrasted with the more peaceful concern of the Athenian society with different forms of knowledge and the principles that organise these fields of knowledge. The Spartans detested Philosophy and Philosophers and would not have seen any point in either the examined life or the contemplative life where discourse centred around the Theory of Forms or the Theory of Change. The Spartans lived very much in the Greece of Agamemnon and Achilles, admiring the life of courage and honour of the warrior. The Spartan concern with training and discipline would not have been regarded by the Athenian (or for that matter Peters and Hirst) as “teaching” of the kind that occurred between the teacher Socrates and the pupil Plato and the teacher Plato and the pupil Aristotle. Skills obviously have a larger imitative component than does theoretical learning where the aim is to (via discourse), increase the powers of understanding and reason. Indeed some scholars(Alan Bloom) have maintained that it was part of Plato’s purpose to introduce Socrates as a new kind of hero inspired by the wisdom of leading an examined life and, for example, not claiming to know what one cannot justify. It would not have been as easy to dupe Socrates in the way Agamemnon duped Achilles in relation to the “stealing” of one of his mistresses. In Plato’s view the courage of Socrates as manifested in his acceptance of his death sentence far surpassed the manic courage Achilles displayed on the battlefield. Socrates was admired both for his wisdom and for his virtue but he was also hated for exposing the ignorance of many of the leading figures of his time via his method of elenchus or cross examination, and this may have, unfortunately, caused the ending of his life prematurely. This was a tragedy for his friends, but paradoxically, not for Socrates who was convinced that nothing bad can happen to a good man. For Socrates even the event of his death was part of “The Good”.
Hirst and Peters point out that the term “Education” acquired its “modern meaning” during the 19th century that:
“was thought of explicitly as a family of processes which have as their outcome the development of an educated man”(P.24)
Yet we can also see this kind of concern in Plato’s Laws and Aristotle’s political writings. The Athenian concern with the education man, however was very much linked to the goods of the soul and its relation to the external world whereas the Spartan concern was to train and discipline the body to face and endure physical pain for the sake of the honour one brings to oneself and ones family. Our modern conception of Education certainly appears to have its origin in the position the Athenian adopts toward forms of life which fail to embrace the moral/intellectual virtues put on display via the life of Socrates and the works of Plato and Aristotle. Aristotle via his Hylomorphic Theory of Change and its elements of “kinds of change”, “principles of change”, “media of change”, and “causes of change” certainly provided the political administrator with the intellectual tools necessary for critically examining the aims and processes of education. In the Nichomachean Ethics, Aristotle claims that all human activity including the arts and the sciences ” aim” at the good, and this requires, according to Peters in his work, The Concept of Education(Oxford, OUP, 1970, p.15), the power of concentration upon some specific objective difficult to achieve. This is why Peters argues that “education” is an achievement verb which also has an important relation to the ideal of an “educated person”. He goes on to provide us with some general criteria of “Being Educated” and appeal is made to the notion of an “intrinsic good” which Socrates regarded as “good-in-itself:
“we would not call a person educated unless he was capable, to a certain extent of delighting in such things [as science] for their own sake..This criterion of commitment to what is internal to worthwhile activities, be it the pursuit of truth for its own sake or the determination to make something of a fitting form is necessary but not sufficient for being educated..What might be lacking is something to do with knowledge and understanding: for being educated demands more than being highly skilled. An educated man must also possess some body of knowledge and some kind of conceptual scheme to raise this above the level of a collection of disjointed facts. This implies some understanding of principles for the organisation of facts. An educated person must also have some understanding of the “reason why” of things.”(P.18)
This contrast suggested above between “aim” and “purpose” is then, between the consequence of producing or creating something “fit for purpose” and the intrinsic value of those activities that are both good-in-themselves and good-in-their-consequences. The relevance of Peters’ discussion becomes more evident in a subsequent comment:
“The Spartans were morally and militarily trained. They knew how to fight and they knew what was tight and what was wrong:they were also possessed of a certain stock of folklore which enabled them to manage–provided they stayed in Sparta. But we would not say that they had received a moral or military education: for they had never been encouraged to get a grasp of the principles underlying their code.”(P.18)
Indeed, it is these very principles that are at issue in this dialogue. The Athenian is diplomatically criticising a civilisation that is built on one truncated virtue of physical courage and its associated honour, and he is subtly comparing such a civilisation to a culture built upon a range of virtues including diké, areté, and good judgement. It is also clear that Plato in his various dialogues is presenting Socrates as embodying or manifesting this range of virtues. We should also mention in this context that Aristotle believed that the Athenian stranger in “The Laws” was in fact Socrates. The reference above to ” a body of knowledge” would seem, however, to be more appropriate to an Aristotelian than a Platonic view where Socrates appeared to be mostly concerned with the attempt to find a definition rather than discuss the way in which principles organise facts in different sciences. Peters in his work “Aims of Education” refers to the autonomy of the individual which Aristotle thinks of in terms of self-sufficiency. Kant, in the context of this discussion would appeal to the autonomy of the free will of an agent who chooses to act.
We moderns no longer need to justify the examined life of Socrates or the Contemplative life of Aristotle given the fact that we have long since installed educational institutions based on the value-systems embodied in such forms of life. The issue of war v peace is still, however, haunting our modern world, and this may be one of the reasons why Freud was uncertain of the outcome of the battle between the giants of Eros and Thanatos: a battle which he claimed would determine the fate of those civilisations we were discontented with. This is good reason to regard many of the proclamations/prophecies of the Greek oracles with awe and wonder, especially that which claimed “Everything created by humans is destined for ruin and destruction.”(given that we have singularly and consistently failed to meet the challenge to “know thyself”)
On a smaller scale of concern for the modern discussion is the debate relating to child-centred education which was initiated by Dewey and his progressive school of pedagogues. This debate had the effect of disconnecting both the content of the curriculum and its principles from a method which encouraged the child to hopefully re-discover what had historically been discovered and modified for the better over many generations of learning and teaching. The Historical impetus for Dewey was partly the Psychology of William James as well as the Counter-Enlightenment Swiss figure of J.J. Rousseau who woke Kant from his rationalist slumbers and convinced him to pay attention to practical virtues and the dignity of man. Rousseau, in his ideal education of a fictional pupil Emile, initiated what we today call the child-centred approach in education, refusing to allow Emile to read the bible but allowing him to read the popular work of fiction, Robinson Crusoe. Hirst and Peters are critical of this child-centred approach and make the following claim:
“And does not a curriculum arise as much from the demands of society and the history of mans attempt to understand and appreciate the world as it does from chidren’s needs and interests.”(P.31)
The classical/enlightenment approach to learning and teaching is supported in particular by the Hirst-Peters ideal of the educated person but also by their conceptual analysis of the concept of “need”. Aristotle, we know insists upon the many meanings of “Good” corresponding to the categories and this in many ways is an elaboration of the Platonic position from both the dialogues we have discussed(The Republic and The Laws). The many meanings of good are symmetrical with the many meanings of being in that they are categorical, i.e. the good substance is God or the divine, the good quality refers to the range of virtues, the good quantity refers to moderation defined by the golden mean, the good relation is the useful(what is good in its consequences), the good activity,(what one does) the good event (what happens to one), the good space, the good time(the right time), the good position(the right circumstances), and the good state( the result of being affected by something). Hylomorphic theory then complements this ontological characterisation of human activity with 4 modes of being (the four “causes”, three principles, four kinds of change). Christopher Shields work “Aristotle” (London, Routledge, 2007) sees no difficulty in reconciling what Aristotle said in the Categories with what is said in his Metaphysics. Given the complexity of this structure of principles and concepts the analysis of need would also seem to be a complex matter. Peters and Hirst suggest a biological kind of need (for oxygen, nutrition etc), a psychological need (for security, love, attention etc), functional needs which assist in the production of a flourishing life, e.g. an occupation which provides one with both a living and quality of life, and “intrinsic” needs (for different kinds of knowledge and wisdom valued both in itself and for-itself by society). It is important to note in the context of this discussion that, for Peters and Hirst, conceptual analysis of the concepts of “education” and “need” do not, in and of themselves, provide us with conclusive reasons for doing one thing rather than another. This is puzzling. Surely their discussion of educational practices is designed to persuade us that, excluding content and the focus on principles as happens in child-centred education, is not good for many different reasons. Their argument is that the value judgements that are uncovered in their investigations can not in themselves be justified. As we can see from above the final justification may require reference to the whole hylomorphic theory of change articulated earlier which was in its turn largely accepted but to a certain degree modified by the Kantian categories. There is, however, no doubt even after these justifications are accepted there will be outstanding important philosophical issues to be resolved in the name of clarifying aspects of the the Philosophical “Theory of Being” or “Theory of The Good”. Of course, knowledge of “The Good” is an ethical issue concerned with the principles of noncontradiction and sufficient reason, and other more practically oriented principles regulating activity. Knowledge of “The Truth”, on the other hand, is less concerned with activity, and more concerned with our cognitive state which is, of course, used for the production of “facts”. This too, however requires justification in terms of principles.
Plato, Aristotle and Kant would all subscribe to the thesis that all activities aim at the good, and principle-based action leads to the achievement of the good aimed at, unless some external or internal cause interferes with the activity. It was, however, left to Kant to formulate a categorical moral law that is implied by both our ethical understanding of an action and judgement about that action. Kant’s Categorical Imperative has a number of different formulations but the two most important formulations are the “formal” account:
So act that you can will that the maxim of your action become a universal law
This is to be compared hylomorphically to the material formulation:
So act that you treat both others and yourself never merely as a means but also as ends-in-themselves.
From this we can extract the educational principle that the State ought never to treat pupils and students a merely means to its ends but also as end-in-themselves, i.e. they ought to be treated with respect to their autonomy and freedom. Similarly, the legal system must treat its citizens and strangers as means and as ends by respecting their rights as human beings, especially when these human beings come into conflict with the laws of the polis.
Plato indirectly refers to the importance of treating humans as ends-in-themselves in his dialogue the Euthyphro, where even the rights of slaves are discussed ,and Socrates poses the question whether Euthyphro fully understands the relation between what is holy or divine, and what is legal. This dialogue is a precursor to the Dialogues entitled The Apology. The Phaedo, and The Crito, which all give us insight into the legal process Socrates was subjected to, for the “crime” of doing Philosophy in the agora. The process began paradoxically, with a private prosecution of Socrates lodged by Meletus with the King-Archon of Athens. After ensuring himself that the indictment was in accordance with the law and procedures that needed to be followed the King Archon gave permission to present the case in person to Socrates after serving him with a summons-date to appear in court. A public notice of this event was issued in the agora. At this hearing Socrates was formally requested to submit a plea and both sides were questioned by the King Archon who made it clear what would, and would not ,count as evidence in the case. Socrates was on his way to this preliminary hearing when he met Euthyphro, who had come to file an indictment for impiety against his father (who had killed a slave by chaining him up whilst waiting for a legal process to begin against this slave for killing another slave in a fight). What is apparent from these dialogues is that private citizens of the time had more knowledge of the workings of the state and its laws than the average private citizen of our nation-states today. Plato in his dialogue, The Apology, documents in detail Socrates’ defence agains the charges of impiety and corrupting the minds of the youth. His answer to the charge of replacing the Gods of the state was ingenious, and amounted to agreeing that he was attempting to do just this, but that since what he was replacing the Gods with was Philosophy, which he described as one of the children of the Gods, this could not be considered an offence against the state, since even the children of the gods are divine and perfect. Socrates also argued that Meletus did not fully understand his own indictment. It ought to be pointed out in the context of this discussion that many sojourners in the agora regarded the philosophical activities of Socrates with suspicion but they also were mystified by the relation Socrates had to his daimonon. Socrates was a prominent figure and was the object of scorn for poets like Aristophanes who depicted the young Socrates as an atheist who gave explanations of physical phenomena and events which were not aligned with those explanations that could be found in the Greek mythology of the Gods. This as reference to the time before Socrates “turned away” from these physical investigations and began the more serious and dangerous investigations into what was just and what was holy. Accusing Socrates as an atheist was therefore an absurd accusation for both Plato and Aristotle who knew, for example, the respect Socrates had for the oracles who, according to mythology, were the messengers of Apollo. Plato also depicts Socrates in the Phaedo defending the integrity of the Athenian legal system which he clearly believes treats people as ends-in-themselves through its attempts to distribute justice on behalf of the whole community as fairly as possible. When Socrates, then, was given the opportunity to leave Athens after his death-sentence, he refuses to do so on both moral and legal grounds. Given that it is clear, (from a more detached perspective than that of his 500 jurors), that what transpired was a problematic judgement, it also perhaps became clear for Socrates that this verdict would go down in History as unjust. Humanism, however, triumphs in the way in which Socrates accepts his fate, claiming that nothing bad can happen to a good man who has led an examined life , even if he is put to death unjustly.
It is also important to note that death by poisoning was a relatively merciful death compared with some other historical forms of state execution such as stoning, crucifixion, hanging, electric chair, guillotine etc. One of the last requests of Socrates was to have a rooster sacrificed to Asclepius, thus proving(if that was needed), that he was not an atheist, but also proving another humanistic thesis that Eros (the love of life) and Thanatos ought to be reconciled peacefully at the end of a life, whatever the circumstances. So the message of The Crito dialogue may also provide the argument that Euthyphro could not understand, namely, that being mortal in our essence, we all owe the immortal gods a death as a form of catharsis, a form of healing where ones mortality is returned to the origin from which it emerged. Something is not right because it is holy, Socrates argues, but rather holy because it is right. We are united with the Gods in the end, even if that end comes via the unjust treatment at the hands of the laws of the polis. This also testifies to the claim made by Aristotle that a Good man is in need of a good state: he needs, that is, to be perfected by just laws if he is to avoid the fate of becoming the worst of animals. This may be partly why Socrates avoided the political life in favour of the examined life. One might also suspect that as a consequence of his self-knowledge and wisdom (Delphic Oracle—Socrates is the wisest man in Athens), Socrates had the foresight to judge that what happened to him would be recognised for the injustice it was, and recorded accordingly by History.
History as a discipline, however, did not begin its independent existence until millennia later but nevertheless a primitive form of the historical method began when Aristotle began to take into account previous thinkers thoughts on a particular topic or theme. By the time we get to the Enlightenment period and the work of Kant, History is becoming an important part of all university disciplines including Theology.
Kant in fact writes several essays in recognition of the above facts, in which he argues that a Philosopher interested in “Anthropology” and the human psuché, ought to engage in a Philosophy of History where the major task is to find ” A Universal History from a Cosmopolitan point of view.” and a subsidiary task is to speculate on “the Conjectural Beginnings of Human History”. At the time of writing these however, The University of Königsberg did not have a chair for a Professor of History.
The Chatgbt AI Robot claims:
“The first history professor at the University of Königsberg, which was officially known as the Albertina, was installed in the early 16th century. The University of Königsberg was founded in 1544 by Duke Albert of Prussia. The first professor of history at the university was Georg Sabinus, who was appointed in 1544, the same year the university was established. Sabinus was not only a historian but also a poet and diplomat, reflecting the Renaissance humanist spirit of the time”. (Answer to a question posed 21/6 2024)
In his essay on “Conjectural Beginnings”, Kant’s starting point is in accordance with the Freudian “Mythology of Instincts” and the Hylomorphic conception of human nature defined as:
Rational animal capable of discourse.
In this essay Kant charts how reason and imagination emerge in the species as powers which have competing aims but create the psychological space necessary for the human to experience the freedom to choose courses of action that are not ordered by the instinct (which he characterised as the voice of God for the animal). The imagination, Kant claims, has a tendency to generate unnecessary desires that wish for a luxurious form of life which reason deems unnecessary. Kant is referring to the Garden of Eden myth in the Bible, but these remarks also are in accordance with Ancient Greek mythology and philosophical accounts of the necessity to control ones appetites and desires. Socrates in the Republic famously criticised the “fevered city” for allowing ones appetites and desires to get out of control. It is being suggested both here and in Aristotles account of “The Good”, that there is a hierarchy of goods where the higher needs are both related to and transcend the lower more biological needs. Kant, like Aristotle, would situate the laws in the categories of relation(the golden mean), quantity( useful for the purposes of keeping peace in the community), quality( the virtuous ends-in-themselves) and even substance (divine law). For Kant, then, the faculties of understanding and reason would complement and modify the activities of the faculty of sensibility, thus exercising a law-like affect upon our appetites and a host of unnecessary and perhaps unlawful desires.
The Kantian rational animal capable of discourse, then, was on track, as a species for that end-in-itself Kant called the Kingdom-of-ends. The role of God, or the divine, in such a process-of-actualisation would be to ensure that worthy men led worthy lives of eudaimonia (good spirited flourishing lives). In such lives, such men would enjoy the goods of the body, the goods of the external world (good fortune), and the goods for the soul. In such a world, areté, arché, diké ,epistemé, techné would all play important roles in the life of the cosmopolitan citizen of the kingdom of ends: such is the picture Kant has of civilisation one hundred thousand years in the future.
Book 2 Continues its exegesis of the nature and purpose of education by giving an account of the infant’s experience of pleasure and pain, claiming that:
“This is the route by which virtu and vice first enter the soul” (P.85-6)
Plato continues this account with:
“I call “education” the initial acquisition of virtue by the child when the feelings of pleasure and affection, pain and hatred that well up in his soul are channelled in the right courses before he can understand the reason why. Then when he does understand his reason and emotions agree in telling him that he has been properly trained by the inculcation of appropriate habits. Virtue is this general concord of reason and emotion.” (P.86)
Areté (doing the right thing in the right way at the right time) is playing an important role in this process.It enables us to love (eros) and hate (thanatos) the objects we ought to love and hate. Next on the agenda of discussion for the Athenian, is an account of the role of the Arts in Education. The Athenian takes up the activities of dancing and singing which he claims the educated man ought to master excellently. For Aristotle, too, the Arts will aim at both “The Good” and at trying to form an intellectual conception or representation of the categorical goods that can be subsumed under this general idea.
The Athenian uses the metaphor of hounds tracking a quarry, reminding us once again of the Socrates of the Republic. Yet there is also a similarity between the account the Athenian is giving us and the accounts we find in Aristotle. Reference is made to “character” (the good state) which is, it is argued, best formed via “imitating” the good. Such imitations, when made public and generating the praise or applause of the public and acclamations, critically use the term “good” ( a good of the external world). If these performances appeal to the goods for the soul, “character” may well be involved in communicating the virtues ( the “quality” of good).
For Kant, judgements of beauty involve the “harmony” of the imagination and the understanding in the artist which in selecting and attempting to represent aesthetic ideas require what he calls “genius”. Art works are produced and appreciated in this “spirit”. The aesthetic idea. of course, is related to the various forms of the good in various ways, but it is not a conceptual relation to the representations in the art work. Such an idea is, rather, designed to meet the requirement of understanding the idea intuitively as a work of the imagination. The aesthetic idea is the equivalent to a rational idea which is defined as a concept for which no intuition can be adequate. Kant also insists, in the context of this discussion, that the aesthetic idea of beauty is a “symbol” of the good that is connected to morality and the realm of ends-in-themselves. Kant also claims, in other contexts, that all our knowledge of God is symbolic, thus connecting aesthetic judgements to the noumenal realm of the super-sensible. Kant illustrates this reasoning by a reference to common understanding which:
“is wont to pay regard to this analogy…we frequently apply to beautiful objects of nature or, of art, names that seem to rely upon the basis of a moral estimate. We call buildings or trees majestic and stately, or plains laughing or gay: even colours are called innocent, modest, soft, because they excite sensations containing something analogous to the consciousness of the state of mind produced by moral judgements (Kant’s Critique of Judgement, Trans. Meredith, (J. C., Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1972), P.225
The suggestion is that the state of consciousness of awe and wonder are involved in both aesthetic Judgments (especially judgments relating to the sublime) and moral judgments. We can see in these remarks that Kant’s educational commitments align with both Aristotle’s and Plato’s positions. Plato’s attitude toward the Arts in the dialogue “The Republic” can not easily be compared with the position we encounter in The Laws. In The Republic, Plato wishes to exclude artists from his Callipolis, because of the fact that their aesthetic ideas merely “imitate” the forms. In the Laws, however, we find Plato adopting a more moderate position.
Book two continues with an argument proposing that Justice and Happiness are in harmony with one another, but there is a question as to whether happiness is a satisfactory translation of eudaimonia (which might perhaps be better translated as “good-spirited flourishing life” if the full meaning of Greek intentions is to be captured). This discussion links up with that of Socrates in the Republic where it is claimed that however much power a tyrant has, his life is notwithstanding not happy (neither good-spirited nor flourishing) and will probably come to a tragic end because this is how justice “works”. We know that neither Glaucon from The Republic, nor Cleinias from The Laws, are convinced of the proposed links between justice and eudaimonia. The Ring of Gyges myth from the Republic is meant to assert that were it not for the consequences, everyone would act in their own self-interests all the time. The Athenian argues:
“The lawgiver will…lift the fog that clouds our judgement… he will persuade us that our lives of justice and injustice are like pictures drawn in perspective. Injustice looks pleasant to the enemy of justice, because he regards it from his own personal standpoint, which is unjust and evil; justice on the other hand, looks unpleasant to him. But from the standpoint of the just man the view gained of justice and injustice is always the opposite.”(P.100-101)
This argument, that the better soul knows better than the worse soul, is then, accepted by his interlocutors. The Athenian goes on to argue that the unjust life is not merely shocking and disgraceful but is less “happy” (less good-spirited, flourishing) than the just life which is both just and holy. Both Aristotle and Kant would subscribe unreservedly to this position. We are all familiar with the inscription upon Kant’s gravestone where ti is claimed that two things fill the mind with awe and wonder, the starry heavens above and the moral law within. God would appear to be the principle behind the starry heavens and universe and also the principle that conditionally guarantees a good spirited flourishing life if one is worthy of such a life. Aristotle, on the other hand conceives of God as pure form and that form is described in terms of a thinking about thinking. Our access to pure form is of course limited by our finite natures and occurs best via leading a contemplative ethical life. In such a context we are obviously at the level of thought which surpasses in complexity the biological/psychological level of sensations and feelings that for Kant are located in the faculty of Sensibility.
In defence of the above argument the Athenian asks us to imagine three choruses composed of singers and dancers representing different ages of man. Each chorus sings about the life which brings the best form of pleasure. The third chorus represents men between the ages of 30-60 and is characterised as the noblest and most mature chorus.
The Athenian then returns to the theme of alcohol consumption and suggests the passing of laws that limit the consumption of wine. None under the age of 18 should be allowed to drink wine and young man under the age of 30 would be encouraged to drink only in moderation.
At several places in the dialogue the Athenian is critical of the military style of society that we find at this time in Sparta and Crete, claiming that the education one receives in such societies is oriented not toward peace but rather toward war and furthermore such an education is not conducive to producing capable political administrators.
Music is discussed theoretically and the Athenian presents three criteria that can be used to judge musical performances: firstly whether what is being represented is represented correctly, how correctly it has been copied and thirdly the what is referred to as the moral value of the representation, Here too, we see the suggestion that the beautiful and the moral have an intimate connection. The Athenian also claims that the “general public”cannot form adequate judgements about matter so harmony and rhythm because of the habits they have acquired which are not related to the idea of beauty.
Commentary on Plato’s Dialogue “The Laws” Book 1
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The Laws is a post-Republic work where the central character is called the Athenian who uses the Socratic method in his dialogue with Cleinias the Cretan and Megillus the Spartan. The threesome appear to be engaged on the project of discussing a utopian polis called Magnesia situated on Crete and ruled by a council of rulers Plato calls the “Nocturnal Council” who attempt to rule in accordance with Philosophical Principles, constitutional laws and an Educational system that is formed by both Philosophy and the Law. The conversation takes pace whilst the three interlocutors are journeying on the road Minos took to seek the advice of Zeus every nine years.
The Athenian certainly resembles Socrates in his uses of argument to arrive at the truth about a matter. Apart from the use of elenchus he also appears to believe in the important relation between a man and his polis in which the latter embodies the life (psuché) of the individual writ large and the former provides the essential “elements” of the polis. Cleinias the Cretan and Megillus the Spartan present the laws of their respective cities with reverence claiming for them divine origins reaching back to Zeus and Apollo. Both insist upon the importance of the laws being war-oriented which the Athenian politely dismisses on the grounds that “the greatest good” must be related to peace. War at best for the Athenian is only necessary if its primary purpose is to bring about peace between men of the same city(civil war) or men of different cities. Instead of an appeal to the Gods the Athenian appeals instead to the ideal of a judge who understands the law and passes laws whose primary purpose is to ensure that the city is united and not the harbour of different conflicting interests. A distinction is drawn between, “total war” that occurs if these conflicting interests result in internecine war and the less terrible form of war where a foreign enemy is the target of the conflict. “Total war” requires more of the “soldier” than just the virtue of courage. Indeed, the Athenian claims that such a form of conflict requires of those involved in the strife a whole range of virtues which include self-control, good judgement and a sense of justice. War against a foreign enemy, it is claimed, requires merely the will to fight courageously which could even be done by mercenaries who fight and are prepared to die for the money involved. Socrates, we know, consistently maintained a critical attitude toward activities conducted solely for economic benefit (oikonomos). In discussing areté (doing the right thing at the right time in the right way) in relation to a doctors attempts to cure a patient who may not be able to pay for the treatment, Socrates dismisses economic calculation as irrelevant to what the doctor regards as “the greatest good”. Just as a doctor will be”loyal to the cause of treating his patients, so the citizen who possesses the range of virtues needed in a civil internecine war can be counted on to be loyal in a crisis. The Athenian, however, is at pains to point out that:
“The greatest good, however, is neither war nor civil war(God forbid we should need to resort to either of them), but peace and goodwill among men” (Plato, the Laws, Translated by Saunders T., J., Harmondsworth, Penguin books, 1970, Book 1, P.51)
The Athenian then proceeds to outline a categorical framework for a legal system which refers to the telos of peace and the “range of virtues” required of the citizens who live under “The Laws”. He lists the benefits that would flow from the presence of “good laws”, e.g. Health, Beauty, strength, and wealth which are the more obvious human benefits but he also then refers to the “divine” benefits of self-control, courage, good judgement and justice. The law-giver envisaged by the Athenian is not, however a God but rather a judge who:
” should supervise his people and confer suitable modes of honour or disgrace. Whenever they associate with one another, he should observe their pain, pleasures and desires, and watch their passions in all their intensity: he must use the laws themselves as instruments for the proper distribution of praise and blame….In all these instances the lawgivers duty is to isolate and and explain what is good and what is bad in the way each individual reacts.”(P.55)
Aristotle too would place his faith in the judge/lawgiver who uses his knowledge of the world and human life (psuché) to nurture and regulate the life of the community. This great-souled man or “Phronimos” loves the wisdom needed to prevent the city heading for the ruin and destruction predicted by the oracle. The city for Aristotle has an organic nature that lies behind an actualising developmental process in which principles lie behind the forms the institutions and the activities of the citizens take. The process, for Aristotle begins with the first community namely, the family, which, without a relation to a number of other families constituting a village would not be self-sufficient. Villages themselves can provide only a certain level of self-sufficiency which is better provided by the polis that comprises several villages. These actualising processes require the operation of the range of virtues that Socrates refers to above. The educational system of the polis, that is, praises virtuous behaviour and establishes the expectation that all citizens ought to engage in such behaviour but it also establishes the fear of the consequences of engaging in behaviour motivated by the vices. This fear is related to the blame that the community directs at what in their view ought not to be done. Legal institutions and processes support this moral structure which in the view of the Athenian has a therapeutic rather than a penal intention. We should recall here that Aristotle spent most of his life in Athens. He too, like Socrates became a potential victim of a failing justice system when he was accused of impiety. (an accusation that definitely had little therapeutic intention and had more to do with the reigning anti-Macedonian feeling that had been growing in Athens).
The Athenian also suggests that the laws ought to regulate the way citizens acquire money and spend it, honouring those that comply with the law and penalising those that do not.He qualifies this judgement, however by stipulating that it is the ideas of justice and self restraint rather than wealth and ambition which ought to to characterise the “spirit” of the law. The Athenian here echoes the Socratic argument in the Republic that it is the duty of the doctor to treat a patient in a crisis situation even if that patient has no resources to pay for his treatment. This argument clearly favours a humanistic therapeutic spirit rather than a secondary concern with the art of making money.
Various activities and institutions are thereafter discussed which appear to be connected with preparing the polis for war and developing institutions such as communal meals, gymnastic exercises and hunting which nurture the virtue of courage via the principles of avoidance of pain and control of surfeit pleasures. The Athenian also points to the dangers of such institutions/activities insofar as encouraging revolutions were concerned. The virtue of good judgement is, it is claimed, necessary in relation to the speech, action and feelings associated with them: areté or doing the right thing in the right way at the right time is an important aspect of developing the virtue of good judgement. In the context of this discussion the Athenian introduces the fact that Spartans regard drunkenness and drinking parties as anathema and illegal, thus truncating the virtue of courage envisaged by the Athenian. Learning to control fear and pain and not doing the same with respect to the temptations of pleasures is an important omission, the Athenian argues. The drinking parties of course have to be regulated to ensure the pleasures and pains are distributed appropriately and the proceedings ought not interrupted by unacceptable behaviour.** This reminds us of the Aristotelian standard of the Golden Mean and its role in developing virtues such as courage. The golden mean in relation to courage lies in avoiding the pain and suffering related to cowardice and the hubris and mania related to over-zealous fighting on the field of battle. The golden mean distributes the pleasures and pains, emotions, passions, feelings etc appropriately and this manifests itself openly in areté (doing and saying the right thing t the right time in the right way).
At this point in the dialogue the Athenian emphasises the importance of education to both the lawgivers and the citizens of the Callipolis Magnesia. Returning to the supervised drinking parties he claims that such events contribute to the complete education of the good man. Cleinias the Cretan, however, like Glaucon in the Republic, in relation to the arguments Socrates, demands a justification from the Athenian. The Athenian responds with a lecture on the nature and purpose of Education. His account begins by highlighting the importance of habit and the practicing of virtuous activities which ought to begin already with the activities of children’s games:
“If you control the way children play and the same children always play the same games under the same rules and in the same conditions, and get pleasure from the same toys, you will find that the conventions of adult life too are left in peace without alteration….Change, we shall find, except in something evil, is extremely dangerous.”(Laws, 797)
This echoes Aristotle’s hylomorphic theory of change where the philosopher is at pains to outline as systematically as he can the kinds of change, principles of change, causes of change and the media of change. Activities connected to war and economic activities are excluded from the Athenians account. What follows in Plato’s account is an argument related to how the law “calculates” in this judgement of the merits of pleasure and pain and the the manifesting of appropriate fears, expectations and confidence. Calculation is depicted by Plato as a divine power that has been transmitted to us humans and it is this power that is incorporated in the law, thus clarifying for a community the difference between vice and virtue. The educational activities, which include children’s games will be guided by the laws and the citizens will be trained to both obey and respect the law but they will also be trained to admire the power of legal “calculation”.
Returning to the supervised events of drinking parties the Athenian points out that pleasures, pains, anger and love are all made more intense under the influence of alcohol, whilst sensations, memories, opinions and thoughts become in general less influential. The subject regresses to a stage of early childhood and it is clear that self-control is lacking in such a subject. Nevertheless, it is argued, there is a positive aspect related to this state of drunkenness, namely, that ones inhibitions are neutralised and this manifests itself in a disposition toward boldness and fearlessness. If, in such a state one engages in shameful behaviour, this, is, the Athenian argues, the perfect training ground to confront ones vices. It is also pointed out in this context that one can also become drunk with the pleasure of being wealthy, beautiful and strong and such states ought to be recognised as inappropriate.
Aristotles view of the practical “calculation” involved in practical reasoning relating to law governed activity is that it is Reason which is being used in the use of the “golden-mean-standard”in the use of the power of calculation referred to by the Athenian. He would also claim that free choice is exercised in all activity that aims at the good, whether it be goods related to the external world, goods related to the body, or goods related to the soul. The question raised by both Aristotle and Kant in the context of this discussion is whether the type of reasoning or calculation involved is only means-ends reasoning or whether a more complex form of reasoning is involved which has the character of both what is good-in-its-consequences and what is good-in-itself.(Glaucons criteria for full justification of the idea of justice).
Instrumental reasoning is used of course in economic calculations which have become so unstable in modern times that written legal documents in the form of contracts need to be drafted and signed to ensure that any promises made are kept. This fact of course also testifies to the importance of the law to facilitate relations when morality fails to regulate our desires and actions
*Kant in his work “Anthropology” also adopted the above Platonic-Aristotelian view when he claimed that states of drunkenness where one has lost control of ones speech and actions reduce us to animals, but mild intoxication is morally acceptable because of the facilitation of relations between the participants at a dinner/drinking party. Virtues ought, he argues, to be controlling the discourse.
*Freud, as he so often does, adds an important dimension to this discussion in his diagnosis of the possible relations of alcoholism to paranoia, jealousy and obsessive compulsive disorders. He also points to the more general use of alcohol as an anaesthetic that is used to mitigate everyday suffering.
Freud and Philosophy: A Hylomorphic and Critical reevaluation: Chapter 7: Concluding Remarks
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History and Psychology share many of the same problems relating to the validity of the judgements and theories associated with these disciplines. In my earlier work “The World Explored, the World Suffered: A Philosophical History of Psychology, Cognition, Emotion, Consciousness, and Action”, Volume one, the Roman image of Janus was used to illustrate the dialectical structure of many judgements and theories. One face and one pair of eyes look backward in time with what one imagines to be a sense of melancholy over all the past lost loved objects of desire, stretched out in the history of the species of man. A second face and pair of eyes looks forward into the future with what one imagines to be a sense of anxious expectation over what the passing of time might bring with it.
Janus is a Roman symbol associated with war and it is, therefore, not surprising that instinctive aggression, rather than understanding and reason, is suggested in interpreting the meaning of this Roman symbol. We know Freud possessed a Janus figurine which was displayed in his consulting rooms, along with many other figurines from different cultures. These figures, for Freud, probably also appealed to the art of interpretation in the process of inquiring into their meaning. This same art was used in relation to his patients, who, perhaps like Janus, manifested the symptoms of melancholy, anxiety and aggression. Freud, in interpreting these symptoms, used a categorical framework which stretched over a number of different sciences (theoretical, practical and productive), and he employed a number of technical concepts especially designed to both interpret and ameliorate these symptoms. Part of the strategy used, involved the Freudian learning-triangle of— wished-for fulfilment of a desire/wish, refusal of fulfilment, and consequential wounding of the desiring/wishing ego. If we are to take Freud’s claim that he was producing a form of Kantian Psychology seriously, then we ought to assume that the Philosophical Psychology underlying his patients treatment implies the practical ethical absolute of Kantian ethical theory, namely a good will.
O Shaughnessy (OS) in his work “The Will: a Dual Aspect Theory”, makes an important contribution to this discussion in relation to restoring the Will to a central position in the field of modern Philosophical Psychology. He points to logic and principles of noncontradiction and sufficient reason to explore the scope and limits of this concept of the will, and thereby illuminates the relation of the external world to psuché (life). In elaborating upon this relation, OS adheres to the important Kantian-ontological distinction that was undoubtedly involved in the Freudian learning triangle (demand/desire- refusal-wounded ego), namely, that between what the world makes of man, and what man makes of himself through his behaviour and actions. It is clear that Pain is the driving force of the learning-process that is occurring in such contexts. The ego being referred to is, firstly, that which accords with Spinoza’s analysis of the mind-body relation, where the first idea of the mind is the idea of the body, and the task of this Freudian ego is to protect the body. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly from a psychological viewpoint, the ego is a precipitate of lost objects, which is ,of course, another aspect of the inhibition-responses of the agent concerned. This triangle and framework accords well with the Kantian diagnosis of our social-political relationships with each other, a diagnosis he describes in terms of the melancholic haphazardness of social/political events. This, if it is to be understood in the right way, needs to be further embedded in the hylomorphic framework of material efficient, formal and final causes, principles of change, media of change(space, time, matter), and kinds of change.
Aristotle claims in his work “Metaphysics” that we all desire to know, and he claims further in his work “Nichomachean Ethics”, that these claims, in turn, need to be embedded in the framework of ancient Greek oracular prophecies, which may also account for the prevalence of these very human dispositions of melancholia, anxiety and aggression. Three of the most famous recorded pronouncements are namely, that “Everything created by man is destined for ruin and destruction”, “Nothing too much”, and “Know thyself!”. These “proclamations” are also haunting Aristotle’s search after first principles.
It is clear that Freud’s Kantian Psychology presupposes both large parts of this hylomorphic framework as well as the spirit of these oracular proclamations. We know that during his last phase of writings, Freud turned specifically to the work of Plato for part of his “Mythology of the instincts”. He accepted that, at certain points in the theorising process, argumentation in terms of principles needed to be supplemented by stipulations which support the work of the principles, and for this purpose, he chose the mythological figures of Eros, Thanatos, and Ananke, partly to account for the role of death and aggression in his otherwise very technical accounts of Instincts and their Vicissitudes. Indeed the philosophical problems related to an obsessive concern with the idea of Consciousness inherited from the Cartesian tradition, is also addressed in the later revisions to Freuds theories, and we are in the context of this discussion, reminded of the Aristotelian essence-specifying definition of man, namely “rational animal capable of discourse”.
Consciousness, for Freud, is a vicissitude of an instinct, together with repression and other defence mechanisms such as Identification and Sublimation (the civilisation-building vicissitude). The Kantian judgement relating to the melancholic haphazardness of our social and political relations is also implied in Freud’s claim that man is fundamentally dissatisfied with his civilisation owing to the instinctual sacrifices that need to be made in order to create and maintain the level of civilisation/culture necessary to provide citizens of the polis with a flourishing life (eudaimonia). This Greek term also implies good-spirited and this accords well with the one absolute in the Kantian ethical system, namely, a good will.
In the previous chapter, Freud’s contribution to the biography of Thomas Woodrow Wilson was discussed. The work left us with an impression of the importance of the historic context of the exercise of power of an important character on the American political stage. History and Psychology interact in interesting ways that relate fundamentally to the Kantian ontology of what man makes of himself, and what the world makes of man. If, hypothetically, we could suspend the operation of the will of man, reducing the life instinct to a pinpoint of light in the darkness, the complex needs and desires of such a psuché, leave one with the impression that there is nothing in this psuché to counteract the feeling of being overwhelmed by the magnitude and power of the external world.
In his analysis of judgements relating to the sublime, Kant discusses the example of an observer of a powerful waterfall. The observers senses are at first overwhelmed by the raging waterfall. In the subsequent moments of this experience, Kant notes that another faculty of our minds is mobilised in response, and in this moment, we both understand and appreciate our power as a moral agent. On Freud’s account, what we are witnessing, is an ego initially succumbing to the exigencies of the external world, and subsequently being strengthened by the knowledge of the possible operations of the superego in accordance with the Greek idea of areté (doing the right thing in the right way at the right time). In this scenario, what we are partly seeing is the power of human freedom in a powerful deterministic world, containing causal forces, that will eventually bring about the extinction of all life-forms. The fact that rationality is merely a potentiality, and not fully actualised in the species, also highlights the importance of the oracular proclamation that “Everything created by man is destined for ruin and destruction. Kant, the Enlightenment rationalist, also takes this aspect of human existence into account, and makes a proclamation of his own, namely, that rationality will only be actualised in the species of man, over a period of one hundred thousand years. This is indeed a long period of suffering for the discontented ego to mourn its lost objects of desire. Both the causal powers of the external world, and the powers of his fellow man, threaten the destruction of the polis, and call into question the work that make mans social and political life possible: hence the feeling of melancholic haphazardness.
Hannah Arendt’s conception of the “new men” of the modern era, for whom it was important to mobilise the instincts and emotions of the masses for their own selfish purposes, aptly fits the behaviour of Woodrow Wilson in the aftermath of the first World War, as well as Harry Trumans decision to drop two atomic bombs on the civilians of two Japanese cities. In both cases, we are confronted with an imagination that ran wild at the expense of common sense and rationality. We have dubbed our “modern era” as the “age of discontentment”, because it began with Cartesian and Hobbesian discontentment over the rationalist philosophy of Aristotle, and continued with a Hegelian inspired discontentment with critical Kantian Philosophy. This means that, in the light of Kant’s proposed one hundred thousand-year journey for the species of man, we are witnessing a period of regression rather than progression.
We ought to recall that, for the Freud that wrote the Interpretation of Dreams, psychic regression occurred in the dream context, when the energy of a part of the brain was used to create the images of the dream, rather than for the purposes of external sensory or motor activity. We might, that is, in a dream, believe that we are swimming, but that is a mistaken belief, because no external sensory or motor activity is occurring. Similarly, in a dream, when we believe we are seeing a figure approaching in a blue shirt, this is not a genuine case of seeing, but rather the work of the imagination. We firmly believe we are seeing in the dream context, yet it is nevertheless true that what we are seeing, or think we are doing, is not real. It is nevertheless significant in that, what is happening, may well be related to the wish-fulfilment structure of the dream: a structure regulated by the pleasure-pain principle and the energy regulation principle ( governing the wish to continue sleeping). On this view, because in the dream scenario, the faculty of sensibility does not involve the cognitive process of synthesising representations for the purposes of knowing the truth, it is the sensible power of the imagination that is at work using the medium of images.
Insofar as the identity of the discipline of Psychology was concerned, one of the central moments of the 19th century came in 1870, when a group of prominent Scientific Psychologists coined a definition of Psychology which in fact redefined the direction that the subject would take in the future: a direction that appeared to focus on the term psyche (psuché) and construe this term very differently from earlier more philosophical characterisations such as those we find in both Aristotle and Kant. The first wave of theorists, were in fact structuralists, who defined Psychology as the “Science of Consciousness”, and who also attempted an empirical-atomist experimental approach to the role of sensations and feelings in our experience. William James opposed this approach and wrote a work entitled “The Principles of Psychology”, which was classified as a “functionalist” approach to the phenomena and conditions of mental life. He did not however, conceive of “principles”, Philosophically, or in the way that Freud would have, but he did define mental life in practical rather than theoretical terms:
“The pursuance of future ends and the choice of means for their attainment are thus the mark and criterion of mentality in a phenomenon.” (Principles of Psychology, Volume 1, P 8)
Furthermore, we see in this definition of mentality, a clear distinction between the Socratic/Ancient Greek ideas of the good-in-itself, and the good-in-its-consequences, and we should also recall that in this connection, important ideas like justice involved both of these Goods. A phenomenon has its conditions, some of which may fall into the categories of material and efficient causation, especially when we are dealing with phenomena related to sensibility. When, on the other hand, we consider higher mental states and processes related to action and knowledge-states and processes, formal and final causes in relation to the principles of noncontradiction and sufficient reason, shift more into focus. James, however, was somewhat ambivalent in relation to these Aristotelian and Kantian principles, and preferred a more down to earth Philosophy of pragmatism which eschewed all forms of theoretical rationalism.
Aristotelian and Kantian “conditions” of phenomena involve both the above rationalist principles of psuché, which must be discussed in terms of a wider definition of life that includes both plant and animal forms of life. Such discussion must take into consideration both archeological and teleological “conditions”. When these conditions relate to actualising a self that is aiming at rationality via discourse, we need to embed such a discussion in a complex mental framework, which includes instincts and the faculty of sensibility in general. What is also needed is reference to the categories of understanding/judgement and the principles of reason.
William James’ pragmatic Philosophy was a child of its time , focussing upon the notion of Consciousness. It was, however, also heeding classical concerns relating to the importance of the will, and the Greek conceptions of areté and arché. James discusses Humes interest in the role of habit but, unlike Hume, views this practical phenomenon through the framework of consciousness. The contribution of mental life to the formation of habits, for James, requires the operation of the power of consciousness. The already formed habit probably only requires the presence of consciousness to, firstly, begin the action, and secondly, monitor what happens if something goes wrong with the action, and thirdly, at the end of the process when one is viewing the result. For Freud, the level of sub-consciousness involved in the habitual action would partly correspond to his notion of the preconscious part of our minds, which is used non-observationally by the motor system to perform learned habitual actions in accordance with areté.
Areté, in such contexts, where we are concerned with the construction and use of artefacts such as library-chairs, is connected to techné, that, in turn, uses that form of instrumental/causal reasoning which has been so important for civilisation-building activities of all kinds. This kind of action does not fall into the category of actions whose telos is connected to diké (justice), where the issue for psuché is the outcome (Ananke) of the battle of the giants, Eros and Thanatos, and possibly, the ruin and destruction of the polis. We discuss the learning of skills and habitual performance in volume 1 of “The World Explored, the World Suffered: A Philosophical History of Psycholgy, Cognition, Emotion, Consciousness and Action”:
“Both sensory and motor ideas combine to form objects of the mind. A skill, for example, is represented by James in the brain as a sequence of muscular contractions of which there is a sensation for each contraction. These sensational impressions exist below the level of conscious ideation which otherwise is usually present at the beginning of the activity ( e.g. seeing the piano) and at the end when one becomes aware of the completion of the activity (of playing the piano). According to James, it is a different matter when we are learning a skill where much work is then done at the conscious level of ideation: we test each sensation by consciously comparing, choosing, rejecting, etc. Even moving on to the next component in the sequence of the learning process is a conscious act. There is no thematic concept of consciousness in Hume although he does speak of the importance of forming habits, which, on James’ account can only be achieved through the active conscious awareness of what is right and what is wrong. This allows James to use the concept of a will that can consciously envision the activity it is about to undertake before the fact. It is this consciousness of the whole activity that then subsequently, when the activity has begun, enables us to know exactly where we are in the chain of events constituting the activity. If, for example, I am interrupted in the act of saying something, I remember what I have said and what I am about to say in virtue of this initial conscious awareness of the whole.”( The World Explored, the World Suffered: A Philosophical History of Psychology, Cognition, Emotion, Consciousness and Action(Volume one), James, M.,R., D., Mauritius, Lambert Academic Press, 2019, P. 312-3)
The “divorce” of Psychology and Philosophy occurred immediately prior to James’ work. In the lead up to this series of events, Hegel’s criticism of Kant’s works was decisive, and used the authority of Berlin University to neutralise the Critical Philosophy that had previously been sponsored by the University of Königsberg. Kant had successfully restored the hylomorphic ideas of matter and form which had previously been successful in combatting the materialism and dualism of Aristotle’s time. Hegel’s dialectical-based Phenomenology allowed these alternatives to reemerge in the name of an idea of “Spirit”, that used dialectical reasoning in a context of exploration/discovery which, paradoxically, regarded the logical-rational principles operating in contexts of explanation/justification, as metaphysical (the dreams of spirit-seers). It was Hegel’s expressed intention to turn Kant’s work upside down, and thereby undermine his centring of Practical Reason around the Greek ideas of psuché, arché (principle), areté, diké, epistemé, phronesis, and eudaimonia. Greek practical reasoning had, during the dark ages, been marginalised on the grounds of Christian criticism. Pelagus, for example, proposed the idea of a free will which St Augustine felt compelled to combat in the name of the Christian Church and an idea of a God who was the ultimate cause in a deterministic causal-system. It was, however, Aquinas who felt the gravitas of Aristotelian argumentation, and allowed scholars to once again entertain the possibility of hylomorphic accounts of psuché. Aquinas, however, also felt that Pelagus was a threat, and in his re-interpretation of Aristotle’s work marginalised the importance of both Aristotle’s Metaphysics (that all men desire to know), and Aristotle’s Ethics (that all human activities, including the arts and the sciences, aim at the Good.) Man, for both Augustine and Aquinas was a flawed being because of his problematic relation to both God and the Word of God–the biblical form of Logos– (which meant something different to the ancient Greeks).
Just as Sensibility does not judge in relation to the truth, so it does not judge in relation to the Good. Instinctive desires are either satisfied or not. If the more primitive desires are requited, a state of homeostasis is established in the organisms body, if not, the organism finds itself in a state of disequilibrium, and might even die if the deficiency is serious. There is, in this situation, an intricate relation between the Energy Regulation Principle and the Pleasure Pain Principle, but instincts are blind insofar as the “understanding” of the Good is concerned. This is not to deny that at the level of sensibility and instinct, there is a primitive kind of “intelligence”, insofar as meeting the needs of survival are concerned. The medium that this intelligence operates in, however, is the medium of “feeling”, and images, and involves the faculty of the imagination more than the faculty of the understanding.
Aristotle investigated the life-instinct (Eros) in a categorical framework, at least as complicated as that of Freud’s, and without thematising the concept of consciousness. Knowing, for Aristotle, could be applied over a whole range of phenomena stretching from the bare awareness involved in the activity of seeing, to the knowing involved in logical reasoning in a complex argument such as:
All men are mortal
Socrates is a man
Therefore: Socrates is mortal.
The above form of reasoning presupposes a faculty of understanding operating at a conceptual level, as well as the principles of reasoning (noncontradiction and sufficient reason). It is at this level that we are confronted with the epistemologcal problems of truth and knowledge, and the ethical problem of the good in both theoretical and practical contexts. Form and matter play decisive roles in such an argument. Conceptual forms differ from sensible forms in the way in which the higher mental processes of the understanding differs from the lower level operation of the imagination.
The Unconscious, Freud claims, does not operate in accordance with the principle of noncontradiction, which, in the domain of the practical, involves the operation of the will in the decision to do X or not do X (where x is an action). Negation, in the arena of action insofar as it is at the level of consciousness, must involve conceptualisation (at least insofar as the rational animal capable of discourse is concerned) and this involves a level of organisation of representations that is above and beyond the the scope of the faculty of Sensibility in general, and the imagination in particular. According to Kant, the manifold of representations are ordered under a concept belonging to a system of categories, which, in turn, imply the operation of the principles of noncontradiction and sufficient reason.
Language is used conceptually, with understanding, when it is used to name a manifold of representations, or alternatively, predicate something of a named manifold. Language can also be used to signify an emotional state, as is the case when someone shouts out the name of a long absent friend encountered at an airport, or alternatively, where one fearfully shouts at a bear to “Get away!” In these latter cases, Sensibility is expressing itself through, or via, the medium of language, which can also be used to express thoughts given the propensity of language to picture a state of affairs in its absence.
According to Julian Jaynes, however, language probably began as some kind of warning cry, before the establishment of civilisations, whilst man lived in a state of nature. With the advent of naming objects, the faculties of understanding and reason began to form, and with the advent of naming people and remembering them in their absence (perhaps after their death), memory became an important mental function, and an important complement to the language-functions that signify or symbolise what ought to be the case in the future. This complex of mental operations then, constituted a teleological orientation, which in turn forms the basis for the creation and implementation of laws for a possible polis.
Language functions, then, stretch from the simple primitive expressions of the sensible faculty, to the sublime logic of the ethical syllogism that illuminates the essence of that cultural act of promising, e.g.:
Promises ought to be kept
Jack promised Jill he would pay the money back he is borrowing
Therefore Jack ought to pay the money back to Jill
This is the Kantian region of Logos which far surpasses the naming function of language. In the above syllogism something declarative is being said about promising in general, and an individual promise in particular. What we also see in the above form of reasoning, is a complicated use of both the imperative and declarative voices of language. The major premise, “Promises ought to be kept”, has the force of a principle (arché), and both the Kantian faculties of understanding and reason are involved, in the formation of the principle, and its subsequent application. The “voices” of language referred to, are obviously related to thought, as conceived from an ancient Greek point of view (Socrates: thinking is talking to oneself). For Freud, the “voices” of melancholy and aggression connect to his triangle of desire, which has its roots deep in the faculty of sensibility. Now, whilst it is undoubtedly the case that the expressions of emotion and instinct have no categorical intent, it is also true that such expressions serve important individual and social purposes. Let it not be forgotten that in his work “Civilisation and its Discontents”, Freud pictured the fate lying in wait for our societies, in terms of the battle between Eros and Thanatos–the creative and destructive instincts and their vicissitudes. Kant’s critical Philosophy may well have approved of this kind of proclamation, given his view of man’s hundred thousand year view of the journey toward a Kingdom of Ends This journey, he argued was made more complex by the fact that man is in need of a master, but because of his self-love, he rejects the authority of all who seek to be his master. These aspects of Kant’s theory explain his judgement relating to the melancholic haphazardness of social and political life. Freud’s explanation of melancholy and aggression, is, in terms of his triangle of desire, in which the demands motivated by mans self-love or narcissism, are often refused, and result in a wounded ego, which, in turn, gives rise to melancholic or aggressive responses. This hundred thousand year journey toward a better life is also overshadowed by the words of the ancient Greek oracle: “Everything created by man is destined for ruin and destruction”.
Science, for Freud, who was living in the era of positivism and its obsession with the experimental method (which rejected what it took to be the dogmatic attitude of Philosophy), was analysed by Freud as a deflection from the telos of life. Such a position was a marked contrast to the position of those Scientific Psychologists intent upon blazing a trail for Psychology in the name of the experimental method based on observation and the manipulation and measurement of variables. The context for this kind of scientific activity was obviously a context of exploration/discovery, and the voice of such scientific inquiry was the interrogative voice.
O Shaughnessy(OS), in his analysis of will and action, points out how the interrogative attitude in relation to an orange one is reaching for, actually disrupts the categorical structure of the action relating to an object that is being viewed by the agent as a response, not to a question, but rather to an order, namely “Pick me!”This is a very different kind of context to that of the scientific experiment which is largely conducted in the spirit of the interrogative, “What do we have here?”
The declarative, imperative, and interrogative “voices” of language are vicissitudes of instincts, and these “voices” would be of fundamental importance for the description and justification of the forms of life language-games are embedded in, as far as Wittgenstein was concerned. For Wittgenstein, confusing language games with each other, leads to the creation of philosophical problems which then require grammatical investigations for their solution. The Wittgensteinian maxim, “Dont ask for the meaning, ask for the use!”, is an imperative directed at those who viewed meaning as a theoretical rather than a practical problem, and it was a recommendation for the nature of the inquiry to be changed from that of a student of nature interrogating the phenomena in the external world, to that of a judge using the law to categorically judge whether something is in accordance with a principle or not. In other words, the judge is situated in a context of explanation/justification, and his judgements are in the imperative voice, e.g. “The law is very clear in these circumstances and it ought to be obeyed!”.
In Wittgenstein’s later work, he abandons his earlier commitment to what has been called “logical atomism”, and “logical solipsism”, in favour of a more holistic view of both language and man. He recommends that we focus on describing various practices embedded in forms of life, rather than firstly, on a conception of the world being a totality of facts, and, secondly, on an idea of the self lying at the boundary of the world. The search, however, is for essences, and the method employed is that of a grammatical investigation designed to provide us with the rules of representation, which, it is claimed, are already known, and the context is clearly a context of explanation/justification. Wittgenstein approved of Kant’s anti-metaphysical project, and might have considered his own later work as an elaboration upon the Kantian critical project. He also considered himself a follower of Freud, and in spite of some criticisms of Freud’s work, we can assume that he approved of Freud’s reflections upon the role of instincts and their vicissitudes in relation to the forms of life discussed in the work “Civilisation and its Discontents”. Freud and Wittgenstein certainly heeded Kant’s warning about the dangers of dogmatism, scepticism and indifference, and the consequential relapse into the theoretical morass created in the process of the reemergence of a dialectical opposition between materialistic and dualistic theories. The post-Kantian situation reminds one of the state of affairs that resulted when Aristotle’s hylomorphic criticisms of both materialism and dualism collapsed upon the onslaught of the “new men”, Descartes and Hobbes.
We have argued that Aristotle would have seen Kantian, Freudian, and Wittgensteinian investigations, as variations upon hylomorphic themes embedded in a framework of psuché, areté, diké, arché, techné, epistemé, eros, thanatos, ananke and eudaimonia. Socratic and oracular proclamations such as “Nothing too much!”, “Know thyself!” and “Everything created by man is destined for ruin and destruction”, also formed part of the background for Hylomorphic investigations. The “Principles”, for example, that emerged from such investigations sufficed to justify the knowledge (epistemé) we find in the different domains of science articulated in Aristotelian theory ( theoretical, practical, and productive).
Given this background, the call by William James for “Principles of Psychology”, was a positive contribution to the state of affairs created by the “structuralist psychologists”, working to undermine the philosophical commitment to philosophically inspired principles in any area of investigation. The starting point for these structuralists, namely that of Consciousness, rather than psuché, also contributed to the state of affairs that Wittgenstein eventually described a few decades later as “conceptual confusion”. James attempted to transcend the dialectical opposition of the materialistic and dualistic theories of his time, e.g. the science of behaviour versus the science of consciousness. This state of affairs had begun with the dialectical opposition between Hobbesian materialism and Cartesian dualism, and this polarity was temporarily neutralised by Kantian critical Philosophy, but this too was undermined by another member of the College of the “new men”, namely Hegel, who created a platform for subsequent phenomenologists and existentialists: a platform that began by turning Kant’s work upside down, and ended by turning the world upside down (with the help of modern technological science, almost destroyed Civilisation). The Kantian response to these initiatives of the new men was one of melancholy. The Freudian response was one of “discontent”at positivist science, and the Hegelian dialectical “spirit” that would soon transform itself into the will to power in the context of individual and political action. It would be this notion of the will to power that would provide the new men of the 20th century with the justification for the most horrendous political activities, including the persecution of the Jews, recalcitrant anti-communist farmers, political opponents etc. The maxim “The Truth will set you free”, is without doubt not a maxim the new men of politics would embrace, and there is also reasonable doubt about whether the new men of science did not embrace a form of relativism that would reject the above maxim as well as eschew the principled philosophical approaches of Aristotle, Kant, Freud, and the later Wittgenstein.
Freud’s Psychology is founded upon what he called his “Mythology of the instincts and their vicissitudes”. This, in the modern hylomorphic terms proposed by P M S Hacker( Human Nature: The Categorical Framework), is an account of human powers, capacities and their vicissitudes. The power of language is, of course, a power Freud appreciated, and used, in accordance with the principles of practical( areté) and productive science( techné). In doing so, he made use of the declarative voice/power of language, when he explained and justified the need for his cathartic treatment: when, that is, he transformed the emotions and passions of sensibility into the understanding associated with concepts and principles. He did not initiate grammatical investigations, but he was certainly using language for teleological purposes. In some circumstances we can imagine the analysand confessing a secret anxiously, or wishing manically for something impossible, and the language involved in such circumstances would be rooted in the faculty of sensibility aided and abetted by the power of an imagination unfettered by the demands of what Freud called the Reality Principle.
The relationship between the analyst and the analysand has a transactional aspect, and this might suggest that a language-game for two persons is being played: a language-game whose purpose is to set the slave in this relationship free, by maneuvering the subject into understanding the truth about themselves (using the Reality Principle). Freud, in his reflections, refocuses the light of Psychology in relation to the problems of Life (psuché), in a unique fashion, which acknowledges the relation of life to death in general, but, in particular, to life as “A game that must be lost” (Adrian Stokes, Collected Papers, Tamworth, UK, Carcanet Press, 1973). Life, if it is a game, is certainly a very serious game, that is only sometimes taken seriously. It has the most serious of outcomes which defines its essence, namely death–the nonexistence of life. It is also, however, the essence of life to strive or will its future continuous existence. Some Greek oracle, sometime, may well have said or thought, “All life-forms, in spite of Eros, will come to an end and degenerate into an inorganic form of existence”.
Freud’s Psychology captured the above spirit adequately only toward the end of his writings, when he turned more specifically to the Greeks for the inspiration to deal with his most difficult cases. It was also this later elaboration upon his earlier positions which enabled him to reflect upon and analyse the behaviour of Groups and Societies. This, of course, resulted in the depressing world-view that we encounter in “Civilisation and its Discontents”. Wittgenstein’s concession to Kantian and Freudian melancholy, manifested itself in his view of the decline of Western Civilisation, which he pointed to in several cultural remarks, e.g. he thought he could hear the sound of engines in early 20th century classical music. So, Kant, Freud, and Wittgenstein, all shared a pessimistic world-view grounded in a philosophical psychology that transcended the “scientific” Psychology of their times. Freud, conscious of the colonising attempt of positivistic science, and its contempt for all forms of knowledge not arrived at by an observationally-based scientific inductive method, referred to his “mythology of the instincts” in reaction to this state of affairs. We tend to forget the ethical implications of Freud’s theories, because we choose to ignore the historical facts of the time, namely that mentally ill patients were on the whole treated immorally and incarcerated in institutions which had no idea of how to treat them. Freud’s “moral treatment” respected the human dignity of his patients, and provided them with hope for a better future.
Aristotle, Kant, Freud, and Wittgenstein, can, then, lay claim to being Philosophers of Life”, and it can moreover be argued, that insofar as practical reason is concerned, all of these thinkers are rationalists, who also embrace empiricism in their descriptions of the sensible powers of the human form of life. Insofar as sensation or feeling is the subject of of the practical aesthetic judgement, we can compare the empiricist account relating to the judgement of taste in relation to wine discussed by Hume, with the aesthetic judgement of the beautiful and sublime discussed by Kant. For Kant, Humes account of taste is not an account of the reflective form of judgement which involves the faculty or power of the understanding, but is rather a more primitive form of judgement that relies solely upon the naming function of language and its relation to the faculty of sensibility. In relation to this form of judgement we can turn to the principles regulating the sensible faculty that we find in Merleau-Ponty’s work “The Phenomenology of Perception”. In this work, Merleau-Ponty refers to the “laws of association”, that unite the words for sensations with the named sensations. One who, upon detecting a taste of iron in the wine, will associate this with the word “iron”. Now whilst this may be an adequate account for the empiricist, it is not so for Merleau-Ponty, who claims that we have a lived relation to sensation, which in its turn suggests that the relation of the sensation to the judgement “There is a taste of iron in the wine”, is not merely causal in the Humean sense. Rather, there is, in these circumstances, some form of “lived identity” between the non-reflective judgement of taste and the sensation. This discussion bears to some extent upon the discussion of sexual sensations in “The Phenomenology of Perception”. For Freud, sexual sensations are an important part of the experiences of life, and the individuals personality. On Freud’s account, the bodily sources of these sensations are important material and efficient causes of the sexual experience, and this is also partly confirmed by Merleau-Ponty who sees that sexuality is an important expression of the life of the phenomenological subject. The Later Freudian account of sexuality, points out that the sexual relation to another person can be purely instinctual, but it can also be overlaid by vicissitudes of those instincts that are related to what we call “love”—an important task of the ego. Merleau-Ponty, in the spirit of phenomenology, replaces the scientific notion of “cause” with that of “meaning” or “operative reason”. Such “meanings” are manifested in the syntheses of perceptions which Merleau-Ponty is careful to distinguish from the syntheses involved in judgements acts or predications:
“I cannot put perception into the same category as the syntheses represented by judgements, acts or predications.”( Merleau-Ponty, M trans Smith C, London, Routledge, P.XI)
Merleau-Ponty claims in the above work, that the perception of a black pen must be separated from the work involved in a perceptual judgement such as “This pen is black”, and this may, to some extent, be the case in the sense that Kant, for example, drew a sharp distinction between the activity of thinking something, e.g. either “pen” or “black, and the more complex activity of thinking something about something, e.g., “This pen is black”. This latter complex judgement is a truth-making or veritative synthesis, which include the simpler syntheses of those representations constituting “pen” or “black”. In these latter simple syntheses, the realm of “thinking something”, names rigidly designate what they are names of, and this is indicated by the phrase “This pen”. Such Concepts, which are rigid designators of particulars, however, have a different logical structure to those that are occupying the role of predicating something of something: these latter concepts are intending to designate the “many”, and to that extent, may be regarded as more “abstract” but this may not be a useful way of making the distinction between these types of concepts. Many things in the world are black, but only one thing is designated by the rigid designation of “this pen”. Psychologically speaking, there can also be “this sensation of the blackness of this pen”, and both the sensation and the blackness form, what Merleau-Ponty called the “lived unity” of the perceptual activity of a “lived body”, which is the home of many different kinds of meanings. This recalls Freud’s remarks that the human body is a naturally occurring experiment, operating in a field of natural causes. Merleau-Ponty, however, is inclined to reject the term “cause” on the grounds of its modern scientific definition, and this ignores the Aristotelian claim that there are four different kinds of “causes” (aitia) or “forms of explanation”. “Modern” scientific concepts of causation often restrict themselves to material and efficient causation, embraced by Hume as paradigms of causation, and tend to question whether, in some cases, final causes can, in any sense exist. The validity of Formal causes as explanations is also typically questioned on the grounds of appealing to categories or principles that might not always be accepted. For Merleau-Ponty, there is a fundamental difference between what can be lived through, and what can be thought. For Kant, on the other hand, the truth-making synthesis that constitutes the judgement “This pen is black”, is necessarily related to the categories of the understanding and the principles of reasoning (noncontradiction, sufficient reason), which are called into question by both Merleau-Ponty and Phenomenology generally. “Operative reason” or “operative intentionality”, are the syntheses that constitute what the phenomenologists refer to as the ante-predicative world: a world formed by a non-thinking kind of consciousness, that does not operate in accordance with the laws of association but rather relates intentionally to reality via the medium of “meaning”. There is no space in this kind of account for a mechanism of association in relation to the elements of stimulus and response, favoured by behaviourist “explanations” of experience. Embracing a science of behaviour in response to the inadequacies of a science of consciousness that focussed upon sensations and feelings, brought with it new and different problems, related to all attempts at materialistic reductions of “life” to something observable. Freud avoided both of these sets of problems by defining consciousness as a vicissitude of instinct, and regarding consciousness as one power amongst others, that all need to be integrated, if adequate responses to the exigencies of the external world are to be possible.
The Freudian therapeutic method of free association was a method operating at the level of “names” which belongs to the more simple realm of “thinking something”, which, as we pointed out above, needs to be distinguished from the more complex realm of thinking something about something. This latter form of thinking is essentially a form of thinking in which concepts are related to concepts. The therapist, equipped with psychoanalytical theory, interpreted the patients associations in terms of their meaning, and the principles operating in human forms of life, e.g. energy regulation principle, pleasure-pain principle, and reality principle. This is a more complex idea of meaning than that which is used in phenomenology, and draws upon many different kinds of knowledge from different arenas of science.
Merleau-Ponty, in his later work, moved closer to incorporating a view of language which could be integrated into his framework of a transcendent body operating in a transcendental framework of “Self-Others-World”, where the world was conceived primarily in terms of the ante-predicative “meanings” referred to earlier. This was also intended to steer away from the confusions engendered by conceiving of psuché in terms of a sensation-based science of consciousness or a science of behaviour. This was also the intention of both William James and Freud, but James chose to directly give an account of the power of consciousness, which he conceived of in terms of a stream that could contain both thoughts and things. In an essay entitled “Does Consciousness exist?” James accused Kant of substituting the traditional account of the soul, with what he called a transcendental ego which, he claimed, confused the subject-object distinction. Presumably if James had lived to witness the role of the strong ego in Freud’s later works, he would have accused Freud of the same confusion. If, however, psuché is translated as “life”, it is not clear that there is any confusion present in this account, since in both Kant and Freud the ego ( the “I think” for Kant, and the agency that operates in accordance with the reality principle for Freud), is simply a unifying agency organising the many different aspects of ones life in accordance with various principles (e.g. the pleasure-pain principle, ad the reality principle).
Merleau-Ponty’s contribution to combatting the materialist and empiricist reductions of forms of experience to events or “simples”(e.g. sensations), involves referring to the complex relation that exists between the physical realm of nature and the psychological realm. He does this via the analysis of the perception of simple colours:
“Some Physiologists, Merleau-Ponty argues have begun to see that there is a complex relation between the physical and the psychological. In the case of certain kinds of physical insults to certain parts of the brain responsible for colour vision, we do not see, as a consequence any disappearance of “content”: we see rather a disappearance of “form”. This is reminiscent of Aristotle who reminded us that it was the essence or form or principle of the eye to see–he knew that a major insult to the eye would remove the principle of seeing thus confirming the importance of the matter the body is composed of. Similarly, Merleau-Ponty points out in the case of injuries to certain parts of the brain and sensory conductors what we discover is not just the disappearance of some colour, as in some forms of colour blindness: what occurs is rather a loss of differentiation in the perception of all colours. First, it is the saturation of all colours that is affected and the intensity of the colour is diminished. Thereafter the colour spectrum is reduced to four colours, and finally a monochrome grey is all that can be seen.”(The World Explored, the World Suffered: A Philosophical History of Psychology, Cognition, Emotion, Consciousness, and Action, Vol 2, James, M.R.,D., Mauritius, LAP, 2020, p 333-4)
There can be, therefore, no simple causal relationship between colours and the physical-organic systems responsible for their existence. In Sartrean language , the colours of the spectrum that can be perceived is, insofar as psuché is concerned, something that is pour soi (“for-itself”). Colours, Merleau-Ponty also argues, are linked to attitudes of the body. Green, for example, is associated with rest, and red associated with action. This testifies to the importance of the sensory-motor unity that helps to constitute our experience. The sensory component also possesses an “active” capacity which is, for example, manifested in the switching of attention from one part of the visual field to another through the slightest movement of the eyes. Otherwise, it can also be maintained that sensations are events that happen to the body.
From the point of view of the Psychology of Piaget, the “I” or” ego”, is a structure that emerges after a long period of assimilation and accommodation of the sensory-motor schemas to the exigencies of the external world. Eventually the “centrism” of these sensory-motor encounters are de-centred, and we begin to see the external world from a point of view other than ones own. Motor schemas, once assimilated, create for the body-image (postulated by Merleau-Ponty) the possibilities of complex action, and involved in this is obviously a sensory component of the representation of the action to be performed, which includes both the necessary parts of the body involved over a period of time, as well as the elements of the external world that need to be manipulated.
Merleau-Ponty, also charts how a patient named Schneider, who has sustained brain damage to the occipital parts of his brain, is no longer able to mobilise his action systems non-observationally, as normal people can. Schneider is forced to use observation to supplement what is left of his normal intentional power. If, for example, he is asked to touch his nose, he does not do so spontaneously and naturally as we do. Merleau-Ponty denies that what is being affected here is an “I think” principle, but rather, he argues, a principle he designates as an “I can”- power of consciousness. The differences between these two principles is summed up in the following:
“Sensibility functions theoretically in terms of forms of intuitions of space and time which are, for Kant, principles of structuring the world, e.g. “seeing” the ship sailing down the river in terms of before and after in relation to its changing positions in relation to the river. These are not thoughts governed by the categories of the understanding, but rather sensible relations to the world. One can truly say that insofar as sensibility is concerned we “inhabit” space and time and we are not representing to ourselves in this context that we are “in” space and time, which incidentally is perfectly possible at the level of understanding and judgement when we are generating knowledge statements. For Merleau-Ponty, on the other hand, the sensory motor functions of a body-image are, for some mysterious reason, more fundamental than the representational or symbolic functions. All of these functions contribute in their various ways to the organisation of the world.”(The World…. P.336-7)
Both Phenomenology and Existentialism embed their accounts of Philosophical Psychology in Epistemological and instrumental contexts, and eschew the categorical forms of judgement related to causation as well as the principles of noncontradiction and sufficient reason, thereby leaving a vacuum, insofar as the relation of Ethics to Philosophical Psychology is concerned. Sartre, the existentialist, for example, has an account of freedom that situates this power in the individual psyche, and does not acknowledge this power’s relation to ideas of reason, or the categorical imperative. This kind of account creates an enormous obstacle to the formulation of an ethical theory with universal intentions. Behind both phenomenological and existential positions lie assumptions which reject both the categorical forms of judgement and understanding that relate to the Truth, and these assumptions also reject categorical forms of the Good.
Freud’s position in relation to the above discussion, is somewhat ambivalent, but two considerations are important to bear in mind. The rationalism of Plato, Aristotle and Kant, is evident in his embrace of the principles behind the actualisation of the processes of psycho-sexual development. Freud is clearly committed to the formation and maturation of the superego in accordance with a categorical reality principle. Part of this actualisation process, involves the organisation of the psuché by a reality principle that decentres from a self-centred pleasure-pain principle. In the context of this discussion, it is difficult to conceive of the key idea of Consciousness embraced by pragmatists, existentialists and phenomenologists alike, as categorically structured ,and this may be one reason why Freud rejected all Philosophies of Consciousness and pointed out that his Psychology was Kantian. Merleau-Ponty was critical of any commitment to the idea of Consciousness which was not rooted in the lived body, but he too was opposed to the categories and principles we find in the Kantian account, or, indeed, any rationalist position which assumed an all-constituting power that imputes meaning to everything.
Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological account of the importance of sexuality for the human psuché, correlates well with Freud’s position. There is, however, a paradoxical denial of the role of the importance of the sexual organs in this kind of experience, and this opposes the general Aristotelian account of psuché, in which the organs play an essential role in the form of life we are considering. This form of Sensibility certainly overshadows the account of the role of colour in relation to the “attitudes” of the body. Science, for Merleau-Ponty, needs to be “interpreted” in terms of meaning and intentionality, before it can find a home in his phenomenological account. An example of this is his interpretation of the important experiment of Stratton:
“in which an image of the world projected upon the eye is inverted, thus creating the sense in his subjects that the world is upside down. Initially nothing is recognisable, not even faces which completely lose their familiarity when seen upside down. Eventually, as the subjects were forced to engage with this world by finding their way about and doing things (whilst the image remains inverted), the world returns back to its normal state of orientation. Is this, then, the confirmation that Merleau-Ponty seeks to prove, namely that the use of the body is transcendental? Merleau-Ponty claims that in the initial phase of the image no mere conceptualisation of the world or intellectual attempts to merely identify things in the world would have the same effect of returning orientation to normal. Merely thinking about the visual field would not, he argues, produce a correction of the orientation belonging in the visual field.” The World….P.341)
Merleau- Ponty continues in his work “the Phenomenology of Perception”, to explore the more enigmatic forms of consciousness. He discusses, for example, how the schizophrenics perception and understanding of reality, is ruptured, and how this is manifested in the judgement of the Schizophrenic that he finds the claim “There is a bird singing in the garden”, puzzling, because the “fact” of the bird, and the “fact” of its singing are not, for him, connected. It appears as if the unified world of the judgement has fragmented into its parts:
“Here it appears from a Kantian point of view that the structure of thinking something about something has collapsed into the simpler power of merely thinking something. This thinking moreover does not respond or connect to either logic or what Wittgenstein would call the grammar of language and seems rather to be conducted in the medium of projected images. Merleau-Ponty’s diagnosis is that the inter-sensory unity of the bird singing has fallen apart. He sticks at this description and refuses to think hylomorphically about this phenomenon, which would entail accepting a “causal” account of powers building upon powers.”(The World….P.342)
Focussing on a part of the whole, when the issue is to account for the essence of the whole, or an important holistic property of the whole, is an example of what P.M.S. Hacker calls the “mereological fallacy” (Human Nature: A Categorical Framework). If there is any sense to the claim that the world is constituted of the totality of facts about it, this must surely refer to the truth shared by these facts. Facts, such as “The bird is singing in the garden”, may require further explanation that goes beyond the state of affairs the fact is referring to. The bird is expressing an important aspect of its existence by singing, and this leads us into the territory of an essence-specifying definition of the type of bird that “sings” its existence. The question “Why is the bird singing in the garden?”, demands, that is, an epistemological explanation of the kind we might find in the area of knowledge Aristotle called Biology. The rupture that we find in the experience of the Schizophrenic, stretches beyond his witnessing this state of affairs, and affects his knowledge of the world. He does not, that is, believe the fact that the bird is singing in the garden, and this violates the definition of knowledge that Aristotle, Kant and Wittgenstein all share, namely, justified true belief. Belief is the minimum necessary conditions for knowledge, but it is not sufficient, and this answer fails to accord with the principle of sufficient reason. Without the power of belief, the Schizophrenic can have no power of knowledge. The Schizophrenic is no less disoriented in his world, than are the subjects of Stratton’s retinal-image inversion experience.
Freud’s case study of the Paranoid Schizophrenic Schreber, reports that Schreber believed his body was being diluted in the universe of galaxies and solar systems . Freud points to the sensible role of a non-conceptual form of image-laden fantasy in the creation of such a strange belief. A complex combination of the energy regulation and pleasure-pain principles appears to have been responsible for such a fragmentation of the body-image.
For Merleau-Ponty, Aristotelian and Kantian approaches to the conceptually based faculties of the understanding, judgement and reason, are all attempts to use what he called “mental chemistry” to explain the essence of phenomena which require more sensibly based explanations. Merleau-Ponty conceives of Consciousness as a “General Project”, that does not know what it is doing when it is hallucinating. This general project is further conceived of as being thrown into the world: being a general “One” inserted into a project-filled world:
“constituted of the thoughts and intentions of transcendent bodies.” (The World P. 343)
Consciousness inheres in this transcendent body in a way which evades the modern theories of Science. It is unclear, however, whether, any or all combinations of the transcendent body, Consciousness and the “One”, can give us an account of the human being which is not essentially solipsistic. Freud’s use of the term “Instinct” is both biological and psychological, but his elaborations upon the ultimate telos of the life and death instincts, are in terms of whether they are civilisation building or civilisation destroying powers. Freud witnessed, during the first world war, and in the period leading up to the beginning of the second world war, the role of the new men, not just in science, but also insofar as they occupied powerful political positions. He characterises war as the work of Thanatos, and insofar as he was influenced by Plato, he must have seen the battle between Eros and Thanatos to be resulting in a dismantling of many of the achievements of civilisation and culture. His view of the US and USSR, (two of the most powerful political forces in the world at the time), was not positive, and was probably a source of some of his discontentment with civilisation. In this context, it is a remarkable fact that both Merleau-Ponty, the phenomenologist, and Sartre, the existentialist, philosophising amid the rubble left in Europe after the second world war, had difficulties providing us with an ethical philosophy: both settled for the political philosophy of Marxism which Hannah Arendt eventually rejected on the grounds of its lack of respect for that key ethical idea of reason, namely freedom. The leaders of Marxist societies were often led by the new men, who did not hesitate to mobilise the emotions and passions of the masses for their dubious political ends.
Ancient Greece has been heralded as a Golden Age, but there is no doubt that the oracles of the age could see the tools of destruction being fashioned in their Culture. Eros and Apollo and the Philosophically defended idea of the Good did not suffice to allay the fears of the oracles that civilisation was destined for ruin and destruction. The advent of Aristotles hylomorphic reflections certainly provided the framework of areté, diké, arché, epistemé and phronesis with philosophical arguments of significance: arguments that provided us with the ideal of that great-souled man–the phronimos. Unfortunately Christianity overshadowed this heritage, and marginalised everything “pagan” through the power of the ecclesiastical authorities, which controlled the translation and interpretation of important Greek texts. St Augustine and Aquinas were the authorities responsible for the introduction of those Platonic and Aristotelian ideas that were deemed compatible with the metaphysics of Christianity. St Augustine believed that the human form of life was composed of a body and a soul, and believed that man was flawed by “original sin” which we saw in the account of Adams exile from the Garden of Eden. In this (mythological?) account, the role of epistemé is negative, and is, in fact, the reason for mans will to disobey God. Predestination and resurrection were certainly not concerns of Plato, who found the solution to avoiding the ruin and destruction in our cities, rule of these cities by Philosopher-rulers. For St Augustine, De Civitate Dei had no political significance, and Philosophy played no role in its future and its ultimate fate on Judgement day. There is no doubt that Augustine was a dualist, and that he was a Roman inspired by Romans. His tale of the two cities, De Civitatis Dei and De Civitate Terrana, his tale of two substances (body-soul, his tale of good vs evil, all testify for this thesis.
Aquinas came into contact with Aristotle during the period when Universities were revising their liberal arts programmes in the light of Aristotelian ideas which were growing in influence and during a time when the influence of secularism was also growing. Aristotelian science was also being increasingly studied, after being overshadowed by the idealism of Platonism and the neo-Platonists. Aquinas lived in an age of synthesis which followed the dialectical spirit of the 12th century. Yet we should not forget that Aquinas was a religious man, and his principle intention was to install faith in a superior position to reason, which, for example, could never in his estimation, prove the existence of God with its arguments.
One of the primary differences between Greek religious belief and Christian belief was the fact that the Greeks were polytheistic and the Christians monotheistic. One way of elaborating upon this difference was in terms of Aristotles view of the many meanings of Being, and this contrasted with the monotheistic paternalistic commitment of the New Testament and its suggestion that we are all God’s children as well as sharing a brotherly relation to each other. For Freud this band of brothers living in a state of nature, had a sinister history in which the tyrannical father is murdered, but the story ends positively, when the brothers agree to install laws to govern their community. It is difficult to find a symbol for the Roman period but perhaps the figure of Janus is a possible sign of the times:
“Nothing of the spirit of Eros can be found in relation to this dark being. Janus guarded the territory of tyrants who succeeded one another under his nervous gaze. He was born in the darkness of Roman Times, surviving in the darkness of our times and looked nervously forward to the dark times to come. The image is that of a split psuché…. one pair of eyes turned toward the past and one pair of eyes turned to the future. Could we imagine what the content of the visual field might be? Janus was in the process of transformation into the Leviathan, a monstrous form of psuché whose gaze into the future will be at the battlefields over which monstrous machines and weapons of destruction will roam in a landscape of dead bodies. From the machines high up in the sky, the gaze might have picked out the falling atomic bomb on its way to vaporising innocent civilians, blowing them to pieces.” (The World…Vol.3 P 2-3)
Janus has been related to Time, History, War, and thresholds or gateways, and we know that the Ancient Greeks preferred, at least insofar as Time and War were concerned to picture Time, in terms of a river flowing from the mountains flowing to the sea, and picture War via Ares, the most hated God on Olympus (Ares was not worshipped the way Mars was by the Romans). Both Mars and Janus were protectors of Rome in different ways. Mars, too, was Janus-faced being also the God of agriculture. Janus’ duality, however, was more ambiguous and open to interpretation.
War began as an organic human activity fought with the help of weapons fashioned specifically for the destruction of life, but in Ancient Greek times it was areté related to Courage which was the primary focus for them insofar as war was concerned. As we “progressed” toward Roman times, the Greek values were becoming more and more “instrumental”, and less and less “organic” and holistic. The Romans, it is important to recall in this context, were both military men and engineers and they marched in and out of Rome under the gaze of Janus.
The first “new men” of Philosophy, Hobbes and Descartes, were both living in dangerous times, and were forced to flee their respective countries. Descartes, as a young man, suffered a nervous breakdown and travelled around Europe as a mercenary soldier using his mathematical skills to design the machinery of war. Hobbes, the materialist, on the other hand, used his mathematical skills to attempt a proof relating to the squaring of the circle, but it is Hobbes who is referred to by many contemporary political-war theorists. We know both of these “new men” rejected the hylomorphism of Aristotle for different reasons. Hobbes believed, for example, that life (psuché) was nothing but the material motion of limbs. He argues, in this context, that the heart is but a spring, the nerves so many strings and the joints so many wheels. What we are witnessing in such an account is the inversion of the Aristotelian view of life, in favour of an artifactual/mechanical view. We also ought to recall that Descartes did not care about the screams of the animals he was dissecting without any anaesthetic. For him, animals were nothing more than mere “machines”. Descartes, we also know was a dualist who, when asked how the two substances of the body and mind interact, chose to answer this question scientifically, and he referred to the pineal gland in the brain (a materialist solution!). This was a very different kind of dualism to that we encounter in Plato, where a fundamental distinction is drawn between the forms and the external physical world which merely “imitates” the forms. Aristotle criticised this Platonic account, and insisted upon the importance of the external world in our experiences, but he retained the idea of “forms” as “principles”(arché) in his investigations into the many meanings of being.
Descartes and Hobbes thus restored the dialectical opposites of materialism and dualism to the philosophical arena. Kant’s critical Philosophy aimed to reconcile rationalism and empiricism in an account that reminds one of hylomorphic theory. Kant provides us with a trinity of mind-functions which assisted in the restoration of the ancient Greek view of psuché. He successfully used the university(Königsberg) as a platform for the dissemination of his ideas but Hegel(the master of dialectical reasoning) used the same institution(Berlin) to overturn Kant’s platform in the name of phenomenology, thereby once again unleashing more modern and lethal forms of materialism and dualism in our Western Culture.
This was the background to the schism that occurred between Psychology and Philosophy in 1870. What we immediately encountered after the schism was attempts on the part of materialistically- inspired scientists and dualistic phenomenologists, to transform the way we describe and explain psuché. Freud’s theories attempted to respond to this state of affairs by opposing both the positivistic view of science and the phenomenological/existential view of Consciousness. We know that Wittgenstein was very impressed with the Freudian account, and referred to himself at one point as a “disciple” or follower. The Wittgensteinian concept of “forms of life” was, however, echoing Aristotelian hylomorphic concerns, which also focussed on the importance of relation to various “principles”(arché), e.g. the principles of noncontradiction and sufficient reason.
It is also worth mentioning the phenomenology/existentialism of Heidegger in this context, because it was he who, remarkably suggested, that modern thinking had ruptured its relation to Being. He referred to the Latin translation of certain key philosophical terms such as aletheia, and other scholars have also raised a number of questions about the translation of other key terms such as areté, diké, epistemé and eudaimonia. Unfortunately the Heideggerian claim that Kantian Reason should be abandoned in favour of transcendental imagination, was a far more problematic psychological view of Being and the powers a human form of life possesses.
Freud’s connection to Aristotle was a complicated affair, but we know he was influenced by the Aristotelian Philosopher, Brentano, who desired a rebirth of Philosophy in the ancient spirit that sought to understand the many meanings of Being. This concern of Brentano, was, however, difficult to reconcile with his interest in establishing a school of Psychology from an empirical point of view. Such a venture had more to do with one of the new men, the empiricist David Hume, then the hylomorphism of Aristotle. Freud’s return to Plato was certainly, however, a return to the ancient spirit of philosophising, and signalled a rejection of the empirical, which Aristotle would have supported under the condition that principles of Psychology remain an important focus. Freud’s later work was driven by two primary intentions, firstly, a need for a more complex technical framework to treat his more difficult patients, and secondly, a desire to apply psychoanalytical theory to cultural issues. Amongst his interests were, firstly, to provide an explanation for the means the new men used in order to so successfully mobilise mass opinion in sometimes insane directions, and secondly, to provide an explanation of the role of the death instinct in the destructive activity of War.
Freud begins his cultural reflections with the band of brothers living in a state of nature, prior to the creation of civilisation. The brothers murder their tyrannical father, and regret the loss and the difficulty of replacing a leader with another one when there is a serious risk of that leader being murdered. The laws agreed upon then allow the state of nature to be transformed into a more civilised state in which the rule of law and justice regulates the more important aspects of human interaction. This is an “organic” holistic view of the state which differentiates itself from the modern views of the new men who regarded the state as a created artefact to be fashioned and changed at will in accordance with ever changing views of what is important. In Freud’s view the civilised state evolves from a state of nature, and continues to evolve until all the potentialities of the human form of life are actualised: unless of course Thanatos wins the battle with Eros and we are taken down the road leading to destruction. On this journey man has to make many sacrifices because his instinctual life is based on a pleasure pain principle which is essentially narcissistic. Freud speculates alarmingly on whether the effort and sacrifices we make, are worth while. Julian Jaynes, like Freud, is also concerned with the evolution and actualisation of our mental powers, including the power of language, and he, like William James, refers to structures and functions of the brain for a material explanation for the evolution of Consciousness:
“The transition from the primitive group of 40 individuals to larger social entities is obviously a significant change as is the sudden explosion of the diversity of tools, weapons and artefacts (ca 40,000 BC). In connection with these changes, Jaynes postulates a similar radical shift in the function of Language: he relates this ultimately to the increase in the size of the frontal lobes in the brain….Jaynes’ account of the evolution of language is the work of a master. The process moves from expressive modifiers , to life nouns, to peoples names, and finally to the written texts of Homer and the Bible.”(Vol 3 P.9-10)
Around 1200 BC, Jaynes argues, our minds were constituted of two chambers, corresponding to the activities of the two hemispheres of the brain, and language was bilateral, like all other sensory motor functions, i.e. located in both hemispheres. Activity in the language centres of the right hemisphere, played important roles in the process of deciding what to do, especially in stressful situations, where the solutions to the problems one was presented with, were not obvious. With the advent of writing at ca 3000 BC the shift toward language being located solely in the left hemisphere began. In the texts of both Homer and the Bible, which span several hundred years, we can encounter bicameral men like Agamemnon and Amos, who were steered by the voices of the Gods (located in the right hemisphere). We can also, at the end of this bicameral period, encounter men like Odysseus and Ecclesiastes, who consciously reflect upon the problems confronting them, seeking solutions in terms of either the knowledge they themselves possess, or alternatively in the knowledge the community possesses:
“By the time we get to Ecclesiastes, life has become a more reflective conscious affair involving the collection of ones thoughts and calm judgement relating to a time for every purpose under heaven. Jaynes also refers to images of empty thrones and a long period of mourning for Deus Absconditis. The political effects of this new form of conscious functioning are also apparent in the new forms of government that were emerging during this time. It is, however, only as late as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle that these new political forms are classified in terms of the idea of The Good, This classification was embedded in a complex framework of ideas, e.g. areté, arché, diké, epistemé and phronesis.”(Vol 3 P.10)
The moment of mourning for the absent voices is paradoxically repeated in Heidegger’s more abstract modern complaint about our forgetfulness of Being. Given this possible account, it does not come as a surprise to learn that, for Freud, the belief in God may well be pathological: a substituted displaced belief in something that is a figment of our imaginations. The “being” involved in relation to these voices is, of course, not a real being but is rather, a something about which not very much can be said, unless we have recourse to psychoanalytical explanations: explanations that relate to the sensible functions of a mind operating in accordance with defence mechanisms. A mourning process, over a being that is not real, cannot possibly have the same effects as the mourning process in relation to a real loved being. Indeed, if such a mourning process was occurring in the course of a therapy, the interpretation, when it was given , would involve suggesting to the patient, that the being that is mourned is not real, and may only be a substitute authority figure that has arisen as a consequence of a wounded ego. If this interpretation is true, then one consequence, is that the process of identification with God must be a weaker form of identification, compared to that process which occurs in relation to an existing father or existing parents.
Transactions with the divine initially occurred via what is said about God in holy texts. The claim that God loves man in the New Testament, may not, therefore, have any basis in reality, if one considers that the attributes of absolute divine power and knowledge, do not accord well with the fact of the presence of evil in the world. Here, we seem to be confronted with something that is destructive, and beyond the power of God to control. We know Freud questioned the Christian maxim of loving ones enemies, claiming this to be dangerous advice. Indeed, he even questioned whether it is feasible to suggest that we universally love neighbours who may be seeking to use us for their own ends. In other words, the brotherly-fatherly love of the New Testament, is very different in spirit to that of Eros, which occurs in the framework of free voluntary choice: that is, in the context of a will subject to areté, diké, epistemé, arché, and eudaimonia. On the Greek and Freudian account, man strives to know himself, to know his world in general, but in particular to know and do what is in accordance with the form of The Good: something that is both good in its consequences and good-in-itself. Freud is obviously more comfortable with a civilisation where Eros and Thanatos are doing battle for the fate of that civilisation, than he is with that Roman choice of the Christian religion, or indeed any religion which is not based on knowledge of oneself and the world one lives in.
Freud and Philosophy: A Hylomorphic and Critical reevaluation:Chapter 6 Freud and Political Philosophy (Analysis of Woodrow Wilson)
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Freudian Psychoanalysis has many sources and many applications but the two publications of primary political interest are Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego and Civilisation and its Discontents. Freud’s experience of the first world war and the anti-semiticism leading up to the second world war also probably played a role in his political beliefs. One of the the burning issues of Freud’s era was the classical issue of Reality versus phantasy, and this was of concern to the scientist, the artist, and the politician. The science of his day was too narrowly conceived to immediately embrace his ideas. Also the politics of his day which in its turn was almost completely disconnected from the very real values inherent in classical ethical discourse(Aristotle and Kant), was to reveal a value-system almost devoid of values.
We know Freud borrowed terms from the ancient Greeks which might suggest that his world-view was similar to the philosophical views of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, that triumvirate of philosophers, all sharing a teacher-pupil relation. What all three philosophers shared was a concern for a multi-dimensional reality that required the understanding of a number of disciplines and the principles(arché) of these disciplines. Virtue was one of characteristics of man that Freud must have been considering as part of this view of the world ,and the theory of reality constituting this view.
Know thyself was both a Delphic challenge to humanity and an Aristotelian epistemological challenge that is met by a series of hylomorphic reflections on the soul, ethics, and politics. Freud, too, answered these challenges with his form of Transcendental Psychology and its relation to a neo-Kantian Anthropology that is based on a philosophical view of science and a philosophical view of virtue which acknowledges the importance of duty. These philosophical views were certainly necessary, if rationality was to replace the chaos and turmoil of a soul “sick” with passion, anxiety, aggression, and fear. The duties connected to the commitments to love and work required of the ego, of course, involve the superego, the external world and a “Reality Principle”. The emphasis upon the Reality Principle was a manifestation of Freud’s conviction that Psychoanalysis was a “science” because one of its primary concerns was to gather, monitor, and explain a totality of facts. Future generations of scientists, however, would contest this claim on the grounds that scientific observation ought to be free of the presuppositions involved in “describing” certain phenomena which, for example, could, (in the view of the Greeks(e.g. Aristotle) and Freud), only be characterised teleologically.
It was another citizen of Vienna, Ludvig Wittgenstein, that would, in his later theorising, support this Greek-Freudian view that the telos or purpose of certain actions and deeds is constituted by the reason the agent gives for doing the action/deed. On Aristotles view this was a kind of “causal” account and here it is important to note that the Greek word “aitia” can be both translated as “cause” and as “explanation”. There are two issues involved here, one of which relates to why a particular agent in particular circumstances did a particular action, and the second of which, relates to the Concept of Action and its ontological constitution.Now whilst it is undoubtedly true that the material and efficient conditions of action are necessary to consider answering the question “What is action?, the formal and final conditions of action are equally necessary if one needs to explain Why, in general, action occurs. Such conditions must meet the criteria of being both necessary and sufficient conditions of action. Kant’s position on this matter is clearly Aristotelian and embraces all four kinds of explanation(material efficient, formal and final). On this topic, Kant specifically claims that insofar as human action and deeds are concerned the explanations/justifications fall into two different metaphysical zones–the theoretical natural science zone, and the practical ethical zone. This means that theoretically we can refer to the cause-effect relations between events. and practically we refer to reasons-for doing what was done. Now Freud, earlier on in his career, concerned himself with the material and efficient causes when he investigated the neuronal substrate of psychological activities, but as his career progressed, he moved more toward the philosophical position of reasons-for the patients symptoms and syndromes. Both types of explanations/justifications, together with the principles operating in these different kinds of case would be required for a complete account of action-phenomena.
A Phronimos, for Aristotle, was a great-souled man whose knowledge (epistemé) stretched over all the sciences necessary for leading a good-spirited flourishing life. The Phronimos was particularly adept at phronesis, or practical intelligence, and this idea comes very close to the idea of the good will that Kant places at the source of all dutiful virtuous action. The Freudian idea of the superego is also related to both the good will and phronesis, but Freud in his charting of the phases or stages of the formation of the superego gives us an invaluable psychological perspective in relation to ethical activity. Freud speaks of “moral standards”and the guilt or anxiety that arises because one does not do what one believes one ought to do. This places the superego in close relation to the Greek idea of areté, which many translate as virtue, and this is correct, but what is not sometimes sufficiently emphasised is the fact that areté often means “doing the right thing in the right way at the right time”. The ego remains the key agency in this constellation of agencies, but both agencies use the reality principle as their primary standard by which to measure the worth of the agent or what Kant referred to as the “dignity ” of a person. The political dimension of Freud’s analyses remains in the background, but the Aristotelian strategy of grounding social relations in the constellation of the family is a notable feature of Freud’s account and we ought to recall, in this context, that for Aristotle, the idea of the lack of self-sufficiency motivated larger social constellations such as the village and city to meet the needs of the family.
Areté, doing the right thing at the right time in the right way stretches over all of these social and political constellations and aligns itself naturally with the idea of diké (justice) which in Plato’s Republic was characterised as every one doing what was appropriate to their nature and circumstances in the context of philosophers ruling the city (because of their superior wisdom and knowledge). The City is also used by Freud as a means of illustrating the depths of the mind. Just as Rome’s constitution and history could only be revealed by the careful work of archeologists, so the eternal city of the mind in which phases or stages of the city in a sense exist simultaneously on/in one site, could only be made manifest by the systematic work of psychoanalysis.
Freud’s city was Vienna, and he documents his encounters with the rampant anti-semiticism of his student period, a process that must have provoked political deliberations which probably continued until Freud decided to flee to London to spend his last living months. The experience of Tyranny and the dark and dangerous forces it unleashes, must have provoked many of the technical analyses we encounter in “Group Psychology” and “Civilisation and its Discontents”, and provided us with a distinctive face to the aggressive death instinct ,Thanatos, fighting to destroy our cities.
Anti-semiticism was of course just a symptom of a more malignant underlying political disease(tyranny) . Plato identified the cause of this disease and claimed that its source lay in the emergence of unnecessary and unlawful desires in the mind of a tyrant obsessed with the idea of power without fully understanding its political function. Arendt, a Jew born in the Kantian city of Königsberg was also, around this period, forced to flee to the United States persecuted by the same German tyrant who had mastered the art of manipulating the masses in Germany and Austria into believing that the Jews were a major political problem requiring a final solution. Arendt engaged theoretically with this period of history in her major work entitled “The Origins of Totalitarianism”, but the form of her engagement was less psychological and more political, social and historical. Arendt was younger than Freud when she was forced to flee and therefore lived to see the implementation of the “final solution” of the problem of the Jews, as well as the feared implementation of scientific technology in the dropping of two atomic bombs on civilian civilisations.
For Aristotle the key criterion of all forms of government whether they be monarchy, rule by the few, or rule by the many, is understanding and respect for law and order. Tyrants are monarchs ruled by their own unlawful desires, and the rule by the few and the many that are guided by unneccessary and unlawful desires (whether they be related to the accumulation of money or freedom), are all perverted forms of government violating the standards of areté and diké and arché( the principles associated with both).
All the available evidence speaks for the the thesis that Freud was a law abiding citizen who respected law, order and authority. He also charted the origin and nature of these ethical attitudes in his work on the superego. Carl Schorske in an article entitled “The Psychoarcheology of Civilisations” in “The Cambridge Companion to Freud (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1991) refers to the fact that Freud was an Anglophile, attending Brentano’s lectures on Philosophy and naming his son Oliver after Cromwell. The latter suggests an admiration for English Parlimentarianism. Apparently Schorske also claimed that in the 1880’s Freud considered emigrating to England to join relatives there.
Brentano’s Form of Philosophical Psychology was of course inspired by both Aristotle and British Empiricism. In the former case Brentano’s hylomorphic idea of the intentionality of emotional attitudes can be found in Freud in the form of an implicit appeal to Aristotelian formal/final causes. Emotions, for Freud ,and Aristotle, are appropriate or not, in relation to whether or not the object of the emotion is appropriate or not. For example, whether or not a particular object is loved or hated will then be related to a reason which the agent will give, and that reason can be judged as a good reason or not, (i.e. both the love/hate and the reason given can be praised or blamed, as Aristotle claimed,) primarily on the grounds of the appropriateness of the object and the reason.
The Ego’s primary responsibilities, apart from the protection of the body, relate to the capacity for love and work, and both of these are intentional activities in Brentano’s sense. Freud, we know, analysed the appropriateness of the maxims that one ought to love ones neighbour and ones enemies, and judged such maxims to not be universally appropriate as intended. His argument rested on the nature of love as conceived of by the Ancient Greeks (Eros), especially Plato and Aristotle. The object of a mental act is causal in the Aristotelian sense (related to formal and final causation) but not causal in the sense of material and efficient causation, i.e. we are not here dealing with an object in the external world which causes the impressions or experiences we have of it. This mental object is nevertheless real, and subject to judgements which can be appropriate or not: the truth of which can be accepted or not. Brentano’s, English form of inductive empiricism inspired by Mill, is not, of course compatible with the rationalism of Aristotle and Kant, which Freud embraced to a greater extent than Brentano in his later work. Indeed both Aristotle and Kant provided us with decisive arguments against the implied materialism of Brentano’s empiricism. Kant, in his Anthropology, provided Freud with a decisive argument against the empiricist approach via his motivations for the ontological distinction between what a freely acting agent makes of himself via his actions and judgements, and what nature makes of the human being (e.g. what happens to the agent in the form of events over which his will has no control). I cannot, for example will to see the colour green as green but I can will to see no green by closing my eyes. My will/desire to close my eyes is a mental act which is without identifying criteria for external observers, but, for me, the act of closing my eyes has its reasons which I can provide, if questioned. My reasons can then be accepted, or not, on the grounds of appropriateness. The empirical methodology of observation, Kant argues, cannot assist us in answering the primary aporetic question of Philosophical psychology, namely “What is a human being?”, because observation changes what is being observed whether it be for reasons of dissimulation or habit or some other reason. The major issue of the Kantian pragmatic point of view considers issue of character, whether it is good or not, and the more far reaching issue of the future of the human species. We know Brentano was critical of Kantian metaphysics, and, at least insofar as Brentano’s Philosophical Psychology was concerned, Kant would have criticised the lack of attention to the distinction between sensible phenomena and intelligible noumena. Brentano might have been accused of sensibilising essentially intellectual acts. For Kant there is a moral sense that is connected to the operations of the will which it is the task of Anthropology to explore, but given the fact that the ought of the categorical imperative implies that the agent “can” do what he intends to do, the reasons why an agent is doing his duty are primarily and categorically connected to rationality and the intellect. Anthropology ought also to be concerned with the sociological and historical aspects of moral action. Virtue is a term that Kant uses in the context of this discussion, particularly in his work Metaphysics of Morals where the “good character “, so important in Anthropological reflections, becomes the somewhat more abstract and holistic “virtuous person” who then becomes defined in terms of the maxims this person upholds as important, e.g. the supreme maxim to be truthful to oneself and others. This recalls the one golden rule of psychoanalysis that the patient must always say what is going on in their thoughts.This is also interesting from the viewpoint of Freud’s superego which is concerned not with the the various, seemingly pluralistic virtues, but rather with the holistic standards or principles of a great-souled man or Phronimos. The term areté, however, can be conceived holistically from the point of view of action in terms of doing or thinking the right thing at the right time in the right way, and this implies a relation to arché which in most contexts can be conceived of as meaning “principle”. The term phronesis which in some contexts can be translated as practical wisdom and sound judgement is also obviously very relevant to the profile of the great-souled man or Phronimos. From a Kantian point of view the great-souled man will be that dutiful soul who possesses a good will together with practical understanding and sound judgement but it is not clear that such a soul will “suffer” from the form of discontentment Freud referred to. Perhaps this state of affairs was a result of the questionable regressive change to the way in which nationalistic political parties “served”.
It has been claimed by Manfred Keuhn in his introduction to Kant’s Anthropology that Kant has produced a variation of virtue theory but,
” It is sometimes suggested that this virtue theory is close to that of Aristotle, but the Anthropology suggests that this is a mistaken view. The virtue ethics presupposed by Kant is definitely not Aristotelian in character: rather, it is an example of the kind of ethics prevalent in Europe and North America during the eighteenth century. It possessed (almost inevitably) some Aristotelian features but it was much more influenced by Christian and Stoic doctrines and imbued with local Prussian convictions.”(Anthropology, P.xxviii)
This view risks oversimplifying the complex relation between critical and hylomorphic theory where they share the view that in ethics the search for the end in itself is of crucial significance for ethical theory, whether that be the good will of the individual or the cosmopolitan end of the kingdom of ends for the human race. Also shared is the view of the relation of principle to content and the relation of form to material. Indeed the journey of the human individual toward their individual end is of less concern for Kant than the journey toward rationality and a cosmopolitan end or telos for the species. Christianity and its conception of a judgement day for mankind as a whole, is pessimistic about the evolution of human rationality and rests the idea of the end of all days on divine intervention and justice. In this respect this message from the Roman Empire, which never fully understood the greatness of Ancient Greece, continued into the dark ages and was transfigured in the Enlightenment by a commitment to human daring and freedom which celebrated the human capacity to shape its own destiny. Stoicism of course has its roots in Ancient Greece, going all the way back to Heraclitus and his idea of Logos, which explains, for example, why the road up and the road down are the same. To suggest, however, that the determinism of Stoicism influenced the freedom-loving Kant more than the celebration of choice in action we find in hylomorphic theory, is perhaps questionable. Stoicism contains a form of materialism that is not as coarse as our modern forms, but both Aristotle and Kant would remain skeptical to the predominance of the material over the formal and final aspects of explanation. Insofar as the Prussian convictions are concerned one can only speculate as to what Kuehn means in this context but perhaps he is reflecting upon the military concept of duty which in ancient Greece was partly identified with the term Xenia which means stranger. Indeed one of the primary duties of Zeus was the protection of strangers and even today Greece is still world renowned for their hospitable reception of tourists. This fits in well with the Kantian prophecy of a future cosmopolitan world society which would still retain the idea of a God guaranteeing a good-spirited flourishing life, but the life in question one imagines would be largely secularised.
Kant’s Anthropology is also well aligned with the above position which builds on the ancient prophecy of the oracles, namely, that the most important challenge for humanity is to “Know thyself!”:
“Such an anthropology, considered as knowledge of the world, which must come after our schooling, is actually not yet called pragmatic when it contains an extensive knowledge of things in the world, for example, animals, plants, and minerals from various lands and climates but only when it contains knowledge of the human being as a citizen of the world.- Therefore even knowledge of the races of human beings as products belonging to the play of nature is not yet counted as pragmatic knowledge of the world, but only as theoretical knowledge of the world.”(P.4)
We know that during the rise of the Nazi’s “scientific-theoretical” issue of “race” dominated the political agenda rather than the pragmatic matters of freedom and justice, (e.g.treating people as an end-in-themselves and law and order). Kant continues on this theme and discusses the difficulties inherent in trying to construct a theoretical account of human nature using, for example, the methodological medium of observation which, as we discussed above, is doomed to failure because the observed party either becomes embarrassed, dissembles or is acting habitually.
Theoretical reasoning, for Kant, functions best in the medium of the quantification of physical phenomena such as motion. It becomes more problematic in the realm of mental phenomena such as thought, which has relations and qualities that cannot be reduced to quantities. Conceptual thinking, insofar as it aims at the truth which occurs at the level of thinking something about something, is regulated by the categories, and the principles of reasoning. Insofar as conceptual thinking aims at the Good, e.g. via ought-statements such as “We ought to keep promises”, it too relies on the truth(in the sense of appropriateness) and principles regulating concepts. For Kant, one of the absolutes in his system of ethics is the good will, which requires both a first person understanding of its operation, as well as the third person operation which undoubtedly must rely on observation, but not for the purposes of the quantification of action. We do not, for example, rely on observation to guarantee the truth of the premise “We ought to keep promises”. There is a role for observation in relation to a minor premise relating to an individual making a promise but in moving to the conclusion that the individual in question ought to keep their promise, the activity we observed of making the promise is regulated and explained by the major premise and not by the observation. The conclusion we draw that the individual ought to do what they promised to do is, however, explained by both the major premise which has the form of a principle, and the minor premise which appeals to observation of an event of promising.
All the above also implies an anthropological account of the understanding we have of first-person consciousness:
“The fact that the human being can have the “I” in his representations raises him infinitely above all the other living beings on earth. Because of this he is a person, and by virtue of the unity of consciousness through all changes that happen to him, one and the same person–i.e. through rank and dignity an entirely different being from things such as irrational animals with which one can do as one likes. This holds even when he cannot yet say “I”, because he still has it in thoughts, just as all languages must think it when they speak in the first person, even if they do not have a special word to express this concept of “I”. For this faculty(namely, to think) is understanding.” (P.15)
Kant goes on to point out that, before the child begins to use this word “I”, he can already speak fluently, and this first person reference to himself replaces reference to himself in the third person via his/her name. Upon doing so, Kant claims that egoism proceeds unchecked until this egocentric form of thinking is replaced with a form of thinking that is cosmopolitan and pluralistic, concerning itself with the whole world. This is recognisably Freudian and passes over the work that is involved in transitioning between narcissism and the love for reality as an end in itself. The above reference to the unity of consciousness and remaining the same person throughout fundamental change, recalls the Aristotelian principle of change which states that any conceptualisation of change requires, that from which something changes , that toward which the change is proceeding, and that something which remans the same throughout the change. In this case the “I think”(about the world) is the active agent in the process of change. So, the mere possession of consciousness that animals possess, is not sufficient to maintain that they “think”. What is further required is a unity of consciousness, which in the case of the veritative synthesis of thought, requires both a priori forms of intuition, the imagination and the categories of the understanding. Animals could never be moral agents because these fundamental conditions are missing and because of the fragility of this unity of consciousness(which can be pathologically disrupted). We can, of course, as Aristotle maintains, still be the worst of the animals. Freud’s theories obviously fit into this space in Kantian and Aristotelian theory about the rational animal capable of discourse.
Kant further notes that an obsession with observing oneself can lead to madness and Freud’s case studies contain pathological symptoms of paranoia which testify to why one should refuse to accord observation a primary position in the work of attempting to achieve self -knowledge. Kant’s claim here is that much of self-knowledge is not observationally based, but rather comes from a conceptual form of knowledge and a power of reasoning, less concerned with observing the world, and more concerned with explaining and justifying phenomena by reference to principles. Kant elaborates upon this in the following way:
“To observe the various acts of representative power in myself, when I summon them, is indeed worth reflection: it is necessary and useful for logic and metaphysics.- But to wish to eavesdrop on oneself when they come into the mind unbidden on their own (this happens through the play of the power of the imagination when it is unintentionally meditating) constitutes a reversal of the natural order in the faculty of knowledge, because then the principles of thought do not lead the way(as they should) but rather follow behind. This eavesdropping on oneself is either already a disease of the mind(melancholy) or leads one to the madhouse..”(P.22)
The play of the conscious and preconscious aspects of the mind are taken up by Kant when he asks whether we can have representations that we are not conscious of. He answers in the affirmative and claims that we can have what he calls “obscure representations”, which we are, as he puts it, indirectly conscious of. Seeing a human at a distance in a meadow when they are too distant to discern all the features which make this object human, requires that we are indirectly conscious of these features that cannot be seen—i.e. we know non-observationally that they are part of this holistic representation we have. This knowledge is part of the preconscious mind which is connecting representations in accordance with a concept and/or principle. There is an obvious unity of consciousness or apperception involved in this experience, and Kant claims that both the imagination and understanding are involved. The sensible part of the mind receives sense data into consciousness and the preconscious begins to organise and connect the manifold of representations into a unity.
On the other hand, in thinking about action, for which there is an ethical reason, the role of sense data in formulating a maxim of action is minimal, and conceptual and principle relations play a larger role in a context of explanation/justification. This is the context in which the Freudian superego and its “standards” operate.Freud, however, is more concerned to chart the contours of the pathological operation of the superego which brings in the operations of the unconscious/instinctive part of the mind, in particular the death instinct and its manifestations in aggression. His characterisation of the superego as a “cruel captain” manifests the operation of a superego that is not seamlessly integrated into the ego activities of loving and working and protection of the body. The pathological operation of the superego is a consequence of developmental difficulties in the course of the journey of desire during a long childhood. The child desires a special relation with the opposite sex parent which is impossible and as a result the wounded ego abandons this desire and substitutes a desire to be like the same sex parent: a process Freud calls identification. Identification is a defence mechanism that is also used in political groups led by an aggressive tyrant in situations where the group they are leading has little choice in listening to what they are saying. In such circumstances, where the rational capacity is somewhat inhibited, it suffices to introduce a real or imagined threat in order for the masses to respond to the words they are witnessing with both diminished levels of consciousness and a diminished rational capacity. The effect of the words in such circumstances is Hypnotic, and this, of course, reminds us of the effect of post-hypnotic suggestion which was operating with respect to the patients Freud was treating early on in his career using the method of hypnosis.
The effect of being in a crowd, (a collection of bodies designated thus, just because they occupy contiguous positions in the space-time continuum), is ambiguous, and given the fact that identification is responsible for the bonding process(being like each other and the leader), the emotions generated are more contagious than the manifestations of higher mental processes that strive for what is true or good. Hysteria is always waiting in the wings to make an entrance in the name of “acting out”, as is projection, if a suitable object makes its appearance. The question to raise in this context, is whether a crowd is the same as an audience, and the answer must be in the negative. The audience of the Shakespeare play is a cultural group where the instincts and emotions are under control and the normal pragmatic relation to the events one witnesses is suspended. On the other hand, the crowd listening to the politician at a rally may be an audience until the politician actively engages the emotions and instincts for his/her purposes. Freud, according to Ricouer, in his work “Freud, and Philosophy”, defines Culture in terms of the renunciation of instinctive wishes and desires: desires which generate childhood-fantasies that persist into adulthood. The long childhood of man and the long period of the play of the instincts and emotions during the developmental actualisation process of various powers such as language and rationality, plays a considerable role in the actualisation of a superego that is concerned with so much more than the matter of the renunciation of instincts. The teleological aspect of this developmental process of the superego opens up a wider horizon of possibilities, that stretches far beyond the domain of prohibition and punishment : the domain of the “cruel captain”. “Standards” are practical principles that both constitute and regulate communities, they are both the ends of communal living and the beginnings of the building of civilisations.
The Greek term arché captures well this dual-character of a first principle, and material foundation. First Principles are, to use Platonic terms, both good in themselves and good in their consequences, insofar as the practical aspect of human activity is concerned: they have, that is, both archeological and teleological aspects. For both Plato and Aristotle the telos of action is “The Good” which is what all human activities aim at. The relationship between the desire/intention and the state of affairs one wishes to bring about must, at the very least, be conceptually subsumed under the principle or arché of “The Good”. For Kant two different kinds of imperative are involved in bringing about practical states of affairs via practical activity, namely hypothetical imperatives and categorical imperatives. With respect to the latter form of imperative, treating persons as ends-in-themselves is one formulation of several. The telos of so acting for Kant is described as the summum bonum, a Roman expression for the highest good. This expression is perhaps somewhat more abstract than its Ancient Greek equivalent, namely eudaimonia, which, in most contexts, means leading the good-spirited flourishing life: a life based on discourse and reason. This activity is clearly cognitive in that it is active. The cognitive faculty, according to Kant’s Anthropology, is composed of a receptive lower faculty and an active higher faculty, and insofar as the lower receptive faculty is concerned, one can either affect oneself or be affected by an object. This covers the region of the instincts, emotions and passions. The higher cognitive faculty Kant describes as the pure active consciousness of our thinking(P.29,) and this is linked to understanding rather than apprehension: it is, as Kant describes it, a logical form of consciousness in which the rule or principle is given and leads the way for the thought process that ensues. This logical consciousness is the “I think” that manifests our noumenal self which is contrasted to that phenomenal self in which I sense or observe myself as an object or phenomenon. The Ego of Freud must largely be composed of the logical consciousness involved in protecting the body, and thinking about my objects of work and love. The superego of Freud, on this argument, is constituted of the rule or law of the categorical imperative. In other words the “I think” in this ethical context is aiming at the Good via its activities and action which, by definition, meet the criteria of being both good-in-itself and good-in-its consequences. This “I think ” also gives us understanding of the “I” as it is in itself–in its essence— a rational form of life capable of discourse. The Kantian rationale in this argument is consonant with hylomorphism but perhaps is expressed in somewhat different terms which reflect Kants innovative elaboration upon Aristotle:
“Everyone shows the greatest respect for understanding, as is already indicated by the very name higher cognitive faculty…..The passive element in sensibility, which we after all cannot get rid of, is actually the cause of all the evil said about it. The inner perfection of the human being consists in having in his power the use of all his faculties, in order to subject them to his free choice……without sensibility there would be no material that could be processed for the use of legislative understanding.”(P.34-5)
The powers would include the sensory powers, the memory, the imagination, the understanding, language, judgement and reason. These powers would then be used by both the Ego and the Superego in their free choices of the states of affairs they want to being about. Sensory representations, on this view, are ordered by the understanding. When we claim that there is a form of judgement which is intuitive, this is a misleading claim because the power of sensibility is not a judging power. What we are witnessing in these circumstances is an obscure operation of the understanding, and this is the reason the senses are unable to deceive us, because the material of the senses is what it is and cannot therefore be in error. Sensory representations are ordered in Time,and if they are simultaneous, they cannot be experienced as sequential, and if they are sequential, the “before” cannot be experienced as either simultaneous or as coming after “the after” in the sequence. The activity of thought, on the other hand, orders this sensory material in its process of thinking, by, first, thinking something in accordance with the rules constituting the conceptual subject of the thought, and thence by thinking something about something and relating another predicative concept to the subject-concept. This occurs in two forms, either firstly, as a so called veritative or truth-making synthesis, or, secondly as a synthesis of concepts relating to human activity aiming at the Good.
The ancient Greek idea of aletheia (unconcealment) is involved in both kinds of discourse, and logic governs both the theoretical and practical reasoning that are used to illuminate our understanding. The Greek framework of psuché, epistemé, areté, diké, arché,techné, eros, thanatos, ananke, and eudaimonia is the framework that best reveals our relation to what Kant refers to as the two principal domains of metaphysics, the metaphysics of nature and the metaphysics of morals. For Kant, as for Plato and Aristotle, it was the metaphysics of morals that brings us closer to a complete understanding of ourselves and our socio-political world. Freud’s theories actually fit more comfortably into this Hylomorphic-Critical framework than that of the more positivistically inclined science of his time. His medium was the cathartic discourse of the “talking cure” and an improvement in the quality of life of his patients was the telos of this activity, (or the Good that was being aimed at). In a certain sense, then, psychoanalysis is both a technical-medical activity and an activity of practical reasoning based on Freud’s Metapsychology which was certainly anti-Metaphysical in the Kantian sense, but embraced a critical view of metaphysics. The critical view of Metaphysics was largely hylomorphic and based on first principles and there is no doubt that Freud’s work articulated a dimension of the knowledge we had of psuché or the soul in a way that advanced our understanding considerably. This was testified to by the extensive influence Freud’s work had on many different regions of our Culture. Richard Boothby in his work “Freud as Philosopher”, after regretting the diminishing of the importance of Freud’s Metapsychology, quoted one of Freud’s letters to Fleiss:
“when I was young the only thing I longed for was philosophical knowledge, and now that I am going over from medicine to psychology I am in the process of attaining it”.(Letter no 44)
Boothby points out that the consequence of the discarding of Freudian Metapsychology is a loss of the philosophical depth of psychoanalytical theory (P.2, Boothby, R., Freud as Philosopher,London, Routledge, 2001). As to the nature of the philosophical content, it has been maintained that Kant is the main influence, but Aristotle’s hylomorphism is also an important element, given the importance Aristotle attached to self-knowledge and the human form of psuché he defined in terms of a rational animal capable of discourse. Boothby, believes, as we do, that Freud’s work must be understood in relation to a categorical framework, but he does not fully appreciate the rationalist commitment to principles we find especially in the later work. Boothby appeals rather to the work of Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Lacan, Nietzsche and Husserl to provide this essentially phenomenological framework, but what these authors have in common is a disregard of rationality and principles that would have made Freud uneasy. Boothby further claims that it is the concept of psychical energy that lies at the foundation of the metapsychology, and whilst it is doubtful that one concept can have such significance in the Freudian system, it is nevertheless the case that the energy-regulation-principle is one of three principles that together define the realm of psuché in all its forms, but especially its animal and human forms. The instincts, of course, come from a reservoir of energy forms, but given the complexity of human nature, it is rather the vicissitudes of the instincts that are of particular interest to Freud and his work. These vicissitudes are also partially determined in their form by the pleasure-pain principle and the reality principle in its mythical form of Ananke. The idea or the ideal of the good-spirited flourishing life may have been more attainable in the eyes of the ancient Greeks than it is in the discontented eyes of “modern man”, contending directly with considerable evidence for the oracular pronouncement to the effect that “Everything created by man will lead to ruin and destruction.” Freud died during 1939, immediately before the “final solution” to the Jewish problem was launched by Hitler, and before two atomic bombs were ordered to be dropped on two centres of civilian population in Japan by president Truman. We know how Freud would have analysed the actions of the agents behind these phenomena and the possible diagnoses he would have argued for, and there is even a hint that Kant was alluding to the mental state of tyrants when, in the Anthropology, he claimed:
“But how to regard the vainglorious claim of powerful men, which is not based on mere temperament: “What the human being wills, he can do”? It is nothing more than a high sounding tautology: namely what he wills at the order of his morally commending reason, he ought to do, and consequently can also do…However some years ago there were fools like this who also prided themselves on taking the dictum in a physical sense, announcing themselves as world-assailants: but their breed has long since vanished.”(Anthropology, P.39)
This breed vanished only to return again with a vengeance during the 20th century. Hannah Arendt classified such agents as “the new men”, powered by their multiplying appetites, soaring imaginations and belief in the persuasive power of language to accomplish almost everything that can be wished for or desired: such activities and beliefs were situated in the Kantian faculty of sensibility and contributed to the character of those “world assailants” that emerged when the political party system collapsed in the West. The authority and status of Religion and Philosophy were also collapsing during this period, partially thanks to the onslaught of the “new men” embracing positivistic atomistic science and economic power. Military power and economic power walked hand in hand, but it was in fact the global military power of Nato that attempted to work together with the UN to prevent war and major conflicts from sapping economic resources that were needed elsewhere.The creation of this latter ,International Organisation, as a matter of fact was a prediction/prophesy of Kant’s Political Philosophy at the end of the 18th century.
A half-way house conception leading to the establishment of the Kantian idea of United Nations was the American- Wilsonian dream of a League of Nations that he hoped would bring permanent peace to a Europe torn apart by the First World War. The differences between the dream of the League of Nations and the Reality of the United Nations created after a second World War and the dropping of two atomic bombs on civilian populations, was a difference between two different principles of mental life which Freud postulated and used in his treatment of his mentally ill patients. Freud wrote very little about the mental health of the new men of his age but he did co-author a book on one of these new men, the President of the United States, Thomas Woodrow Wilson. Freud’s contribution was one of providing us with a psychoanalytical insight into the mind of a world leader who created the conditions for the second world war and the dreadful atrocities associated with that conflagration. This work was one of his latest, and stands as a testament to the cultural breadth of psychoanalytical theory. Hannah Arendt, in her work on the “Origins of Totalitarianism”, pointed to the power of the “new men” to ignore traditional cultural and legal boundaries via the use of a power of imagination and language that ignored the claims of the principles of rationality. These powers were not exercised in the spirit of areté (doing the right thing in the right way at the right time), but rather in the spirit of what can be imagined can be done or what can be said. Freud’s psychological profile of Woodrow Wilson is not based on the usual consulting room therapeutic transactional activity that occurs between an analyst and an analysand. but instead relied heavily on public documents, public reporting, his co-authors intimate knowledge of Wilson and Wilsons private correspondence. Wilson, we know, was a public figure whose actions had a public dimension in a context in which he was surrounded by observers and witnesses who had knowledge of the principles and rationality of political activity. William Bullitt, the co-author to the book, was politically active in the sphere of influence of Wilson who was known to be, like most new men, contemptuous of facts and prized only what he called human motives , opinions. and “noble” intentions. These intentions did not, however include the respect for the truth and knowledge (epistemé) and their role in the social and political affairs of the communities affected by the actions and words of a democratically elected President. Words were measured not by the categorical tests related to the Good and the True, but rather by hypothetical tests related to perceived or wished for consequences. Instrumental principles relating to choosing the means to unquestioned ends became the focus of areté. Freud’s contribution to this categorical framework, which we can assume Freud accepted given his claim that his Psychology was Kantian, amounted to a complex psychological theory, in which a topography of consciousness, preconsciousness and the unconscious was overlaid by an agency triad of the ego, id and superego, complemented by the powers of Psuché (Eros and Thanatos) and the world-power of Ananke. This conceptual structure was then both constituted of and regulated by three principles: the energy constitution and regulation principle, the pleasure- pain principle and the reality principle. This structural/functional network was supported by the knowledge of the brain Freud accumulated whilst conducting research at Vienna University. The concept of the libido was the major psychological concept alongside the ethical concept of the will.
In his “analysis of the character of Wilson Freud laid down three axioms:
“We begin with the axiom that in the psychic life of man, from birth, a force is active which we call libido, and define as the energy of Eros…….
All human beings are bisexual. Every individual, whether man or woman, is composed of elements of masculinity and femininity
In the psychic life of man two chief instincts are active….the Eros…and..the Death Instinct” (P 36-38)
Narcissism is an important concept in relation to these axioms because the principle of self love is very much tied to both the energy regulation and pleasure-pain principles, and these principles were very active in the life of Wilson, who was not a physically healthy man. In the course of the development of a normal life, this self love often gives way to object love which, if the choices of objects are sound, introduce the reality principle into the triangle of desire which is a triangle of demand-refusal-wounded ego. As development in this direction proceeds, the will becomes more and more important, especially its operation in relation to the Aristotelian maxim that all activities of man aim at the Good. The Good and Bad objects relate then to areté, and doing and saying the right thing at the right time in the right way. The only problem with the characterisation of these three axioms is that instead of adhering to the hylomorphic life principle, Freud retreats to a materialistic mechanical metaphor of “storage”:
“The libido must be stored somewhere. We conceive that it “charges” certain areas and parts of our psychic apparatus, as an electric current charges a storage battery and accumulator; that like a charge of electricity, it is subject to quantitative alteration; that dwelling without discharge, it shows tension in proportion to the quantity of the charge that seeks outlet.”(P.37)
It has been argued in a work entitled “Philosophy and AI: Artificial Intelligence and its Discontents”(James, M.,R.,D., Lambert Academic Press, 2024) that mechanical analogies are not useful for describing and explaining the activity of living organisms. At the level of energy regulation there is a huge difference between the activities of a purely electrical system and an electro-chemical system such as the brain and the human body. The energy regulation system of the brain is primarily a chemical process in which an impulse continues from one part of the brain to another because of a chemical transaction at the synapses of the neurones. This entails that, for constitutional reasons, a purely electrical system could never give rise to the state of consciousness, or indeed to any psychological state, even if electrical systems such as computers may be able to simulate certain outcomes of consciousness (e,g. the use of language). It does appear, both from the point of view of the use of language, and the principles of rationality, that the concept of libido belongs necessarily to the category of the psychological (psuché), and must therefore be characterised in terms of the categories of the hylomorphic framework in which formal and final causes play a much more important role than material and efficient causes. Kantian critical Philosophy is also very relevant in the charting of the contours of teleological judgement and its relation to the “I think” and its categories . This in its turn is related to the ideas/principles of reason, and a priori intuitive representations of space and time.
It s also important to note, in the context of this discussion, that the concept of the will cannot be embedded in a deterministic mechanical-electrical system in which the Kantian concept of self-causation is self-contradictory. The idea of reason, freedom, is intimately tied to this idea of self-causation. Interestingly enough the reverse is not the case, namely, there is no contradiction in claiming of a being that causes itself to do something , that an external cause has brought about a psychological state of such a free, living organism. Kant connects the idea of the principle of self-love to happiness, and the idea of the categorical imperative to the more important ethical principle of the worthiness of the individual to lead a good-spirited flourishing life (eudaimonia). It would be absurd to claim that a mechanical device could either be happy or even worthy of happiness. Given these remarks and Freud’s claim that the categories of the active and the passive are decisive for the characterisation of the activities of human forms of life, we can see clearly the relevance of Brian O Shaughnessy’s dual-aspect account of the will. On this account, the will is intimately related to the active aspect of the psychological: the passive aspect relates to sensations one may or may not be conscious of. The Kantian notion of “I think” obviously also relates to the active aspect of being human.
Eros is also involved in the therapeutic interventions of the analyst in the treatment of the analysand and this fact in turn raises questions of the ethics of this transactional exchange between the parties. Transference-love in which the analysand wishes to be liked, and be like the analyst, brings with it certain unrealistic demands which the analyst is trained to refuse. According to the triangle of desire this refusal connects in turn to the wounding of an already fragile ego, and this process must therefore be handled with care. Is this a kind of manipulation of the desire of the patient, for the ends of the analyst? The fact that the patient desires to lead a good-spirited flourishing life, and the fact that this need is intimately related to the strengthening of the ego in its dealings with the external world, the id and the superego, indicates that the whole process is not best described as treating the analysand as a means to an end, but rather in terms of assisting the analysand in a process of adaptation to the demands of reality(which surely must be described as treating the analysand as an end-in themselves). The demands of areté (virtuous activity) and epistemé (knowledge) are both involved in this attempt to educate the analysand into the ways and means of “The Good” which in Platonic terms are both good-in-themselves and good -in- their- consequences. Both of these aspects of the good must be responsible for the universality and necessity of the Kantian categorical imperative. The final determiner of the ethical value of therapeutic treatment must be the only absolute in the Kantian ethical system, namely a good will. There is no necessity for the analyst to deceive the analysand about what is happening in the process of the treatment. Neither is there a necessity to inform the analysand every step of the way as to what is happening in the therapy from the analysts point of view. One would, however, expect candid answers to direct questions from the analysand concerning the point of what is going on. The qualities of activity and passivity are connected with masculinity and femininity, and identification plays a key role in the formation of the superego: the agency responsible for the communication of social/political values in the polis.
Freud argues that Wilsons superego possessed such grandiose ideals that the demands made upon the Ego were impossible to fulfil, and he also points out that Wilsons father was a minister of the church and wished for Thomas to be the same. Freud connects Wilsons tendency to ignore or deny facts with this idealisation of the superego and Freud also points to the identification of Wilsons father with God. Freud openly admits that the strength of Wilsons libido remained an open question because such a question may not be decidable by the information provided by the people surrounding him. Freud notes that Wilson frequently in his career made use of the narcissistic type of object-choice but given that he had the good fortune to be loved by female sisters and cousins, his relation to women could be normal. His relation to authority figures was more problematic, indicating a repressed hostility to the father he so worshipped. Achieving, as he did, the position of President of the USA, the constellation of his identifications and other defence mechanisms led him to identify himself with the Saviour of mankind:
“All his life he enjoyed daily acts of submission to that God: morning prayers, evening prayers, grace before each meal and Bible reading every day”(P.66)
This activity may have sufficiently displaced or sublimated the energy from the death instinct and prevented the onset of paranoia, although Freud maintains Wilson lived his life on the boundaries between neurosis and psychosis. He never, however, developed a “persecution mania”. Freud points out that Wilson resembled his mother in both character and physique, suffering from physical ailments(nervousness, dyspepsia, headaches and no less than 14 “breakdowns”) for most of his life, indicating that there was some form of identification with his mother.
Wilsons relations to his inferiors were harmonious as long as they manifested a little brothers air of obedience. Bullitt notes that Wilson performed poorly in school and maintained an interest in subjects which were connected to his desire for making speeches. Freud claims that Wilsons memory:
“was of the vaso-motor type. The use of his vocal chords was to him inseparable from thinking.”(P.73)
This would partly explain his favouring of the practical transactional meaning of language over more rationally constituted language based on facts. Freud cites the example of Wilsons final view(after embracing the opposite contradictory position and claiming that he would fight for it) that the Treaty of Versailles was a guarantor of peace in the name of “absolute justice”(P.79) This in turn favours the function of the imagination and its tendency to “picture” an end state of affairs that may be more or less realistic as measured by areté(doing the right thing at the right time in the right way), which in its turn relates both to the facts relating to what it is possible to do but also to reasons which have a different form of justification.
We saw in Philosophy shortly after the Treaty of Versailles that Wittgenstein’s “picture theory of meaning” (Tractatus Logico Philosophicus) was based on a questionable foundation of logical solipsism that Wittgenstein was forced to eventually abandon in favour of a more social position which emphasised forms of life and so called grammatical justifications supported by the principles of noncontradiction and sufficient reason. In this characterisation of the “new men” of our modern times we claim that the Aristotelian essence specifying hylomorphic definition of human nature, namely “rational animal capable of discourse” can be discerned in certain aspects of Freud’s theorising. For Aristotle, the elements of discourse and rationality qualifying our animality are not independent powers but are rather intimately related to each other. On this characterisation, the principles of noncontradiction and sufficient reason are both constitutive of our discourse and perform a regulative function that Wittgenstein captured well in the so called perspicuous representations of his philosophical investigations. In his earlier work Wittgenstein avoided the idea of the “I” or the self being an object in the world and claimed mysteriously that it lies at or outside the limits of our world, and this expression is also used in his characterisation of the importance of language:
5.62 This remark provides a key to the question, to what extent solipsism is a truth. In fact what solipsism means is quire correct, only it cannot be said, it shows itself. That the world is my world shows itself n the fact that the limits of the language(the language which I understand) mean the limits of my world.”(Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Wittgenstein L., New York, Cosimo Publications, Trans Ogden, C., K.,)
Wittgenstein is not talking of the experience I have of myself, neither is he speaking of the psychological self or soul , but rather of a metaphysical subject about which nothing can be said. He uses the analogy of the eye and its visual field and argues that there is nothing in the visual field which allows one to deduce the presence of the eye. The eye like the “I” is at the limit or outside the limits of the field. Having claimed earlier that logic is transcendental, Wittgenstein goes on to claim that both ethics and aesthetics are also transcendental. The will of the ethical subject, he claims, cannot be spoken of, and thereby demarcates Philosophy from Science. This is concretised, when he maintains that when all the questions of natural science have been answered the problems of life will not have been touched(6.52). At first glance this may appear to legitimise the position that Philosophy can attempt to somehow characterise the problems of life and possible solutions, but this appearance dissipates when Wittgenstein subsequently claims that any such discourse would not strictly speaking have meaning He provides us with the image of the medium of a ladder which requires climbing up and through before one can attain the world-view of a world which, according to proposition 1, is a totality of facts not of things. The “I” is obviously neither a fact nor a thing, and is also connected to both life in general , and the ethical form of life in particular. The problem with the later Philosophy and its shift toward forms of life is that the accompanying concept of language-games may seem unnecessarily transactional, and encourage anti-rational interpretations, in spite of the insistence by Wittgenstein that grammatical investigations provide us with the essences of the objects of investigation.
One of the problems of life has to do with the strident demands of our appetites and the role of the imagination in relation to these demands. Will-power is required if these demands are to be refused without the wounding of the ego and the power of the will must also be related to the power of practical knowledge in the practical arenas of the world which are not factually structured but rather structured as a system of instrumentalities and causal relations between them and my body. Such a state of affairs is partly constituted and partly regulated by the Freudian reality principle. If this structure is not present then the imagination plays the primary role in the attempt to satisfy the demands of desires in accordance with the pleasure-pain principle. The libido in this constellation of powers becomes accustomed to certain forms of outlet, but the problem for the pleasure pain principle in such circumstances is that of the conflict of desires. Freud classifies Wilson as less than wise and claims:
“Wilsons immoderate superego, which demanded from him the impossible, was alone enough to condemn him to lifelong discontent, and the excessive quantity of libido which charged his passivity to his father demanded outlets difficult to find and to retain….We have seen that he had found an outlet for both his activity and passivity to his father trough identification of himself with Gladstone, and during his college course all other interests were subordinated to this desire to make himself a Christian statesman.”(P.87)
This is Freud’s portrait of one of the “new men” Hannah Arendt referred to in her work on the Origins of Totalitarianism. Whether one wants to characterise Wilsons narcissism as solipsism is an open question, but what is clear is that the imagination played a significant role in Wilsons political transactions at the expense of the demands of rationality and the reality principle. Wilson clearly enjoyed lecturing and Freud argues that this enjoyment was largely narcissistic. Wilsons discontent also manifested itself in his daily prayers and his difficulty in forming lasting friendly relationships, as well as in his neurasthenic symptoms and breakdowns. After each breakdown, Freud notes, there is a surge of aggression.(P.108) connected to unresolved conflicts and desires in relation to his father. These surges of aggression and hatred also appeared when his “friends” let him down, indicating that he regarded them as his disciples and regarded their disappointing behaviour as the betrayals of a Judas(P.123)
Freud’s eagle-eyed categorisations of Wilson and his discontented life led him to give us a part-explanation of why the new-men had been so successful politically:
“Throughout human history so many neurotics have risen suddenly to power that Wilsons achievement is far from unique but is extraordinary. Life often demands the qualities which a neurotic possesses in greater measure than normal men. Thus from the point of view of “success in life”, psychic disturbance may actually be an advantage.” (P.130)
Part of the conditions of success then may involve discarding traditional respect for facts and rationality and embracing a power of imagination tied to a transactional use of language in which Knowledge of facts and Knowledge of “the Good” play ever diminishing roles. Freud, also, however indicates that these qualities of the new men can as quickly be responsible for their rapid decline in popularity and turn their life and work into a fiasco(P.131). Kant pointed in his analysis of political man to the fact that man was so constituted (his “crooked timber”) that he was in need of a master which he did not want because he preferred to “master” his own affairs. Such an unstable desire entails that he is always looking for reasons to abolish masters from his life.
Wilsons time at Princetown was filled with intrigue, conflict hatred and narcissistic object choices, which resulted in him standing in the way of a million dollar donation for a much needed Graduate College. Having left Princetown for the political life his lack of knowledge of the world made itself more and more apparent:
“..he remained astonishingly ignorant of European Politics, geography and racial distribution. Even after he had made his great speeches in international affairs his knowledge of the continent of Europe remained elementary. He learned enough facts to make his speeches but often did not understand the implications of his own words. On the “George Washington” when he was in his way to the Peace Conference, he said that he intended to give Bohemia to Czechoslavakia. When he was asked what he intended to do with the three million Germans in Bohemia, he replied “Three million Germans in Bohemia! Thats curious! Masaryk never told me that!”. At dinner in the WhiteHouse in February 1916 there was a discussion of the Jewish race. Wilson insisted that there were at least one hundred million Jews in the world. When he was told that there were less than 15 million, he sent for the World Almanac, and even after seeing the figures could scarcely believe that he had been mistaken. He gave the Southern Tyrol to Italy because he did not know that there were Austrians of German blood south of the Brenner Pass.”(P.153-4)
Having been against the stringent reparations-spirit of the Treaty of Versailles he suddenly “compromised” in a fight he had promised to see through to the end (in accordance with his 14 point plan), convincing himself of improbable likelihoods such as the League of Nations reversing the decision. This debacle, according to Freud and Bullitt’s work, may have been the result of a nervous breakdown.(P.260). But the subsequent rationalisations were according to Freud and Bullitt:
“based on the ignoring of facts, and facts are not easy to ignore.”(P.262)
The mechanism which enabled him to do this was:
“Again and again he painted word-pictures of what would happen if he should fight and withdraw from the Peace Conference rather than compromise. He described the French army marching into Germany, obliterating whole cities by chemical warfare, killing women and children, conquering all Europe and then being submerged by a Communist revolution. Again and again he repeated “Europe is on fire and I cant add fuel to the flames.”…By this somewhat circuitous route he managed to bring further support to his conviction that he had sacrificed himself for the welfare of humanity, and therefore resembled Christ.”(P.262-3)
Without the information in relation to Wilsons religious convictions and the part they played in his daily routines for his whole life such an interpretation of Wilsons decision would not stand up to critical questioning, but many other features of Freud’s diagnosis lead us in the same direction. The narcissism of the new men had many different manifestations and took many different forms, but Wilson’s public and private life had been well documented and there was much support for the thesis of the above interpretation.
A critical point had been reached in the life of Wilson. Freud and Bullitt summarise the situation in the following words:
“..he had preached like a prophet who was ready to face death for his principles; and he had quit.If, having quit, instead of inventing soothing rationalisations, Wilson had been able to say to himself. I broke my promises because I was afraid to fight, he would not have disintegrated mentally, as he disintegrated after April 1919.”(P.263)
There is no doubting the accuracy of the above fact that Wilson was suffering and the situation deteriorated when he collapsed during a tour to promote his compromises. His trip had to be cancelled but upon returning to the White House he collapsed, his left side paralysed by a right-hemisphere thrombosis. His activities for his remaining term as President were largely discharged by Mrs Wilson and he finally died in his sleep, February 1924.
Freud in his work Civilisation and Its Discontents(1929) was very critical of the USA and its role in the affairs of Europe believing as many others that this Treaty of Versailles was going to lead to another European conflagration. His analysis of Wilson was not gong to be published until after his death out of respect for Mrs Wilson. Both authors agreed that the work could only be published after her death. Freud also criticised the Soviet Union in “Civilisation and Its Discontents” and, given what subsequently happened in the rest of the century and 24 years into the next, his judgements proved to be prophetic. The dropping of two atomic bombs on civilian populations by the order of Truman after the new men of science managed to create a weapon of mass destruction which would be used to define who would sit on the security council of the UN, were defining moments in the History of the World in this era: an era which ought to be dubbed the “Age of Discontentment” in memory of Freud.
Artificial Intelligence and its Discontents
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Freud and Philosophy: A Hylomorphic and Kantian Critical Reevaluation: Chapter 5: Kant and Freud
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If Spinoza was the God-intoxicated Philosopher then Leibniz was by comparison also divinely inspired by a divine understanding that provided us with a picture of the divine library of God containing our world book that, according to Leibniz, was the best book in the library. Kant may not have shared this sentiment because, as he claimed, we might be living in an age of Enlightenment but are not as yet living in Enlightened times. By this, he meant that whilst there were signs of progress it was uncertain as to whether we would reach the telos of Culture which he described in terms of a “Kingdom of Ends” lying one hundred thousand years in the future.
Before being awoken from his dogmatic rationalist slumbers by Hume and Rousseau, Kant was much influenced by Leibniz and Newton. He was also affected by the tension created by the demands of religious faith and the more sceptical natural scientists in an Enlightenment Prussia. These scientists were not impressed by the anti-clerical revolution of the French “philosophes”. Indeed, Rousseau, it could be argued, belonged essentially to the Counter-Enlightenment movement. The Counter Enlightenment was a historical movement, which, in the eyes of a Prussian society, drew inspiration from the Pietist protest against Protestantism. Kant’s contemporaries, Hamann, Herder, and Jacobi all aligned themselves with the Counter-Enlightenment and thus against the spirit of the rationalist component of Kant’s Critical Philosophy: a Philosophy that attempted to integrate Natural Science, Religious Faith, Ethics, Politics, Philosophical Psychology, and Aesthetics. Even in his earlier work, Kant was convinced that the Leibniz-Newton conflict could be averted, by distinguishing between different principles and different spheres of the application of these principles. As his work progressed and matured, however, there was a decisive shift away from the more theoretical metaphysical commitments of Leibniz and a shift towards a critical approach.This Critical approach took as its data, categories of judgments and experience, in the context of a tripartite structure of a mind constituted by Sensibility, Understanding, and Reason. This approach was also committed to a logical method that used the principles of identity, non-contradiction, and sufficient reason.
Spheres of application for principles also evolved eventually into a belief that metaphysics and transcendental philosophy were important in both theoretical and practical arenas of activity. Critical Philosophy, however, distanced itself from theoretical proofs of the existence of God but embraced a practical argument that used the practical reasoning of ethics as a basis or reason for believing in God’s existence. In Kant’s mature work we encounter a philosophical theory worthy of the Aristotelian and Enlightenment idea of integrating as many intellectual realms of activity into a whole as possible. Kant is known for a number of theoretical innovations as well as an admiration for the a priori elements of Newtonian Physics and Euclidean Geometry, but we should not forget the inscription on his grave that refers to both the starry heavens above and the moral law within. We should not forget, that is, his contribution to metaphysically grounded ethics. Both of these aspects of human existence produced in him experiences of awe and admiration, but his accomplishment was to theoretically show how it was possible to believe in the physical laws of nature and the moral laws of ethics that embraced both the ideas of Freedom and God.
If anyone deserved the title “The Newton of the Moral Universe” it was Kant. He refused to diminish the importance of the status of Natural Science (as the theories of Berkeley and Leibniz appeared to demand). He also refused to embrace the scepticism of Hume who questioned not just the relevance of metaphysics but also that of Philosophy in general. Many commentators claim it was the battle with the giant of scepticism that produced a philosophical theory which divided our discourse up into empirical, transcendental, and metaphysical propositions–thus restoring the status of much of science and most of Philosophy. This division enabled Kant to insist that Laws need not necessarily be derived from observation of the world, but they were nevertheless necessarily applicable to that world. In this context, Kant invokes a vital distinction between the world as it presents itself to beings possessed of the powers of Sensibility, Understanding, and Reason, and a world in itself, which may have a form beyond our comprehension, and about which we can know and say nothing. According to Kant, the closest we come to understanding this so-called “noumenal world”, is via a holistic understanding of ourselves as beings that freely follow the moral law within.
Understanding this aspect of our self requires some kind of understanding of transcendental philosophy and its metaphysical assumptions. Part of this understanding will involve an awareness that the world of appearances is riddled with a contingency which is connected to the kind of sensory apparatus we possess: a sensory apparatus that for example synthesises light rays into objects of visual perception but is unable to synthesise x-ray waves (or any other kind of wave about which we have no knowledge). This transcendental philosophy will also involve awareness that the powers of perception we do possess are a condition of what can be done with our powers of understanding and reason.Kant, in his later hylomorphic phase, believed in both the matter and the form of experience. Form, he argued, was investigated by the metaphysics of scientific and moral laws. Two a priori forms of sensibility were, for example, Space and Time. Kant argued that these forms were not a consequence of experience, but rather forms of sensibility that are used to help organise what we experience, or, in other words, space and time were what he referred to as a priori conditions of our experience. These conditions were for him modes of experience and in this claim Kant disagreed with the Newtonian ideas of absolute Space and Time in themselves, which, according to Newton, existed independently of any experience of them. Kant’s reasoning in relation to this point was that we could neither imagine nor think of the “form” of the in-itself, because our thought and imagination are formed partly by a human configuration of sensory powers that created the “forms” of Space and Time. This in turn created the “form” of our experience. Kant is here in this discussion drawing the limits of our understanding and reasoning and any metaphysics that fails to register these limits are merely, in his opinion, the dreams of spirit seers.
In response to the question of what we can know about the nature of the above forms of Space and Time, Kant responds by claiming that geometry reveals to us the a priori form of Space, and Arithmetic reveals to us the a priori form of Time. Mathematics, then helps us to investigate these modes of our experience. There is also, in the work of Kant, reference to those forms of thought, understanding, and reason that have both transcendental and metaphysical aspects. The Newtonian law of conservation of matter and energy, which states that matter and energy can neither be created nor destroyed, is an example of a metaphysical assumption, whilst “every event must have a cause”, is an example of a transcendental assumption about the form our understanding must take if we are to make justified true claims about the physical world, The law claiming that energy and matter cannot be created or destroyed, of course, immediately places a question mark over the traditional religious idea of a God that has created the universe. Such an idea of a creative God is, for Kant, an idea of a spirit seer as is the idea of a soul that can disengage from a physical body in accordance with “spiritual” laws. In spite of this, Kant believed both in God and souls insofar as both are embedded in our ethical relations to each other, and the world as a whole. For him, it is a matter of transcendental fact that we human beings possess moral convictions that emanate from a moral power that is expressed in a system of concepts we use for forming our moral intentions and our moral judgments, (concepts such as good, bad, right, wrong, ought, etc.). These concepts form the conditions for our moral discourse and the moral assumptions we make when we “judge” that someone could have acted differently to the way in which they did in fact act. Without such conditions, Kant argues, all moral and legal evaluation of our actions are impossible. Such evaluation also assumes a free will, or freedom to choose. This discourse, Kant points out is not similar to our scientific discourse about the phenomenal world we all observe and move in. Moral discourse runs deeper, Kant argues: it is about the noumenal world, and because of this state of affairs, we distinguish fundamentally between the status of the philosophical questions “What can we know?” and “What ought we to do?” With respect to this latter question, we are thrown immediately into the realm of metaphysics and when we further seek to justify our moral evaluations in terms of a just and good God we move into the realm of faith and the third philosophical question, “What can we hope for?” All three questions require the regulation of Reason and its Principles of identity, non-contradiction, and sufficient reason. The principle of non-contradiction, Kant argues is, in fact, two principles, one of which relates to things that are, and the other relates to things that are not, and these principles probably follow from the principles of identity and sufficient reason.
The moral law within us is regulated by an imperative form because we are dealing with the fundamental moral question of “What ought we to do?”It, like all forms of discourse, is formulated in terms of the principles of identity, non-contradiction, and sufficient reason. The moral law claims that we should only act on that maxim of action that we can will to become a universal law of nature. This claim means that such a law is universally agreed, adopted, and ought to be acted upon by everyone. The logical implication here is that if one possesses and understands the concepts, and has used them in the formulation of an intention to do the right thing, the good thing, or the thing one ought to do, a fitting moral action must follow as a matter of rationality. This, of course, is a process and, as such, much can go wrong, but even if it does, it will remain forever true that the action conceived of, is the one that ought to have been done. This, of course, assumes that after having made a promise, one’s commitment to treating oneself and others as ends in themselves demands that I do everything in my power to keep my promise.Doing anything else will fail to honour what Kant calls the “dignity of man”
Manfred Keuhn, in his work “Kant: A Biography”(1), charted the history of the Categorical Imperative from what he called Kant’s “Socratic Turn”. In this history Rousseau convinced the great philosopher that “natural man” possessed a moral sensibility that was a part of everyone’s nature. This aspect of our nature,Rousseau argued, was clouded by the customary habits and norms we form when we gather together in groups. Kant gradually, however, began to feel that this postulated hidden nature of man was not described entirely correctly by Rousseau, and he turned instead to English thinkers such as Hutcheson and Reid to characterise what he would later call the “unsocial sociability” of man. This property of man manifested itself in particular in his antagonism toward his fellows when his own self-love overrides his own innate benevolent sensibility. Hutcheson, for example, embraced a variation of the Pleasure-Pain Principle that was not instrumentally oriented or utilitarian. He also pointed out that benevolence could be associated with pain for the morally inclined individual. It is clear for Hutcheson that moral worth (a key concept in Kant’s ethics) was to be measured in terms of the benevolence directed at others. A variation of the Reality Principle is also involved in Hutcheson’s account in the form of an insistence on our ability to adopt the perspective of a spectator with respect to our own actions, evaluating them, as it was maintained, disinterestedly. Our moral affections, it is claimed, can be reflected upon. These moral affections are “determinations of our nature”, according to Hutcheson, but he also somewhat paradoxically conceptualises them as “obligations”, and it becomes unclear whether he means to use the term to name an affective-motivational force or rather something closer to Kant’s idea of a rational norm governing our action.
Given the fact that Hutcheson was particularly critical of rationalism, the likelihood is that he was referring to a naturally motivating force and distinguished it from other motivational forces such as anger , perhaps because this latter motive lacked, in his estimation, an articulate intention. Like many sentimentalists of this time, Hutcheson rested his case on happiness, a principle that Kant critically regarded as the principle of self-love in disguise. Hutcheson believed that we are benevolent towards others because we realise that our own happiness rests on their happiness. Freud’s reality principle was differently constituted, resting rather, not upon happiness, but on the Kantian notion of the dignity of man which was achieved against the background of conflict and experienced suffering.
Kant, in this early phase of his development was beginning to manifest an eclectic tendency that would later develop into the theoretical cosmopolitanism of his later critical philosophy where Ancient Greek, German, English, Swiss, French and Dutch influences were firmly integrated into one philosophical outlook. In this later phase Kant abandons the idea of moral sensibility as the motivating force of action, in favour of a more reflective position that focuses on the maxim of an action, arrived at rationally, and with understanding. In his work “Anthropology from a Pragmatic point of view”(2) Kant writes:
“What is decisive in practical matters is not whether we have done a good action at one time (or another), but rather it is the maxim.”
Our moral worth, that is, is directly connected to the rational worth of the maxim, i.e. its universality and necessity. So we see here that there is a sense in which Rousseau’s “natural man” was supplanted by a man that is obligated to create his own character by rational reflection upon his maxims: a rational, non-observational form of reflection that involved universality and necessity. It is worth noting that, at this late stagein his work, Kant would not have subscribed to any view that claimed morality to be rooted in sympathy: an emotion which he regarded as “blind”, meaning without conceptual or cognitive import. Insofar as there is a general “emotion” required by moral judgment and moral action, it must be generally applicable to all of humanity and whatever we call that feeling it must be related to a work of the imagination that is in principle related to concepts (as is the case with aesthetic judgment). In such judgments, what is particular is subsumable under what is general, and in the moral case these judgments are maxims, or “reasons for acting”. Ethical reasons will not meet the criteria for a narcissistically formed self-love, but rather will demand a criterion of self-worth related to the more neutral attitude of respect and the logical requirements of universality and necessity.
In this later phase of development, Kant was returning to a thesis of the Ancients, in particular returning to Aristotle’s hylomorphic theory, in which all understanding was the understanding of forms or principles that organised matter in successive actualisation phases. The initial phase, insofar as moral judgment is concerned, related to something that was to be the case, or something that needed to be done rather than something that was, or was to be felt. Moral Philosophy, at this point for Kant, was a philosophy of the noumenal world, of the mundus intelligibilis. No motiva sensualis was involved in the consideration of “reasons for action”– and as with the ancients, all morality is based on ideas and principles. The metaphysics of morals would then constitute the knowledge we have of ourselves and would provide the rational justification or groundwork for a virtuous character or will.
In conclusion, as we approach Kant’s more mature work written late in his life, beginning with the “Critique of Pure Reason”, at age 57, we encounter the strategies of Plato and Aristotle being put to the use of integrating the cognitive faculties or powers of the mind into one systematic whole. Sensibility, Understanding, and Reason all possessed their “forms” or “principles”, that together contributed to shaping the overall power of the mind Kant had been seeking to correctly describe and explain during his long philosophical career. The first Critique took 12 years to complete, and was a testament to the difficulty of the task set by David Hume: the task, namely of steering an Aristotelian middle course between the rocks of dogmatism and the sandbanks of Scepticism This task involved the construction of a power of understanding and judgment to mediate between the powers of sensation and reason. It also required charting a course between the methods of “observation” and “logic”. The strategy was clearly Aristotelian, but the result was something new and unique, something purely Kantian, and worthy of that period of History we call “The Enlightenment”, when men for the second time in philosophical history dared to use their reason.
The reference Kant makes to “pure reason” is a concession to the skepticism of Hume, but at the same time, it is an insistence that, in spite of the steadily mounting empirical attacks on rationalism in the name of a “book of nature” view of science, rationalism in the spirit of Aristotle was alive and well and capable of supporting not just the science of nature but the entire canon of Aristotelian theoretical, practical and productive sciences. Freud sometimes is construed as being anti-rational by some of his critics, but some of his critics also accuse him of being unscientific and perhaps the key to opening the casket of Freud’s underlying position is to see how neither of these criticisms are valid. Freud is both a rationalist in the sprit of Aristotelian hylomorphism and a scientist in the spirit of Kant. His focus is essentially on the practical matter of living ones life well, and the medical matter of therapeutic interventions for the good health of the soul.
For Kant the journey of the soul was a matter of the journey on the road to Damascus (Via Dolarosa). The principles involved included the principle of noncontradiction and sufficient reason, and the progress along this road depended upon the goods related to the body, goods related to the external world, and lastly, and most significantly, goods relating to the soul. We need to bear in mind also, Spinoza’s claim that the first idea of the mind is the idea of the body, as well as the Freudian claim that the primary function of the ego is to protect the body. The relation of the body to one aspect of the external world, i.e. sexual partners, argues forcefully for the Freudian focus upon sexuality, in the stages of the development of the personality: Freud’s “stages” on life’s way include abandoning earlier archaic practices in favour of new institutional practices that have more realistic aims and objectives. This process of abandonment is a painful affair, and is attended with the risk of interference from various defence mechanisms such as repression, denial, displacement, splitting, etc which tend to weaken the ego and its attempt to view the world stoically through the lens of Ananke. Such a developmental account must of course presuppose a commitment to hylomorphism and its actualisation processes. These processes determine the way in which the human form of life interacts with the world in terms of its “possibilities”, transforming not just the objects of the instincts, but also the aims of the instincts, widening the horizon for the battle of the giants, Eros and Thanatos.
Consciousness, we know is a vicissitude of the instincts and we know that for both Aristotle and Freud the dream was a kind of thinking in which the body is derealised by the play of images on the dream screen. This may mean that the first idea of the body in the soul may well be an image/hallucination that has its source in the external world. Such images are, of course, not, in a certain sense ” real”, and this may be tied up with the fact that during sleep, both the motor and the sensory systems of the body are immobilised and the body seeks a displaced form of instant substitute gratification in the dream. Freud does, however, call such an image hallucinatory, and, as such, it is both a primary process activity, and an illusory regressive activity. Dream activity may well be the zero-level of thought-activity–an almost pure psychic phenomenon blossoming or “occurring” in a psychic locality. The location may well be an important consideration when it comes to determining whether it makes any sense to speak of “events” and their physical(material/efficient) causality. Freud took a clear and distinct stand on this issue by designating the dream as a wish-fulfilment, and this must be true in at least one sense, that of ensuring the individual concerned continues to sleep instead of waking prematurely. This wish to continue sleeping is certainly not at the level of consciousness, but for Aristotle it is a type of thinking that carries on during dream activity.
For Kant and his trinity of mental faculties, sensibility, understanding and reason, the dream is an activity of sensibility, which Kant regards as an unconscious form of poetry, involving the imagination in a condition in which the body-image is inactive and as a consequence the dream is not structured in terms of the continuous space-time of waking experience. The imagination may, however, be activated by unconscious concepts( whose source is in the understanding), so the scenes we experience are to some extent organised and not the mere wild play of random images. To the extent that the images we experience may never have occurred in previous experience as they are presented, is the extent to which we are in the realm of illusion and fantasy. The people we dream of, for example, could not possibly have memories of their role in our dreams. If one is hungry in one’s dream, one does not know it to be true that one is hungry, and to that extent our dreams lack veracity. It may be the case, however, that one was hungry when one went to bed and this is obviously the source of the dream of eating roast beef.
Reason has no obvious role in this function of sensibility in which the concept regresses back to its image-origin, instead of occupying the subject or predicate position in an assertion This may be because reason appears to operate at the level of thinking something about something, which is a more complex level than that of merely thinking something– which is the domain of conceptual thinking occupying the subject position of an assertion. The sensible functions involved in dreaming are regulated by the primary process of thought and the pleasure-pain principle. Reason is, then, a secondary process operation.
Modern Post analytical philosophy championed by Russell and Frege used a mathematical form of logic to solve the aporetic questions that arose in a context which the early Wittgenstein defined. For Wittgenstein and the other mathematical logicians the world was defined as “The totality of facts”, and it was clear that natural science regulated by mathematical thinking was the focus of many different associated movements such as logical positivism. Frege and Russell attempted, unsuccessfully and in their different ways, contra Kant, to reduce mathematics to logic. For Kant, Mathematics was attempting to quantify space and time and used constructed concepts in its operations.
Reason, for Kant, is the search for the totality of conditions of cognitive Judgments, something that could never be achieved for synthetic judgments, (judgments of experience or mathematical judgments). Insofar as experience is concerned, Kant has the following to say in his Prolegomena (P.92):(3)
“For experience never satisfies reason fully, but in answering questions, refers us further and further back and leaves us dissatisfied with regard to their complete solution.” And further (P. 96)(4):
“The sensible world is nothing but a chain of appearances connected according to universal laws: it has, therefore, no subsistence by itself: it is not the thing in itself, and consequently must point to that which cannot be cognised merely as appearances but as things in themselves. In the cognition of them alone can reason hope to satisfy its desire for completeness in proceeding from the conditioned to its conditions.”
The search for the totality of conditions referred to above, however, is predicated upon the inquirer possessing three fundamental powers of mind, namely, Sensibility, Understanding, and Reason. Reason has an important relation to the formation of a totality of forms of categorical judgments, i.e. the categories of the understanding:
“But Pure Reason is a sphere so separate and self-contained that we cannot touch a part without affecting all the rest. We can, therefore, do nothing without first determining the positions of each part and its relation to the rest. For inasmuch as our judgment cannot be corrected by anything outside of pure reason, so the validity and use of every part depends upon the relation in which it stands to all the rest within the domain of reason, just as in the structure of an organised body the end of each member can only be deduced from the full conception of the whole.” (P.8)(5)
Philosophical knowledge, then, Kant continues, considers the quality of particular existence insofar as it participates in the universal in contrast to mathematical knowledge that “constructs” the universal in the particular in accordance with quantitative considerations. Mathematics constructs definitions from mathematical elements: a straight line, for example, is defined in terms of two points and the relation between them (the shortest distance). The mathematician then proceeds immediately to drawing a particular straight line in illustration of the principle (with the aid of an instrument: a ruler). The straight line can then be used in the construction of figures such as triangles. Straight lines of particular lengths are used to construct a particular triangle with a particular area that can be measured. It is as a consequence true, that triangular spaces have a different quality to circular spaces but it must be recognised that this difference in quality is constructed in a way that the quality of the redness of rose can never be.
It is also true that were we to be endowed with the sensible apparatus capable of giving us x-ray access to the inside of objects like roses, we may never have been aware of the quality of colour. This fact, however, is not a sufficient basis from which to argue that the qualities of colours such as the redness of a rose are “constructed” upon the foundation of a mathematical primary underlying reality of a certain quantity (of, for example, Angstrom units). Kant insists that mathematical construction is not a more reliable system of representation of the noumenal reality we know so little about (we can, however, according to Kant know that noumena are not mathematical, not spatial, not temporal). For Kant, the mathematician works in the world of the particular as organised by his mathematical notations. Kant also points out that, given the fact that the philosopher is working solely in the arena of concepts and judgments, he has not the means of advancing our knowledge of the definition of a straight line except by categorising the form of the judgment involved in characterising the possible mathematical activity, e.g. The definition of a straight line as the shortest distance between two points is characterised by Kant as a “synthetic a priori judgment”.
It is metaphysical and transcendental logic that allows the philosopher to theorise about the way in which we relate to the continuum of noumenal reality (by dividing it up with our philosophical concepts and judgments). This system of dividing reality up is very different from the mathematical method of division that fundamentally relies on quantitatively constructed concepts and a pure intuition that relates immediately to reality via the faculty of Sensibility. The constructed concept here functions rather like a schema of subsumption that allows a limited number of mathematical operations and calculations to occur.
The mathematical “logic” we encounter here is not at the same level as the relation of universal concepts we encounter in the transcendental or metaphysical logic that the philosopher uses in the analysis of the structure of a judgment in which we say something about something. Kant points out in this context that:
“It would, therefore, be quite futile for me to philosophise upon the triangle, that is, to think about it discursively. I should not be able to advance a single step beyond the mere definition, which was what I had to begin with. There is indeed a transcendental synthesis (framed) from concepts alone, a synthesis with which the philosopher is alone competent to deal: but it relates only to a thing in general, as defining the conditions under which the perception of it can belong to possible experience. But in mathematical problems, there is no question of this, nor indeed of existence at all, but only of the properties of the objects in themselves (that is to say), solely insofar as the properties are connected with the concept of the objects.”(Critique of Pure Reason A 718-9)(6)
Involved in this claim is Kant’s subsequent denial that the philosophical and mathematical methods overlap or have elements in common. The philosopher,Kant argues, cannot work with constructed definitions, axioms, and related demonstrations. In this context, Kant also points out that definitions of empirical concepts such as gold and water (where the extension of these concepts are not exactly circumscribed and forever open to modification by further empirical investigation) are problematic. Mathematical concepts, on the other hand, are circumscribable and refer to an object via the constructed definition.
Kant points out that Mathematicians are in agreement and disputes about their concepts do not occur. But there are disputes over whether, for example, a particular system of concepts such as Euclidean geometry is consistent with the system of concepts we find in non-Euclidean Geometry. When they do not agree, however, it does not appear to be a tribunal of mathematical reason that can settle the issue as to which system, for example, best represents reality. Both systems are constructed and in the eyes of the philosopher, it might appear as if both systems are equally legitimate methods of dividing up the continuum of noumenal reality. Indeed the discovery that both systems have been “constructed” could only have been discovered in the tribunal of philosophical reasoning where matters such as this are settled. One could imagine, for example, evidence being submitted by Einstein (that space is “curved”) as part of the case for the legitimation of non-Euclidean geometry. For the Philosopher, however, this is a metaphysical judgment even if it is supported by a theory of gravitation where it is claimed that gravitational force “bends” Space and bends the light that otherwise travels in straight lines that are best measured by the Euclidean system of geometry. One of the verdicts of the tribunal of philosophical reason, in this case, might be that it is only the Space around objects exerting a large enough gravitational force, that requires the concepts and operations of non-Euclidean geometry. This, however, in the end, fails to justify the use of the universal concept of “Space” in the judgment “Space is curved”. The Newtonian universe is certainly modified by Einstein’s theories, but light still travels in straight lines unless caused to do otherwise by powerful gravitational fields: the Newtonian laws of motion thus stand and survive the case for the prosecution in the Philosophical tribunal of Reason. The tribunal of philosophical reasoning, however, is more at home with defending its concepts and laws against general philosophical positions such as dogmatism and scepticism: it is, that is, more at home when handing down judgments on the importance of the idea of Freedom in a rational human life led in a rational society:
“Thus freedom will carry with it the right to submit openly for discussion the thoughts and doubts with which we find ourselves unable to deal and to do so without being decried as troublesome and dangerous citizens. This is one of the original rights of human reason which recognises no other judge than that universal human reason in which everyone has his say. And since all improvement on which our state is capable must be obtained from this source, such a right is sacred and must not be curtailed.”(A752)(7)
Kant is referring here, amongst other things, to the importance of the logical form of practical reason as distinguished from its empirical form that we encounter in our practical prudential judgments and actions where:
“…the whole business of reason consists in uniting all the ends which are prescribed to us by our desires in the one single end, happiness, and in coordinating the means for attaining it. In this field therefore reason can supply none but pragmatic laws of free action, for the attainment of those ends which are commended to us by the senses: it cannot yield us laws that are pure and determined completely a priori and which are prescribed to us, not in an empirically conditioned but in an absolute manner would be products of pure reason. Such are the moral laws, and these alone, therefore, belong to the practical employment of reason and allow of a canon.” (A 800)(8)
“The Canon of Pure Reason” is the title of an important section of the First Critique: a section that provides us with the metaphysics and transcendental philosophy which in turn enable us to answer the question “What ought I to do?”
(In the light of the theoretical knowledge we have of God, the immortality of the soul and our freedom). In this connection Kant also provides us with the beginnings of a Philosophical Psychology needed to further his critical projects:
“A will which can be determined independently of sensuous impulses and therefore through motives which are represented only by reason is entitled free will and everything that is bound up with this will, whether as ground or as consequence is entitled practical….. we have the power to overcome the impressions of our faculty of sensuous desire, by calling up representations of what, in a more indirect manner is useful or injurious. But these considerations as to what is desirable in respect of our whole state, that is, as to what is good and useful are based on reason. Reason, therefore provides laws which are imperative, that is, objective laws of freedom which tell us what ought to happen although perhaps it never does happen–therein differing from the laws of nature which relate only to that which happens.”(A802)(9)
With the above transcendental justification and reference to the will, (the central concept of Philosophical psychology-of the kind we encounter in Freud’s Metapsychology), the First Critique delimits and defines the scope and boundaries of the ought-system of concepts that will provide the framework for Kant’s Moral, Religious, and Political Philosophy. Pure Reason, for Kant, can be both theoretical and practical, but morality is a priori practical and only connected to the concept of happiness via the condition that we are ultimately worthy of such happiness. Kant calls the world in which rational agents and judges live, a moral world, a kingdom of ends, in which each member of the kingdom treats other members as ends-in-themselves. Such members will enjoy happiness thanks to a divine guarantee by an intelligent God that distributes happiness to those worthy of it. This, then, provides the answer to the question Kant poses “What can we hope for?” The kingdom of ends hypothesised by Kant is a systematic unity of ends (or totality of conditions) that is also in accordance with universal laws of nature.
Kant discusses the concept of Truth and claims (paradoxically, according to some commentators), that there are three degrees of holding something to be true: opining, believing and knowing:
“Opining is such holding of a judgment as is consciously insufficient, not only objectively, but also subjectively. If our holding of the judgment be only subjectively sufficient, we have what is termed believing. Lastly, when the holding of a thing to be true is sufficient both subjectively and objectively, it is knowledge”(A822)(10)
Opinion is, “merely a play of the imagination without the least relation to truth”. When we venture upon a moral action, on the other hand, Kant argues, we must know its validity (its universality and necessity). In relation to the more speculative theoretical issues of whether there is a God, or another life in another world, there is only moral certainty resting upon a moral attitude (given the fact that God belongs to the noumenal world we know so little about and that his existence can neither be proved nor disproved). Knowledge appears also to divide into fields or disciplines, and these can be assembled arbitrarily, rhapsodically or architectonically (in accordance with the demands of pure practical reason).
There is, however, in Kant’s overall strategy an awareness of the presence of the ancients who, beginning with Socrates, favoured pure practical reason over theoretical reasoning. Here Kant probably has in mind the philosophical career of Socrates who upon reading Anaxagoras and realising “All is mind”, then turned his back on all forms of physical investigations in favour of the pursuit of the knowledge of the Good that we find portrayed as the foundation stone of the education of the Philosophers of Plato’s Republic. Kant is also familiar with the metaphysical system of Aristotle in which the theoretical and the practical dwell comfortably together in one system of Philosophy. Kant’s contribution to this debate is to identify two realms of metaphysics and two kinds of objects:
“The legislation of human reason (philosophy) has two objects, nature, and freedom, and therefore contains not only the law of nature but also the moral law, presenting them at first in two distinct systems but ultimately in one philosophical system. The philosophy of nature deals with all that is, the philosophy of morals with that which ought to be”(A840)(11)
This gives rise to the “division” between the Metaphysics of Nature and the Metaphysics of Morals. The former contains the principles that ground our theoretical knowledge of the world, and the latter, the a priori principles that govern our actions. Kant warns about the confusion of these two modes of knowledge and also claims that these modes can be combined. He also warns us about confusing what is in our cognitive power with what is not, namely the confusion of the a posteriori and the a priori. it is, in Kant’s view, only the a priori forms of knowledge that can form the elements of pure science. In this debate, Kant refers to those sciences that proceed from concepts to intuitions and he also refers to Mathematics that proceeds from the construction of concepts to a priori intuitions.
James Ellington in his essay “The Unity of Kant’s Philosophy of Nature”(12) claims that Kant was not entirely clear about the workings of his architectonics. There is, however, no doubt concerning his clarity over the two modes of knowledge and what has been called Metaphysica Generalis, in which only principles and systems of concepts are discussed, and the system of Metaphysica Specialis in which rational physiology, rational cosmology, and rational theology are component disciplines. Rational physiology is further divided into two parts: physica rationalis and psychological rationalis. The term “rational” in these contexts refers to a priori elements, which means that empirical psychology will find no place in this structure, but given that it is applied philosophy, it will figure as a part of the metaphysical system in which we find explanations of psychological phenomena.
In the last chapter 4 of “The Transcendental Doctrine of Method” entitled “The History of Pure Reason” Kant notes that in the infancy of Philosophy men began by reflecting upon that point at which most mature philosophers would like to end their reflections, namely with the idea of God and another better life in a better world and:
“That there could be no better ground or dependable way of pleasing the invisible power that governs the world, and so of being happy in another world at least, then by living the good life. Accordingly, theology and morals were the two motives or rather the two points of reference in all those abstract enquiries of reason to which men come to devote themselves. It was chiefly, however, the former that step by step committed the purely speculative reason to those labours which afterwards became so renowned under the name of metaphysics.”(A 852)13
This magnifies the importance of the so-called “Socratic turn” away from investigating the metaphysics of nature toward investigating the metaphysics of morals. It also testifies to the greatness of the tradition of Aristotelian Philosophy that pursued both forms of metaphysics to their fundamental grounds. Kantian philosophy continued this tradition but gives Aristotelian metaphysics a “Kantian turn” by pleading for the primacy of practical metaphysics over theoretical metaphysics, at least insofar as we finite rational beings capable of discourse are concerned. Kant, like Aristotle, recognises an animal element of sensibility but follows the ancients in insisting that the fundamental purpose of rationality is to largely regulate the domain of the powers of psuche.
In this “History” chapter Kant divides the object of “all our knowledge through Reason” into two; sensualism and intellectualism. The former is illustrated with the thought of Epicurus who maintains that:
“reality is to be found solely in the objects of the senses” and all else is fiction. The
intellectual school, on the other hand, declared that in the senses there is nothing but illusion, and that only the understanding knows what is true. The former position did not indeed deny reality to the concepts of the understanding, but this reality for them was “merely” logical whereas for others it was mystical. The former sensualists admitted intellectual concepts but admitted the reality of sensible objects only. Sensualists required that true objects should be purely intelligible and maintained that it is by means of the pure understanding that we experience intuitions unaccompanied by the senses– the senses in their view serving only to confuse the understanding”(A853).(14)
Kant also refers to the origin of the modes of knowledge through pure reason and mentions in this connection Aristotle’s “Empiricist” position in which it is maintained that all modes of knowledge are derived from experience. Plato, in this discussion, is referred to as a noologist (part of the mystical school). In Kant’s view, neither of these schools managed to correctly chart the boundaries or the limits of experience. Calling Aristotle an empiricist is, however, problematic given his remarks on the importance of the desire to understand and the role of principles in all processes of understanding. It is not absolutely clear that the intellectual forms of the mind are all tied as tightly to experience as Kant appears to imagine.
In the course of discussing the naturalistic (common sense) method, and the scientific method, Kant claims that common sense is sceptical about the use of mathematical and scientific instruments, and yet presumes to be able to establish the existence of sublime metaphysical truths with its limited means. Kant, then, concludes the First Critique by claiming that the scientific method per se can be either dogmatically used, as it was by Wolff, or sceptically used, as it was by Hume, but that the only viable Parmenidean road to the truth lies via the critical use of the scientific method.
The concept of the will is a concept of philosophical psychology which we do not find discussed in any detail in the writings of Freud. Kantian Philosophy, reasoning about the good will during the period of Enlightenment, was experiencing a brief respite in the surge of modernism introduced by Descartes and Hobbes: a period in which politics and economics had not yet managed to permeate the consciousness of the general public.
By the time we get to the period of Freud’s Austria, political parties and nation states were being dissolved and destabilised (according to Arendt in “Origins of Totalitarianism)(15), and the masses were being mobilised by populistic rhetoric into thinking, alternatively ,that “everything was possible”, or “nothing was possible”. The so-called “new men” that emerged in Europe, the US, and the Soviet Union were, consciously or unconsciously, marshalling various globalisation forces for various purposes. It is difficult to know exactly what Freud thought about these political, economic and military projects, but we do know that he experienced first hand the rise of Hitler and in his work, “Civilisation and its Discontents(1929)” wrote disparagingly about both the USA and the Soviet Union. Freud further posed the question as to whether all the energy we expend upon building up our civilisations, was worth the effort. Given the year of this work, this judgement perhaps can be justified, especially when we consider the Freudian use of the Platonic concepts of the life and death instincts, Eros and Thanatos, battling for the fate of civilisation.
Plato’s Republic was a theoretical construction partly responding to Oracular prophecies relating to knowledge of oneself, and partly relating to the role this lack of knowledge may play in the fate of our civilisations. The Republic also, was partly a response to the perceived injustices inflicted upon the governed by governments that failed to understand the importance of the concepts of justice(diké) and virtue(areté). Socrates is the leader of the philosophical dialogue which is essentially searching for the elusive combination of the good-in-itself and the good-in-its-consequences, and the focus here is primarily political, forewarning us of the dangers of tyrants whose lust after power resembles a mental illness. There is very little trace of this kind of reflection in Freud’s writings. There is, however, one article entitled “Group Psychology and the analysis of the Ego” which begins with an admission that individual and social psychology are inseparable elements. This has an Aristotelian ring to it, which is highlighted in the hylomorphic essence-specifying definition of the human form of life, namely the rational animal capable of discourse. The implication of this definition is that man is essentially a social animal and given the Aristotelian claim that every human art, scientific inquiry, action and pursuit aims at the good, the form of the Good thus becomes the major social issue in which the question of whether man is the best or worst of animals is resolved. Freud, we know, grounded his psychoanalytical psychology on the foundation of instincts. Yet in the introduction to the above work, Freud specifically denies that there is a primitive social or herd instinct, and claims that membership or participation in different kinds of group give rise to different mental phenomena. The “group” par excellence for Freud, however, is that of the family, and this too echoes the Aristotelian position. For Aristotle the criterion for moving beyond the social group of the family into the village work-place is that of “self-sufficiency”. The next most important social grouping, next to the family, is that of the village which also has its limitations insofar as fulfilling our potential for being the best of animals is concerned. A purpose which, for Aristotle, involves striving to fulfil the potential of becoming the rational animal. It is, however, the polis which is of sufficient size and structure to meet the demands of its inhabitants for overall self-sufficiency. The full essence-specifying definition of the human form of life is “rational animal capable of discourse” and it is discourse rather than rationality that Freud focuses his attention upon. Discourse manifests itself in one-on-one therapy in the form of the “talking cure”, but it also manifests itself in social groups. Freud, in a Chapter entitled “Le Bon’s description of the group mind” begins as follows:
“If a psychology, concerned with exploring the predispositions, the instinctual impulses, the motives and the aims of an individual man, down to his actions and his relations with those who are nearest to him, had completely achieved its task, and had cleared up the whole of these matters with their interconnections, it would then suddenly find itself confronted by a new task which would lie before it unachieved. It would be obliged to explain the surprising fact that under a certain condition this individual whom it had come to understand, thought felt and acted in quite a different way from what would have been expected. And this condition is his insertion into a collection of people which has acquired the characteristic of a “psychological group”. What, then, is a group? How does it acquire the capacity for exercising such a decisive influence over the mental life of the individual? And what is the nature of the mental change which it forces upon the individual? It is the task of theoretical group psychology to answer these three questions.” The Penguin Freud Library: Vol 12, London, Penguin, 1991) P.98)(16)
Freud quotes Le Bon’s thesis that there are certain mental phenomena that can only be encountered in groups and this justifies attributing the description “collective mind” to these original characteristics. Le Bon uses an Aristotelian biological analogy:
“The psychological group is a provisional being formed of heterogeneous elements, which for a moment are combined, exactly as the cells which constitute a living body form by their reunion a new being which displays characteristics very different from those possessed by each of the cells singly.” (Trans, 1920, 29)
Freud elaborates upon this theme by claiming that there must be something responsible for the unification process and result, but he speaks of a “bond” rather than a principle, thereby aligning the investigation with inductive natural/medical science, rather than the Philosophical form of Psychology we associate with both Aristotle and Kant . The Freudian contribution to this discussion relates, of course, to his major discovery that the conscious mind, even when it is engaged in its most rational activities, is being influenced by a deep underlying unconscious substrate, that undoubtedly relates to man’s instincts. Many of the characteristics associated with our species over its relatively long history has been “handed down over generations”. Put such an individual in the context of a crowd or masses of people, and new characteristics will emerge which are probably the result of instincts that are normally restrained by the Ego being no longer regulated in the normal manner, because a feeling of invincible power arises when individuals are subsumed into large collectives which have no individual responsibility for their actions. This feeling of power arises presumably firstly, because there is no physical body for the ego to concern itself with, and secondly because the law, connected as it is with rational mechanisms, rather than with emotional mechanisms, has little influence in an environment in which emotional discourse is more easily produced and acted upon. In such a non-rational environment “techné”, or the instrumental use of scientific/military technology is not embedded in the ethical form of discourse which in its turn focuses upon individual responsibility and freedom to choose. The ethics of utilitarianism or consequentialism reigns, and the dimension of the categorical good-in-itself that is inevitably involved in the work of the superego is marginalised.
This is the environment in which Arendt’s “new men” emerged. We should remember that Descartes put his mathematical knowledge to use in military contexts, travelling as a mercenary to the different battle scenarios of the 30 year war(He designed military machines). Hobbes, (who believed in the possibility of squaring the circle), perhaps the first of the new men in England, also wrote pamphlets on the English civil war urging support for the royalists against the parliamentarians. Kant we know wrote philosophically both on the irrationality and terrible consequences of war and established a Philosophical commitment to “Perpetual Peace” which was completely disregarded by the time we arrive at Freud’s writings in the 1920’s (during the aftermath of the first world war and on the doorstep of the second world war). This was the period in which mass-political movements were being manipulated by the tyrants Plato warned us about in his Republic, and we know one such tyrant, Hitler, would in turn cause an aged Freud to flee to London to die in 1939.
Hitler was a master of contagious/suggestive rhetoric and mobilised the masses of Germany and Austria to rise against the rest of Europe. The Academics, in the various European Universities, were powerless to stop the popularistic waves of change initiated by Hitler and Stalin. Freud notes in his essay, that the rhetorician in such circumstances eventually takes control of his audience in a way similar to the way in which a hypnotist takes control of the consciousness of his subject. The acts that take place as a result of such suggestion are not performed in a fully conscious state, and are steered instinctively.
In such a condition the discourse is not rationally structured and uses instead images which do not know the boundaries of possibility and improbability. This is the Freudian psychological description of the thought processes of Arendt’s new men, for whom “everything was possible” especially for those who believe themselves to be omnipotent and omniscient. The world of the imaginary is more extensive than the world of the real. Freud points out that group psychology can have positive aspects too, in that it can, if steered by reason, rise ethically above what the individual is capable of, but the problem is that it can just as easily fall to depths where terrible actions can be considered and even perpetrated. Indeed the discourse fired by the illusory images of the imagination will always be more easily embraced by “the madding crowd”, which does not have the patience for the reality testing of the ideas that suggest certain courses of action.
Collectives embracing the rule of law manifest clearly the possibility of the unselfish devotion of a collective to ethical norms, but this institution is the first target of tyrants who attempt to dismantle the credibility of legal and political institutions. The am of the tryrant is nothing less that revolution, and there are no qualms over the use of violence in such revolution. One of the conditions for the formation of such a revolutionary collective is that the crowd must be formed by, in some sense, “like-minded” individuals sharing an interest in common.
Freud also quotes McDougall who claims a group:
“is excessively emotional, impulsive, violent, fickle, inconsistent, irresolute and extreme in action, displaying only the coarser emotions and the less refined sentiments :extremely suggestible, careless in deliberation, hasty in judgement, incapable of any but the simpler and imperfect forms of reasoning; easily swayed and led, lacking in self-consciousness, devoid of self-respect and of sense of responsibility, and apt to be carried away by the consciousness of its own force, so that it tends to produce all the manifestations we have learned to expect of any responsible and absolute power. Hence its behaviour is like that of an unruly child or an untutored passionate savage in a strange situation, rather, than like that of its average member: and in the worst cases t is like that of a wild beast, rather than like that of human beings.”(McDougall, The Group Mind, 1920a)(17)
Freud begins his analysis of the group by reference to an exercise in ordinary language Philosophy, when he discusses the meaning of the word love, and its use for the many different forms of love we find in the human form of life, e.g. sexual love, self-love, love for parents and children, friendship and love for humanity in general and finally love for concrete objects and abstract ideas. He coins the term “libido” and relates these ideas to Plato’s “Eros”:
“the power that holds everything together in the world” (P.120)(18).
Freud uses the term “libido” to oppose the unilateral thesis that it is the herd instinct which explains all the puzzling regressive behaviour of the group. Freud accepts the existence and the influence of this instinct which explains phenomena such as separation-anxiety but fails to account for the family of phenomena associated with group behaviour, in particular it fails to address the primary phenomenon associated with group behaviour, namely the lack of individual freedom of the members of the group. This in conjunction with the phenomenon of panic of the group is best understood via an understanding of the libidinal ties of member of the group to their leader and to each other. He analyses the institutional groups of the army and the church in the following way:
“It is to be noticed that in these two artificial groups each individual is bound by libidinal ties on the one hand to the leader(Christ, the Commander-in-Chief) and on the other to the members of the group…..we shall venture even now upon a mild reproach against earlier writers for not having sufficiently appreciated the importance of the leader in the psychology of the group.”(P.124-5)(19)
Panic occurs in different forms in both groups but for the same reasons, namely because the libidinal ties in the group for some reason are relaxed. This phenomenon can, for example, be clearly seen when a leader is killed in battle but it can also be seen when a fundamental idea important to the group is questioned, e.g. the doubting of the truth of the proposition that Jesus was resurrected, which Freud claims resulted in an increase in crime in Europe until the counter-claim was disproved.
Freud then moves on to consider the possibility that members of a group may pledge allegiance to an abstract idea rather than a concrete leader, but even in such a case there will be what Freud calls a “secondary leader”. The love that exists in groups has no sexual component, and demands an abandonment of the narcissistic self love for the aims of altruism. Freud then turns to the question of the psychological mechanism responsible for the libidinal tie with the leader of the group. Given his initial claim that our personality is formed within the family constellation, it is therefore not surprising to learn that it is the defence-mechanism of identification which forms the core of our social relations in the loosely formed groups of our work place and the more tightly knit groups such as the army and the church. This is a more primitive mechanism than sympathy which presupposes some kind of identification with the object that engages our sympathetic responses. But it is also a more sophisticated mechanism given its role in the formation of the superego which is operating in accordance with a primitive wish to be like the father/mother/leader that is initially the object of ones desire, and then subsequently becomes something more fundamental that is introjected in the course of the imitation-process. What we are exploring are obviously in a sense causal mechanisms which are not manifest in the phenomenon we seek to explain, but relate instead to the phenomenon in some systematic way as a “condition” of the phenomenon occurring. The context at issue here is an “archeological” rather than a teleological matter, which is undoubtedly deeply embedded in a hylomorphic theory of change that includes kinds of change, media of change, principles of change as well as “causes”of change. Freud is clearly exploring the terrain the Delphic oracle would have characterised as “self-knowledge”: the most difficult of all forms of knowledge. Involved in this identification process, according to Freud is the loss of the object that has been introjected.
Freud has, in many different ways, sought to distance himself from the Christian ideal of love which requires that one love ones neighbour and ones enemies. Freud’s grounds relate to a healthy concern for reality, and the absence of a sufficiently strong common interest for a “group-feeling” to emerge. Similarly, one can imagine Freud adopting a more Kantian approach to the Garden of Eden myth, and rejecting this story as carrying the message that the human is a necessarily flawed being whose desire for knowledge was going to lead to his downfall. The oracles of Greece, we know, believed that self-knowledge was necessary if one was to control ones desires(“Nothing too much”) and to avoid the sword of Ananke hanging over the artifactual creations of humankind (Everything created by man was destined for ruin and destruction). The “Nothing too much” formula was the motivation for Aristotle’s “golden mean principle”, and can also be applied to love or eros. We know from Freud that should one identify with an object that one loved, the loss of that object for a weak ego, might result in attempts to destroy oneself. The pain and suffering for the wounded ego becomes too much and acts of attempted self destruction might follow.
The “Good” strong ego functions in accordance with the reality principle, and given the complex nature of human existence, this requires knowledge to regulate the belief and action systems of the human form of life. For Kant, the Garden of Eden myth is a celebration of the liberating force of knowledge(symbolised by the apple from the tree of knowledge), and freedom, rather than a stain on the soul of a disobedient servant of God.
Freud, is a follower of Darwin, who had great respect for the work of Aristotle, and who produced a theory of natural evolution of species that is fully in accord with the Aristotelian hylomorphic theory of change:
“In 1912 I took up a conjecture of Darwin’s to the effect that the primitive form of human society was that of a horde ruled over despotically by a powerful male. I attempted to show that the fortunes of this horde have left indestructible traces upon the history of human descent; and especially , that the development of totemism, which comprises in itself the beginnings of religion, morality, and social organisation, is connected with the killing f the chief by violence and the transformation of the paternal horde into a community of brothers.” (p.154)(20)
This is the scenario Freud describes in his attempt to account for the emergence of the law against murder that will ensure that one of the brothers can in fact safely agree to lead the horde. The challenge for the leader of the horde to love all of the horde equally was, on Freud’s theory of love, impossible, and the inevitable result was the violence directed at him. Such a form of unconditional love may perhaps be only possible in smaller units such as the family. With the introduction of the law, however, the brothers can rightly expect equal treatment under the law and they can also reasonably believe that the law will also apply to the leader and protect the members of the group from legal persecution. Freud also points out that the hypnotic power of the leader is related to his power as a leader or father of the group. This effect is perhaps diminished, with the introduction of the law, and is replaced by a more neutral “respect for the law”. It is interesting to note, in the context of this discussion, that lady justice is blind, and possesses a sword which is a residue of the threat of the violence of the father. The blindfold is a symbol of the impartial aim of the law, and this, in turn, indicates that the physical appearance of the brothers inevitably brings with it the issue of who can in fact be loved and who cannot.
Aristotle solved the problem of describing the need for an eros laden attitude toward all members/citizens of the polis by using the term philia in relation to the idea of the good and the end of eudaimonia(a good spirited flourishing life(of the community)). Citizens are “friends” in Aristotle’s eyes, but it is not certain that one can be friends with all citizens of the polis (e.g. Socrates and his accusers), and perhaps a more neutral technical term such as philia is more appropriate. For Kant the more appropriate term to be used to describe these forms of relations is “respect”, a term that is aimed at describing a more abstract attitude, that covers both persons and a moral law which demands that we treat all persons as ends-in-themselves. For Freud, however, the modern individual is a member of many different groups each of which contribute to the totality of his/her personality.
What we have experienced in the reflections of Freud, is a combination of a method that reduces a phenomenon to a fundamental condition, a collection of fundamental conditions, and an attempted composition of these conditions into a totality, which often does not have a name. This was not the ancient Greek methodology of the Philosophers, whose sight was fixated upon the more rationally constituted holistic state which Freud was using as the true north pointer for his theorising. This did not however, prevent him from using this reductive-compositive method of inductive science to identify the archeological aspect of his personality-theory. This choice reflects an anti-rational attitude which was not shared by Plato, Aristotle, or Kant, but was perhaps inevitable given the decision of Psychologists in Europe and the US in 1870 to separate the discipline from the holistic Philosophical Psychology that we find in the writings of Plato, Aristotle and Kant. These latter philosophers were searching, not for isolated conditions of phenomena, but for the “totality of conditions” that made the phenomenon in question possible, as Kant put the matter. In this kind of investigation (located in a context of explanation/justification), both Aristotle’s Theory of Change and Kant’s Critical Philosophy play a decisive role. The Greeks could not separate their accounts of philosophical psychology from the political philosophy and ethics of the time, and the same was true of Kantian Critical Philosophy. Modern Psychology and Philosophy were not aiming at the whole, for which there was no name except for “Being”, and its many meanings. Martin Heidegger attempted to introduce a more holistic perspective into his Philosophical Psychology via the terms “Being-there”(Dasein) and “Being-in-the-world”, but it became clear in his writings on Kant that he rested his account, not on the foundation of Reason, but on Transcendental Imagination. We need therefore to return to Kant’s ethical and political writings in order to get a clearer view of the whole that has no name but is connected to both knowledge(epistemé) and ethical/political action(areté, diké).
Kant, in his work “Groundwork for a Metaphysics of Morals”,(21) continues his project of articulating the scope and limits of the domain of metaphysics via a search for, and a discovery of, a fundamental formal principle of morality. He also gives an account of the transcendental philosophy involved in the three formulations of the categorical imperative (the prime example of synthetic a priori judgments in the realm of morality). In this work, Kant refers to the ancient division of Philosophical disciplines into physics, ethics, and logic but it is not clear here as to whom among the Ancients he is talking about. Aristotle’s division of the sciences into the theoretical, practical and productive ,does not quite support such a division. Depending upon one’s view, Kant can be construed as improving upon the role of Aristotelian Metaphysics in this debate, by claiming that every science has both a formal part, in which the principles of the science are the focus, and a material part in which the empirical content of the science is contained. Insofar as moral science is concerned the formulations of the categorical imperative, and the transcendental philosophy of the will associated with it, are the focus of the Groundwork. The account of the Empirical aspect of Morality is then left to a later work entitled “Anthropology: from a Pragmatic Point of View”. The Kantian system of Morality is built upon the transcendental element of the good will that is part of the nature of a human rational agent. Finer and finer moral distinctions are articulated, beginning with that between doing an action in accordance with the categorical imperative and doing an action constituted by the categorical imperative. Kant illustrates this distinction by giving an example of a shopkeeper who refrains from short-changing strangers and children he serves in his shop because, in the long run, such actions would not be good for business. Such an action, Kant argues, may be instrumentally good but he argues that it is not categorically good and this can easily be proved by appealing to those circumstances where the shopkeeper merely changed their mind about what is good for business and adopted a policy of short-changing children and strangers in his shop (perhaps because his shop was the only shop in the village). One can imagine thereupon, general outrage at this phenomenon of not being universally honest with one’s customers. This outrage would be founded on an understanding of the universal law of the categorical imperative, and this might even eventually result in competitors setting up businesses with more honest business practices–thus proving the power(good consequences) of the ought system of concepts in moral contexts. There are a number of problems with instrumental imperatives relating to the so-called long term good for a business, and one problem, is that the “long term good” being referred to here, is more often than not founded on a selfish principle, a principle-based on self-love, as Kant puts it.
Happiness is often a long-term aim, and is connected to instrumental reasoning of this sort. Of course, such a principle can be used, instead of the more universal categorical imperative, and insofar as Reason is being used here, it is solely for the purposes of examining whether the means to the end of happiness is causally efficacious. In the instrumental case, the end in itself is not examined in any critical objective spirit: a spirit that would question whether the agent of the action deserved the happiness involved. The worth of the action is directly connected to the categorical goodness of the will defined in terms of the three formulations of the categorical imperative and the logical characteristics of such judgment, namely universality, and necessity. Insofar as universality and necessity are the logical characteristics of such ought-oriented judgments, they are objective, but descending to the account of the empirical content of such judgments, we can find Kant speaking in terms of an opposition between the subjective and the objective: the subjective being where the subject is not involved or committed to the so-called “object of the action”. In instrumental cases of action, furthermore, the “measure” of the rationality of the action is not in terms of the maxim of the action (which may be regarded as “subjective”) but rather in terms of its causal consequences (such as happiness), thus opening up a logical gap between cause and effect (that must be logically independent of each other). The maxims involved in such instrumental reasoning can, therefore, not be universalised in the way that the maxims constituted by the categorical imperative can be. For Kant, such instrumentally oriented maxims might be “Objective”, in the sense of “causally determined”, but they are not objective in the logical sense of being universally valid for all acting agents. Maxims that are universalisable and necessary, are the product of the absolute in Kant’s system, the absolute of a good will that is a priori and is related to experience in the logical sense of being its “organiser” or “principle”. In other words, the “good will” here denotes a way of acting (given that experience can involve a doing as well as a suffering). According to Kant, our everyday knowledge of the categorical imperative is not universal, and perhaps not even widespread. Indeed he even considers the logical possibility that no pure moral action has ever been performed. Kuehn, one of the biographers of Kant, has the following comment to make in relation to this issue: (22))
“Kant, in other words, does not intend to deal with the everyday situations or ordinary moral agents. He deals, rather, with an ideal of pure reason that is entirely a priori. This ideal, which he calls the categorical imperative, is not given in “experience”. It is an a priori synthetic practical proposition whose very possibility is difficult to “see”. Indeed Kant ends his book by emphasising that “we do not comprehend the practical unconditioned necessity of the moral imperative”. We only “comprehend its incomprehensibility” and this “is all that can be fairly required of a philosophy that strives in its principles to the very boundary of human
reason.”(Manfred Kuehn, “Kant: A Biography” P. 285-6)
Kant’s Political Philosophy, which is largely a political application of his moral Philosophy, conceives of a state of humankind one hundred thousand years in the future, a state that he calls a “Kingdom of Ends”. This teleological end-state in which reason is fully installed in the minds of the species of man is constituted by the categorical imperative. The length of time that this process will take testifies to the “incomprehensibility” of the categorical imperative, and also indicates the power of how things are over how things ought to be. The link between these two logical realms is that of the will and its domain of operation (the domain of action). Here Kant is not referring to a notion of the General Will, but rather to the individual will and its freedom to choose what it ought to do, to make true what was not true before. If the will is good and the maxims are therefore good in the sense of being universal and necessary, then we are, according to Kant, in the realm of the morally good. We are the only authority that can be held responsible for the maxims we choose to embrace as the maxims of our actions. Kant is invoking the idea of Freedom, which, he elaborates upon in his Groundwork:(23)
“We must presuppose it if we want to think of a being as rational and endowed with consciousness of his causality with respect to actions, that is, with a will, and so we find that…we must assign to every being endowed with reason and will this property of determining himself to action under the idea of freedom.”(Kant’s Practical Philosophy P. 96)
This remark, when taken in the context of Political Philosophy, and in the context of the further contention in the Groundwork that we cannot embrace the universality of the moral law for everyone if we are prone to make exceptions of ourselves, suggests the importance of the concept of equality. Equality is an important principle of justice and is constituted by the moral law: the law which many would argue is the source of the concept of equality that is operating in our legal systems. We are, according to Kant’s moral reasoning, free to choose both the maxim of our action, and also whether to perform the action in question under the condition of equality.
Many Political Philosophers will readily recognise the importance of the combination of these two ideas of freedom and equality insofar as the formation of the concept of Human Rights is concerned. This is the same concept we encounter in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It should also be recognised in this context that Kant conceived of the founding of such an institution of a United Nations in the late eighteenth century in order to solve the political problem of international conflict and war. It is clear to all discerning commentators, that Kant’s Political Philosophy is entwined with his Ethics and Philosophical Psychology, two of the realms of consideration involved in our putative progress toward a distant kingdom of ends. The nature of man, Kant argues in this context, is to be antagonistic toward his fellow man because of an inherent ambivalent disposition toward being simultaneously social and unsociable. Humankind, it is argued, needs a master, but does not wish to be mastered by any other human being. The laws of the polis are predicated upon the above conditions, and the telos of a possible kingdom of ends is built into the very structure of laws. When the kingdom of ends approaches, it is argued, moral judgments will no longer be imperatives in the sense they are today. The need for laws might wither away as imperatives become generally or universally actualised, and perhaps History (of moral development) comes to an end. Of course, significant events will continue to occur internationally. Kant, in an essay entitled “What is Enlightenment?”, adds an “Anthropological” account of man’s role in what he called the Age of Enlightenment (to be distinguished from an enlightened age in which the Kingdom of Ends has been established). He discusses our collective characteristics in no uncertain terms:
“It is because of laziness and cowardice that so great a part of humankind, after nature has long since emancipated them from other people’s direction (naturaliter maiorennes), nevertheless gladly remain minors for life, and that it becomes so easy for others to set themselves up as guardians. It is so comfortable to be a minor! If I have a book that understands for me, a doctor who decides upon a regimen for me and so forth, I need not trouble myself at all.”(Practical Philosophy P.17)(24)
This combination of the descriptive thesis of the “crooked timber of humanity”, and the moral challenge daring humanity to use their reason provides, then, the educational message Kant wishes to proclaim on behalf of the progress of mankind during the Age of Enlightenment. Freedom, of course, is the key component in freeing ourselves from this so-called “self-incurred minority”:
“For this enlightenment, however, nothing is required but Freedom, namely freedom to make public use of one’s reason in all matters. But I hear from all sides the cry: Do not argue! The officer says Do not argue but drill! The tax official: Do not argue but pay! The clergyman: Do not argue but believe!…The public use of one’s reason must always be free and it alone can bring about enlightenment among human beings.” (PR P.18)(25)
Kant is arguing here, not for civil disobedience in matters of tax, religion and military matters, but rather for a climate of debate about all matters of concern for men living in society. One should pay one’s taxes, believe, and march, when required, but all such activities can be accompanied by healthy discussions about the reasons for obedience. Kant, we recall, was himself subject to an injunction to cease using his reason publicly in matters of religion, by his Emperor no less. He obeyed Emperor Fredrik whilst he was still alive, but continued his critical religious discussion in Enlightenment spirit after Fredrik’s death. In continuing writing on religious matters, Kant was merely embracing his own vision for the Age of Enlightenment. Kant was, of course, well aware of the tendency for Governments, since the writings of Hobbes, to treat its citizens like cogs in a huge machine, and not accord them the dignity they deserved in matters of morality and freedom. This was one of the reasons why Kant urged us to dare to use our reason and overcome our natural laziness and cowardice. Freedom, for Kant, then, is the idea of reason that turns the giant wheel of the progress of civilisation. This challenge to use one’s reason also echoes once again the thesis of the Groundwork that it is not the consequences of one’s actions one should be calculating when one is acting morally, but rather the “principle of the will”(PR P 55). Consequences are what the lazy and cowardly man fears the most and relates to desires and inclinations that in turn can steer us away from doing what is experienced painfully as our duty. Dutiful action, in a context of reasoned debate, then, is the highest unconditioned good that can be found in the arena of moral action. The mind, for many scientifically inclined Philosophers such as Hobbes, resembles a machine that works in accordance with laws, but for Kant moral consciousness is constituted by the moral law, because man is a being who has the capacity to act constitutively in the name of these laws. Reason, in such contexts, derives particular actions from the moral law because it can represent these laws in thought. However, it is because we are also so constituted by our desires and inclinations steering us toward our own comfort and happiness that the moral law takes the form of an imperative–the form of an ought-statement. The mind of a moral agent represents an objective principle as that which ought to be instantiated via the performing of a particular action.
Kant represents well the complex constitution of the human mind in terms of three systems of cognition that can all relate to action, namely Sensibility, Understanding, and Reason. When Reason and Understanding are operative, the law constitutes grounds for acting that are universally valid for every rational being.Principles of action, according to the Groundwork, can both also be what Kant calls rules of skill or counsels of prudence, and in both cases the ought statements relate to the means to achieve some end that can in fact be morally wrong or even evil as is the case of the poisoner who behaves like a doctor in administering a substance (to kill his enemy rather than cure a patient), or the case of the poisoner who “prudently ” murders his parents in order to inherit their fortune and lead a comfortable happy life. In both cases, it is the inclinations of the faculty of Sensibility that steers the outcome (consequences) and are thereby the “conditions” of the action. In the case of actions steered by the faculties of the Understanding, Reason, and the categorical imperative, the grounds of the action are not “conditioned” by the “causes” of the “inclinations” but rather the grounds of the action are “constituted” by what is unconditioned and necessary. This reasoning process overrides sensible inclinations, as in the case of the subject who considers poisoning someone but abandons the course of action because it is categorically wrong (not constituted by the categorical imperative).
Imperatives of skills such as the building of a house are “world-building” skills and when they are not in contradiction with the moral law, they shape the world we live in positively. The proposition expressing the relation of means to ends (adding a house to an existing village or city) is, according to Kant, an analytic proposition that has the hypothetical form of “If I will the effect, I must will the action to bring the effect about”. It is obvious that there is nothing necessary about the antecedent. In this proposition the necessity lies in the relation of the means to the end, i.e. I might change my mind about willing the effect or the end and in such circumstances willing the means becomes otiose. Prudential propositions concerning prudential actions, on the other hand, are directed to one’s personal happiness and are designated as synthetic judgments in Kant’s system. Here the end of happiness is so indeterminate, i.e. we do not very often have accurate knowledge of what it is that would make us happy because what we think we know seems to vary with the circumstances. If I am ill, I believe I will be happy when my health returns. Becoming healthy I realise how poor I am, and believe that if I become rich I will be happy. When I become rich I become aware of the possibility of losing all my money and enter the political arena in an attempt to avoid this possible consequence of political decisions (cf. Cephalus in the Republic). Becoming politically powerful merely makes me aware of the possibility of losing power and the dangers this brings with it in unstable political systems. This sequence of events demonstrates the relativity of the concept of happiness that can only be universally valid under the categorical unconditioned imperative that contributes to making us worthy of being happy. One of the cases of the categorical imperative discussed in the Groundwork is “one ought not to promise anything deceitfully”. This statement is not to be analysed hypothetically, e.g. “one ought not to make lying promises lest if this comes to light one lose one’s credibility”. Kant clearly distinguishes here between different kinds of judgments guiding the will: synthetic judgments of prudential counsel, analytic judgments of rules of skill and the synthetic a priori judgments of the categorical imperative e.g. “Act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law”. It is this formulation that helps to define our duties in the realm of action. Kant further distinguishes two kinds of duties. Firstly, there are duties, the defiance of which, constitute fully-fledged practical contradictions and secondly, there are duties the defiance of which can be thought without contradiction but which make the world an unnecessarily difficult place in which to live. The Moral Law rests on a philosophical foundation: a foundation of absolute worth which Kant also conceives of in terms of an end-in-itself in a second formulation of the categorical imperative that can also be found in the Groundwork. Kant, in this context, insists that the rational human being:
“exists as an end in itself, not merely as a means to be used by this or that will at its
discretion: instead he must in all his actions, whether directed to himself or also to other rational beings, always be regarded at the same time as an end”(PR P.79)(26)
Associated with this idea of an end is a telos or teleological terminating point of a civilisation in which all humans have evolved into moral beings daring to use their reason in relation to both beliefs and actions. This terminating point Kant
calls the Kingdom of Ends:
“By a kingdom of ends, I understand a systematic union of various rational beings through common laws. Now laws determine ends in terms of their universal validity if we abstract from the personal differences of rational beings as well as from all the content of their private ends we shall be able to think of a whole of all ends in systematic connection, in that is, a kingdom of ends which is possible in accordance with the above principles.”(PR P.83)(27)
A rational being becomes then a citizen of this kingdom and both aids in the creation of these laws as well as himself being subject to its laws, i.e. he is both citizen and sovereign in this ideal kingdom. Partly because of this dual characteristic the law is deemed worthy of respect, but also perhaps because the will is a law unto itself and the source of the dignity of a rational human being. This property of the will being a law unto itself, a causa sui, is equated by Kant with practical reason and related intimately to the practical freedom of the individual. Kant returns to one of the themes of the Enlightenment and contrasts this autonomy or freedom with what he terms heteronomy, or acting in accordance with the principle of self-love and the subjective prudential interests that constitute such self-love. Heteronomy is in turn connected with the world of sense in which I can have an interest in being well when sick, rich when poor, in being politically active to protect one’s fortune, being anxious about losing one’s power, etc. etc. The world of sense is, in more senses than one, a Heraclitean world, forever changing. The world of understanding and reason, on the other hand, is a world of stability in which a deceitful promise is always and forever wrong and evil. We are, Kant insists, denizens of the world of sense and citizens of the world of understanding in virtue of being a possessor of the power of Reason, an active power, in contrast to the passive receptive capacity of Sensibility. Intelligent beings inhabit the intellectual world of the Understanding. This is one of the reasons why the rational human being conceives of practical law in terms of an imperative expressed in ought premises in a practical syllogism:
“The human being who in this way regards himself as an intelligence, thereby puts himself in a different order of things and in a relation to determining grounds of an altogether different kind when he thinks of himself as an intelligence endowed with a will, and consequently with causality, that when he perceives himself as a phenomenon in the world of sense(as he also really is) and subjects his causality to external determination in accordance with laws of nature. Now he soon becomes aware that both can take place at the same time, and indeed must do so. For that a thing in appearance(belonging to the world of sense)is subject to certain laws from which as a thing or being in itself it is independent contains not the least contradiction: that he must represent and think of himself in this two-fold way, however, rests as regards the first on consciousness of himself as an object affected through the senses and as regards the second a consciousness of himself as an intelligence that is as independent of sensible impressions in the use of reason(hence as belonging to the world of understanding)” (PR P.103)(28)
It is via the practical law of action then, that the self as noumenon becomes conscious of itself as an end in itself, or as a potential citizen of a Kingdom of ends. This self cannot be cognised completely, but rather stands as Kant puts it at the end of his work “Groundwork”, at the very boundary of human reason and at the boundary of what Kant calls an archetypal world. The only other super-sensible being in Kant’s Philosophy is that of God who governs the natural world with laws of nature in a deterministic system that cannot be conceived by
us because:
“it is impossible through metaphysics to proceed by sure inferences from knowledge of this world to the concept of God and to the proof of his existence, for this reason: that in order to say that this world was possible only through a God(as we must think this concept) we would have to cognise this world as the most perfect whole possible and, in order to do so, cognise all possible worlds as well(so as to be able to compare them with this one), and would therefore have to be omniscient. Finally, however, it is absolutely impossible to cognise the existence of this being from mere concepts, because every existential proposition, that is, every proposition that says of a being of which I frame a concept, that it exists–is a synthetic proposition, that is one by which I go beyond that concept and say more about it than was thought in the concept, namely, that to this concept in the understanding there corresponds an object outside the understanding which it is absolutely impossible to elicit by any reference.”(PR P. 252)(29)
What is lacking here is “a precisely determined concept of this original being”(PR P.252)(30). It is, Kant argues, via the practical concept of the highest good as given by the moral law that we can determine the properties of a supreme being who is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent and externally existing. The idea of God, in other words, for Kant, is not something that could fill his mind with awe and admiration:
“Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and reverence, the more often and the more steadily we reflect upon them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me. I do not need to search for them and merely conjecture them as though they were veiled in obscurity or in the transcendent region beyond my horizon: I see them before me and connect them immediately with the consciousness of my existence. The first begins from the place I occupy in the external world of sense and extends the connection in which I stand into an unbounded magnitude with worlds upon worlds, and systems of systems, and moreover into the unbounded times of their periodic motion, their beginning and their duration. The second begins from my invisible self, my personality,, and presents me in a world which has true infinity, but which can be discovered only by the understanding, and I cognise that my connection with that world(and thereby with all these visible worlds as well) is not merely contingent as in the first case, but universal and necessary. The first view of a countless multitude of worlds annihilates as it were my importance as an actual creature, which after it has been for a short time provided with vital force(one knows not how) must give back to the planet (a mere speck in the universe) the matter from which it came. the second, on the contrary infinitely raises my worth as an intelligence by my personality, in which the moral law reveals to me a life independent of animality and even of the whole sensible world, at least so far as this may be inferred from the purposive determination of my existence by this law, a determination not restricted to the conditions and boundaries of this life but reaching into the infinite.”(PR P.269) (31)
Our explanations of the scope and limits of our life begin with an immediate consciousness of my existence that involves the starry heavens without and the moral law within me. In the case of the universe outside of me, I am somehow sensibly aware of unbounded space and time that in turn quickens in me a feeling of my finite animal life on this speck of a planet. In the case of the latter, I become aware of infinity via the power of understanding that any active consciousness possesses, and that transcends the sensible world of space and time. The idea of God is conspicuous by its absence in the above conclusion of the Critique of Practical Reason. The idea of God has been clearly replaced by Enlightenment man, finite in his matter but embracing the infinite in the forms of his moral/practical understanding and the idea of freedom. There is a suggestion here not merely of a matter-form (hylomorphic) relation, but also of a theoretical understanding of man in which the powers of Sensibility, space and time, are built upon and transformed by the powers of the understanding and reason. If this is a correct interpretation, then Kant is here demonstrating an Aristotelian commitment to the philosophical psychology that is required to support his moral theory. The concepts of the goodwill and the moral law are indeed innovations, but they fit neatly into the incomplete moral puzzle left by the ethical speculations of Aristotle: speculations on arête (virtue), and eudaimonia (flourishing life). Kant’s theory leaves no space for a theoretical view of God’s existence but he believes that we can practically hope for a just God to reward the life led responsibly: the life constituted by the moral law. Enlightenment man, then, understands his physical place in the universe but transcends this finitude with an understanding and reason that can bring about the comprehension of infinitude .
In the Third Critique, the Critique of Judgment, this view of Enlightenment man is reiterated in a context of witnessing the power of a mighty waterfall. The first moment of such an experience makes man aware of his finitude and puniness in the face of such sublime physical power. The second moment is a moment of transcendence in which man becomes aware of himself as a moral power in an intellectual universe, a power that transcends any physical power. The intellectual world supervenes in the second moment and the sensible world shrinks into the background of one’s consciousness of one’s own existence. In this account, we see no space for an idea of God, but it is nonetheless clear that Kant is not arguing that God is any sense dead, or non-existent. Kant was not a God-intoxicated philosopher like Spinoza or Leibniz, but neither was he an atheist. Kant clearly argues that our moral dispositions give rise to a faith in God’s existence, a faith that springs from a Hope for a flourishing life as a consequence of leading a worthy moral life. The future Kingdom of Ends may sometimes look to be a very secular vision but it also has a theological dimension that realises our hopes in terms of the sacred and the holy.
Enlightenment man has Enlightenment duties and these are systematically outlined in Kant’s last work “The Metaphysics of Morals”. The moral revolution of Kant’s duty-based ethics reveals clearly the limitations of Aristotelian virtue theory. Aristotle’s theory does not link Philosophical Psychology to ethical theory in the way in which Kant does. This poses difficulties in relation to the questions as to how and why the law binds man to the Good, as well as difficulties relating to the Rights of Man that emerge when the systems of Law and Morality converge. The Metaphysics of Morals is in two parts: the metaphysical a priori principles of the doctrine of Right, and the metaphysical a priori principles of the doctrine of Virtue. In an early section entitled “On the Relation of the Faculties of the Human Mind to Moral Laws”, Kant presents his views on the kind of Philosophical Psychology that is required to sustain a moral theory:
“the faculty of desire is the faculty to be, by means of one’s representations, the cause of the objects of these representations. The faculty of a being to act in accordance with its representations is called life”(PR P.373)32
Insofar as we take pleasure in a representation, this pleasure is nothing cognitive but simply a relation to a subject in the form of a feeling. Not being cognitive capacities, pleasure and displeasure cannot have explanations beyond what forms of consciousness are involved in certain circumstances. The connection of desire to pleasure ,forms what Kant calls an interest. Desire is also related to understanding and consciousness in the following ways:
“The faculty of desire in accordance with concepts, insofar as the ground determining it to action lies within itself and not in its object, is called a faculty to do or refrain from doing what one pleases. Insofar as it is joined with one’s consciousness of the ability to bring about its object by one’s action it is called choice: if it is not joined with this consciousness it is called a wish. The faculty of desire, whose inner determining ground, hence even what pleases it, lies within the subject’s reason is called the will. The will is, therefore, the faculty of desire considered not so much in relation to action (as choice is) but rather in relation to the ground determining choice to action. The will itself, strictly speaking, has no determining ground: insofar as it can determine choice, it is instead practical reason itself.. That choice which can be determined by pure reason is called free choice. That which can be determined only by inclination (sensible impulse stimulus) would be animal choice…. Freedom of choice is thus independence from being determined by sensible impulses: this is the negative concept of freedom. the positive concept of freedom is that of the ability of pure reason to be of itself practical. But this is not possible except by the subjection of the maxim of every action to the condition of its qualifying as universal law… And since the maxims of human beings, being based on subjective causes, do not of themselves conform with those objective principles, reason can prescribe this law only as an imperative that commands or prohibits absolutely.”(PR P. 374-5)33
The above is a sketch of the Philosophical psychology involved in action and its relation to the laws of freedom, and these remarks also serve to assist us in distinguishing juridical laws regulating external action from internal ethical laws that are the determining ground of action. In the case of juridical law, freedom is involved in the external use of choice, whereas, ethical law is determined by an internal law of freedom, and its relation to the will (and laws of reason). For humans, whose choices are intellectually determined by the categorical imperative, such choices transform contingent action into necessary action: action we must do or are obligated or duty bound to do. In such circumstances, certain actions then become permitted or forbidden. Now moral feelings of pleasure/displeasure may be involved in moral action, but these are subjective and merely affect the mind. Feelings in themselves cannot authorise moral action because they are not “active” in the correct ontological sense: the kind of activity that constitutes moral action is marked by Kant via his use of the word “deed”, which is a consequence of the freedom and responsibility of the agent or person who then has these deeds imputed to him/her as a moral personality. This imputation involves judgments of rightness or wrongness as determined by the moral law and its demands:
“Laws proceed from the will, maxims from choice. In man, the latter is a free choice: the will which is directed to nothing beyond the law itself, cannot be called free or unfree, since it is not directed to actions but immediately to giving laws for the maxims of actions (and is, therefore, practical reason itself). Only choice is therefore called free.”(PR P.380)34
External laws, then, clearly involve the call of duty but, being external, they further require the incentive of the moral law for the legal contract between the Law and the citizen body to be not just a social contract, but a moral contract that will lead to a Kingdom of Ends in which all citizens can lead a flourishing life. It is in this context that Rights emerge, because Rights are predicated upon the condition that my fellow citizens have duties to respect my rights as I have a duty to respect theirs. Duty, therefore, is the unconditional ground of all Right. This is partly also why there exists an asymmetrical relation between law and morality which expresses itself in the primacy of morality, making it the regulator of law but not vice versa: laws can be corrected on moral grounds but moral laws cannot be corrected on legal grounds. This is why in the Kingdom of Ends in which the idea of duty may be an incentive in everyone’s choice of actions, legal systems would shrink proportionately in accordance with the prevalence of this form of moral awareness. Given that, according to Kant, we are one hundred thousand years away from this pure cosmopolitan state of society, we meanwhile require both moral imperatives and coercion of the law for pathological lawbreakers in order for society to “flourish”. We, therefore, have an external duty to both obey and respect laws of the land–an obligation Socrates clearly on behalf of Philosophy agreed to in his refusal to accept an invitation to escape from prison. Kant defines “The Universal Principle of Right” in the following way:
“Any action is right if it can coexist with everyone’s freedom in accordance with a universal law, or if on its maxims the freedom of choice of each can coexist with everyone’s freedom in accordance with moral law.”(PR P. 387)(35)
So, the concept of a Right is connected to duty but also to regulating practical relations between the members of a citizen body. The form of this regulation must, however, not reside in feelings or the imaginative activity of wishing, because such a form of consciousness without the power to bring about what is intended, or the use of the powers of understanding and reason, does not take into consideration the freedom of others to lead a flourishing rational life. Whoever disregards the freedom of anyone else to lead a flourishing life, wrongs this person because they too have a right to such a life. The source of such judgments lies not in any empirical reference to an external law, but rather in a normative reference to understanding, reason, and the choices a man makes in accordance with a pure practical reason that is both universal and necessary. Should a moral agent choose not to do what one ought to do (as defined by the categorical imperative), and in so doing infringe upon the freedom of others, then, Kant argues, the legal concept of right justifies coercion. Kant discusses both private rights of ownership and public Rights in this context, both of which involve enforceability by the State via coercion. In the latter case he refers to a general united will that is constituted by three governmental institutions: the sovereign legislative authority of the people, the executive ruling authority, and the judicial authority in the form of a judge and fair legal processes. Kant has the following to say:
“These are like the three propositions in a practical syllogism: the major premise, which contains the law of that will: the minor premise which contains the command to behave in accordance with the law, that is, the principle of subsumption under the law: and the conclusion which contains the verdict (sentence), what is laid down as right in the case at hand.”(PR P.457)(36)
It is in this context that Kant then introduces the next major element of his theory of rights, namely, equality. No one can be superior to the general will and demand that others be bound by it, but not oneself. Power resides in the three founding institutions of the state or commonwealth, none of which can be identified with one superior person or one superior group of persons. Kant refers interestingly in this context to the role of the people in the legal process, a role in which representatives of the people form a jury of peers that decides upon the guilt or innocence of a defendant that has been accused of breaking the law and wronging either an individual, group of individuals or even the State as a whole. This image of a tribunal that decides in accordance with due process is an interesting image that occurs in all three Critiques in various forms. It is via these institutions of Right that the State manifests its freedom or “preserves itself in accordance with laws of freedom”(PR P. 461). Citizens who find themselves in such a Commonwealth may not be happy because, Kant argues, happiness may come more easily in a state of nature or even in a despotic state:
“By the well being of a state is understood instead that condition in which its constitution conforms most fully to principles of right: it is that condition which reason, by a categorical imperative, makes it obligatory for me to strive after.”(PR P.461)(37)
The General Will of the people is, according to Kant, sovereign and has no duties to the people but only rights which the people are obligated to fulfil. The organ of the people–a ruler or government might, therefore, breach the moral law with relative impunity, i.e. the people will have no right to displace him, but only the right to complain about breaches. Any attempt to attack the person or the life of the ruler ought, argues Kant, to bring the death sentence because the attack is nothing less than an attack on the fatherland–an act of high treason. Rulers have rights to impose taxes on the people but only, Kant insists, for the purposes of their own preservation. The poor have a right to be supported by the wealthy, Kant also argues. Kant claims the following in relation to the rights of nations with respect to each other:
“Now morally practical reason pronounces in us its irresistible veto:-there is to be no war, neither war between you and me in a state of nature, nor war between us as states, which, though they are internally in a lawful condition, are still externally (in relation to one another) in a lawless condition: for war is not the way in which everyone should seek his rights. So the question is no longer whether perpetual peace is something real. Instead one must act as if it is something real, though perhaps it is not: we must work toward establishing perpetual peace and put an end to the heinous waging of war.”(PR P. 491)(38).
The second part of the Metaphysics of Morals discusses the doctrine of virtue and begins by maintaining that inner freedom is the condition of the possibility of virtue. Here, Kant clearly envisages a homo noumenon, playing the role of a master over a homo phenomenon conceived of as a cauldron of slavish sensible affects and passions. Homo noumenon uses reason to govern the unruly homo phenomenon. There is no logical space for external mastery in the realm of the duties of virtue, as there is for the duties of right. The imperative of the former duties of virtue is quite simply the duty to “know thyself!”. This knowledge involves, amongst other things, knowing that, because one is a homo phenomenon, and therefore guilty of much wrongdoing in the course of one’s life, the wronged in turn will wish for vengeance in the same way in which we, being wronged ,will wish for vengeance from those who have wronged us. To avoid seeking vengeance upon oneself for one’s wrongdoings, Kant argues it is better to form a duty to forgive others. The spirit of this attitude is not one of meek toleration but rather that of a knowledge-driven attitude that sees the whole spectrum of human behaviour both systematically and in the spirit of humanism. Such an attitude obviously gives rise, in turn, to a general attitude or duty to respect others as ends-in-themselves. This also entails that I have a duty to respect even the most vicious of men and the undoubted humanity that must be part of their moral personality. Having dealt with this more shadowy aspect of man’s personality Kant moves on to consider friendship in a way similar to the way in which Aristotle did:
“Friendship(considered in its perfection) is the union of two persons through equal mutual love and respect–It is easy to see that this is an ideal of each participating and sharing sympathetically in the others well being through the morally good will that unites them, and even though it does not produce the complete happiness of life, the adoption of this ideal in their disposition toward each other makes them deserving of happiness: hence human beings have a duty of friendship”(PR P P. 584-5)(39)
Kant interestingly and perhaps somewhat paradoxically applies the physical concepts of attraction and repulsion to human social relations and requires an ideal balance of love and respect if the ideal of friendship is to be realised or actualised. Presumably because of the difficulty in establishing this ideal balance, Kant modifies the above claim to a duty to “strive for” friendship. Kant evokes Aristotle’s words in this context, “My dear friends, there is no such thing as a friend”.
As an example of the difficulties that can occur in this process of striving, Kant discusses how, for example, pointing out perceived faults in a potential friend may be construed as a lack of respect and result in offence or insult. The love talked about in friendship cannot be mere affect because that is something that goes up in smoke after a while, Kant argues. This striving after friendship occurs in a social context and requires, therefore, a balance between revealing one’s judgments about others and keeping them to oneself.
There are also external tokens of this process of striving for friendship in social contexts, and they can take the forms of affability, sociability, courtesy, hospitality, and gentleness. These “tokens” assist in bringing us nearer to “true” friendship. Kant ends the Metaphysics of Morals with a discourse on the so-called methods of ethics in which he claims correctly that virtues are not innate but must be acquired during one’s life. This is manifested in the strength of a man’s resolution to, for example, disregard powerful passions and inclinations. Methods of teaching ethics include appealing dogmatically to memory (catechism) and appeal to reason (via dialogues). In dialogue form, the Socratic method will obviously present itself as a possible pedagogical instrument. Virtue can also be cultivated, Kant argues, by the example of the behaviour of others setting up a standard to imitate. In this section, Kant concludes by asking whether religion as a discipline, belongs to philosophical morals or not, given the relation of practical reason to the theoretical idea of God (that lies beyond the scope of the philosophical perspective because of the absence of proof of existence or nonexistence). Claiming then, that we have duties toward such a being appears therefore paradoxical. Insofar as the historical teachings of the revelations are concerned, however, these appear to fall within the boundaries of “mere reason”, as Kant puts it, and these teachings may well harmonise with the results or the telos of the operation of practical reason. The relation of our will to the “will of God” is also, Christians claim, a matter of love and respect, but here in fact the relation between the two entities is not that of mutual love and respect, but rather a transcendental affair taking us far beyond the realm of ethics into the realm of the holy.
In this realm of the holy the relation to an “absent being”, or to use Julian Jaynes’ term, “Deus absconditis” might seem as if this fact inevitably places us in the realm of the imagination but it would probably be more correct to claim with Aristotle that the entity with which we are forming a relation is that of “pure form”, where the term “form” refers to a principle rather than an actuality which in the case of God, as far as we are concerned seems as if it must be necessarily absent. None of this however precludes a rationalist approach to the existence of this holy being: an approach that requires Reason operating in relation to the higher mental processes of the human form of life. The Platonic “form of the Good” is the highest “form”, and this form is related to justice (diké), knowledge (epistemé) virtue(areté), and perhaps technical knowledge related to skill (techné). Aristotle believes that a certain use of thought and reasoning is divine and without object in the normal sense of the term. To the question, what is God thinking about, the Metaphysics gives the answer that God is self-absorbed and thinking about him/her self. God, it appears, knows him/ herself and is certain of his/her existence in a way we can never be. We, according to Kant, can only have faith in the existence of God: hope that he exists and that the Kingdom of ends is coming closer. It is this form of the Good that God is most concerned to bring about and make actual in an actualising process guided by forms(principles). Given the fact that, according to Aristotle, we are political animals ,the kingdom of ends must have a political cosmopolitan aspect which we must assist in bringing about as an object with the mass operation of good wills. It is, however, Religion which is primarily the concern of Kant given its important central role in Enlightenment societies.
Kant begins his work “Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason” by referring to two opposing world visions of human development:
“All allow that the world began with something good: with the Golden Age, with life in Paradise, or an even happier life in communion with heavenly beings. But then they make this happiness disappear like a dream and they spitefully hasten the decline into evil (moral evil, with which the physical always went hand in hand) in an accelerating fall so that now (this “now, is, however, as old as history) we live in the final age: the Last Day and the destruction of the world are knocking on the door and in certain regions of India the Judge and Destroyer of the world Rutra (otherwise known as Shiva or Shiwa) already is worshipped as the God now holding power, after Vishnu, the Sustainer of the World, grown weary of the office he had received from Brahman the Creator, resigned it centuries ago (“Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason (RBR P.45)(40)
The second vision is a more modern Enlightenment vision which maintains that civilisation is moving from a worse condition to a better condition, at least insofar as moral growth is concerned. Neither view appears to be simply based on experience, which it appears, could be organised by either of the above visions. World views relating to our experience of life is not easily organised in terms of propositions. That is, it is not clear that what Paul Ricoeur called theodicy (Philosophical theology), can reconcile the truth of three propositions: “God is all-powerful”, “God is absolutely good”, “Evil exists”. In his work “Figuring the Sacred”, Ricoeur points out that only two of the above propositions can be true and logically compatible or logically coherent. Ricoeur also believes, as Kant did not, that the solution to the problem is to move away from epistemological and metaphysical considerations and toward a phenomenological/existential approach to the experience of evil. Kant might also have regarded the above three propositions as problematically combined, but in placing his investigation at the level of judgment (and the grounds or conditions of judgments), he does not allow himself to slide into a sceptical experience-based account.
Kant’s strategy is to move these judgments into the realm of Practical Reason and the arena of self-knowledge as characterised by his Philosophical Psychology. This strategy results in an inquiry that focuses more on the meaning of these judgments than their problematic truth-value.
Similarly, the above two paradoxically opposed world-visions outlined by Kant are not to be analysed theoretically, but rather practically, and in terms of a critical acknowledgment of the limitations of our knowledge of a noumenal God. This approach prevents categorical judgments about the power of God’s goodness or the relation of evil to such Being. The displacement of these judgments into the realm of practical reason secularises a perspective that presents an individual striving to actualise the moral law globally (in accordance with the idea of freedom), in a very secular Kingdom of Ends. God is, however, not completely displaced but retains his place in the minds of Enlightenment man as an idea of reason: God as an idea is part of the system of judgments that answer the Enlightenment question “What can I hope for?”.
The achievements of Newtonian science in the minds of many working in the scientific community brought us a more coherent understanding of the physical universe, and also, in Kant’s view ,took us to the boundary-gates of understanding noumenal reality insofar as the physical world of physical motions and forces are concerned: took us, that is, to the limits of understanding the law-governed causally structured universe. Indeed, it might be the case that our modern view of science, that largely is a result of the technological applications of Newtonian science, originated in Enlightenment expectations. This modern view characterised by Hannah Arendt in terms of a modern attitude expressed in terms of the words “Everything is possible and nothing is impossible”(no recognition of limits or boundaries of any kind), would certainly not have been shared by Kant, who would have been sceptical of such a dogmatic attitude given his critical method of exploring the limitations of our reasoning and understanding about physical reality.
Kant might have taken us to the limits of our understanding insofar as our theoretical understanding of physical reality is concerned, but he also insisted that there was much that needed to be understood about practical reality in order to bring about an ordered state of our individual and communal lives. There was also much that needed to be done to bring about this order: a process that he envisaged might take one hundred thousand years.
Involved in this practical understanding and reasoning process was, of course, the necessary exploration of the phenomenon of evil. If we are correct in our assumption that Kant largely accepted a hylomorphic view of the essence and development of human nature and the human condition, then one consequence of such a position is that what he called radical evil is not a matter of an innate physical disposition, but a matter, rather, of a choice to do evil as a consequence of a failure of practical reasoning: a failure of our choosing to do what we have the power to do. After noting that experience can be used to support the thesis that man, by nature, is predisposed to both good and evil, Kant rejects appeals to human nature, insofar as it is determined by physical natural laws, and adopts instead an approach that appeals to philosophical psychology and moral law:
“let it be noted that by “the nature of a human being” one only understands here the subjective ground–whatever it may be–of the exercise of the human being’s freedom in general (under objective moral laws) antecedent to every deed that falls within the scope of the senses. But this subjective ground must, in turn, itself always be a deed of freedom…. Hence the ground of evil cannot lie in any object determining the power of choice through inclination, not in any natural impulses, but only in a rule that the power of choice itself produces for the exercise of its freedom i.e. in a maxim. One cannot, however, go on asking what, in a human being might be the subjective ground of the adoption of this maxim rather than its opposite. For if this ground were ultimately no longer itself a maxim, but merely a natural impulse, the entire exercise of freedom could be traced back to a determination through natural causes– and this would contradict freedom. Whenever we, therefore, say, “The human being is by nature good” or “He is by nature evil”, this only means that he holds within himself a first ground (to us inscrutable) for the adoption of good or evil (unlawful) maxims and that he holds this ground qua human universally–in such a way, therefore, that by his maxims he expresses at the same time, the character of his species”(RBR P.46-7)(41)
This inscrutable ground for Kant (cf. Aristotle) lies in the agent’s freedom to choose. Insofar as this is innate it is only as a ground antecedent to choice in accordance with maxims. One can neither praise nor blame nature for a choice of maxims that are formed under the auspices of reason and understanding. One can, as Aristotle does, however, define human nature in terms of its powers of discourse and rationality, but this is a hylomorphic explanation and not a pure species “description”. Indeed the hylomorphic definition is equally descriptive and prescriptive.
Both discourse and rationality will be involved in the process of relating the incentive of the moral law to its maxims. This is the source of all moral praise and blame and also the reason why the disjunctive hypothetical to the effect that “The human being is by nature either morally good or morally evil” is not definitive of man’s nature, and merely refers to the experiential judgment that both possibilities, insofar as they refer to particular maxims and actions, are instantiated in the empirical world and can be experienced as such under the concepts of good and evil. These concepts, however, apply to maxims and actions, and not universally to the nature of an agent, who in the empirical world of particulars is capable of doing evil one moment and good the next.
In a section entitled “Concerning the original predisposition to good in human nature” Kant, in hylomorphic spirit, refers to three themes which in certain respects resemble the hylomorphic definition of man by Aristotle: i.e. a rational animal capable of discourse:
“The predisposition to the animality of the human being, as a living being To the humanity in him, as a living, and at the same time rational being To his personality, as a rational and at the same time responsible being” (42)
Happiness, according to Kant, (the principle of self-love in disguise), is involved at the first level of the three themes outlined above. It is involved in the self-preservation of the species, and also with the instinct for communing with other human beings. Associated with this self-love are the vices of savagery, gluttony, lust, and lawlessness. Rationality appears at the second level of our predispositions in which one begins to calculate rationally in terms of a means-ends calculus that is comparative. The vice associated with this is, Kant claims, associated with the fact that the wish for equality is so easily transposed into a desire for superiority, thereby giving rise to inclinations of rivalry and jealousy.
The third level of predispositions refers to a moral personality where respect for the moral law is predicated upon a power of choice that is the source for our praise for the cultivation of such a personality. Given the universality and necessity associated with the moral law, this personality is not grounded in the power of our sensibility and its relations to particulars, but rather on our intellectual powers of understanding and reason. This form of rationality is neither comparative nor instrumental, but rather absolute and categorical. In the section entitled “Concerning the propensity to evil in human nature” Kant
makes it clear that although there are three different levels of this propensity:
“moral evil is only possible as the determination of free power of choice and this power for its part can be judged good or evil only on the basis of its maxims, must reside in the subjective ground of the possibility of the deviation of the maxims from the moral law.” (RBR P.53)(43)
Moral corruption, for Kant, then, is merely the
“propensity of the power of choice to maxims that subordinate the incentives of the moral law to others (not moral ones)…… it reverses the ethical order as regards the incentives of a free power of choice: and although with this reversal there can still be legally good actions yet the minds attitude is thereby corrupted at its root (so far as the moral disposition is concerned) and hence the human being is designated as evil”(RBR P.54)44
Kant does not, however, characterise his position in the terms we encounter in modern Philosophical Psychology, and therefore prefers to speak not of action in relation to the will and its maxims, but rather of deeds. Actions can be reduced to particular behaviour, materially considered ,whereas deeds have a dimension of meaning that is more formal:
“The propensity to evil is a deed in the first meaning, and at the same time the formal ground of every deed contrary to law according to the second meaning (i.e. of a deed) that resists the law materially and is then called vice, and the first indebtedness remains even though the second may be repeatedly avoided (because of incentives that are not part of the law). The former is an intelligible deed, cognizable through reason alone, apart from any temporal condition: the latter is sensible, empirical, given in time” (RBR P.55)45
But what then, does it mean when one judges that “the human being is by nature evil”? Well, the judgment cannot be in terms of the materialistic concept of behaviour but must rather be on formal grounds:
“In view of what has been said above, the statement “The human being is evil” cannot mean anything else than that he is conscious of the moral law and yet has incorporated into his maxim the (occasional) deviation from it.” (RBR P.55)(46)
The quality of evil in the human being is not then derivable from the concept of the human being and is therefore not a necessary judgment:
“but rather that, according to the cognition we have of the human being through experience, he cannot be judged otherwise, in other words, we may presuppose evil as subjectively necessary in every human being, even the best. Now since this propensity must itself be considered morally evil, hence not a natural predisposition but something that a human being can be held accountable for, and consequently must consist in maxims of the power of choice contrary to the law, and yet because of freedom, such maxims must be viewed as accidental…..so we call this ground a natural propensity to evil…. we can even further call it a radical innate evil in human nature (not any the less brought upon us by ourselves) ” RBR P.56)(47)
We bring evil upon ourselves and suffer the consequences, and to the extent that our lamentations do not recognise our own responsibility, they are inauthentically projecting upon the world a fault that lies un-cognised within us. The fault line appears to run between a selfish love of oneself and a selfless appreciation of the universal and necessary worth of one’s deeds that benefit others.
Animal life and human life in a state of nature, obeys the call of sensibility, and therefore cannot be praised or blamed for the presence or absence of a moral personality. Human life in a Hobbesian state of nature is therefore not yet sufficiently conscious of its moral personality to be a subject of moral evaluation. Rousseau’s ideal picture of the noble savage, living freely and independent of the vices civilisation generates, does not, in Kant’s view, sufficiently acknowledge the vices of a state of nature, namely savagery, gluttony, lust and lawlessness.
Rousseau also, in his process of comparison, devalues the virtues of civilisation and culture: he devalues, in other words, the worth of a moral personality. There is, for Kant, no freedom in a state of nature, if that is defined in terms of the ground of a moral personality, which in turn brings with it the discourse of praise and blame in accordance with the idea of responsibility. Perhaps as man emerges from the state of nature, as one can interpret to be the case when Adam and Eve were symbolically on the verge of being banished from the Garden of Eden, one’s cognitive response to such a state of affairs is limited to a feeling of shame at ones failure to obey some external law laid down by some external being. This would appear to be a consciousness of an instrumental kind that is only partially aware of one’s own desires and self-love. Shame is rooted in the sensibilities of our body, and in the Bible, this takes the form of an awareness of being naked to the possible gaze of another, rather than being ashamed at the failure to obey God’s external law (a more intellectual form of awareness).
The Garden of Eden allegory can be interpreted in accordance with the vision of a world progressing toward a future better Kingdom of Ends that is physically instantiated in the physical world– a secular world inhabited by free individuals freely exercising their responsibility and leading happy lives because deeds of moral worth constitute not just flourishing lives but just and ordered societies.
Kant’s Kingdom of Ends contains Socratic elements of areté (virtue) and diké (justice), and Kant would see in the deed of the eating of the apple from the tree of knowledge, the declaration of a conscious human being that he/she is free to use knowledge to determine the future of their life, and such knowledge might also relate positively to the future of the species–an epistemological turn of metaphysical significance. For the Biblical view of the man possessing the flaw of “original sin”, there can be no possible positive significance in this act of man disobeying his God. In such a view the resulting judgment of the described state of affairs could only be a “Fall”. The telos of such a fall could, then, only result in the judgment of a God who will weigh mans sins on the scales of Holy Biblical Goodness on Judgment Day. For Kant, this allegory probably captures what he called the “glory of the world”. There is no “Guilt” in this allegory because no moral personality has yet been formed for man to sufficiently judge the words of his own deeds in terms of the standards of Good arrived at by a secular understanding and secular reasoning power.
The issue of the origin of evil is discussed in terms of the theoretical idea of the relation of an origin or cause to its effect. Such a discussion requires the postulation of particular events in relation to other particular events: this type of causal relation has dubious noumenal status. Reason, insofar as it seeks for the unconditioned and a totality of conditions, requires a discussion in terms of the being of the items under consideration: beings subjected to a law of causality. It is in such discussions that one attempts to end the possible infinite sequence of events generated by a law that states: “Every event must have a cause”. Kant also postulates a cause that causes itself in the sphere of practical reason under the law of freedom, and further postulates a (human) being that causes itself to constitute its deeds by constructing maxims that are universal and necessary.
Acts may be theoretically construed as events, but deeds defy this kind of theoretical determination and therefore fall under the practical law of freedom rather than the theoretical law of causality. Kant claims the following:
“If an affect is referred to a cause which is, however, bound to it according to the laws of freedom, as is the case with moral evil, then the determination of the power of choice to the production of this effect is thought as bound to its determining ground not in time but merely in the representation of reason: it cannot be derived from some preceding state or other, as must always occur, on the other hand, whenever the evil action is referred to its natural cause as event in the world. To look for the temporal origin of free actions as free (as though they were natural effects) is therefore a contradiction: and hence also a contradiction to look for the temporal origin of the moral constitution of the human being, so far as this constitution is considered as contingent, for constitution here means the ground of the exercise of freedom which(just like the determining ground of the free power of choice in general) must be sought in the representations of reason alone.” (RBR P.61-2)48
Kant also points out in a footnote the temptation to use cause-effect reasoning in order to characterise deeds as events (instead of as a representation of reason), and therefore launch the inquirer into a search for a beginning in time(an intuition of sensibility). In terms of the individual, this results in a discussion of what Kant calls “Physiological Psychology”, a discussion that assumes a causal principle in relation to evil being innate or inherited, whether it can be a kind of inherited disease (medicine), inherited guilt (law) or inherited sin(theology).
Psychology at this point in time was not yet taught as an independent subject at Universities, but one can perhaps see an attempted synthesis of a number of the various themes above, in the work of Freud the doctor, philosopher, and psychoanalyst. The presence of inherited “disease” accords with the medical model: “guilt” accords with the psychoanalytical model that postulates trauma which can also be transmitted down the generational chain. Wittgenstein pointed out in relation to Freud, who had claimed his work was Kantian, that Freud’s theoretical explanations sometimes are purely archaeological–i.e. pointing backward in time to events that happened long ago. At the same time in the practical task of therapy, Freud assumes the consciousness of the power of our free choice over our actions and the caused traumas of the past: he assumes, that is, the power of reason to free us from our past. Psychoanalytical therapy, in this respect, aims not at a “cure” in the medical sense, but rather a more philosophically oriented “talking cure”: a discourse that brings to consciousness anxiety-laden or wish laden latencies. Freud would argue that his theories have primarily therapeutic intentions, and therefore contain both archaeological and teleological elements: archaeological events and teleological deeds–things that happen to us (in our childhood, for example) and things we do (in the name of practical reasoning). There is no trace of inherited sin in either of the Freudian accounts because the history of conscious understanding and reasoning, insofar as our species is concerned, is shrouded perhaps irrevocably in the mists of the past. Whatever happened might have happened long ago, and at the dawn of consciousness. Understanding and reason i.e. might have been accompanied by an awareness of one’s own powers but that awareness as an event might not have left any unambiguously interpretable trace. It is then left to a hylomorphic reasoning process to make theoretical assumptions of a continuum of processes and states from animal-hood to manhood.
Mythology aims via a special use of symbolic language to speculate upon the origins of manhood and evil with its own very special set of sometimes contradictory assumptions, and whilst these speculations are fascinating, and have helped to awaken us from a slumbering state of consciousness, they have no doubt benefited from the critical Philosophy of Kant, and its sketch for a theory of theoretical and practical reason. Kant’s theories may not answer questions relating to the dawn of self-consciousness (and consciousness of the world), but they certainly provided the basis for the completion of the task set by the Delphic Oracle to “know ourselves”. Kant clearly articulates his position on the role of free action in relation to evil:
“Every evil action must be so considered, whenever we seek its natural origin as if the human being had fallen into it directly from the state of innocence. For whatever his previous behaviour may have been, whatever the natural causes influencing him, whether they are inside or outside him, his action is yet free and not determined through any of these causes: hence the action can and must always be judged as an original exercise of his power of choice. He should have refrained from it, whatever his temporal circumstances and entanglements: for through no cause in the world can he cease to be a free agent.”(RBR P. 62-3)49
From the mythological and divine point of view, Adam and Eve’s choice to eat the apple of knowledge was a momentous decision or choice. Mythology could have interpreted this action as either an event or a deed. Interpreting the action as an event, means interpreting it either from the point of view of a God who is the first cause of everything, (all knowing, all powerful and all good), or from the point of man, the being who is but a speck of an event in an infinite chain of events in a sublimely massive universe. The Bible chose a materialistic interpretation and described Adam’s action as an “evil”, “sinful” action that would “contaminate” the actions of the species of man until God decided to sit in judgment of all mankind at a particular point in time.
A more philosophical interpretation might, in the spirit of Kant, look upon the idea of God (all powerful, all knowing and all good) as something in the mind of the animal that dares to use his reason, knowledge, and understanding, in accordance with another idea of reason, namely freedom. This, in accordance with the Kantian idea of progress, produces the consequence of building better and better civilisations until we reach the point of the secular telos of this process: a Cosmopolitan Kingdom of Ends. We need to remind ourselves, in the context of this discussion of Kant’s view of Enlightenment man, and man’s then-current condition, of being a lazy coward not daring to use his intellectual capacities. We should also remind ourselves of the judgment that the process of actualisation of the above Kingdom could take as long as one hundred thousand years. This is an important aspect of Kant’s thought because it introduces a note of scepticism into an otherwise idealist utopian scenario. Even in such a sceptical account, we should note that all reference to suffering and lamentation has fallen away, in spite of the recognition of the flawed form of man’s existence.
The core of Biblical mythology, it should also be noted, is the idea of an external law given by a divine lawmaker, a law which man fails to fully understand in the attempt to lead a flourishing life. It is this state of affairs that leads man instead, to a life of suffering. Freud, that student and master of human suffering, studied primitive man and in his work “Civilisation and its Discontents”, arrived at a speculative account of the origins of civilisation where a band of brothers commits an act of parricide when they murder their tyrannical father. The consequences of the transmission of the “logic of action” (murdering one’s father) down the generations will, on Freud’s reasoning, apart from other negative consequences, result in the demise of all authority figures and thus cause difficulties for the progress of civilisation toward its telos (the Kingdom of Ends). In response to this envisaged outcome, man begins to install external laws prohibiting murder and other evils that stand in the way of the progress of civilisation.
In this account, God is not yet dead simply because he is not yet, so to say, alive, owing to the fact that the idea of God has not yet been installed in the mind of a man emerging from a state of nature. Once the idea of God is active, and combined with the idea of external law, we are on the way to creating the idea of the original sinfulness of man. Freud, perusing the world around him in 1929, asks himself whether all the work we put into civilisation is worth the effort, and suggests a negative answer: an oracular judgment given the fact that his words were written on the eve of the Second World War and in the light of the atrocities that would follow.
Kant retains the idea of God in his system because he sees that Job’s lamentations over the condition of his life are symbolic of the human condition as such. Enlightenment man could well identify with a character that did everything he ought to do, but still led a life of fear and trembling because of uncontrollable external events, and the uncontrollable consequences of his own deeds. Job, of course, hoped for a flourishing life, but experiences the opposite. His faith in God, and in himself, and the hope for a better life is tested but this state of affairs is characterised in terms of faith in an external agency, process, or being. This, in Kant’s system, is testimony to the power of the internal activities of reason in the mind of a being that is a speck of existence upon an earthly speck situated in an infinite universe. For Kant, being a speck of existence in an infinite continuum of space and time is a moment in man’s consciousness or understanding of himself and his condition. This is no cause for lamentation for Kant, because freedom, the most important idea of reason, immediately celebrates the achievements of man in his intellectual arena of activity: activity that inevitably will lead to contentment on Kant’s account.
This can lead one to embrace the speculative hypothesis that man is in essence good, and only evil if tempted away from that which expresses his essence: “For how can an evil tree bear good fruit?” (RBR P.66)(50) The germ of good cannot be self-love, which is the source of evil, but is rather constituted by what Kant calls the “holiness of maxims”, that urge us to do our duty. Man finds himself on this road to the Kingdom of Ends where his condition gradually moves from the worse to the better, the further along the road he journeys. Kant evokes the importance of moral education on this journey where the aim is the transformation of the mind of man and an establishment of a good character from latent predispositions. Yet it is both these latent predispositions, and the actualisation of a moral personality that is the source of the sublime awe and admiration Kant feels about this realm of man’s being.
At the close of his essay “Religion within the boundaries of Mere Reason” Kant surveys all religions and characterises them in terms of firstly, moral religions that appeal to the work of practical reason and secondly, cults that appeal to the imagination and the “actions” of wishing for the goodness of man and flourishing life. Christianity is, for Kant, an example of a moral religion:
“According to moral religion, however, (and, of all the public religions so far known, the Christian alone is of this type) it is a fundamental principle that, to become a better human being everyone must do as much as it is in his powers to do: and only then, if a human being has not buried his innate talent(Luke 19: 12-16), if he has made use of the original predisposition to the good in order to become a better human being, can he hope that what does not lie in his power will be made good by cooperation from above.”(RBR P.71)51
This leaves man in a strange situation: standing at the boundaries of our understanding, knowledge, and reason, standing, i.e. at the limits of our freedom. In such a situation we are left with faith and hope in something that is uncertain. We do not, i.e. have knowledge of what God has done, is doing, or can do, but we do not lament as long as our deeds are worthy of God’s assistance.
Religion appeals to supernatural events and deeds in the form of miracles that perform the function of the revelation of God’s intentions and purposes: this aspect of man’s activity lies outside the boundaries of Reason. Here Kant entertains a therapeutic diagnosis of what he must regard as the excesses of religious speculation:
“Reason, conscious of its impotence to satisfy its moral needs, extends itself to extravagant ideas which might make up for this lack, though it is not suited to this enlarged domain. Reason does not contest the possibility or actuality of the objects of these ideas: it just cannot incorporate them into its maxims of thought and action…. for it is impossible to make these effects theoretically cognizable (that they are effects of grace and not immanent nature) because our use of the concept of cause and effect cannot be extended beyond the objects of experience, and hence beyond nature.”(RBR P.72)52
The prototype of the ideal holy human being has obviously never existed in reality but it is presented as an idea in the form of the Son of God, a principle of goodness. A human can only appear deficient in relation to this idea (that is an idea of reason rather than imagination) in virtue of the fact that the idea of Jesus, involves reasoning being concretely symbolised as a journey along a road of progressive goodness (an apriori idea). This is a different form of cognition to the projection of one form of existence upon another as occurs in the case when children project the form of a dragon onto dark thunder clouds flashing with lightning. The adult projection of the idea of an angry God upon this natural phenomenon is merely a more conceptual form of a fantasy embedded in basically sensible and emotional experience.
The Christian Theologian embraces a theory of change that primarily focuses upon a radical change of attitude towards the world, an attitude that involves a completely different way of seeing the world. This change, as Kant sees it, can be portrayed as deeds guided by the a priori idea of goodness or holiness or, alternatively, as events in an infinite chain of causes and effects extending temporally into the future. The moral personality behind the deeds of a person, for example, on the road to Damascus, is not necessarily filled with holiness but rather with fear and trembling tempered with hope for a good journey. A hope that contains a future that is boundlessly happy. Here too, Kant’s characterisation is Aristotelian, and navigates a course between the rocks of scepticism and the sandbanks of dogmatism. Indeed the Aristotelian concept of Eudaimonia (good spiritedness) is a fine representation of the state of soul, a representation that those who undertake journeys of moral improvement can hope for. The further along the road the good-spirited traveller journeys the more his character is shaped by the good deeds he does, and the greater his expectations of contentment with his condition can be. We ought to know that we are dust and that it is unto dust we shall return and that our hopes will finally one day be dashed into pieces: hence the fear and trembling at the fate we all must suffer. We can lament over our fate as even Jesus did on the cross when he complained about his father abandoning him. Lamentation appears to be the natural state of consciousness of hylomorphic man. Change or conversion lies on the roads to Damascus or Via Dolorosa. For the materialist, death is a passing away into nothingness, and in spite of all his misconceptions and reductions, this necessary truth is incontestable and may even be too much for humankind to bear without feeling abandoned.
The road we travel on is dusty and filled with temptations to betray the principle of Good or holiness: the Kingdom of Evil is to be found not beneath the earth in hell but upon the earth, (a place which will gladly assist in tempting man away from his mission). The traveller lifts his eyes unto the hills and heavens because it is from this source that the cathartic rain comes to purify and enliven the earth, reminding one of Paradise. Nothing appears as miraculous as this process. Miracles, however, lie beyond the gates of Reason and in such a region, if we are to believe the Bible, God can command a father to kill his son as a test of his faith. The Kantian, who believes in the autonomy and primacy of morality will see little good in such a deed and will also question “miracles” such as the virgin birth and an actual resurrection on both grounds of causality and reason.
On experiential grounds, it seems inevitable that the evil principle and the principle of good confront each other in some kind of spiritual opposition. The man on his long journey to Damascus or the Via Dolorosa hopes that the Good will triumph and that all will be well. In the secular ethical sphere, it is the public laws of the land and the virtue of its citizens that symbolise the principle of the Good. This sphere can be embedded in a political community. For Kant, it is this secular ethical sphere that constitutes a kingdom in which external coercion forces one to follow the laws of the land and the moral law. In this sphere, the individual chooses his good maxims freely and thereby contributes to the creation of this Kingdom. The interesting political consequence of such a state of affairs is that although it begins with an individual on his journey to Damascus or the Via Dolorosa, it ends with a Cosmopolitan world in which Politics withers away. A Kingdom of Ends is in no need of change and is thereby a-temporal or “timeless”. This intuitively makes sense if freedom is the North Star of the system, because it makes no sense in the Kantian world for man to live in the Kingdom of ends for “instrumental political reasons”. This Kingdom is created from the bottom, from individuals doing the right thing in the right way at the right time (areté):
“The citizen of the political community, therefore, remains, so far as the latter’s lawgiving authority is concerned, totally free: he may wish to enter with his fellow citizens into an ethical union over and above the political one, or rather remain in a natural state of this sort. Only insofar as an ethical community must rest on public laws and have a constitution based on them, must those who freely commit themselves to enter into this state, not (indeed) allow the political power to command them how to order(or not to order) such a constitution internally, but allow limitations, namely the condition that nothing be included in this constitution which contradicts the duty of its members as citizens of the state–even though, if the ethical bond is of a genuine sort, this condition need not cause anxiety.”(RBR P.107)53
The state of nature prior to the rule of law, Kant argues, is an antagonistic state, as is a judicial system in which laws regulate through coercion the evil of our deeds. There is in Kant a sense of continuity between, a tripartite division of communities into firstly, a state of nature, secondly, a civilised state ruled coercively by external laws that are in turn suggestive of moral laws, and thirdly, a cultural/ethical state constituted by the moral law. This is a developmental continuum from a human condition constituted by intuitive behaviour, to a civilised state conditioned by external law and individuals using their reason instrumentally to improve the material conditions of their existence, and ending in a cultural form of life constituted by the moral law where individuals live in a world that is either Cosmopolitan or striving toward Cosmopolitanism. Kant points out in this context that men living in a coercive civilisation can easily succumb to temptation and become instruments of the Kingdom of Evil and in this state there is:
“a public feuding between the principles of virtue and a state of inner immorality which the natural being ought to endeavour to leave behind as soon as possible”(RBR P.108)54
Kant also argues that there are higher levels of duty relating to one’s species that impose themselves upon the individual living in a Cultural form of life because the human race has a duty to progress from a civilised state to a cultural state embodying the principles of the highest good. Such a duty is embedded in a secular vision (as distinct from the clerical vision involving the lifestyle of a Son of God) of a higher moral being which resembles ,but is not identical to, the Stoic vision of the wise man, This Stoic figure, however, is, in a sense. a man of God in Kant’s world and may even feel himself to have obligations to the church as an organisation, not as a worshipper perhaps, but as a respecter of its moral universalistic intentions.
Religion for Kant is the universal institution of all faiths and Christianity is represented in this system as one faith among many. Faith is the foundation of the Church and faith can, for Kant, take two forms: rational and revealed faith. Revealed faith appears to require a command system of laws and:
“Whoever therefore gives precedence to the observance of statutory laws, requiring a revelation as necessary to religion, not indeed merely as a means to the moral disposition but as the objective condition for becoming well pleasing to God directly, and whoever places the striving for a good life-conduct behind the historical faith(whereas the latter, as something which can be well-pleasing to God conditionally ought to be directed to the former, which also pleases God absolutely) whoever does this transforms the service of God into mere fetishism.”(RBR P.173)55
External divine statutes, rules of faith and ritual observances constitute revealed faith and transforms genuine religion into an artificial pursuit that robs a man of his freedom, placing him under a slavish yoke of faith. Here praying, if by that we mean a mere declaration of wishes to a being who has no need of information concerning our wishes, is a superstitious delusion that provides no service to God. Praying and church going, on the Kantian account merely contributes superficially to the edification of the worshipper:
“because they hope that that moral edifice will rise up of itself, like the walls of Thebes, to the music of sighs and ardent wishes.”(RBR P.189 ftnt.)56
Presumably Kant’s judgment upon the content of sermons will depend on whether they aim at superstitious revelation or words that will fortify ones moral personality against the temptations of the sensible external world: the sermons content will depend, that is, upon whether the priest aims at edifying an endless curiosity about the mystery of God or whether he is aiming to strengthen the moral personality.
The churchgoer brings his experience of the world into his church. His soul might be in a wretched and miserable state and seek a partner in lamentation over his lot. He may be asking “Why?” or “Why me?” Insofar as he may receive answers to these questions they may be fundamentally grounded in the myths of the Bible. Catharsis, if it occurs, occurs by immolating his desires in the language of the service: a language that is the language of confession and avowal. Answers will not necessarily be rational and in accordance with the principle of sufficient reason, but rather aim at conceptualising the experience the worshipper brings to the language of the service. The work will be done by the imagination and understanding of the worshipper, perhaps as a preparation for theological reasoning where the worshipper’s experience has been stabilised by conceptualisation and related processes of judgment. In this process, the “Why me?” question, uttered in the name of self-concern or self-love, falls by the wayside and the “Why?” question requires abstract and universal answers, relating to one’s freedom and responsibility. The primacy of the moral law emerges as the organising principle of a discourse that has left the “logic” of the faith in revelation behind. This story about the Son of God and his life here on earth becomes ,in Paul Ricoeur’s sense of the term, “symbolic”, referring to a semi-rational vision of the origin and the end of the cosmos and the origin and end of evil. Insofar as the end of evil is concerned, the individual’s task becomes one of moral conversion on the roads to Damascus or the Via Dolorosa. The question as to the task of the species becomes then, perhaps, the practically slow process of the construction of a Kingdom of Ends–a very secular end to a process that begins in the early ancient mists of religion and philosophy.
Prophecies relating to the future made in the present hang like questions in the air until sufficient time elapses to prove their worth. The oracular prophecies, e.g. “Everything created by man is destined for ruin and destruction”, “Nothing too much”, and the decisive importance of “Knowing thyself” have stood the test of millennia and still stand as significant challenges on the road to the Kingdom of Ends. Freud in his work “the Future of an Illusion” warns us about the pitfalls of predicting the future and he has the following to say about the “journey” of civilisation toward a culture:
Human civilisation, by which I mean all those respects in which human life has raised itself above its animal status and differs from the life of the beasts—and I scorn to distinguish between culture and civilisation– presents, as we know, two aspects to the observer. It includes on the one hand all the knowledge and capacity that men have acquired in order to control the forces of nature and extract its wealth for the satisfaction of human beings, and, on the other hand, all the regulations necessary in order to adjust the relations of men to one another and especially the distribution of the available wealth.The two trends of civilisation are not independent of each other, firstly, because the mutual relations of men are profoundly influenced by the amount of instinctual satisfaction which the existing wealth makes possible: secondly, because an individual man can himself come to function as wealth in relation to another one, in so far as the other person makes use of his capacity for work, or chooses him as a sexual object: and thirdly, moreover, because every individual is virtually an enemy of civilisation, though civilisation is supposed to be an object of universal human interest. It is remarkable that, little as men are able to exist in isolation, they should nevertheless feel as a heavy burden the sacrifices which civilisation expects of them in order to make a communal life possible. Thus civilisation has to be defended against the individual, and its regulations, institutions, commands are directed to that task.”(Freud Future of an Illusion, 1927, P.184)(57)
This is indeed post enlightenment pessimism where hope for the future, it seems, has attenuated to a pinpoint of light. Kant we know distinguished clearly between civilisation and culture, reserving for the latter, the task of promoting the moral worth of the individual. Freud focuses instead on the Hobbesian transition-stage between firstly, a stage of nature where all are at war against all, and secondly, the commodious living of the kind of civilisation envisaged by Hobbes. Freud’s view of the individual and his civilisation, post-enlightenment in character though it might be, is not post-modernist because the modernism we find in the above is rooted in the systematic attempt Freud made throughout his writings to meet the oracular challenge of “Know thyself!”.
Hobbes in his political philosophy was more interested in Power than the Goods we find in our ideas of justice and virtue and he thus, along with Descartes, certainly qualifies for the title as the first of the “new men” of the modern era that Arendt referred to in her work “Origins of Totalitarianism”. Both Hobbes and Descartes wished to overturn the teachings of Aristotle, and their forms of materialism and dualism were amongst the targets of Kant’s Critical Philosophy. The materialism of Hobbes’ “motions of the mind” caused by sense and the imagination seems, at first sight, however, to have been resurrected in Freud’s account but this is only one dimension of Freud’s multi-dimensional account. Freud, in spite of calling himself a Kantian Psychologist, does not appeal to Kantian concepts and ideas, preferring instead to look for inspiration from Platonic and Greek sources: the concepts, Eros, Thanatos, Ananke and Logos are the major ideas of his latest system. Eros and Thanatos are the giants battling for the fate (Ananke) of civilisation and Logos is the “God-principle” which can not deliver the salvation and/or consolation promised by religious theorising. The attitude recommended by Freud is that of stoical resignation to the inevitable discontentment that arises when the God-principle is best pictured as a “Deus absconditis”. There is, however, no contradiction, in hoping for the telos of a Kantian end-in-itself that lies one hundred thousand years in the future. Freud might, however, contest the advice that we can hope for this end, given the triumphs of Thanatos over Eros during what Arendt called the “terrible century”. He did not live to experience the holocaust perpetrated by the Nazis and the dropping of two atomic bombs on civilian populations by the USA, but given the tenor of his reflections he probably would not have been surprised by these developments within 6 years of his death. He might, however, have been nonplussed at the role scientists played in both of these catastrophes. In such catastrophic contexts religious dogma was alternatively described as a psychosis or neurosis in Freud’s writings. Kantian religious ethics, however, appears to escape just these kinds of criticism but might still be susceptible to the accusation that hoping for happiness in the kinds of contexts we find ourselves surrounded by, is, to say the least otiose. The following is Freud’s view of the task of civilisation:
“One thus gets the impression that civilisation is something which was imposed on a resisting majority by a minority which understood how to obtain possession of the means to power and coercion. It is, of course, natural to assume that these difficulties are not inherent in the nature of civilisation itself but are determined by the imperfections of the cultural forms which have so far been developed……. One would think that a re-ordering of human relations should be possible, which would remove the source of dissatisfaction with civilisation by renouncing coercion and the suppression of the instincts, so that, undisturbed by internal discord, men might devote themselves to the acquisition of wealth and its enjoyment. That would be the golden age, but it is questionable if such a state of affairs can be realised. It seems rather that every civilisation must be built up on coercion and renunciation of instinct: it does not even seem certain that if coercion were to cease the majority of human beings would be prepared to undertake to perform the work necessary for acquiring new wealth. On has, I think, to reckon that there are present in all men destructive, and therefore anti-social and anti-cultural trends and that in a great number of people these are strong enough to determine their behaviour in human society.”(P.185)58
The above is a pessimistic analysis of mass-society which has a distinctively Hobbesian tone. Freud goes on to claim that control of the majority by the minority is necessary because of the laziness and aggression of most men. Kant, in his essay “Perpetual Peace”, pointed to the “melancholic haphazardness” of everyday social activity, and also claimed that man with his desire for individual happiness needed a master to guide him in the civilisation-building process, but that he nevertheless did not want anyone “mastering” him. In the work— “The World Explored, the World Suffered: A Philosophical History of Psychology, Cognition, Emotion, Consciousness and Action, Vol 3. James, M., R.,D., it is maintained that:
The Kantian move from a state of nature ruled by the voice of God/Instinct resulted in a civilisation that, according to Freud is characterised by universal discontent in spite of the hard work of generations of civilisation builders, some of whom have achieved the status of enduring voices or gods because of their influential activities and judgements. Ordinary men, according to the voices taking us out of the state of nature, “fell” from Grace in choosing to embark upon the path of civilisation building rather than remaining in a state of status quo following the calls of nature. Some forms of discontentment obviously were in accordance with this religious form of disappointment with man, but some forms of discontentment takes the Freudian form of wondering whether all the work is worth the effort. Some forms of discontentment take the more optimistic Kantian form which acknowledges that the end to the cultural journey is 100,000 years in the future and although normal life manifests the features of what Kant called “melancholic haphazardness”, there is a way of life that looks to this distant future with hope in the heart. For Kant, we are in the beginning of a process of perfecting our powers of rationality, and perhaps we ought to reckon with erratic attempts to solve the aporetic problem of the pursuit of the flourishing life. We can see in Kant’s work a classical Greek conflict between the nature of man, and the moral demands of areté and diké. Only a civil constitution of sufficient moral complexity can resolve this conflict: a constitution that presumably includes an enlightened upbringing as well as enlightened educational and political systems. None of these conditions have managed to permanently establish themselves. (P.216-7)(59)
The Aristotelian perspective of the transition from a state of nature to civilisation, includes seeing how villages emerge from our previously nomadic existence. A concern for justice and law obviously replace the belief that nomads had in one God to guide them on their endless journeys. Villages needed to grow into cities before the level of self sufficiency required political rather than religious reflections upon the conditions of existence for the polis. It is interesting to note that, in one of the earliest reflections upon the conditions of existence of the polis, namely Plato’s Republic, Socrates drew an important distinction between a healthy small city and a “fevered” larger city where a desire for luxury encourages a lack of regulation of our appetites and compromises our ability to do the right thing at the right time in the right way (areté). Socrates was obviously being to some extent naive in his argument and ignoring what for Aristotle was a necessary movement toward the self sufficiency large numbers of people demanded in their attempts to build civilisations and a philosophically motivated culture. Luxuries stimulate the sense and imagination that Hobbes embraced in his concept of “commodious living” and probably the far sighted oracles of Greece saw this problem coming in their Challenge to Humanity, “Nothing too much”. The risks our civilisation runs with the marginalisation of reason in favour of sense and imagination, are many, including that of an overworked imagination concerning itself unnecessarily with imagined enemies, and their imagined intentions , as well as the unnecessary expenditure of wars and constant preparations for wars when there is peace.
Freud’s reflections upon life in a state of nature took us back to the nomadic horde where violence and sexuality were unregulated by any concern for law and order. In such a totem-taboo society, acts of parricide eventually led to the establishment of rules that were necessary for the leader to perform his duties for the group. Work and love were necessary to lift us out of this primitive form of existence, and luxuries emerged as a transitional form of reward for reality-based activities. For Freud, the emergence of Consciousness as a vicissitude of instinct, was necessary for a movement away from imagination based images, toward a reality-based thought that obeyed the reality principle or what he referred to as his “God”, Logos.
The agency of the Ego is obviously important in such a shift away from the rule of the imagination which wishes for immediate gratification rather than the roundabout route of the reality principle that requires delays in gratification perhaps for even long periods of time. It is to the Ego and Superego that Freud looks to regulate mans aggressive tendencies. We should recall, however, that it is the defence mechanism of identification that is responsible for the installation of the superego, and it is not love, but fear for the loss of love, that initiates the desire to be like the figure that one identifies with. Fear has a complex relation to the imagination which is not necessarily regulated by reality and perhaps this can be neutralised by the love the Ego has for the figure identified with. Freud, however, is well aware of the power and cruelty of the superego that desires to “master” the Ego. It is Logos and Ananke that provide us with the Freudian world-view that will seek to understand and motivate the work we need to do on the battlefield where Eros and Thanatos are locked in struggle. For Kant, on the other hand, it is respect for the moral law, and the willingness to do what we ought to do in the spirit of doing ones duty, that is the only effective regulator of the passions and the appetites. It is this allegiance to ones dignity that will ensure that we are not just engaging upon civilisation-building activities, but also culture-creating deeds.
Freud might, in this context ,point to another defence mechanism that needs to be involved if we are to postpone the selfish satisfactions that have accompanied our pre-cultural commitments . Sublimation is a defence mechanism which uses a non-sexual form of substitute satisfaction and is particularly prominent in aesthetic contexts where artists are working in an arena where the telos is not a kingdom of ends, but rather a universal form of pleasure that arises from the harmony of the faculties of the imagination and the understanding. Sublimation is also a complex psychological phenomenon suggesting as it does a link to the ethical phenomena of shame and modesty which are essentially reaction-formations concerned with the narcissistic projection of something ideal.
Whether this is the core of the Kantian commitment to the dignity of the moral agent is an issue which may not be resolved by Freudian fundamental archeological concerns. This Kantian commitment to dignity is a teleological concern and teleological judgements relating to what man ought to do, obviously have a different logical structure to archeological judgements relating to the human nature of man. Much depends upon what exactly Freud means to include in his idea of Logos. If normative concerns related to action and the deeds of man, are a part of his account of the meaning of Logos, then practical knowledge must be included in this sphere of meaning. The dignity of man, in this case, must be a substitute satisfaction available to the Ego: a form of consequential intellectual pleasure that only attaches to the good-in-itself as a part of the good-spirited flourishing life that the ego strives after and hopes for. This, for many, may be a part of the positive aspect of sublimation which has little to do with defence mechanisms and everything to do with the healthy psuché or form of life. The Greeks distinguished between the goods of the external world, the goods for the body, and the goods for the soul . Psuché concerns both the goods for the body and the goods for the soul, or in Kant’s terminology, the goods for the faculty of sensibility and the goods for the understanding and reason. For Kant the distinction between the good-in-its consequences and the good-in-itself is very much connected to the consequences of a well functioning body and the good in itself of the moral worth of the soul.
Kant’s account of the Sublime is an account of our relation to the magnitude and might of Nature. In the latter case the threat of the might of nature, whether it be in the form of bold overhanging rocks, a tempestuous sea, or a mighty waterfall, appears to our sensible nature as fearful even if we are not directly in danger from these objects of nature. Even the prospect of dangerous circumstances is sufficient to cause pain, and this usually results in the energy regulation principle (the regulation of the instincts) attempting to restore a state of homeostasis, and conserve energy for what Freud called “special action”. This is accompanied by the complex desire of the soul for a kind of understanding of this situation, which recognises the power of the human psuché or form of life. It is at this point that the good-in-itself for the soul appears in the form of an appreciation of the moral power we possess, and its independence of the power of nature. This response is symbolic because it rises above the dominion of nature, and its causes and effects(consequences). The dominion of the soul, in other words, is the dominion of the moral good-in-itself for the soul. It is important to note that the pure consequential thinking related to feeling safe (because even though the circumstances are dangerous there is no immediate causal danger), is not at issue in this form of thoughtful deliberative response, which is detached from means-ends calculative thinking.
The religious response, which sees the presence of a mighty God in the rocks, sea or waterfall, is also a form of causal/consequential thinking that would leave the experiencer in a state of fear that is not surpassed by the above response of contentment with oneself as a worthwhile moral agent living in a moral world with dignity. Indeed instrumental calculative means-ends thinking and reasoning, may be civilisation building activities, but these are to do with the goods in the external world and not the goods for the soul. An aesthetic response to such forces of nature, too, would be inappropriate given the presence of dangerous circumstances: a feeling of pleasure arising from the harmony of the faculties of the imagination and understanding, in such dangerous circumstances, would be more ridiculous than sublime. Kant has fixed upon the only cultural response possible in these circumstances, and the question that remains is, whether Freud would have accepted this meaning of logos in relation to the “mechanism” of sublimation.
Now whilst his relation to Kant is in a sense clear insofar as the arena of Philosophical Psychology is concerned, given that he claimed to be a Kantian Psychologist, it is, on the other hand, a little less clear what his relation to ancient Greek Metaphysics, Ethics, Politics, and Aesthetics consisted in. What we know is that the Platonic ideas of Eros, Thanatos and Ananke are used to articulate the relation of the instincts to an appropriate world-view shorn of religious commitment. The question remains: What is Freud’s relation to the categorical ideas of areté, diké, etc?: doing the right thing in the right way at the right time in relation to an idea of justice which is connected to the telos of getting what one deserves, are both related to the Greek idea of arché, which means “principle”. These latter ideas might also be a part of the Freudian framework of “logos”. If both the Kantian and the Greek view of ethics is a part of the “logos” of Freud, (part, that is of the ideas of the strong ego and the integrated superego and ego), then the idea of the “mechanism” of sublimation has a teleological structure connected to its archeological instinctual characterisation. This synthesis of the archeological and the teleological also evokes the Aristotelian theory of change which could be used to determine the “logic” of “sublimation”. The suggestion therefore is, that the Freudian “logos” is best conceived of firstly, hylomorphically and, secondly, in accordance with the Kantian critical framework which includes many hylomorphic themes .
Let us look more closely into the Kantian critical position insofar as it links to thinking and the activities of the ego and the instincts. This requires, of course forming an understanding of the relation of Transcendental Psychology to Transcendental Philosophy.
Kant begins his work “Anthropology from a Pragmatic point of view” with a discussion of consciousness of one’s self:
“The fact that the human being can have the “I” in his representations raises him infinitely above all other living beings on earth. Because of this, he is a person and by virtue of the unity of consciousness through all changes that happen to him, one and the same person–i.e. through rank and dignity an entirely different being from things, such as irrational animals, with which one can do as one likes. This holds even when he cannot yet say “I” because he still has it in thoughts, even if they do not have a special word to express this concept of “I”. For this faculty (namely to think) is understanding. But it is noteworthy that the child who can already speak fairly fluently nevertheless first begins to talk by means of “I” fairly late (perhaps a year later) in the meantime speaking of himself in the third person (Karl wants to walk, to eat etc.). When he starts to speak by means of the “I” a light seems to dawn on him, as it were, and from that day on he never again returns to his former way of speaking. Before he merely felt himself now he thinks himself. The explanation of this phenomenon might be rather difficult for an anthropologist.”(Anthropology P. 15)(60)
Indeed it might be more or less difficult for the anthropologist to talk about thinking at all, but especially difficult if his methodology of detection /description/explanation of the phenomenon he is observing is confined to third person language which as Hume suggested finds it impossible to “find” the self that needs description or explanation.
As we know Hume’s work awoke Kant from his dogmatic slumbers, where his theorising was orbiting in a universe that included the sun of reason and the moon of sensibility. The faculty of the understanding in the university of the mind, which embraces the self and causality, was clearly missing in Kant’s universe as it was in Hume’s account, which also claimed that we not only cannot observe a self, we cannot observe and describe “causality”, because all we “see” are two independent events juxtaposed in time. Hume was, of course merely the medium for the transmission of an empirical philosophy that could not see the Cartesian rational wood for the trees. Empiricists could not see that there was a form of “logic” concerned with universality and necessity, a form that required categories of judgment if this transcendental logic was to reach into the world we sensibly experience. This “logic” also required, as Kant pointed out in his First Critique that the “I think” must accompany all our representations, and this includes representations of the sensory world in terms of the categories of judgments.
Kant then found the initial division of the university of the mind into the faculties of sensibility, imagination, and reason, to be inadequate to resolve the philosophical disputes of his time, especially those between the empiricists and the rationalists: thus his introduction of the understanding with its categories of judgments. Rationalists like Descartes, who tried to account for all mental activity in terms of the imagination (he tried to imagine away his body!) and secondly a form of logic (mathematical?) was also a target for Kant’s Critical Philosophy. The Empiricist response to Descartes was well characterised by the Analytical Philosopher R. S. Peters in his essay “Observationalism in Psychology”:
“They put a salutory stress on observation as opposed to a deduction from axioms and substituted for Descartes simple natures, sensory atoms collected by simply looking at Nature. They maintained not only that scientific laws were descriptions of invariable sequences of these sensory atoms but that things also, including ourselves and others, were clusters of such sense-data built up as a matter of psychological fact, by correlating such atomic sense data. Hume’s isolated and incorrigible impressions served a singular epistemological function. Locke and Hume established a tradition both of psychology and philosophy and the psychological tradition was strongly influenced by their philosophical views about the correct way of obtaining knowledge.”(Psychology and Ethical Development R S Peters P.28)(61)
Ideally one might have hoped that Kant’s Critical Philosophy would have put both Philosophy and Psychology on the track already beaten out by Aristotle’s hylomorphic theory. This did not happen. Instead, a Heraclitean/Hegelian dialectic was used to beat out a new path that would form our modern world into a flux of materialistically and dualistically constituted phenomena. On this path, there is located the event of Psychology breaking its philosophical moorings, in order to reconcile the scientific method with the so-called “subject-matter” of consciousness. In the opening quote from Kant and in the following passages of his Anthropology, we find Kant speaking of consciousness hylomorphically as a form of mental activity. When it, was discovered by the early Psychologists, in the late nineteenth century, that the experimental method could not say anything meaningful about the concept of consciousness, in spite of the definition of Psychology as the science of consciousness, there was an opportunity to return to the Kantian idea of consciousness being a “form” or a principle of mental activity. Instead, what happened was an alliance of a methodological obsession with the scientific materialists, and a new subject matter was sought for and found, namely behaviour. Behaviour, it was argued, could be observed and described/explained from a third-person point of view, and for a second time in philosophical history(Hume’s failure to “observe” the self, being the first) the self was analytically removed from Philosophy and Philosophical Psychology. Support for this removal came from a scientific method that had developed since the time of Francis Bacon, characterised thus by R S Peters:
“The inductive account of scientific method which is an alternative way of stating observationalism, postulated the careful and meticulous collection of data by “pupils of Nature”, the cautious generalisation which must not go beyond the data, and the “interpretation” which emerged when a judicious man like Francis Bacon surveyed the tables of classified data. This picture of the scientists in action combined with the Kantian aphorism that a discipline is as scientific as it contains mathematics led to the tacit acceptance of the view that the scientist proceeds by observing events in Nature, measuring them, noticing correlations or laws between sets of measurements, and finally relating laws under theories.”(P. 28)(62)
So here we have three leading navigational stars guiding scientific activity: observation, subject matter, and measurement. Kant would not have objected to these guidelines per se, if they were accompanied by an appropriate attitude that was not that of a student of nature obsessing over a method and measurements that are being made. These guidelines, he might have argued, could occur in another context of a determined judge armed with his a priori concepts and principles, putting his questions to Nature and demanding answers that were informative, before making a final judgment. It is interesting to note that behind this putatively “objective” characterisation of the scientist as a student of Nature, there is a psychological profile that may be prejudicial to the outcome of the investigative process. Putting this investigative process into the context of a legal tribunal and the law, widens the scope of how investigations proceed. The judge in the tribunal is waiting to be presented with evidence of the breach of the law. He is not a student waiting for the evidence to inform him what the law is. The law is the apriori principle in this process. He puts questions to the witnesses and to legal counsel when the law requires more information. This is Kant’s context: a context of discovery (questio factii) guided by a context of justification (questio Juris). (63)
In the Empirical idea of the appropriate context, we see that the context of discovery is primary and the context of explanation/justification virtually non-existent, hence the priority of sense and imagination over understanding and reason. The difference between these two types of context and types of theory could not be greater and resembles the difference between categorical and hypothetical forms of judgment. One might also add in parenthesis here that the type of Science proposed by Bacon’s inductive method is more suitable for the kind of Science Bell, the physicist, conducted in relation to his theory of gases than it was for the type of science we find in Newton’s Principia. The very title of Newton’s work, “Principles” is itself suggestive of its philosophical priorities (he called his investigations “Natural Philosophy”). Newton’s law of the conservation of matter and energy are not a result of the observation of matter and energy in reality but rather possessed a transcendental a priori character.
Kant continues his characterisation of the “I” in the “Anthropology” in an Aristotelian hylomorphic spirit, by referring to its occurrence in child development. He points to the fact that when the child begins to think from the first-person point of view, there is a risk of egoism which must be transcended by what he calls pluralism, if the child is to proceed with his life in a spirit of understanding and reason, insofar as his fellow humans are concerned:
“The opposite of egoism can only be pluralism, that is the way of thinking that is not concerned with oneself as the whole world, but rather regards and conducts oneself as a mere citizen of the world. This much belongs to anthropology.”(A P. 18)64
Here, two important points emerge. Firstly Kant immediately locates theory in an ethical context of justification. Secondly, he is suggesting that the source of objectivity, universality, and necessity resides in this “I” that appears to be both a theoretical and a practical entity. This flies in the face of both empiricism and rationalism, and the tendency of both positions to see in the difference between the theoretical and practical, a fundamentally divided mind: a knowing mind and a desiring mind. The above quote also, in referring to oneself as a citizen of the world, is clearly suggesting that practical reasoning and understanding are going to be important components in both ethics and political philosophy.
Kant then continues his reflections, by characterising the theoretical aspect of the “I think” that accompanies all our representations. He invokes the role of voluntary consciousness and characterises this power or capacity in two ways. Firstly, I can pay attention to my representations in order to allow the imagination, or what he calls the act of apperception, to connect the representation we are focusing upon with other representations. Secondly, I also possess the power to abstract in relation to the representation I am paying attention to, and thereby prevent connection with certain other representations. It is this latter power that is responsible for the universality of a concept insofar as Aristotle is concerned: in this theory, the concept abstracts from the differences between objects and events in the world that fall under the concept’s extension. It does this in accordance with the knowledge that an organiser of representations has of the form or principle of the object or event designated by the concept. The concept is thus acquired through the discriminatory power of perception in conjunction with the comparative and selective power of the memory of a number of associated representations that have in turn been connected perhaps by the role of imagination in the multi-layered sequence of cognitive activities leading up to the act of apperception in which the “I” thinks about the manifold conceptually. Kant illustrates this process in his First Critique by referring to the concept of body:
“The concept of body, for instance as the unity of the manifold which is thought through it, serves as a rule in our knowledge of outer appearances. But it can be a rule for intuitions only insofar as it represents in any given appearance the necessary reproduction of their manifold, and thereby signifies unity in our consciousness of them. The concept of body, in the perception of something outside us, necessitates the representation of extension, and thereby with Representation of impenetrability, shape, etc.” (Critique of Pure Reason A106)(65)
Here we are taken on an excursion into the theoretical hinterland of transcendental Philosophy and, by implication, transcendental psychology, for which there are two different deductions, one objective and one subjective. In the subjective deduction from the first edition of the work, the powers of the subject are characterised in terms of three syntheses: a synthesis of apprehension, a synthesis of reproduction attributed to the imagination, and a synthesis of recognition in a concept attributed to the understanding. The transcendental act of apperception of the “I think” is not a part of the subjective deduction, but it is clearly a part of the process of understanding that arrives at a conceptualisation of the object. The objective deduction concentrates upon the transcendental conditions of experience, in particular on the notions of an objective necessary unity of the “I think” or self-consciousness, that is related to the logical or categorical forms of judgment that aim at knowledge or justified true belief. This reference to the categories of judgment ensures that our concepts truly conceptualise something, namely an external object or event in the external world. The subjective deduction, it has to be said, sometimes reminds one of what philosophers today call the context of discovery, namely, a bottom-up approach toward knowledge in which an account of the process by which we acquire knowledge is, of course, important. The objective deduction, on the other hand, reminds us of the context of explanation/justification in which the attitude of a sober determined judge of nature replaces that of a curious hypothetically minded student of nature that cites the workings of an actualisation process in which powers build upon powers.
The effect of the two deductions on the reader is prodigious and contributes to a context of justification in which we are made aware of the fact that the conceptual form of self-consciousness is related universally and necessarily to the conviction that we are dealing with an objective world where objects and events really exist in the form in which we are experiencing them (i.e. are empirically real). Reality, of course, is also noumenal, and thereby not characterisable or transcendentally ideal, as Kant puts it, but he adds that we can only think such a reality, not know that it exists: there is, in other words, no proof or possible demonstration of noumenal reality.
The opening reference to consciousness in the Anthropology is undoubtedly a part of the subjective deduction of the categories of judgment, but it is important nevertheless, to note that there is, firstly, an imaginative component that connects representations which resemble each other in some respect, as well as secondly, an understanding component which can and does abstain from this connection of resemblance, in favour of a rule of a concept that abstracts from the differences between objects and events, and the representations of them we experience in space and time. The rule of the concept, then, represents what these objects and events have in common, i.e. resemblance supervenes after the work and not before, as Hume claimed in his theory of the association of impressions. It is important to note that the rule is like a principle or a law in that it assists in the process of picking out objects or events that can then be subsumed under the law or principle: the concept behaves judiciously and not hypothetically because the process simultaneously justifies or explains the process of subsumption.
In the objective deduction, Kant speaks of the figurative synthesis of the imagination and an intellectual synthesis of the understanding. We discussed in the previous essay, the aesthetic judgment in which judgments of free beauty are made at a pre-conceptual stage. The final explanation or justification of such judgments is, as we noted, subjective, based on a feeling of the harmony of the free play of the faculties of the imagination and the understanding. This judgment expresses what one feels rather than what one thinks in the context of explanation/justification. This is why we are disinterested i.e. not interested in the existence of the object: intellectual interest is always in the context of the truth that is necessarily related to the existence of objects and events. When, in the case of an aesthetic judgment, we speak with a universal voice about our feeling, we are not claiming to share knowledge of a truth but rather hoping that all subjects use their common sense or an imaginative power we all hold in common.
The shift from deliberating about the “I” as a theoretical entity to deliberation about it as a practical entity occurs almost seamlessly in the Anthropology when Kant states the following:
“To be able to abstract from a representation, even when the senses force it on a person, is a far greater faculty than that of paying attention to a representation, because it demonstrates a freedom of the faculty of thought and the authority of the mind in having the object of ones representations under ones control….In this respect, the faculty of abstraction is much more difficult than that of attention, but also more important when it concerns sense representations.”(Anthropology P. 20)66
This is an excellent transition into practical transcendental psychology and there are in this discussion clear connections to our earlier discussions on observation, when Kant discusses the mental condition of melancholia that he connects with the obsessional concern of observing oneself. Sufferers from melancholia, Kant argues, speak as if they are listening to themselves and seem to want to present outwardly an illusion of their personality. Naturally, the representations of such mentally unstable people arouse the suspicions of those around them, who come to believe that they are witnessing an intention to deceive. Kant comments further:
“This eavesdropping on oneself is either already a disease of the mind (melancholy) or leads to one and to the madhouse.”(A P. 22)67
Kant also explains why this obsession is unhealthy. There is not a stable “something” to think about–representations come and go in Heraclitean fashion, and the river of our representations runs on and on without any organising activity of an “I think”. The “I think” not only fixes attention on a particular representation (thinks something) but proceeds further in accordance with the category of judgments to seek the truth by thinking something about something, in an operation Heidegger referred to as a veritative synthesis. It appears from this that Kant was well ahead of his time in suggesting that serious mental disease (psychosis) is to be philosophically characterised in terms of deficiency of the conceptual power of the understanding.
Freud claimed that his Psychoanalytical theory was Kantian, and it might have been partly this ontological characterisation of mental disease that he was thinking about when he proclaimed an alliance with Kant. Certainly the Freudian triumvirate of principles: the energy regulation principle (regulating the energy levels of neuronal and organic systems), the pleasure-pain principle (regulating desires) and the reality principle (regulating our relation to the external physical world and society), is an echo of Aristotelian hylomorphic thought, but it also contains substantial elements of Kantian thinking. Kant, for example, speaks about “obscure” representations that are not conscious and this clearly anticipates the Freudian ideas of the preconscious and unconscious mind.
Kant, however, believes that the study of such representations do not belong to the study of what he calls, “pragmatic anthropology” which is defined in terms of the investigation of what man as a free-acting being makes of himself (or should make of himself). Obscure representations fall, rather into the domain of physiological anthropology that is defined in scientific terms of what nature makes of man. Such scientific investigations can be observation-based or purely speculative. Kant points out that observations are limited, because the observer must know how to let nature run its course before making any judgment. Speculative physiological anthropology is, according to Kant, merely a waste of time.
Freud’s “Project for a Scientific Psychology”, which Freud himself burned, probably falls in the categories of both observation-based and speculative Psychology. In his more mature reflections, however, Freud taught us about the death instinct, and how man fashions the weapons of his own destruction in his own mind by failing to conceptualise his world adequately. There is a reliance instead on a form of imagining that connected representations in terms of what he called the principle of the primary process. Imagining is, of course, “thinking” in the popular sense of the term, especially when it is in immediate proximity to the operation of a will that, for example, is intent on killing itself, but it is not so for Kant, who would probably classify this form of pathological activity of the imagination as an obscure form of representation. (The law, as we know, used to classify the death of those who commit suicide in terms of the description “whilst the balance of the mind was disturbed”). Clear and distinct representation is what brings order into a disordered world, viewed from the perspective of the categories and concepts of the understanding.
There are of course levels of understanding ranging from the judgments of common sense, where rules are applied judiciously to cases, to the judgments of the man of science, like Freud, who understands the nature and origins of the rules (their universality and necessity) and their a priori nature. “Primary process “thinking””, in Kant’s ontological scheme would fall into the class of things and events that happen to man, and this is the reason why “thinking” is placed in quotation marks. This form of activity belongs more to the faculty of sensibility when it is following the pleasure-pain principle than to the faculties of understanding and reason that follow what Freud calls the “Reality Principle”.
Freud’s characterisation of the death instinct operating in melancholia, (a condition he found so difficult to treat because patients suffering from this malady were so intent upon self-destruction), refers to instinctive primary process mental activity which is the psychical representation of an endosomatic continuously flowing source of stimulation that can be analysed into:
an impetus (a relation to energy regulation) an aim (to abolish the source of the stimulus that is disturbing the equilibrium of the organism) an object (that through which the aim is actually achieved) a source (the somatic activity responsible for the stimulation)68
If we are dealing with a balanced mind, instinct may be modified by firstly, the perception of the environment, secondly, the development of speech (e.g. the acquisition and use of the “I”) and thirdly, learning processes that teach the agent to postpone the motor discharge of the stimulation, thus exchanging a certain ambiguous pleasure of the moment for a more lasting long term pleasure in the future. What we witness in such a process is the installation in the mind of the Reality Principle (Freud’s term) that, for Kant, would be partly accounted for by the accompanying of all representations by the “I think”. This mental activity for Freud would be involved in the formation of the mental agency he refers to as the “ego”, whose first task and priority is to protect the body from harm. It is this agency of the mind that is lacking in the melancholic when his seemingly bottomless unhappiness causes him to want to end his life, in what Kant would regard as an unethical act (on the grounds that it is a practical contradiction to use one’s life to end one’s life).
We can see in the above characterisation of the formation of the ego, the role of mourning which will always be involved when we are dealing with the loss of an object of our desires. The giving up of the uncertain ambiguous pleasure of the moment is not just a momentary mechanical automatic switch from one mode of operation to another, but rather a long drawn out work of de-cathecting one type of object and cathecting or investing energy in another type of object. It is this type of mental work that it is so difficult to persuade the melancholic to engage in, because there is in Kantian language no “I”, or “ego”, to do the work concerned. We should recall in the context of this discussion that melancholia (depression) is a serious mental disorder characterised by psychiatry as a psychosis. Other forms of mental illness where there is an “I”, but it is not fully formed, are easier to treat, and are called neuroses by psychiatrists. Here, rather, the ego is supposed enslaved by the imagination and its pleasures and pains. The pleasures and pains of a developed ego are organised in accordance with time conditions where memories of traumatic events will fade naturally with the passing of time: such fading memories will not flood consciousness every time they are remembered.
Kant did not dive into the depths of the logic of the emotions and attempt to identify regions of the mind such as the unconscious, as Freud did, but it should also be remembered that Freud’s work in this area was a response to the needs of his mentally ill patients. Avoidance of anxiety for Freud was also the mark of certain representations that had difficulty in emerging into the system of consciousness.
Much of Freud’s later work was devoted to mapping the so-called “defence mechanisms” of the mind that continue to prevent emotionally charged representations from “surfacing” in consciousness. This was in itself an important discovery because a major condition of learning is that when one is learning, what one is learning about must in some sense be present to consciousness.
Instincts, for Freud, express the body to the mind, and sexuality is obviously an important activity of the body, considering its special relation to both reproduction and the biological/psychological pleasure associated with it. Sexuality and imagination are also intimately related, and in Freud’s theory are associated with the primary process (of imaging). The “agent” of this process is probably not correctly termed an “I” or a self, but is perhaps better characterised as a narcissistic centre of mental activity in which distinctions between subject and object are characteristically blurred. Here, the centre of activity is the sole source of pleasure which, if denied, can result in the centre treating itself as an object and even destroying itself in an ultimate act of hatred. There are also obvious connections between narcissism and sexuality, but a full explanation of this relationship requires a hylomorphic approach to the development of sexuality, the ego, and its partner, the superego. In the process of this development the libido–“that force by which the sexual instinct is represented in the mind”– must be part of a larger life-force which will assist in transforming libido, from an auto-erotic force connected to an organ of pleasure, into a love for objects devoid of the hate and aggression typical of those suffering from narcissistic personality disorders. In Freud’s theories, the libido can be “sublimated” during phases or stages where pleasure locations shift from different regions of the body to the mind as a whole that Freud prefers to characterise in terms of his “agencies”, the ego and the superego. We mentioned that the first task of the ego was to protect the body, but it’s higher more conscious functions (requiring learning and knowledge) are to love and to work in ways which are “pluralistic”, to use Kant’s expression from the Anthropology, or “anaclitic” to use Freud’s term. This process of moving from organ pleasure to object choice purged of all narcissistic influence is hylomorphic. The moving of pleasure from region to region of the body and finally into the mind of the subject is guided by the pleasure-pain principle or what Aristotle would call “form”. The preparedness to give up this “form” of organising pleasure indicates that this “form” of the pleasure-pain principle becomes “Matter”, which is, in its turn, “formed” by a new principle, the Reality Principle that is important for the activities of loving and working and which involves being prepared to postpone pleasure perhaps for an indefinite period of time. Obviously, in characterising this actualisation process, the explanations we use to explain the operation of these principles must be complex and hylomorphic, i.e ultimately a complete explanation of the process will require the 4 different kinds of explanation Aristotle referred to in his theory of change. These explanations will include a reference to a teleological form of explanation that refers to an idealistic end to this process of development. It is, however, fascinating to note that the idealistic teleological terminus point for the powers of the mind, are for both Kant and Freud, moral or ethical. Kant’s Anthropological reflections are clearly aimed not at a modern lonely solipsistic individual loving and working for his own selfish ends but rather at what Kant recognises to be a cosmopolitan citizen of the world. It is not certain that Freud would have shared this very politically-oriented vision but he definitely agrees with Kant over the vision of man dutifully loving and working in a form of civilisation he may well be discontented with (because it is not cosmopolitan?)
The Freudian superego is, given our qualifications relating to “Logos” above, Kantian to its core and can also be seen to be sharing also a commitment to hylomorphism that is apparent in the actualising process of the formation of the superego in accordance with a reality principle committed not just to the truth but also to “The Good”, an ancient Platonic theme. That the superego should emerge from “sexuality” broadly defined is also a Platonic theme and conjures up a picture of a barefooted Eros padding about the streets of Athens searching for appropriate forms of knowledge to improve his life. Eros is dogged by Thanatos and also must submit to the demands of Ananke, and this Platonic allegory is a part of Freud’s more mythological characterisation of a theory otherwise composed of extremely technical language. Kant’s commitment to what causes awe and admiration in himself is inscribed upon his gravestone in Königsberg: “the starry heavens above and the moral law within”. These are more Aristotelian than Platonic, more sublime than mythological.
Morality, for Kant, as it was for Aristotle is not merely a matter of arriving at a life-goal but also included the way in which one journeyed toward that goal in one’s life. The Greek term Areté that means both virtue and excellence denotes doing the right thing at the right time in the right way. This is a critical test of “Good” character and will result in a state of Eudaimonia which is also one of those interesting words that both characterises the way in which one does something (good spirited) but also the telos of such activity(the flourishing life). Kant and Aristotle would have both agreed upon the fact that we choose the way we lead our lives, and to the extent that the end result lies in our power, the end result as well. Both would have also agreed that human finitude is such that whether or not one would achieve the end result (a flourishing life), may depend upon whether we are in fact rewarded for the efforts we make. This latter is, for both Philosophers, up to the divine forces or principles governing the universe, divine forces which we hope will provide us with a flourishing life (if we are worthy of one). Freud shows no obvious signs of agreeing with either Kant or Aristotle on this issue, and appears to rest his case with the more myth-influenced Plato. We, like Eros, can live, love and work with every fibre of our being to create our civilisation but, for Freud, at the end of this process we might have to live with the thought that all our efforts were not worth the result (reminding us of the ancient prophecy quoted in the Republic that everything created by man is doomed to destruction). We may, that is, have to resign ourselves to our fates (Ananke) and live in a state of discontentment.
Kant recognises this sentiment when he refers to everyday life as a life of melancholic haphazardness but he transcends this cynical position and offers us some hope on the condition that we are worthy of the life of complete happiness. It is certainly the case that much of Freudian theory relating to the instincts falls into the Kantian domain of physiological anthropology because as Kant maintains in his Anthropology:
“in regard to the state of its representations, my mind is either active and exhibits a faculty or it is passive and consists in receptivity. A cognition contains both joined together, and the possibility of having such a cognition bears the name of cognitive faculty–from the most distinguished part of the faculty, namely the activity of the mind in combining or separating representations from one another. Representations in regard to which the mind behaves passively and by means of which the subject is therefore affected (whether it affects itself or is affected by an object) belong to the sensuous faculty. But ideas that comprise a sheer activity (thinking) belong to the intellectual cognitive faculty. The former is called the lower, the latter the higher cognitive faculty. The lower cognitive faculty has the character of passivity of the inner sense of sensations: the higher, of the spontaneity of apperception, that is, of pure consciousness of the activity that constitutes thinking. It belongs to logic (a system of rules of the understanding) as the former belongs to psychology(a sum of all inner perception under laws of nature) and establishes inner experience.”(A P. 29-30)69
The difference here in Freudian terms is perhaps that between the organisation of representations jointly by the energy regulation and pleasure pain principles governing the lower cognitive faculty, an organisation that does not appear to involve higher-level consciousness, and representations organised by the reality principle. This latter principle governs the active higher cognitive faculty, a faculty that does involve higher-level consciousness and also actively follows the laws of logic and the rules of the understanding.
In Aristotelian terms, the lower sensuous cognitive faculty is the material the mind uses in its representations and which accounts for the passivity of the representation. Kant, in this context, notes the following negative feature:
“Sensibility, on the other hand, is in bad repute. Many evil things are said about it: e.g. 1. that it confuses the power of representation, 2. that it monopolizes the conversation and is like an autocrat when it should be merely the servant of the understanding, 3. that it even deceives us.”(A P.34)(70)
Kant then rejects these common criticisms aided ,perhaps by Platonic ideas.He appeals to Aristotelian hylomorphic theory, claiming that one may grasp a manifold but not yet have ordered it in accordance with the rules of the understanding. The senses, Kant argues, provide an abundance of material that can be combined or separated in various ways in accordance with various principles. Sensibility, Kant argues, cannot be confused or deceived because there is no function of judgment associated with it. Illusion and delusion require a judgment of the understanding to provide a rule with respect to which one is confused or deceived: rules provide a standard of comparison with reality. Kant then goes on to note interestingly that, of the 5 senses that constitute sensibility, two are pleasure related (smell and taste), and the other three senses appear to have some higher function that relates in some way to reality (providing the material for judgment?). He also notes that we can think of sensibility in terms of the presence of an object (sense perception) but also in terms of the absence of the object (which occurs when we imagine something). Insofar as we are concerned with inner sense we are dealing not with what man makes of himself but rather with what he undergoes when he is affected by the play of his imagination, as the melancholic is when he imagines himself as worthless or the paranoid schizophrenic when he imagines his life is in danger from the FBI. Kant also notes that no organ is associated with inner sense. Kant differentiates in this discussion between what is anthropological and what he regards as merely psychological. The former, as we have pointed out deals with the issues of what man makes of himself in terms of his moral choices that will lead him to become a cosmopolitan citizen of the world, whereas the latter is based on a questionable assumption of a substantial soul that we seemingly (an illusion?) perceive as something within ourselves, something that can reveal itself to some kind of mental investigation or mysterious process of introspection. This search for inner sensations, Kant argues, can only lead to mental instability. This psychological attitude toward the mind could only lead, Kant insists, to retiring into oneself and this state of affairs can only be remedied by a renewed commitment to the external world via the cognitively oriented senses and the application of the laws and rules of the understanding to the material gleaned by these senses–rules and laws that relate both to the external world with its starry heavens and its cities, countries and empires that are such a source of discontentment to their citizens. To lose one’s way in such a world is, in Kant’s words, to lose ones Tramontano (to lose one’s relation to the navigational guide of the North Star). The melancholic has obviously lost his way in the world and is buffeted to death by his own imaginings. In this context, Kant points out that the almost universal fear of death that is natural to all human beings, is a mass illusion, simply because the thought of one’s death is impossible, principally because when one is dead one cannot be conscious that one is dead. This is an interesting argument for the necessary connection between thinking and consciousness.
Kant discusses dreams in relation to the imagination and sees in dreams the activation of the vital force of life whilst we are sleeping. He points to the lack of continuity between one nights dreams and the next, claiming that this together with the absence of the presence of bodily movements based on choice convinces us that the dream world is not real. Kant claims that the power of imagination is:
“richer and more fruitful in its presentation than sense when a passion appears on the scene the power of imagination is more enlivened through the absence of an object than by its presence.”(A P.73)71
Memory, Kant claims, is distinguishable from imagination in that it is a reproductive power of the imagination that is able to reproduce its representations voluntarily. Memory is necessary for the ordering of experience, Freud notes, and this is actually confirmed by the biological development of the hippocampus: the power of memory is not actualised until around the age that the “I think” is actualised, that is to say around one and a half to three years old. Once the memory is developed, Kant would probably agree that its continuity is essential, (along with the continuity of the functioning of the body) for the identity of a personal, enduring self, that stays the same through a series of experiences. In Freud’s theory, certain memories are repressed if sufficient amounts of anxiety become associated with them (and/or the ego is not sufficiently developed to bear the anxiety involved). Memory in itself then, is a necessary but not a sufficient condition of the power we possess of anticipating the future, a power necessary for another power, that of practical reasoning:
“Every desire contains a (doubtful or certain) foresight of what is possible through it. Recalling the past (remembering) occurs only with the intention of making foresight of the future possible by means of it; generally speaking, we look about us from the standpoint of the present in order to decide something or to be prepared for something.”(A P. 79)72
There are obvious limits to this form of anticipation when it takes the form of a prophecy of the fate of a person or a people, because obviously, the memory of the prophecy together with a knowledge of the causes operating to bring the fact prophesied about, must be, for Kant, subject to the law of freedom which obviously can alter any prophecy by altering the causes that are bringing certain effects about.
For Kant, the higher cognitive faculty is composed of correct understanding (rules), practiced judgment and thorough or complete reasoning (embracing the totality of conditions, i.e. necessary and sufficient conditions). Kant personifies these three cognitive operations in terms of the domestic or civil servant who merely needs to understand his orders in order to obey them, an officer who has to understand more abstractly which principle to apply in particular cases, and the general that needs to make judgments on all possible hypothetical cases and may even have to construct new principles for totally new situations. Kant summarises his position in the following terms:
“Now if understanding is the faculty of rules, and the power of judgment the faculty of discovering the particular insofar as it is an instance of these rules, then reason is the faculty of deriving the particular from the universal, and thus of representing it according to principles, and as necessary… The human being needs reason for every moral (consequently also religious) judgment, and cannot rest on statutes and established customs. Ideas are concepts of reason to which no object given in experience can be adequate. They are neither intuitions (like those of space and time) nor feelings (such as the doctrine of happiness looks for), both of which belong to sensibility. Ideas are, rather, concepts of a perfection that we always approach but never completely attain.”(A P. 93-4)73
Kant then specifically discusses the weaknesses and illnesses of the soul in relation to its cognitive faculty and fixates upon the psychic conditions of melancholia and what he calls mental derangement. In melancholia: In the case of mental derangement there is:
“an arbitrary course in the patient’s thoughts which has its own (subjective) rule but which runs contrary to the (objective) rule that is in agreement with laws of experience.”(A P. 96)74
Kant refers here to “delirious raving” and “delirium”. It appears also as if he believes that derangement is a more serious condition than melancholia, thus confirming the Aristotelian notion of a continuum of points or stages or phases on a line of development stretching teleologically toward the potential of perfect rationality in accordance with the idea of Reason. In modern psychoanalysis this concept of a continuum correlates with what Melanie Klein would call a difference between the paranoid-schizoid position (derangement) and the depressive position (melancholia). In the former case, the ego and its objects are split in terms of the good and the bad (part-objects), and in the latter case, where the ego has lost its most valued object and identifies with the loss of that object in terms of its relation to its own life.
Underlying the above talk of objects is the operation of the energy regulation principle and the pleasure-pain principles. This operation is in accordance with an account of pleasure and pain that we can in fact find in the Anthropology, in a chapter entitled “On the Feeling of Pleasure and Displeasure”. The risks with such a project is that of descending into the depths of describing the material substrate of these operations: a risk Freud took only to abandon and finally appeal to Platonic mythology at the end of 50 years of writing about these principles.
Kant’s characterisation begins with a classification of pleasures into, firstly, sensuous pleasures and, secondly, intellectual pleasures. These are further divided into two classes: sensuous pleasures are organic (e.g. the enjoyment of good wine) and reflective (aesthetic judgments of taste) and intellectual pleasures are divided into those that are representable by concepts and those that are representable through ideas. The following quote elucidates the feeling of sensuous pleasure and there is a clear reference to energy regulation:
“One can also explain these feelings by means of the effect that the sensation produces on our state of mind. What directly (through sense) urges me to leave my state (to go out of it) is disagreeable to me–it causes me pain: just as what drives me to maintain my state (to remain in it) is agreeable to me, I enjoy it. But we are led along irresistibly in the stream of time and in the change of sensations connected with it. Now even if leaving one point of time and entering another is one and the same act (of change), there is still a temporal sequence in our thought and in the consciousness of this change, in conformity with the relation of cause and effect.–So, the question arises, whether it is the consciousness of leaving the present state, or the prospect of entering a future state, that awakens in us the sensations of enjoyment? In the first case the enjoyment is nothing else then the ending of a pain and something negative, in the second it would be presentiment of something agreeable, therefore an increase in the state of pleasure, consequently something positive. But we can already guess beforehand that only he first will happen: for time drags us from the present to the future (not the reverse) and the cause of our agreeable feeling can only be that we are first compelled to leave the present, without any certainty into which other state we will enter, knowing only that it is definitely another one. Enjoyment is the feeling of the promotion of life: pain is that of a hindrance of life. But (animal) life, as physicians also have already noted, is a continuous play of the antagonism of both. Therefore pain must always precede any enjoyment: pain is always first. For what else but a quick death from joy would follow from a continuous promotion of the vital force, which cannot be raised above a certain degree anyway? Also, no enjoyment can immediately follow another: rather, because one and another pain must appear. Small inhibition of the vital force with advancements in it constitute the state of health that we erroneously consider to be a continuously felt well-being..Pain is the incentive of activity and in this, above all, we feel our life, without pain lifelessness would set in.”(A P. 126)75
This is a very concrete, descriptive account of the consciousness of pleasure and pain. Note the role of causation and the surprising claim that pain is the great initiator of activity. This corresponds with the Freudian claim that pain is the great educator of mankind as well as the Aristotelian claim that learning associated with pain (pity and fear) in works of art has a cathartic function, restoring the equilibrium of the appreciators of tragedy. The Aristotelian theory of change also suggests itself and there is no reason, in our view, why the above could not function as the energetics of our experience of change. If reality is a potential continuum for Aristotle, then experienced pleasure and pain are possible actualised points on any continuum of life.
Paul Ricoeur, in his work “Freud and Philosophy: an essay in Interpretation” points out that Freud’s theory is composed of an energetics of the psychical apparatus and a hermeneutics that follows from an interpretation of the symptoms of mentally ill patients. The energy regulation principle (ERP) and a network of concepts including “psychical apparatus”, “cathexis”, “anticathexis”, “quantity”, “excitation”, “storing”, “emptying” “homeostasis”, and “tension” all testify to a materialistic substrate of mental functioning which Freud uses in certain kinds of explanation for certain kinds of phenomena. Freud refers to the ERP as the principle of constancy that he characterises in terms of the tendency of a system to maintain levels of energy as low as possible. The system, however, cannot eliminate all energy because the psychical apparatus:
“must learn to tolerate a state of quantity sufficient to meet the demands of specific action.”(Freud’s unpublished Project P. 358)
In the “Project”, Freud refers to a particular system of neurones whose task it is to transform what he calls “Quantity (a seemingly un-measurable form of energy) into consciousness and its “qualities”. In this “Project”, we can also find an echo of Kant’s account of the mechanics of the operation of pleasure and pain:
“Since we have certain knowledge of a trend in psychical life towards avoiding unpleasure. In that case, unpleasure would coincide with a rise in the level of quantity”(Project P. 358)
What requires more elaboration in the above account is the role of the external world in relation to the demand for specific action: An external world which consciousness experiences qualitatively. In the process of avoidance of unpleasure, or, in other words, in this learning process, consciousness is the key factor. The ERP or constancy principle’s function is to assist in testing reality for its qualities, and to inhibit certain primary psychical processes (such as hallucinatory wishing) from accessing the motor system. Energy is obviously “directed” in this process of inhibition with help from the ego. The suggestion from Freud, is that language plays the role of a secondary sensory source that expresses what Freud referred to as “thought-reality”. We are here in the realm of what he called the operation of the “secondary process”: the most secure form of thought process. This process is obviously closely linked to language or indications of speech. Freud claims interestingly, in this discussion that theoretical thought does not give rise to un-pleasure as is the case with the biological realities steered by the ERP and the pleasure-pain principle (when hallucination and perception are confused).
The ERP and its relation to both primary and secondary processes have a key role in the formation of memory and its availability to consciousness in processes of reality testing and learning. High levels of anxiety (forms of unpleasure) will obviously prevent the formation of natural memories that emerge in reality testing and learning situations. High levels of anxiety appear to initiate secondary inhibitions that absorb some of the energy at the disposal of the ego and the “I think”. In this context, we should recall that Freud in his first therapy–attempts, thought it sufficient to revive the “traumatic memory” in a state of semi-consciousness (via hypnosis) in order for symptoms to disappear. This obviously was a necessary first stage in his cathartic process but it proved to be insufficient to integrate the anxiety-laden “image” into more abstract language-governed thought processes where displeasure is neutralised. The use of hypnosis in this cathartic process was, of course, not helpful because it placed the subject in a superficial state of sleep where the language of the therapist was being used suggestively, and the language of the subject was being used automatically. This method was obviously only partly effective and pushed Freud toward the development of techniques that demanded that the subject be fully conscious. The new techniques that were developed were: free association, recounting of dream memories, symptom interpretation, together with the transference relation to the therapist and they were all designed to embed old primary process images in secondary process “thought reality”.
Underlying the above practical innovations was obviously a theory of how the mechanisms of pleasure and pain were operating in relation to the continuum of biological and thought processes. Energy regulation involving the transference and displacement of psychical energies, were obviously important aspects of pleasure and pain regulation. Dreams, for example, may, if the theory is correct, be transformations of waking linguistic indications of thought into images that resemble hallucinations. Dream images also condense and displace representations, and dream interpretation requires an understanding of the underlying mechanisms in the work of the dream. Freud treats dreams as symbols that require special interpretation. The path of this interpretation is laid down by the therapist who follows the dreamer’s conscious free associations to each of the image-elements of the dream. Somatic excitations during sleep, residues of the day in the dream, and the wish to sleep also need to be considered in the dream interpretation process. It is, for example, the powerful biological energy-regulating wish to sleep that converts external stimuli into images and creates the effect of hallucination and de-realisation of the body.
This hylomorphic view of the mind results in the iceberg model of the mind where consciousness is the tip, and the substance (the preconscious and the unconscious) resides beneath the surface of consciousness. The unconscious is clearly the most primitive aspect of the whole system, but it is the reservoir of energy for the rest of the system, containing not just the death instinct of the melancholic but also the life instinct of the human race. Consciousness is, in fact, a vicissitude of these preconscious and unconscious aspects of our mind. In other words, the Freudian mental apparatus contains Aristotelian “forms”. Hylomorphic theory permitted Aristotle to claim, for example, that “a dream is thinking that persists in the state of sleep”. Freud would have agreed with this claim and this was the reason he concentrated much of his therapeutic efforts on the interpretation of the dream. He situated the biological wish to sleep and the residues of the day in the subconscious systems together with latent instinctive wishes that energised the dream formation. These latter were clearly situated in the unconscious system that, for Freud, operated on laws or principles, which were free of logic and time conditions. It is this unconscious element in the dream that gave the images contained therein their hallucinatory quality: their quality of being unreal. Here the psychical apparatus is operating on the substrate of the ERP but also seemingly in a different dimension.
Memories, when reality-tested by motility with the assistance of language, become more real and find a natural home in the preconscious system where Freud also locates the meaning of words and all forms of knowledge. In Chapter 7 of his work “The Interpretation of Dreams,” Freud provides a diagram of the psychical apparatus with memory close to the perceptual end of the apparatus, and the preconscious system closer to the opposite motor end of the apparatus.Just behind the preconscious system, Freud places the unconscious system. The diagram seems incomplete. Where, for example, should one place the Kantian faculties of the understanding and reason? Since perception is the bearer of consciousness perhaps the Kantian faculties should be placed between perception and memory. Language also needs to be placed somewhere on the continuum of this apparatus. Since meanings of words are located in the preconscious system, perhaps language belongs within the preconscious system which we should recall is the faculty of thought-reality for Freud and also turns unpleasure or pain away from its activity.
The key element of the above diagram of the psychic apparatus is clearly, for Freud’s purposes, the unconscious system that contains the instincts and the life force needed for the actualising of the potential of humankind. One of the major tasks of the psychical apparatus as a whole is to develop a strong ego that is connected with what Freud regards as the task of “becoming conscious”. Consciousness is, therefore a task for Freud. On an Aristotelian reading of Freud’s life force, it appears to possess a telos, a potential that may never be realised. Paul Ricoeur claims that the instincts are “The Kantian transcendental X” of the Freudian system of thought. We referred earlier to the source, aims, and objects of instincts. The sources of instincts obviously fall in the domain of biology to investigate, and aims and objects appear to be the proper domain of investigation for Psychology (as conceived by Freud). From the point of view of Freudian energetics, Instincts are the source of the distribution of energy between the ego and its objects. They are also the reservoir of indestructible desires. If all this is in the name of transcendental psychology, then we need to return to Kant to see exactly how the two accounts can complement each other.
The closest Kant comes to this kind of psychology is in his remarks on mental illness and the mechanics of pleasure and pain but there are also some indications in book 3 of his Anthropology that might assist in this matter. In the section entitled “on the Faculty of Desire” Kant has the following to say:
“Desire (appetitio) is the self-determination of subjects power through the representation of something in the future as an effect of the representation. Habitual sensible desire is called inclination. Desiring without exercising power to produce the object is wish. Wish can be directed towards objects that the subject himself feels incapable of producing, and then it is an empty(idle) wish. Inclination that can be conquered only with difficulty or not at all by the subject’s reason is passion. On the other hand, the feeling of pleasure or displeasure in the subjects present state that does not let him rise to reflection (the representation by means of reason as to whether he should give himself up to it or refuse it) is affect. To be subject to affects or passions is probably always an illness of the mind because both affect and passion shut out the sovereignty of reason. Both are also equally vehement in degree, but as concerns their quality they are essentially different from each other, with regard both to the method of prevention and to that of the cure that the physician of souls would have to apply.”(A P. 149- 150)76
The above reference to a physician of the soul is suggestive of the possibility that in the society of Kant’s time there were people prepared to fill such a role: the Enlightenment’s forerunners to our modern-day psychoanalysts and psychologists. So even though Kant’s classifications and descriptions take us no further into the Freudian depths of the mind, the above quote clearly takes us to the mouth of the Freudian cave, points, that is, to the darkness within, and invites the thinker inside in accordance with the suggestions of Plato’s Republic where those of us enjoying the Platonic sun have an obligation to return to the depths of the cave and help the prisoners therein to their freedom.
But what, then, is Transcendental Psychology? It clearly has Aristotelian, Kantian and Freudian elements. It is, as we have seen with Kant’s account, a philosophical appeal to faculties and powers of the mind and related psychological processes. Answering this question, however, is fraught with difficulty because, many scientists and philosophers throughout the ages have been critical of transcendental and metaphysical theorising. The term “psychologism”, for example, has been a common accusation by Philosophers of Kant’s work: Less friendly terms have been used of Freud’s work by scientists working in the positivistic tradition of investigation. Patricia Kitcher in her work “Kant’s Transcendental Psychology” asks the question “What is Transcendental Psychology?” and in the process of defending Kant’s work has the following to say:
“Powerful currents within and without Kant scholarship have combined to keep transcendental psychology out of the mainstream, beyond the pale of serious philosophical discussion.”(P. 5)77
One must agree with this judgment and perhaps add to this the fact of the reception that Freud’s work received at the hands of both Science and Empirically oriented Analytical Philosophy. One of the criticisms of Kant that Kitcher refers to is the fallacy of attempting to found normative principles on factual premises:
“what might be called “strong” psychologism in logic: the attempt to establish the validity of logical principles by appeal to facts of human psychology”(P. 9)16 There is, as she puts it no evidence of this problem in Kant but paradoxically accuses Kant of what she calls “weak psychologism” which she defines thus: “The view that psychological facts may be important to philosophical normative claims, even though they cannot establish such claims.”(P.9)78
Given Kant’s definition of reason in terms of the search for the totality of conditions of any state of affairs, it is difficult to appreciate the point Kitcher is making here. Kant in his logic operates with not just the principle of noncontradiction but also a principle of sufficient reason (which includes reference to necessary and sufficient conditions). In this sense, Kant’s subjective deduction relating to faculties of the mind and their associated psychological processes may certainly be amongst the necessary conditions establishing, for example, the categories of the understanding that operate in accordance with both the principles of non-contradiction and sufficient reason. This is Kant’s view of logic and it suffices to establish a relationship between psychological processes and logical claims.
Kitcher goes on to claim, correctly, that twentieth-century psychology has been a force of opposition against transcendental psychology, but she does not attribute this to the philosophical movements of logical atomism and logical positivism that were flourishing at the time. Instead, she points out that:
“Finally the ideology of twentieth-century psychology has had highly negative implications for the status of transcendental psychology. Assuming that introspection was the only way to study mental processes J. B. Watson and other behaviourists convinced their colleagues that they could write psychology and “never use the terms “consciousness”, “mental state” “mind” “content” “imagery” and the like.” (Kitcher P. 10)79
The roles of methodology and observation were discussed earlier in relation to the shift in the definition of psychology from the science of consciousness to the science of behaviour. The effect was to undermine the principled approach to Psychology that was begun by Aristotle and continued by Kant and Freud, an approach that did not, as was falsely claimed, rest on a mystical operation of introspection that “revealed” psychological phenomena. In the wake of this scientific movement everything apriorí (independent of experience) was regarded as actually innate rather than potentially actualisable(Aristotle), and the resultant concept of mind was described and explained in mechanical terms such as “systems”, “modules”, “processes” “input”, “output” etc.
Kitcher ends her account by claiming that psychologists have now realised that they cannot explain human behaviour without appealing to cognitive processes. She is, however, referring here to modern cognitive psychology (rather than that of Piaget’s hylomorphically inspired psychology). Her view retains the right to regard the mind as a machine, a computer, thus undermining the fundamental feature of the Aristotelian, Kantian, and Freudian concept of mind as organic and alive.
In a section entitled “Kant against Psychology” Kitcher points out that Kant criticises any appeal to empirical psychology in transcendental or metaphysical contexts. Her approach is a more subtle form of the criticism we find in Brett’s History of Psychology, where it is claimed that Kant is to be held responsible for an empirical obsession with measurement in psychological experiments because, he claimed, that all serious science must have mathematics associated with its methodology. Brett has this to say:
“Kant’s second contribution to the German tradition of psychology was his contention that science is characterised by mathematical as well as an empirical description. His celebrated fusion of the empirical standpoint of Hume with the rationalist standpoint of Wolff involved the aphorism that an empirical inquiry is as scientific as it contains mathematics. This was an extrapolation of Newtonian practice and as a methodological prescription, it had a profound effect on successive psychologists. It introduced the craze for measurement in psychology and reinforced the yearning for scientific respectability amongst psychologists which had started with Hume’s treatise.”(Peters P. 533)80
Brett also fails to appreciate the complete account of Kantian science which would refer to an empirical level of measurement that is connected to transcendental and metaphysical principles and laws: an account that acknowledges the role of observation and measurement in investigations into what he termed the phenomenal self that can be postulated as a substance and observed in a causal framework. This account, however, does not suffice in Kant’s view to bring us into contact with the transcendental noumenal self that thinks. Brett believes this approach to be contradictory because he believes two selves are being evoked, and one of these selves (the noumenal metaphysical self) is not a possible object of study. Kant would also deny that the noumenal self is a possible object of study, on the grounds that the “I think” is the ground of the possibility of studying objects using understanding and reason, and cannot, therefore, study itself as an object. For Kant, the phenomenal self and the noumenal self are two different ways of characterising the self, and even if mathematics might be used in observations of the self, it could not study thought because thought was not accessible empirically. Brett refers to Kant’s remarks on the relation of science and mathematics as a prejudice:
“The combination of observationalism with the Kantian prejudice about mathematics encouraged the view that science progresses by the accumulation of measurements, the noticing of laws or correlations between the sets of measurements, and the final relating of laws under theories. Psychologists, increasingly self-conscious about the status of their studies thought that respectable scientific theories would emerge only if enough mathematics was used in making the initial observations.”(P. 534)81
It is difficult to fathom exactly what Brett meant by the Kantian prejudice in favour of mathematics. Mathematics measures substances in space (geometry) and in time (number). Kant clearly says that neither the self nor the soul is substance, echoing the Aristotelian claim that they are “forms” or “principles”. One cannot measure principles, but a principle may well help to determine the consciousness that contains “qualities” of reality that may then be quantified and turned into measurements (red for example, is ca. 690-angstrom units). If the “I think” entails that I must be thinking something about something on the condition that I am thinking conceptually, then concepts must express the qualities of the something that we find in the subject position of the thought or judgment. There is no substance here to be measured, and Kant criticised rationalist psychology for using this assumption. Brett after the above criticism, surprisingly confirms the Kantian objection to substance in the following quote:
“Kant saw that it was not possible to speak of a soul which entered into a relationship with a system of pre-existing things. That consciousness which Descartes put in the forefront of his speculations is not for Kant a function of the soul: on the contrary, the new attitude is clearly defined by the assertion that the soul, in this sense, is in the consciousness, it is an idea. Hume had perhaps taught Kant that reflection never is withdrawing of the soul into itself, nor is it a power by which the soul observes itself.”(P. 537-8)82
This acknowledgment does not, however, quite fit with the criticism above. It has to be said that if the characterisation of Kant’s position by Brett is correct, then it almost looks as if Kant shares the Freudian view that the task of a person is to “become conscious”, to actualise the potential within, to use Aristotelian language. Brett continues his theme of a “psychology without a soul” in the following interesting quote:
“Here, then, is the real beginning of “psychology without a soul”. In distinction from many who have used that phrase, Kant did not propose to deny the reality of the soul in the same way in which it had been asserted: his treatment of Rational Psychology is not dogmatic but critical. The first result was a clear conception of the limits of psychology: in place of the previous inaccurate use of terms we are given clear distinctions. The science of the soul is called Pneumatology: the study of man as part of nature is called Anthropology: under Anthropology in general comes the specific department called Psychology.”(538)83
This is not the clearest characterisation of Kant’s Anthropology and Brett’s reference to “we are given clear distinctions”, whilst correct, is inadequately so, because we are only given clear distinctions in virtue of their relation to clear principles. It is, in particular, not clear from the above that the Anthropology (from a pragmatic point of view) is not a theoretical empirical inquiry. What is clear is that Psychology is best conceived as a practical inquiry presupposing a priori principles. In becoming conscious (Freud) or becoming rational (Aristotle,) man uses his freedom to make something of himself. Brett does not acknowledge this aspect of Kant’s argument. He continues to believe falsely that the Anthropology is primarily epistemological rather than ethical, and therefore claims that everything appears to be “inner”. Principles are neither inner nor outer, and Kant’s Anthropology is a search for the principles of transcendental psychology in the spirit of transcendental philosophy. Recall again Kant’s definition of Anthropology, namely, “what man makes of himself”. The reference to the ethical law of freedom is unmistakable and freedom is as manifest in outer behaviour as it is in the inner mental activity of choosing to act in one way rather than another.
Brett notes the presence of the will in the third book of the Anthropology and remarks on how the feeling of pleasure and pain are sublimated by the ideas of good and evil that he claims come from the understanding and reason. All the above misconceptions then lead Brett to claim:
“Kant takes psychology to be of little value, it is for him wholly empirical and consists of an elementary doctrine of faculties amplified by the inclusion of such descriptive matter as might have been culled from novels or improving stories”(P. 541)84
The only comment one can make about such a gross misreading is to perhaps point out that fictional works acknowledge the presence of the moral life and its relevance to Psychology to a much greater extent than anything Brett has to say on this topic.
Brett then equally paradoxically claims that Kant’s ideas herald the science of behaviour. The grounds are not entirely clear but have something to do with the role of sensation in Kant’s theories. Brett claims that sensationalism is correct, provided that it is critical, (whatever that means) and claims that it is difficult to fathom what Kant means with his idea of sensation. It is, however, no more difficult to fathom what Kant meant , than it is to understand Aristotle’s view. All that is needed is an understanding of the hylomorphic theory where form once actualised can become matter for the next stage of the actualisation process of a life form. Sensation is one form taken by consciousness when the nervous system of a life form is activated, and it can take a simple form without any attachment to an object, when, for example, I am feeling cold (I am not feeling cold at anything). Sensation can also take a more complex form if we are talking about the feeling of anger when, as Aristotle points out, it takes as its object some insult. It can take yet another even more complex form when it is the feeling caused by an object of free beauty, when the faculties of the understanding and the imagination are “felt” in their free play. Brett surprisingly acknowledges this Aristotelian influence on Kant in the following remark:
“Kant rightly declared that the mind must be regarded as a structure regulated by principles which are ultimately its own activities.”(P. 544)85
The reference to principles is certainly both Kantian and Aristotelian, but the implication that principles and activities are somehow identical is, to say the very least, paradoxical. The principles are, of course, principles in transcendental logic, and denote not activities themselves, but the conditions of activities. Brett does not believe in the categories of understanding, meaning that he does not believe they can be established either logically or psychologically. Kant’s work on the categories, as we know, relates to the different logical forms of judgment that are used to generate true statements. We also know this was the part of the First critique that he spent most of his time on. Brett follows up with the criticism that Kant is confusing psychology with logic: a position that Kitcher in her work, dismissed.
In 1921 it might have seemed like “good news” that science was not going to bear the burden that philosophy bore earlier, and Psychology at that point in time was barely 50 years old. Nothing much of theoretical significance has happened in the name of scientific psychology almost one hundred years later. Brett was one of the bearers of the good news but is now one of the targets of those philosophers who have been influenced by the work of Aristotle, Kant and Freud. We can even, somewhat paradoxically, add another philosopher to that list, namely, Wittgenstein. Wittgenstein’s earlier work was in logical atomism and he also flirted for a short period with logical positivism. In his more mature position, Wittgenstein claimed that Psychology as a discipline was rife with conceptual confusion. It is interesting to note in this context the respective dates of publication of Wittgenstein’s earlier work (“Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus”) and Brett’s History of Psychology were 1922 and 1921 respectively. By 1950 Wittgenstein had reversed his position and both Logical atomism and Logical positivism as movements had been overshadowed. Wittgenstein’s “Tractatus” used the key terms “object “and picture”: terms favoured by the empirical psychology of the time.
At the end of this work, Wittgenstein was forced to admit, after defining the world as the totality of facts, that the sense of the world mysteriously lay outside the world, and also that all forms of value lie outside the world. Ethics, aesthetics, and religion found themselves in the realm of what cannot meaningfully be said, because the only meaningful propositions were those of natural science. Kant would, of course, have substantially criticised the picture theory of meaning contained in the Tractatus, which built upon the “fact” that we form pictures to ourselves of those facts. These pictures were a work of construction by an imagination faculty not connected to an active will that seeks to understand and reason about its representations (a will that also, according to the Tractatus lies outside the world). So, even in his early work, we see in Wittgenstein a forced acknowledgment of transcendence, but we also find very little transcendental psychology, except perhaps in his claim that the world of a happy man is a different world to that of the unhappy man.
Wittgenstein retreated in his later work from Science and his mystical form of transcendence, and moved toward a position that regarded forms of life (Aristotle) and language-games as primary concepts. Yet, even after eschewing science he was still in search of a “method” in Philosophy and claimed that one had been found in his grammatical investigations. These investigations offered us a kind of transcendence in that they provided us with the essences of things in some a priori fashion. This is not exactly the transcendental method of Kant where it is claimed that transcendental knowledge is not concerned so much with objects of experience as with the manner of knowing these objects, (a manner that requires the acknowledgment of representations that have an a priori character.) So while Wittgenstein seeks the a priori principle and origins of our judgments and activities in language and forms of life, Kant continues to place his faith and hope in reason, and uses legal deductions that prove the right to use concepts involved in different kinds of knowledge claims. A priori concepts, it is true, do not derive from sensations and Kant specifically implies this. But nevertheless, the psychological and scientific response to Kant’s claims in this area is to project upon him a position that he does not adopt, namely that a priori concepts are “innate”, in spite of the extensive written evidence to the contrary, especially that contained in the so-called Eberhard controversy:
“The Critique admits absolutely no divinely implanted or “innate” representations… there must, however, be a ground in the subject which makes it possible for these representations to originate in this and no other manner…This ground is at least innate.”
It is, in other words, the power that has the potential to be exercised or used which is part of the “form” of the organism, part of its life-form. This form, then, includes the potentiality for cognitive tasks of consciousness that involve the use of the categories of judgments/understanding and the ideas of reason. We are here in the realm of what Kant called synthetic a priori propositions that cannot be proved by formal logic. The predicate-concept is clearly not contained in the subject concept in these judgments. The proof required for synthetic a priori propositions, is a transcendental proof: the proof proves that the negation of a synthetic a priori proposition is a kind of contradiction thus proving the universality and necessity of the proposition. Kitcher summarises this well by saying:
“transcendental investigations of the sources of knowledge–transcendental psychology–disclose universal and necessary features of human cognition.”(P. 19)86
She continues, however, by pointing out that Kant had no understanding of the twentieth-century discipline of computer science, suggesting that his philosophy somehow supports such a discipline. A computer is not a life form, it merely imitates life forms in a manner that is neither transcendental nor ethical in that it possesses no freedom to choose to attend to this rather than that. For Kant, the matter constituting something of substance is very relevant to its function, especially if this something is a life form. A computer, for Kant, may be able to imitate conscious function, but is not conscious in the way we are. Our organs, for example, are in possession of the kind of chemistry, biology, and physiology that a computer does not possess. It is the system of our organs (including a brain), on the hylomorphic view, that constitutes our human form of consciousness. For Wittgenstein too, (for whom the concept of the form of life was important), we would be witnessing a conceptual confusion if one believed that Kant’s philosophy could not explain or justify the cognitive tasking of a computer. Kant would certainly agree, if provided with knowledge of computers, as would many philosophers, that artificial intelligence does not resemble real human intelligence in any significant respect. The computer may be able, in accordance with the Turing test, produce the same results as a human Chinese translator, but it remains an incontestable fact that the computer does not understand Chinese, and the reason for this state of affairs lies in the different material embodiment of the cognitive function we are witnessing.
- Kuehn, M., Kant: A Biography, (Cambridge, CUP,2001)
- Kant, I, Anthropology From a Pragmatic Point of View, translated by Louden, R., B.,(Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2006)
- Kant, I., Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, Translated by Carus, P.,
Revised by Ellington, W., J.,(Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing Company,1977). - Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Kant, I., Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. Translated by Kemp
Smith. N.,(London, Macmillan, 1929) - Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Kant, I., Philosophy of Material Nature, The Paul Carus Translation extensive revised by Ellington , J., W.,(Indianaopolis, Hackett Publishing,1985)
- Kant, I., Critique of Pure Reason
- Ibid.
- Arendt, H, Origins of totalitarianism
- Penguin Library of Freud, Civilisation and its Discontents.
- Macdougall The Group Mind
- Penguin Freud Library Group Psychology and the analysis of the Ego
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Kant, I., Groundwork for a Metaphysics of Morals.
- Kuehn, M., Kant: A Biography , (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2001)
- Kant, I., The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant: Practical Philosophy , Translated by Gregor J., M., and Wood, A.(Cambridge, Cambridge University Press,1996)
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid
- . Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Kant, I., Religion within the boundaries of mere Reason , Translated and edited by Wood, A., and Di Giovanni, G., (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press,1998).
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Penguin Freud Library,Future of an Illusion.
- Ibid.
- James, M., R.,D., The World Explored, the World Suffered: A Philosophical History…
- Kant, I., Anthropology From A Pragmatic Point of View, Trans., Louden, B., R., (New York, Cambridge University Press, 2006)
- Peters, R. S. Brett’s History of Psychology, Edited and Abridged by R S Peters, (Masachussetts, Masachusetts Institute of Technology, 1953)
- Ibid.
- Kant. I, Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, Translated by Kemp Smith, N.,(London, Macmillan, 1929)
- Kant, Anthropology
- Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reeason
- Kant, I., Anthropology
- Ibid.
- Penguin library of Freud, Instincts and their Vicissitudes.
- Kant, I., Anthropology
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Kitcher, P, Kant’s Transcendental Psychology,(Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1990)
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Bretts “History of Psychology”
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- ibid.
- Ibid.
- Kitcher, Kant’s Transcendental Psychology
Freud and Philosophy: A Hylomorphic and Kantian Critical Reevaluation: Chapter 4: Freud and Aristotle…”…health is the logos and knowledge in the soul (psuché)
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Aristotle’s contribution to establishing a philosophical method was extensive and profound. Philosophy up to and including Plato included the discovery of elenchus and dialectic methods both of which were essentially designed for a face to face debating approach that often took place in the presence of an audience expecting areté (excellence) in the context of a symbolic and mythological understanding of Language.
Aristotle, in contrast to most of his predecessors, viewed the historical development of Philosophy more systematically, perhaps exactly because of the methods he had discovered. Where Plato in his central work, “The Republic” resorted to allegory and myth at crucial moments in his theorising, Aristotle used Categories of existence and logical argumentation. This resulted in the replacement of the dialectical interaction of different thinkers such as Heraclitus and Parmenides by a more theoretical panoramic view of all the thinkers of the Greek age, including the so-called “natural philosophers”. The result of this historical-methodological approach was of course firstly, the “invention” or “discovery” of logic and, secondly, the emergence of hylomorphic theory from the metaphysical investigations into being qua being (the first principles of Philosophy). With these developments a panoramic view of the landscape of thought was made possible. Given that metaphysics begins with the asking of aporetic questions the definition of which refers to the phenomenon of there being apparently equally powerful arguments for both the thesis and the antithesis of the issue, there appears to be a need for an overarching theoretical framework in which elements of both answers can be accommodated without contradiction. Indeed one is given the impression that the canvas Aristotle was using was considerably larger than that used by previous philosophers. In Raphael’s painting “The School of Athens”, Plato is pointing upwards toward the ethereal heavens and Aristotle is pointing straight ahead, perhaps at future audiences and the demand for more systematic systems of representation. He was of course hoping that his works influence, including as it did the practice of incorporating the insights of previous systems of thought into present ones, would not diminish over time as has been the case.
Descartes and Hobbes were both anti-Aristotelian theorists and the result of their works was to return us to a dialectically inspired resurrection of materialism and dualism (The stuff of the later Romantic movement). These modern philosophers and many others philosophising in their spirit failed to understand that Aristotle’s hylomorphic theory transcended these alternatives with a systematic panoramic world view.
Aristotle embraces Heraclitus to a much greater extent than Plato did in his work and as a consequence we will find in Aristotle a more satisfactory explanation of the material aspect of reality, partly because matter is a part of the medium of change in Aristotle’s hylomorphic theory. Matter was conceived as infinite by the materialists of the Greek age which included the early Socrates in their number. Aristotle conceived of matter as infinite because it appeared to him that the number of forms matter could take was unlimited. One arrived at the fundamental elements of reality, i.e. an ontological understanding of what there was, by dividing the infinite continuum up either into abstract “atoms” or more concrete elements such as earth, water, air and fire. In Aristotle’s view, early materialism did not provide a sufficiently complex explanation for the desire to understand the world which he claimed all human beings possess. At best we are given a view of what might exist, e.g. atoms, elements etc, without any principle for their existence. This Aristotelian form of principled existence or explanation of existence refers to the question “Why?”, and this question in turn transports us very quickly into the realm of the aporetical which Descartes and Hobbes were so keen to abandon in favour of a methodology of investigation. For Descartes his method was purely rational and was based on the givenness of thought or consciousness in the activity of thinking: his method was purely rational. Hobbes on the other hand was intellectually skeptical of the world of thought and its wild and wonderful ontological structures. For him observation as part of a method of resolution and composition eliminated the wild flying creations of the intellectual imagination and allowed the philosopher like the scientist to slow the pace of investigation down to a pedestrian earthly speed. Freud embraced the Aristotelian mode of materialism and methodology in his dismissal of the Cartesian method and its view of consciousness.
In the empirical science of the era extending from Descartes and Hobbes, wholes were carefully resolved into their parts and these parts were re-composed into wholes. This method when applied to the human sciences then also gave birth to the resolution of holistic human activities into two kinds of events which were logically independent of one another—cause and effect. Given that human activities are logical composites of the actions of agents and the objects they produce, this of course places an enormous obstacle in the path of the task of explaining human activities. When the above method reigns, the domain of explanation, the question “Why?” tends to focus on the cause of the activity in accordance with a principle of causation which states that “every event has a cause.” This principle literally means that one cannot rest in ones explanatory task with another event because that in turn must have a cause and it says nothing about resting ones explanation on a foundation which is not of the event-kind. With this principle we are literally on the path to an infinite regress that will logically prevent the kind of explanation needed, if for no other reason than the fact that the direction of the explanation is archeological, proceeding backwards in time. Aristotle was one of the first to point out that explanation of human activity which aims at the good is teleological, aiming in the opposite direction, namely forwards in time (at the future). This kind of explanation starts with the aim of bringing something, (a holistic state of affairs), about, and will only be resolved into its sub-goal parts if there is a logical relation between these sub activities and the overall aim of the holistic activity. There cannot be a cause-effect relation as envisaged by analytical philosophy of the kind practised by Hobbes and Hume simply because a cause is logically independent of its effect and Aristotle’s explanations had a logical structure that demanded logical dependence of its elements. From a modern perspective, Sciences like Physics and non-organic chemistry have great use for the above method of resolution –composition without too much distortion of the phenomena being studied. It is, to take an example, more easy to see how dead rabbits decompose into particles but, on the other hand, staying at the level of particles it is much more difficult to use them to account for how these particles help to teleologically keep live rabbits alive. These particles, at the very least, need to be composed into organs, or the dandelions the rabbit eats. This example illustrates that decomposition into parts actively discourages teleological thinking. Aristotle’s starting points for the rabbit were its teleological ends of growth, survival, and reproduction, and these “ends” are used to conceive of the parts of the rabbit, namely, its organs and limbs. The same modus operandi is used for conceiving of the why’s and wherefores relating to the ends of human beings. For Aristotle, a particular form of life requires a particular constellation of organs and limbs functioning teleologically to keep the animal growing, alive and reproducing. Aristotle also recognises the principle of rabbit-hood in his comparisons of the form of the life the rabbit leads, with the form of life the human being leads. The rabbit, Aristotle notes, moves itself in accordance with this principle of rabbit-hood which rests not inside the rabbit but “in” the rabbit’s activity. For Aristotle all life-forms are, to use Ricoeur’s terminology “desiring, striving, and working to be, to survive”.
Organisms are, in a sense, causa sui, the (logical) cause of their (continued)) existence. This causa sui-principle is not in any sense the terminal point of the explanation Aristotle requires. He believes we also need to provide a categorical framework other than material and efficient causation in order to “describe” the forms of life we encounter in the world. Aristotle’s “forms of life” are defined by the characteristic features of the activities engaged in by these “forms of life”. Plants, for example, are characterised (described and explained) by their growth and reproduction: animals by growth, reproduction, perception and purposeful movement, and human beings by all these characteristics, plus talking, remembering, imagining, understanding, judgement, and reasoning. One sees very clearly in this account, how life forms are defined by, not just their organ systems, but also by characteristic powers, each building upon the other teleologically until the form of life the animal is destined for is actualised in accordance with an actualising process determined by its telos or end. This life-form is determined by factors internal to the organism and not caused to come into existence by some outside agent as a table is caused to come into existence by the craft of the table maker. The parents of the organism pass the art of living on to their offspring by the creation of an internal principle, which in turn will from the inside create the form of life typical of the organism. Matter does not drop out of the account completely. It is potential and it actualises its potential by being formed by some principle, e.g. the matter of living beings is formed into flesh, bone, and organs. This system of matter produces a system of powers that in turn generates the form of life typical of the organism. These two systems together suffice to place living beings in a particular categorical framework. It is important to note here, however, that the telos or end of the actualisation process is the key to describing and explaining the function of the “parts” or the “elements” of the living being. This telos, before it is actualised, is potentially present as part of the principle of the organism. What the organism is, and what it strives and works to become, define the nature of the being that it is. For Aristotle, this essence or form can be captured by an essence or form-specifying definition. The categorical framework outlined above supersedes but does not eliminate the earlier division of the material world into earth, water, air, and fire, each of which, according to Aristotle, also possesses an essence or a form partly defined by what it can become or its telos, which in the case of these 4 elements is determined by the final resting place (cf. T S Eliot, the death of earth, water, air and fire?)1 . The earth is at the centre of the system of elements, and is the source of all life, which also requires water and air and the sun to thrive in accordance with the form of life determined by the system of organs and the powers generated thereby. When the organism dies, its parts are returned to the earth, its resting place. Death, on this account is defined in terms of the lack of a principle of change in the organism: the organism now “possesses” in an empty sense, organs and limbs that lack the power of movement or change. Life, in relation to the long-term tendency of the physical elements to return to their source and place of rest, is paradoxical because it is composed both of “that for the sake of which” the process of growth occurs, and the principle or form determining this process. Thus, forms or principles are, for Aristotle, the constituents of the universe: constituents which allow us to understand the truths of materialism, and the truths of Heraclitus, Parmenides, Anaxagoras, Socrates, and Plato. When the principle or form is imposed externally upon matter as is the case with Art by the craftsman painting a painting or building a building it appears as if form and matter can be separated.
If the art concerned is the art of building it almost seems as if the material of the bricks and wood is waiting around at the building site for the builder to shape into the form of a house. Several weeks later the material is standing high above the earth in the form of a house. In cases of living forms, however, the principle and the matter are, so speak, “intertwined” and inseparable and give rise to powers which the whole organism manifests. Matter, in itself, is therefore, only understood in terms of its principle of organisation. The organs and limbs of flesh and bone are not the pure or prime matter of a human form. The organs and limbs themselves dwell in a hierarchy that rest on the elemental matter of earth, water and heat. The powers of the organism in their turn rest on the formed matter of the organs and limbs.
Jonathan Lear in his work: “Aristotle: the desire to understand”(2) has the following to say on the topic of the actual presence of powers in the living being:
“However, if this power is not a functional state of material structure, how can its presence be observed? Are natural powers beyond the realm of empirical inquiry? No, they are not: but it takes some care to spell out the conditions under which they can be observed. Obviously, powers are not immediate items of sensory perception. Nor can they be seen under a microscope. If an intelligent scientist were permitted to observe only one immature natural organism in his life, having been kept in ignorance of the general facts of generation and destruction, then there would be no way he could detect the presence of a power in the organism. The first dawning of the idea that a power is present could only occur in retrospect. From the perspective of the fully developed organism we realise that there was a force present in the immature organism which directed its growth and activity toward this mature state. However, although the original idea of the presence of power is necessarily backward looking, this does not imply that powers are unobservable.”(P.22)
Aristotelian teleological explanation has often been misinterpreted by the modern inductive scientist who embraces the methodology of resolution and composition. Such scientists set about dividing the whole into its parts and then attempt, on the basis of the observation of the actions and reactions of the parts (and their relations), to re-compose the whole. A power could never emerge with this inductive method especially if this method is accompanied by a resolution of the whole into two logically independent events of the cause and effect kind.
Sometimes we hear from the scientist the complaint that teleological final causes are using an impossible mechanism of “backward causation” and that this violates the logic of causal explanation.The way to short circuit such objections is to situate teleology in its holistic context of form, potentiality, power, and reason.
The power which differentiates man from other organisms, according to Jonathan Lear, is the power of asking the question Why? in the search for understanding of the world and oneself. This obviously builds upon other powers of talking, remembering, imagining, judging, and thinking and the question is rewarded with answers provided by a naturally ordered and regulated world.
This is the question that, for Aristotle, reaches into the cave of our ignorance, like the sunlight. The world in its turn provides an explanation in terms of the form, principle, or primary cause of whatever it was that provoked the question. In our desire to be, and effort to exist, (to use Ricoeur’s terminology) we are all engaged on this search for understanding, argues Aristotle. This “Why” question can be answered in 4 different ways, Aristotle claims, and the suggestion is that all 4 kinds of answer are required if our explanation is to be adequate or complete: i.e. all 4 kinds of answer are needed for the explanation to meet the conditions required by the principle of sufficient reason as understood by Kant. Three of the types of non materialistic explanation, the efficient, formal and final causes (aitiai) are different ways of giving the same answer: they are, that is, in Aristotle’s terms, different aspects of the formal component of hylomorphic theory. These three types of explanation do not, however, meet the conditions of the principle of sufficient reason. An explanation of nature incorporating the truths of materialism is also required for a complete explanation. Many later philosophers such as Hobbes and Hume were interpreting the central idea of “cause” physically and materially and they were convinced that the other explanations were either fictional creatures of the imagination or alternatively could be reduced to a physical idea of linear causation.
In such accounts there is a remarkable absence of theorising about the relation of matter to our understanding of it as well as an absence of theorising about the media in which we encounter objects, namely space and time.
Lear’s otherwise excellent work on Aristotle is somewhat incomplete in terms of the simplicity of the account of Aristotelian thought in relation to place and space, i.e it is not clear that Aristotle did not make the assumption that reality could be characterised mathematically, in terms for example of the finite and the infinite. A mathematical point, after all is not anything actual: it is something potential. It only appears in reality or becomes actual if something concrete or abstract happens at that point, e.g. one begins at that point to perhaps represent motion in a straight line until that motion or represented motion comes to rest at another resting point which is actualised, as the motion or represented motion comes to an end.
Space is also represented in the above example. Matter may be represented if one imagines a physical body or particle in motion. Space, Time and Matter were, for Aristotle, essential media for the experience or representation of reality and these media for change played a very important role in his conceiving of reality as an infinite continuum. Turning to the example of the line defined as the shortest distance between two points, we know that there are potentially an infinite number of stopping points between the starting and stopping points on the line. We can clearly see the role of the concept of potentiality in this context. Indeed, one might even wish to argue that the Aristotelian matrix was far more complex than our modern space-time causation matrix given that it can embrace human reality in the form of a builder building a house starting from the point at which a pile of bricks and wood is located at one space and ending in another place with a completed house occupied by a family living a flourishing life. Dividing this reality up by using our modern matrix of space-time-causation and the resolution-composition method of modern science where we end up with two events such as the building activity of the builder and the product of a house rather than one Aristotelian event of change, is a recipe for confusion, according to hylomorphic theory. Hume, as we know, was a victim of this mode of observational thought and apart from the above mistakes, he arrived at the paradoxical result of cause being a conventional idea—simply on the grounds of his claim that causation could not be observed. He did not believe, that is, that we can observe a builder building a house. Aristotle’s view is that his causation-space-time matrix of reality is part of of a larger matrix of kinds of change and principles provided by his metaphysical presentation of “First Philosophy”. First philosophy is here understood as the first principles of any kind of change in the universe. We mentioned above that the power or capacity of a rational animal capable of discourse—a human being—begins in awe in the face of the existence of the world and its ever changing nature. We see and conceive of what is there and we spontaneously seek to understand the why.
This desire to understand ”the why” entails all of the following components:4 kinds of change, three principles of change and four causes/explanations (aitiai) being provided to the searcher for understanding of the changing reality.
There has been much ado about the latter component of the above account, namely the 4 aitiai or kinds of “explanations”. The Scientific matrix and method, for example, conceives of matter, not as potential to be formed, but rather as “events observed” in accordance with the cause-effect rule, and the resolution-composition method. This conception insists that teleological explanation is incoherent: it cannot be observable when the builder is in the process of building the house. Science, in other words, cannot conceive of potentiality because potentiality is not actual and real—because, that is, it has resolved the one event of change into the two events of cause and effect which are, according to Hume connected because of the regularity of the world and the “conventional” way in which we characterise the world. Science sees these events in terms of observation and any reasoning about unobservables (such as the thought of the house “in” the mind of the builder cannot be observed), therefore does not exist. What is being imagined here is that the metaphorical “in” is a spatial characterisation. There is nothing consciously “in” the mind of the builder: rather there is a principle related to the builders powers operating in the movement of the materials from one location to another. The scientist who is committed to denying the Aristotelian account just does not know how to characterise this holistic event of “the builder building a house”.
Descartes, Hobbes, and Hume managed to turn our Aristotelian ideas of the world upside down in the name of a matrix of dogmatism and skepticism directed at common sense and its judgments about reality. Christopher Shields in his work”Aristotle”3 illustrated excellently how down to earth Aristotle’s “explanatory framework” is:
“Suppose that we are walking deep in the woods in the high mountains one day and come to notice an object gleaming in the distance. When it catches our eye our curiosity is piqued: indeed Aristotle thinks so much is almost involuntary. When we come across an unexplained phenomenon or a novel state of affairs, it is natural—it is due to our nature as human beings—that we wonder and fall immediately into explanation seeking mode. What we see glistens as we approach it, and we wish to now what it is. Why do we wish to know this? We simply do: so much is unreflective, even automatic. As we come closer, we ascertain that what is shining is something metal. Upon somewhat closer inspection, from a short distance, we can see that it is bronze. So now we have our explanation: what we have before us is polished bronze. Still, if we find a bit of bronze in the high mountains we are apt to wonder further about it, beyond being so much bronze. We will want to know in addition what it is that is made of bronze…..as we approach closer we ascertain that it has a definite shape, the shape of a human being: it is a statue..We also know further, if we know anything about statues at all that the bronze was at some point in its past deliberately shaped or cast by a sculptor. We infer, that is, though we have not witnessed the event that the shape was put into the bronze by the conscious agency of a human being. We know this because we know that bronze does not spontaneously collect itself into statues… So now we know what it is: a statue, a lump of bronze moulded into human shape by the activity of a sculptor. Still we may be perplexed. Why is there a statue here high in the mountains where it is unlikely to be seen? Upon closer inspection we see that it is a statue of a man wearing fire fighting gear: and we read, finally a plaque at its base: “Placed in honour of the fire-fighters who lost their lives in the service of their fellows on this spot, in the Red Ridge Blaze of 23 August 1937”. So now we know what it is: a statue, a lump of bronze moulded into human shape by the actions of a sculptor placed to honour the fallen fire fighters who died in service.”(P.42- 43)
There would seem to be little to object to in the above description of the natural investigation into the identity of a temporarily concealed object. The above is clearly located in the context of discovery with respect to the phenomena of nature. There is, however, nothing aporetic about this investigation or this object. This is nevertheless one form of aletheia, a simple form, but a form of the search that nevertheless aims to uncover the truth. Were the questions to concern objects or events or actions which do not carry their meanings on their surfaces: for example, an investigation into ones own being, which in Heidegger’s own words should result in the characterisation of us as beings for whom our very being is in question, the question would most certainly fall into the category of aporetic questions, and the answers we uncover would not be as obvious as they were in the above investigation. In the case of an investigation into our human nature the search for aletheia would be difficult and filled with philosophical debate and dispute, but it would remain the case, however, that the Aristotelian hylomorphic theory of change would be the best guide to lead us out of the cave of our own ignorance. This philosophical respect for the being of the human form of life was no doubt a part of Freud’s psychoanalytical theorising which raised aporetic questions requiring a complex methodology and theory to answer.
The answers produced in response to questions concerning the being of human beings via the use of the scientific method of resolution-composition and its space-time linear causation method has now had several hundred years to produce a theory to rival Aristotle’s. The best it has achieved, according to many Analytic Philosophers, is either a kind of Quinean dualism of observation sentences and theoretical sentences based on a crude behaviouristic account of stimulus meanings, or alternatively, the more sophisticated dualism of Wilfred Sellars in which he, in the spirit of Platonic dualism, distinguishes between the Scientific image of the world and the Manifest Image of the world which he attributes to Aristotle.
If the world as the totality of facts is a position the scientist and analytical philosopher could take, we may legitimately ask for the Aristotelian response to this position. For Aristotle his response is his entire hylomorphic theory but one key element of his response would contain the claim that the world is constituted of potentially evolving forms which use three “mechanisms” of transmission.
Jonathan Lear characterises these mechanisms as the actualisation of sexual reproduction, the actualisation of artefacts such as houses and the communication of ideas by teaching. There is in the actualisation of these three kinds of forms, the foundational activities and principles of our civilisations.
Here we see the appearance of levels beginning with biological necessity, continuing with the instrumental/hypothetical necessities that we see all around us in our cities, and ending with the educational system in which we engage in activities that are categorically valuable in themselves. Levels that stretch from the level of the animal to the level of the divine.
The above account for Wilfred Sellars’ terms would be an account of the Manifest Image of the world(4) . A world view in which potentiality requires a forward looking future-oriented teleological perspective as opposed to a naturalistic archeological antecedent event perspective. If the Manifest view of the world looks backward in time, it looks for an agent possessing powers and capacities. The teacher teaching in his classroom, for example, is expressing the power or form of teaching which was sometime in the past transmitted to him via an organisation of forms that were passed to his teachers. In his teaching he passes on the forms of geometry and number on to his pupils until these forms dwell in their souls to such an extent that we can call his pupils geometers and mathematicians. A scientific observer who claims that causation must be actually observable might have great difficulty in attributing the names of “geometer and mathematician” to these students talking about mathematics in the agora. It might only become obvious if one of these students begins to teach a slave boy the intricacies of the Pythagorean theorem. The form of geometry would then be actualised in this activity of a teacher teaching. In these processes of acquiring knowledge, building houses, or reproducing, there is a striving or aiming for an end or telos which is a primary structure of the Aristotelian world. Attempting to investigate such phenomena by trying to observe actual material or functional structures (a brain, for example) of the agent or his actions or by trying to see how one structure “moves” another as a bone moves a muscle, will never allow us to explain how striving is determined by the end it is striving toward. The method of resolution-composition requires a movement backward in time to search for causes. But even if one lands at the brain as a cause, this starting point for Aristotle would be a material form which is a result of a teleological biological process (Aristotle did not in fact understand the actual function of the brain but this would not have affected his point).
Brain matter, organs, bone and flesh were for him already “formed matter” which themselves require the kind of explanation he is providing. There is no infinite regress in Aristotle’s theory although there is reflection upon the nature of the infinite and its place in his space-time, matter-causation matrix. Matter, for example, is infinitely continuous, argues Aristotle:
“The infinite presents itself first in the continuous” (Physics 3, 1, 200b 17-18)
Space, time and matter are all continuous. Aristotle’s notion of the infinite is however, complex. Space, for example is not infinite in extent but it is infinitely divisible. The same is true for matter. Time, on the other hand, has no beginning and no end, as well as being infinitely divisible. The infinite is formless and is a pure un-actualised potentiality. Pure form and potentiality for Aristotle is God, a form that is not actually anything but pure potential to be anything that has happened, is happening, and will happen. Aristotle’s thought is difficult interpret here but he appears to regard God as the ultimate principle or law of all change. God operates in the realm of thought which for Aristotle is also a power or a potential we possess (but not in divine form). Our thought, however is located in time and God’s thought on the other hand, is atemporal, eternal, and not at all similar to the temporality of human consciousness. Thought in a great-souled being like God, will differ considerably when compared to human thought. God’s relation to reality as we conceive it is also problematical. It sometimes seems as if he is reality and this reality is for him included in the realm of thought. If this is correct then Gods thinking about himself is what produces change in the world but this thinking is infinitely continuous, without beginning and without end and not part of what we experience to be actualising processes. If God has a relation to time it must be as a condition for the existence of time. Divine thinking is not in “nows” as is the case with human beings, but rather is a condition of the existence of the minds measuring time, and a condition of the eternal movement of the heavenly bodies which we choose as a standard of measurement by which to measure time.
Newton’s distinction between absolute time which flows on continuously and of itself, and the relative time created by human mind’s measuring the eternal flow may well have its roots in Aristotelian reflections. We cannot, however, on Aristotelian grounds, make absolute time intelligible because it is at the end of the Aristotelian spectrum extending from pure matter at one end to pure form on the other.
Time, in this Manifest Image of the world is, for Aristotle necessarily related to the mind in that the mind is partly constitutive of temporality. Number and Time have an intimate relation to each other. Both are involved in organising the Heraclitean world of change, quantitatively. It is possible that Aristotle would have been skeptical of Einsteins theory of relativity in which a stop watch is arbitrarily attached to a three dimensional system of coordinates in order to solve the problem of the temporality of events in relation to different systems of motion. For Aristotle, there is a deeper aporetic problem to be solved in the disentangling of the respective roles of the mind and the world in the generation of Time. The process is begun in the mind, for Aristotle, when the mind demarcates one now– a before, from another– an after. This activity of mind, argues Aristotle is used to then categorise an external phenomenon such as the passing of one day and the coming to be of the next day, a phenomenon related to the motion of the heavens. Here Aristotle is in agreement with Anaxagoras that ”All is mind”, but not in agreement with his claim that the infinite is identical with the whole of reality. For Aristotle the Greek word “apeiron” is a better guide to the meaning of the infinite which highlights the incompleteness that can never be given as a whole but only as a part of a whole. This is not quite what Sellars might have imagined to be part of the Manifest image of the world and more in line with a non-naturalistic Philosophical view of the world. The number system is so constructed as to accommodate the incompleteness of the infinite, as well providing a framework for the quantitative conceptualisation of the past, present, and future change. Aristotle is, however, very clear in his position that were there no minds to pronounce these periodic ”Nows”, there would be nothing to measure by means of this mental activity, there would, that is, be no time. Change and the regularity of nature assists in this process of understanding time but it is the former of these two and how to characterise it, that is the aporetic question par excellence.
Time raises many metaphysical questions relating to both the physical world and the role of the soul (psuché) in that world. This realm of the human form of being-in-the-world, requires a modification of what the modern Philosopher characterises as “Philosophical Psychology”. Such a modification can be found in Kant but also in Freud’s “Kantian Psychology” which sought to distance itself from the dialectical debates raging between followers of Descartes and his materialistically minded opponents. Aristotelian “Metaphysics” is concerned with “logical” first principles such as the principle of noncontradiction and the principle of sufficient reason which are principles of thinking that connect our thought to reality.
Aristotle’s response to dialectical reasoning and the dialectical interaction between the positions of materialism and dualism was hylomorphic theory and its method of metaphysical logic. This method builds upon a correct understanding of the Principle of non-contradiction (PNC) which he characterises as follows in Book 4, 3-6 of his work Metaphysics:
“It is not possible for one and the same thing both to have and not to have one and the same property.”
There is also a slightly different formulation of the same principle at 1006b 33-34:
“it is impossible that it should at the same time be true to say of the same thing both that it is human and that it is not human.”
The first formulation clearly refers to reality directly and the second formulation appears to take a more circuitous route and refer to what can be “Truly said” of reality thus indicating that the PNC is not merely a logical principle regulating relationships between propositions and statements. For Aristotle, the Principle refers directly to reality via our truthful claims about reality. If this is so, and this position is argued by Vasilis Politis in Chapter 5 of his work “Aristotle and the Metaphysics”1 , then it would appear to follow that logic is subservient to metaphysics and PNC then becomes a principle of what we would call “Metaphysical logic”. PNC on this kind of account is a source of demonstrative proofs or explanations which itself is not subject to demonstrative proof or explanation. As a corollary of his position in this debate, Politis argues that PNC is not a so-called “Transcendental Principle”, i.e. a claim to the effect that something is true of reality because it is true of thought or language. Politis has this to say on p 135:
“Aristotle argues (in Chapter 4,4) that if PNC were not true of things then we could not use thoughts and words to signify things, and in general we could not think and speak about things. He concludes that if PNC were not true of things, then thought and language about things would be impossible. PNC is true of things because it is a necessary condition for the possibility of thought and language about things.”
This has the logical consequence that there can be no demonstration or explanation of PNC. On our account, we wish to maintain, therefore, that PNC is a principle of metaphysical logic and only as a consequence a principle about thought and language about things. Aristotelian metaphysics is about the form, essence or primary principle of things. PNC requires that everything in the world has explainable essences or principles. Denying that things have essences or forms or primary principles is a condition of denying PNC. If things are indeterminate (have no essence) then PNC cannot be an applicable principle. However, since PNC is true of all things, all things are determinate and must, therefore, have essences. Socrates has an essence, namely his humanity, and therefore we can make true noncontradictory statements about him, i.e. access his “primary being” to use the expression used by Politis.
Returning to our second formulation of PNC, can we then not say that Socrates’ humanity is the primary principle or form or essence of the primary being of Socrates and is this not that which explains what Socrates ontologically is? Aristotle believed that all living things possessed souls of different kinds or in his technical language from De Anima, a soul is “the actuality of a body that has life”. But living things take different forms and Aristotle, therefore, constructed a matrix of life forms that defined a living things form or essence partly in terms of the physical organ system it possessed and partly in terms of the powers the thing as a whole possessed.
He begins with simple plants, their simple physical structures, and their powers of growth and reproduction. The matrix seems to be organised in terms of a continuum of a possible infinite number of forms only some of which are actualised because of the physical conditions of the elements of the world (earth, water, air, fire) and their accompanying processes of wet and cold, hot, and dry. The next stage of the continuum manifests itself in animal forms possessing animal organ-systems and the powers of perception and locomotion (in addition to the previous plant-like power). The penultimate stage of the matrix is that of humanity or the human being which possesses a more complex organ system and also more complex powers of discourse, memory and reasoning(in addition to all the lower powers previously mentioned). This matrix was an attempt to transcend the dialectical discussions of dualists and materialists and present a hylomorphic theory of the soul which would not fall foul of the PNC. This matrix is a matrix of agents and powers which in its turn is of course embedded in an environmental matrix of space, time and causation (discussed earlier). In a sense, Metaphysical Logic was metaphorically placing a curse on both the houses of dualism and materialism in order to stem the reproduction of theories from these sources. However, as we know Platonic dualism defied the metaphorical curse and was one of the motivating assumptions of Old and New Testament Religions and we also know that materialism was one of the motivating assumptions of the rise of modern science which Descartes, Hobbes, and Hume were embracing in their anti-Aristotelian theorising. As a direct consequence metaphysical logic dwindled in importance as the drama of dialectical interaction between Religion and Science played itself out at the beginning of our modern era. PNC was demoted from a Metaphysical principle to a transcendental principle of logic governing thought and language. Dualism was of course as old as the hills and Orphic, pre-Judaic, Judaic and Christian theories of the soul characterised it as a special kind of substance that breathes life into a material body embedded in a space-time-causation matrix. Materialism saved its breath for several centuries before finally claiming in the spirit of dialectical interaction that a non-physical, nonextended entity cannot have a causal effect in the physical matrix of the material world-i.e. that this substance can move nothing in the material world because it shares none of its properties. The soul cannot be causa sui, materialists argued, by definition, because it cannot be observed either by itself or by others in its putative causing itself to do things.
With PNC, Metaphysical logic and hylomorphic theory marginalised by a “transcendental” conception of logic, the resultant chaos was inevitable.
Metaphysics became identical with dualistic assumptions and Aristotle’s metaphysical logic was categorised as dualistic, and it was not long before PNC’s metaphysical implications were entirely forgotten except for those die-hard Aristotelians working in a University system, itself in the process of being transformed into institutions for the representation of the houses of dualism and materialism. Kant, thankfully, temporarily halted this process of “modernisation” for a short period of time, until Hegel and Marx in true dialectical fashion ensured that both Kant and Aristotle were consigned to the footnotes of Dialectical Philosophy. Both Aristotle and Kant emerged as relevant Philosophical figures once again when the process of “modernisation” was again halted in Vienna by Freudian psychoanalytical theorising and in England by the later Philosophy of Wittgenstein. Modernisation and the scientification of our everyday existence continue but for every halting of the process the followers of the opposition increase in number and help to construct what is now beginning to look like a philosophical tradition composed of the philosophies of Aristotle, Kant, and the later Wittgenstein and their followers.
The problem of the relation of the soul to the body must surely fall into the category of what Aristotle referred to as aporetic questions. It is also one of the key problems that need to be addressed in the arena of Philosophical Psychology. Aristotle regarded the relation of the soul and the body as a holistic unity similar to that of the relation between form and matter. Jonathan Lear, a commentator on the writings of both Aristotle and Freud characterizes this issue in the following way:
“Yet it is precisely because soul and body must form a unity in a living organism that it is difficult to distinguish them. Artifacts provided the original model for the form-matter distinction: and there is a clear sense in which a craftsman imposes form on a distinct matter. With living organisms, by contrast, matter and form are intimately bound up with each other: consequently, there is no distinctly existing and persisting matter on which soul can, from time to time, be imposed. Indeed the matter of a living organism seems to depend on being ensouled to be the matter that it is. And a given type of soul, say, human soul seems to require a particular type of matter. The living organism is such a unity but the real challenge for Aristotle is to show how that unity can legitimately be conceived as having two aspects, soul and body.”(P.98)
The soul is an actuality of matter (there can be levels of actuality,) and living beings can be regarded as “substance” par excellence by Aristotle. His matrix of different life-forms are established in terms of the kind of power that belongs to a particular form. In De Anima 15b 8-14, Aristotle maintains unsurprisingly that the soul is the moving, formal and final cause of the body. He also maintains that a particular constellation of organs are what give rise to particular forms of life. He does not claim that these organs “cause” in any modern sense, the form of life—it is rather the case that these forms of life “spontaneously” cause themselves to do what they do, i.e. exercise the powers typical of their particular life form. Aristotle, as we pointed out earlier referred to a matrix of life-forms which form a hierarchy from the simplest to the most complex form: from the simplest form of vegetation to the most complex life form of God. This matrix is constituted by the differentiation of powers, but the most interesting observation Aristotle makes is that the more complex life-forms incorporate the simpler forms and presumably, in so doing, transforms their functions so that more complex activities become possible . At the level of the human being, the next most complex form of life, Aristotle provides us with three different characterisations:
1. The first characterisation is in terms of an essence specifying definition: a rational animal capable of discourse. This is clearly a kind of summary of the most important powers a human possesses. .
2. The second characterisation is in terms of a careful account of how we acquire knowledge through the uses of the powers of perception, memory and reasoning which also appear to be related to powers of language and imagination.
3. The third characterisation is in terms of mans ability to reason both theoretically and practically.
There does not appear to be any conflict between these three characterisations. Hughlings Jackson, a theorist, who influenced Freudian theory, claimed that areas of the brain have a hylomorphic hierarchical structure. Freud used these hylomorphic ideas when he suggested his three principles of “psychic” functioning:–the energy regulation principle, the pleasure-pain principle, and the reality principle. Each of the higher principles “colonises” some of the territory of the lower principles thus transforming the human activities associated with them. Eating a meal, for example, primarily an energy regulation activity, is transformed into a civilised activity aiming at the pleasures of sitting down for a period of time with ones family. This is a clear example of the transformation of an instinctive/biological activity into a social event which may involve other powers of the mind, such as engaging in and reasoning at the dinner table.
Freud claims that one function of language and discourse is to bring “psychic” material into the field of consciousness (where all our powers appear to be integrated). Indeed, his later therapeutic techniques appear to be presupposing the hylomorphic principle of powers building upon powers with the intent of integrating all powers in the mind. Freud is ambivalent on the question of whether consciousness itself is a power or an inherent function of the brain probably partly because of the fact that he was fighting for hylomorphism against the predominating Cartesian model of consciousness. Freud obviously also benefitted from the work of Kant. He is reputed to have said that his was the Psychology that Kant would have written had he concerned himself with this subject which had broken its moorings from Philosophy in 1870. Kant’s work previously recreated the space for reflection upon the hylomorphic soul and the power of thinking that Aristotle had established earlier. The Dualism-materialism dialectical interaction continued however with the appearance of the Hegelian criticism of Kantian philosophy which it must be admitted was not straightforwardly hylomorphic. Freuds work began in materialistic mode but soon rejected its own assumptions and attempted to restore the Aristotelian principle based approach in the arena of what today we would call Philosophical Psychology. Even during the later phases it must also be admitted that Freud’s work is also not straightforwardly hylomorphic. There is clearly a dualistic tendency in Freud’s work which manifested itself when, in his last phase of theorising, he turned towards the theories of Plato for some of his key concepts (Eros, Thanatos, Ananke). In spite of these reservations however, it is clear that Freud’s theory is a theory of agency, principles, and powers set in a practical context of the search for a flourishing life. The Aristotelian notion of substance implies agents that can do things, and act upon things. Powers, for Aristotle, are potentialities to bring about changes in reality and this idea is clearly at work in the Freudian Reality Principle. A power is actualised as part of a cure, and then belongs to the agent. Hume would probably have objected that just as we cannot observe the cause of building a house, we cannot observe powers and that therefore they are highly dubious entities. This is a logical consequence of his position that whatever happens is the only thing that can happen. P.M.S. Hacker in his work “Human Nature: The Categorical Framework”2 argues that this Humean position is absurd, because it entails that if something can in fact only do what it does then the potentialities of possessing a skill or the learning of a skill become to say the very least problematic. Hacker is of course one of the foremost commentators and interpreters of the work of Wittgenstein who, he claims, restored hylomorphic theory in the seminar and lecture rooms of our dialectical Universities. Consciousness in its non-Cartesian form enters into modern post-Wittgensteinian discourse in terms of the reflective nature of the human being that possesses an awareness of their powers (unlike a magnet or snake which possess powers unreflectively). This reflectiveness, in its turn, according to Hacker, gives rise to powers that can be willfully used, i.e. powers that we can choose to exercise or not. It was this mental space that appeared to be absent in the mental constitution of many of Freud’s patients and it was this lack that drove Freud to postulate that the principles driving much of their activity was unconscious.
Hacker calls “volitional powers”, in which choice is involved, “two-way powers”. Included among such powers were the powers to perceive, remember, think and reason. He further argues that both Descartes and Hume conflate empirical and conceptual issues and thereby provided assumptions for an emerging neuroscience which were incoherent and confused. As we pointed out earlier Kant attempted to correct the influence of Descartes and Hume by claiming as an axiom of his philosophical psychology (Anthropology) that human beings know a priori the difference between what they are doing and what is being done to them. Kantian accounts as we now know unintentionally gave rise in the process of modernisation, to volitional theories which in attempting to classify our actions in terms of the modernist matrix of space-time-linear causation resolved a holistic activity into a causal relation between two occurrences which the empirical process of composition could not logically unify.
Schopenhauer, a contemporary of Hegel, was already experiencing the pull of modern volitionism back into a non-Aristotelian matrix of space-time-linear causation when he claimed that:
“we certainly do not recognise the real immediate act of will as something different from the action of the body and the two are connected by a kind of causality: but both are one and indivisible….thus actual willing is inseparable from doing, and, in the narrowest sense, that alone is an act of will which is stamped as such by the deed.”(World as Will and Representation)(3).
It is not difficult to see how volitionist theories are connected to the dualism-materialism dialectic (especially Cartesianism and its pernicious form of dualism that paradoxically ends up in the brain). Platonic dualism is not pernicious in this way. It distinguishes between a world of forms and a physical world—a world of representations and the world of that which the representations are of—which Schopenhauer addresses with his distinction between the world of will and the world as representation, where the former world is connected to a priori knowledge that is non-observational. Hylomorphic theory with its levels of actuality seems to be the only theory capable of “saving the phenomenon” of willing, without reduction or reification. Freudian theory, we should remember, maintained that one can act involuntarily. Hacker connects teleology to voluntary action and two-way powers in the following passage:
“Human beings, like other sentient animals with wants, have the power to move, to act, at will. “To act” in this context does not signify causing a movement, but making one. We acknowledge a special role for such so-called basic actions not because they are a causing of a movement that may be the first link in a causal chain, but because they are the first act. The first thing for which a purposive or intentionalist explanation may be apt. To say that a human being moved his limb is to subsume behaviour under the category of action. It earmarks behaviour as being of a kind, that is under voluntary control, as something of a kind which is a sentient agent can choose to do or not do, and hence indicates the propriety of asking whether there is an intentionalist explanation of the deed. The attribution of the movement to the agent is not causal. But it is an action, and therefore is of a kind that falls within the ambit of the variety of teleological explanation appropriate for human action. The agent may have moved his hand in order to… or because he wanted to…..or because he thought that….or out of fear, and so forth. Aristotle’s movement is to be understood to be liable to the range of explanations of the exercise of two-way powers by a rational agent.”(P.158)
This, of course, calls into question the observationalist use of the method of resolution and composition (the method of the behaviourist psychologist). Saying on the basis of observation, something about another agents movement, namely, that “His arm moved”, is a description which leaves it open whether this was something he did (raise his arm to call a taxi) or whether this was rather something that happened to him ( his arm raising in a fit of cramp). If the phenomenon was of the latter kind there are absolutely no grounds for calling what happened, “action”.
Modernisation of Aristotelian theory resulted in scientific reasoning in the spirit of Hobbes and Hume This then became part of the process of the dismantling of hylomorphic theory, a process that, in turn, resulted in the claim that teleological explanation is not a form of explanation at all. Two reasons are given for this claim. Firstly, the telos cannot be observed, and secondly, telos disappears in the methodical resolution of a holistic activity into linear cause-effect events. Events can then be comfortably described a-teleologically. That scientists should have spent so much effort and time in this composition and subsequent destruction of this “straw man of teleology” or “ghost of teleology”, is indeed thought provoking. What is even more thought provoking is the success of their “mythologizing of teleology” and the fact that this process could prove so devastating for the continued discussion of Psychological theories such as Freud’s and Piaget’s. Because this process was so successful it might prove useful to remind ourselves of what teleological explanation is via Hacker’s characterisation:
“Our discourse about the living world around us, about ourselves, our bodies and activities, and about the things we make is run through with description and explanation in terms of goals, purposes and functions. We characterise things such as organs and artefacts, and also social institutions in terms of their essential functions and their efficacy in fulfilling them. We explain animal morphology in terms of the purposes served by their shapes, limbs and features. This is not a causal explanation (although it is perfectly consistent with, and indeed calls out for one), since we explain what the organ or feature is for and not how it came about and not how (by what causal processes) it fulfils its function. We describe what it enables the animal to do and how it affects the good of the animal or its offspring. We commonly explain why certain substances animate and inanimate (artefactual) or constituent parts of substances (organs of living things or components of artefacts) do what they do by describing what they do it for…We explain and justify human action, including our own, by specifying the rationale of the prospective or antecedently performed action, and we often account for the behaviour of social institutions likewise. These kinds of description are called “teleological descriptions” and these kinds of answers to the question why, teleological explanations— explanations by reference to an end or purpose (telos).”(P163-4)
Hacker goes onto add that teleological explanation is a form of explanation that cannot be characterised in terms of the ideal of efficient causation that the scientist values so much, but should rather be characterised by an understanding which focuses upon reasons, goals and motives.
Hacker also agrees that teleology is linked to the idea of the good on the grounds of “psuche” being a biological/psychological substance whose essence it is to come into being, flourish, and eventually die and decay. Living beings on his and Aristotle’s account postulates that absolute needs are tied to health and mortality. These needs extend from life-maintaining activities, to activities producing the quality of life necessary for a flourishing existence. These latter activities require a considerable amount of learning and the acquisition of many complex skills. We can clearly see a hierarchy of needs emerging from this account. Abrahams Maslow’s theory(4) is a hierarchical theory in which satisfying a need “causes” another higher level need to emerge. There is, in this theory, an “incorporation of the lower level need in the higher-level. Proceeding up the hierarchy eventually results in a flourishing life for the individual concerned. Maslows account includes reference to cognitive and aesthetic needs.
A large part of the task of society and its social institutions is that of striving toward the telos of the good: that is, for a society to be flourishing, large numbers of the members of that society must experience that the conditions provided allow them to have their needs systematically met. The telos of the society, as “the literary” Socrates suspected, must be connected to the telos of the individual. If an individual flourishes in a flourishing society he achieves what Aristotle refers to as the summum bonum of life, namely eudaimonia, or happiness. This can only occur, argue Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, if the society concerned is Rational. This moves us onto the question of the realm of the essence or formal “cause” of society and individual. One of the needs of the animal and the human being, is to reproduce, and if the latter is done rationally, a level of consciousness of the telos of sexuality, is a requisite condition. Plants and animals do not possess this requisite condition. In Freud’s theory, it is the principles of energy regulation and pleasure-pain that regulate reproductive activity. In the human being we are capable of regulating this activity by using the powers of discourse and reasoning. We can, that is, discuss the reasons for our reproductive and sexual behaviour. The essence of the individual is tied to reproductive activity for Freud, but his claims only make sense in the context of hylomorphic theory. The family is obviously the social institution most closely connected to sexual activity, and the bringing up of children which appears to so many to be an important part of the flourishing life. The family is also the basic social unit which forms the basis for the construction of the polis, and is therefore an important element of the flourishing polis (the Callipolis). Aristotle’s teleological explanations seem therefore to have clear application in the realm of the human world, but is the case for their application to the natural world equally obvious? Particles and matter for example are not naturally thought of in terms of being “for” anything and the reason why particles and matter do what they do is also not directly relatable to their internal potential to move but rather to some propensity to move when caused to do so by external factors. In a low pressure system, for example where the air is cooled the matter in the system will descend in the form of rain after having ascended in warmer circumstances to form clouds. This might suffice for some to attribute a telos to the evaporated water that was ascending and then descended back to earth in the cooling process. Some kind of resolution-composition method sufficed for Aristotle to pick out the elements of earth, water, air, and fire and their
associated processes of wet-cold, hot-dry and for him there did seem to be a place for teleological explanation in weather systems, organ systems and perhaps also economic systems. Basically energy regulation systems such as weather systems are set to a teleological standard of homeostasis. Viewed from the vantage point of energy regulation, Aristotelian teleological physics appears harmless enough. It is, however, when God is brought into the picture as a designer of systems that problems begin to emerge. Aquinas, a commentator and interpreter of the works of Aristotle from a religious point of view, attempts to argue that in the inorganic world, “material” which lacks awareness could only have a goal, i.e. act “for the sake of” some end, if God directed the process in much the same way as an archer intentionally directs an arrow at a target. This of course, cannot fail to remind us of the passage in the Nichomachean Ethics where Aristotle claims:
“If there is some end of the things we do, which we desire for its own sake (everything else being desired for the sake of this)…clearly this must be the good and the chief good. Will not the knowledge of it, then, have a great influence on life? Shall one not, like archers who have a mark to aim at, be more likely to hit upon what we should do? If so, we must try, in outline at least, to determine what it is.”(I,2, 19-25)
Aristotle claims that this end is Eudaimonia, often translated as happiness, but not always happily so. Perhaps a better translation, in some contexts, would be “a flourishing life”. It is the function of man, Aristotle argues, to lead a flourishing life, which, for him, amounts to living in accordance with areté or virtue, which in its turn means doing the right thing at the right time in the right way: all these elements will be involved in the reasons a man gives for doing any particular act. This, in the Freudian scheme of things, would entail that the Reality Principle (Ananke) is the organising principle of one’s life. Aquinas conceives of God as a Supreme Agent, the Supreme Archer, but there is very little in Aristotle to support this thesis. Aristotle claims that an arrow falls downward for the same reason that rain falls downward in the weather system, namely earth falls downward because its situational-being is beneath the water and air, and this is its natural place. Fire and heat and light (not heavy) and warm matter moves upwards because the source of heat is its place, namely, the sun. All these elements are, we should be careful to note, already formed material (in accordance with the matter-form principle), and it is their form that decides their position, and changes of position in the universe. That is, an arrow will fall to earth after having been fired into the air because of the forms that compose it: the wood and the iron are returning to their source—the earth. Now Aristotle in claiming the above was not making the mistake of other early philosophers/poets and claiming that the arrow “wanted” to return to earth. After all, was it not Aristotle who claimed that a tree has a visual form to present to the human eye, but that a tree, because of its nature cannot itself be aware of visual forms? Did he not maintain that powers build upon powers and that in accordance with this idea only substances that can be perceptually aware of visible forms can “want” and desire something, and therefore strive to fulfil these wants and desires? Only animals and humans can fire the arrows of desire at their targets. Now, on Aristotle’s account, God is pure form but his function is pure thinking which does not desire or aim at objects, since all objects are immediately possessed by a pure thinker. God, therefore, cannot in any way be similar to a super-human craftsman creating and shaping the substance of the world over a period of time. The Biblical creation myth is allegorical and meant merely to establish the hierarchy or “Place” of animals in relation to earth and God in relation to man, and man in relation to the animals and the rest of the universe. In short God, whilst in some sense being alive, does not perceive or desire and his thought has no relation to these powers. There is, it should be noted, a significant difference between the philosophical God of Aristotle and the Biblical Mythical God who appears amorphously through the mists of mythological allegory. Aristotle’s God is not a craftsman caring for his creation, and he is not therefore the Supreme agent or Supreme archer directing the elements to their natural places. He is rather, pure actuality, pure form, pure thinking. He thinks in a way which is not the realisation of a potential but rather thinks of himself in a timeless infinite “moment” of contemplation. Perhaps Thales shared this conception and perhaps this is what he meant when he said “things are full of gods”, as a response to those atheists who believed that the planets were just cold feelingless stone. If God is not thinking as we do about Reality, how then should we characterise this thinking. Aristotle brilliantly chose the description/explanation that God thinks about thinking. He therefore cannot be a super-agent or a super-archer. When we are thinking, Aristotle points out, we partake however primitively, in the divinity of contemplation. When we are contemplating, it is during these moments that we are closest to God, and the extent to which this occupies a large proportion of our life is the extent to which we lead a flourishing life or the “good spirited (Eudaimonia) life. One cannot but be amazed at the ease with which Aristotle makes his transitions from Metaphysical aporia to Ethical and Political aporia. These almost seamless transitions were the reason why he was referred to as “The Philosopher” for several hundred years and “the teacher of our teachers”. Dante referred to Aristotle as “The master of those that know”. This is also the reason why we need to take his definition of Philosophy seriously—the systematic understanding of the world as a systematic whole– in a way that has been done only sporadically by Modern Philosophy since the time of Descartes and Hobbes. The world as a systematic whole, viewed hylomorphically, contains Psuché–a form of life which in itself contains a hierarchy of powers that are systematically related: powers, the explanation of which require an understanding of the difficulties associated with answering the Delphic oracles challenge to “Know thyself”. Freud answered this challenge and attempted to provide us with a map of the mind whose powers are disturbed, and this map required understanding of the “parts” of human pusché and their relation to the whole of the self-sufficient good spirited, flourishing mind.
Action and agency are central concerns for Aristotle, Kant, and Freud and we need therefore to see how the original account of these concerns given by Aristotle remains the core of Kantian and Freudian accounts.
Action and Agency are form-creators for Aristotle because they issue from a form of life which can build a world around itself. As a rational animal capable of discourse, I go forth in a world of physical events such as a storm at sea. After throwing the cargo overboard, I can but sit and wait for the consequences to play themselves out on this watery stage. As a rational animal capable of discourse I am of course a form of life that can act, but one whose actions have consequences I cannot control. The sun was shining and the weather was fine when I embarked on this sea voyage. The possibility of a storm at sea was a piece of knowledge I had but it was not active at the time of the choice. I am now trapped in this situation and if I was an ancient Greek, the “action” of praying to the gods might follow the action of throwing the cargo overboard. Is it irrational to begin to pray, or can one defend prayer as an assertion of agency as such when natural events play with our lives? For Aristotle, the world-creating forms occur in the media of change (space, time, and matter), and they find their explanation in a theoretical matrix of 4 kinds of change, three principles, and 4 causes. The material and efficient causes of the storm are forms situated in the infinite continuum of the media of change: the forms of water (the high seas) the forms of air (high winds) the forms of fire (the lightning
issuing from the heavens) and the wooden earth-like form of the ship being tossed about and being prepared to rest finally in peace on the earth at the bottom of the sea. In such a situation, can we talk about praying in terms of rationality? Well, I had the knowledge that this fateful outcome was a possibility and did not use this knowledge(1) For Aristotle, not using ones knowledge is a failure of deliberation and therefore of rationality. So all that is left of the definition of such a being is his animality expressed in his fear and apprehension and his attempt to communicate via the discourse of prayer with the “agency” expressed in the storm. For those who found themselves in such situations and prayed and survived to tell their story, it might seem as if some divine agent had now a reason to save the souls on the ship. Aristotle would not have sanctioned such an explanation. He would have pointed to all those skeletons lying on the floor of the sea-bed, resting: the remains of those who undoubtedly prayed and who lost their souls in storms at sea. Aristotle’s theory of action, agency, and powers would not permit the world of the human to become confused with the physical forms of the infinite continuum. That is, one can rationally say that I should have considered the possibility of the ruin of my hopes in a storm at sea and ought not to have decided to board the ship, but one cannot rationally say that the Storm ought not to have sunk the ship and extinguished the life of all the souls on board. For Aristotle, there is a categorical distinction to be observed here, a logical boundary that one only crosses on pain of the loss of one’s rationality. This does not necessarily mean that Aristotle would have thought that it was irrational to pray as the ship’s mast was broken by the tempestuous winds. Indeed he would have thought that we are active world-creating forms and a structured form of discourse was, of course, preferable to quivering and weeping or rushing around like the ship’s dog howling at the wind. We are forms of life embedded in a world of physical forms, and some forms of action are appropriate whereas some forms of behaviour are not as appropriate: or in other words, when we are dealing with free voluntary choices, there are actions which ought to be chosen and actions which ought not to be chosen. The oughts here are rational and can be formulated in value-laden premises and conclusions with logical relations to
each other, thus forming rational valid arguments for action. We are clearly exploring the foothills of ethics and morality, or as Jonathan Lear so clearly put it in his work “Aristotle: the desire to understand”, we are exploring the “Mind in action”. Lear believes that understanding Aristotle’s philosophical theories of Psychology are a necessary pre-requisite to understanding both his ethics and his politics. So the man on board the ship is acting and the ship’s dog is just behaving. Why the difference? The difference lies, Aristotle argues in our ability to think and create higher level desires which as a consequence creates a region of the soul which is rational and a region which is irrational. But we need to consider how the human higher form of desire is integrated with our knowledge(epistemé) if we are to fully understand the complexity of the human form of life. The desiring part of the human soul is the acting part because man is capable of acting rationally and behaving irrationally, i.e. he is capable of both reasoning that he ought not to drink water which might be poisoned, but he is also capable of drinking the same water. It is perhaps the existence of these parts of the soul which generates all those desires which we express in value-laden ought statements. The dog’s soul is perhaps a seamless unity but he too is an animal possessing some of our powers. One can, however, wonder whether dogs have minds in the sense of a mental space in which Aristotelian deliberations can take place. Deliberations are rationally structured but are also value or desire laden. Lear believes that Aristotelian deliberation transmits this desire. My wish to drink the water will be conscious, Lear argues, and will set in motion a deliberation until a decision is reached and an action commenced. This reference to consciousness is very modern and this, of course, is a term Aristotle never used: he preferred to use the term awareness instead, and many modern commentators build a notion of reflexivity into this awareness, that is, they claim there is a self-awareness implied in Aristotle’s usage of this term. What this in turn implies, is that there is a self that is aware of itself. Does this imply the presence of two selves? Not necessarily. There are in the actualising process of the human organism striving to be rational, earlier and later stages of development. There is no logical contradiction in the self at a later stage
confronting in discourse oneself at an earlier stage during the process of moving from one stage to the other. But this is a different kind of deliberation to that involved in performing an action. The process of reasoning involved is characterised by Aristotle in the “Metaphysics” as follows:
“…health is the logos and knowledge in the soul. The healthy subject, then, is produced as the result of the following train of thought: since this is health, if the subject is to be healthy, this must first be present, e.g. a universal state of the body, and if this is to be present, there must be heat: and the physician goes on thinking thus until he brings the matter to a final step which he himself can take. Then the process from this point onward, i.e. the process towards health, is called a “making” “(Metaphysics VII, 7, 1032B5-10).
This process of reasoning is then compared by Aristotle to the reasoning one finds in the activity of geometers. In geometry, synthesis is the name of a process of construction by iteration of elements and construction of relations between elements: a straight line is thus synthesised or constructed by the placing of a second point at a distance from the first and the connecting of these two points by a straight line. The analysis of this straight line would then break the process down in a set of orderly steps until one arrives at the stage at which one begins the synthesis again. The analysis reverses the process. In the example of the doctor planning to act in the above quote, the initial desired goal has been synthesised and the deliberation “analyses” or “deconstructs” the goal to that point at which the doctor/agent fetches some warm blankets from the cupboard to warm the patient who ”has a cold”. The forming of the desire to warm the patient is of course not deliberative reasoning it is more like the effect of Eros on the mind, more like a learning or succumbing process issuing from an attitude of mind of awe, love for the world, or desire to understand the world. Of course, one is aware of this desire and to that extent one is certain about it in the same way as one is certain of any other manifestation in the consciousness of any mental event. It is the self-reflexive act of contemplating the desire which allows freedom into the Aristotelian process of deliberation. The agent decides whether and/or how to satisfy his desire and once this process is completed the desire to
keep one’s patients healthy is transformed into a reason for acting. We are of course ignorant of the workings of this freedom to choose and to this extent, we are ignorant of part of the essence of what it is to be human. Kant would later dub this region of the mind , the region of noumenal being, the region of the noumenal self.
Reason, action, and consequence are concepts in complex relations with each other. Insofar as in Aristotle, forms constitute the world, the forms interacting in the matrix of space-time-material in accordance with a principle of causation must contribute to the creation or “forming” of this world. In a previous essay we pointed to the three different kinds of forms that constitute this world: firstly, the forms produced by and in relation to sexual reproduction, secondly, the forms produced by work of man in the building and construction of his artefacts, homes and cities, and, thirdly, the forms produced by teachers in the process of communicating knowledge.
Reason, action, and consequence are of course related to human activities insofar as they are knowledge-driven and also contribute to the ”forming” of the world. Such activities aim at the good they desire, and analyse what is needed in order to bring about the changes in the world they desire. Human agents have reasons for their actions in the same way as the archer has a reason for his action. The archer who hits the centre of the bulls-eye is like the geometer arriving at the point at which the reconstruction of his proof is presented. We, the audience, are in awe of his performance: the object of the action and the intention are in such cases in full, almost divine, congruence. The consequence is a logical consequence as is the recovery of the patient with the cold after the doctor restores the homeostasis of the body with the warm blankets. Many of our actions, however, do not achieve the desired result on the part of the agent, but this is no reason to doubt the logical relation in thought between the object and the intention. Human desire is generated in the human body. The desire to understand or to contemplate may be an activity that involves no bodily activity, although it is difficult even here to conceive of this activity taking place without correlative brain activity. It seems that only God, the divine, can think without a correlative underlying physical activity generating the thought. The mind-body problem obviously surfaces at this point in Aristotle’s philosophical psychology.
Sir David Ross in his work on “Aristotle”defines Psychology in terms of its objective “to discover the nature and essence of the soul and its attributes” So on this characterisation Psychology will cover vegetative and animal behaviour as well as human action. There is sufficient resemblance between the forms of life these different forms of soul lead to, sufficient to enable us to call soul “the principle” organising nutritive and reproductive activity, perceptive and motor activity, and human reasoning activity respectively. We mentioned earlier the relation between these forms of soul. David Ross puts the matter thus:
“Geometrical figures may be arranged in an order beginning with the triangle and proceeding to more and more complex forms, each of which contains potentially all that precedes. So too, the forms of soul form a series with a definite order, such that each kind of soul presupposes all that come before it in this order, without being implied by them.” (D.Ross, “Aristotle”, P.135)2
The physical substrate or matter underlying the above is obviously a simple physical organisation of parts of a plant to a more complex organisation of the organ systems of different species of animals enabling them to “sense” their environment or, alternatively, in the case of the rational animal, reason about their environment. It is also important to know about this material substrate which is inseparable from its mental aspect in the same way in which the shape of the ax is inseparable from its function of “chopping”. The soul and the body for Aristotle are in the human inseparable aspects. Ross has this to say on this topic:
“Most mental phenomena are attended by some bodily affection….Mental phenomena, therefore, are “formulae involving matter. The true definition of them will omit neither their form or end (their rational causation) nor their matter (their physiological conditions”(Ross, P.137)
The soul has its rational and irrational parts and also its various faculties which Ross explains in the following way:
“He is simply taking account of the fact that the soul does exhibit a variety of operations and that behind each of these intermittent operations we must suppose a permanent power of so operating. But these faculties do not exist like stones in a heap. They have a definite order, an order of worth, and a reverse order of development in the individual. Further, they have a characteristic which we may roughly call interpenetration. Thus, for instance, intellect and desire are distinct faculties, but the highest species of desire is of a kind which can only occur in beings which have intellect and is itself intellectual. Choice or will may equally well be called desiring reason and reasoning desire, and in it, the whole of man is involved.”(Ross, P.139)
The language of potentiality and actuality is particularly important in the Psychology of Aristotle because of his insistence upon categorical distinction between the operations of the soul: Firstly, there are feeling operations and secondly, operations which actualise the possession of capacities, and thirdly operations which actualise the possession of dispositions. Dispositions are higher level capacities; they are rationally regulated capacities. The virtues are examples of dispositions, and language is an example of a capacity. Reason is a faculty, and its relation to the other faculties is regarded by many commentators as a mystery. With reason we approach the contemplative life of God, the divine life, but this contemplative life does not appear to have any links with the body, according to Aristotle. Philosophical Psychology also deals with Perception. Given what has been said previously about the nature of the physical body being defined by its system of organs, we can draw the conclusion that the senses are obviously materially connected with organs. One of the accusations traditionally directed at Aristotle is that he confuses the purely physiological with the psychological. The physical eye, of course, is connected to the organ of the brain, and Aristotle states that perception takes place in the head as a result of the eye taking on the sensible form of whatever it is perceiving. The eye somehow identifies itself with the brown and green colours of the tree as well as the shape of the tree and the outcome, probably involving the brain, is an awareness of seeing the tree (which in itself does not have to be brown and green and possess a shape of a tree). The language of actuality and potentiality are important here in order to establish the relation of the object to its perception. The tree, in its turn, has the potentiality to be seen, that is, has the potentiality as a second level and higher actuality, to affect the faculty of sight (which would include the relation of the eye to the brain) in this way. It is not the tree that is present in the soul but its form.
A by-product of perception or the faculty of sight, is the imagination or the faculty of the imagination, rendered by the Greek term Phantasia. Ross characterizes this faculty in the following manner:
“Usually Phantasia (which has the meaning of “to appear”) is described as operating only after the sensible object has gone. The “movement of the soul through the body” which perception sets up causes a repercussion both in the body and in the soul—though as regards the soul the effect, until recollection takes place, is potential, i.e. not a conscious state of mind but an unconscious modification of the mind. At some later time, owing, for instance to the suppression of sensation in sleep, the movement becomes actual: i.e. an image similar to but less lively than the sensation, and less trustworthy as a guide to objective fact, is formed and attended to: and this is the act of imagination”
Phantasia has two main functions, according to Ross. The first function is the pure formation of after images, and the second function is related to memory, which involves both images and time, and an object in the past: it is the memory image relates to something in the past.
Freud obviously based his analysis of the condition of “shell shock” on the above theory. For Freud, bringing something into consciousness via the process of recollection and persuading the patient to talk about the cause of the images recollected, in the therapeutic situation, suffices to turn the phantasy of the traumatic event into a memory which would fade over time. We should remember in this context that, for Freud, language was a secondary sensory surface related more to thought than to perception. For both Aristotle and Freud, Thought was more reliably related to reality than imagination because it followed what Freud called the reality principle.
The Reality Principle, for Freud, is very much connected to the work of the ego which has the responsibility of coordinating the agencies of the id and superego in relation to the beliefs it has about the external world and the actions it is deliberating upon. The coordination with the superego of course takes on special significance when it comes to the Greek idea of virtue, which has many meanings, but the primary meaning in relation to action-contexts, is that of doing the right thing in the right way at the right time. Freud’s concept of the agency of the superego according to O Shaughnessy is connected to Consciousness of other human beings which forms our reflexive type of self-consciousness so important in the criticism of self and others. In an earlier work, “The World Explored, the World Suffered: A Philosophical History of Psychology, Cognition, Emotion, Consciousness, and Action(Vol 4) I claimed the following:
“The way in which the Other Consciousness is introduced into the Psychological Theory of Freud is via the agency of the Superego: a critical social agency internalised as a judging function. Maxims, intentions, desires, and actions are submitted to critical standards embodying principles that have helped to build our civilisations and create our cultures. O’Shaughnessy argues that it is the concept of another person that is responsible for forming the vicissitude of Consciousness we refer to as Self-Consciousness. He claims this concept is innate but the empirical existence of others is required if this form of Consciousness is to be actualised. Language is obviously an important power that also requires this innate concept and its empirical conditions that are to be found in the community of language users. Language for Freud was Janus- faced with one aspect turned toward the sensory world which it names and describes, and the other toward the world of thought which it expresses. There is the I that speaks, and the I that thinks, and the soundest approach to describing and explaining this state of affairs is to refuse to atomise the self into compartments, but rather regard the expressive self as logically identical with the thinking self that expresses thoughts in a public realm of discourse–thus realising the social and political intentions of a rational animal capable of discourse. O’Shaughnessy’s view is that Self Consciousness is a secondary phenomenon, the primary phenomenon being a vital expressive animal interacting with a demanding environment.”(P.166-7)
For Freud the superego is a metapsychological concept perhaps only second in importance to that other metapsychological concept of the ego. We know the Freudian aim for the individual in his effort to exist and desire to be is a strong independent ego that is not dependent upon the external world, the id or the superego. “Strong” in this context is not meant to depict dominance, but “weak” is meant to depict submission. The best term, perhaps to characterise what Freud meant by “strong” is the word “integration”: the ego is well integrated with the external world, the id and the superego, and to that extent is leading a healthy good spirited flourishing life. Freud in fact gives us a perfect picture of the submissive anxiety filled ego in his discussion of the ego ideal and idealisation which, it is claimed is connected to forming the superego the narcissistic way. He speaks here of delusions of observation in paranoia which may be connected to the death instinct that reigns in the absence of the strong egos effort to exist and desire to be. Such a dependent ego, subject to the critical gaze of the superego intent upon measuring the actions initiated by the ego uses defence mechanisms regularly to cope with the demands of life e.g. identification, repression, denial, displacement, splitting etc. The strong ego, on the other hand, is an ego that works virtuously in the realm of the moral rules and laws that regulate our relations to one another. The question to raise here is whether this is a form of the Reality Principle or whether this latter principle is a principle that only regulates the consequences of action rather than the maxims, intentions and reasons which are constitutive of the identity of moral action. This touches upon an old theme of Plato’s Republic where Socrates is eager to draw attention to the distinction between the good-in-itself and the “good-in-its-consequences, insisting in this connection that the idea of justice must be good in both senses. The question this reflection raises is whether the reality principle also governs the logic of the reasoning connected to deliberation upon the ought and is premises that lead us to moral action, e.g.
Promises ought to be kept
Jack promised Jill he would pay the money back that he was borrowing
Jack ought to pay the money back
In the world of real consequences this ideal form of reasoning is subject to qualification. What if Jack cannot pay the money back because he loses his job? It is up to Jill to decide whether to be disappointed in Jacks inability to keep his promise. She may well understand that Jack would have paid the money back if he could but losing his job was not something he counted on in the moment of promising in which of course he had every intention to keep his promise. She may also insist that he nevertheless pay the money back to her somehow. Here we can perhaps see something of the relation between the good-in-itself and the good-in-its-consequences. Now Freud, we maintain, must have been aware of the way in which the moral law moves from an “ought” premise relating to promising, to an “is” premise relating to the action of actually paying the money back or “returning a deposit”. He claimed he was a Kantian Psychologist and Kantian reflections on morality certainly argue for “The truth” of the premise “Promises ought to be kept” in virtue of this being the ultimate reason or justification for doing what one morally ought to do. If however, Freud intends the reality principle to be purely consequential then we must detach the moral principle from the reality principle but it is also important to note that the premises and conclusion in a moral argument are logically valid, making the action concerned both good -in-itself and good- in-its-consequences. There is no reason to embrace relativism in the domain of metapsychology just because of the difficulty in defining the exact scope of the moral principle. Kantian psychology has strong ties to Kantian morality and the moral law and those that wish to argue that Kantian morality is normative on the grounds of it only “recommending” what one ought to do, need to be confronted with two arguments, firstly, Kant’s ethics is a duty based ethics and describing this in terms of ” recommendation” can take us down the garden path of relativism. Secondly, Logic is normative in exactly the same way as morality which describes how people ought to act. Logic, that is, describes how people ought to think. We all know there are people who do not do what they ought to do just as there are people who contradict themselves. Jettisoning both ethics and logic because of these “facts” is indeed a dramatic and dangerous response but it has been the response of those followers of the “Tractatus”(Wittgenstein) who believed that “The world is the totality of facts and not things”. For Aristotle, Kant and Freud the world was better conceived in terms of a totality of conditions and principles. The superego, then, for Freud, must refer to the conditions and principles of moral action if he is to remain true to his claim that he is providing us with the (Meta) Psychology Kant would have produced if he was writing during the Freudian period. The superego can also however be narcissistically formed and this state of affairs is best represented in terms, not of the agent deliberating and rationally choosing not to do what he ought to do, but rather in terms of something happening to a mind where the ego is not strong enough to see what is both good in itself and good in its consequences, where the ego submits to non rational causes that either originate in the external world , the id or the superego.
There is not much discussion about the Kantian idea of freedom in Freud’s theorising but this may be due to the fact that much of Freud’s task was to defend medically and theoretically a technical therapeutic activity which in itself was a revolutionary “moral treatment”. To some extent this development of the method of the “talking cure” presupposed the value of the freedom of mental patients, suggesting clinical treatment instead of the prospect of being locked up in an institutions.
The philosophical thread extending from Socrates, through Plato, and Aristotle, Kant, Freud, and Wittgenstein and all their lesser known followers working in universities manifested both the many meanings of Being and the many meanings of Good and the cultural influence of the thought flowing from the thread has sometimes been monopolised by an obsessive compulsive desire to focus on one meaning of Being(the world is the totality of facts) or one meaning of Good( the subjective feeling based emotive meaning of the positivists). The consequences of obsession are never wholly good and rarely defined as obsessive. The effect of the category of action seems to have become detached from the pathological cause and is identified in terms of a more neutral category, e.g. “The new men” of Hannah Arendt’s “Origins of Totalitarianism”. The combination of Descartes dualism and obsession with consciousness and the scientists obsession with method and the underlying presupposition of materialism have been large contributors to what I termed in Vol 4 of my work: “The World Explored, the World Suffered: A Philosophical History of Psychology, Cognition,Emotion, Consciousness and Action”, “The Age of Discontentment”. The question which remains to be answered is whether the philosophical thread referred to earlier can help turn a post-discontentment age into something more positive and less pathological.
Jonathan Lear in his work “Aristotle: the desire to understand” claims that Freedom is the value that defines the constitution of our human nature to such an extent that lacking an understanding of our freedom is tantamount to not understanding ourselves. Now we could be forgiven for believing that the above remarks are about the ethics of Kant, but they are rather meant to articulate what Lear thinks is an important implication of Aristotle’s ethics. Lear does however throughout his work on Aristotle articulate support for the claim that Aristotelian ethics is an ethics of freedom. In the course of this “comparison”, however, a surprise is in store. Lear claims in the context of this discussion that the moral agent somehow detaches itself (frees itself?) from its desires and he thereby sides with Hegel’s criticism of Kantian ethics. Hegel claimed that he would stand the philosophy of Kant on its head and in attempting to do so may well have turned the worlds of Aristotle, Kant, and the common man upside down. Hegel’s dialectical logic replaced the Metaphysical Logic of Aristotle, and the Transcendental Logic of Kant. Hegel’s inversion of bottom and top via his dialectical logic remind one of the psychological subjects of Stratton(1), wearing glasses which invert their retinal images and seeing the landscape upside down on the first day. On the second day, these subjects felt that their bodies were upside down until finally after a number of days of acting under these strange circumstances everything returned to normal again. Wearing the glasses of Hegel to view the Philosophy of Kant can indeed make the world of Kant seem a strange world itself in need of conversion. It is, to say the very least, rather surprising to find Lear subscribing to this Hegelian position, succumbing to this Hegelian deconstruction. We need in such a context, to remind ourselves of the texts of Kant which disprove the detachment thesis. Firstly, in the Critique of Judgment(2) Kant clearly claims the existence of an
intimate relation between practical reason and desire:
“In the same way reason which contains constitutive, a priori principles solely in respect of the faculty of desire gets its holding assigned to it by the critique of Practical Reason.”(Preface)
Lear in his Hegelian criticism, is apparently failing to register Kant’s claim that there are two kinds of concepts, theoretical and practical, which generate separate and different principles of the possibility of their objects. Concepts of nature and concepts of freedom have a reflectively different structure. The application of concepts of nature to an acting will generates what Kant calls technically-practical principles in which it is legitimate to conceive of a kind of separation or detachment of the subject and his/her action. Such technically practical principles regulate an agents skills in accordance with the law of cause and effect, and this places such concepts and principles clearly in the realm of theoretical philosophy far from the realm of desire. Kant defines desire in the following terms:
“a faculty which by means of its representations is the cause of the actuality of the objects of those representations.”(P.16)
This clearly relates desire to practical reason and to the bringing about of states of affairs by means of principles in the practical world. Kant, in this discussion, is careful to distinguish between empirical cases in which ones desire for a particular object precedes the practical principle, and transcendental cases in which the determining ground of choice is the practical principle. An example of the latter would be in the case where the principle “Promises ought to be kept” determines my choice of what I must do and transmits my desire down a chain of action-related reflections. There is no space for any detachment or separation of the agent from his action in such circumstances. In cases of a desire for a material object which is not being directed by a principle, the desire could arise and be abandoned in favour of another desire, and in such circumstances, one might say that the agent had a detachable relation to the object of the desire and the desire itself . This latter possibility, on Kant’s view, is a result of what he refers to as a lower faculty of desire activity which he contrasts with a higher faculty activity. According to Kant, “promises ought to be kept” is a principle that one cannot abandon as a practical agent. The former lower faculty of desire activity argues Kant is concerned with pleasure related to the object desired and its agreeableness. The latter is concerned with what Aristotle would call the good in itself which in its turn is a concern with our well being and worthiness to be happy. For Kant, this is a key condition for an ethical position and this may indicate a key difference between his position and the finality of the happiness condition which Aristotle proposes.
It is, therefore, puzzling to find Lear asking how a self-conscious being on the Kantian account could make decisions at all as if the Kantian self-consciousness resembled the Cartesian self-consciousness reflecting theoretically upon its own desires. Hegel, we know, did not appreciate the relation of Kantian ethical theory to the ethical theory of Aristotle’s in which we see both Philosophers adopting the vantage point of reflecting upon the relation of practical reason to its object rather than reflecting theoretically on the relation of a state of mind to its object.
One may wish to contradict this account by insisting that Aristotle’s theory of virtue in the Nichomachean Ethics, specifically argues that virtue is a state (lexis) rather than a capacity (dunamis) or a feeling (pathos). The question,however, is, how would Aristotle wish to characterise the state of the soul in question. He would not for example countenance this state as a state of consciousness and he would not want to countenance this state being characterised as many modern philosophy-of-mind-theorists do, as something “private” (feelings are private and particular). Rather, the “state” Aristotle is referring to here is a state of the soul which for him is differentiated in terms of different principles, defining different kinds or essences. Indeed, the word “disposition” might be a more appropriate term (a disposition, we recall, is a higher level capacity). For these purposes, a practical disposition would be construed in terms of a law-like principle that has been sculpted by the processes of training, education and habituation in accordance with social and cultural processes such as that of the “Golden Mean”.
Practical dispositions are given their initial characterisation in the opening remarks of the Nichomachean Ethics:
“Every art and every enquiry, every action, and choice seems to aim at some good: whence the good has rightly been defined as that at which all things aim.”
For Aristotle, we should recall, the good has many meanings depending upon whether it is aiming in discourse at peoples character, their actions, the place or time they live in etc. But all have in common the essence of the good for man or eudaimonia, which, for Kant, was a part of his ethical religious idea of the summum bonum. It is especially difficult, given this rather strong resemblance in their positions to imagine the ethical Kantian agent being detached from his own happiness or flourishing life. There is, moreover, a hylomorphic element to Kant’s theorising which is unmistakeable. In much of his reasoning, there is a specific reference to matter and form and if we analyse the two formulations of the categorical imperative, it would be difficult not to see the formal aspect of the ethical law in the first formulation and the material aspect in the second formulation. Were there to be only one formulation of the law, namely, the first, one, we might be able to argue more forcefully for, (if not the detachment thesis Lear proposes), an accusation of formalism or “emptiness”. The first formulation asks us to “will” that the maxim of one’s action be regarded as a universal law, and if there is no such universal law then the logical consequence is surely at the very least “emptiness”, and more seriously perhaps the impossibility of ethical action. The second formulation, however, fills the first formulation with content by insisting that we should act so that we treat everyone including ourselves as ends in themselves. This latter formulation is moreover, reminiscent of the kind of respect embedded in the Aristotelian account of friendship in the Nichomachean Ethics. Aristotle speaks here of a kind of fellowship existing between individuals or citizens of a polis which is similar to the affection that siblings have for one another. In Aristotle, the good is in man’s character from the beginning in the form of a capacity, to be developed into a disposition (by nurturing and education). Just as we learn to be builders by building, and teachers by teaching, and doctors by doctoring, we learn to be brave by doing brave acts in encouraging circumstances and we learn to be virtuous by performing virtuous acts. This is the route by which states of character are formed. In this process of forming a good disposition, pleasures and pains need to be organised because, as Aristotle claims, “the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain” are the main sources of vicious action.
Feelings are originally also capacities (low level capacities) and are part of the material that needs to be changed and formed by the nurturing of a virtuous disposition so that one feels the right feeling in the right circumstances at the right time. It is obvious from the above account that virtue cannot itself be merely a feeling
because as Aristotle rightly argues we do not praise or blame men for the feelings they are having, (because this is something passive- something that is happening to them, within the privacy of their own bodies). The Aristotelian-Kantian ethical attitude is an active attitude inextricably tied up with human activity, with action, and with choice. Such activity is formed by a method shaped by an aim to hit a target or achieve an end. The difference between the generous man, the spendthrift, and the miser, is one of an active attitude towards men and money. We can only choose to act, Aristotle argues if the action is of the kind, voluntary. Actions caused by external factors (compulsions) or ignorance are for him involuntary actions and cannot be freely chosen: such actions can therefore neither be praised nor blamed, i.e the agent cannot be held fully responsible for them. The notion of choice, isolated from other powers, is not related to the end of the flourishing life because this latter is a rational wish of Eros and is not itself chosen, but rather succumbed to, in the manner an educational process is succumbed to. Deliberation chooses the means to accomplish the flourishing life. For a holistic view of the process of deliberation stretching from the moment of succumbing, to the moment of making the good occur see Sir David Ross’s account in “Aristotle”: Ross situates choice in the matrix of desire, deliberation, perception and Art:
“Desire: I desire A Deliberation: B is the means to A C is the means to B N is the means to M Perception: N is something I can do here and now Choice: I choose N Art: I do N “(P.207)
Ross does not do this but one can describe this process of deliberation in terms of areté which is a term Aristotle uses for both one’s moral character and ones skill in thinking and acting. Translating this term as virtue becomes clearer when it is used in the context of “the virtuous life” that, when coupled to the term eudaimonia, or the good spirited flourishing life, embraces both the intellectual virtues and the moral/ethical virtues which include phronesis, courage, and temperance. The character of a virtuous man is, then, a set of dispositions (formed capacities), that organise one’s desires and feelings in relation to the final end of eudaimonia or the flourishing life which in its turn is also the actualization of the potential of the rational animal capable of discourse. The Phronimos, the great-souled man possessing practical wisdom which he demonstrates with his correct reasoning, (reasoning in the right way, or orthos logos), is the man whose psuché, or soul, best integrates the rational and the irrational parts of the soul. Aristotle indicates the consequences of falling short in the aim of fulfilling one’s potential, namely forms of life which are neither excellent (areté) nor flourishing (eudaimonia). He illustrates this claim by pointing to the life of pleasure pursued by firstly, non rational animals, secondly, the life of honour pursued by men of ambition and
thirdly, the life of the Phronimos who, one assumes, fulfils his potential most
completely because of the Platonic argument that he is the being who has experienced all the three forms of pleasure associated with these different life forms and as a consequence knows which pleasure is the best.Plato would have argued that the pleasure experienced by the Phronimos is pure(more intellectual) and unrelated to pain which by definition is a condition caused by a body striving for homeostasis (manifesting a relation between the pleasure-pain principle and the energy regulation principle). The lives of the hedonist, the wealthy man, and the ambitious man, are all pain avoidance related and therefore dependent on either external or internal causal factors. None of these forms of life meet the criteria of the self-sufficient flourishing life. The great-souled, Phronimos, on the other hand, is self-sufficient because he reasons in the right way about the world of conduct and feelings (the feelings of pleasure and pain, fear and anger). It is also important not to lose sight of the systematic connections of the above account with Aristotle’s claims about psuché and human nature. Because humans are animals and organisms they necessarily possess an ergon (inbuilt function) as well as a telos which is dependent upon material and efficient causes. The human, however, distinguishes itself from other forms of life through unique capacities and their potential to be formed into rational dispositions. Rationality is a term we attribute to humankind for its disposition to reason well and excellently.
One can wonder, as G E Moore did, whether including the natural, biological, material and efficient causes of being a human in the definition of “moral value” condemns Aristotle’s account to commit the naturalistic fallacy, i.e. the fallacy of defining moral value in terms of natural capacities. We have argued above that moral virtue is dispositional and dispositions are formal and developed capacities. If this distinction is observed, there is no fallacy, no contradiction because capacities, we have argued, are actualised into dispositions given the appropriate conditions for the actualisation process to occur. That is to say, there is no logical equivalence between the natural capacities of a human organism and its moral dispositions which are, as has been argued, constituted by the excellent exercise of natural capacities. Aristotle characterises all forms of activity and art as striving for the good and areté, so it is important to point out that even if one possesses the capacity to build a house, and do it well, this activity of an artisan is not a form of moral excellence, but rather a form of pragmatic/technological excellence.There is a further major difference between moral and technological(techné) excellence which is connected to the distinction Aristotle recognises between acting (praxis) and producing (poesis). This is noted by G J Hughes in his Routledge guidebook: “Aristotle on Ethics”3:
“Health is indeed the product of the art of medicine just as a house is the product of architecture or a statue of sculpture. But eudaimonia is not the product of the actions of a good person. Fulfillment in life is not something over and above someone’s actions which those actions produce. Fulfillment consists in doing what one does just because one sees those actions as noble and worthwhile…. living is not a process one undertakes for the sake of something else which is produced as a result. The point of the good life just is the living of it.”(P.89)
Hughes continues by pointing out that this puts Aristotle in the deontological camp in our modern ethical debates. He cannot be a consequentialist, argues Hughes, because:
“Aristotle has nothing comparable to Bentham’s definition of action as a “mere bodily movement” from which it would indeed follow that the value of an action must depend on the consequences that action produces, as Bentham says. Instead, Aristotle defines an action in terms of how the agent describes or sees their behaviour at the time and draws no particular line between action and its consequences”(p.90)
The implications of this argument are devastating for the utilitarian position which finds itself at odds with two of the most important ethical positions. For Aristotle, the agent must adopt a first-person perspective to what they are doing, and not a third person observationalist perspective which, in the absence of the declaration of intention by the agent of the action, might well seem “mere bodily movement”. Confusion is endemic in this area of debate. We can see one kind of confusion in the utilitarian camp where the theoretical obsession with a reductive-compositive method, together with an observationalist/experimental interpretation of that method, postulates “atoms” of pure movement which can then be inserted into a theoretical framework of linear causes and effects. The movement “causes” a state of affairs that is logically different from its cause, thus dividing what was a unitary action into two elements which can only be composed into a unity at the expense of the holistic account of deliberative practical reasoning we find in Aristotelian ethics.Confusions between praxis and poesis may even assist in this attempt to subject this domain to the theoretical framework of scientific reasoning. It is, of course, easier to dissolve a skill (needed for the production of an object) into the event of movement and the product produced at the end of the activity, because here quite clearly the observer can, for example, see the builder building and the “consequence”, the completed, produced house. Aristotle would immediately criticise this theoretical attempt for failing to appreciate the role of intention in identifying the activity (correctly describing the activity). This, for him, could only occur from the first person point of view. The builder sees what he is doing from the point of view of the idea or form of the house he has in mind, and this, for him, logically determines how one can describe such building activity. All art aims at the good, Aristotle declared, but there is a difference between the good house being built, which is largely a pragmatic matter, and leading a good flourishing life which is a broader, ethical/political good. We need also to recall that we are in the realm of forms for Aristotle, forms which are subject to his metaphysical theory of change. Forms for Aristotle were hierarchically structured with sexual reproduction at the lower end of the scale being followed by the production of artifacts, and finally by the learning and teaching of the forms. The production of artifacts as we pointed out involves practical knowledge, but not a choice made by a stable character. Here it seems, in the instrumental case, we are clearly dealing with an activity or work, but not fully fledged action (Arendt distinguished in her work between labour, work, and action)(4) An organised soul is required to perform the actions which aim at a flourishing life: only work activity is required to produce the objects of techné. So, knowledge is involved in firstly, the action as a result of practical reasoning, and secondly, in the deliberative calculation of the work activity behind the creation of objects of techné. We need to enquire into the different kinds of knowledge in the different kinds of science involved in leading the flourishing life. Aristotle distinguishes between three different kinds of science: the theoretical, practical and productive sciences. In relation to theoretical science, he claims, (in the light of knowledge being defined as justified true belief), that essence specifying definitions or principles are the justifications we find in the theoretical sphere of scientific activity. These both provide a form of logical necessity not to be found in the other two sciences, which are both aiming at something for which, as yet, there are no essence specifying definitions. What we find instead here are principles. Theoretical sciences aim at the truth and use logical demonstration that moves from first principles or essence-specifying definitions to logically related conclusions. Practical sciences may be related to the truth and logic or “analytics” (as Aristotle called logic), but the primary aim of these sciences is the good. Because of areas of commonality, we find in this area that particular conclusive judgments follow from universal and particular premises. Similarly, in the practical sciences “justification” will also involve the elements of Aristotle’s metaphysical theory of change in which reference will be made to 4 kinds of change, three principles and 4 “causes” but here, agents, powers and actions will be the focus of attention. In the “Posterior Analytics” Aristotle gives us an account of the acquisition of knowledge which is common for all the sciences.
The above is a fine account of how the desire to understand involves powers building upon powers and integrating into the unified disposition of mind that we believe generates knowledge. This process, surely, is common to all the sciences. It accounts for how we differentiate animals from each other, of how we differentiate men from each other, and also, finally, how we differentiate objects and actions from each other. The above account does not mention the powers of language and reason, but these will certainly be involved in the generation of knowledge. The 4 causes or explanations of the theory of change will also be involved in our judgments of the good man striving to actualise his potential to live the flourishing life. They will also be involved in scientific judgments in relation to the good action, which, as we have been told, plays an important role in the above actualisation process. The desire to understand oneself and know oneself will also probably be a part of this journey of awe and wonder. Aristotle’s idea of the flourishing life is one where both the moral and intellectual virtues form a unity in which knowledge, whilst not being perhaps a seamless robe, is at least one unified coat of many colours. The idea of the goodwill, in this account, includes both knowledge and understanding of oneself and the world one lives in.
Aristotle did engage in the discussion of one aporetic issue which directly highlights the ways in which theoretical and practical knowledge are integrated with ethical action. Socrates argued that if a man knows the good, i.e. really knows and understands the universal idea of the good, then he will necessarily always do the good in his actions. On the face of it, the opening sentences of the Nichomachean Ethics, claiming as they do that all art, activity, and inquiry aim at the good, suggests that Aristotle too must accept this Socratic analysis. Awareness of the phenomenon of the man claiming to know the good and then not doing it, however, pushed Aristotle into giving a more nuanced account of this so-called phenomenon of akrasia or incontinence. For Aristotle, it was necessary for him to acknowledge this phenomenon, and give it an acceptable explanation. Now, if it was the case that all men as agents aim at the good, it is difficult to understand how an agent can perform an incontinent action where that is defined as an action that is intentional and performed against a background of the knowledge that a preferable alternative action is available to the agent. If we are imagining a rational agent wholly constituted of their beliefs, desires, values, and actions, then we have to bear in mind that the relation between intentions beliefs and desires is a complex one and difficulties abound as soon as one evokes the terminology of Analytical Philosophy.
Socrates was criticized by Lear because he wanted to characterise akrasia in terms of states of the soul, but the above characterisation in terms of beliefs, desires and intentions, seems to be a similar attempt, using states of mind and the terminology of Analytical Philosophy. Aristotle’s account of akrasia is actually better characterised in terms of his own terminology of the powers of perception, memory, language, knowledge, and reason in an organised soul. On this account, akrasia is not possible. If there is an alternative action for which there are good reasons, it must be the case in an organised soul that all things considered and understood, this must be the action one chooses to perform (not being aware of what one is doing and being drunk with passion are excluded as possibilities). This suggests that the phenomenon of incontinence must be explained by there either being a lack of knowledge or ignorance of how to act. The power of judgment will also necessarily play a part in the deliberative process which leads to action. Aristotle’s practical syllogism differentiates the reasons why any one of the premises could be blocked. The power of judgment can also of course be shut down by strong passions and a different principle of action would in such cases be operating. The virtuous soul, of course, is a well-organised soul and will not allow its powers to be compromised in the above ways. The soul on its way to virtuous organisation may, however, be like an actor on a stage going through the motions of knowing, i.e. exercising deficient powers of knowledge by believing that he ought to be doing some alternative better action but because of the confusion in his soul is not able to settle on the completely articulated reason for what ought to be done. We should also remember, considering the fact that we are dealing with practical reasoning and rationality, that the soul will not acquire what he calls the ”logos”, by merely hearing something and assenting to it: language is not a sufficient power to install the kind of knowledge being referred to (it is a capacity not a fully fledged disposition). The apprentice knower, that is, must imitate his betters in an environment of ethical guidance, and the journey from being an apprentice to being a virtuous man is one in which one is learning about oneself and the world. The possibility, of course, exists in such circumstances that someone may be right in one’s judgments about the world but wrong in one’s judgments about oneself, i.e. incontinence will be on display in such a case.
corollary of his position in this debate, Politis argues that PNC is not a so-called “Transcendental Principle”, i.e. a claim to the effect that something is true of reality because it is true of thought or language. Politis has this to say on p 135:
“Aristotle argues (in Chapter 4,4) that if PNC were not true of things then we could not use thoughts and words to signify things, and in general we could not think and speak about things. He concludes that if PNC were not true of things, then thought and language about things would be impossible. PNC is true of things because it is a necessary condition for the possibility of thought and language about things.”
This has the logical consequence that there can be no demonstration or explanation of PNC. On our account, we wish to maintain, therefore, that PNC is a principle of metaphysical logic and only as a consequence a principle about thought and language about things. Aristotelian metaphysics is about the form, essence or primary principle of things. PNC requires that everything in the world has explainable essences or principles. Denying that things have essences or forms or primary principles is a condition of denying PNC. If things are indeterminate (have no essence) then PNC cannot be an applicable principle. However, since PNC is true of all things, all things are determinate and must, therefore, have essences. Socrates has an essence, namely his humanity, and therefore we can make true noncontradictory statements about him, i.e. access his “primary being” to use the expression used by Politis.
Returning to our second formulation of PNC, can we then not say that Socrates’ humanity is the primary principle or form or essence of the primary being of Socrates and is this not that which explains what Socrates ontologically is? Aristotle believed that all living things possessed souls of different kinds or in his technical language from De Anima, a soul is “the actuality of a body that has life”. But living things take different forms and Aristotle, therefore, constructed a matrix of life forms that defined a living things form or essence partly in terms of the physical organ system it possessed and partly in terms of the powers the thing as a whole possessed.
He begins with simple plants, their simple physical structures, and their powers of growth and reproduction. The matrix seems to be organised in terms of a continuum of a possible infinite number of forms only some of which are actualised because of the physical conditions of the elements of the world (earth, water, air, fire) and their accompanying processes of wet and cold, hot, and dry. The next stage of the continuum manifests itself in animal forms possessing animal organ-systems and the powers of perception and locomotion (in addition to the previous plant-like power). The penultimate stage of the matrix is that of humanity or the human being which possesses a more complex organ system and also more complex powers of discourse, memory and reasoning(in addition to all the lower powers previously mentioned). This matrix was an attempt to transcend the dialectical discussions of dualists and materialists and present a hylomorphic theory of the soul which would not fall foul of the PNC. This matrix is a matrix of agents and powers which in its turn is of course embedded in an environmental matrix of space, time and causation (discussed earlier). In a sense, Metaphysical Logic was metaphorically placing a curse on both the houses of dualism and materialism in order to stem the reproduction of theories from these sources. However, as we know Platonic dualism defied the metaphorical curse and was one of the motivating assumptions of Old and New Testament Religions and we also know that materialism was one of the motivating assumptions of the rise of modern science which Descartes, Hobbes, and Hume were embracing in their anti-Aristotelian theorising. As a direct consequence metaphysical logic dwindled in importance as the drama of dialectical interaction between Religion and Science played itself out at the beginning of our modern era. PNC was demoted from a Metaphysical principle to a transcendental principle of logic governing thought and language. Dualism was of course as old as the hills and Orphic, pre-Judaic, Judaic and Christian theories of the soul characterised it as a special kind of substance that breathes life into a material body embedded in a space-time-causation matrix. Materialism saved its breath for several centuries before finally claiming in the spirit of dialectical interaction that a non-physical, non-extended entity cannot have a causal effect in the physical matrix of the material world-i.e. that this substance can move nothing in the material world because it shares none of its properties. The soul cannot be causa sui, materialists argued, by definition, because it cannot be observed either by itself or by others in its putative causing itself to do things.
With PNC, Metaphysical logic and hylomorphic theory marginalised by a “transcendental” conception of logic, the resultant chaos was inevitable.
Metaphysics became identical with dualistic assumptions and Aristotle’s metaphysical logic was categorised as dualistic, and it was not long before PNC’s metaphysical implications were entirely forgotten except for those die-hard Aristotelians working in a University system, itself in the process of being transformed into institutions for the representation of the houses of dualism and materialism. Kant, thankfully, temporarily halted this process of “modernisation” for a short period of time, until Hegel and Marx in true dialectical fashion ensured that both Kant and Aristotle were consigned to the footnotes of Dialectical Philosophy. Both Aristotle and Kant emerged as relevant Philosophical figures once again when the process of “modernisation” was again halted in Vienna by Freudian psychoanalytical theorising and in England by the later Philosophy of Wittgenstein. Modernisation and the scientification of our everyday existence continue but for every halting of the process the followers of the opposition increase in number and help to construct what is now beginning to look like a philosophical tradition composed of the philosophies of Aristotle, Kant, and the later Wittgenstein and their followers.
The problem of the relation of the soul to the body must surely fall into the category of what Aristotle referred to as aporetic questions. It is also one of the key problems that need to be addressed in the arena of Philosophical Psychology. Aristotle regarded the relation of the soul and the body as a holistic unity similar to that of the relation between form and matter. Jonathan Lear, a commentator on the writings of both Aristotle and Freud characterises this issue in the following way:
“Yet it is precisely because soul and body must form a unity in a living organism that it is difficult to distinguish them. Artifacts provided the original model for the form-matter distinction: and there is a clear sense in which a craftsman imposes form on a distinct matter. With living organisms, by contrast, matter and form are intimately bound up with each other: consequently, there is no distinctly existing and persisting matter on which soul can, from time to time, be imposed. Indeed the matter of a living organism seems to depend on being ensouled to be the matter that it is. And a given type of soul, say, human soul seems to require a particular type of matter. The living organism is such a unity but the real challenge for Aristotle is to show how that unity can legitimately be conceived as having two aspects, soul and body.”(P.98)
The soul is an actuality of matter (there can be levels of actuality,) and living beings can be regarded as “substance” par excellence by Aristotle. His matrix of different life-forms are established in terms of the kind of power that belongs to a particular form. In De Anima 15b 8-14, Aristotle maintains unsurprisingly that the soul is the moving, formal and final cause of the body. He also maintains that a particular constellation of organs are what give rise to particular forms of life. He does not claim that these organs “cause” in any modern sense, the form of life—it is rather the case that these forms of life “spontaneously” cause themselves to do what they do, i.e. exercise the powers typical of their particular life form. Aristotle, as we pointed out earlier referred to a matrix of life-forms which form a hierarchy from the simplest to the most complex form: from the simplest form of vegetation to the most complex life form of God. This matrix is constituted by the differentiation of powers, but the most interesting observation Aristotle makes is that the more complex life-forms incorporate the simpler forms and presumably, in so doing, transforms their functions so that more complex activities become possible . At the level of the human being, the next most complex form of life, Aristotle provides us with three different characterisations:
1. The first characterisation is in terms of an essence specifying definition: a rational animal capable of discourse. This is clearly a kind of summary of the most important powers a human possesses. .
2. The second characterisation is in terms of a careful account of how we acquire knowledge through the uses of the powers of perception, memory and reasoning which also appear to be related to powers of language and imagination.
3. The third characterisation is in terms of mans ability to reason both theoretically and practically.
There does not appear to be any conflict between these three characterisations. Hughlings Jackson, a theorist, who influenced Freudian theory, claimed that areas of the brain have a hylomorphic hierarchical structure. Freud used these hylomorphic ideas when he suggested his three principles of “psychic” functioning:–the energy regulation principle, the pleasure-pain principle, and the reality principle. Each of the higher principles “colonises” some of the territory of the lower principles thus transforming the human activities associated with them. Eating a meal, for example, primarily an energy regulation activity, is transformed into a civilised activity aiming at the pleasures of sitting down for a period of time with ones family. This is a clear example of the transformation of an instinctive/biological activity into a social event which may involve other powers of the mind, such as engaging in and reasoning at the dinner table.
Freud claims that one function of language and discourse is to bring “psychic” material into the field of consciousness (where all our powers appear to be integrated). Indeed, his later therapeutic techniques appear to be presupposing the hylomorphic principle of powers building upon powers with the intent of integrating all powers in the mind. Freud is ambivalent on the question of whether consciousness itself is a power or an inherent function of the brain probably partly because of the fact that he was fighting for hylomorphism against the predominating Cartesian model of consciousness. Freud obviously also benefitted from the work of Kant. He is reputed to have said that his was the Psychology that Kant would have written had he concerned himself with this subject which had broken its moorings from Philosophy in 1870. Kant’s work previously recreated the space for reflection upon the hylomorphic soul and the power of thinking that Aristotle had established earlier. The Dualism-materialism dialectical interaction continued however with the appearance of the Hegelian criticism of Kantian philosophy which it must be admitted was not straightforwardly hylomorphic. Freuds work began in materialistic mode but soon rejected its own assumptions and attempted to restore the Aristotelian principle based approach in the arena of what today we would call Philosophical Psychology. Even during the later phases it must also be admitted that Freud’s work is also not straightforwardly hylomorphic. There is clearly a dualistic tendency in Freud’s work which manifested itself when, in his last phase of theorising, he turned towards the theories of Plato for some of his key concepts (Eros, Thanatos, Ananke). In spite of these reservations however, it is clear that Freud’s theory is a theory of agency, principles, and powers set in a practical context of the search for a flourishing life. The Aristotelian notion of substance implies agents that can do things, and act upon things. Powers, for Aristotle, are potentialities to bring about changes in reality and this idea is clearly at work in the Freudian Reality Principle. A power is actualised as part of a cure, and then belongs to the agent. Hume would probably have objected that just as we cannot observe the cause of building a house, we cannot observe powers and that therefore they are highly dubious entities. This is a logical consequence of his position that whatever happens is the only thing that can happen. P.M.S. Hacker in his work “Human Nature: The Categorical Framework”2 argues that this Humean position is absurd, because it entails that if something can in fact only do what it does then the potentialities of possessing a skill or the learning of a skill become to say the very least problematic. Hacker is of course one of the foremost commentators and interpreters of the work of Wittgenstein who, he claims, restored hylomorphic theory in the seminar and lecture rooms of our dialectical Universities. Consciousness in its non-Cartesian form enters into modern post-Wittgensteinian discourse in terms of the reflective nature of the human being that possesses an awareness of their powers (unlike a magnet or snake which possess powers unreflectively). This reflectiveness, in its turn, according to Hacker, gives rise to powers that can be willfully used, i.e. powers that we can choose to exercise or not. It was this mental space that appeared to be absent in the mental constitution of many of Freud’s patients and it was this lack that drove Freud to postulate that the principles driving much of their activity was unconscious.
Hacker calls “volitional powers”, in which choice is involved, “two-way powers”. Included among such powers were the powers to perceive, remember, think and reason. He further argues that both Descartes and Hume conflate empirical and conceptual issues and thereby provided assumptions for an emerging neuroscience which were incoherent and confused. As we pointed out earlier Kant attempted to correct the influence of Descartes and Hume by claiming as an axiom of his philosophical psychology (Anthropology) that human beings know a priori the difference between what they are doing and what is being done to them. Kantian accounts as we now know unintentionally gave rise in the process of modernisation, to volitional theories which in attempting to classify our actions in terms of the modernist matrix of space-time-linear causation resolved a holistic activity into a causal relation between two occurrences which the empirical process of composition could not logically unify.
Schopenhauer, a contemporary of Hegel, was already experiencing the pull of modern volitionism back into a non-Aristotelian matrix of space-time-linear causation when he claimed that:
“we certainly do not recognise the real immediate act of will as something different from the action of the body and the two are connected by a kind of causality: but both are one and indivisible….thus actual willing is inseparable from doing, and, in the narrowest sense, that alone is an act of will which is stamped as such by the deed.”(World as Will and Representation)(3).
It is not difficult to see how volitionist theories are connected to the dualism-materialism dialectic (especially Cartesianism and its pernicious form of dualism that paradoxically ends up in the brain). Platonic dualism is not pernicious in this way. It distinguishes between a world of forms and a physical world—a world of representations and the world of that which the representations are of—which Schopenhauer addresses with his distinction between the world of will and the world as representation, where the former world is connected to a priori knowledge that is non-observational. Hylomorphic theory with its levels of actuality seems to be the only theory capable of “saving the phenomenon” of willing, without reduction or reification. Freudian theory, we should remember, maintained that one can act involuntarily. Hacker connects teleology to voluntary action and two-way powers in the following passage:
“Human beings, like other sentient animals with wants, have the power to move, to act, at will. “To act” in this context does not signify causing a movement, but making one. We acknowledge a special role for such so-called basic actions not because they are a causing of a movement that may be the first link in a causal chain, but because they are the first act. The first thing for which a purposive or intentionalist explanation may be apt. To say that a human being moved his limb is to subsume behaviour under the category of action. It earmarks behaviour as being of a kind, that is under voluntary control, as something of a kind which is a sentient agent can choose to do or not do, and hence indicates the propriety of asking whether there is an intentionalist explanation of the deed. The attribution of the movement to the agent is not causal. But it is an action, and therefore is of a kind that falls within the ambit of the variety of teleological explanation appropriate for human action. The agent may have moved his hand in order to… or because he wanted to…..or because he thought that….or out of fear, and so forth. Aristotle’s movement is to be understood to be liable to the range of explanations of the exercise of two-way powers by a rational agent.”(P.158)
This, of course, calls into question the observationalist use of the method of resolution and composition (the method of the behaviourist psychologist). Saying on the basis of observation, something about another agents movement, namely, that “His arm moved”, is a description which leaves it open whether this was something he did (raise his arm to call a taxi) or whether this was rather something that happened to him ( his arm raising in a fit of cramp). If the phenomenon was of the latter kind there are absolutely no grounds for calling what happened, “action”.
Modernisation of Aristotelian theory resulted in scientific reasoning in the spirit of Hobbes and Hume This then became part of the process of the dismantling of hylomorphic theory, a process that, in turn, resulted in the claim that teleological explanation is not a form of explanation at all. Two reasons are given for this claim. Firstly, the telos cannot be observed, and secondly, telos disappears in the methodical resolution of a holistic activity into linear cause-effect events. Events can then be comfortably described a-teleologically. That scientists should have spent so much effort and time in this composition and subsequent destruction of this “straw man of teleology” or “ghost of teleology”, is indeed thought provoking. What is even more thought provoking is the success of their “mythologizing of teleology” and the fact that this process could prove so devastating for the continued discussion of Psychological theories such as Freud’s and Piaget’s. Because this process was so successful it might prove useful to remind ourselves of what teleological explanation is via Hacker’s characterisation:
“Our discourse about the living world around us, about ourselves, our bodies and activities, and about the things we make is run through with description and explanation in terms of goals, purposes and functions. We characterise things such as organs and artefacts, and also social institutions in terms of their essential functions and their efficacy in fulfilling them. We explain animal morphology in terms of the purposes served by their shapes, limbs and features. This is not a causal explanation (although it is perfectly consistent with, and indeed calls out for one), since we explain what the organ or feature is for and not how it came about and not how (by what causal processes) it fulfils its function. We describe what it enables the animal to do and how it affects the good of the animal or its offspring. We commonly explain why certain substances animate and inanimate (artifactual) or constituent parts of substances (organs of living things or components of artefacts) do what they do by describing what they do it for…We explain and justify human action, including our own, by specifying the rationale of the prospective or antecedently performed action, and we often account for the behaviour of social institutions likewise. These kinds of description are called “teleological descriptions” and these kinds of answers to the question why, teleological explanations— explanations by reference to an end or purpose (telos).”(P163-4)
Hacker goes onto add that teleological explanation is a form of explanation that cannot be characterised in terms of the ideal of efficient causation that the scientist values so much, but should rather be characterised by an understanding which focuses upon reasons, goals and motives.
Hacker also agrees that teleology is linked to the idea of the good on the grounds of “psuche” being a biological/psychological substance whose essence it is to come into being, flourish, and eventually die and decay. Living beings on his and Aristotle’s account postulates that absolute needs are tied to health and mortality. These needs extend from life-maintaining activities, to activities producing the quality of life necessary for a flourishing existence. These latter activities require a considerable amount of learning and the acquisition of many complex skills. We can clearly see a hierarchy of needs emerging from this account. Abrahams Maslow’s theory(4) is a hierarchical theory in which satisfying a need “causes” another higher level need to emerge. There is, in this theory, an “incorporation of the lower level need in the higher-level. Proceeding up the hierarchy eventually results in a flourishing life for the individual concerned. Maslows account includes reference to cognitive and aesthetic needs.
A large part of the task of society and its social institutions is that of striving toward the telos of the good: that is, for a society to be flourishing, large numbers of the members of that society must experience that the conditions provided allow them to have their needs systematically met. The telos of the society, as “the literary” Socrates suspected, must be connected to the telos of the individual. If an individual flourishes in a flourishing society he achieves what Aristotle refers to as the summum bonum of life, namely eudaimonia, or happiness. This can only occur, argue Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, if the society concerned is Rational. This moves us onto the question of the realm of the essence or formal “cause” of society and individual. One of the needs of the animal and the human being, is to reproduce, and if the latter is done rationally, a level of consciousness of the telos of sexuality, is a requisite condition. Plants and animals do not possess this requisite condition. In Freud’s theory, it is the principles of energy regulation and pleasure-pain that regulate reproductive activity. In the human being we are capable of regulating this activity by using the powers of discourse and reasoning. We can, that is, discuss the reasons for our reproductive and sexual behaviour. The essence of the individual is tied to reproductive activity for Freud, but his claims only make sense in the context of hylomorphic theory. The family is obviously the social institution most closely connected to sexual activity, and the bringing up of children which appears to so many to be an important part of the flourishing life. The family is also the basic social unit which forms the basis for the construction of the polis, and is therefore an important element of the flourishing polis (the Callipolis). Aristotle’s teleological explanations seem therefore to have clear application in the realm of the human world, but is the case for their application to the natural world equally obvious? Particles and matter for example are not naturally thought of in terms of being “for” anything and the reason why particles and matter do what they do is also not directly relatable to their internal potential to move but rather to some propensity to move when caused to do so by external factors. In a low pressure system, for example where the air is cooled the matter in the system will descend in the form of rain after having ascended in warmer circumstances to form clouds. This might suffice for some to attribute a telos to the evaporated water that was ascending and then descended back to earth in the cooling process. Some kind of resolution-composition method sufficed for Aristotle to pick out the elements of earth, water, air, and fire and their associated processes of wet-cold, hot-dry and for him there did seem to be a place for teleological explanation in weather systems, organ systems and perhaps also economic systems. Basically energy regulation systems such as weather systems are set to a teleological standard of homeostasis. Viewed from the vantage point of energy regulation, Aristotelian teleological physics appears harmless enough. It is, however, when God is brought into the picture as a designer of systems that problems begin to emerge. Aquinas, a commentator and interpreter of the works of Aristotle from a religious point of view, attempts to argue that in the inorganic world, “material” which lacks awareness could only have a goal, i.e. act “for the sake of” some end, if God directed the process in much the same way as an archer intentionally directs an arrow at a target. This of course, cannot fail to remind us of the passage in the Nichomachean Ethics where Aristotle claims:
“If there is some end of the things we do, which we desire for its own sake (everything else being desired for the sake of this)…clearly this must be the good and the chief good. Will not the knowledge of it, then, have a great influence on life? Shall one not, like archers who have a mark to aim at, be more likely to hit upon what we should do? If so, we must try, in outline at least, to determine what it is.”(I,2, 19-25)
Aristotle claims that this end is Eudaimonia, often translated as happiness, but not always happily so. Perhaps a better translation, in some contexts, would be “a flourishing life”. It is the function of man, Aristotle argues, to lead a flourishing life, which, for him, amounts to living in accordance with areté or virtue, which in its turn means doing the right thing at the right time in the right way: all these elements will be involved in the reasons a man gives for doing any particular act. This, in the Freudian scheme of things, would entail that the Reality Principle (Ananke) is the organising principle of one’s life. Aquinas conceives of God as a Supreme Agent, the Supreme Archer, but there is very little in Aristotle to support this thesis. Aristotle claims that an arrow falls downward for the same reason that rain falls downward in the weather system, namely earth falls downward because its situational-being is beneath the water and air, and this is its natural place. Fire and heat and light (not heavy) and warm matter moves upwards because the source of heat is its place, namely, the sun. All these elements are, we should be careful to note, already formed material (in accordance with the matter-form principle), and it is their form that decides their position, and changes of position in the universe. That is, an arrow will fall to earth after having been fired into the air because of the forms that compose it: the wood and the iron are returning to their source—the earth. Now Aristotle in claiming the above was not making the mistake of other early philosophers/poets and claiming that the arrow “wanted” to return to earth. After all, was it not Aristotle who claimed that a tree has a visual form to present to the human eye, but that a tree, because of its nature cannot itself be aware of visual forms? Did he not maintain that powers build upon powers and that in accordance with this idea only substances that can be perceptually aware of visible forms can “want” and desire something, and therefore strive to fulfil these wants and desires? Only animals and humans can fire the arrows of desire at their targets. Now, on Aristotle’s account, God is pure form but his function is pure thinking which does not desire or aim at objects, since all objects are immediately possessed by a pure thinker. God, therefore, cannot in any way be similar to a super-human craftsman creating and shaping the substance of the world over a period of time. The Biblical creation myth is allegorical and meant merely to establish the hierarchy or “Place” of animals in relation to earth and God in relation to man, and man in relation to the animals and the rest of the universe. In short God, whilst in some sense being alive, does not perceive or desire and his thought has no relation to these powers. There is, it should be noted, a significant difference between the philosophical God of Aristotle and the Biblical Mythical God who appears amorphously through the mists of mythological allegory. Aristotle’s God is not a craftsman caring for his creation, and he is not therefore the Supreme agent or Supreme archer directing the elements to their natural places. He is rather, pure actuality, pure form, pure thinking. He thinks in a way which is not the realisation of a potential but rather thinks of himself in a timeless infinite “moment” of contemplation. Perhaps Thales shared this conception and perhaps this is what he meant when he said “things are full of gods”, as a response to those atheists who believed that the planets were just cold feelingless stone. If God is not thinking as we do about Reality, how then should we characterise this thinking. Aristotle brilliantly chose the description/explanation that God thinks about thinking. He therefore cannot be a super-agent or a super-archer. When we are thinking Aristotle points out, we partake however primitively, in the divinity of contemplation. When we are contemplating, it is during these moments that we are closest to God, and the extent to which this occupies a large proportion of our life is the extent to which we lead a flourishing life or the “good spirited (Eudaimonia) life. One cannot but be amazed at the ease with which Aristotle makes his transitions from Metaphysical aporia to Ethical and Political aporia. These almost seamless transitions were the reason why he was referred to as “The Philosopher” for several hundred years and “the teacher of our teachers”. Dante referred to Aristotle as “The master of those that know”. This is also the reason why we need to take his definition of Philosophy seriously—the systematic understanding of the world as a systematic whole– in a way that has been done only sporadically by Modern Philosophy since the time of Descartes and Hobbes. The world as a systematic whole, viewed hylomorphically, contains Psuché–a form of life which in itself contains a hierarchy of powers that are systematically related: powers, the explanation of which require an understanding of the difficulties associated with answering the Delphic oracles challenge to “Know thyself”. Freud answered this challenge and attempted to provide us with a map of the mind whose powers are disturbed, and this map required understanding of the “parts” of human pusché and their relation to the whole of the self-sufficient good spirited, flourishing mind.
Action and agency are central concerns for Aristotle, Kant, and Freud and we need therefore to see how the original account of these concerns given by Aristotle remains the core of Kantian and Freudian accounts.
Action and Agency are form-creators for Aristotle because they issue from a< of life which can build a world around itself. As a rational animal capable of discourse, I go forth in a world of physical events such as a storm at sea. After throwing the cargo overboard, I can but sit and wait for the consequences to play themselves out on this watery stage. As a rational animal capable of discourse I am of course a form of life that can act, but one whose actions have consequences I cannot control. The sun was shining and the weather was fine when I embarked on this sea voyage. The possibility of a storm at sea was a piece of knowledge I had but it was not active at the time of the choice. I am now trapped in this situation and if I was an ancient Greek, the “action” of praying to the gods might follow the action of throwing the cargo overboard. Is it irrational to begin to pray, or can one defend prayer as an assertion of agency as such when natural events play with our lives? For Aristotle, the world-creating forms occur in the media of change (space, time, and matter), and they find their explanation in a theoretical matrix of 4 kinds of change, three principles, and 4 causes. The material and efficient causes of the storm are forms situated in the infinite continuum of the media of change: the forms of water (the high seas) the forms of air (high winds) the forms of fire (the lightning issuing from the heavens) and the wooden earth-like form of the ship being tossed about and being prepared to rest finally in peace on the earth at the bottom of the sea. In such a situation, can we talk about praying in terms of rationality? Well, I had the knowledge that this fateful outcome was a possibility and did not use this knowledge(1) For Aristotle, not using ones knowledge is a failure of deliberation and therefore of rationality. So all that is left of the definition of such a being is his animality expressed in his fear and apprehension and his attempt to communicate via the discourse of prayer with the “agency” expressed in the storm. For those who found themselves in such situations and prayed and survived to tell their story, it might seem as if some divine agent had now a reason to save the souls on the ship. Aristotle would not have sanctioned such an explanation. He would have pointed to all those skeletons lying on the floor of the sea-bed, resting: the remains of those who undoubtedly prayed and who lost their souls in storms at sea. Aristotle’s theory of action, agency, and powers would not permit the world of the human to become confused with the physical forms of the infinite continuum. That is, one can rationally say that I should have considered the possibility of the ruin of my hopes in a storm at sea and ought not to have decided to board the ship, but one cannot rationally say that the Storm ought not to have sunk the ship and extinguished the life of all the souls on board. For Aristotle, there is a categorical distinction to be observed here, a logical boundary that one only crosses on pain of the loss of one’s rationality. This does not necessarily mean that Aristotle would have thought that it was irrational to pray as the ship’s mast was broken by the tempestuous winds. Indeed he would have thought that we are active world-creating forms and a structured form of discourse was, of course, preferable to quivering and weeping or rushing around like the ship’s dog howling at the wind. We are forms of life embedded in a world of physical forms, and some forms of action are appropriate whereas some forms of behaviour are not as appropriate: or in other words, when we are dealing with free voluntary choices, there are actions which ought to be chosen and actions which ought not to be chosen. The oughts here are rational and can be formulated in value-laden premises and conclusions with logical relations to each other, thus forming rational valid arguments for action. We are clearly exploring the foothills of ethics and morality, or as Jonathan Lear so clearly put it in his work “Aristotle: the desire to understand”, we are exploring the “Mind in action”. . Lear believes that understanding Aristotle’s philosophical theories of Psychology are a necessary pre-requisite to understanding both his ethics and hispolitics. So the man on board the ship is acting and the ship’s dog is justbehaving. Why the difference? The difference lies, Aristotle argues in our ability to think and create higher level desires which as a consequence creates a region of the soul which is rational and a region which is irrational. But we need to consider how the human higher form of desire is integrated with our knowledge(epistemé) if we are to fully understand the complexity of the human form of life. The desiring part of the human soul is the acting part because man is capable of acting rationally and behaving irrationally, i.e. he is capable of both reasoning that he ought not to drink water which might be poisoned, but he is also capable of drinking the same water. It is perhaps the existence of these parts of the soul which generates all those desires which we express in value-laden ought statements. The dog’s soul is perhaps a seamless unity but he too is an animal possessing some of our powers. One can, however, wonder whether dogs have minds in the sense of a mental space in which Aristotelian deliberations can take place. Deliberations are rationally structured but are also value or desire-laden. Lear believes that Aristotelian deliberation transmits this desire. My wish to drink the water will be conscious, Lear argues, and will set in motion a deliberation until a decision is reached and an action commenced. This reference to consciousness is very modern and this, of course, is a term Aristotle never used: he preferred to use the term awareness instead, and many modern commentators build a notion of reflexivity into this awareness, that is, they claim there is a self-awareness implied in Aristotle’s usage of this term.What this in turn implies, is that there is a self that is aware of itself. Does this
imply the presence of two selves? Not necessarily. There are in the actualising process of the human organism striving to be rational, earlier and later stages of development. There is no logical contradiction in the self at a later stage confronting in discourse oneself at an earlier stage during the process of moving from one stage to the other. But this is a different kind of deliberation to that involved in performing an action. The process of reasoning involved is characterised by Aristotle in the “Metaphysics” as follows:
“…health is the logos and knowledge in the soul. The healthy subject, then, is produced as the result of the following train of thought: since this is health, if the subject is to be healthy, this must first be present, e.g. a universal state of the body, and if this is to be present, there must be heat: and the physician goes on thinking thus until he brings the matter to a final step which he himself can take. Then the process from this point onward, i.e. the process towards health, is called a “making” “(Metaphysics VII, 7, 1032B5-10).
This process of reasoning is then compared by Aristotle to the reasoning one finds in the activity of geometers. In geometry, synthesis is the name of a process of construction by iteration of elements and construction of relations between elements: a straight line is thus synthesised or constructed by the placing of a second point at a distance from the first and the connecting of these two points by a straight line. The analysis of this straight line would then break the process down in a set of orderly steps until one arrives at the stage at which one begins the synthesis again. The analysis reverses the process. In the example of the doctor planning to act in the above quote, the initial desired goal has been synthesised and the deliberation “analyses” or “deconstructs” the goal to that point at which the doctor/agent fetches some warm blankets from the cupboard to warm the patient who ”has a cold”. The forming of the desire to warm the patient is of course not deliberative reasoning it is more like the effect of Eros on the mind, more like a learning or succumbing process issuing from an attitude of mind of awe, love for the world, or desire to understand the world. Of course, one is aware of this desire and to that extent one is certain about it in the same way as one is certain of any other manifestation in the consciousness of any mental event. It is the self-reflexive act of contemplating the desire which allows freedom into the Aristotelian process of deliberation. The agent decides whether and/or how to satisfy his desire and once this process is completed the desire to keep one’s patients healthy is transformed into a reason for acting. We are of course ignorant of the workings of this freedom to choose and to this extent, we are ignorant of part of the essence of what it is to be human. Kant would later dub this region of the mind , the region of noumenal being, the region of the noumenal self.
Reason, action, and consequence are concepts in complex relations with each other. Insofar as in Aristotle, forms constitute the world, the forms interacting in the matrix of space-time-material in accordance with a principle of causation must contribute to the creation or “forming” of this world. In a previous essay we pointed to the three different kinds of forms that constitute this world: firstly, the forms produced by and in relation to sexual reproduction, secondly, the forms produced by work of man in the building and construction of his artefacts, homes and cities, and, thirdly, the forms produced by teachers in the process of communicating knowledge.
Reason, action, and consequence are of course related to human activities insofar as they are knowledge-driven and also contribute to the ”forming” of the world. Such activities aim at the good they desire, and analyse what is needed in order to bring about the changes in the world they desire. Human agents have reasons for their actions in the same way as the archer has a reason for his action. The archer who hits the centre of the bulls-eye is like the geometer arriving at the point at which the reconstruction of his proof is presented. We, the audience, are in awe of his performance: the object of the action and the intention are in such cases in full, almost divine, congruence. The consequence is a logical consequence as is the recovery of the patient with the cold after the doctor restores the homeostasis of the body with the warm blankets. Many of our actions, however, do not achieve the desired result on the part of the agent, but this is no reason to doubt the logical relation in thought between the object and the intention. Human desire is generated in the human body. The desire to understand or to contemplate may be an activity that involves no bodily activity, although it is difficult even here to conceive of this activity taking place without correlative brain activity. It seems that only God, the divine, can think without a correlative underlying physical activity generating the thought. The mind-body problem obviously surfaces at this point in Aristotle’s philosophical psychology.
Sir David Ross in his work on “Aristotle”defines Psychology in terms of its objective “to discover the nature and essence of the soul and its attributes” So on this characterisation Psychology will cover vegetative and animal behaviour as well as human action. There is sufficient resemblance between the forms of life these different forms of soul lead to, sufficient to enable us to call soul “the principle” organising nutritive and reproductive activity, perceptive and motor activity, and human reasoning activity respectively. We mentioned earlier the relation between these forms of soul. David Ross puts the matter thus:
“Geometrical figures may be arranged in an order beginning with the triangle and proceeding to more and more complex forms, each of which contains potentially all that precedes. So too, the forms of soul form a series with a definite order, such that each kind of soul presupposes all that come before it in this order, without being implied by them.” (D.Ross, “Aristotle”, P.135)2
The physical substrate or matter underlying the above is obviously a simple physical organisation of parts of a plant to a more complex organisation of the organ systems of different species of animals enabling them to “sense” their environment or, alternatively, in the case of the rational animal, reason about their environment. It is also important to know about this material substrate which is inseparable from its mental aspect in the same way in which the shape of the ax is inseparable from its function of “chopping”. The soul and the body for Aristotle are in the human inseparable aspects. Ross has this to say on this topic:
“Most mental phenomena are attended by some bodily affection….Mental phenomena, therefore, are “formulae involving matter. The true definition of them will omit neither their form or end (their rational causation) nor their matter (their physiological conditions”(Ross, P.137)
The soul has its rational and irrational parts and also its various faculties which Ross explains in the following way:
“He is simply taking account of the fact that the soul does exhibit a variety of operations and that behind each of these intermittent operations we must suppose a permanent power of so operating. But these faculties do not exist like stones in a heap. They have a definite order, an order of worth, and a reverse order of development in the individual. Further, they have a characteristic which we may roughly call interpenetration. Thus, for instance, intellect and desire are distinct faculties, but the highest species of desire is of a kind which can only occur in beings which have intellect and is itself intellectual. Choice or will may equally well be called desiring reason and reasoning desire, and in it, the whole of man is involved.”(Ross, P.139)
The language of potentiality and actuality is particularly important in the Psychology of Aristotle because of his insistence upon categorical distinctions
between the operations of the soul: Firstly, there are feeling operations and secondly, operations which actualise the possession of capacities, and thirdly operations which actualise the possession of dispositions. Dispositions are higher level capacities; they are rationally regulated capacities. The virtues are examples of dispositions, and language is an example of a capacity. Reason is a faculty, and its relation to the other faculties is regarded by many commentators as a mystery. With reason we approach the contemplative life of God, the divine life, but this contemplative life does not appear to have any links with the body, according to Aristotle. Philosophical Psychology also deals with Perception. Given what has been said previously about the nature of the physical body being defined by its system of organs, we can draw the conclusion that the senses are obviously materially connected with organs. One of the accusations traditionally directed at Aristotle is that he confuses the purely physiological with the psychological. The physical eye, of course, is connected to the organ of the brain, and Aristotle states that perception takes place in the head as a result of the eye taking on the sensible form of whatever it is perceiving. The eye somehow identifies itself with the brown and green colours of the tree as well as the shape of the tree and the outcome, probably involving the brain, is an awareness of seeing the tree (which in itself does not have to be brown and green and possess a shape of a tree). The language of actuality and potentiality are important here in order to establish the relation of the object to its perception. The tree, in its turn, has the potentiality to be seen, that is, has the potentiality as a second level and higher actuality, to affect the faculty of sight (which would include the relation of the eye to the brain) in this way. It is not the tree that is present in the soul but its form
A by-product of perception or the faculty of sight, is the imagination or the faculty of the imagination, rendered by the Greek term Phantasia. Ross characterises this faculty in the following manner:
“Usually Phantasia (which has the meaning of “to appear”) is described as operating only after the sensible object has gone. The “movement of the soul through the body” which perception sets up causes a repercussion both in the body and in the soul—though as regards the soul the effect, until recollection takes place, is potential, i.e. not a conscious state of mind but an unconscious modification of the mind. At some later time, owing, for instance to the suppression of sensation in sleep, the movement becomes actual: i.e. an image similar to but less lively than the sensation, and less trustworthy as a guide to objective fact, is formed and attended to: and this is the act of imagination”
Phantasia has two main functions, according to Ross. The first function is the pure formation of after images, and the second function is related to memory, which involves both images and time, and an object in the past: it is the memory image relates to something in the past.
Freud obviously based his analysis of the condition of “shell shock” on the above theory. For Freud, bringing something into consciousness via the process of recollection and persuading the patient to talk about the cause of the images recollected, in the therapeutic situation, suffices to turn the phantasy of the traumatic event into a memory which would fade over time. We should remember in this context that, for Freud, language was a secondary sensory surface related more to thought than to perception. For both Aristotle and Freud, Thought was more reliably related to reality than imagination because it followed what Freud called the reality principle.
The Reality Principle, for Freud, is very much connected to the work of the ego which has the responsibility of coordinating the agencies of the id and superego in relation to the beliefs it has about the external world and the actions it is deliberating upon. The coordination with the superego of course takes on special significance when it comes to the Greek idea of virtue, which has many meanings, but the primary meaning in relation to action-contexts, is that of doing the right thing in the right way at the right time. Freud’s concept of the agency of the superego according to O Shaughnessy is connected to Consciousness of other human beings which forms our reflexive type of self-consciousness so important in the criticism of self and others. In an earlier work, “The World Explored, the World Suffered: A Philosophical History of Psychology, Cognition, Emotion, Consciousness, and Action(Vol 4) I claimed the following:
“The way in which the Other Consciousness is introduced into the Psychological Theory of Freud is via the agency of the Superego: a critical social agency internalised as a judging function. Maxims, intentions, desires, and actions are submitted to critical standards embodying principles that have helped to build our civilisations and create our cultures. O’Shaughnessy argues that it is the concept of another person that is responsible for forming the vicissitude of Consciousness we refer to as Self-Consciousness. He claims this concept is innate but the empirical existence of others is required if this form of Consciousness is to be actualised. Language is obviously an important power that also requires this innate concept and its empirical conditions that are to be found in the community of language users. Language for Freud was Janus- faced with one aspect turned toward the sensory world which it names and describes, and the other toward the world of thought which it expresses. There is the I that speaks, and the I that thinks, and the soundest approach to describing and explaining this state of affairs is to refuse to atomise the self into compartments, but rather regard the expressive self as logically identical with the thinking self that expresses thoughts in a public realm of discourse–thus realising the social and political intentions of a rational animal capable of discourse. O’Shaughnessy’s view is that Self Consciousness is a secondary phenomenon, the primary phenomenon being a vital expressive animal interacting with a demanding environment.”(P.166-7)
For Freud the superego is a metapsychological concept perhaps only second in importance to that other metapsychological concept of the ego. We know the Freudian aim for the individual in his effort to exist and desire to be is a strong independent ego that is not dependent upon the external world, the id or the superego. “Strong” in this context is not meant to depict dominance, but “weak” is meant to depict submission. The best term, perhaps to characterise what Freud meant by “strong” is the word “integration”: the ego is well integrated with the external world, the id and the superego, and to that extent is leading a healthy good spirited flourishing life. Freud in fact gives us a perfect picture of the submissive anxiety filled ego in his discussion of the ego ideal and idealisation which, it is claimed is connected to forming the superego the narcissistic way. He speaks here of delusions of observation in paranoia which may be connected to the death instinct that reigns in the absence of the strong egos effort to exist and desire to be. Such a dependent ego, subject to the critical gaze of the superego intent upon measuring the actions initiated by the ego uses defence mechanisms regularly to cope with the demands of life e.g. identification, repression, denial, displacement, splitting etc. The strong ego, on the other hand, is an ego that works virtuously in the realm of the moral rules and laws that regulate our relations to one another. The question to raise here is whether this is a form of the Reality Principle or whether this latter principle is a principle that only regulates the consequences of action rather than the maxims, intentions and reasons which are constitutive of the identity of moral action. This touches upon an old theme of Plato’s Republic where Socrates is eager to draw attention to the distinction between the good-in-itself and the “good-in-its-consequences, insisting in this connection that the idea of justice must be good in both senses. The question this reflection raises is whether the reality principle also governs the logic of the reasoning connected to deliberation upon the ought and is premises that lead us to moral action, e.g.
Promises ought to be kept
Jack promised Jill he would pay the money back that he was borrowing
Jack ought to pay the money back
In the world of real consequences this ideal form of reasoning is subject to qualification. What if Jack cannot pay the money back because he loses his job? It is up to Jill to decide whether to be disappointed in Jacks inability to keep his promise. She may well understand that Jack would have paid the money back if he could but losing his job was not something he counted on in the moment of promising in which of course he had every intention to keep his promise. She may also insist that he nevertheless pay the money back to her somehow. Here we can perhaps see something of the relation between the good-in-itself and the good.in-its-consequences. Now Freud, we maintain, must have been aware of the way in which the moral law moves from an “ought” premise relating to promising, to an “is” premise relating to the action of actually paying the money back or “returning a deposit”. He claimed he was a Kantian Psychologist and Kantian reflections on morality certainly argue for “The truth” of the premise “Promises ought to be kept” in virtue of this being the ultimate reason or justification for doing what one morally ought to do. If however, Freud intends the reality principle to be purely consequential then we must detach the moral principle from the reality principle but it is also important to note that the premises and conclusion in a moral argument are logically valid, making the action concerned both good -in-itself and good- in-its-consequences. There is no reason to embrace relativism in the domain of metapsychology just because of the difficulty in defining the exact scope of the moral principle. Kantian psychology has strong ties to Kantian morality and the moral law and those that wish to argue that Kantian morality is normative on the grounds of it only “recommending” what one ought to do, need to be confronted with two arguments, firstly, Kant’s ethics is a duty based ethics and describing this in terms of ” recommendation” can take us down the garden path of relativism. Secondly, Logic is normative in exactly the same way as morality which describes how people ought to act. Logic, that is, describes how people ought to think. We all know there are people who do not do what they ought to do just as there are people who contradict themselves. Jettisoning both ethics and logic because of these “facts” is indeed a dramatic and dangerous response but it has been the response of those followers of the “Tractatus”(Wittgenstein) who believed that “The world is the totality of facts and not things”. For Aristotle, Kant and Freud the world was better conceived in terms of a totality of conditions and principles. The superego, then, for Freud, must refer to the conditions and principles of moral action if he is to remain true to his claim that he is providing us with the (Meta) Psychology Kant would have produced if he was writing during the Freudian period. The superego can also however be narcissistically formed and this state of affairs is best represented in terms, not of the agent deliberating and rationally choosing not to do what he ought to do, but rather in terms of something happening to a mind where the ego is not strong enough to see what is both good in itself and good in its consequences, where the ego submits to non rational causes that either originate in the external world , the id or the superego.
There is not much discussion about the Kantian idea of freedom in Freud’s theorising but this may be due to the fact that much of Freud’s task was to defend medically and theoretically a technical therapeutic activity which in itself was a revolutionary “moral treatment”. To some extent this development of the method of the “talking cure” presupposed the value of the freedom of mental patients, suggesting clinical treatment instead of the prospect of being locked up in an institutions.
The philosophical thread extending from Socrates, through Plato, and Aristotle, Kant, Freud, and Wittgenstein and all their lesser known followers working in universities manifested both the many meanings of Being and the many meanings of Good and the cultural influence of the thought flowing from the thread has sometimes been monopolised by an obsessive compulsive desire to focus on one meaning of Being(the world is the totality of facts) or one meaning of Good( the subjective feeling based emotive meaning of the positivists). The consequences of obsession are never wholly good and rarely defined as obsessive. The effect of the category of action seems to have become detached from the pathological cause and is identified in terms of a more neutral category, e.g. “The new men” of Hannah Arendt’s “Origins of Totalitarianism”. The combination of Descartes dualism and obsession with consciousness and the scientists obsession with method and the underlying presupposition of materialism have been large contributors to what I termed in Vol 4 of my work: “The World Explored, the World Suffered: A Philosophical History of Psychology, Cognition,Emotion, Consciousness and Action”, “The Age of Discontentment”. The question which remains to be answered is whether the philosophical thread referred to earlier can help turn a post-discontentment age into something more positive and less pathological.
Jonathan Lear in his work “Aristotle: the desire to understand” claims that Freedom is the value that defines the constitution of our human nature to such an extent that lacking an understanding of our freedom is tantamount to not understanding ourselves. Now we could be forgiven for believing that the above remarks are about the ethics of Kant, but they are rather meant to articulate what Lear thinks is an important implication of Aristotle’s ethics. Lear does however throughout his work on Aristotle articulate support for the claim that Aristotelian ethics is an ethics of freedom. In the course of this “comparison”, however, a surprise is in store. Lear claims in the context of this discussion that the moral agent somehow detaches itself (frees itself?) from its desires and he thereby sides with Hegel’s criticism of Kantian ethics. Hegel claimed that he would stand the philosophy of Kant on its head and in attempting to do so may well have turned the worlds of Aristotle, Kant, and the common man upside down. Hegel’s dialectical logic replaced the Metaphysical Logic of Aristotle, and the Transcendental Logic of Kant. Hegel’s inversion of bottom and top via his dialectical logic remind one of the psychological subjects of Stratton(1), wearing glasses which invert their retinal images and seeing the landscape upside down on the first day. On the second day, these subjects felt that their bodies were upside down until finally after a number of days of acting under these strange circumstances everything returned to normal again. Wearing the glasses of Hegel to view the Philosophy of Kant can indeed make the world of Kant seem a strange world itself in need of conversion. It is, to say the very least, rather surprising to find Lear subscribing to this Hegelian position succumbing to this Hegelian deconstruction. We need in such a context, to remind ourselves of the texts of Kant which disprove the detachment thesis. Firstly, in the Critique of Judgment(2) Kant clearly claims the existence of an intimate relation between practical reason and desire:
“In the same way reason which contains constitutive, a priori principles solely in respect of the faculty of desire gets its holding assigned to it by the critique of Practical Reason.”(Preface)
Lear in his Hegelian criticism, is apparently failing to register Kant’s claim that there are two kinds of concepts, theoretical and practical, which generate separate and different principles of the possibility of their objects. Concepts of nature and concepts of freedom have a reflectively different structure. The application of concepts of nature to an acting will generates what Kant calls technically-practical principles in which it is legitimate to conceive of a kind of separation or detachment of the subject and his/her action. Such technically practical principles regulate an agents skills in accordance with the law of cause and effect, and this places such concepts and principles clearly in the realm of theoretical philosophy far from the realm of desire. Kant defines desire in the following terms:
“a faculty which by means of its representations is the cause of the actuality of the objects of those representations.”(P.16)
This clearly relates desire to practical reason and to the bringing about of states of affairs by means of principles in the practical world. Kant, in this discussion, is careful to distinguish between empirical cases in which ones desire for a
partic object precedes the practical principle, and transcendental cases in which the determining ground of choice is the practical principle. An example of the latter would be in the case where the principle “Promises ought to be kept” determines my choice of what I must do and transmits my desire down a chain of action-related reflections. There is no space for any detachment or separation of the agent from his action in such circumstances. In cases of a desire for a material object which is not being directed by a principle, the desire could arise and be abandoned in favour of another desire, and in such circumstances, one might say that the agent had a detachable relation to the object of the desire and the desire itself . This latter possibility, on Kant’s view, is a result of what he refers to as a lower faculty of desire activity which he contrasts with a higher faculty activity. According to Kant, “promises ought to be kept” is a principle that one cannot abandon as a practical agent. The former lower faculty of desire activity argues Kant is concerned with pleasure related to the object desired and its agreeableness. The latter is concerned with what Aristotle would call the good in itself which in its turn is a concern with our well being and worthiness to be happy. For Kant, this is a key condition for an ethical position and this may indicate a key difference between his position and the finality of the happiness condition which Aristotle proposes.
It is, therefore, puzzling to find Lear asking how a self-conscious being on the Kantian account could make decisions at all as if the Kantian self-consciousness resembled the Cartesian self-consciousness reflecting theoretically upon its own desires. Hegel, we know, did not appreciate the relation of Kantian ethical theory to the ethical theory of Aristotle’s in which we see both Philosophers adopting the vantage point of reflecting upon the relation of practical reason to its object rather than reflecting theoretically on the relation of a state of mind to
its object.
One may wish to contradict this account by insisting that Aristotle’s theory of virtue in the Nichomachean Ethics, specifically argues that virtue is a state (lexis) rather than a capacity (dunamis) or a feeling (pathos). The question, however, is, how would Aristotle wish to characterise the state of the soul in question. He would not for example countenance this state as a state of consciousness and he would not want to countenance this state being characterised as many modern philosophy-of-mind-theorists do, as something “private” (feelings are private and particular). Rather, the “state” Aristotle is referring to here is a state of the soul which for him is differentiated in terms of different principles, defining different kinds or essences. Indeed, the word “disposition” might be a more appropriate term (a disposition, we recall, is a higher level capacity). For these purposes, a practical disposition would be construed in terms of a law-like principle that has been sculpted by the processes of training, education and habituation in accordance with social and cultural processes such as that of the “Golden Mean”.
Practical dispositions are given their initial characterization in the opening remarks of the Nichomachean Ethics:
“Every art and every enquiry, every action, and choice seems to aim at some good: whence the good has rightly been defined as that at which all things aim.”
For Aristotle, we should recall, the good has many meanings depending upon whether it is aiming in discourse at peoples character, their actions, the place or time they live in etc. But all have in common the essence of the good for man or eudaimonia, which, for Kant, was a part of his ethical religious idea of the summum bonum. It is especially difficult, given this rather strong resemblance in their positions to imagine the ethical Kantian agent being detached from his own happiness or flourishing life. There is, moreover, a hylomorphic element to Kant’s theorising which is unmistakeable. In much of his reasoning, there is a specific reference to matter and form and if we analyse the two formulations of the categorical imperative, it would be difficult not to see the formal aspect of the ethical law in the first formulation and the material aspect in the second formulation. Were there to be only one formulation of the law, namely, the first, one, we might be able to argue more forcefully for, (if not the detachment thesis Lear proposes), an accusation of formalism or “emptiness”. The first formulation asks us to “will” that the maxim of one’s action be regarded as a universal law, and if there is no such universal law then the logical consequence is surely at the very least “emptiness”, and more seriously perhaps the impossibility of ethical action. The second formulation, however, fills the first formulation with content by insisting that we should act so that we treat everyone including ourselves as ends in themselves. This latter formulation is moreover, reminiscent of the kind of respect embedded in the Aristotelian account of friendship in the Nichomachean Ethics. Aristotle speaks here of a kind of fellowship existing between individuals or citizens of a polis which is similar to the affection that siblings have for one another. In Aristotle, the good is in man’s character from the beginning in the form of a capacity, to be developed into a disposition (by nurturing and education). Just as we learn to be builders by building, and teachers by teaching, and doctors by doctoring, we learn to be brave by doing brave acts in encouraging circumstances and we learn to be virtuous by performing virtuous acts. This is the route by which states of character are formed. In this process of forming a good disposition, pleasures and pains need to be organised because, as Aristotle claims, “the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain” are the main sources of vicious action.
Feelings are originally also capacities (low level capacities) and are part of the material that needs to be changed and formed by the nurturing of a virtuous disposition so that one feels the right feeling in the right circumstances at the right time. It is obvious from the above account that virtue cannot itself be merely a feeling because as Aristotle rightly argues we do not praise or blame men for the feelings they are having, (because this is something passive- something that is happening to them, within the privacy of their own bodies). The Aristotelian-Kantian ethical attitude is an active attitude inextricably tied up with human activity, with action, and with choice. Such activity is formed by a method shaped by an aim to hit a target or achieve an end. The difference between the generous man, the spendthrift, and the miser, is one of an active attitude towards men and money. We can only choose to act, Aristotle argues if the action is of the kind, voluntary. Actions caused by external factors (compulsions) or ignorance are for him involuntary actions and cannot be freely chosen: such actions can therefore neither be praised nor blamed, i.e the agent cannot be held fully responsible for them. The notion of choice, isolated from other powers, is not related to the end of the flourishing life because this latter is a rational wish of Eros and is not itself chosen, but rather succumbed to, in the manner an educational process is succumbed to. Deliberation chooses the means to accomplish the flourishing life. For a holistic view of the process of deliberation stretching from the moment of succumbing, to the moment of making the good occur see Sir David Ross’s account in “Aristotle”: Ross situates choice in the matrix of desire, deliberation, perception and Art:
“Desire: I desire A Deliberation: B is the means to A C is the means to B N is the means to M Perception: N is something I can do here and now
Choice: I choose N Art: I do N “(P.
Ross does not do this but one can describe this process of deliberation in terms of areté which is a term Aristotle uses for both one’s moral character and ones skill in thinking and acting. Translating this term as virtue becomes clearer when it is used in the context of “the virtuous life” that, when coupled to the term eudaimonia, or the good spirited flourishing life, embraces both the intellectual virtues and the moral/ethical virtues which include phronesis, courage, and temperance. The character of a virtuous man is, then, a set of dispositions (formed capacities), that organise one’s desires and feelings in relation to the final end of eudaimonia or the flourishing life which in its turn is also the actualisation of the potential of the rational animal capable of discourse. The Phronimos, the great-souled man possessing practical wisdom which he demonstrates with his correct reasoning, (reasoning in the right way, or orthos logos), is the man whose psuché, or soul, best integrates the rational and the irrational parts of the soul. Aristotle indicates the consequences of falling short in the aim of fulfilling one’s potential, namely forms of life which are neither excellent (areté) nor flourishing (eudaimonia). He illustrates this claim by pointing to the life of pleasure pursued by firstly, non rational animals, secondly, the life of honour pursued by men of ambition and thirdly, the life of the Phronimos who, one assumes, fulfils his potential most completely because of the Platonic argument that he is the being who has experienced all the three forms of pleasure associated with these different life forms and as a consequence knows which pleasure is the best.Plato would have argued that the pleasure experienced by the Phronimos is pure(more intellectual) and unrelated to pain which by definition is a condition caused by a body striving for homeostasis (manifesting a relation between the pleasure-pain principle and the energy regulation principle). The lives of the hedonist, the wealthy man, and the ambitious man, are all pain avoidance related and therefore dependent on either external or internal causal factors. None of these forms of life meet the criteria of the self-sufficient flourishing life. The great-souled, Phronimos, on the other hand, is self-sufficient because he reasons in the right way about the world of conduct and feelings (the feelings of pleasure and pain, fear and anger). It is also important not to lose sight of the systematic connections of the above
account with Aristotle’s claims about psuché and human nature. Because humans are animals and organisms they necessarily possess an ergon (inbuilt function) as well as a telos which is dependent upon material and efficient causes. The human, however, distinguishes itself from other forms of life through unique capacities and their potential to be formed into rational dispositions. Rationality is a term we attribute to humankind for its disposition to reason well and excellently.
One can wonder, as G E Moore did, whether including the natural, biological, material and efficient causes of being a human in the definition of “moral value” condemns Aristotle’s account to commit the naturalistic fallacy, i.e. the fallacy of defining moral value in terms of natural capacities. We have argued above that moral virtue is dispositional and dispositions are formal and developed capacities. If this distinction is observed, there is no fallacy, no contradiction because capacities, we have argued, are actualised into dispositions given the appropriate conditions for the actualisation process to occur. That is to say, there is no local equivalence between the natural capacities of a human organism and its moral dispositions which are, as has been argued, constituted by the excellent exercise of natural capacities. Aristotle characterises all forms of activity and art as striving for the good and areté, so it is important to point out that even if one possesses the capacity to build a house, and do it well, this activity of an artisan is not a form of moral excellence, but rather a form of pragmatic/technological excellence. There is a further major difference between moral and technological(techné) excellenc which is connected to the distinction Aristotle recognises between acting (praxis) and producing (poesis). This is noted by G J Hughes in his Routledge guidebook: “Aristotle on Ethics”3:
“Health is indeed the product of the art of medicine just as a house is the product of architecture or a statue of sculpture. But eudaimonia is not the product of the actions of a good person. Fulfilment in life is not something over and above someone’s actions which those actions produce. Fulfilment consists in doing what one does just because one sees those actions as noble and worthwhile…. living is not a process one undertakes for the sake of something else which is produced as a result. The point of the good life just is the living of it.”(P.89)
Hughes continues by pointing out that this puts Aristotle in the deontological camp in our modern ethical debates. He cannot be a consequentialist, argues Hughes, because:
“Aristotle has nothing comparable to Bentham’s definition of action as a “mere bodily movement” from which it would indeed follow that the value of an action must depend on the consequences that action produces, as Bentham says. Instead, Aristotle defines an action in terms of how the agent describes or sees their behaviour at the time and draws no particular line between action and its consequences”(p.90)
The implications of this argument are devastating for the utilitarian position which finds itself at odds with two of the most important ethical positions. For Aristotle, the agent must adopt a first-person perspective to what they are doing, and not a third person observationalist perspective which, in the absence of the declaration of intention by the agent of the action, might well seem “mere bodily movement”. Confusion is endemic in this area of debate. We can see one kind of confusion in the utilitarian camp where the theoretical obsession with a reductive-compositive method, together with an observationalist/experimental interpretation of that method, postulates “atoms” of pure movement which can then be inserted into a theoretical framework of linear causes and effects. The movement “causes” a state of affairs that is logically different from its cause, thus dividing what was a unitary action into two elements which can only be composed into a unity at the expense of the holistic account of deliberative practical reasoning we find in Aristotelian ethics. Confusions between praxis and poesis may even assist in this attempt to subject this domain to the theoretical framework of scientific reasoning. It is, of course, easier to dissolve a skill (needed for the production of an object) into the event of movement and the product produced at the end of the activity, because here quite clearly the observer can, for example, see the builder building and the “consequence”, the completed, produced house. Aristotle would immediately criticise this theoretical attempt for failing to appreciate the role of intention in identifying the activity (correctly describing the activity). This, for him, could only occur from the first person point of view. The builder sees what he is doing from the point of view of the idea or form of the house he has in mind, and this, for him, logically determines how one can describe such building activity. All art aims at the good, Aristotle declared, but there is a difference between the good house being built, which is largely a pragmatic matter, and leading a good flourishing life which is a broader, ethical/political good. We need also to recall that we are in the realm of forms for Aristotle, forms which are subject to his metaphysical theory of change. Forms for Aristotle were hierarchically structured with sexual reproduction at the lower end of the scale being followed by the production of artifacts, and finally by the learning and teaching of the forms. The production of artifacts as we pointed out involves practical knowledge, but not a choice made by a stable character. Here it seems, in the instrumental case, we are clearly dealing with an activity or work, but not fully fledged action (Arendt distinguished in her work between labour, work, and action)(4) An organised soul is required to perform the actions which aim at a flourishing life: only work activity
is required to produce the objects of techné. So, knowledge is involved in firstly, the action as a result of practical reasoning, and secondly, in the deliberative calculation of the work activity behind the creation of objects of techné. We need to enquire into the different kinds of knowledge in the different kinds of science involved in leading the flourishing life. Aristotle distinguishes between three different kinds of science: the theoretical, practical and productive sciences. In relation to theoretical science, he claims, (in the light of knowledge being defined as justified true belief), that essence specifying definitions or principles are the justifications we find in the theoretical sphere of scientific activity. These both provide a form of logical necessity not to be found in the other two sciences, which are both aiming at something for which, as yet, there are no essence specifying definitions. What we find instead here are principles. Theoretical sciences aim at the truth and use logical demonstration that moves from first principles or essence-specifying definitions to logically related conclusions. Practical sciences may be related to the truth and logic or “analytics” (as Aristotle called logic), but the primary aim of these sciences is the good. Because of areas of commonality, we find in this area that particular conclusive judgments follow from universal and particular premises. Similarly, in the practical sciences “justification” will also involve the elements of Aristotle’s metaphysical theory of change in which reference will be made to 4 kinds of change, three principles and 4 “causes” but here, agents, powers and actions will be the focus of attention. In the “Posterior Analytics” Aristotle gives us an account of the acquisition of knowledge which is common for all the sciences.
The above is a fine account of how the desire to understand involves powers building upon powers and integrating into the unified disposition of mind that we believe generates knowledge. This process, surely, is common to all the sciences. It accounts for how we differentiate animals from each other, of how we differentiate men from each other, and also, finally, how we differentiate objects and actions from each other. The above account does not mention the powers of language and reason, but these will certainly be involved in the generation of knowledge. The 4 causes or explanations of the theory of change will also be involved in our judgments of the good man striving to actualise his potential to live the flourishing life. They will also be involved in scientific judgments in relation to the good action, which, as we have been told, plays an important role in the above actualisation process. The desire to understand oneself and know oneself will also probably be a part of this journey of awe and wonder. Aristotle’s idea of the flourishing life is one where both the moral and intellectual virtues form a unity in which knowledge, whilst not being perhaps a seamless robe, is at least one unified coat of many colours. The idea of the goodwill, in this account, includes both knowledge and understanding of oneself and the world one lives in.
Aristotle did engage in the discussion of one aporetic issue which directly highlights the ways in which theoretical and practical knowledge are integrated with ethical action. Socrates argued that if a man knows the good, i.e. really knows and understands the universal idea of the good, then he will necessarily always do the good in his actions. On the face of it, the opening sentences of the Nichomachean Ethics, claiming as they do that all art, activity, and inquiry aim at the good, suggests that Aristotle too must accept this Socratic analysis. Awareness of the phenomenon of the man claiming to know the good
and then not doing it, however, pushed Aristotle into giving a more nuanced account of this so-called phenomenon of akrasia or incontinence. For Aristotle, it was necessary for him to acknowledge this phenomenon, and give it an acceptable explanation. Now, if it was the case that all men as agents aim at the good, it is difficult to understand how an agent can perform an incontinent action where that is defined as an action that is intentional and performed against a background of the knowledge that a preferable alternative action is available to the agent. If we are imagining a rational agent wholly constituted of their beliefs, desires, values, and actions, then we have to bear in mind that the relation between intentions beliefs and desires is a complex one and difficulties abound as soon as one evokes the terminology of Analytical Philosophy.
Socrates was criticised by Lear because he wanted to characterise akrasia in terms of states of the soul, but the above characterisation in terms of beliefs, desires and intentions, seems to be a similar attempt, using states of mind and the terminology of Analytical Philosophy. Aristotle’s account of akrasia is actually better characterised in terms of his own terminology of the powers of perception, memory, language, knowledge, and reason in an organised soul. On this account, akrasia is not possible. If there is an alternative action for which there are good reasons, it must be the case in an organised soul that all things considered and understood, this must be the action one chooses to perform (not being aware of what one is doing and being drunk with passion are excluded as possibilities). This suggests that the phenomenon of incontinence must be explained by there either being a lack of knowledge or ignorance of how to act. The power of judgment will also necessarily play a part in the deliberative process which leads to action. Aristotle’s practical syllogism differentiates the reasons why any one of the premises could be blocked. The power of judgment also of course may be shut down by strong passions and a different principle of action would in such cases be operating. The virtuous soul, of course, is a well-organised soul and will not allow its powers to be compromised in the above ways. The soul on its way to virtuous organisation may, however, be like an actor on a stage going through the motions of knowing, i.e. exercising deficient powers of knowledge by believing that he ought to be doing some alternative better action but because of the confusion in his soul is not able to settle on the completely articulated reason for what ought to be done. We should also remember, considering the fact that we are dealing with practical reasoning and rationality, that the soul will not acquire what he calls the ”logos”, by merely hearing something and assenting to it: language is not a sufficient power to install the kind of knowledge being referred to (it is a capacity not a fully fledged disposition). The apprentice knower, that is, must imitate his betters in an environment of ethical guidance, and the journey from being an apprentice to being a virtuous man is one in which one is learning about oneself and the world. The possibility, of course, exists in such circumstances that someone may be right in one’s judgments about the world but wrong in one’s judgments about oneself, i.e. incontinence will be on display in such a case.
Notes
1 Eliot, T.S., Four Quartets ,(New York, Harcourt Publishing Co, 1943)
2 Lear, J., Aristotle: the desire to understand ,(Cambridge, Cambridge University Press,1988)
3 Shields, C., Aristotle , (London, Routledge, 2007)
4 Sellars, W., Science, Perception, and Reality , (Atascadero, California, 1963)
5. Politis, V., Aristotle and the Metaphysics, (London, Routledge, 2004)
6. Hacker, P.M.S., Human Nature: the Categorical Framework, (Oxford, Blackwell, 2007)
7. Schopenhauer, A., The World as Will and Representation, translated by Payne, E.F.J., (New York, Dover Publications, 1958)
8. Maslow, A., Motivation and Personality, (New York, Harper and Row, 1970)
9. For the purposes of this example we should assume that a violent storm has
been reliably predicted by metereologists and the ships are Aristotelian, that is,
old fashioned sailing ships.
10. Ross, D.W., Aristotle, (London, Routledge, 1923
11.Stratton, Some Preliminary Experiments on Vision without inversion of the
retinal image, Psychological Review, 1986.
12. Kant, I., Kant’s Critique of Judgment, translated by Meredith, J.C., (Oxford,
Clarendon Press,1952)
13. Hughes, G.J., Aristotle on Ethics,(Oxford, Routledge,2001)
14Arendt, H., The Human Condition, (Chicago, University of Chicago Press,
1958.
Freud and Philosophy: a Hylomorphic and Kantian critical reevaluation: Chapter 3 Platonic Themes
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Even if it was the case that for many hundreds of years Aristotle was referred to as “The Philosopher” and the “Master of those that know”, his teacher was Plato and his alma mater was the Academy. We do not know enough to be certain, but a fair conjecture would be that Socrates did not have a navigational star or mentor in his philosophically formative years as a young thinker. We do witness in the Symposium, Socrates being given a lesson in methodical argumentation (Philosophy?) by Diotima and in these early moments of Philosophy it may have occurred to Socrates that a reliable method of questioning and argumentation are necessary prerequisites to leading the examined life. It is of course a tribute to the love of demonstrating excellence in the public realm of the ancient Greeks that we are able to today bear witness (via preserved texts that have survived millennia) to the importance of discussion and debate in the life of the polis. Gilbert Ryle in his work “Plato’s Progress” 1 suggests that Plato might have composed his elenctic and dialectical dialogues for competitions attached to the Olympic Games. If so there must have been relatively large audiences which is another tribute to the Greek mind and culture that was the womb of such activity.
We have been made aware via the works of Plato and Aristotle that there is a body of knowledge which it is important to communicate and learn as part of being a citizen in a polis. For Plato this was a body which can be written down as well as performed in arenas reserved for such purposes. Plato, more than Socrates, perhaps was concerned with the search for a theory which could explain the mysteries and puzzles brought to the attention of the public via such forums. Philosophy seemed, to Plato, to be the natural home or theatre for the kind of investigation we are presented with. Out of this womb of Greek Culture and the theatre of theoretical investigation, the Aristotelian quintuplets of metaphysics, ethics epistemology, aesthetics and political Philosophy would eventually be born. As we know Socrates thought of himself as some kind of midwife in the process of bringing philosophical offspring into the world. His method of elenchus was probably modelled on a public method of competitive argument called dialectic, which was a form of a verbal duel between two people. A questioner asks an opponent what Ryle terms “conceptual” questions and the answerer is only allowed to respond in the affirmative or the negative in the name of defending a thesis which is the theme of the interrogation. The questioners’ task is to entice from his opponent an answer that is not compatible with the thesis the answerer is defending. An audience judges the competition. It is not too difficult to see how such an action could be the source of many of the aporetic philosophical problems both Plato and Aristotle attempt in their various ways to provide solutions for. If this is true there might have been two sources of the dynamics of Greek Philosophy: dialectic (eristic and elenchus) and the recorded thoughts of the great thinkers. Ryle’s “Plato’s Progress” has this to say on the relation of this rhetorical activity that is referenced in Aristotle’s work “The Topics”:
“The Topics is a training manual for a special pattern of disputation governed by strict rules which takes the following shape. Two persons agree to have a battle. One is to be the questioner, the other answerer. The questioner can, with certain qualifications only ask questions: and the answerer can, with certain qualifications only answer “Yes” or “no”. So the questioner’s questions have to be properly constructed for “yes” or “no” answers. This automatically rules out a lot of types of questions, like factual questions, arithmetical questions, and technical questions. Roughly, it only leaves conceptual questions whatever these may be. The answerer begins by undertaking to uphold a certain “thesis”, for example, that justice is in the interests of the stronger, or that knowledge is sense perception. The questioner has to try to extract from the answerer by a series of questions an answer or conjunction of answers inconsistent with the original thesis and so drive him into an “elenchus”. The questioner has won the duel if he succeeds in getting the answerer to contradict his original thesis, or else in forcing him to resign, or in reducing him to silence, to an infinite regress, to mere abusiveness, to pointless yammering or to outrageous paradox. The answerer has won if he succeeds in keeping his wicket up until the close of play. The answerer is allowed to object to the question on the score that it is two or more questions in one or that it is metaphorical or ambiguous. The duel is fought out before an audience…The exercise is to have a time limit.” (P.104-105)
The above form of duelling is one form upon which the Socratic method of elenchus may have been modelled. During pre-Socratic times and during the time of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle the above form of elenctic interaction went under the name of “eristic”. Now it is important to note that the above form of elenchus differed from the Socratic method in one very important respect. The aim of the Socratic method was primarily pedagogical, i.e primarily aimed at getting his interlocutors to understand and acknowledge some truth about justice or themselves or both. Whereas the duelling parties engaged in eristic are primarily seeking victory and prestige, via the winning of a competition. In spite of this fundamental difference, we should recognise that eristic presupposed considerable powers of reasoning. Yet it should also be remembered that the Sophists used this form of dialectic for financial gain, thus turning something essentially pedagogical into a solipsistic (narcissistic?) secondary art form. Socratic elenchus whilst not aiming at victory over one’s interlocutor did, unfortunately, have the secondary effect of humiliating ones opponent, largely owing to the fact of the existence of eristic and the fact that Socrates refrained from exposing his own assumptions and knowledge in the light of the discussion. He has some idea of what justice is but is reluctant to expose it to his interlocutors. Plato may be registering his concern over this fact in the Republic when he allows Socrates the lecturer (was this a part of Socrates’ repertoire or was this a literary creation by Plato?) to expound on the theory of forms, the allegory of the cave and the waves of change that need to sweep over a polis if it to avoid ruin and destruction. This, after 4 displays of elenchus in relation to Cephalus, Polemarchus, Thrasymachus and Glaucon. In the lecture that follows everything is laid open to the eyes including hidden assumptions, noble lies, and even justifications for infanticide.
Ryle points out as so many other commentators have, that the conception of Philosophy Plato espouses, changes in significance between the early and the late dialogues. In the work of the Republic, we may be witnessing the dialogue in which the shift actually occurred. Indeed it may also be necessary to point out that the shift from eristic to the Socratic method in itself may also signify a shift in the conception of the nature of Philosophy. A dialectic of the Socratic kind, i.e. the Socratic method, was aiming at the truth and knowledge and taking a position in the battle of pro and contra reasons in relation to a thesis. This was clearly a development of eristic. We should also note, however, that Socrates himself was accused of trickery (a common complaint in dialectical “duels” and even in modern debating) in his argumentation by at least two interlocutors (Euthyphro and Thrasymachus) and we find him characterising what he is doing as “barren of offspring”, as “maieutic”, in spite of the fact that his method distinguished itself from that of eristic, and that it was in search of a quarry best characterised in terms of a definition. Socrates’ elenctic method was in that sense both teleologically and formally rigorous. It was probably the case that behind the formulation of Socrates’ questions there was an awareness of structured assumptions and their logical consequences. The dialogue of Plato’s Republic clearly adds a dimension to this Socratic rigour and underlying structure (The theory of Forms). The method, assumptions, explorations and subsequent definitions were now in the lecture of Socrates forming themselves into a theory of a world of things, artefacts, souls, cities, and Gods. Socrates in the later books of the Republic is exploring the world in a different manner which commentators identify with the Philosophy of Plato. The world was now being subjected to a questioning that demanded answers that would fit into some kind of system. Dialectic becomes logic and demands systematic reflection of a Parmenidean rather than Heraclitean kind: reflection upon that which endures through change, reflection upon that which is the principle that determines what a thing is in its nature and also ultimately a principle that determines what the soul is in its nature. These changes also signify an increased concern with the general ideas of Truth and The Good. The major theme of Ryle’s book “Plato’s Progress” suggests that Plato’s progressive path led from eristic and dialectic where the emphasis is upon negatively defending a thesis (by not abandoning it in the face of counterargument if you are a defender). The aim of such activity was to destroy a thesis, or force a defender to resign if you are a questioner. Thereafter we are led to the formulation of an aporetic question which demanded systematic resolution via theoretical justifications. In this phase, we also see in the later dialogues of Plato a concern with the history of a problem, something we have not encountered before.
Also in this work, Ryle fascinatingly suggests a hypothesis that Plato was sued for defamation of character by a group of the leading figures that were criticised in his dialogues. The suit, Ryle claims, cost Plato his fortune and resulted in some kind of ban on Plato teaching eristic duelling and dialectic to students under 30 years of age. We can note that in the Republic, Plato still believed dialectic to be important as a prelude to understanding the ideas of justice and the good and the true, and this becomes part of the training of potential rulers when they are over the age of 30. Plato may well have abandoned the theory of forms in his later thought, but he retained the view that the true and the good were timeless standards by which to evaluate thought, action, and forms of life. From some points of view, it is a credit to Plato that he positions the Good as the highest standard of evaluation in Philosophy, thus indicating the important role of practical reasoning. A move which would much later on be repeated by Kant.
Socrates’ progress moved from investigating the physical world in a “What is this in its nature?” frame of mind, sifting through physical phenomena as numerous as the grains of sand in a desert. He went in search of answers that would fall into the category of Causality and in the spirit of Heraclitus and Anaxagoras. The latter influence led to a change in the direction of his investigations. “All is mind” was the new assumption and Socratic investigations began to search for aspects of the mind (soul) and meaningful forms of life. This journey required developing the method of elenchus. This method led to the form of life Socrates characterised as “the examined life” which in the mind of Socrates was infinitely superior (in terms of the criterion of self-sufficiency), to the wealthy or powerful forms of life so attractive to everyone. For Socrates, these latter forms of life were filled with Heraclitean flux, change, and reversals of fortune because of an unhealthy dependence on ever-changing elements of life which we all know is going to end. The examination of forms of life and the question of the meaning of life raises the question of death. In the dialogues of Crito and Phaedrus, we find Socrates sitting in his cell awaiting death by execution. He reasons that however one regards death it must be a good, and therefore nothing to be afraid of. This reasoning is in turn connected with the conviction of Socrates that nothing bad can happen to a good man who has led the examined life. This in itself suffices to praise Plato’s emphasis upon the standard of the good which ought to be used to evaluate all forms of life and even death. The event of Socrates’ execution thus might have provided Plato with the inspiration to formulate a theory of forms in which the form of the good is the supreme form. Another key Philosophical relationship, that with Aristotle, perhaps beginning from a joint sojourn in Syracuse, may have subsequently led Plato to abandon the theoretical forms in favour of practical laws. Plato’s work “The Laws” is not an elenctic dialogue, but rather a lecture and constitutes Plato’s second attempt to create a Callipolis. Plato speculates about a small hypothetical city called Magnesia run by a Nocturnal Council that has responsibility for the cities laws.
This council of wise men, paradoxically, contains no philosophers but only officials trained in maths astronomy, theology and law. Many of the Republic’s “constructions” and “social restrictions” are present. Families and marriage are encouraged but procreation of children is determined in accordance with some mysterious eugenic standard and excommunication is the penalty for adultery.
The recommended relation of citizens to God is also set out in the Laws which is a school text licensed by a powerful Minister of Education who sits on the Nocturnal Council. This text has the purpose of reinforcing the belief in God and his goodness. Heresy and impiety are illegal. The interesting question to pose here, is whether Socrates would have been permitted to live in Magnesia and live his examined life subjecting other citizens to bouts of elenchus. Socrates is no longer the prime mover in Plato’s later dialogues/lectures. At approximately the same time as he was composing the Laws which he was rewriting until his death, Plato was engaged in a project of religious and scientific significance— the composition of a work called “Timaeus”. This dialogue sees Socrates as the witness to a lecture on the history of the universe. Here the Demiurge of Anaxagoras organises the initial indescribable chaos into an order containing the good and the beautiful. There are recognisable Aristotelian aspects in the 4 elements and prime matter, with life emerging at a certain stage of the creative process from prime matter. There are also non-Aristotelian elements such as an atomism in which differently shaped atoms explain the different elements. Space is somehow involved in the transformation of the elements into more complex forms. This narrative includes an account of our bodily organs and bodily functions such as perception, in a manner very reminiscent of Aristotle. We also encounter in this dialogue/lecture a listing of diseases of body and mind evoking the spectre of Freud especially given the fact that we know it was the work of Plato which was the inspiration for the final phase of Freudian theorising about a stoical mind located on the terrain of the battle between Eros and Thanatos.
The impression we are given is that Plato is moving away from his earlier Socratic commitments, and the later theory of forms, in an entirely new direction which reminds us of Aristotle. There appears to be a form of hylomorphism emerging to reconcile the world of ideas with the physical world and the soul with the body. Anthony Kenny in his work “Ancient Philosophy (Vol 1 of his New History of Western Philosophy)2 points out that Plato’s work, the “Timaeus”, became Plato’s most influential work up to the period of the Renaissance:
“Plato’s teleological account of the forming of the world by a divinity was not too difficult for medieval thinkers to assimilate to the creation story of Genesis. This dialogue was a set text in the early days of the University of Paris and 300 years later Raphael in his “School of Athens” gave Plato in the centre of the fresco only the Timaeus to hold”(P.64)
In this Fresco we find Plato pointing upward to the heavens and Aristotle pointing ahead of him. Was Aristotle pointing to the natural and social world or was he pointing to the viewers of the future? One can wonder. There have been many interpretations of this constellation of Philosophers from the school of Athens. The predictions of things to come is also found in Plato’s dialogue /lecture “Parmenides” in which the central character Parmenides produces a very Aristotelian criticism of the theory of the forms in the course of a dialogue with Socrates. In this dialogue it very much looks as if the master of elenchus is being given a dose of his own medicine. At the close of the dialogue, Parmenides, probably seeing in the position of Socrates more than just a trace of Heraclitean thought compliments Socrates upon his powers of argumentation, at the same time suggesting a more thorough training whilst Socrates is still young. Parmenides suggests that Socrates should not attempt to rest with premature conceptions of justice, beauty and goodness in case the truth about these standards is lost because this will have the consequence that the multitude will cease to believe in the existence of these ideas. Perhaps, Plato might argue, Parmenides should have been at the centre of Raphaels fresco pointing forward to the future.
As we move forward into the future and into our modern era we find Brett in his work “The History of Psychology” claiming that Plato continued the epistemological tradition of the Sophists and Socrates and also adding that Plato ended up in a position that the Sophists and Socrates would not be sympathetic with. It is, however, misleading to place the Sophists and Socrates inside the same pair of brackets simply because there is clearly a natural and spontaneous antagonism between the assumptions of these two positions. It can also be argued that Platonic Philosophy is a natural and logical continuation of the development of Socratic philosophy and a prototype for his pupil Aristotle’s Metaphysically based hylomorphic theory. Furthermore, Plato’s work is indebted to Parmenides, a fact that is underestimated in many classical and modern accounts including A Kenny’s “A New History of Western Philosophy”:
“But while the (Platonic) realm of the Ideas is unchanging, it is not uniform or homogeneous like Parmenides’ Being: Being is undifferentiated and single, whereas there are many different Ideas that can occur in some kind of relation to each other. They appear to be hierarchically ordered under the Idea of the Good, which appears to trump any notion of Being(Republic 6, 509b). No doubt the other Ideas owe it to the Idea of the Good that they are ideas at all.”(p207)
The passage in the Republic that is referred to above(6,509b) follows:
“Therefore, say, that not only being known is present in the things known as a consequence of the good, but also existence and being are in them besides as a result of it, although the good is not being but is still beyond being, exceeding it in dignity and power.”
Parmenides Idea of “The One” would actually have been a better comparison point for Kenny. Plato has not replaced “The One” with “The Good” but probably believed that they are in some sense logically identical in the way that Christians later came to identify God and “The Good”. The One, according to Parmenides includes both Being and not Being in very much the same way in which the Idea of the Good includes the idea of the not Good.
This area of reflection is right at the heart of the philosophical endeavour and it is not surprising therefore that instead of arguments for his position Plato produces three allegories amongst which is the allegory of the Sun in book 6 of the Republic where Socrates is arguing the following:
“Therefore, say that what provides the truth to the things known and provides the power to the one who knows is the Idea of the Good. And as the source of knowledge and truth you can understand it to be a thing known: but as far as these two are–knowledge and truth—if you believe that it is something different from them and still fewer than they, your belief will be right. As for knowledge and truth, just as in the other region it is right to hold light and sight sunlike, but to believe them to be the sun is not right: so, too, in this case, to hold these two to be like the good is right, but to believe that either of them is the good is not right”(Republic 6 508e)
This passage is highly suggestive of two facts that run contrary to the claims of Brett and Kenny, namely that Plato is very much concerned with Metaphysics and Ethics and their relation to epistemology. The line of development of the philosophy of the Sophists, therefore can not be seen to run through either Socrates or Plato. This is reinforced by appreciating the next link in this chain of continuation, namely the Philosophy of Aristotle that is equally antagonistic to the ethical relativism and “scientific” pragmatism of the Sophists. In the Philosophy of Aristotle, we also fail to find any commitment to subjective individualism of the kind one encounters in Sophist philosophising.
At least two other dialogues testify both to the metaphysical commitments of Plato and to his proto-Aristotelian positions in Politics and Science. In “The Laws” for example, Socrates has been replaced by an anonymous Athenian as the leading protagonist, and Philosophers have also disappeared from the government of the ideal Callipolis of Magnesia. Laws are no longer Parmenidean unchanging entities and even the best of them are open to reform. The Metaphysics of change has caused several waves of change that appears to have swept the Republic into the sea. Education is now the foundation of the political system and this can be seen even in the demand for pedagogical explanations of the laws as well as in the need to prevent impiety which sanctifies not only a proto-monotheistic Aristotelian God but also the human race.
We referred earlier to the second of these two dialogues, namely, “The Timaeus”, which is a late work of Plato’s that deals, in metaphysical spirit, with the history of the Universe and life forms. In the beginning, was chaos until the soul was infused into this “living chaos”. Life was, it is argued, present in some form in the chaos. It is clear that Aristotle’s matter/form distinction is anticipated in this work. Form and principle for Aristotle are synonymous and although it is the case that Aristotle’s work the “Metaphysics” opens with the claim “All men desire to know” much of this work is devoted to the answering of so-called aporetic questions, an activity which despite the claim that Being has many meanings, clearly is in search of the first principles of Philosophy.
Aristotle was also a significant figure in biology. The Timaeus provides a description of the body that must have clearly interested and Inspired Aristotle. Plato’s account is that the organism is embedded in a process of creation that is driven by a final end or telos. It is, for example, claimed that this creation process:
“divided the veins about the head and interlaced them about each other in order that they might form an additional link between the head and the body, and that the sensations from both sides might be diffused throughout the body.”
Plato is here, rather surprisingly, given his earlier arguments against materialism, providng us with a material account of the body. He goes on to speak of Perception in terms of the motion involved in both the objects and the processes of activating the organs of the subject. Plato also surprisingly embarks on a discussion of the desire for nutrition as a fundamental activity of the composite body-soul. The soul part of this complex apparently has two creators: the rational part of the soul is the result of the creation of God and the lower irrational part(also divided into two parts) the creation of the demiurge. Thus is created a hierarchy of soul functions that we also find in Aristotle’s reflections. Desires arising anywhere in the hierarchy can in principle affect any other part of the hierarchy. The soul, too, begins its life in chaos, and spends its time attempting to establish a state of equilibrium: a state that is always unstable because of a fundamental dependence upon the ever-changing Heraclitean external world. Out of this initial chaos at birth, sensation emerges as the organs in general(including the brain) and the organs of perception, in particular, establish relations with each other and with the external world. The sentient parts of the organism are obviously a key to the successful relationship with the external world. Sensations of pleasure and pain are caused when the “motions” a particular organ is subjected to, suits its form of receptivity function: pain arises when the organ is “irritated” by the external stimulus. These thoughts display a dual aspect approach to the person: firstly the organism is viewed as an object surrounded by an external world in flux and secondly, the organism is under the aspect of a causa sui of motions and activities in the world. Brett has this to say on this topic:
“From one point of view man is an organism in contact with the world around him, and he must, therefore, be studied as an object among objects, from another he is the centre of a world which may or may not have its objective counterpart, a world of ideas which must in some degree be subjective. In discussing perceptions we take up the cognitive aspect of man’s life and all that we should now call subjective, in a sense hardly appreciated by Plato.”
Brett is espousing a modern scientific notion of subjectivity(not unrelated to the kind of view one finds in Hegel) that is not in accordance with what Parmenides and modern followers of Aristotle and Kant would call “The Way of the Truth”, which must include the truths or knowledge we possess of man and his perception of, and reasoning about, the world.
R. S. Peters in his edited version of Brett’s work, “The History of Psychology” discusses the scientific error of confusing thought about an activity with that activity itself, thus preferring a description of the activity to an explanation for the activity. In the context of this debate, sensations are certainly something caused to happen in relation to the body of a man, but under another aspect when a man perceives(pays attention to these sensations) he does so in accordance with ideas that partially determine the object of his perception. This latter perspective is clearly expressed in a number of Plato’s works: the physical oak tree that one may perceive “participates” in the idea or principle of the oak tree(i.e. what it is that makes the oak tree the oak tree that it is). Scientific objectivity assumes a beginning of knowledge in particulars and charts an ascent into the realm of generalisation, whereas Plato’s view is clearly that: whatever the nature of the origins of knowledge, the general cognitive attitude associated with knowledge is that which understands particulars in terms of general ideas or “forms” or principles. A principle is a generalisation and belongs to the category of the universal: a principle is categorically related to its particulars. This is to be contrasted with scientific hypothetical generalisations that for example relate particular causes to particular effects. The major problem at issue, of course, is how to characterise the category of universal ideas. This issue is often mistakenly described in terms of causation, i.e. in terms of how it is that we come to acquire these ideas and Plato clearly ventured into this territory in his work, the Timaeus.
Aristotle’s attitude toward these two aspects of investigation(man, the object, man the agent) is more complex and more transparent. Aristotle via his theory of change characterised four different kinds of explanations, two of which are concerned with man the object and two of which concerned with man the agent. Aristotle in his discussion of this “how” question related to the acquisition of knowledge couched his account in terms of the soul and its power to abstract from the differences between particulars that are experienced, thus focussing on the active agent rather than the passive object of this learning process.
Metaphysics is a holistic study and encourages the division of wholes into parts only if the parts retain important characteristics of the whole(in the way that characterising man as a swarm of atoms does not). It is this relation of the parts to the whole that permits logical investigations to arrive at knowledge that cannot be reasonably doubted. If the soul is a principle the question that naturally arises is whether a principle can have parts that have characteristics of the whole. Both Plato and Aristotle believe this to be the case and are in agreement that there are logical arguments for dividing the soul into parts. The Republic contains an argument by Socrates to the effect that, if the soul did not have parts, the fact that a soul could both want to drink some water because it is thirsty, and at the same time not want to drink the water because it might be poisoned, would be a contradiction. It is not, in fact, a contradiction because the soul does have at least two parts. This same reasoning can be applied to generate a soul composed of three parts: Reason, Spirit, and Appetite. This form of logical reasoning is, moreover, not academically isolated from the world of experience. We can all see, Plato argues, forms of human life in which one of these parts dominate. In the wealthy man’s life, we can see the presence of the virtue of temperance or the vice of superfluity. In the spirited man’s life, we can see the presence of courage and ambition. In the life of the reasoning man, we can detect the presence of the virtue of wisdom. Plato’s allegory of the cave and the allegory of the divided line illustrate these forms of life by using a cognitive scale of imagination, belief, hypothetical mathematical knowledge, and categorical philosophical knowledge. Science, Plato would argue, in defence of himself (against the accusation of resorting to the subjective )that the subjective belongs to a lower form of life than the philosophical-metaphysical knowledge required by the examined life led by the wise man. Science, in response, can always re-describe the abstract categorical in its own concrete hypothetical terms, and this is certainly happening when it comes to the interpretation of certain key judgments relating to the soul. One such judgment is the claim that the soul is immortal. We pointed out earlier the debt that Socrates owed to Anaxagoras and the categorical metaphysical claim that “All is mind”. Many commentators have difficulty in understanding, for example, what is meant by “soul” or “mind” as these terms occur in the reflections on immortality by Socrates in Plato’s Apology and the dialogue of the Phaedo. Kenny in his “New History of Western Philosophy” has the following to say on this issue:
“Socrates in Plato’s Apology appears to be agnostic about the possibility of an afterlife. Is death, he wonders, a dreamless sleep or is it a journey to another world to meet the glorious dead?…. The Platonic Socrates of the Phaedo, however, is a most articulate protagonist of the thesis that the soul not only survives death but is better off after death.”(P. 214)
In interpreting the passages in these dialogues Kenny unnecessarily concretises or reifies the soul instead of examining the possibility that a better interpretation of psuché is to regard it as a principle. The Timaeus characterises the soul in terms of a hierarchy of functions all interconnected. The lower parts of the hierarchy are obviously connected to bodily desires and appetites and these are supposedly regulated by the principle or rule of temperance. Kenny, also, arguably, insufficiently appreciates the use of allegory or metaphorical language in the characterisation of the whole and the relation of these parts to the whole and to each other. He claims, for example, in response to this quote from the Phaedo:
“Thought is best when the mind is gathered into itself, and none of these things trouble it–neither sounds nor sights nor pain, nor again any pleasure–when it takes leave of the body and has as little as possible to do with it.”
Kenny also makes the following claim:
“So philosophers in pursuit of truth keep their souls detached from their bodies. But death is the separation of the soul from the body: hence a true philosopher has throughout his life been craving for death.”(65C)
One can no more separate a principle explaining the behaviour of a human being from the body producing that behaviour, than you can separate the law of gravitation from falling or orbiting bodies: or if you believe you can separate the principle from the matter, than this merely calls for a metaphysical theory explaining the nature of this separation. Of course, it is the case that one can argue that Plato owes us more of an explanation for the relation of this principle to our human activities of perceiving, imagining, believing, knowing, reasoning, etc. One can, in this context, perhaps better appreciate Aristotle’s replacement of Platonic allegory with theoretical explanations and justifications.
The words “another world” occurred in an earlier discussion and the question we need to ask in this context is: “if this is a metaphysical expression what is its meaning?”. One response to this is to deny that the statement is metaphysical. When Socrates died there is a sense in which he continues to survive in at least two non-metaphysical respects. He is, in a sense present now in this discussion and perhaps will be present forever in discussions in the future. His physical ancestors might also be with us. This world we now live in might for Socrates have been the other world Socrates was metaphorically referring to. It is also the case that it is not at all difficult to imagine Socrates in the company of Homer, Parmenides, Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, etc. as well as all the great philosophers that succeeded him. Of course, there is no sense in which Socrates is actually here with us and that is because we believe that he is dead and also that death is the end of that body which was sustained by the principle of Socrates. We still, however, have access to the principle of Socrates via our thought about the person and our reflections on his philosophy. That he is not actually or concretely here and now present means that what is meant by his reflections is that he is imagining himself to be dead and imagining “another world”, a very reasonable metaphor in the circumstances.
In the dialogue Phaedo, two interlocutors, Simius and Cebes felt that the Greeks of their time would reject the idea that the soul could survive the body. In the light of the above reflections, the cognitive attitude of these Greeks is probably founded upon the belief that the absence of activity in the current perceptible world entails the absence of the principle responsible for that activity. It does not entail that this principle can survive in some concrete form in the discourse of others about Socrates. Claiming, as some do, that because Socrates was “imagining” another world and that this was, therefore, “subjective” is not a helpful characterisation of the cognitive attitude involved in this context.
For Plato, there are intermediate soul functions between the passive receptive functions associated with sensations and the more advanced functions that actively think about these affections. These intermediate functions include mental powers such as memory, mental association, emotion, and imagination. Emotions apparently are caused by violent motions or stimuli. Stimulation of sensation to the extent that the organ is well adapted to the stimulus produces a state of equilibrium or pleasure, and these are the states we generally want to experience. These are referred to as “complete states”. They are recorded in memory, which produces ideas/desires for the purposes of recollection or repetition. These can be simple ideas such as the idea of water when we are thirsty or more complex ideas such as that of “warm drink”. These states are obviously connected to cognitive states and attitudes because we know what we want. Brett has this to say on the issue:
“The body never has knowledge, however indispensable an instrument it might be to the attainment of knowledge in some cases: and therefore naturally the body is not the seat of desires or emotions. The soul, when affected by desire is in a condition essentially painful: for desire is consciousness of incompleteness. But there is no desire totally devoid of pleasure, for desire is a tendency to greater perfection, and that in itself, is pleasant.”
Needing or wanting may have its roots in the body but the consequent conscious desire is that which satisfies this corporeal need or want. The object that satisfies this desire, namely, involves conscious reflection on a former experience. The mind recalls this object by means of an idea. In the “Way of Opinion,” there are false opinions that attempt to unite ideas that ought not to be united. Correct opinion unites ideas correctly but the result is not understood as part of the system of ideas it actually belongs to. It is this latter understanding that is involved in the “Way of the Truth”. In this hierarchy of functions, then, sensation and feeling(emotion) are obviously not at the level of knowledge in relation to the Way of the Truth because knowledge involves a systematic relation of ideas to each other. It is this systematic relation of ideas that is the foundation for the logical truth-making relations established by the highest of the soul functions, namely Reason. The wise man, it should be emphasised, is the man who has perfected a large number of powers in the hierarchy of powers, and this can be seen by those who know such things in the contemplative and examined form of life he leads. The wise man grasps and understands the ends of life that are embedded in a human nature that generates the goods of the virtues at various levels of the hierarchy of the soul’s powers. This final integration of the parts of the soul is expressed in the Greek term areté(virtue) which is the mark of the wise man who does the right thing at the right time in the right way. The wise man knows that his time will come to an end: he knows that is, that in accordance with an ancient prophecy which has been confirmed by everything he knows, he will die. He furthermore knows and has reasoned his way to the conviction that there will be no further life after death. Death is a final end for all living things. He knows he can imagine another world but it will not be filled with bodiless spirits. The world he imagines will be filled with living things that will die and his presence will be metaphorical, something like a presence, but not a living breathing presence: it will be an imagined presence based on reasoning. When his religious friends tell him that he can expect another life after this one he knows that they are not actively using their imagination, their imagination is rather being used by a primitive desire or wish not to die. He knows they are fantasising.
This is a form of consciousness or cognition of death which the wise men of Greece possessed and this attitude contributed to the term Aristotle wishes to use of these figures, namely the great-souled men. The men whose souls were so filled with Eros that they were not afraid of Thanatos
Paul Ricoeur in his work “Freud and Philosophy; An Essay on Interpretation”, comments on the importance of Language in any investigation of Freudian ideas
in the following way:
“It seems to me that there is an area today where all philosophical investigations cut across one another—the use of language. Language is the common meeting ground of Wittgenstein’s investigations, the English linguistic philosophy, the phenomenology that stems from Husserl, Heidegger’s investigations, the works of the Bultmannian school and of the other schools ofNew Testament Exegesis: the works of comparative history of religion and of anthropology concerning myth, ritual and belief—and finally psychoanalysis. Today we are in search of a comprehensive philosophy of language to account for the multiple functions of the human act of signifying and for their interrelationships. How can language be put to such diverse uses as mathematics and myth, physics and art…? We have at our disposal a symbolic logic, an exegetical science, an anthropology and a psychoanalysis and, perhaps for the first time we are able to encompass in a single question the problem of the unification of human discourse.”(P.3)
Ricoeur goes on to suggest that “psychoanalysis is a leading participant in any general discussion about language” and reminds us that Freud’s writings after the publication of “The Interpretation of Dreams” had serious cultural intent, ranging over art, morality, and religion. Ricoeur highlights dreams in the context of a claim that “as a man of desires I go forth in disguise”, and it is this statement that we are going to explore in relation to the mythical figure of Eros which occurs both in Plato’s and Freud’s writings. A dream is a work of desire. The language of desire is also partly a work of desire and both works require interpretation. This commonality of structure is important when we are confronted with the hermeneutical problems of the meaning of a dream and the meaning of a text such as Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”.Freud was clearly influenced by Plato in his final phase of theorising in which he refers to the formation of culture in terms of the “battle of the giants”, Eros andThanatos, and one wonders what the exact source of his inspiration was. Was it the sustained exploration of Justice and The Good in the Republic, or was it the speeches given in honour of “Eros” in the work entitled “The Symposium”?The reports that dreamers gave in Freud’s clinic, use a primitive language of desire with a complex structure of double meaning (Ricoeur’s term) which we also find in mythology—the realm in which Eros and Thanatos dwell. Mythology, according to Ricoeur, is intending in its narrative to present a theory of the beginning and end of our world. The Great Narratives of beginnings and ends, argues Ricoeur, deal with manifestation and revelation: they deal with what some Greek thinkers would call Aletheia(unconcealment). What is being made manifest is the realm of what man considered sacred, the realm of the divine which man, without the help of such texts, merely glimpses through a glass darkly. Ricoeur calls the above functions of language, the “symbolic function”, and he calls the field of “work” in which symbols emerge, “the hermeneutic field”. The work of the interpretation of symbolic language is both a work of understanding and a desire for understanding, and it is these two aspects of language I wish to concentrate upon as the key to understanding the language we use concerning the mythical figures of Eros and Thanatos.
In “The Symposium” one of the speakers asserts that Eros is a God. Socrates conjures up a conversation he peviously had with Diotima, in which he had proposed the thesis that Eros must be a God. Paradoxically, Diotima uses elenchus on Socrates to demonstrate (“make manifest”) that a God has to be beautiful and All Good. (lacking in nothing) In her demonstration she points to what we know about Eros, namely that he is in mythology a barefooted figure (like Socrates) padding about the city in search of what is divine or sacred: ergo he cannot be an embodiment of the all good and the beautiful which all hold to be divine and sacred. Indeed his origins seem far too anthropomorphic, having being conceived as he was at a party to honour Aphrodite by parents one of whom was drunk and the other extremely poor (Resource and Poverty). This is a dream-like scenario.
Myths and dreams resemble each other for Freud but there are differences. Dreams, for Freud, are regulated by the Pleasure Principle, i.e. the language we use to report them bear with it the symbolic structure of double meaning and dissimulation: dreams go forth in disguise(which is why they require “interpretation”). They stand in contrast with our desire to understand, which for Freud is the typical work of the Ego. The work of the ego is in turn, in accordance with the reality principle which is responsible for the education of our desire — responsible, in the language of mythology, for the fact that when we talk about Eros we represent him as understanding the beautiful and the Good. Understanding the reality principle is also connected to the sacred activity of Eros communing on occasion with the Gods.
Readers of Freud’s later writings will be familiar with his suggested topographical triangle of desire. We desire or wish for something outside of the circle of our necessary desires, and the world, or reality, refuses the demand, resulting in a subsequent wounding of the ego which one would expect to lead to a modification of the desire (as falling within the circle of the necessary desires of the body). Yet humans, being what they are, and being subject to the law of tragedy (tragic beginnings in the form of the drunken relation of Eros’ mother and father have tragic consequences), the necessary modification of desire in accordance with the reality principle will probably not occur. Ananke is the symbolic figure of the Reality principle for Freud, and also symbolises the fact that human beings will probably never understand the divine or sacred structure of reality. Ananke signifies that the Ego will be subjected to a tormented lifetime of “wounding” in the attempt to strive after the impossible states of affairs that are wished for.
The above discussion seems to many philosophers to fall outside their scope of interest. Logic, they argue is univocal: it can only have one meaning if the principle of non-contradiction is going to have any meaning at all. Was it not Aristotle after all who proposed this principle of logic? Mythology and Freud’s philosophy does not obey the requirement that language has one definite sense requiring logical analysis. Wittgenstein’s Tractatus demanded that every proposition have a determinate sense and logical analysis will help us to understand that sense. As we know he was forced to abandon his earlier position as he looked closer and closer at how we in fact use language. Aristotle also in his Metaphysics clearly restricted the role of the logical discipline he invented by declaring categorically that “Being can be said in many ways”.
Freud and Plato, seen through the telescope of Kant’s Philosophy, can be construed as attempting to answer the 4 major domain-defining philosophical questions, “What ought we to do?”, “What can we know?” “What can we hope for?” and “What is a man?”(3) . The answers they give are: “We ought to act rationally”, “We do not know as much as we think we do (we are not as rational as we think we are)”. Given these two answers, the answer to the third question can only be “Do not hope for too much (do not desire too much)”. Which of course is unsurprisingly enough in line with at least two Greek oracle proclamations: “Nothing too much” and “Know thyself”. This latter proclamation and the animus of Aristotle’s philosophy probably also lay behind the fourth Kantian question “What is man?”. Aristotle’s answer to this fourth question (rational animal capable of discourse) still stands illuminated as a beacon for Philosophy today, given the fact that all 4 of these domain defining questions have fallen into the darkness of neglect. The Aristotelian beacon has highlighted the “capable of discourse” component of late and language (the medium of discourse) is seen by many as leading us back to the road of Aristotelian and Kantian Philosophy, and thereby to a discourse about Eros and Thanatos in a Platonic and Freudian spirit.
The Great Myths are, of course, forms of discourse with a “logical” structure which Freud (and perhaps Jung) understood philosophically. They were regarded as rich hermeneutic fields requiring understanding not merely in terms of whether the events signified therein did or did not occur (did Eros’s father get drunk and have sex with Eros’s mother?) but rather in terms of their more universalistic cosmological and humanistic intentions. The language of these myths, in talking about events, are using these events to carry a deeper signification about, for example, the nature of infinite reality and finite man. Symbolic discourse was also for Heraclitus believed to be the dwelling place for the Gods and a domain he wished to inhabit and believed he was inhabiting toward the end of his days. Perhaps he was the first to believe that he was the son of the Gods, surveying eternal and infinite change from the vantage point of Logos.
One of the great hermeneutical sins is to concentrate on the textual object of the discourse (the events) and survey this object independently of the intentions behind the text. In other words, the sin amounts to misunderstanding the function of mythical language which is revelatory of the nature of man and the nature of the world he dwells in. In the language of Aristotle, mythical language moves in the orbit of the spheres of the theory of formal and final causes. Such theory strives to answer the question: “Given mans nature, what is his telos?” (Can he dwell with the Gods like Heraclitus?). I write “Given mans nature”, but our answer to question two must surely force us to admit that only a God can know mans nature and telos. We can only strive or will to know with the help of our theories (for example, Aristotle’s hylomorphic theory of change).
But what, then, are the grounds for claiming that our myths contain “theories”? Well, readers and interpreters of myth will be able to identify assumptions (of, for example, an infinite reality whether it be infinitely continuous or infinitely discrete). Readers and interpreters can also identify the logical consequences of these assumptions. If, for example, reality is an infinite continuum we might be able to dwell like Heraclitus in the realm of the Gods. If not, then we are truly tragic creatures who will need to live forever with their wounded egos continually bruised by the discrete difference between what we wish for and what is possible for us to experience. There are, in myths, also embryonic arguments. Heraclitus is a good guide to follow into this labyrinth. He clearly uses the principle of non-contradiction when comparing a pair of opposites to generate an identity, e.g. “the road up and the road down is the same”.
Myths are filled with seeming contradictions, if we do not interpret the symbols hermeneutically. If we use the correct “theory” many of the proclamations we encounter are both significant and meaningful. Resource, Eros’s father and Poverty, Eros’s mother, appear to be opposites at seemingly irreconcilable poles of the spectrum of practical reasoning, and yet they are united at the celebration for Aphrodite, even if it did take some alcohol to facilitate the process. The text of myth, when interpreted by Greek “theory” calls for thought and interpretation in the spirit of aletheia (un-concealment), the spirit of manifesting or disclosing what is not openly manifesting itself. Symbols are not epistemic entities but entities which have both rational and cultural significance. They stretch over the domains of Metaphysics, Ethics, Epistemology, Political Philosophy, Aesthetics, and Philosophical Psychology: those domains Kant tried to characterise in terms of his 4 questions: “What ought I do?”, “What can I know?”, “What can I hope for?” and “What is a man?”
Paul Ricoeur also explores the function of symbolic language in his work “The Symbolism of Evil”4 . When we avow the evil we ourselves or others have done this is not done in terms of what he calls “direct discourse”. Symbolic terms, such as “stain” or “spot” are taken from the realm of everyday experience but they are put to different uses in which the everyday experience refers further in a chain of referral to another more universal experience of the subject’s situation in the realm of the sacred or the divine. Ricoeur points out that this is demonstrated by the fact that engaging in the action of spot or stain removal will not solve the existential problem of our relation to evil. Symbols, Ricoeur points out, are constituents of literary mythical texts. Some of these myths also contain a reference to poetic experiences of the beautiful and the sublime which range over the domains of the finite (beautiful objects are finitely formed) and the infinite (powers of nature like the power of the sea and powerful waterfalls).
Poetry places itself squarely in the language of desire in virtue of the fact that its medium is the language of images. Poetry, Ricoeur maintains, places the imagination at the stage of the expression process where language is at the point of emerging to express desire. Images of the boundless space of the universe, the expansive waters of the oceans whose magnitude is beyond our comprehension, and the immense power of huge volumes of water rushing over a precipice in a waterfall may even be beyond the power of language to express, and may therefore force a reflective return of the mind attempting to understand such phenomena in relation to its situation in the realm of the infinite. It is patently obvious that we are, here transcending the polarised logic of modern epistemology and logic which require that Being can only be said in one way with a univocal meaning. Aristotle, as we pointed out earlier, questioned this, and opened the horizon of Philosophy up to extend far beyond what we can perceive and know. This is, as Kant was able to prove, not merely a rationalistic objection to the empirical worshipping of the idols of perception and method, it is a wider metaphysical iconoclastic project exploring with Socratic and Aristotelian humility the domains of the 4 Kantian questions referred to above.
According to the testimony in “The Symposium” Socrates was loved by many. He was not a physically attractive man, so the desire to be in his presence, or be his friend, must have transcended the physical. According to Pausania’s speech in this work, love can be both, common love for the body or the divine love responding to the character of someone’s mind. The body is a transient phenomenon and will decay with age or illness in front of our eyes, over a relatively short period of time, but the mind of a good man like Socrates will remain and endure in the realm of eternal things. Such a mind is typically the mind that reflects and reasons about its own beliefs and also over doing the right thing at the right time and in the right way. This is the virtuous mind of Greek philosophy. In Freudian terms, this discussion reminds one of the distinctions between the pleasure-pain principle and the reality principle, the former of which appears to be more concerned with the love of oneself than the love of others. The Reality Principle is that which the ego uses to situate itself in the world. It is what is operating in the triangle of desire we referred to above when the wounded ego engages in a reflective work involving a mourning process for the lost object of desire. It is difficult not to see Eros involved in this work. The ego seems to be Eros in the abstract, not a God, but a kind of spirit trying to give expression to Eros even to the extent of negotiating with Thanatos whose unnecessary desires aim at the destruction and ruin of everything that has been created and preserved. The Ego appears to be the Freudian embodiment of the virtuous mind reflecting upon its beliefs and desires and striving to do the right thing at the right time in the right way, trying, that is, to develop realistic expectations of the workings of an external world under the sovereign Ananke.
The above also reminds us of the Stoic man and the Christian who, as a result of many wounds at the hands of the external world has lowered the level of their expectations to a pinpoint of light in the infinite darkness of the universe of space. Can one love the world in such a state of mind? Dare one take the risk of a love so great that the loss of the object would be simply the end, the death, of the lover? Kant has an interesting choice of words for his philosophical response to the nature of the external world we dwell in: a choice of words which registers the level of his expectations and hopes. He talks about “the melancholic haphazardness” of the events of the social-world. He imagines Eros padding melancholically about our cities, perhaps with a lantern during the dark nights, trying to find an honest virtuous mind. This is the image that inspired Freud to answer the Kantian question “What is a man?” with a theory that Plato would have gladly embraced. Such an image also supports Aristotelian hylomorphic theory with its elements of Instinct, biological homeostasis mechanisms, and a teleological development process of capacities building upon capacities, powers building upon and integrating with other powers.
The strong ego is the best we can hope for in our human condition, Freud argues, but even this will not be enough to bring contentment. Man will still be in a state of discontentment with the so-called civilisation of the madding crowd and its precarious attempts to build societies that are humanly habitable. Freud is, of course, remembering that the societies with the greatest of human intentions put both Socrates and Jesus to death. So not only the Eros of the Symposium but also the Socrates of the Apology are Plato’s images of what the world does to virtuous men in return for what these virtuous men have done for the world. Speaking about the concept of justice in such circumstances seems a hollow almost irrelevant appeal. The tragedies being referred to belong in the realm of the sacred and the divine.
In his speech to Eros in the Symposium Socrates searches for truth and knowledge of the good. He picks up an important thread in Agathon’s speech which insisted upon making a distinction between the character of Eros and the effects or consequences of such character. Agathon has been guilty of deifying Eros, attributing to Eros the perfect qualities of beauty and goodness. Socrates uses elenchus on Agathon, to force him to agree that Eros or love, is the name of a particular kind of relation to an object and that the name better describes the activity of the agent than that of the object loved or desired. This fits in well with Freud’s intuition of the dangers of loving because of the dangers of losing the object of ones love. The loved object can be entirely passive in a process that aims at reciprocity, aims, that is, at requiring the fulfilment of two sets of expectations over a long period of time, perhaps over a lifetime. Diotima instructs Socrates that true love transcends a series of stages moving through the love of beautiful bodies, love of beautiful minds, love of beautiful laws to run cities, moving finally to the end or telos of wisdom. We sense the movement toward the sacred, toward the dwelling place of the Gods, glimpsed by Heraclitus, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Jesus, and Kant.
On his journey, the lover strives after an understanding of the beautiful and the good which they attempt to possess forever. Yet because we know that all men are mortal, and that we are men, we know we cannot transcend our natures, and instead we strive for substitute satisfactions (in Freudian language). We strive to live vicariously through the children and the works we reproduce. The medium for this is sexual desire or desire generally (Eros). Diotima, in the process of giving Socrates a dose of his own elenctic medicine notices how in the matter of sexual activity all animals become sick with an excitement so powerful that it prepares even the weakest of animals for the fight with stronger opponents in defence of their children or their work. Diotima wisely also points to those people who love honour as being “sick with excitement” and who are consequently prepared to risk everything, even their children for the immortality of being famous and the remembrance this involves: a remembrance they may never experience. The father of Eros, Resource, was Invention, and Diotima refers to men who are pregnant with forms in their mind that help to create the artifactual world we inhabit She also refers to the spiritual/cultural/political world designed and created by men who are loved like Solon and Socrates: men who have devoted their lives to produce beauty and goodness in their love of their cities. Presumably, the Platonic ego will be one in which these three types of forms(children, works, and ideas) are actualised and instantiated in the ever-changing, Heraclitean, infinite, visible world. The objects of these forms were referred to by Adrian Stokes as “good objects”5 and he pointed to the importance for everybody to experience such “good objects” as part of the task of strengthening their egos. Freud’s theory of the sexual aetiology of the neuroses was controversial during 19th century Vienna. Many commentators have argued over the centuries that Freud was projecting this sexual aetiology into his theory. We do not want to blindly defend Freud against every attack, but let us ask, in the light of the above reading of “The Symposium”, and the Platonic origins of the idea of Eros, whether Freud may have been reasoning in the spirit of Diotima, Socrates, Plato, and even Aristotle about these matters. Freud probably experienced this “sickness of excitement” in his patient’s reminiscences and their accompanying current judgments. His cool and technical language may, in fact, disguise the desires that were being talked about: the pleasure-pain principle creates an epistemological distance here that may be misleading. It seems we just have to characterise both pleasure and pain in terms of their objects and causes, and this places the behaviour of the patients in the wrong category of substance and its attributes. What we need is a principle that can be characterised in terms of the categories of powers and agency: Eros is an agent with certain powers. Freud’s Ego is an abstract characterisation of Eros in relation to other agencies and powers, but like Eros is but a messenger of the Gods padding about our cities anonymously, fundamentally discontented, trying to bear the losses of a lifetime.
The “sickness of excitement” that Diotima speaks about in her “Freudian” language possessed both obsessive and addictive characteristics which by necessity centre all the agent’s activity narcissistically upon the self. She also refers to the narcissistic and addictive components of our sickly longings after the trappings of power. Freud would have been thinking about these characteristics when he was reading Shakespeare’s Macbeth. The “sickness of excitement “involved in both sexuality and the desire for power are for both Freud and Diotima, like siblings in the same family
There are, for both Plato and Freud connections between sexual and tyrannical behaviour: both share the telos of an unrealistic striving for immortality in terms of compromise formations, in the one case the formation centres around bodily likeness, and in the other the formation centres around the remembrance involved in the reports of the exercise of power on the pages of history books.
Thanatos, son of Nyx, the goddess of night, and brother to Hypnos, was, for Freud, hidden in the dark and mute, only emerging into Freudian theory when it became clear that there was something else above and beyond the pleasure principle, operating in the mind of his most difficult patients. Freud’s use of hypnosis as an initial attempt to confront the powers and agents operating in his patient’s minds must have originated in his love of the classics. Here we have a Heraclitean clash of opposites requiring a Logos. Freud suspected the presence of the so-called death instinct very early on in his theorising. As his thoughts matured he searched for this Logos in both the thoughts of Plato and Aristotle. Remember he had been working in the field of Biology in his early days. The use of hypnosis proved not to be sufficiently erotic, connected as it was to a reduction in the field of consciousness—almost the exact opposite of the expansion of the field of consciousness Freud was searching for. As early as “The Interpretation of Dreams” Freud clearly saw the connection of language to becoming conscious as did his patients, one of which referred to Psychoanalysis as “the talking cure”. Freud also very quickly saw the limitations in relying on a language based association under hypnosis, where the analyst was the tyrant ordering the patient to get better whilst he was at his mercy in a diminished state of consciousness. He retained a language of desire which was designed to strengthen the patient’s Ego with resources such as dream interpretation, free association, and techniques connecting to rejecting the desires involved in the transference neurosis: the state in which the patient seeks a master to hate.
This hate is attributed to Thanatos and Freud expands the sphere of influence of Thanatos into the regions of violence and destruction, probably as a consequence of the discovery of the self-destructive behaviour of some of his patients. Thanatos is like his mother, like night, the inhibitor of constructive and creative activity: he is like an eternal night without any sun, destructive of life and consequently of Eros. Freud also connects Thanatos to Ares, the God of War and highlights the active destructiveness of violent action on the world stage. Culture, argues Freud, is the battlefield upon which Eros and Thanatos and Ares and Ananke do battle for the possession of the world. Ricoeur argues that the symbols of myths require something more than the theories of Freud if their existential implication is to be revealed and understood.
He locates consciousness in the practical sphere of our activities and begins a quarrel with Kant over what is required in this task of becoming conscious, which is set for man as part of the answer to the question “What is a man?” Ricoeur is thinking about the philosophy of Kant when he says:
“reflection is not so much a justification of science and duty as a re-appropriation of our effort to exist: epistemology is only part of that broader task: we have to recover the act of existing, the positing of self in all the density of its works” (Freud and Philosophy P.45).
For Plato, the work of living in a city-state and the duty and responsibility of doing the right thing at the right time in the right way is the fundamental work that a citizen must engage in, on pain of suffering and discontentment with the very condition of his existence. This work is fundamental because the city-state is the arena for all the forms that are reproduced through man’s work and desire: children, artifacts, truth, the good, and justice. Both terms: “work” and “desire” are important components of Ricoeur’s definition of Reflection which is:
“the appropriation of our effort to exist and desire to be through the works which best witness to this effort and desire”(Freud and Philosophy p 46)
There is, in Ricoeur’s accusation of Kant, a suspicion that Kant is responding epistemologically to both the empiricists and Descartes when he offers his reflections on the question “What is a man? Ricoeur appears here to be basing his claim upon the three critiques and not on the works on politics, history, anthropology, and religion that Kant has also written. Ricoeur’s claims certainly seem to be appropriate to the Cartesian project where the argument is solely epistemological and theoretical: I know that I think. Ricoeur comments upon this project in the following way:
“But this first reference of reflection to the positing of the self, as existing and thinking, does not sufficiently characterise reflection. In particular, we do not understand why reflection requires a work of deciphering, and exegesis and a science of exegesis or hermeneutics, and still less why this deciphering must be either a psychoanalysis or a phenomenology of the sacred. This point cannot be understood as long as reflection is seen as a return to the so called evidence of immediate consciousness. We have to introduce the second trait of reflection, which may be stated thus: reflection is not intuition, or, in positive terms, reflection is the effort to recapture the Ego of the Ego Cogito in the mirror of its objects, its works, its acts. But why must the positing of the Ego be recaptured through its acts? Precisely because it is given neither in a psychological evidence, nor in an intellectual intuition, nor in a mystical vision. The first truth—I am, I think—remains as abstract and as empty as it is invincible: it has to be “mediated” by ideas, actions, works, institutions and monuments that objectify it.”(Freud and Philosophy, P.43)
Kant stands on the other side of the divide between the will and the “objects” of the will. His claim is metaphysical, and man in his philosophy is revealed by reflection not just upon the epistemological question “What can I know?” but on all 4 questions which embrace not just metaphysics but ethics and political Philosophy as well. Being, as Aristotle maintained, is revealed in language in many ways. Interestingly, in the above quote from Ricoeur, we also find an implicit criticism of the kind of psychology that hitches its wagon to the donkey of evidence.
Notes
1 Ryle, G., Plato’s Progress ,(Cambridge, Cambridge University Press,1966)
2 Kenny, A., A New History of Western Philosophy , Vol. 1,(Oxford, Clarendon Press, 2004)
3. Ricoeur, P., Freud and Philosophy: an essay in interpretation , translated by Savage, D.(New Haven and London, Yale University Press)
4. Wittgenstein, L. Tractatus Logico- Philosophicus , translated by Ogdon, C.K.,(New York, Cosimo Classics, 1922)
5. Kant, I. Anthropology from a pragmatic point of view , translated by Louden, R.B. (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press)
6. Ricoeur, P. The Symbolism of Evil , translated by Buchanan, E(Boston, Beacon Press, 1967)
7. Stokes, A., ”Greek Culture and the Ego” in The Critical Writings of Adrian Stokes, Vol. 3 (London, Thames and Hudson,1978).
Freud and Philosophy: A Hylomorphic and Kantian Reevaluation: Chapter Two
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The imagination, according to Aristotle, is Janus-faced: it can either be subject to the will and be categorised as an active categorical power, or it can be characterised as a passive process in which the schema imposed upon what is seen, remembered, and “thought” has its source in sensations or feelings whose essential characteristic is that they “happen to one”. Imagination in this latter case is non-conceptual. In an article entitled “Aristotle on the Imagination”by Malcolm Schofield(“Articles on Aristotle”, ed by Barnes J., Schofield, M., Scrabji, R., (London Duckworth, 2003), it is argued that the Greek equivalent to our word “imagination” is “phantasia”:
“But Aristotle’s own unitary explanation of dreams and such pathological phenomena, on the one hand, and the similarity between pathological and normal seeing of aspects, on the other, put us in a position in which we can now exhibit the unity in Aristotle’s conception of phantasia, while retaining our characterisation of it as imagination.” (P. 125)
We should in the context of this discussion recall that for Aristotle:
“Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim.” The Collected Works of Aristotle
On this account dreams must aim at the good in spite of their tenuous connection to reality: they do not, that is, aim at the true. The dreamer believes that they are experiencing or seeing a man in a red shirt and do not know that they are merely imagining that they are seeing a man in a red shirt. The absence of actual experience or actual perception in this situation means that memory must be playing a role in the production of these images and the question then becomes what is it that is activating the memory to produce such images. For Freud, dreams are wish fulfillments in a double sense: they are disguised desires for something which requires the art of interpretation to make manifest and they express the wish to continue sleeping. Two different types of “good” are being aimed at. In both cases the wish is located in the unconscious or preconscious systems of the psychic apparatus. For Freud, we should recall, dreams were the royal road to the unconscious system of our mind: memories were presented in disguised form on the dream screen in accordance with both the pleasure-pain principle and the energy regulation principle. Dreams such as the fathers dream of a child that has recently died manifest the wish on the part of the father that the child was still alive. The memory that he is dead is overridden by other memories of the child alive which are more in accord with the fathers desire that the child not be dead. The dream-memory of the child shouting out “father, father cant you see that I am burning!” is a synthesis of the present near-waking experience of the body being burned by candles that have fallen over near the body ,plus the memory of the event of the dying as a result of a burning fever. The dream is a phantasy: it never happened and what is wished for could never happen, now that the child is dead. Yet it is a real expression of a real wish projected onto the dream screen of a sleeping subject. It is most definitely a substantial clue in relation to the royal road of the subjects state of mind. It is also part of the mourning process: a process that will for some time prevent the subject from fully engaging with his life-projects in accordance with the reality principle: the pleasure-pain principle(which uses feelings as regulators) rules on this royal road. The task for the father is to become fully conscious of his wish, and its role in the mourning process. Feelings are manifestations of what is happening to the body and share with sensations, a non-active status. Bring them into a context of judgement as Kant did in his Critique of Aesthetic Judgement and they can be subject to the activities of the imagination, the understanding and judgement. For Kant the aesthetic judgement is concerned with the active communication of a feeling of the the harmony of different powers of the mind, e.g. the imagination and the understanding. In such judgements there may even be a partial aim at the truth when one claims that the evening sunset is beautiful. Kant maintains that this is a cognitive claim on the grounds that we attempt, as Kant puts the matter, to speak with a “universal voice”. In this form of judgement the understanding and its categories are involved in the organisation of the representations involved in this judgement. We know from his work on the Rhetoric and De Anima that Aristotle believed that Emotions can be connected to both our powers of understanding and judgement, and have therefore a claim to be cognitive( emotions have both objects and grounds for their occurrence). Anger, to take a typical Aristotelian example, connects judgement and thought via an awareness of an apparent injustice that has been done to the angry subject. Here Aristotle appeals to his hylomorphic account and speaks of the matter of anger being the physiological response of the agitation of the blood around the heart: he also speaks of the form of the subjects anger being related to the subjects desire for retaliation or revenge. It is clear here that the subjects judgement in such circumstances is only partially overcome and there is a complex relation to the pain involved in the situation. Fear, too, has a similar structure in which the matter are a number of complex physiological responses and the form is connected to the perception or thought of an evil that is related to imminent danger and the possible pain associated with this danger. Both anger and fear can be, as Aristotle claimed, praised or blamed for their positive or negative relation to the good. The angry man must believe that he has been insulted for the anger to be authentic and the fearful man must believe in dangerous circumstances if the fear is to be genuine. Fear and anger can be communicated in rhetorical speeches which may also contain elements of deliberation or reasoning about the insult or danger, either diminishing its magnitude or fortifying a good spirited response to the events in question.
Modern positivist theories, we know, proposed an account of a special kind of meaning–emotional meaning–in response to the more ethical accounts of anger and fear. Such accounts focussed on the moment of persuasion involved in such circumstances, analysing the idea of the good into a feeling component and a subjective imperative component. Such an account was meant to be critical of Aristotelian accounts of ethics and emotions as well as Kantian accounts which attached great importance to the role of ethical law and principles in ethical judgements. For Aristotle, both Ethics and rhetoric involve practical reasoning in the process of praising and blaming the judgements and actions of the agents responsible for them. The grounds for such praise and blame lie in the realm of ought judgements and action—what we ought and ought not to have done. The practical reasoning used in such circumstances will, for example involve appeal to principles of judgement which claim that fear and anger can be appropriate if the circumstances and objects are appropriate. Aristotle’s account also refers to appetition, hunger, thirst and sexual desire which for both Plato and Aristotle were clearly linked to what both Freud and William James designated as the realm of instinct. Freud presupposes much of what Aristotle wrote in his account of the sexual instincts where sources, objects, and aims are all connected to the cathartic effect of a form of discourse that possessed the power to mitigate the undue influence of sexual desire in our lives. So, with respect to Freud’s account of the life instinct, we encounter a hylomorphic strategy which appeals to both form and matter. With respect to hunger and thirst for example a biological account of the physiological functions of the body suffice to explain such phenomena. Sexual instincts, on the other hand, require a more formal account to complement the bodily sources of the associated phenomena. Practical reasoning of the kind we encounter in relation to anger and fear plays an important role in the discourse we use to praise and blame agents for the appropriateness of their sexual activity(areté).
Aristotle’s work on poetic and epic tragedy speaks about the use of the emotions in dramatic works of art, in particular, the emotions of pity and fear. The cathartic process Aristotle describes is a process involving good objects that may be lost, good grounds, and associated goods such as areté and diké. All in accordance with the essence-specifying definition of tragedy:
“the imitation of an action that is serious and complete…..accomplishing through pity and fear the catharsis of such affections.”(The Complete Works of Aristotle. The revised Oxford Edition edited by Barnes J.,(Princetown, Princetown University Press, Vol 2, 1984(Poetics)
The actions concerned are concerned with what ought or ought not to be done or said, the moral quality of the actors, and the catharsis referred to is more of an educational and less of a medical-physical process. Medical catharsis involves the purging of pathological impurities related to states of health or disease of the body, whereas educational catharsis is concerned with the pathologies and the healing of the soul(psuché) in relation to areté and diké. There is, as Aristotle maintains, a kind of educational pleasure attached to this process in which one learns what the good is. Needless to say, we are concerned with the imagination and its universalisation in the process of appreciating dramatic works of art. There is an equivalent work of appreciation which helps us to understand the peculiar nature of those goods that are both good in their consequences and good in themselves. Knowledge(epistemé) of the Good is at issue in the mimetic context of an art work and the imagination therefore plays a decisive role in both the creation and the appreciation of works of art. Judgement, therefore, plays a more important role than reason in the realm of the productive sciences such as rhetoric and art.
In contexts of practical reason where we are directly concerned with action rather than imitative representations, understanding and reason play a larger constitutive role and teleological judgement and imagination a lesser role. The key idea involved in ethical forms of practical reasoning, is that of the freedom to choose ones action-alternatives. This is a direct consequence of the Kantian claim that forms of life are entities that are self-causing and can therefore negate any destructive desire that arises in their mental arena, e.g. refusing to take a drink if one is a recovering alcoholic. Sartre characterises this freedom in terms of Consciousness, and claims that the essence of consciousness is Negation. Freud, here, as in other matters, aligns himself more with Kant, and claims that the desire to take a drink as a result of the cravings of ones appetite-system arises as a so-called “primary process”, activity which can be neutralised by a secondary process reality based operation of choosing not to imbibe. The secondary process is operating in these circumstances as an inhibitory power. In this process the representation of the drink thus becomes a lost object in the history of the individuals desire. The wounded desire that resulted in the choice not to take the drink is then required to submit to an attitude of resignation and acceptance of the wound. This impulse-control triangle is for Freud related to the Greek idea of areté which ensures that we do the right thing in the right way at the right time. Yet the whole process is haunted by feelings of mourning and melancholia which hover like dark clouds over such kinds of action.
Paul Ricouer, in his work, “Freud and Philosophy: An essay in Interpretation”, is more inclined to place faith in the teleological aspect of action processes which he claims must supplement the so-called archeologically oriented account provided by Freud. This presupposes that Freud’s account did not contain a teleological element which is a questionable presupposition given Freud’s use of Platonic themes and ideas in his later work. Plato’s “Republic, we know, was an attempt to provide an account of the Good-in-itself and the Good-in-its-consequences, in relation to the ideas of areté and diké. Ricouer, in contrast, attempts to synthesise the teleological and archeological aspects he refers to with a theologically-laden eschatological meaning of justice(getting what one deserves). This places both the Socratic account of Justice (involving knowledge(epistemé) of how the laws work in the polis) and the Aristotelian account of justice (involving the virtues of a middle class who choose to rule in accordance with the principle or law of the golden mean), in a state of suspension. Behind the account given by Ricouer lies a conviction that Psychology is not an observational science but rather an exegetical science: a science involving language and what he regards as its relation to a dialectics of presence and absence. The Psychoanalytical theory of Freud we know demanded a theory to guide the interpretation of dreams, symptoms, and pathological behaviour of his patients, who were providing Freud with a “story about their lives and its meaning”. This story reached back into the past and forwards out into an imagined future. Such a story could not possibly be conceived of as a collection of facts established by observational activity, but must rather be conceived of as a motivational history organised by the “types” constituted by case studies of individuals. The questions raised in this latter kind of “science” is less akin to establishing the facts (questio factii) of the case, and more concerned with what Kant would have called “questio juris”—an organisation of the facts in accordance with principles and laws that justify/explain the conditions of the possibility of the history of the patients failures and lost-objects. Psychoanalysis, then, in its theoretical aspect is concerned with the “production” of mental health, but also with areté and diké, with how the patient ought to be leading their life in order to achieve eudaimonia(a good spirited flourishing life). The concept of “health” being presupposed, is a teleological concept that has both technological (techné) and practical ethical aspects. Hence Freud’s claim that he was a Kantian Psychologist. The combination of principles of the productive sciences (techné) and the principles of ethics in psychoanalytical theory must also be part of the reason why Freud focussed on the idea of “meaning” and “interpretation”.
Freud is sometimes characterised as an anti-phenomenological theorist, and if ones models of phenomenological theory emanate from Husserl or Heidegger, there may be some substance to this claim, but if one instead compares the Phenomenology of Merleau -Ponty to Freudian theory the differences of the positions seem less striking. For Merleau-Ponty, the human body is not a set of causally related entities and processes, but rather a lived form of being-in-the-world(psuché) in which meanings relate to meanings in a way very different to the way in which material and efficient causation relate to their effects. For both Merleau-Ponty and Freud, sexuality is a form of life with globa,l rather than “local” meaning, and is related to our freedom which also has a global meaning. Freedom, however, has more “cultural” significance than sexuality, and there are therefore circumstances in which culture rightly demands of us that we sacrifice our sexual satisfactions for higher purposes. Freud in his work “Civilisation and its Discontents” claimed that this “giving up of sexual objects and satisfactions”, was not a straightforward sacrifice and may give rise to a form of discontentment with our civilisation. This inhibitory process is obviously connected to the work of the Ego and the defence mechanism of “sublimation” which is, in fact, a vicissitude of instinct. What is being invoked here is the Freudian impulse-control-triangle of Desire-Demand-Refusal, and the melancholic image that emerges from this is of the wounded self that needs to go in search of “treatment” which hopefully results in the resignation and acceptance that comes with increased “wisdom and understanding(A process steered by the Reality Principle) This latter characterisation of the education of desire is, in fact, difficult to represent using phenomenological concepts and ideas, since there is no clear role for rational principles in this kind of account.
Consciousness, is one of the central ideas of Phenomenological accounts. It is sometimes characterised in terms of its images(Heidegger’s Transcendental Imagination in his Kant-book) which appear to be regressive forms of perception. There is no obvious role for the rational principle of noncontradiction in phenomenological accounts which claim to be searching for essential descriptions of phenomena and in the dream-like world of images. There is also lacking the space-time continuity that is present in our perception of the world. For Freud, the history of our desires could be recorded in our dream images which are in need of principles involved in self-knowledge if the interpretative process of the meaning of these archeological representations is to be made manifest. Knowledge(epistemé) of the complex functioning of the psychic apparatus is at the very least a necessary condition of interpreting the meaning of these images. In his work “The Interpretation of Dreams”, Freud maintains that the dream work is a regressive activity but at the same time the work of interpretation of these images is the royal road for gaining insight into the patients state of mind. Returning to the Freudian triangle of demand-refusal-wounded ego, the demands of the life instinct begin the demand-process and the more materialistic these demands are, the more likely it is that anxiety will arise in relation to the stage of refusal: this anxiety can then haunt the ego. If the ego is strong enough to tolerate this anxiety, a stoical form of resignation/acceptance of the refusal will contribute to the formation of more realistic demands in conjunction with more realistic means to achieve such demands. If, for various developmental reasons, the ego is not sufficiently strong to tolerate the resultant anxiety connected with refusal, defence mechanisms(which are also vicissitudes of the instincts) such as repression, will seek to manage the unpleasure in ways that may eventually compromise the functioning of the ego. In such cases these unconscious residues would need to reemerge into consciousness and be reported to the analyst who will attempt to restructure and/or re-situate this experience in the preconscious system of the patient—with the aid of language and the memory system). This process of “working through” can occur in relation to dreams symptoms and pathological behaviour. The Delphic Oracle suspected that the process of knowing oneself would not be an easy one, and Aristotle, Kant, and Freud would undoubtedly have agreed with such a judgement. This process of working through requires the operation of the reality principle insofar as it regulates both the theoretical discourse connected with the treatment and the practical activities/symptoms of the patient. With respect to the latter, the task of the therapist is to improve the life of the patient by strengthening the ego with a greater capacity to tolerate refusal and accept the patients “lost-objects” of desire. If the patient has been traumatised, and the ego is strengthened so that the patient no longer blindly and pathologically repeats an activity or “acts-out”, the consequence of good treatment will be to convert traumatic anxiety-laden images into normal memories that will fade in intensity with the passing of time. Memory of the traumatic episode ought, that is, to be recalled in the course of time with diminished levels of anxiety. During the course of this therapeutic process the patient will be subjected to a therapeutic technique that relates to the refusal phase of the Freudian triangle. The analyst, that is, will use the transference love that the patient feels for the analyst, for the purposes of overcoming the patient’s resistances to the treatment. The task of the analyst is partly to overcome the narcissism of the patient which resists reality when the patient attempts to consolidate a defensive position via the energy regulation principle and the pleasure-pain principle. The instincts and their more positive vicissitudes, such as sublimation, need to be mobilised in a therapeutic process that aims at displacing narcissistic tendencies. If the ego remains narcissistic, lost objects of desire that are valued highly may not be merely mourned but may be subject to the self-destructive mood of melancholia which testifies to the presence of the death instinct. Aggression is the typical response of a narcissist to what is perceived as a universally hostile environment:
“One of the vicissitudes of the death instinct is aggression and it is this which is unleashed by the narcissist upon his environment if he is frustrated. If he desires an object and then loses that object, the memory system is not sufficiently structured for the work of mourning to occur, and the work of melancholia occurs. Here we can see the limited role of consciousness and the importance of the Metapsychology of the instincts and their vicissitudes.”( James, M.,R.,D., The World Explored, the World Suffered: A Philosophical History of Psychology, Cognition, Emotion, Consciousness and Action, Lamber Academic Press, Mauritius, 2020, P203)
This is not, however, to diminish the work of “becoming Conscious” that is required in the therapeutic process, because it is only in virtue of becoming conscious of what is not conscious, that we come to know what is motivating us unconsciously. This work essentially involves converting the presentations of the body(instincts and vicissitudes) into psychic presentations. In this connection when unconscious desires emerge into consciousness they are the manifest symbols of latent processes. We are not dealing here with the material and efficient causes sought by physical science but rather with Freudian explanations and justifications which I maintained in the above work are embedded in a hylomorphic framework:
“There are many reason why we view Freud as. Hylomorphic Psychologist. The first is that his later work is best interpreted through what I call the hylomorphic matrix. (Three domains of science, 4 kinds of change, 3 principles, and 4 “causes” of change. Secondly, it has a view of the principle of life(psuché or soul) that best meets the demands of the kind of aporetic question that typically arises in the arena of Philosophy of mind or Philosophical Psychology. Thirdly, Freud’s later work also answers aporetic questions arising in the arenas of Cultural and Political Philosophy. Fourthly, Freud’s view of consciousness as a surface phenomenon accords well with Aristotelian and Kantian positions”. (The World Explored, the World Suffered, P.196)
Ricouer discusses the relation of Freudian theory to the position of Descartes, where it is claimed that the self is certain of its own existence via (being conscious of?) its own thought. This appears, Ricouer argues, to run counter to the Freudian account of the sources, aims, vicissitudes and objects of the instincts. Instincts obviously connect more naturally to the universe of discourse related to action, rather than that universe of discourse related to thought and consciousness. Psychology, around the time of its divorce from Philosophy, and continuing up until the time of Freud’s later work, (1920- 1939) failed to recognise the importance of the thesis of psychogenesis in relation to mental health issues, preferring to rest with the “scientific” thesis of somatogenesis, which claimed that brain structure/damage/dysfunction of various kinds lay behind mental health problems. Descartes’ position can be construed as an extreme form of the phenomenological thesis of the primacy of consciousness, especially when he suggests that we can imagine away the existence of our bodies. The Cartesian retreat into the materialist aspect of dualism occurred because of the question of the interaction of his postulated two substances. For Descarts, the pineal gland in the brain was the materialistic convergent point for the two substances. This was a more pernicious form of dualism than Platonic dualism which Aristotle neutralised with his hylomorphic version of the theory of forms. Kant too, had to produce arguments against the materialists and the dualists as part of the preparation for Freudian theory which would come over over a hundred years later. These arguments would not, however, triumph in the long run, and Freud’s theories had to navigate its own course through the treacherous landscape created by materialistic and dualistic theorists. Cartesianism and scientism appears to have unleashed practical forces in the world that would help to create the “new men”(Arendt’s term) of the modern era: men who would create and use world-destroying weapons. This scenario contained the elements of narcissism combined with the aggression of the death instinct. It would then become important to these new men to discredit psychoanalysis if they were to continue to rule the modern wold in an era that could be called “the Age of Discontentment”(The World Explored, the World Suffered, Volume 4). Ricoeur continues his comparison of Cartesianism with Freudian with the following statement:
“At the heart of the Ego Cogito I discover an instinct all of whose derived forms point to something altogether primitive and primordial which Freud calls primary narcissism.” Freud and Philosophy P.425)
Such a move must surely question the phenomenological primacy of consciousness-thesis and highlight the importance of the theme of the archeology of the Subject. It is, of course, primary narcissism that lies at the root of all resistance (theoretical and practical) to psychoanalytical theory and practice. For Freud this primary narcissism is manifested in theoretical claims that the realm of the psychological is identical with the realm of consciousness. The refusal to accept such a position involves the humiliation that is necessary to wound the ego of the primary narcissist. Whether such an experience becomes a trauma or alternatively results in stoical acceptance depends in the end on the history of desire of the individual concerned.
Imagining, as Descartes did that the “I” could survive the absence of the body is paradoxical, especially in the light of the fact that the final resting place of his dualism appeals to a gland in the brain. We should also recall that Descartes was educated at a Jesuit school, and recall too that his final defence against the argument that life might be a dream was an appeal to God who, he argued, would not be able on ethical grounds to deceive us in such an unethical way. Descartes was one of the first “new men” of the modern era, suffering a nervous breakdown in his youth and wondering Europe as a military mercenary, fighting on both Catholic and Protestant sides in the 30 years war.
Ricouer points out insightfully that the Freudian account of consciousness is a dynamic and systematic concept that serves both economic and spiritual functions. Freuds topography also postulates agencies such as the id, ego and superego, which enable consciousness to provide a perspicuous representation of the life of a mind whose first and most important idea is the idea of the body. The work of interpretation requires knowledge of this dynamic and structural superstructure if it is to disentangle the knots of our thought processes in this psychological realm. This position ties in with both the Greek oracles challenge, and Spinoza’s suggestion that in order to fully understand ourselves we need to do so in terms of adequate ideas that are in accordance with the principle of sufficient reason. Freud’s contribution to this position is, of course, significant. Ricoeur insists that consciousness as interpreted by his hermeneutical theory, is also an important component in the context of this theoretical debate, but he also goes on to argue that a Kantian approach to this problem is warranted in virtue of the need for a transcendental deduction which illuminates the realms of empirical realism and critical idealism. Ricoeur, however, misses the Kantian dual-aspect claim that any realm of phenomena from the domains of psuché and human action ought to be explicable both in terms of, firstly, mechanical laws(where causal events are distinct from the effects they bring about, and secondly, the laws of freedom where reasons and causes are linked logically and conceptually. The psychological representation of instincts that is in a sense “an ideal” is postulated and teleologically characterised by a reflective form of judgement which we have no choice to use if we wish to speak about instincts as entities of nature. Insofar as the instincts give rise to emotions it is the difference in their telos that serves to differentiate them. Both Kant and Freud share a form of Cartesian commitment to the position which claims that internal objects of thought are more knowable than the external objects we encounter in the external world. Freud, however, mitigates this position by maintaining that these psychological representations are not always what they appear to be, and therefore require interpretation.
Ricoeur also rejects the Kantian phenomena/noumena distinction and claims in the name of phenomenology that the task of psychoanalysis is related to the task of becoming conscious. Consciousness and Repression are both vicissitudes of instinct. Case histories of patients will thus presuppose developmental stages on the road to becoming conscious as well as the operation of defence mechanisms. “Ideal types” are thereby postulated as reference points when “diagnosing” symptoms. Ricouer does not, however, mention Anna Freud’s hylomorphic contribution to her fathers work, in particular her discovery of “lines of development” and “developmental disorders”.
Freud’s work on the interpretation of dreams proved to be particularly useful in therapeutic contexts because they too presupposed a developmental history and manifested an archeological dimension. For Freud dreams were regressive phenomena manifesting a regression to early childhood where instinctual impulses and emotions dominated all forms of activity. The dreaming process, for Freud, was the the “royal road” to the unconscious part of the mind which he characterised as timeless and not subject to the principle of noncontradiction. These facts together with the absence of the operation of the reality principle, and the absence of a strong ego mean that the principles regulating activity (the energy regulation principle, pleasure-pain principle) aim primarily at a state of homeostasis, reserving a small amount of energy for emergency action.
Ricouer suggests in relation to his characterisation of the archeology of the subject that the id, (being charged not with thoughts ordered in time and related to reality) and its ideas and impulses, is an “It” that speaks (Freud and Philosophy, P.443). It is this kind of regressive structure that lies behind the “acting out” of the subject which then refuses assimilation into the thought-reality-memory system, and thereby is less susceptible to reality-testing and reasoning activity. Ricoeur, in this context refers analogously to the Platonic world-view of the Khâra(Chaos) that the demiurge “forms” into a spatio-temporal teleologically structured cosmos. This may have been the setting for the Socratic strategy in the Republic to attempt to seek justice(diké) in the polis after his attempts to characterise justice in terms of the harmony of the parts of the soul.
Freud similarly seeks an analogous application of his archeological method to the role of religion in society, seeking a more critical attitude toward what he regarded as a regressive phenomenon. The telos of religion given by Kant in his religious reflections ends in a critical but positive ethical/cultural evaluation of religion, and gives us a reason to believe in the divine as an idea of reason that guarantees a good-spirited flourishing life, if one does ones duty in accordance with ones moral responsibilities. Freud, on the other hand, appears to believe that archeology outweighs teleology and regards religious practice to be largely pathological(obsessive-compulsive) behaviour–an acting out of a childish primitive fear that is in need of a father for protection from the exigencies of reality. For Kant, striving for the holy, is principally an ethical endeavour and a matter of faith rather than knowledge, but this for Freud may be in question. Freud does say he is a Kantian psychologist, so one does wonder whether he might in the end acknowledge this ethical idea of a holy will and reserve his criticism of religion for the more popular Christian ethics which appears to demand that we both love our neighbour and our enemies. Some Christians, however, may fall back on a safer position which acknowledges all men to be brothers but allow for the possibility that one might not love ones brother especially if he is an enemy. Such a position would appear to be in accord with the idea of equality implied by Kantian ethics which focuses on the idea of respect, rather than love in the Christian sense. For Freud, we ought to remember that the superego is grounded in the unconscious id, and the id is the home of narcissism. Religious ritual , for Freud, appeared to be related to the compulsion to repeat which was a form of acting out motivated by the death instinct. This part of religion was for Freud more connected to Thanatos and death, than Eros and its struggles in the arena of life. Such activity is more than tinged with a melancholic state of mind that appears to arise naturally as the lost objects strive against anxiety to lodge themselves in the memory system of the Ego.
Ricoeur defines the meaning of existence in terms of an effort to exist and a desire to be(the becoming of consciousness), but he claims that there is no conscious teleological commitment to such a final purpose. There is, however, some kind of unthematised subconscious implied presence of a telos of life. Ricouer’s intention is to complement the archeological account of Freud with the phenomenologically based teleology of Hegel. In his account Hegel uses dialectical reasoning to establish the necessary essential properties of consciousness. He argues, for example, that in the relation of the master to slave there is a telos of recognition for one another which is part of the process of “becoming conscious”. The wider context of culture is also analysed in terms of a teleological march of what he calls “figures of Spirit”, that establish spheres of meaning in art, religion and philosophy: spheres which also help to establish a skepticism in relation to any postulated differences between masters and slaves. Desire is the motivating factor for both Freud and Hegel, and death plays a part in the education of the Ego for both thinkers. This is a developmental teleological account which does not rest its case on a psychology of consciousness and for Ricoeur it is a more fertile field for reflection than is the rationalism of Kantian critical Philosophy. Ricouer discusses the Freudian mechanism of identification in relation to Hegel’s concept of recognition in the master slave dialectic and he notes that identification is important in the process of the formation of the superego. In this “dialectic of lost objects” the child abandons his desire for the love of the opposite sex parent and subsequently identifies with, or recognises, the same sex parent. A sexual cathexis is thus transformed into a social phenomenon where the child’s desire is to be like the same sex parent. The lost object of the opposite sex parent is refound during this process, and can also be identified with. What Freud is drawing attention to here is the education of desire (pleasure-pain principle) by the reality principle, and this is in its turn culturally important for the process of the transmission of the values of society. Attitudes toward love and work, and the authority of institutions are also subsequently internalised.
We recognise in Hegel’s phenomenological account the importance of negation that lies at the centre of the movement of the figures of spirit. For every thesis articulating a position, there is formed an antithesis. Dispute and discussion results, and a synthesis of the truths of both positions emerges, to become a new thesis waiting for its negation or antithesis. The Freudian triangle of desire, refusal, wounded ego and the subsequent acceptance of the refusal can also be seen as involving this theoretical idea of negation. The Greeks, however, concretely pictured desire in its appetitive form as a thousand headed monster which possesses an ever active imagination forever seeking new desires. This for the Greeks was a “type” of life-form(the man consumed by his desires) destined for the Delphic telos of ruin and destruction. The image of death(Thanatos) haunted this monster. The spirited negation of the wish to fulfil ones desires was connected by the oracles to the principles(arché) of areté and diké and the more positive telos of eudaimonia. Freud’s Psychology preserved the spirit of Greek Philosophy with a complex theory of the consequences of repressing ones desires, instead of accepting refusal, thereby truncating the growth of the Ego. Ricoeur claims in his reflections on Freud’s complex account, that Freud did not thematise the telos of the reality principle, although we need also to recall that Freud did claim that a strong ego would approach the tasks of loving and working more realistically. This is clearly a teleological judgement expressing his wish that his patients may lead a good-spirited flourishing life, but given the fact that Freud’s immediate concern was to explain the pathological behaviour of his patients, this might justify Ricoeur’s judgement that Freud was mostly preoccupied with the archeology of the subject. In this context we can also mention the view of Wittgenstein who, at one time, claimed to be a follower of Freud but who acknowledged that Freud’s explanations tended to assume a relation to something that happened long ago. In Freud’s defence we reiterate once more his claim that his Psychology was Kantian and it is clear that Kant concerned himself equally with the archeology and the teleology of behaviour in his works on practical reason, anthropology, and the Critique of Judgement. It also needs to be emphasised that Kant’s critical Philosophy contains significant traces of both Platonic and Aristotelian Philosophy, and in the “Anthropology” Kant addresses the very Greek theme of the hierarchy of feelings,passion, and reason, and the associated values of possession, power and worth. The Platonic tri-partite soul is evident in this reflection and what is being objectified here are the three objective relations we find in the arenas of economics, politics, and culture. The objects we possess, the object of power we use and respind to, and the objects of law religion and Philosophy are all part of Kant’s account and pathological relations to these objects are possible. In the realm of Politics, Freud’s writings on Group Psychology and the Ego are perhaps his most important contribution. Freud outlines in this work the pathological relation the masses can form with a leader. Here Id functions overshadow ego functions, which are eclipsed by impulsive and emotional excesses more interested in “acting out” than in arriving at well deliberated and reflective political positions. The mechanism of identification with the leader exaggerates small differences between groups of people and mobilises aggressive impulses toward them. In this process, Thanatos is clearly winning the “battle of the giants” with Eros.
Hannah Arendt reflects upon this phenomenon at great length in her work “Origins of Totalitarianism” and notes the collapse of the political party system in favour of mass movements where the mood of the “new men” of these movements is that “anything is possible” (if i.e. one knows how to mobilise the masses). This is juxtaposed with the mood of the masses for most of whom, “nothing is possible”. Greek rhetoric (a productive science), recognised that spirited persuasion is an important means of mobilising opinion but they insisted that this must occur in the context of their value system of areté, diké, arché and epistemé. For the Greeks, whose epistemological view of life was so well expressed by Aristotle, life(psuché) was a continuous unity where all these values were integrated, and their theoretical aim was to conceive of reality as such a continuous unity in a perspicuous manner. It is not out of the question that this too was a part of Freud’s agenda.
Kant’s work, too, aims at conceiving life and nature as a continuous unity. Our human understanding, given its finitude, and the fact that our discourse, whist being actualised is not always rational(driven by principles and reasoning processes), is in need of formalised bodies of knowledge, (e.g. the various disciplines that constitute the thoretical, practical and productive sciences). This is partly why we are in need of the productive discipline of rhetoric to understand how to address groups of people who have coalesced into “the masses”.
Ricouer elaborates upon the above position in his discussion of his attempt to synthesise the archeology and teleology of the subject by reference to an examination of the structure of symbols, which, he claims, both disguise and reveal their meaning and are thus in need of interpretation. Ricouer claims that symbols both “repeat our childhood” and explore our adult life”(P.496). They appear therefore to possess a Hegelian dialectical structure since they are claimed to synthesise both of these aspects of our existence, namely archeology and teleology. Symbols, remind us of the Freudian idea of meaning in that they possess both a manifest and a latent meaning in a synthesis that Ricouer refers to as “double meaning”. Their latent aspect ,when expressed in the great symbols of our discourse, are rooted in an archaic collective history. Ricoeur also refers to the defence mechanism of sublimation in relation to all objects of our culture which express universal significance. We need, in order to understand how sublimation works, to witness its operation in a concrete case.
Michelangelo’s works possess a value of universal significance. His sculpted statues, “Times of the Day”, which stand at the entrance to the Medici family tomb and his Delphic oracle on the roof of the Sistine chapel, are certainly symbolic in the sense referred to above. They contain a reference to a dramatic and archaic collective history as well as a sketch to the solution of the problem or enigma of life. The melancholic air of the sculpted works, and the anxious look of the Delphic oracle look simultaneously back to the childhood of man and forward to a projected future which does not carry with it great expectations. There is an air of mourning over lost objects and fear for the future. The “powers” of the soul are focussed upon the “matter” of life and death. The “forms” that will organise this matter into an integrated continuous unity are also present. The telos is a self sufficient Aristotelian life that is both a good spirited and flourishing life that contains the goods of the body, the external world, and the soul. These “great-souled beings” of Michelangelo testify to a complex life(with biological, psychological and cosmological dimensions) before which we stand in awe and wonder, whether it be at the forms of the starry starry sky or the moral law or worth that resides internally in our souls. This awe and wonder for Aristotle, Michelangelo, Kant , Ricouer and Wittgenstein had a religious dimension that Ricouer attempted to capture in his reflections on the symbolism of evil. In this context, confession the phenomenon Ricouer analyses in terms of manifest and latent content, and he claims that the latter is related to the former in a way that allows one to characterise the relation as expressing mans religious relation to the realm of the sacred. The melancholic cries of the man of faith, who finds his faith tested by reality, finding himself to be inadequate to the complex demands of a religious system operating in a largely secular context, may well fall on deaf ears, because the new men have succeeded in marginalising the religious system. Freud may well have believed that religion as practiced by the masses offers merely substitute satisfactions as well as pointless and sometimes dangerous advice about ones neighbours and enemies.
The Greek idea of diké was fundamentally transformed in the Christian religious system and the realm of the sacred De civitate dei was regarded more important than the the realm of the secular De civitate terrana. The laws of the city were replaced by the commandments of the Bible that were directed at all men everywhere under the presupposition that all men were brothers. Cities are particular organic entities that can rise and survive or fall into ruin and destruction and the laws of the city play important roles in deciding their fate. Both O Shaughnessy and Julian Jaynes believe that the consciousness of man came into existence at a particular point in our history:
“Why such interest in consciousness at the present time? Could it be because of a feeling that we might in this phenomenon be in the presence of something inexplicable? The greatness of a particular work of art while not pure mystery is a matter of “noumenal” depth, a bottomless well, beyond demonstration. Is consciousness such a thing? Are we in this phenomenon running our heads up against the limits of explanation? This seems unlikely. It is worth remembering that at some point during the history of the life-system of which we are part, consciousness evolved into being, and that the laws of physics cannot have relaxed their hold upon physical phenomena as it did.” Consciousness and the World, O Shaughnessy, B.,(Oxford, Clarendon Press, 2000, P.2).
For Ricouer, the greatness of a work of art is both archeological(about our collective childhood) and teleological(about our collective future) and requires consciousness for both its creation and appreciation. For Freud, this consciousness was a vicissitude of the instincts which played a role in the dissolution of his patients defence mechanisms. Ricouer points to sublimation as being partly responsible for all our cultural objects including great works of art such as Michelangelo’s “Times of the Day”, but Ricouers justification of this sublime power is essentially non-Freudian and more aligned with the ideas of Hegel that appeal to the concept of “recognition of one self by another:
“It is through the medium of these works or monuments that a certain dignity of man is formed, which is the instrument and trace of a process of reduplicated consciousness, of recognition of the self in another self.”(Freud and Philosophy,P.523)
For Kant, the dignity of man is involved in aesthetic judgements of the beautiful and the sublime, especially presumably in a work such as “Times of the Day”:
“But the ideal of the beautiful is still something different from its normal idea. For reasons already stated, it is only to be sought in the human figure. Here the ideal consists in the expression of the moral, apart from which the object would not please at once universally and positively.”(Kant’s Critique of Aesthetic Judgment, Trans Meredith, J., P.79)
The role of sublimation and the aesthetic relation to our cultural objects is, for Kant, less a matter of one self recognising another, and more a matter of speaking with a universal voice about objects that promote the integration and harmony of powers of the mind.
It was the works of genius attributed to Homer plus the different kinds of narratives contained in the Bible that convinced Julian Jaynes to place a date upon the emergence of consciousness as a power of mind. He estimated this event of the general emergence of consciousness in society, to occur around 1200 BC. This was not, of course, meant to deny that consciousness, in particular individuals, emerged much earlier. Perhaps such individuals were regarded as Gods by their bicameral fellows. Jaynes promotes a particular theory of language development which also is important for the description and explanation of the emergence of this power. He suggests it was a metaphorical function of language that created the inner-mind-space necessary for Consciousness. Such a vicissitude of the instincts required other developments of language along the way such as the emergence of the use of personal names which then generated burial rituals around the dead. Such complex uses of language appears also to be a vicissitude of the instincts possessed by a particularly advanced form of life, that began by uttering warning cries, and ended with an “I” and a mind-space with unconscious, preconscious and conscious aspects. The complexity of a fully developed language manifests itself in its tenses, different grammatical moods (indicative, interrogative, subjunctive imperative and conditional), its subject-predicate-object structure etc. The bicameral fellows of the gods, for a number of reasons, manifested a bilateral distribution of the language function in the brain in both the left and the right hemispheres, and this might account for a belief in a superior voice belonging to a supernatural kind of being. Writing was obviously connected (either as cause or effect) to the settling of the language function in the left hemisphere(in the normal case) and with its manifestation, Knowledge begins to take on a greater significance in our cultures. Hermeneutics, given these facts, has an obvious and important role to play in the interpretation of not just our sacred texts but also those texts relating to contexts of explanation/justification that were becoming increasingly important for both the existence and development of our cultures
As a consequence of the secularisation process the idea of evil was being replaced by the ideas of ignorance or competence located in different personalities(mind-spaces) Psychology as a discipline created in 1870 battled with Philosophy over the crown for the most relevant explanations and justifications for the activities of the human psuché. Previously we appeared to seek consolation in the words of the ancient sacred texts and the question is whether either Psychology or Philosophy can provide such consolation. Ricouer startlingly asserts that the desire for consolation may be infantile(P.548) but this certainly lies close to the Freudian position. This raises the question as to whether there exists a genuine adult desire for consolation in the face of the exigencies of life and its accompanying tragedies. Every human being is a “natural experiment” Freud maintains and the complexity of nature is:
“full of countless reasons that never enter experience”
Such a humbling fact may motivate us to intensify our search for explanations and justifications, whilst remaining stoically resigned to the limits of our knowledge. For such a philosophical position, not “everything is possible” as the new men believe to be the case. This stoical spirit does, however, appear to be a more positive state of mind than that of the men confessing his sins because he feels unworthy in the sight of God. For the stoic mentality this acknowledging of ones finitude in a mood of regret is part of a process which ought to lead to the telos of an attitude of resignation.
From a Freudian point of view the psychological process of confessing ones sins, if done in the right spirit, may well be cathartic, in that it brings to language and consciousness the fault which can then be more objectively evaluated by a sacred or moral law that are themselves categorically virtuous in the sense of embodying a value that is both good-in-itself, and good-in-its-consequences. The faithful Christian would not view the matter in quite this fashion, because, for them, the idea of God is the Logos, the beginning and end of all things: the source of sacred and holy law. Ricouer embodies this attitude of faith:
“I do not conceal my dissatisfaction with the Freudian interpretation of the reality principle. Freud’s scienticism prevented him from following to completion a certain path glimpsed in the Leonardo, even though this was the harshest book Freud wrote against religion.”(P.550)
There is a tendency for scholars to overlook the fact that the reality principle for Freud has probably three aspects corresponding to the three different regions of the sciences(theoretical, practical and productive). In the light of this consideration, Ricouers accusation of “scienticism” appears otiose, especially if we take Freud’s claim that he was a Kantian Psychologist seriously. Scienticism has yet to provide us with a viable Psychological theory and/or a viable ethical theory. It is difficult to fathom exactly what Ricouer means with this criticism of Freudian theory, but one form of scienticism is surely extremely materialistic and has difficulty accounting for the activity of life-forms without retreating into a form of dualism which flies in the face of the Greek idea of unity in continuity. Historically, reductionist science has been at a loss to explain the goods connected to these forms of life, without postulating a subjective-objective dichotomy which claims that knowledge is objective. The search for knowledge of oneself consequently, falls into the realm of subjectivity which cannot ultimately defend its unreliable claims. Such a world-view has problematic relations to explanations and justifications related to areté, diké, epistemé and eudaimonia. Scienticism, thus conceived, is not just anti-hylomorphic in its rejection of teleological explanations/justifications, but also construes Kantian critical Philosophy as “subjective”. Its arguments for this position are existential/ontological, but they inevitably involve an appeal to a scientific methodology that monitors the being of events, states and processes: an appeal that at its best provides us with universal generalisations that we can rely upon and are therefore valid. The methodology concerned divides wholes into parts, and seeks explanations in the form of mechanical-causal principles. Such a methodology does not allow us to conceive of a whole as an end-in-itself, but necessitates instead an atomic approach where parts and causes are the focus of attention : causes being logically different to their effects. This position rejects the claims made in Kant’s work, the Critique of Judgement, that we can conceive of a whole as an end-in-itself composed of parts and causes that are logically related(On the Kantian condition that we are dealing with organised beings).
Each form of explanation, Kant argues, excludes the other:
“Here we are ignorant how far the mechanical mode of explanation possible for us may penetrate. This much only is certain, that no matter what progress we may succeed in making with it, it must still remain inadequate for things that we have once recognised to be physical ends. Therefore, by the constitution of our understanding we must subordinate such mechanical grounds, one and all, to a teleological principle.”(p.73)
Kant elaborates upon this theme further in an appendix, in a way that gives us a clearer idea of the notion of “scienticism” used by Ricouer. Kant claims in this appendix that there is a method for applying the teleological judgement:
“Every science must have its definite position in the complete encyclopedia of the sciences. If it is a philosophical science its position must be assigned to it either in the theoretical division or the practical division. Further, if its place is in the theoretical division, the position assigned to it must either be in natural science–which is its proper position when it considers things capable of being objects of experience–consequently in physics proper, psychology, or cosmology, or else in theology–as the science of the original source of the world as complex of all objects of experience. Now the question arises: What position does teleology deserve? Is it a branch of natural science properly so-called or of theology? A branch of one or other it must be, for no science can belong to the transition from one to the other, because this signifies only the articulation or organisation of the system and not a position in it. That it does not form a constituent part of theology, although the use that may there be made of it is most important, is evident from the nature of the case. For its objects are physical generations and their cause, and although it points to the cause as a ground residing above and beyond nature, namely a Divine author, yet it does not do so for the determinant judgement. It only points to this cause in the interests of the reflective judgement engaged in surveying nature, its purpose being to guide our estimate of the things in the world by means of the idea of such a ground, as a regulative principle, in a manner adapted to our human understanding.”(Critique of teleological Judgement, P.75-6)
Whatever the complete definition of scienticism is, it presupposes we conflate the reflective form of judgement involved in the thinking about final causes or ends with that form of understanding in which analytic universals or conceptions move to the particulars of empirical intuition. The reflective idea of an end-in-itself, on the contrary, is an idea of a synthetic apriori universal that represents the whole as an end-in-itself(P.63). This idea, then connects the parts of the whole logically: a stronger connection than that of hypothetically connecting causes and effects or the hypothesising that the whole is an effect of “the concurrent dynamical forces of the parts”(P.63)
Teleology, on this account:
“is not a branch of doctrine at all, but only of critique, and of the critique of a particular cognitive faculty, namely judgement. But it does contain a priori principles, and to that extent it may, and in fact must, specify the method by which nature has to be judged according to the principle of final cause.”(P.76)
The above position is recognisably Aristotelian, but its relation to the Freudian account is not quite so obvious. One wonders in this context, whether Freud conceives of the personality as a whole caused by the dynamical unity of its parts or whether, like Kant, he conceives of the personality as an end-in-itself that is synthetically universal. Freud’s later work certainly speaks for the validity of the latter judgement, in which case he must also be committed to a hylomorphic account of final causes in which the telos of eudaimonia (the good spirited flourishing life) is the purpose of healthy human existence.
Kant elaborates upon this position in relation to culture:
“What now is the end in man, and the end which, as such, is intended to be promoted by means of his connection with nature? If this end is something which must be found in man himself, it must be either of such a kind that man himself may be satisfied by means of nature and its benificence, or else it is the aptitude and skill for all manner of ends for which he may employ nature both external and internal. The former end of nature would be the happiness of man, the latter his culture.”(P.93)
Kant then adds:
“the aptitude of a being in his freedom is culture.”_(P.94)
The above form of reasoning could well be the form of reasoning Freud would adopt as part of his argument for the elements involved in the formation of a strong stoical ego. that has the power to triumph over the ids wishful impulses and relate to its own lost objects. Freud, however, we know, does not specifically use this idea of reason Kant refers to as freedom because Freud does not directly engage with the problem of the dignity of man and he only begins to engage with political issues in 1929 in his work “Civilisation and its Discontents”. Freedom is certainly for Kant, a holistic end-in-itself, in an organism which causes itself to act in accordance with the various powers at its disposal. It is also, however, important to note in this context that each of these powers(e.g. sensibility, understanding, judgement, and reason) give rise to different types of mental activity. It ought also to be remembered that Freud’s psychoanalytical theory was philosophically, medically, and scientifically inspired, but the major focus was practical and related to the technical (techné) issue of mental health. Health, however, is a teleological concept and must therefore be regulated by teleological principles. Consciousness, we ought to recall, was not a major factor in early hypnotic therapy which aimed at a form of catharsis that did not involve being fully conscious.
The practical aim of the therapists´ interaction with a patient was both to diagnose the condition presented using theory, but then to treat the condition, using both theory and teleological principles. One of the reasons for the discarding of hypnosis as a form of therapy was its failure to transform earlier experiences into cognitive memories that could in time be recalled with diminished impulsive power or anxiety. One of the criticisms of the time, was that hypnosis appeared to treat the symptom, but not the underlying cause. It turned out that in therapy, a patient needed to be fully conscious of the proceedings in order for the effects of the therapy to occur. The accusation of “scientism” levelled at Freud may have been motivated in relation to his earlier work in which he was speculating about the role of neuronal systems, but we know that Freud deliberately burned the work containing these speculations probably because it contained the type of explanation that had limited merit in the realm of teleology and final and formal causes.
Practical Reason is, for Kant, essentially connected to Action which is freely chosen, and for which the agent can be held responsible( be praised or blamed for–Aristotle). Action must involve epistemé of different kinds, depending on whether we are adopting a first person or third person perspective. First-person action relies on non-observational knowledge that belongs to the Freudian system of preconsciousness. For Freud, the preconscious mind was a power of mind that relates to meaning, and this fact removes this realm of mental activity from the perceptual function of observation so important to science (that concerns itself with the causal ordering of physical events in the spatio-temporal continuum). Meaning, however, would appear to require a method tied to a world-view which conceives of the world of action as a dynamic organised whole, rather than as a totality of atomic facts. Instrumental action is that form of action which relates means to ends, and chooses the most appropriate means to a particular end. This requires the operation of the reality principle and a high functioning ego. The question remains however, whether human action in its first person form. can be construed as an event.
O Shaugnhessy(OS) clarifies the distinction between an event and an action:
“If action were no more than an event in the physical world: a mere phenomenon in physical nature such as the fall of rain or the dilation of an artery, something altogether “in itself” and undirected, whose relation to the rest of the world was purely physicalistic, then perception would play no essential role as a stage setter and objet giver, and we would not think of action, as something with meaning.”(The Will Vol 2 P.18)
OS then points out that observation is directed by an interrogative state of mind that simply is not relevant in contexts where the issue is to attain a goal or a final end that is not present in the situation, e.g. picking an orange. In such a case, the knowledge of what is wanted is guiding the whole process, and thus the interrogative state of mind is irrelevant. indeed it is rather an Imperative state of mind that insists we pick the orange. OS elaborates upon this issue by pointing out the important role of intention in such a scenario, where the region of the world we are concerned with is formed into a dynamic hodological environment that is so much more than a bare spatio-temporal continuum containing events that occur independently of my will. Indeed, OS claims that were we to adopt an interrogative state of mind and begin to relate observationally to an action in progress, the holistic unity of the action would dissipate, and the action would grind to a halt–in other words, the action would lose its meaning. The will forms the world around it in accordance with its practical knowledge which in turn includes the image I have of my own body, which tells me at each instant the relative position of all my body parts, including the hand and arm I will use to pick the orange. In such a context, perception is used as a stage setter which creates the condition of the possibility of the particular action I am about to perform or have begun to perform. OS suggests that this attitude is related to the orange imperatively—“Pick me!” the orange seems to be saying in an instrumentally dynamically structured world in which actions are conceptually related to their stage setting. In this situation the roles of will, desire, intention and belief are apparent, and all will be part of the explanation relating to what was occurring and why. The intention, of course, is an important part of this explanation/justification which also makes use of practical reasoning. The agent, in this situation, obviously uses their freedom to choose to pick the orange rather than not. OS characterises the unity of this situation as the unity of “my world” in contrast to ” the world”, which OS characterises as a totality of objects and events that require exploration/discovery in an interrogative frame of mind. Practical reason, OS argues, breaks down in this situation to a conjunction of desire and belief, i.e. the agent must desire X and furthermore believe that his activity will bring about the existence of X(the orange picked). OS elaborates upon this chain of thought by introducing the idea of trying:
“trying seems almost certain to be a true sui generis element of animal psychological life.”(P.55)
OS then investigates a class of acts which he characterises as sub-intentional because it is sometimes maintained that reason plays no role in such acts, Sub-intentional acts are to be found in all animal forms of life capable of purposive behaviour (manifestly expressed, for example, in the activities of pursuit or flight). Usually, OS argues, one discovers that such a sub-intentional act is occurring, i.e. one notices, it is claimed that such an act-event for which one is responsible is happening, e.g. the movement of my tongue in my mouth. Here the discovery process involves more than mere noticing, because it knows that this something I am doing is my doing, my responsibility—one knows that this is an act-event I am executing. Awareness of the position of my tongue is obviously an important part of the process of talking, i.e. using language involves making certain phonetic sounds appropriate to express my meanings. The sub-intentional act, OS maintains, is not connected in any way to the faculty of reason. What we are dealing with here is feeling-based knowledge which, OS argues, is:
“not under any description, intentional.” (P.62)
In Freudian terms, the reason that no description can be evoked is connected to the absence of this primitive part of the feeling system with “word-presentations”. OS wants to categorise sub-intentional actions such as the “moving of my tongue” as “zero-level intentions”, which appear not to involve the activity of the higher centres of the brain. Pursuit and flight, we know, are life-death instincts par excellence, and these are located in the limbic system of the mid-brain close to the region where short term memories are transmitted to the higher centres of the brain as part of the process of forming long-term memories. Sounds may be associated with life-death activity (flight or fight) but these sounds are not phonetic and leave little room for the interpretation of their “meanings”. Such sounds, using the term coined by OS may well qualify for characterisation as “zero-level” expression. The principles involved in the production of such primitive sounds are firstly, the energy regulation principle which aims at a state of homeostasis whilst retaining a small amount f energy for the special actions such as fight and flight, and secondly, the pleasure-pain principle which regulates the feelings associated with both the existence and the more primitive qualities of the animals life. Action, that is to say, interacts with both our energy and feeling systems, but insofar as such action is intentional, there is a telos that is mostly directed by the Freudian Reality Principle which determines both what is done and what ought to be done. Clearly, it is the case that intention occurs at different levels but OS insists that sub-intentional activity such as tapping ones foot to the music one hears, is nevertheless an act because it is clear that behind this act is an impulse striving to do something which falls into the lower realms of a region of the mind OS designates as “psychological”. There are also higher-order acts which require the presence of consciousness if they are to begin, end , or be monitored for mistakes. Such higher order acts call upon reasoning when choice between different action alternatives are made. It is clear for OS that there is a form of kinship between all these forms of activity but there does seem to be a difference between the lower-level foot-tapping activity and firstly, the higher forms of instrumental means ends activity and secondly, categorical ethical law forms of activity. At the zero-level of activity that is not conscious, we find tongue movement, and perhaps dream activity that occurs during sleep (and is never brought into consciousness because of its placement in the waking cycle). We know Freud found dream-activity particularly interesting in his investigation into motivation in general and wish-fulfilment and anxiety in particular. For OS the foot-tapping activity is clearly manifesting the will moving in a certain direction–“an immediate active event-effect of the desire to act.”(The Will, P.115) Indeed OS uses an image drawn from the hylomorphic realm of psuché when he claims that the striving or tryings of the will involved in doing X, are buds on the tree of desire that will, in the appropriate circumstances, to become the full flower of X. Historically, speculations on the concept of the will have suffered from the obsessions of both materialists and dualists, who have attempted to characterise its essentially psychological character in opposite and incompatible ways. Both Freud and OS, in different ways, rely on both hylomorphic and Kantian assumptions, in order to define the realm of the psychological, differentiating it from the realm of the non-psychological matter of the brain and the supra-psychological realm of the mental. OS, in the context of this discussion, claims that there is only one necessary physical requirement for the form of life we call animal, and that is the organ of the brain–the organ of consciousness.(P.134). The complex functioning of the organ of the brain, of course, presupposes the functioning of other organs that form part of the human psuché system of organ-limb-tissue. The form of life that naturally follows from the holistic functioning of such a system, serves the needs of the tree of desire and provides us with an epistemologically based belief system that is so important to the constitution of the human form of self-consciousness. The complexity of this self-conscious form of life stretches from the instincts and their psychical representatives to the zero-level functioning of the category of the “psychological”, and to the higher category of the mental that is associated with the higher cultural activities of the hylomorphic “rational animal capable of discourse”. It was the complexity of this form of self-consciousness that Greek Philosophy, Kantian Critical Philosophy, Freud, and OS sought to describe and explain as part of the answer to the Delphic oracles challenge to “know thyself”.
Action is the key concept for OS who believes that the physical fact of action has the ontological status that he terms “psychological”. He points out that certain actions take place in the world, e.g. the chopping down of a tree and certain other kinds of action occur in the metaphorical realm of the mental, e.g. trying to remember someones name. The description “trying to remember the name of P” has an authority and certainty attached to it that cannot be challenged by a third party relying on observation, OS claims. OS is attempting to construct a map of the realm of the psychological/mental which testifies to the complexity of these regions of psuché. A map which, moreover, provides us with a guide in the journey involved in the understanding of Aristotelian, Kantian and Freudian reflections on the human form of life. The Freudian contribution to this task of knowing thyself testifies to the ontological characteristic of intentionality in the phenomena of dreams, mental images, rememberings, forgettings, desires and thoughts, a characteristic shared with both physical and mental action. The Freudian account may have difficulty situating the sensation of pain in its system, but OS clearly believes that pain is a psychological event which does not possess the characteristic of intentionality. He does not comment on the relation of pain to the zero-level of expressive psychological function but this is an interesting possibility given the Wittgensteinian claim that the sensation of pain is not something, but is not nothing either. In terms of the concept of psuché, this zero level of expressivity might be one necessary property differentiating the animal form of psuché from the plant-form. Plants do not have brains or anything resembling the human organ-limb-tissue-nerve system, and as a consequence cannot experience sensations even if they possess the power of responding to events that threaten their structure with destruction . Plants too, in Spinoza’s words strive to maintain themselves in a living, non-conscious form of existence and they too are capable of passing their structures onto coming generations of plants. Maintaining an animal form of life in existence is obviously a more complex affair, given the role that consciousness plays in the relation of the animal to its world. Animal psuché has a more organised molecular structure that is different but related to that which we find in the plant form of psuché. As Gerald Edelman in his work “Bright air, Brilliant Fire”pointed out, even living matter such as the brain is constituted of the elements, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulphur, phosphate and a few trace metals and it is the organisation of these elements that enable the construction of one of the most complex objects in the universe. One primitive function of the brain is to primitively “feel” sensations such as pain and this feeling entails a conscious awareness of the painful quality of this sensation which is a different but related sensation to that other primitive feeling of touch. As we ascend higher in the hierarchy of psychological functioning we encounter desires, dreams, thought imagination, belief understanding etc all of which are “intentional”. The project of “knowing thyself” is also an important power that connects to theoretical , practical and productive reasoning, and also to the Kantian Transcendental unity of Apperception of the “I think”. We can even think about objects such as ones own death which we have never experienced and formulate theories of the significance of death for human life. OS compares the thought of death with the event of forgetting which, he argues:
“might occur in a man in the deepest depths of unconsciousness, such as obtain in refrigeration or deep coma.”(P.165)
Death might also occur under such conditions, and this kind of idea also connects naturally up to other transcendent ideas such as God: this latter idea poses questions which cannot easily be answered, e.g. whether, if God is eternal and alive, then he cannot obviously die (questions relating to what kind of substance he is). Spinoza claimed that we know of Substance under two infinite aspects, namely thought and extension. Perhaps at some stage of the development of humanity we may come to a full understanding of the nature of extension but if Aristotle and Kant are to be taken seriously on this issue, our finitude will always prevent us from fully understanding the infinite nature of God’s thought which presumably is related differently to the idea of death than is the case with human finite thought. It seems, that is, that Gods understanding does not function as does ours, categorically, but rather takes the form of timeless intuitions. Aristotle characterises God as Pure Form which has no relation to matter, and OS points out that this is also the case with all mental states and powers. We ought to bear in mind in this context that the psychological and the mental are two distinct categorical states of mind, the latter of which has no physical characteristics. This obviously reminds one of Socrates and Plato who believed that there was an aspect of noos that was divine, indeed Plato believed that it was noos that best grasped the forms. Certainly, insofar as the category of the psychological is concerned, sensation can both be the form that consciousness takes but it can also be the matter to be subsumed under other forms such as the concept of pain or the word “pain” which the child is taught to use to mitigate its feeling of pain. OS poses the question of whether there is some analogue of matter inherent in our mental states or powers which could be conceived of as “mind-stuff”. In the case of the matter of a golden globe we can take a hammer to the globe and beat it into a flat shape, thereby fashioning a golden plate—the “stuff” has been reformed without essentially destroying or affecting the “matter”. There does not, however, appear to be any such test for the existence of the matter of mind. William James, we know rejected this concept of “mind-stuff” in relation to consciousness, which he ended up regarding as a pure function.
The conscious or psychological power of attention is directed to objects in a way different to the function of the mental repertoire of powers, and this power of attention is, therefore more at home in human contexts of exploration/discovery than in the more abstract sphere of the contexts of explanation/justification. The sense of “explain” also shifts in relation to these categorical domains of the mind. A sound (material object), for example, may well be explained after the successful search for the source. This is, however a material/efficient explanation where the cause explains the effect. In this kind of explanation we are concerned with an event that “happens” rather than something we know we are doing or have done. The question “What was that sound?” results typically in a sensory exploration in which the mood is interrogative. If it turns out that the sound was of a car crashing there may well be a further exploration to ascertain a different type of fact, namely, who was responsible for the car crash: here we venture into realm of psuché and areté and formal and final causation. This type of investigation may well require a court verdict to arrive at the answer to the question of responsibility. This is reminiscent of the Aristotelian claim that human rationality is never satisfied with the fact that is an answer to the “What” question, but always continues to demand the answer to the higher level epistemological question of “Why”(Why did the cars crash?) Here the question is answered by giving the reason for the crash, and that will undoubtedly include reference to principles(arché) whether they be principles or laws relating to areté and diké or more technical principles or laws(techné).
OS points out that not all vital events possess the teleological structure of intentionality. Bacteria, for example, do not act to infect us: the bacteria event just happens when the appropriate circumstances for infection supervene. Similarly, when cell antibodies destroy bacteria, the event does not have an intentional structure. Such events therefore do not fall into the category of the psychological. They are purely physical events expressing themselves at the expressive zero-level of vitality, and questions as to why what happens, happens, do not have the same weight as they do in human or animal action contexts. What is being pointed to here is the continuity of the physical, vital, psychological and mental realms. There are both kinships and significant differences between the elements of this continuum which form an ontological ladder where the mental level is required for answering many of the “Why” questions raised by our intuitions. The Aristotelian essence- specifying definition of the human form of life, namely, “rational animal capable of discourse” is both a reminder that we are animals and can be both the best of the animals and the worst of the animals. It is also a reminder that we are rational and psychological beings possessing the form of self-consciousness. OS focuses his account of this ontological ladder on the lower level psychological quartet of perception, belief, desire and act.
Both Locke and Spinoza pointed out that in their era we possessed inadequate ideas of the domain of psuché and psychologicality. OS aims to rectify the obstacles in the way of knowing thyself by situating different acts at different levels of the psychological and the mental. He situates different kinds of acts at different levels thereby creating the categorical conditions required for theorising about action. He argues in this context that it is the mark of the mental category to be connected to intentionality as well as the belief and concept system; sub-intentional tongue movings are not intentional and do not belong to this category of psuché. They are not, however, merely physical events that just happen to us because they belong to the class of things that we can become aware we are “doing”. OS further attempts to define the concept of the will. He claims on P.273 of volume 2, that the will is neither a phenomenon of consciousness nor a cognitive phenomenon but connects to the the non observational kind of awareness that we have of its activity. Underlying these speculations there is an idea of “The Good” which Aristotle claims underlies all human activities. This good is a part of both instrumental/hypothetical forms of action that are focussing on choosing the most appropriate means to an end (consequence) we desire, and categorical forms of action that are focused on the Socratic aspects of the good-in-its consequences and the good-in-itself. Both of these forms of action are also civilisation-building activities with the former constituting the instrumental structure of the the artifactual world, and the latter constituting the idea of justice (diké) involved in law governed social interactions where praise and blame is related to the worth and dignity of the individual. Desire is an important element involved in both forms of action and lies at the origin of the actions that are voluntarily chosen. Causality is an important issue in this account, and the form of causality manifested in the above two forms of action is mental in that no non-mental events are involved in the chain of events that occur. The agent is, therefore, immediately(though non observationally) aware of the events in these chains. The case of learning a skill such as making an item of furniture or building a house obviously require an explorative observational form of consciousness to constitute the chain of events necessary to produce what we desire. This is necessary to form the long term memories that are a necessary part of the skills we are learning. This, in turn, “enables” the subsequent non-observational mode of awareness that knowledge-based action manifests. Such actions can obviously begin with a conscious observationally based activity such as searching for the tool to do the work, and, if nothing goes wrong, consciousness returns to the task perhaps at that point where I have done what I set out to do or decide to stop for the day.
OS does, however theoretically subscribe to a Cartesian account of Consciousness and agrees with the conclusion of the Cogito argument that it is via my conscious awareness that I become aware of my present existence. He would also seem to agree with Merleau-Ponty when he claims that this Cartesian form of awareness is more “psychological” than that form of awareness that is connected to our faculties of judgement and understanding. Yet OS also presents us with an idea of desire that Aristotle, Spinoza, and Freud would be comfortable with. Connected to this idea is the ideas of the human organism striving, firstly, to preserve itself in existence instinctively and secondly the desire for a quality of life that Hobbes described as “commodious living”. This latter striving after the quality of life described by Hobbes, was for the Greeks fraught with danger because it contains the conditions for sowing the seeds of our own destruction. Uncontrolled desire for both the Greeks and Freud is, in the end, or long run, undesirable. The Greeks pictured such a state of affairs by referring to a monster with a thousand heads that increase in number with each unnecessary desire that arises.The Greek idea of areté(doing the right thing in the right way at the right time) embedded in those cognitive faculties steered by reason serves diké(justice) and this, for Aristotle, has the telos of eudaimonia(leading the good spirited flourishing life). For Freud this practical realm is best ruled by the Reality Principle(Arché) which in turn functions in accordance with reason and the Aristotelian principle of the Golden Mean.
For the Greeks, the good spirited flourishing life of the individual is best achieved if justice is writ large in the community or city that is regulated by good laws. Such communal life was necessary for the human form of life which for Aristotle was necessarily social. Only Gods or beasts can live a life of splendid isolation as individuals. The tyrant who usurped power in the community was a symbol for Plato and Aristotle of the ruin and destruction predicted by the oracles. The tyrant is not merely motivated by unnecessary desires but also by unlawful desires and the fate of the community lies in the hands of those that have power over the laws. Freud would have been more interested in the psychology of the tyrant and narcissism and the death instinct would have been two of the concepts he would have appealed to in order to describe and explain this human monster.
For the Greeks, freedom was an issue because everyone knew the problems that occur when a tyrant rules. Kant also recognised this problem when he maintained that the wills of the powerful need to be good if the city/nation was to flourish and individuals be worthy of happiness . It was the Socrates of the Republic who argued that the city relied upon the passing of good, just, laws if it was to flourish, and this required knowledge of the good which included an awareness of the relation of the past to the future. We know Freudian therapy concentrated mostly on the past childhood of the patient in order to identify those potent forces dragging the patient toward ruin and destruction. In this context the focus will certainly be on unnecessary desires, but unlawful desires might also be discussed. The journey in time that Freud requires the patient to make, also rests on the knowledge of the good and the awareness of the relation of the past to the future. Freud, we have argued, in fact uses knowledge from disciplines of all the three realms of knowledge, namely theoretical science, practical science, and productive science.Memory is obviously an important power that the patient needs to both use and form in order to facilitate a journey into the future that needs to be formed by the will and its intentional projects. Memory, we know from the discussions of this power by analytical philosophers, is importantly connected to the identity of the individual: Napoleon would not be Napoleon, it is argued, unless Napoleon had Napoleon’s memories. We know, from experience, that there are patients in mental hospitals who believe falsely that they are Napoleon. These patients are institutionalised as a protective measure for both themselves and the people around them, because their will/intention driven life-projects often lead to ruin and destruction. Freudian therapy attempts therefore to mobilise both the power of the will and memory in order to find a “cure” for their various maladies. Understanding, Judgement and Reason are also nurtured in this process. It is worth noticing in the context of this discussion that Freud was noted for a revolution in the treatment of serious mental disorders because his method of the “talking cure” provided some patients with the possibility of avoiding institutionalisation. The treatments available in such mental hospitals were certainly not always based on “science” in the wider meaning of this term. Freud’s so called moral treatment in a more friendly environment was certainly Kantian to its core.
Freud attempted to “map” the various powers of the human psuché in his work “The Interpretation of Dreams”. He produced a diagram in which perception, memory, and motility are related to the various levels of consciousness and to each other. In Volume Two of the work “The World Explored, the World Suffered: A Philosophical History of Psychology, Cognition Emotion, Consciousness and Action( Lambert Academic Press, Mauritius, 2020) by James, M.,R.,D, the following comment on the Freudian diagram is given:
“In Chapter 7 of his work “The Interpretation of Dreams”, Freud provides a diagram of the psychical apparatus with memory close to the perceptual end of the apparatus and the preconscious system close to the opposite motor end of the apparatus. Just behind the preconscious system Freud places the unconscious system. The diagram seems incomplete. Where, for example should we place the Kantian faculties of the understanding and Reason? Since perception is the bearer of consciousness perhaps the Kantian faculties should be placed between perception and memory? Language also needs to be placed somewhere on the continuum of this apparatus. Since meanings of words are located in the preconscious system perhaps language belongs in the preconscious system which we should recall is the faculty of thought-reality for Freud and also turns unpleasure or pin away from its activity.”(P.133)
The key element of the above diagram of the psychic apparatus is clearly, for Freud’s purposes, the unconscious system that contains the instincts and the life-force needed for the actualising of the potential of mankind. One of the major tasks of the psychic apparatus as a whole is to develop a strong ego and this is connected to the Freudian task of “becoming conscious”. Being conscious is of course one of the stages on lies journey towards the terminus of “The Rational”(Aristotle)— a power that controls desires, anxieties and other capacities such as understanding and judgement. For Freud, practical wisdom was manifested in the stoical submission of the individual to his fate and the subsequent learning to live in a state of discontentment with civilisation: this mood of discontentment of course cast a shadow over all his cultural work and made him wonder whether all the effort was worth the result. There is not much discussion of this aspect of Freud’s work in the work of OS, and this in turn may be connected to a general reluctance to enter into a discussion about the metaphysics of hylomorphism or Kantian critical theory, which as a matter of fact supports much of OS’s position. Whether this is sufficient to insist that OS’s thought accepts and elaborates upon these metaphysical positions is an open question.
Freud and Philosophy: A Hylomorphic and Kantian reevaluation: Chapter I
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Aristotelian Hylomorphism embraces principles that relate to both instrumental reasoning and categorical reasoning: the latter being that form of reason which focuses upon the valuable ends of action. In Ancient Greece even interlocutors such as Glaucon(Plato’s brother) appreciated the very subtle distinction between something that was good in its consequences and something that was good-in-itself, and the seemingly impossible demand that both areté and diké ought to possess both of these characteristics. The term psuché was of course also important for Aristotle, because it tied the individual to his polis in an organic way via the demand for creating and sustaining the good spirited flourishing life which was both a consequence and an end of the actualisation of human rationality. In such a life-world, according to Aristotle, three different kinds of forms were transmitted down the chain of the generations of the polis, namely, the sexual reproduction of the next generation, the artifactual forms that are transmitted in the creation of all the accoutrements of civilisation and the epistemological/metaphysical transmission of the knowledge forms that are passed from teacher to student in the course of education.
“Modern” Philosophy begins with Descartes and Hobbes in an era in which hylomorphic Philosophy was waning in influence. Dualism, having once been neutralised by Aristotle, was on the rise again and found champions in Descartes and Hobbes. Hannah Arendt points to this phase and dubs it the beginning of the “modern era”: an era in which a number of “new men” mastered the art of political and economical instrumental action to such an extent that they thought that literally “everything was possible”, whilst for the masses of people the collapse of traditional authority meant the collapse of their world and for them who remain focused on the arena of categorical thought and action, nothing seemed possible any longer. These “new men” were “technological animals” who substituted techné for the waning values of epistemé, areté, diké, and arché, and who cared not for laws or the Enlightenment idea of Freedom.
This image of Arendt reminds one of the pathological conditions of manic-depression in which aggressive forces can be released in both phases of this mental disorder. Socrates in the Republic, in search of those things that were both good in themselves and good in their consequences, turned from the individual to the polis in order to more clearly see the form of justice. This bipolar condition may not have been diagnosed in the Ancient Greece of Socrates, but the combination of manic-depressive characteristics was perhaps becoming more noticeable by the time of Kant who described civic life as being “Melancholically haphazard”. The manic new men and the melancholic masses of the modern era were beginning to make their presence felt in spite of the institutionalisation of Philosophy in the Universities. Shortly after Kant’s death, Napoleon’s troops were standing by his grave, reading what for them must have been a puzzling inscription. These new colonisers of the world probably would not have been in awe and wonder at the starry sky above and certainly did not give a fig for the moral law within. This would not be the first nor the last attempt to “globalise” the world by military means. We know Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo but we also know that Kant’s Enlightenment Philosophy was overturned almost immediately by Hegel, who believed more in the “new men” and the March of Spirit than the continual slow progress of the journey toward a cosmopolitan kingdom of ends where rationality would reign over the affairs of men. Kantian Philosophy would have to be overturned if authority was to be disenfranchised and the masses manipulated by the “new men” who once again attempted to globalise the world with military might in the second world war. Ironically it would be the USA, Freud’s object of contempt, that would save the day and allow democracies to survive to fight another day. Unfortunately the USA needed the help of another totalitarian regime, namely the Soviet Union(the second object of Freud’s contempt), who, in their turn would threaten the democracies of Europe with ruin and destruction. Unfortunately, the USA was also tainted by the brush of populism and the worship of techné, and engaged in two of the most destructive acts of warfare in history when during the second world war, they dropped atomic bombs on civilian populations. The “new men” of techné played no small role in what Arendt called “this terrible century”. Freudian skepticism and foreboding in 1929(Civilisation and its Discontents), with respect to these two emerging super-powers was certainly justified, eve if at the time it must have seemed a strange position.
Hannah Arendt, in her work “The Origins of Totalitarianism” rang the bell of sanity in a largely manic depressive bipolar environment:
“Two world wars in one generation, separated by an uninterrupted chain of local wars. and revolution, followed by no peace treaty for the vanquished and no respite for the victor have ended in an anticipation of a third world war between the two remaining powers. This moment of anticipation is like the calm that settles after all hopes have died. We no longer hope for a potential restoration of the old world order with all its traditions or for the reintegration of the masses of five continents who have been thrown into chaos produced by the violence of wars and revolutions and the growing decay of all that has still been spared. Under the most diverse conditions and desperate circumstances, we watch the development of the same phenomena—-homelessness on an unprecedented scale, rootlessness to an unprecedented depth. Never has our future been more unpredictable, never have we depended so much on political forces that cannot be trusted to follow the rules of common sense and self interest–forces that look like sheer insanity. It is as though mankind had divided itself between those who believe in human omnipotence(who thinks everything is possible if we know how to organise the masses for it), and those for whom powerlessness has become the major experience of their lives.”(Preface VII, New York, Harvest Books, 1951)
These are substantial criticisms of both the modern era and the modern world(which Arendt argued began with the dropping of the atomic bombs), which 70 + years after their utterance still ring true and seriously challenge the Enlightenment position of Kant in which one of the major issues of Philosophy was condensed into the question “What can we hope for?” Arendt is here using a description of the manic-depressive state of this modern era and modern world(what we have in an earlier work called “The Age of Discontentment”) that can be related to the Ancient Greek oracles prophecy concerning the ruin and destruction of mankind. The Ancient Greek oracles certainly did not believe that humans were suited to manage the powers unleashed by Eros and Thanatos in the Freudian arena of their battle. In this battle neither the laws of Nature nor the laws of History at first appeared to be on our side. The Ancient Greeks held an ideal legislator/philosopher up before their eyes’: the Phronomos(the great souled man). Such an ideal was not possible in the modern era because only hope could could bear the presence of the idea and the absence of its possibility. Manic human omnipotence had succeeded in removing the hope we once possessed that Eros would find a place for the human whilst engaging in battle with Thanatos. Arendt’s words are the words of an Ego expressing a reality principle- response to a psychotic pleasure-pain principle position in which the death instinct/drive has colonised a portion of the territory of Eros.
The behaviour of the “new men” in this “new world” they have created, requires a form of explanation that, given the paucity of our modern political science terminology, demands a reversal of the procedure adopted by Socrates in the Republic. Socrates, we know recommended moving away from reviewing justice in its role of harmonising the parts of the soul to the search for how justice is writ large in harmonising the activities of the parts of the polis. Totalitarianism, i.e., is connected to a number of descriptive terms such as authoritarianism, dictator, tyrant, which are value-laden terms suggestive of the moral dimension of political activity, but do not address this dimension directly. Returning to the theorising of Freud, therefore, may assist us in the attempt to explain our modern predicament.
Paul Ricoeur, in his work, “Freud and Philosophy: an Essay in Interpretation”, summarised this moral dimension very succinctly:
“How is it, Freud asks, that the superego manifests itself essentially as a sense of guilt and develops such extraordinary cruelty towards the ego to the extent of becoming “as cruel as only the id can be”? The case of melancholia leads us to think that the superego has taken possession of all the available sadism, that the destructive component has intrenched itself in the superego and turned against the ego: “What is now holding sway in the superego is, as it were, a pure culture of the death instinct…Caught between a murderous id and a tyrannical and punishing conscience, the ego appears to have no recourse other than self torment or the torturing of others by diverting its aggressiveness toward them.”( P.299)
Kant’s diagnosis of the everyday life of his times as “melancholically haphazard” describes the masses, who, by this time, were losing all hope for the future. The haphazard manic manipulation of the masses that followed was in the spirit narcissism: a solipsistic hope for an individually based happiness that results from an instrumental view of activity in the life-world of the polis (a view focussed solely on the “good-in-its-consequences”). The Kantian careful evaluation of the importance of forming categorically appropriate ends that takes into consideration both the good in its consequences and the good in itself, does not unfortunately resonate with these melancholically haphazard beings who have rejected the social traditions and political practices of the past.
Arendt, as part of her analysis of our contemporary condition, sketched three types of activity (vita activa), related to our life-worlds: the cyclical repetitive but organic activity of labour, the instrumental activity of work, and the political activity of action that is designed to create something new and original. The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy characterises these forms of activity in the following way:
“Labour is judged by its ability to sustain life, to cater to our biological needs of consumption and reproduction, work is judged by its ability to build and maintain a world fit for human use, and action is judged by its ability to disclose the identity of the agent, to reaffirm the reality of the world, and to actualise our capacity for freedom (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/arendt/#AreThe Act
Action, for Arendt, then, brings about something new, something unique in this world. This, of course, is the result of the focus on action as something particular, rather than as the universal category Aristotle and Kant focussed upon: namely action as a universal steered by principles such as areté, diké, epistemé, etc, or the categorical imperative. The idea of freedom is also a universal idea of reason connected to logical principles of noncontradiction and sufficient reason: an idea that relates directly to the will and its maxims. Consider the Kantian example of the shopkeeper who considers acting according to the maxim of overcharging children and strangers who make purchases in his shop. He considers this course of action because it will contribute significantly to the profitability of his business and thereby his particular individual happiness. Kant describes the principle appealed to here, the principle of self-love. What we are encountering here, is an unjustified narcissism in that favoured sphere of human activity of the “new men”, namely economics and business. This is obviously neither in accordance with areté, diké or epistemé. The one-sided focus upon good consequences for oneself is in strict conflict with the demand of Glaucon that diké provide us with both what is good in itself and good in its consequences. The principle the shopkeeper ought to embrace in the name of Glaucon’s demand is best characterised by the various formulations of the categorical imperative. He ought, that is, adopt the maxim of not overcharging anyone, and thereby treat everybody as ends in themselves(which is both good in itself and good in its consequences). In other words, according to Kant, the shopkeeper has a moral duty not to overcharge anyone, even if is in the short term interests of his business. Of course, he could do his duty for 10 years and then suddenly decide to do something new and overcharge his customers, and it is not clear whether this is what is meant by Arendt with her term “action”. Such a decision, however, abandons the good in itself aspect of moral action, and uses only an instrumental calculative form of reasoning designed for particular actions in particular circumstances. Here there is a very limited use of the principle of sufficient reason which assumes and indeed embraces the principle of self-love as the goal as well as the best means to achieve this goal (without any further evaluation of the goal, whether that is, it is in fact in the long term interests of the agent whose happiness is being considered). We ought also to point out in the context of this discussion, that the universality of the categorical imperative and its desire to treat everyone as ends in themselves is a law which applies to all communities everywhere: communities that are striving to sustain and maintain themselves in existence. The moral law also answers the Kantian questions “What ought I to do?” and “What can I hope for?” The answer to a third Kantian question, namely, “What can I know?”, is also implied. In the context of this discussion we should recall Socrates’ argument in the Republic that lawmakers cannot form the maxim to legislate only in their own interest simply because passing laws requires knowledge, and if these lawmakers did not have knowledge of justice and what is right they would not know how to pass laws that are only in their own interests. This would seem to imply that at least insofar as civic goods are concerned, epistemé or knowledge is a part of the necessary and sufficient conditions of bringing them about.
The image and ideal of the free man, for whom the practically rational idea of freedom is a key part of his humanity, is a manifestation of an answer to the 4th Kantian question posed in his work entitled “Anthropology from a pragmatic point of view”, namely “What is man?”. Man without hope is indeed at least as depressing an idea as the idea of man without freedom. With this in mind, if we return to Arendt´s existentialist characterisation of “the modern world” (to be distinguished from the “Modern era” which began with Descartes) which she claims began with the use of atomic bombs on civilian populations. The loss of hope that results from events such as these involves of course the loss of freedom to think about and choose possible courses of action. Such losses are, also, a recipe for a general feeling of melancholia or depression . Dropping atomic bombs on civilian populations even given that these “actions” occurred in the context of a war was a manic act if ever there was one, and these two considerations may suffice to characterise our modern world as “bipolar”.
The Categorical Imperative or moral law inherited the value system of Platonic and Aristotelian Philosophy in which the form of the Good which is both good in itself and good in its consequences, occupied a central position. Freud, we know, refrained from directly referring to the idea of “The Good”. Melanie Klein (one of Freud’s followers), however, in her modification of Freudian theory, in which identification with the mother occurred much earlier than in Freudian theory, refers to the internalisation of “The Good Mother” and “The Bad Mother” (as a part of what she referred to as the paranoid-schizoid position). In this position, the mothers breast is obviously a part object( the good breast, the bad breast) which is being related to in the first year(s) of life. Freud, we know, prefers more technical language to make fundamentally the same points as many of his followers and we need to point out in the context of the above discussion, that he was not overly concerned to form a detailed clinical picture (based on observations) of early childhood. This task was left to his daughter Anna Freud and Melanie Klein who both engaged in these studies against the background of different theoretical models which incidentally was a source of rivalry between them. Anna Freud’s theories differed from Klein’s in that the latter was concerned to chart the irruption of id impulses in the life of infants and children. Anna Freud, in contrast, was more concerned to chart the defence mechanisms of the Ego and felt that children, being dependent upon their parents, could not develop a transference reaction with their therapist. Observational studies of children played an important role in both Anna Freud ‘s and Melanie Klein’s theories. It ought to be pointed out here that the attempted application of psychoanalytical theory to children had the potential to fundamentally demolish Freud’s theory, but that of course did not happen, and instead such application served to confirm the validity of the theory. Even British observers such as Ernest Jones at the time of the rivalry between Anna Freud and Klein realised that what was at issue here was a difference in degree, rather than a difference in kind, between the two theories, even if the two parties at times may have had another view of the matter.
Melanie Klein’s contribution to psychoanalysis involved the postulation of “positions” in which certain types of phenomena occur in accordance with principles (arché). The paranoid-shizoid position and the depressive position were “categories” that were used to organise both observations and diagnoses. The former position designates a more primitive form of mental development and capacity than the latter. Relations to objects in the paranoid-schizoid position are not characteristically strong ego-positions. The resolution of the depressive position which is engaged in a process of mourning for the lost good object is a passive state which is coupled to an active state in which there is a search for the good object .
Adrian Stokes, a Kleinian art commentator, in an essay entitled “Michelangelo” reflects upon one vicissitude of the instincts, namely sublimation, and he notes that, involved in the operation of this defence mechanism, is a striving after the creation of good external objects. This is to be contrasted with someone occupying the depressive position where the mourning process can degenerate into a destructive state of melancholia.
Freud’s account of the death instinct in infants is an account that does not believe the ego to be sufficiently mature to mobilise complex defence mechanisms. Klein disagrees with this. Her account regards the death instinct as a psychological and not merely a biological force. Her evidence for this is the power of the infant to relate to part objects such as the good and the bad breast. The Ego, on this theory, is split or schizoid, and projects both the death and life instincts outwards. In such a position there is a tendency to idealise objects excessively. Failure to find a good object and form a relation to it results in persecution anxiety and a fear of annihilation. If an ideal object is formed it is identified with and becomes integrated into the core of the ego and the superego. One of the key contributions of Kleins theory to psychoanalysis, in relation to the core of the personality, is the charting of a distinction between the jealousy we encounter in the Oedipal complex (which Klein associates with her “depressive position”) and the more primitive condition of envy, that is paradigmatically connected to the earlier paranoid-shizoid position. Envy, Klein argues, unlike jealousy, is associated with the destruction of the object that is the focus of the envy. In envy, persecutory anxiety forms the nucleus of a schizoid personality. Narcissism is also an important element of the paranoid-schizoid position: persecutory anxiety is also associated with persecutory guilt, and an intense sense of hopelessness. A relation to a good object becomes highly unlikely, principally because a destructive relation to a bad part object exists. Narcissistic rage is also an element of this position.
Balancing the above pessimistic evaluation of the role of the death instinct in personality development, is a Greek concern for Eros, the major libidinal force driving man forward in his endeavours. Melanie Klein’s clinical analysis is, to a significant extent, determined by her view of the later theorising of Freud. Her object-relations theory was initially met with skepticism, especially since they did not seem immediately to correlate with the results of other clinical experiments Piaget’s results in which object relations appeared to develop later than Klein maintained. Subsequent research, however, vindicated Klein’s position. Hanna Segal in her work entitled “Klein”, wrote:
“Most consistently she has been charged with attributing far too much complexity and activity to the mental life of the infant in his first two years. It was averred that this was out of keeping with the findings of neuro-physiology and with such academic psychological work as that of Piaget. This criticism seems to be less well founded today when new research suggests that the infants perception and object relatedness is far greater than had been suspected.”(London , Konak books,1989, P.169)
Segal also notes, in a footnote, a number of supporting works relating to sociability, parent-infant interaction and neonate imitation. A number of object permanence/object constancy experiments have since then, been conducted suggesting that the power is exercised much earlier than Piaget suspected.(Baillargeon & DeVos, 1986)
Anna Freud’s modification of her father’s theory did not stop at the emphasis upon the ego and its defence mechanisms. She also emphasised (in the spirit of hylomorphic theory) what she called “lines of development”. Her observational studies with children had revealed the fact that increasing numbers of children could not be placed in the classical categories of “normal” or “neurotic”. Anna Freud suggested in response to this finding that the classification category of “developmental disorder” be created. In 1962 she warned against using only one aspect of analysis to view the child. Her intention was to criticise those contributions which focussed solely on object relatedness, social adaptation, and Piaget’s schema of intellectual achievements. Anna Freud, like her father, was very careful about using the term “Good” in her writings, but the term developmental disorder nevertheless had distinctly hylomorphic connotations. This together with a commitment to her fathers “mythology of the instincts”( eros, thanatos, ananke) actually presupposes the formal and final “cause” of the Good articulated by Aristotelian theory.
Teleology thus reemerges as an important theoretical consideration, and it is important to re-iterate the Kantian approach to this issue, which, incidentally, is in perfect accord with hylomorphic theory. For Kant, it is the faculty of the understanding that categorises and conceptualises change in nature in terms of causality. This means that the idea of a physical end in nature gets transformed ideally into a teleological regulative principle. Kant claims the following:
“The difference turns, therefore, on a peculiarity of our (human) understanding relative to our power of judgement in reflecting on tings in nature.”(Kant’s Critique of Judgement, P.61)
For a divine form of understanding such judgement/reflection would be constitutive in virtue of being in contact with the noumenal world of things-in-themselves via a divine power. Our human understanding/judgement, however, is via conceptual possibilities rather than real actualities. In divine forms of understanding there is no movement from the analytic/universal to the particular, but instead there is an intimate relation between the synthetic whole and the parts that constitute the synthesis. Our human view of the whole, then, is an idealisation–a teleological idealisation that regulates our reasoning process. This reasoning process is intimately involved in our conception of life (psuché) as a living holistic organism whose whole has a necessary (living) connection to its parts. Perhaps this kind of reasoning is also necessary for reflection upon space, that synthetic a priori intuition:
“But space is not a real ground of the generation of things. It is only their formal condition–although from the fact that no part in it can be determined except in relation to the whole (the representation of which, therefore underlies the possibility of the parts) it has some resemblance to the real ground of which we are in search. But then it is at least possible to regard the material world as a mere phenomenon, and to think something which is not a phenomenon, namely, a thing-in-itself as its substrate”(P.66)
So, neither in Kantian Critical Theory nor in Aristotelian Hylomorphic Theory is there a contradiction in supposing two different modes of explanation of phenomena, namely mechanical and teleological. These modes, both Philosophers insist, are not just consistent with each other but necessarily require each other in accordance with the principles of noncontradiction and sufficient reason.
Kant continues his reasoning:
“We may apply to a thing which we have to estimate as a physical end, that is, to an organised being, all the laws of mechanical generation known or yet to be discovered, we may even hope to make progress in such researches, but we can never get rid of the appeal to a completely different sort of generation for the possibility of a product of this kind, namely that of a causality by ends. It is utterly impossible for human reason, or for any finite reason qualitatively resembling ours, however much it may surpass it in degree, to hope to understand the generation even of a blade of grass from mere mechanical causes.”(P.66)
The form of finality involved in aesthetic judgement is also an example of the teleological synthesis referred to above. The principle of teleology, therefore, becomes a heuristic principle that enables us to conceive of laws of nature as necessary and sufficient explanations of phenomena, as long as it does not exclude the mechanical laws of nature which also demand reference to a common super-sensible substrate which is the arché of both modes of explanation.
Teleology, then, for Kant, is not a branch of natural science nor a logical principle but it is a hylomorphic principle of final/formal causes for Aristotle: a principle that forms a significant part of the practical and productive sciences. Kant places teleological reasoning in the domain of the critique of judgement. For Aristotle the 4 elements of the natural world, earth, air, water and fire, are part of a synthetic whole of physical nature, in the same way in which the elements of life (psuché) are tissues, organs, limbs, are part of the varying forms of life of the animals. In synthetic totalities each part is intimately related to all other parts, e.g. in contexts of instrumentalities, the pen is “for” the paper and the paper is “for” the assignment that is written in the library which, when finished, is “for” the lecturer to mark which in turn is “for” the final qualification and the students education.
In relation to the issue of the Will and its relation to Consciousness via the “Body-image” postulated by O Shaughnessy, we need to understand the way in which the Will manifests a Heideggerian “circumspective” form of awareness when we are engaged in the performance of tasks that are constituted of a series of “actions”. This circumspective form of concern was characterised insightfully by Elisabeth Anscombe in her work on “Intention”(Oxford, Blackwell, 1972) as a non-observational form of awareness. William James in his “Principles of Psychology”, points to this form of awareness being preconscious or beneath the levels of consciousness, and if this is correct it appears as if intentional projects fluctuate between being directed consciously(at the beginning and end of the task, and if some problem occurs in the course of the task) and being directed pre-consciously (the term used by Freud). That the agent is aware of what they are dong non-observationally, and that this is true, can be ascertained by interrupting this pre-consciously driven activity with the question “What are you doing?” or “Why are you doing that?”. The agent must respond consciously and perhaps was even engaged in conscious thought whilst performing the activity in question. Our question interrupts both the conscious thought and the preconscious performance of the task at hand, e.g. the agent may have been playing the piano and thinking about the war.
In a chapter entitled “Observation and the Will” in volume 2 of O Shaughnessy’s (OS) work, “the Will: a Dual Aspect Theory” we encounter the following:
“The astonishing thing about action is that it is possible at all. Thus if man is making a chair, you will find a physical causal explanation of the movement of each piece of wood from its initial to its final setting: everything that happens is in accordance with physical law: but you will look throughout this world or universe forever in vain for an analogous physical explanation of their coming together in the form that they did, a form that mirrors human need and the human body” (Cambridge, CUP, 1980, P.1)
The point OS is making above is that the “form” of the chair requires the activity of the understanding and its categories to conceptualise such an activity as well as the teleological function of the faculty of judgement. For Aristotle, all 4 “causes” of his theory of change would be required to explain the coming into being of the synthetic whole of the chair, though the material and efficient causes would be equally as important as the final cause in this context of involvements.. The idea of a synthetic whole, that is, applies to space, artifactual relations, and to psuché, and its practical ethical and theological relations.
The chair, OS argues, is a kind of creation, a gift to the universe bestowed upon it by psuché or the creator. This source of the gift also possesses the gift of non-observational awareness a power that enables a task to be completed whilst freeing conscious for the activity of thought. My body, OS further argues, is merely the vehicle of intention, purpose, reason, characteristics of life that are located in a non physical realm, a realm we would call mental and the Greeks called psuché. The Greeks did not possess a term that could easily be translated in all circumstances into our term “consciousness”. Charles H. Kahn claims in an essay entitled “Sensation and Consciousness in Aristotelian Psychology”, that Aristotle’s idea of “sensory soul”(one of the simpler powers of psuché) is largely receptive of stimuli emanating from the external world: when active this simple power is usually used to attend to stimuli and perhaps also for the perceiving of something as something, e.g. material as a chair. In psychological terms the sensory function of consciousness is the bipolar opposite of the motor function of psuché which is critically involved in action that, depending upon the circumstances, requires either an observational form of awareness( in learning the action, correcting a mistake, beginning and ending an action) or a non- observational form of awareness.
Both the chair and the action originate from a creative agent. Action, however, for OS belongs both to the physical realm and the realm of the psychological. With regard to the chair OS situates the chair in the world and the thought involved in bringing about the existence of the chair in its final form he situates in “my world”:
“What do I mean by saying of my here-and-now actions that they are “situated” in my world? I mean that along with beliefs, desires, intentions, etc, they stand to me and to me alone in the bedrock relation of being known immediately for what they are and of depending upon me for their entire being and of being intelligible and internally linked to an entire system of psychological items.”( P.2)
OS also rejects the appeal to the sensory process of observation in this situation:
“I mean that I do not stand to my actions in the relation of observer, just as I do not adopt an observational standpoint in knowing that I am puzzled, amused, and so forth…..for when I notice a purposive act from which I have been momentarily distracted, say driving a car as I am conversing, I do so non observationally and immediately I return to myself.”(P.3)
OS admits that insofar as the actions of others are concerned we are in the relation of “observer”, observing an agent who acts. Many senses are involved in action and typically involved are the senses of sight, hearing, and touch but it is seeing that is most critically connected to observing the deeds of others, even if touch has in some circumstances a critical function in all action. In order to obey the request to “turn up the volume”, I must touch the knob of the wireless with my fingers and turn it in the appropriate direction just sufficiently to comply with the request. OS claims that visual/tactile sensations without action are incomprehensible and actions without visual/tactile sensations are meaningless(P.7).
Similarly, if our sensations were only visual, which OS argues are essentially two-dimensional, we would not have the idea of the three dimensional world we actually live in. It is because we can move into the 3-d field of a landscape and act in this arena that it appears to our visual system as three-dimensional. An a priori sense of 3-d space seems certainly to be a necessary condition of our animal existence. It is against the background of such reflections that OS discusses the postulate of a body-image of controllable body-parts situated in space. Insert desire, intention, and purpose into this lived-space and we possess the elements necessary to account for the agents wish to bring about a reality that is different to the one that is currently experienced. The human organ and limb system (including hands and opposable thumbs) has the potential for not just life-preserving instinctive reactions but also consciousness, understanding, judgement and rationality. This species of form of life was defined by Aristotle in an essence-specifying-definition as, “rational animal capable of discourse”. Animality is the genus we belong to and the “form” is constituted by the potentialities for discourse and rationality amongst other powers. Animality in its turn belongs to the genus of life which includes plant life-forms. The powers that primarily constitute these forms of life are the nutritive and reproductive, the perceptive and locomotive, and finally rationality (of action and discourse). Each of these powers would change its scope and limits if incorporated into a whole incorporating other higher powers which have a transformative relation to the lower powers.
The power of an artifact such as an axe is not a power of life, but the power of use by a higher form of life, e.g. a woodchopper. In other words the genus of an artifact is categorically different from the genus of living forms. The power of an artifact whether it be an axe, a chair, or a computer, requires an external living designer. In the case of the computer there would probably need to be a great number of designers each possessing their own specialist knowledge. The life form in its turn is a different kind of genus to that of the mineral genus( as characterised naturally by Aristotle—earth, air, water or fire and associated processes of hot/cold, wet/dry—and the more technical chemical periodic table of elements). The mineral “kingdom” is inorganic in its very nature , the origin of whose parts have no relation to any human or animal designer. The natural elements are more like totalities with the possible exception of fire which appears to differ in its nature from the other elements belonging to the Aristotelian category of processes. Gerald Edelman in his work “Bright Air Brilliant Fire” hints at the importance of classical elements in its title, but in his characterisation of the key living organ of the brain he refers to the chemical composition of the brain, claiming that it is constituted completely of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulphur phosphate and a few trace metals. He then goes on to argue that the key to understanding the function of the brain resides in understanding how these elements are “organised”:
“It is not suprising that people have treated the mind itself as a special thing or a special form of stuff. After all, it seems so different from ordinary matter that its possessor may find it difficult to conclude by introspection alone that it could arise from the interactions of nonintentional matter. But as William James pointed out mind is a process not a stuff. Modern scientific study indicates that extraordinary processes can arise from matter, indeed matter itself may be regarded as arising from processes of energy exchange. In modern science matter has been re-conceived in terms of processes: mind has not been re-conceived as a special form of matter. That mind is a special kind of process depending upon special arrangements of matter is the fundamental position I have taken in this book.”(London, Penguin Press, 1992, P 6-7)
This is not incompatible with an Aristotelian hylomorphic position even if there are ambiguous characterisations of mind in terms of processes which need further characterisation, if mental processes are to be sufficiently distinguished from physical processes. Edelman dedicates his work to both Darwin and Freud. Darwin, we know, was a pioneer of the physical process of the evolution of the species, and Freud was a pioneer that mapped the mental processes connected to healthy and unhealthy mental functioning. Edelman refers to William James, who, we know regarded Consciousness as a Function, a form of thought which has the function of knowing (epistemé):
“Consciousness is supposed necessary to explain the fact that things not only are, but get reported, are known.”(James W., Essays on Radical Empiricism, Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press, 1996, P.6)
There is an intimate connection of Consciousness to Language postulated here and this position echo’s Freud’s theoretical view of the functions of Consciousness and Language as well as Freud’s practical view of psychoanalysis as a “talking cure”. In the process of “reporting”, what occurs in his realm of thought, the patient, in this psychoanalytical process, brings “material” from the unconscious realms of the mind into Consciousness, thereby fulfilling one of the goals of therapy, namely, a “catharsis” which aims to lower the anxiety-levels affecting the “work” of the Ego.
James claims that Experience is the “ultimate stuff of which everything is made” and this is a key element of his empirical and pragmatic Philosophy. In Volume 1 of his “Principles of Psychology”, we find both an account of knowing and an account of thought as :
“a synonym for consciousness at large.”(Index of Vol 2 Under the heading of “thought”)
James elaborates upon this idea in his chapter on the mind and its relation to other things by giving us his account of knowing:
“There are two kinds of knowledge broadly and practically distinguishable: we may call them respectively knowledge of acquaintance and knowledge about. Most languages express this distinction…..I am acquainted with many people and things which I know very little about, except their presence in the place where I have met them. I know the colour blue when I see it and the flavour of the pear when I taste it: I know an inch when I move my finger through it: a second of time when I felt it pass: an effort of attention when I make it: a difference between two things when I notice it; but about the inner nature of these facts or what makes them what they are, I can say nothing at all. I cannot import acquaintance with them to anyone who has not already made it himself….At most I can say to my friend. Go to certain places and act in certain ways and these objects will probably come…In minds able to speak at all there is, it is true, some knowledge about everything. Things can at least be classed, and the times of their appearance told. But, in general, the less we analyse a thing and the fewer of its relations we perceive, the less we know about it, and the more the familiarity is of the acquaintance type.(P.221)
James elaborates upon this by claiming that acquaintance is related to our sensations and feelings, but it is through thought that knowledge is generated about what we have become acquainted with. This is a similar account to the Kantian account of the sensible and intellectual faculties of the mind: this account points to an intuitive relation via which we are in immediate relation to the object or event we are witnessing, and a conceptual relation functioning according to a rule which mediates our relation to the object or event.
James also points to the role of language in our transactions with the external world and the different faculties of our mind:
“The grammatical sentence expresses this . Its subject stands for an object of acquaintance which, by the addition of the predicate is to get something known about it”(P.222 Vol 1)
James also claims that most languages have such a structure, and even though we recall that Strawson claimed in his work “individuals” that a language without any particulars was logically possible it would seem from James’ point of view that any language without an immediate relation to the objects and events of the external world would not possess the necessary structure and function of a language.(How for example would one be able to teach anyone such a language?) Similarly, a language composed only of images of particulars could at most meet the criteria of a signalling system and would also fail to meet the criteria for being a language.
James, in his work entitled “Essays on Radical Empiricism”, criticises Kant for being a dualist and also criticises him for collapsing the subject-object distinction via the postulation of a transcendental ego, but James fails to notice that Kant’s position is compatible with, and is indeed, an elaboration upon Aristotelian Hylomorphism. Both of these positions, it must be insisted, contained decisive arguments against both the materialism and dualism of their times. James, appears here to share the mistaken view that Kant was an idealist in spite of Kant’s famous criticisms of idealism and his assertion that he was both an empirical realist and a critical idealist. Indeed it is Kant we appeal to when we criticise James’s more materialistic and dualistic tendencies.
So, for James, the stream of consciousness is a stream of thought containing both feelings and concepts. His key idea of experience has a benign dualistic structure where reference is made to both consciousness and the things consciousness is conscious of. Feelings give rise to movement, and James provides us with a schema of Action which is very similar to the position outlined by Freud in his “Interpretation of Dreams”:
“Every impression which impinges on the incoming nerves produces some discharge down the outgoing ones, whether we are aware of it or not… every possible feeling produces a movement, and that movement is a movement of the entire organism, and of all its parts.”(P.372)
The sensory system, Freud is arguing discharges into the motor system (and probably into other organs and systems as well). This phenomenon in particular occurs with respect to intense pleasures and pains and it is thus the knowledge we have of this universal mechanism which permits the obvious inference from behaviour to state of mind. James continues his reasoning:
“But there are cases of arrest of peripheral activity which depend, not on central inhibition but on stimulation of centres which discharge outgoing currents of an inhibitory sort.”(P.373)
This passage recalls the Freudian characterisation of the ego as an inhibitor of affective impulses. James reports how, in the case of being startled, the very beating of the heart is stopped momentarily in order to provide for the emergency measure of raising blood circulation in the body as part of the response to the threat. There are also effects upon the respiratory system which manifest themselves as the “catching ones breath” in the case of fright, and breathing more intensely in the case of anger. James supports his claims very thoroughly by reference to experiments which demonstrate his various theses.
The most important effect, however, is the necessary pairing of sensorial stimuli with general innervation of the muscles. This type of phenomenon was also noted by Merleau-Ponty in his work “Phenomenology of Perception” where colours are necessarily associated with active-passive motor-values:
“Here the experience of colours confirms and elucidates the correlations established by inductive psychology.Green is commonly regarded as a restful colour “It encloses me within myself and bring a peaceful state”, says one patient. It “makes” no demands on us and does not enjoin us to do anything, says Kandinsky. Blue seems to “yield to the gaze”, says Goethe….We can reveal the soporific and motor basis of qualities, or their vital significance, by employing stimuli which are either weak or f short duration. In this, colour, before being seen, gives itself away through the experience of a certain attitude, appropriate only to that colour and precisely indicative of it.”(Trans Smith, C., London, Routledge, 1962, P244)
The body is innervated by the most sensory of sensibles, namely colour, and this is a life-transaction which is also in accord with the Freudian account of the psychical apparatus given in his work “The “interpretation of Dreams”. This, then, justifies the position of rejecting atomistic tendencies in Psychology, which either reduce the whole experience to pure sensations or pure behaviour. Certain physiological functions connected to the key organ of the heart may affect consciousness (especially if the heart stops for a longer period of time), and may not be able to function at a level to sustain consciousness. Being unable to breathe will definitely affect the reticular formation of the brain and result in unconsciousness. In such circumstances all sectors of the brain will be effected, including those situated in the somato-sensory region of the cortex: as a consequence the body-image will not be functioning. Indeed all sensory-motor activity will cease until a state of homeostasis is achieved in the body. None of this directly concerns Psychology which it has to be pointed out, has moved away from James’s definition: the Science of mental life, its phenomena and conditions.
Modern science is essentially inductive and adheres to the methodological matrix of the formation of hypotheses and the manipulation and measurement of variables. Teleology and the testing of entire theories via critical experiments has been discarded for less holistic concerns.
Comparing the theories of James and Freud is, on the other hand, a holistic project. James is not a behaviourist but he does pace much emphasis upon different kinds of movement, e.g.
- Instinctive or Impulsive performances
- Expressions of Emotion
- Voluntary deeds (P.382 Vol 2)
James Defines Instinct as:
“The faculty of acting in such a way as to produce certain ends, without foresight of the ends, and without previous education in the performance.”(P.383, vol. 2)
Animals (the genus we humans belong to) engage in mostly instinctive behaviour and this may be a limitation of the limited repertoire of cognitive powers animals possess. They possess a form of consciousness that can learn and as a consequence know what has been learned, but without the educational power of language, the awareness they have of their world is confined to the present and the arena of present stimuli. On the face of it, James’ view of Instinct seems much broader than Freud’s, especially given his claim that instinct belongs to the general category of reflex action. We should, in the context of this discussion, also recall that Freud claimed that his concern was with only a handful of instincts and that his investigations were not exhaustive of the field. Recall too, that for Freud the aim of the instinct was the most important psychological aspect of his investigations and partially explained the variagated objects of that instinct. Both Teleology and the holistic aspect of these investigations was obviously more important to Freud than it was for James, and this is proved not just by his concentration upon the aims of instincts but also via Freud’s focus on the importance of the sexual instincts and the life and death instincts. In those animals who possess the power of memory and thought (consciousness) instincts are no longer merely blind reflexes but rather drives which are endowed with a cognizance of “ends”. The greater the complexity of the animal(in terms of their repertoire of cognitive and emotional powers), the greater the so-called “intelligence” of the animal. In the case of animals with a considerable repertoire of powers and humans, the concern with life and death exclusively gives way to a concern for the quality of life. James points out that most instincts are transitory( the life and death instincts excepted) and habits take their place. Such habits are the consequence of the operation of consciousness and the preconscious and are more amenable to change through inhibition via other elements of experience.
James’ theory of the emotions was a groundbreaking theory for his time. In discussing fear, he claimed that fear :
“is a reaction cause by the same objects that arouse ferocity.. We both fear and wish to kill anything that may kill us, and the question which of the two impulses we follow is usually decided by some one of those collateral circumstances of the particular case, to be moved by which is the mark of superior mental powers…The progress from brute to man is characterise by nothing so much as by the decrease in frequency of proper occasions for fear.”(P.415)
This is manifested in the extent to which we have become less fearful of ghosts and the supposed presence of supernatural spirits. Knowledge of the sources of such phantasms in either special sensory circumstances(lighting, reflections etc), or special psychic circumstances (the relatively recent loss of someone close), has functioned as a rational inhibitor of such fearful reactions. Similarly, inhibition may also be involved in the decoupling of the fear of something and the wish to kill or destroy that object, especially if the object is another human being or treasured animal. According to James, the absence of fear is also a measure of civilisation:
“In civilised life, it has become possible for larger numbers of people to pass from the cradle to the grave without ever having had a pang of genuine fear.”(P.415)
If only civilisation had been as successful in decoupling the reaction of angrily destroying the enemies we fear, from the fearful stimulus of that threat. This is merely a variation of the point Freud was making about the battle of the giants of Eros and Thanatos, in which the death instinct prevails and plunges countries and civilisations into destructive wars which bring about the ruin and destruction prophesied by the Greek oracles.
James insightfully elaborates upon his position above by saying:
“Many of us need an attack of mental disease to teach us the meaning of the word”(fear)(P.416)
We need to recall here that the date of the publication of James’ “Principles of Psychology”,namely 1890, was more than a decade before the publication of Freud’s seminal work “The Interpretation of Dreams”. This latter work, it ought to be recalled was an earlier work of Freud’s, and did not incorporate any theoretical reflections upon the death instinct. Indeed Freud’s first major publication, “On Aphasia” was in 1891 and it would only be much later in his writings that the attack of mental disease had a complex history, which very often involved defence mechanisms that in turn were vicissitudes of the instincts. It is not until the 1920’s with the publication of “Beyond the Pleasure Principle” and “Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego”, that we can fully comprehend the functioning of the Ego, especially the idea of it being connected with mourning and loss (the precipitate of lost objects). It may, that is, be a failure of the functioning of the Ego which lies behind the “seeing” of phantasms connected with the recent loss of family and close friends. The wish/desire that those close to us remain in existence may be, in certain circumstances, so strong, that they “appear” in hallucinations..
Freud pointed out in His work on Group Psychology the way in which “strange men” who seem very different to us, can often seem threatening, exactly because of the fact that their perceived differences overrides our knowledge that they are human beings, like us who must lead lives similar to ours. In this work Freud discusses the defence mechanism of identifying with an aggressive leader who wills the destruction of his enemies and “strangers” who are not members of the Group. This publication was a significant contribution to understanding the politics of Freud’s time, which Hannah Arendt characterised in terms of a shift away from traditional authoritarian values and towards group leaders who knew how to manipulate mass opinion and override traditional ethical concerns. Such concerns included a desire to respect all human beings, even if they were strangers. Freud, we know, complained in his work “Civilisation and its Discontents”, about the abuse of the term “love” in Christian theological dogma. The proposal of this dogma was that we ought to love our neighbours and even our enemies. Freud contested this claim, but given that he himself maintained that his Psychology was Kantian, we ought not to assume that he did not mean that we ought to respect our neighbours and enemies. He appears here to rightly be challenging the idea of whether love could be universalised in the way the Christian suggested. Many Christians, however, have suggested that the term “love” is metaphorical and means “respect”.
James speaks of the fear of infants upon waking up and discovering that no-one is present and they are alone. This could be the source of the anxiety behind the compulsion to repeat of the small boy featured in Freud’s work “beyond the Pleasure Principle”. This one and a half year old boy is attempting in language to symbolise the absence and presence of his mother, in an effort to control his fear of being alone. He does this by throwing a cotton reel attached to some cotton out of his crib whilst uttering the word “Gone!” and reeling it back again and uttering the word “Here!”. One assumes that if this experience becomes a regularity, defence mechanisms might be mobilised in order to reduce the ensuing anxiety levels thus compromising the normal functioning of the memory and compelling defensive repetitive symbolic performances on the basis of imagined fears that magnify the proportion of the danger to be expected in such circumstances. The employment of defence mechanisms so early on in the cycle of the development of the psycho-sexual stages, will undoubtedly compromise the strength of the ego and perhaps also its later powers to love and to work.
James charts animal fear-behaviour and fixates upon the two alternatives of running away from a threat, and remaining motionless on the spot in a semi-paralysed state. The latter alternative, he characterises problematically, as death-shamming behaviour, but then rejects this description in favour of the more neutral description of “terror paralysis”, which it turns out is especially useful in those contexts where the threatening animal is less likely to identify or notice a motionless object. James interestingly then connects this behaviour to that of a melancholic who crouches motionless in a state of absolute fear. This too, however, it could be argued ought to be described as “terror-paralysis”. We recall the extreme inhibitory avoidance behaviour of the agarophobic which to some extent resembles the inhibitory behaviour of animals who travel from A to B under cover or close to cover. Is this “death-avoidance” behaviour? Behaviour directed to the end of avoiding death? Given, in the case of animals, we are not dealing with language users there seems to be no means to definitely determine the correct end-description. This seemed to be the view of Darwin who explained this phenomenon in terms of the facts of survival and successful adaptive behaviour. We should also bear in mind his theorising occurred before the advent of genetic explanations of behaviour.
Much of what james reflects upon in his two volumes is the description of phenomena that Freud would have shown interest in, and sought to explain via his theorising. James also attempts to give an account of acquisitive behaviour and here his discussion reminds us of Kantian and Freudian strategies which investigate the history of the development of desires from early childhood. Young children, James argues, want those objects that please them, and when someone appropriates that object, reactions can range from passive jealousy to the more active attitude of envy coupled with aggressive attacking behaviour. James notes that it is the task of civilisation to inhibit such behaviour. If such regulation fails to work with any particular individual who repeats previous “successful” patterns compulsively, we may have to concede that this individuals personality profile is dominated by narcissistic desires and the manifestation of the death instinct in aggressive reactions. Freud, we know, connected this compulsion to repeat to his anal stage of personality development where parental control of motor responses may have been problematic, and James points to one of the more harmless manifestations of this fixation in the tendency to hoard objects to excess. Freud’s explanations of such phenomena are of course more satisfying and systematic than James’ phenomenological/pragmatic descriptions.
In relation to the idea of love, James has some interesting comments to contribute which at first glance may appear to be in conflict with the position of Freud. He maintains, in Kantian spirit, that man has an instinct toward isolating himself from his fellow man and in particular from the “strangers” he encounters. This instinct competes, according to both James and Kant, with other more “social instincts”. For Kant, however, this tendency toward isolating oneself may be a more mature form of narcissism in which man believes that his life will be more comfortable if he makes all his life-decisions himself. Kant calls this tendency, in his political writings, the social unsociability of man. The Kantian position, however, also contains the account of a possible use of rationality in which the maxim of mans actions can occur in terms of the conditions of the various formulations of the categorical imperative. In this process of universalisation emphasis is shifted from “my happiness” (my world) to the flourishing life in “the world”. In this shift there is also a shift from a calculative form of reasoning in which we calculate means to our personal ends(the ends of “my world”) to a categorical form of reasoning which is both teleological and holistic–taking into account the interest of everyone.
James also claims that it is difficult to draw a clear distinction between instincts and emotions:
“Every object that excites an instinct excites an emotion as well.”(Vol 2 P.442)
For James, however, the emotional reaction terminates not in a deed but in the experiencers body. He also maintains further that these emotional reactions are caused by objects which we have no practical relation with. James uses the term “object” technically to refer to a physically present object as well as an object that is imagined, thought, or remembered. Returning to his earlier description of fearful behaviour he adds a description of the physiological symptoms that accompany the behaviour. The change in the condition of the skin, the heart, breathing, plus dryness of the mouth, change in tone of voice, tremors, and the tenseness of the tone of the muscles of the body, are all discussed. James then points out that merely describing the emotions is a tiresome business and that there is a need to probe the topic more deeply in search of “principles”. It is in this connection that he formulates his famous theory of the emotions:
“My theory…is that the bodily changes follow directly the perception of the exciting fact, and that our feeling of the same changes as they occur, is the emotion.”(P.449)
and
“We feel sorry because we cry, angry because we strike, afraid because we tremble.”(P.450)
The whole organism reverberates in response to the exciting fact. Certain physiological responses are felt intensely and others more obscurely. James also distinguishes between the coarser and the more refined emotions such as the feeling of beauty which, according to Kant, is a feeling produced by the harmonious function of the sensible and intellectual faculties of our minds. James uses his theory to distinguish between pathological and normal functioning claiming that in the latter emotion is related to an object and in the latter there is no object:
“In every asylum we find examples of absolutely unmotivated fear, rage, melancholy or conceit; and other of an equally unmotivated apathy which persists in spite of the best of outward reasons why it should give way” (P.459)
James also touches upon the Freudian territory of the vicissitudes of the instincts, namely the defence mechanisms. If, he argues, tears or anger are suppressed but the objects continue to excite their responses:
“the current which would have invaded the normal channels turns into others, for it must find some outlet of escape. It may then work different and worse effects later on. Thus vengeful brooding may replace a burst of indignation.”(P.466)
The above talk of currents and channels is suggestive of a biological energy regulation principle of homeostasis which Freud used, particularly in his earlier theorising, prior to the production of his “Project for a Scientific Psychology”. We also ought to recall that Freud later destroyed this work, hoping it would not remain in circulation and represent his more materialistic reflections. He very soon realised that the Psychology of Instincts and Emotions must situate itself at the level of the psychical representatives of these drives and not on the materialistic substrate of types of neurones in the brain and their different kinds of function. Freud, at the time of destroying his own work probably did not realise that his publications would stretch over a period of almost 50 years (over 100 publications) and that this one publication would pale into insignificance against the background of the entire canon of his work. This long journey we know ends at the beginning of reflection upon life, namely with the ideas and concepts of Greek Philosophy. Kant, too, played an important part in his later theories. This is not to insist that there is no role for an energy regulation principle in theorising about the instincts and emotions. It is rather to insist that this principle has to do with the functioning of the material substrate of psychic activity.
The Freudian Pleasure-Pain Principle and Reality Principle regulates the topography of the conscious, preconscious, and unconscious structures of the mind via the dynamic agencies of the ego, id, and superego. These reflections were of course not available to James in 1890, the date of the publication of his “Principles of Psychology”. There is nevertheless much in James’ reflections that significantly contributes to the search for “principles”, especially when one considers what James says about the Will in Chapter 26 of volume two. There is much in this section of James’ work that will illuminate many of Freud’s reflections.
Freud and Philosophy: A Hylomorphic and Kantian reevaluation: Introduction
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Kant makes an important distinction between civilisation and culture whilst at the same time acknowledging the importance of viewing these characterisations of mans social being-in-the-world in terms of his “lebenswelt,” rather than in terms of his technological “achievements”(techné). The latter belongs in the realm of a pragmatically based mentality which seeks to focus on the means to ends whilst the former invokes a mentality that concerns itself with the elusive idea of ends-in-themselves.
The creation of the chair is an early technological achievement that can largely be explained in terms of the movement of material from one place to another: a causal history of events in a spatio-temporal continuum which brought together an object that serves a number of possible ends, including being placed in a library and helping to constitute a studious form of life in a context of involvements that transcends a merely reductional causal analysis into events in which material is in motion and moving from one location to another. Even in this technical process we need the idea of the form or end of “the chair” to explain just why this material took the form that it did: a form that is important in both the contexts of Civilisation and Culture. There is no better manifestation of the contemplative form of life envisaged by Aristotle than that of the University Library. The chair allows us to sit for hours reading or writing, events that appeal to the idea of an end-in-itself . In such a context we encounter both technical knowledge (how to build a chair) and the kinds of knowledge necessary to write books : epistemé, arché, diké, areté, logos and the knowledge of aesthetic and teleological principles.
There is a complex relation between civilisation and culture which is connected to the relations between instrumental (means creating) and categorical (end-sustaining) reasoning. Aristotelian hylomorphic explanation acknowledges different kinds of explanation associated with these different types of reasoning: material and efficient causation is, according to Aristotle, more susceptible to hypothetical-instrumental reasoning, and formal and final causation which is regulated by logos is best characterised by categorical reasoning. For Aristotle, the chair has a form(formal cause) that guides human activity to the telos that is embedded in what we referred to above as the context of involvement necessary for the possible cultural aim of a contemplative life. In these contexts, however, the chair possesses what Heidegger referred to as a ready-to-hand form of existence, unless of course it has specific aesthetic characteristics which mobilise an appreciative episode in which we stand and admire the chair instead of sitting in it and reading. Similarly, with the library–this stone building with high ceilings and marble floors–we might stand outside and consider its architectural characteristics such as the mass-effect of the stone, the rough and smooth surfaces, the distribution of windows and other glass apertures. Libraries and temples were designed and constructed in accordance with cultural teleological ideas, but as buildings they also have to meet the purposes of civilisation, they have, that is, to have a ready-to-hand, means to an end, character. The telos of culture concerns itself principally with ends and the telos of civilisation building activities demands a more calculating form of reasoning.
Kant’s Philosophy situates aesthetic judgement relating to the beauty of natural or art objects at the gateway between sensible parts of the mind and its more intellectual thought-processes. This assumes a hylomorphic approach in which aesthetic judgement functions as a lynchpin linking a more organic view of civilisation-building activities meeting essentially organic needs( fulfilling safety needs as outlined by Maslow) and the higher psychological mental needs of culture.
Kant notes the following:
“The empirical interest in the beautiful exists only in society. And if we admit that the impulse to society is natural to mankind and the suitability for, and the propensity towards it, i.e. sociability, is a property essential to the requirements of man as a creature intended for society, and one, therefore, that belongs to humanity, it is inevitable that we should also look upon taste in the light of a faculty for estimating whatever enables us to communicate our feeling to everyone else, and hence as a means for promoting that upon which the natural inclination of everyone is set.”(Kant’s Critique of judgement, Trans Meredith, J., (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1973) P.155.
The beauty of a library may give rise to a judgement of beauty which has its source in a harmony of the sensible and intellectual functions of the mind (the imagination and the understanding), which in turn generates a feeling of pleasure. The Concepts of the understanding are not involved, but the categories are, e.g. quality, quantity, relation and modality. We should note in this context that it is the categorial use of concepts in accordance with the categories of understanding /judgement which is responsible for the communicability of objectively valid judgements about objects events.etc. The aesthetic judgement, however, does not rest on concepts and is strictly speaking not about the object one is appreciating, but rather is about the subject who is engaged in the judging process. The feeling, then becomes the focus of the judgement, and is that basis for, as Kant puts the matter, speaking with a universal voice about the beauty of the object. The aesthetic experience, insofar as the library is concerned, requires adopting the role of the spectator and engaging in a sensory exploration with the aid of the imagination and understanding. Here we encounter one of the most important functions of civilisation, namely, to refine our feelings and inclinations and seek happiness. Such contemplation may play an important part in engaging in the more serious business of Culture whose major task is to demand of us the performance of social duties that will help in the aim of avoiding ruin and destruction. In Cultural activities, there is a regulation of the desire for happiness and even a demand for sacrifice of happiness. For the Greeks this regulation occurred in the name of principles (arché) and the virtues( areté, diké, epistemé etc). For Freud the former appreciative activity is related to a mature form of pleasure, but there is a serious intent on the part of the creators of objects such as libraries , temples, and tombs, and it is this which demands the operation of the defence mechanism he called “sublimation” which for him was a vicissitude of an instinct (as was Consciousness). It is not clear, however, whether Freud would have subscribed to the distinction we are appealing to , namely, that between civilisation and culture, but he is on record as describing his Psychology as Kantian and he “borrows” concepts from Greek culture(mythology) and Greek philosophy which assume some form of this distinction. If Freud is to be taken seriously then we must assume that the 4 Kantian questions which defined the domain of Philosophy, must to some extent concern Freud too, e.g. “What can we know?”, “What ought we to do?”, What can we hope for?” and “What is man?”.
The Greek concept of areté, if defined in terms of saying and doing the right thing in the right way at the right time, obviously relates to both civilisation-building activities and culture-creating and sustaining activities, such as the passing of laws and education. Both kinds of activity are important for “society”–the term Kant used above in conjunction with the term “humanity”. The former term comes from Latin and this is important to bear in mind when it comes to the humanistic element of Culture, simply because the Roman idea or ideal of governing men was very different to the ancient Greek idea or ideal of governing the polis. The Romans, we should remind ourselves, were mostly concerned, firstly, with engineering, and secondly military objectives, and both of these require instrumental reasoning rather than the more categorical reasoning the Greeks thought so important if one was to heed the Greek oracles warnings about impending ruin and destruction. The most paradoxical God in the Roman Pantheon was obviously Janus with his two faces and two sets of eyes looking in different directions–a figure that appears to be the figment of an anxious imagination. Janus was perfectly placed at the gates of the city to watch the soldiers marching out to battle and watch them returning with diminished numbers once the battle was over.
Kant was undoubtedly the major humanistic figure of the Enlightenment, and carried on the tradition of humanism from the Greek Philosophers, but there is one major apparent difference between Classical Greek political philosophy and Kantian Political Philosophy. Kant’s critical and systematic moral Philosophy paved the way for a more systematic understanding of the concepts of freedom, human rights, and peace, all of which were implied in Aristotelian Political Philosophy but whose contours emerged and became more clearly thematised in Kant’s Theory of Practical Reason and Action. Lying at the foundation of these reflections, however, is an Aristotelian hylomorphic view of psuché, which is most clearly delineated in his Critique of Teleological Judgement. Teleological judgments are obviously involved in the construction of artefacts such as chairs and humanistic institutions such as libraries, but it is their role in explaining the activity of psuché (forms of life) that both Aristotle and Kant thought equally important. Teleological explanations for both of these philosophers are different kinds of explanations compared to the kinds of explanation we use in theorising about nature. In this latter kind of explanation, insofar as objects of sense are concerned, it is important that we search for mechanisms e.g. the nexus effectivis of the form of the bird for example, but it is equally important to acknowledge that this form of explanation, valid though it is, could never adequately explain the necessity that attaches to the functional behaviour of the bird that sustains it in its existence.
The Polis or larger community, for Kant, requires explanations in terms of nexus effectivis, and also explanations which Kant terms nexus finalis. In the case of the laws of the polis/community, unity is part of the city/community and is part of the nexus finalis we call “The Law”, which in turn relates to the nexus effectivis of breaches of the law by citizens. In this context we should recall the Socratic account of justice in The Republic where the unity of the city is emphasised, and it is blandly asserted that the divided city is headed for ruin and destruction. We should also recall that the Socratic argument against the passing of unjust laws was that these laws might in the end even not be in the interests of the law-makers. Socrates pointed here to the importance of knowledge in any effective legislation process. Teaching those who breach the law, the necessity of obeying the law is part of the civilising process. But the finality of laws, insofar as unifying the city is concerned, extends into the sphere of Culture and its purposes and goals: the sphere of a quality of existence that strives after the property of being in a broad sense “healthy”. For Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, the healthy city is the just , peaceful city.
As Political Philosophy progressed through the millennia, we find, with both Hobbes and Descartes, a fascination for artefacts and the objects of science, at the expense of an appreciation of the importance of healthy life-forms. Hobbes, for example, thought that the state is best viewed as an artifactual construction. The political entity, for him, was more like the ready-to-hand chair than the cultural humanistic institution of the library. For Hobbes and Descartes, educational processes were engaged in the technical task of “constructing” minds rather than the humanistic task of “nurturing” them.
What Kant called “mechanical causality” in his CrItique of Teleological Judgement can certainly be applied to explaining how the chair came into existence. In Aristotles Theory of Change, the creation of the chair is an example of change that partly requires reference to mechanical causality which is not the case if we are talking about the tree the wood came from. The form of finality of “forms of life” require different kinds of explanation. Such forms, Kant claims, exist as physical ends which are both cause and effect of themselves” (Kant P.18). This is part of Kant’s noumenal account involving:
“a kind of causality that we cannot associate with the mere conception of nature unless we make that nature rest on an underlying end that which can then, though incomprehensible be thought without contradiction”(P.18)
The generation of a genus of life such as an animal or a tree is a case of something causing itself: a cat produces a kitten which is a cat and an oak produces an acorn which will grow into a tree: like produces like. If trees produced kittens or cats acorns this would be similar to the relation of artefacts to their human creators. The polis, according to Hobbes was artifactual–his laws were artefacts that were mechanically designed. This runs contrary to the views of both Aristotle and Kant. The individual born in a polis is to be nurtured under its laws as both a free individual and a citizen living in a domain in which a certain form of life is valued: a form measured by the ideas of areté, arché, epistemé, diké. The form of change which the infant and child needs to undergo before these forms/ideas seem appropriate, is complicated(Kant P.19): far more complicated than the forms of change a tree undergoes as part of a forest or the changes wood undergoes to form a chair. All forms of life, however, share with each other essential characteristics involving the mutual relatedness of their parts to each other: in the case of the human form of life we are dealing with the relation of organs, limbs, hands, bones, tissues etc., which are all necessary for the form of life the human will lead in a polis containing trees and chairs, libraries and temples, and tombs: a form of life requiring a constellation of human powers and abilities. The powers of a tree are obviously more limited than the powers of a rational animal capable of discourse who, amongst other things creates chairs, makes laws, and discusses Philosophy in the agora. The library, temple, and tomb in the agora look on the face of it to be very complex artifacts, but they are endowed with a telos that is essential to psuché and are thereby endowed with the values and norms associated with areté, arché, epistemé and diké. The users of these “institutions” contrast with the users of the chair placed in the agora by a degree of complexity that separates the idea of civilisation from that of culture. Culture requires the presence of free and educated individuals to perform the duties associated with families and the polis, and this requires a long process of the development of their powers: a process Aristotle thought of as a self actualisation process.
The chair placed in the agora is part of what Martin Heidegger called a context of involvements. More recently analytical philosophers have used the term “instrumentality” to designate the essential character of equipment. For Heidegger, the chair is an entity “ready-to-hand”, and belongs in. a context with other objects such as the table, the objects placed on the table etc. The ways in which these objects relate to each other are to be explained by the purposes of the will and its sensory and motor functions. The powers of the will and the human body have an intimate relation to each other. The will can will action in both instrumental- civilisation contexts(techné) and categorical culture-constituting contexts involving areté.
Aristotle’s biological/psychological account of psuché embraces all forms of life from the plant kingdom to the animal kingdom, and also points to the form of life with the most awe-inspiring and impressive repertoire of powers: the rational animal capable of discourse. The biological base of these powers, however, resides simply in a specific constellation of organs, limbs, hands, bone and tissue which may, if conditions are not propitious, never actualise its capacities if it is not nurtured to do so in the appropriate civilised circumstances. Part of this actualisation involves the historical/philosophical problem of the relation between the body and the mind which was not a fundamental issue for the Ancient Greek Philosophers. These Greek philosophers intuitively understood that the relation was intimate and perhaps would have thought that Spinoza expressed this relation well when he said that the first idea of the mind was the idea of the body. Aristotle, in particular, would have found this to be an appropriate claim. Perhaps the mark of the beginning of the so called period of “modern Philosophy” is instantiated by the kind of claim made by Descartes who maintained that one can in fact imagine the absence of ones body whilst retaining the idea/conclusion that “I exist”. Aside from the problem of Descartes’ dualism, and his ambivalence on the issue of the distinction between scientific and philosophical problems, there is something of analytical importance in Descartes’ challenge to the Aristotelian/Spinozist positions. After Spinoza, Greek hylomorphism( which rejects both materialist and dualist accounts of the relation of the mind to the body) made a comeback via the Critical Philosophy of Kant which also embraced Spinoza’s suggestion that the ultimate adequate idea of the self includes reference to an adequate idea of the role of the relation of the body to mind. For Kant this relation is hylomorphic and concerns powers of sensibility and the powers of understanding which are in some ways mutually reciprocal : but, a concept without an intuition is blind, and an intuition without a concept is empty–intuitions, however are the matter for the “forms” of concepts.
The question that arises in this context is, of course, whether we can see the presence of hylomorphism in more recent “modern” philosophy. The analytical Philosophy of the later Wittgenstein certainly played the role of neutralising various forms of materialism and dualism and thereby created a space for the reemergence of Aristotelian and Kantian positions. Brian O Shaughnessy is a modern Philosopher who is influenced by Freud and the later Wittgenstein, and whose work on the relation of the body to the mind is one of the most important epistemological characterisations of our time. In his investigations there is reference to the principles (arché) of noncontradiction and sufficient reason and a firm rejection of materialistic reductions and dualistic “spiritualisations” of the mind.
The Historical/Philosophical problem of the Will has always been concerned with
1. The Will’s relation to the body and
2. The Will’s relation to the World.
O Shaughnessy(OS) discusses these problems extensively in terms of the epistemological relation of the body to the will, and also in terms of the logical limits of the will. In terms of this latter question OS argues that the initial and primary target for the will is a body-part inserted in a body-image. For example, the hand reaching for the wireless knob, insofar as the observer is concerned, engages with the world and enables the agent to turn up the volume of the wireless via the causal connection between the fingers of the hand and those parts of the radio responsible for volume control. The action that is a response to the request “Turn up the volume!” is under control of the will because the will mobilises the arm and the fingers of the hand that are part of the body-image of the agent. This body-image is psychologically “present” for the agent, and is the source of his awareness of the position and location of the parts of his body that are under the control of the will. Some organs are, for example, not under our control, but our limbs, hands, and some organs such as the eyes, ears, nose and genital organs are all part of the body-image which is under our control ,and this is part of that which constitutes what in Spinoza’s words was characterised as “the first idea of the mind”. I am asked to turn the volume of the wireless up and move my arm toward the goal and subsequently activate my fingers to turn the knob in the appropriate direction. This is an excellent account of an instrumental action situated in what Heidegger called a context of involvements. The term instrumentality is defined by the Collins dictionary as “the condition fact or quality of being instrumental, or serving as a means”. There is ,therefore, a clear sense in which the parts of the body contained in my body-image can be construed as “instruments” that are used for various purposes amongst which are those purposes which sustain me in my existence and contribute to the quality of my existence (in the context of civilisation and culture). This state of affairs in Greek terms would fall under the the categorical term “techné”, which Heidegger utilised in his reflections on our relation to technology. This region for Aristotle requires both material and efficient causes(explanations) if we are to give an adequate account (essence specifying definition) of, for example, instrumental action. It is clear from the above account that there are nonactive parts of the body which are not part of the body-image e.g those parts involved in digestion or fighting infections and these activities lie beyond the scope and limits of the will .
OS uses categorical thinking to designate the psychological and mental status of the will: he sees the category of “the active” to be critical in the account we give of this region of our mind. OS also uses the Freudian term of “ego-affirmative” to characterise the activity of the will. The will, that is, whilst being connected to an energy source which OS describes as “impulsive”, also manifests itself in all activities that can be described in terms of “striving”. This, in turn, entails the presence of desire/intention and this is the case for all forms of life that possess complex organ/limb systems. The powers of desire and belief in animal behaviour are in contrast to what are widely regarded as the non-instrumental powers of nature, e.g. rivers and oceans. Whilst some poets such as T S Eliot may consider the river to be a god and a “conveyer of commerce”, its activities are not as such teleologically explained. Apart from this fact we know nothing of the purposes of Gods.
Similarly, we have, as Kant maintained in his “Critique of Teleological Judgement” no knowledge of the final ends of nature(P.27). Furthermore the river has no internal structure responsible for directing its activity which consists primarily in flowing from A to B. The power of the river is purely mechanical-physical ,and therefore is not to be explained in formal-final terms. Philosophically, the river is also not a God, because a god must possess a repertoire of powers that are not mechanical-physical. The demiurge of the Greeks is regarded as a divine artisan creating the world out of the materials of chaos in accordance with the “forms”( principles). Presumably, the river is the kind of thing the demiurge created and not a part of the original chaos, but the principles involved in its creation must differ in some respect to the principles responsible for the existence of living organisms(psuché). The river, therefore, cannot be a God. The Demiurge might then be a divine artisan using principles to create the world, but the demiurge does not have a body and does not operate in accordance with the mechanical-principle/causes that regulate or constitute physical reality. The Demiurge then is an independent “power” which our thought is not capable of fully understanding.
Kant contributes to this debate by urging us to use a subjective principle of reason to provide an account of nature which views nature as system of related “ends”. It was this challenge that Aristotle met by providing his theory of change which included 4 kinds of change in three media (space, time, matter), three principles of change and 4 causes of change (material, efficient formal and final). This theory allows us to explain material/physical/mechanical change at an empirical level but also allows us to explain the use of categories and principles such as are found in Newton’s “Principles of Natural Philosophy”. Kant, who understood Newton well, refused to juxtapose God and Science under the concepts of creator/world created. He discusses this issue at length in his Third Critique in the context of a metaphysical account of the relation of man to his world. Material laws, however, which it is the concern of empirical science, using the methods of observation to discover and verify, rests upon the categories of understanding/judgement and principles of logic. These laws, however, Kant argues, are not ultimate laws which reason can decisively justify, because the principle that unifies them, is, a super-sensible principle. The Judgements associated with this state of affairs refer to a causality distinct from material/efficient causation:
” we must think. a causality distinct from mechanism, namely a world cause acting according to ends, that is, an intelligent cause–however rash and indemonstrable a principle this might be for the determinant judgement.”(P.40)
Moreover, Kant insists that this teleological form of explanation is especially necessary when it comes to providing philosophically defendable accounts of psuché (forms of life):
“No one has ever yet questioned the correctness of the principle that when judging certain things in nature, namely organisms and their possibility, we must look to the conception of final causes.”(P.40)
It needs, however to be pointed out that this conception of final cause is problematic if applied to material that is not endowed with life because, as Kant argues:
“the possibility of living matter is quite inconceivable,”(P.46)
One ought, then, not to be surprised to learn that we are dealing with two different kinds of explanation. One which is associated with the quantification of matter and its material/physical relations. This physical kind of explanation demands powers of observation in order to manipulate and measure variables and the relation of variables to each other.
Given this conception of the whole of nature as a system of ends, it is difficult not to concede with Kant that the cause of the world as a whole is best conceived of as a form of Intelligence that it is difficult to characterise in any further detail. Kant does, however, refuse to conceive of this Intelligence as an instrumental force in the world operating in accordance with material and efficient causes. This form of Intelligence does, however remind us of the greek idea of the Demiurge— a being whose medium of operation was that of thought and understanding.
Kant would certainly refuse to countenance any physical manifestation of this agency. No one could expect such an agency to do things like “turning up the volume”. Rather this Being is operating more like that of a principle. The relation of Principles to material objects is not a concrete relation in a context of discovery but is more like an explanatory relation in a context of explanation/justification. Principles are part of the explanation of the essence-specifying definition of material objects/events.
The Demiurge viewed as a real agent would, in the light of the sphere of its operation in the medium of thought, be an illegitimate conception insofar as Kant was concerned, in that we are dealing with the realm of the supersensible, which Kant believed we can know nothing categorical about. At best, for Kant, the Demiurge could be characterised as an idea, form, or principle constituted in the realm of thought. We, as thinking beings, do not think in the same way as the Demiurge whose mode of thinking in this realm was characterised by Aristotle in Metaphysics book 10, in terms of thinking about thinking. We, in contrast, can only think something about something as is reflected in the subject-predicate of our language which has a subject-predicate structure. Thinking about thinking could perhaps be characterised ontologically as having the status of the principle of all principles.
In the Critique of Teleological Judgement Kant claims that Reason is the faculty or principles aiming at the unconditioned—that which is without conditions. This would then entail that thinking about thinking is a divine form of reasoning. Given the fact, however, that we, rational animals capable of discourse, can only think something about something, i.e. understand the world in terms of concepts, aiming categorically at the truth and knowledge (epistemé). Our human theoretical understanding, on this account, refers then to principles which are not unconditionally constitutive of the Being of the external world. The principles involved are merely regulative–hence the importance of the Greek conception of the Demiurge as the Being whose thought constitutes the being of the world as a whole.
Human thought occurs via concepts, and here we lose the immediate connection with reality that is given via intuitions. Our connection is mediated through our cognitive powers. The power of reason reaches out to reality and immediate intuitive connection via concepts and logical principles such as noncontradiction and sufficient reason. Whilst concepts are in search of understanding reality, Reason, in its theoretical use is striving after a perspicuous representation of the unconditioned actuality of the world as a whole. In order to achieve this, it works with the idea of an unconditioned ground of nature. Human intuition, understanding and reason are all powers of a finite being. The Greeks, in spite of their embrace of theoretical reason prized practical reason above all other forms probably because they believed we were brought closer to reality or Being via, for example, our belief in the “Form of the Good”. We, rational animals capable of discourse, use reasons for the purposes of areté (doing and saying the right thing in the right way at the right time) and diké (justice as conceived by Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle). Both of these ideas relate to finite beings and finite action situated at specific times and places—something which is a very different kind of being to that of the form of actualisation of a divine, infinite being, thinking about thinking. Indeed to fathom the full depth of the idea of the omnipresence of the Demiurge requires a form of cognition we rational animals capable of discourse do not possess. This may entail that we do not fully understand the form of the good and that therefore our most important creation–the polis– is constantly in danger of falling into a state of ruin. Perhaps we could prevent this from happening if we heeded another oracular challenge, namely to know ourselves.
Freud’s responses to this oracular challenge to “know thyself” are of singular importance given that they are, as he claims, relating to Kantian Philosophy. The later Freudian reflections even use terms drawn from Greek mythology, namely Eros, Thanatos, and Ananke, in order to establish a broader context for both his topography relating to states of consciousness (preconscious, unconscious, and consciousness) as well as the agencies operating in this topography, namely, the superego, ego, and id. The Ego emerges as the fundamental agency using the Reality Principle to neutralise the influence firstly, of the Pleasure-Pain principle and secondly, Thanatos–the death instinct. The Ego, Freud claims, serves three masters, the superego, the id and the external world. It does so primarily in the role of a regulating inhibitor in accordance with the reality principle. Its spheres of operation are mainly in thought and action. Freud also speaks of two psychological processes operating in these spheres of operation, namely the primary process (The instinctive part of the mind most closely allied with the body), and the secondary process whose task is to inhibit and initiate life affirming activity. It is obvious from Freuds account that he like Aristotle saw humans to be primarily animals and only secondarily practically cognitive beings that are forced to make instinctual sacrifices and suffer as a consequence from high levels of discontentment. Freud’s writings are a testament to the fact that the oracular challenge to “know thyself” requires much understanding and reasoning in the name of wisdom.
My argument in my earlier articles (The World Explored, the World Suffered: A Philosophical History of Psychology, Cognition, Emotion, Consciousness and Action( Vol 1-4) has been that if we are to fully understand Freudian theory we need to understand the thought of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, Kantian Enlightenment Philosophy, and the later Philosophy of Wittgenstein. We ought also to consult the works of Analytical Philosophers such as B O Shaughnessy on the topics of The Will and Consciousness. We know that Freud claimed to be a scientist, but the exact meaning of his claim is unclear because what is clear is that he embraced science in the way in which Kant embraced science, namely in a philosophical spirit. Freud, we know used his science in a practical clinical setting and not the theoretical setting of the laboratory. His interest was not in the manipulation and measurement of variables in a context of discovery in which observation was the primary perceptual concern. In Freud’s consulting rooms it was thoughtful speech in the name of areté, that was the medium for the application of the Pleasure-Pain and Reality Principles. The task at hand was to interpret the symptoms that manifested themselves for the purposes of the “talking cure”, as one patient described psychoanalysis, or rather ,as Freud would have described the telos of what was occurring, for the purposes of strengthening the Ego. What was encountered in these consulting rooms, for example, were cathected ideas and motor images of desired objects generated by the primary processes of the mind which in turn gave rise to anxiety and manic desires(wishes) This, in turn, disturbed the operation of the secondary processes of a mind concerned with the problems of love, work and cultural issues. Verbal images which were characterised by Freud as being indications of thought-reality, played an important role in this cathartic process. This power of thought was of importance philosophically to both the Ancient Greek Philosophers, Kant, and the later Wittgenstein.
The work of mourning and the dream work were important aspects of the clinical work which initially used the techniques of hypnosis (later abandoned for good reason), free association, dream interpretation, identification, transference as a means of substituting the operation of the secondary process(reality principle) for the primary process(pleasure-pain principle). In the course of this psychological “work” there is a movement, from what is manifest to consciousness ,to what is latent in that part of the mind concerned with the instincts and the defence mechanisms. Bringing what is latent into consciousness viewed as a vicissitude of the instincts, is part of the task of the talking cure that strengthens the ego. This involves mobilising the cognitive power of language and its re-presentation of content in the context of a search for the Truth about what is good about life.
O’Shaughnessy’s use of the term “desire” in his account of the will and its relation to action presupposes that the will is essentially related to desire and belief, elements which together help to account for the complexity of animal activity and human action. OS marks the distinction between animal and human activity partly at the epistemological boundary where he claims the dog knows that he is about to be fed but our human awareness, he claims, is propositional and humans, he argues knows that it is true that they are about to be fed. This knowledge is vitally important in all human action contexts where it is important for the agent to establish the meaning of the action which includes the intention with which the action is performed.
Elisabeth Anscombe’s work on Intention argues hylomorphically about a case in which I accidentally killed my father on a hunting trip because I mistook his moving camouflaged hat at a distance for a moving deer. I intended to kill the deer but shot my father instead. The distinction between the so-called formal object of my action (the supposed deer) and the actual material object (my father) could only occur in the space of thought-reality. Desire was also important in this court-case because I certainly did not want (desire) to kill my father but the inquest will probably be more interested in establishing my intention than my desire, although the two are clearly intimately related in any action. Reasoning is an important aspect in all court judgements. The judgement of “accidental death” that emerges from the inquiry will inevitably involve teleological judgements in the third person in relation to the details of this case.
Now, it would be problematic to suggest that Freud would allow us to suspect that in spite of my conscious protestations of innocence I may nevertheless have harboured an unconscious desire to murder my father. Consciousness, we have claimed is a vicissitude of instinct, and at the time of my firing the gun there was an awareness of a putative material object of the deer which involved a formal idea of the deer. Being a rational animal capable of discourse, for OS, includes a form of self-awareness that animals do not possess because they do not possess the array of cognitive powers humans do. These powers form what OS calls a unified self composed of a tight circle of mutually related properties:
“When we speak of persons we have in mind beings endowed with a distinctive set of properties, consisting mostly in capacities such as for thought and reasoning but also in the knowledge of certain fundamentals like self, world, time, and truth. These properties are necessary conditions of one another, and in some cases are related by bonds of mutual entailment.”(Consciousness and the World, O Shaughnessy, B., (Clarendon press, Oxford, 2000, P. )
This view too has its hylomorphic and Kantian elements containing as it does a commitment to the self as a whole and the importance of belief and knowledge for thought and action. Consciousness plays an important role in OS’s account but it is evident that the human form of self-consciousness is not possessed by animals. We have a truth-relation to the world which involves thought-reality and external reality juxtaposed and compared in terms of the categories of understanding/judgement and other criteria of truth.
OS interestingly does not believe that his commitment to Freud rules out a commitment to Descartes, in particular his argument that I am certain of my existence because I am capable of thinking critically about my existence (The Cogito argument, “I think therefore I am”). I am also, Descartes insists, capable of being certain about the fact that I am thinking simply because any doubt about this fact is a thought (involved in reasoning). This, it can be argued is a part of thought-reality that Freud was referring to, and means that rationality plays an important role in the constitution of self-consciousness and the Ego. The Ego is not merely a defensive agency but also possesses the desire to know the truth and the desire to understand in a context of loving and working. A strong ego, according to Freud is vital to the mental and physical health of the self that has the task of strategically managing its activities, capacities and powers. This is needed if one is to meet the Delphic oracles challenge to “know thyself”, which has been challenging Philosophers for millennia. For Aristotle, such a complex task would require knowledge from all the sciences incorporated in the various disciplines forming part of theoretical, practical and productive science. Kant managed to condense all this into four fundamental questions of Philosophy, namely “What can we know?”, “What ought we to do?”, What can we hope for?” and “What is man?” In the context of this discussion Freud’s theories are often criticised for not being scientific but his broad perspective of science correlates well with both the Aristotelian canon of sciences and the Kantian view which likewise sees the importance of theoretical, practical and aesthetic reasoning. None of these accounts can be “reduced” to the materialistic concern for matter in motion or its associated concentration of the manipulation and measurement of variables in a context of discovery that relies heavily on observation-based knowledge.
Freud was both a research scientist and a trained doctor and we should note that Medicine has long been committed jointly to both clinical and experimental methods. The clinical method obviously dominated Freud’s research and practice of medicine, and this fact must be related to his view that he was studying not the instincts as such, but rather their psychical representatives. We should note too that, for Kant, it was a mark of theoretical science that it be able to use mathematics to quantify its results but it ought also to be recalled, mathematics is concerned with the quantification of space and time rather than “lived space and time” which is the focus of all the practical and productive sciences concerned with psuché. Movement into this region of science not only takes us away from the investigation of material and efficient causes in a context of exploration/discovery but into the more formal region of thought reality situated in a context of explanation/justification.
Freud in his consulting rooms very often found himself confronted with enigmatic seemingly contradictory phenomena requiring hypothetical speculation and/or explanation/justification in a context in which he was working with preliminary conceptions of health and catharsis His theory was designed to connect the seemingly disparate phenomena of wishes and dreams, hallucinations and symptoms, life and death, instinct and consciousness ,and pathological behaviour and everyday behaviour. He eventually arrived at final justifications for his connections which were more appropriate to the practical and productive sciences(e.g. medicine). Eventually a method evolved which involved discourse in accordance with a rule of truthfulness and various means( hypnosis, free association, dream interpretation, managing the transference relation, etc) of coaxing the patient to follow a trajectory of treatment that promised a better life ( “What can we hope for?”) This truthfulness relation fits well with the account we are given by OS where belief, desire, intention and action are integrated to form a quartet of powers that help to form the unity of self-consciousness.
Freud reached a turning point in his work with the writing of “The Interpretation of Dreams”. There was no longer any appeal to the brain and different types of neurones with different psychological functions. Instead we were given an account of a psychical apparatus that is in a continuous state of change, initially operating in accordance with the primary process in the infant where every wish is a command and the journey of life proceeds largely in accordance with the workings of the pleasure-pain principle. This form of functioning is then subjected to processes of inhibition initiated by the ego but continues to hold us in its grip every night when we dream. Once the ego is strong enough, life proceeds in accordance with both the pleasure pain principle, in those circumstances where it is appropriate, and the reality principle where that is justified. The Hughlings-Jackson physicalist principle of the higher centres in some sense incorporating the lower centres is still envisaged as the physical brain substrate of such an integrated state of psychological affairs. Freud, in fact, claimed that future brain research would justify his theorising and Gerald Edelmans Nobel prize winning research has proved him correct. It has, for example been discovered that the sleeping brain has the same energy profile of the 6 year old child. The relative inactivity of the sensory and motor centres of the brain account for this state of affairs. Dreams occur at some points in the sleep cycle and occurs in a medium of images on a dream screen that is somehow connected to the REM we witness as observers. When as adults we awaken from a dream and remember it, the whole event then becomes eligible for cognitive status especially if we tell someone about the dream and begin to pose questions related to the dream. An activity controlled wholly by the pleasure principle thus is brought under the control of language and the reality principle. This process of the narration of ones dreams was part of the treatment process Freud used to explore the neurotic and psychotic mechanisms that appeared to be responsible for the poor mental health of his patients. In this process, Consciousness played a role in controlling ones manic desires and anxiety by hosting the secondary process of thought-reality : a process in which the word demands reality principle responses to the objects, events and actions that constitute our human form-of-life or being-in-the-world. In terms of pure energy regulation, which incidentally is a biological principle important to Freud, the Egos task is to inhibit the free discharge of energy that is released when we hallucinate or experience primary process phenomena. The task of the secondary process, then, is to subject this process to regulation and produce a more quiescent state in the organism: a state which does not require the intervention of defence mechanisms such as repression, displacement, denial, etc.
Consciousness, which Freud initially described as ” a sense organ for the perception of psychical qualities”, is in its turn transformed by language and its relation to thought-reality. The Preconscious mind is the repository, according to Freud, of the word meaning of our verbal images as well as the repository of our knowledge. This content can be accessed by questions such as “What does that word mean?”,”What did you mean?” or “What is consciousness?” or “Why is the concept of consciousness important?” Unconscious content, however cannot be accessed by this means and requires specific psychoanalytical techniques .
Thought-reality encompasses areté (saying and doing the right thing in the right way at the right time), epistemé self-reflective knowledge), arché (principles), diké (justice) and eudaimonia(the idea of a good spirited flourishing life). These were the remarkable concerns of that Greek Culture which gave rise to a triumvirate of Great Philosophers tied together by the pupil-teacher-relation.
The Art critic, Adrian Stokes, was greatly influenced by Melanie Klein, a second generation psychoanalyst whose work builds upon the Freudian position. In a work entitled “Greek Culture and the Ego”, Stokes speaks of the primitive primary process of “envelopment” which is part of what Freud called the “oceanic feeling”, a feeling of being at one and continuous with the world, most common in infancy before objects achieve a substantial degree of independence and constancy. Obviously the pleasure arm of the pleasure pain principle is operating in such circumstances. Stokes claims that in all great art there is an invitation to be enveloped by the work and its world, but he also claims that this is operating together with a perceptual operation which also appreciates the self sufficiency and externality of the object being appreciated. It is, of course, this latter aspect that is the concern of the work of the understanding in its attempt to conceptualise the world. The envelopment function is an effect of the work of imagination and its wish fulfilment function. Needless to say it is this form of operation of the pleasure principle and the imagination that is unable to sustain a truth relation with the world which has to begin with a constant independent object, event, action and conceptualisation of this something , before something true can be said or thought about it.
Stokes invokes the Greek idea of the Aristotelian Golden Mean and illustrates this idea by claiming that Man is situated between the animals and the gods and is in the “golden position”. He also takes up the issue of pleasure in the life of the ancient Greek and quotes Sir Maurice Bowra:
“..they felt it must be kept in its place and not allowed to upset the harmony of either the individual or the city. They felt too that the strongest pleasures are suitable mainly for the young and that in due course a man passes beyond them to others which are less exciting. This distinction follows the general distinction which the Greeks made between men and the gods. If the gods enjoy power and freedom, men have responsibility and through their use of it attain their own dignity, which is different to anything available to the gods…The Good and the Beautiful were brought closer together than heretofore. I consider this accommodation both then and in the Italian Renaissance to issue from an adjustment between the good objects of superego and of ego. I shall say that the concept of beauty projects, not the ego-ideal, but the ideal ego as an integrated system”.(The Critical Writings of Adrian Stokes, Vol 3, London, Thames and Hudson, 1978, P.81.
There is clearly embodied in Greek metaphysics both an interest in differentiating the theoretical, practical and productive sciences at the same time as there is an interest in exploring the unity of Being and its many meanings. The superego is associated with practical reasoning and the ego with beauty and the kind of aesthetic reasoning that is intrinsic to the productive sciences. The Greek term “aletheia”, according to Heidegger, carries the original meaning of unconcealment and is connected with the pragmatic work of the imagination but it is also, Heidegger argues, a fundamental operation of what he calls the interpretation of that practical relation I have to reality which, in turn, is characterised by a form of awareness that is pragmatic. For Heidegger, it is practical work that brings us closest to the meaning of Being that is brought into unconcealment via a manner of practical knowing Heidegger characterises as “circumspection”. Involved in any task which is habitual, it appears as if consciousness is freed to engage with the task unless something unexpected happens and the task is interrupted by some external factor or error in the performance of the task. This is the nature of work for Heidegger, where tools and other objects are ready-to-hand and only reveal themselves to consciousness when something goes wrong or the task comes to an end. Language does not make an appearance in this work-context and the whole process seems to be moving in a realm of particulars in a way that does not require the operation of conceptual thinking or any related form of communication. Heidegger, however wishes to promote the importance of this kind of instrumental example to the forefront of Philosophical concern. Of course this kind of work has a wider meaning in that it was important for the building of civilisation during the hunter-gatherer phase where language and thought may have played less of a role in determining the activities of man. Julian Jaynes, a brain researcher and psychologist, in his work “Consciousness and the breakdown of the bicameral mind”, postulates a period in mans history when language like all other major functions of the brain was located in both hemispheres and Consciousness as we know it today did not exist. Heidegger’s account of circumspection and its importance for bringing us into contact with Being may have been of historical importance during a period before language became concentrated in the left hemisphere and Consciousness emerged as a result, but that may be the limit of its importance. A Kantian-Freudian critique of this position would involve promoting a more conservative form of practical reasoning in which action is subsumed under the categories of the understanding/judgement and the principles of reasoning.
Kant, however, shares with the Ancient Greeks the desire to give an account of an integrated array of powers giving us access to the many meanings of Being. To this end he proposes Judgement as a third fundamental power alongside Reason and Understanding in order to provide an account of the role of the beautiful and sublime in our civilisations/cultures. In his third Critique, the “Critique of Judgement” we are invited to consider both aesthetic judgment and teleological judgement in relation to the aims of the Critical Project. In both of these forms of judgment the idea of the Good or the finality of ends are fundamental assumptions.
With respect to aesthetic judgments, Kant concedes that they are based on a feeling which arises as a consequence of the harmony of the powers of the imagination and understanding. Yet, he argues , we speak with a universal voice about this feeling and believe we are communicating something of importance to our fellow man when we make judgements of the beautiful and the sublime. For Freud and Stokes, such judgments would be criteria for the possession of a strong ego that can love, work, and hope for a better future. Beauty, for example, is a function of the sensible power of our minds in which the imagination plays a key role without the influence of defence mechanisms. The mature strong ego resists total “envelopment” in relation to these experiences and stands as an independent ego contemplating an independent self-sufficient ,external object.
The question of “envelopment” arose acutely at the beginning of the development of psychoanalysis when Freud experimented with hypnosis in his treatment. The hypnotic state usurped the consciousness of the patient who found themselves not asleep but not awake and this subjected the patient to the treatment rather than allowing the patient to independently and consciously process what is being “brought to consciousness” during the treatment. Stokes points to the fact that the Ancient Greeks stood in awe and wonder at the beauty and strength of their gods but that this experience may have possessed enveloping qualities. This same “oceanic feeling”, Freud, argues may also be operating in Group Psychology when the “masses” are mobilised by hypnotic messages, detached from the reality-testing function of the mature ego and defence mechanisms in relation to reality. This feeling, preserves moments of elation and transforms moments of anxiety into aggressive impulses. In this primary process-led experience the mechanism of projective identification may arise in relation to the presence and words of charismatic leaders. Here we may be led to focus on those that are not members of the mass movement and small differences between us and them may be magnified a hundredfold thus polarising relations between ethnic groups. Imagined harms are attributed to imagined agents in an ocean of anger and hate. The obvious absence of areté, epistemé, and diké contribute to a dehumanising process that can ultimately have terrible consequences. Truthfulness and truth are abandoned in favour of essentially psychotic responses. In times of war even the level-headed Greeks may have submitted to such primary process phenomena and in times of war against an enemy of overwhelming numbers there may well have been no other reasonable response, but one cannot help wondering whether many would have been aware of the artificiality of the emotions and behaviour associated with such events. This draws attention to Freud’s claim that the reality principle “aims” at freeing itself from the hold of the pleasure pain principle, and success is never guaranteed. Stokes continues to cite Bowra on the theme of the balanced personality:
“The truest wisdom lay in a properly balanced personality in which neither side triumphed at the expense of the other. What this meant can be seen from the place given to eros, which means in the first place passionate love, but extends its meaning far beyond physical desire to many forms of intellectual and spiritual passion. For Parmenides it is the child of necessity and the force which makes men live and thrive: for Democritus it is the desire for beautiful things: for Euripides it is the inspiring spirit of the arts: for Pericles it is what devoted citizens feel for their city: for Socrates it is the pursuit of noble ends in thought and action. These different forms of eros agree in making it a power which drives a man to throw his full personality into what he does, which sustains him in powerful exertions and impels him to unusual efforts which sets his intelligence fully and active to work and gives him that unity of being, that harmony of his whole nature which is the spring of creative endeavour… If the complete force of a mans nature works as a single power, he is a full man, and no Greek of the great days would have denied that this was the right and natural way to behave.”(Stokes P.84)
This is a possible answer to the Kantian question “What is man?” but also undoubtedly relates eros to areté. Bowras words are obviously wholly endorsed by Stokes in the name of a Strong Ego, thus highlighting the important harmony in the Philosophy of Kant and the Psychoanalytic theory of Freud. The strong ego is thus motivated by Eros—not the God of Greek Mythology, but rather that “down-to-earth life-principle that emerged from the Socratic speech in Plato´s symposium. A God could hardly have been the progeny of a rich resourceful father and a poor mother who is seduced at a feast when the wine was plentiful. This is the Eros we picture padding bare-footed through the streets of Athens in search of the meaning of life (psuché), placing him in a similar position to that of Diogenes roaming the street after dark with a lantern in search of the faces of honest men. It is poetically apt that Socrates, Plato and Aristotle follow upon these sceptical characters and begin Philosophising on the meaning of Being with specific focus on arché, areté, diké epistemé, and the difficult task of leading the good-spirited flourishing life which in the case of Socrates could only be achieved by leading the examined life. For Plato eudaimonia was only possible if the polis was ruled by Philosophers , and for Aristotle the contemplative life was the key to this elusive state of Being. All three philosophers refused to flinch in the face of the Oracular Proclamation that everything created by man leads to ruin and destruction. If they were discontented with their lives it was certainly not made manifest or announced in the agora. Socrates was certainly the most sceptically inclined of this triumvirate of Philosophers and we all know his fate. Elenchus was part of the Socratic method but was experienced as trickery by the sophists, and as confusing and even comical by the poets.
Stokes points out in this essay how the body-mind problem is not as such a problem, but rather a relation, and is conceived of in terms of psuché. The material of the body is “formed” by appetitive, spirited and rational principles whose presence is manifested in the life of Socrates who ended his existence by resolutely accepting the unjust death sentence passed by the Athenian court. Aristotle’s hylomorphic approach to the problem of the meaning of life is more complex and pluralistic than either the Socratic or Platonic approaches, and best illustrates the scope of the aims of Philosophy in relation to the many meanings of Being, but it retains the idea of the primacy of the Good and the importance of political, ethical and psychological concerns.
Stokes continues his elaboration upon the theme of envelopment in relation to our aesthetic experiences:
“Art shows us that diverse feelings will congregate under an integral form. Much Greek myth retains the character of epitome, a witness of the ego’s power to project a good image of its own balance that incorporates under this figure a symposium of meanings many of which would also have suffered envelopment by one meaning.”(Stokes P.84)
The History of Philosophy bears witness to this position: materialistic theory has in several different periods attempted to reduce human life to its animal substrate, and dualistic theory has on several occasions taken us deep into the unknowable territory of the divine: the territory of the eternal infinite. Separating the existential categories of thought and extension in dualistic spirit also leaves us with a perniciously divided view of life (psuché).
Sensible thought, for Kant, on the other hand, brings us into close contact with both the natural world and the world of thought-reality. Kant, in particular, views the natural world under the aspects of the beautiful and the sublime and both of these aspects testify to the strength of the ego. Kant asks us to imagine standing at the foot of a powerful waterfall and claims that this experience will have two moments. Initially, we will feel fear at the power of the waterfall, but this will subside and give rise to an awareness of our own moral power, and this power of reasoning will remove all fear and anxiety. In Freudian terms this is an appeal to the power of the superego which has integrated itself with the strong ego in this experience of one form of dynamic physical nature. Art objects, on the other hand, mobilise the form of beauty via self sufficient independent objects and the operation of the imagination and understanding in a harmonious unity. The subject is not totally “enveloped” by this form of beauty in Quattrocento art, Stokes argues, because it invokes a form of thought-reality which is not defensive but rather aims at the production of objects that are self sufficient yet capable of suggesting a symposium of meanings.
For Freud, Art, like science is a deflection from directly concerning ourselves with the business of life, and is therefore considered as belonging under the heading of “substitute satisfactions” which require the mobilisation of the defence mechanism of “sublimation”. The work of the ego been done here Freud argues is connected with the restoration of lost objects and the attempt to neutralise the depressive anxiety associated with this process. Sublimation is used here to produce a whole object which is not subject to the manic emotions (e.g. projection, paranoia) but is rather associated with part objects that envelop us and polarise our experience into the good vs the bad. Now projection of part objects as part of a manic defence as might occur in the context of being detrimentally influenced by a charismatic dictator, is a psychotic mechanism but not all projection is psychotic. OS (O Shaughnessy) provides us with an example of projection in the context of action which occurs everyday. When someone asks me to “Turn up the volume!” of the wireless, this clearly involves a two-stage process whereby both the speaker and the hearer understand that the first stage is to mobilise the arm and the hand and fingers in what OS calls a “projected” body-image. The fingers then turn the knob of the wireless and the second stage of the projected intention of the action is initiated which results in the increased volume of the sound coming from the wireless. Projection, that is, does not appear to stop at the body-image, but is involved in all forms of instrumental action. Indeed, there is even a difference between the paranoid projection of a dictator and the depressive projection of a widow believing she hears the steps of her dead husband on the steps outside the door. The wish that the husband not be dead overwhelms the more cognitive secondary processes that contain the knowledge of his death. In this situation, the ego is temporarily weakened by the loss of a valued object. When, however, reality manifests the futility of the wish a certain temporary balance is restored and in time these kinds of experience ought to restore this balance more permanently.
Michelangelo, we know from his letters suffered from depression and Stokes argues that his works seek to restore the loss of once valued objects. His “Times of the Day” situated outside of the Medici tombs place life at the gates of death, aiming at a reality all can understand: restoring life in the face of death. Eros is present and larger than life in all the works of Michelangelo. The painting of the Delphic Oracle on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel testifies to the presence of the Greek spirit in the midst of this most famous painting of the Italian Renaissance. This pagan figure situated in this house of Christian worship was certainly controversial for some Catholics and it signifies a projected acceptance of all forms of human wisdom in this house of contemplation. Here we saw the restoration of the lost wisdom of the Greeks. Freud, we should importantly remember in the context of this discussion, claimed that the ego was a precipitate of lost objects, testifying to the fact that life was a serious business involving considerable suffering on the way to the ideal state of eudaimonia (a good spirited flourishing life). In this struggle which Michelangelo knew only too well, a depressing discontentment may prevail and lead one to periodically believe with Shakespeare’s Macbeth , that “Life is a tale told by an idiot signifying nothing”. We also know that Freud understood this discontentment which even led him to ask whether all the efforts and struggle to avoid Delphic ruin and destruction were worth the effort.
It is important to realise that Freudian theory shifted considerably over time, a fact well documented by Paul Ricoeur in his work “Freud and Philosophy: An Essay in Interpretation, Trans Savage, D., New Haven, Yale University Press,1970:
“The shift from the descriptive to the systematic point of view required by psychoanalysis is made as a result of the dynamic attributes of the unconscious: the facts of post-hypnotic suggestion, the terrible power disclosed in hysterical phenomena, the psychopathology of everyday life, etc, “compel me to attribute an affective activity to certain strong unconscious ideas”. But the experience of psychoanalysis compels us to go further and to form the notion of “thoughts” excluded from consciousness by forces that bar their reception.”(P.118)
Ricouer ponts out in this excellent commentary that the Instincts in this dynamic point of view are the Kantian X of this system, and that furthermore, rather surprisingly , the unconscious contains ideas for which there is no regulation by the principle of noncontradiction. The operation of powerful defence mechanisms and the difficulty of the task of psychoanalytical treatment indicates why a hypercathexis is needed in order for the vicissitude of Consciousness to manifest itself. Nevertheless these unconscious ideas belong to a system containing the psychical representatives of the instincts and generally speaking the aim of this system is a homeostatic form of satisfaction: this is a system regulated by feeling and the pleasure pain principle whose underlying sub-principle is the energy regulation principle that strives to conserve an amount of energy for the purposes of action, but otherwise strives for a state of homeostasis. This system is a “feeling system” and requires a hypercathexis in accordance with another principle (the reality principle ) if all the human powers are to be actualised and eudaimonia achieved. Prior to this hypercathexis and the subsequent strengthening of the ego, the system is narcissistic. Amongst the defence mechanisms the ego uses to chart its course through life is the process of Sublimation. Art and the appreciation of the beauty of nature and the sublime stand at the gateway of our Culture. Freud was convinced that psychoanalytical theory could assist in the interpretation of the objects of our Culture in the same way as it assisted us in the enigmatic business of the Interpretation of our dreams. This conviction took on greater significance after his discovery of the role of the death instinct in the diagnosis of a group of his most difficult patients.
Lurking in the background of artistic activity is the creators relation to authority especially in those situations where the ego finds itself threatened. If authority is experienced as cruel and this has been internalised in the course of the artists personality development, there are serious implications for the moral well-being of the individual. The superego, we know, is a systematic concept which judges activity in the domain of the will connected to moral activity. Normal personality development will seamlessly integrate the superegos moral concerns into the realm of the Ego, but pathological disturbances in this development will result in a split between the ego and the superego which will involve a considerable amount of aggression. Melancholics, for example, will turn this aggression upon their own egos and self destruction may well be the result. In the course of this cycle of self destruction we will encounter pathological forms of self-observation, condemnation and idealisation.
The immediate source of our moral ideas is of course the family, who are the messengers of our Culture. At stake in this process is not just the individuals relation to his family but his relation to all forms of authority and social institutions representing that authority. The work of civilising ones children will involve a number of defence mechanisms including identification which involves the abandonment of sexual desire in relation to socially prohibited objects. Sublimation, too involves non sexual forms of substitute satisfaction which also suits the purposes of culture. The compensation offered to the individual for this postponement of gratification into an indefinite future may not be, Freud argues sufficient, and the subject may feel a deep rooted discontentment at being forced to make such sacrifices in relation to his appetites. The Ancient Greek image of a thousand-headed monster with a thousand different forms of appetite illustrates well the psychoanalytical attitude to the pathological pursuit of a life devoted solely to the satisfaction of ones every growing appetites . Plato’s tripartite soul (appetite, spirit, reason) also well illustrates Freudian theory and its view of psuché (life). Plato’s view of the soul, we know also served as a picture of the polis and the forces of unification /division that were operating, “writ large”. The laws (arché) are obviously a symbol of the rational intent of authority and the relation of the population to the laws will determine whether justice(diké) will be pursued or not. Such cultural control surpasses that of controlling the appetites and involves also mobilising the spirit of man to make the necessary sacrifices for his polis. A life devoted to the satisfaction of appetites threatens to envelop the self and close off other more fruitful avenues of development. The Ego , Freud argues, grows through sacrifice and the loss of desired objects.
Melanie Klein, Stokes argues, characterises this activity of the ego in terms of what she calls the “depressive position”. In this phase of the development of the personality the individual ego attempts to overcome the fragmenting power of the pain and suffering experience. What emerges is a power which can integrate both internal powers and external experiences into a whole. In his essay on Greek Culture, Stokes argues that in the process of its cultural development the gods shed much of the omnipotence attributed to them and man emerged as agent responsible for the ruin-destruction or flourishing of the polis. In this context the oracular challenges to “Know thyself” and “Nothing too much”(Stokes P.94) thus became less messages from the gods and more the principles of a philosophical life-view that man needed to understand. This development was a mastering of the depressive position which testified to the healthy nature of Greek authority. Thanatos is kept at arms length and there is a refusal to internalise destructive attitudes and tendencies.
The art of the Quattrocento was, in Stokes’ view “life-enhancing” and manifested the same spirit as that which has been found in Ancient Greece, whether we are considering their love of social discourse in the agora or the rationality of their law-makers and Philosophers. Stokes points out that, in these Quattrocento works of art, there is an element of the influence of an “oceanic feeling” in the act of appreciation which defines the kind of psychical distance we need to contemplate the independence of the created object: the feeling involved in this envelopment process, then, is non-pathological. Kant in fact registers this fact in his Critical Philosophy by insisting that in all judgements of beauty, the ground of the judgement is the feeling of pleasure that arises from the harmonious activity of the (enveloping?) imagination and the (conceptual) understanding. We may speak with a universal voice in our judgements but the judgement nevertheless remains subjective and is about us and our mental activity, rather than the object we confront. The experience is essentially an activity of the sensible faculty of the mind, and it is the “effect” of the object upon sensibility which is important in this aesthetic transaction, e.g. the mass-effect of the stone of a building, the “blossoming” of the embellishments upon the surface of the wall of a building, the light-effect of the colour and shapes of a painting. This kind of judgement is to be contrasted with an objective judgement such as “Man is a rational animal capable of discourse” where the proposition is in accordance with categories of the understanding/judgement and principles that are parts of arguments. These principles will include the principles of noncontradiction and sufficient reason.
The Strong Ego that has endured the losses of its desired objects throughout life has risen above the fragmenting forces of the suffering and pain that manifests itself in what Klein called the paranoid -schizoid position, where our relation to part objects occurs also in terms of the split good/bad self. The greatest test of the strength of the ego is its relation to its own impending death. Does it face death resolutely or in fear? What do we lose in death? Obviously we lose our life, but more concretely we lose the use of all of our powers starting with the most sensible powers of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching and ascending to the powers of imagination, memory, language, thought, understanding, judgement, reason. This is a lot to lose, and it is hardly surprising that the wish to remain alive is a very strong desire, and envelops both the body and the idea of the body in the mind. We know that Freud claimed that the first task of the Ego is to protect the body and he thereby identified the psychological process that lay behind the Greek ideal of a healthy body and a healthy mind. The Greeks knew for example the importance of the principle (arché) of the Golden Mean in the regulation of the appetites and spirited anger and aggression which could destroy a body very quickly. The “Nothing too much” advice from the oracle is mostly directed at our pleasure-pain relations to the world and our bodies and the “know thyself, was probably directed at the higher intellectual functions of the mind, namely understanding, judgment, and reasoning.
Death, then is not an event but a telos that is represented in the Freudian system by the death instinct. This “instinct” was also for him writ large in Civilisation and was part of the cause of mans discontentment with his existence. Man can of course control his environment using instrumental reasoning and to some extent control other people through persuasive reasoning, laws and other forms of categorical reasoning, but he cannot change one fundamental truth, namely that “All men are mortal”. Whatever man does or thinks is possible, he is going to die, because his body is a finite living thing that will eventually return to the earth from whence it came. This accounts for the presence of the idea of death at the heart of psuché. Yet it has been pointed out Socrates was content to die. This kind of acceptance of the prospect of Nothingness was extraordinary. Was it connected to the examined life that he led and was continually recommending to his followers?
Ricoeur points out that the introduction of the Death Instinct required that Freud recast his entire theory. In the revised theory, Eros is the central power that the Ego uses to deal with the threefold categories of suffering that have to be endured in the course of the activities associated with living and working, namely, suffering caused by the external world, suffering caused by other people and suffering caused by ones body. In the course of his libidinal development man is destined to abandon earlier stages of development that have been cathected with considerable energy and emotion. In this developmental process the critical demand of Eros upon the Ego results in the widening of the circle of life to include membership in much larger groups than the family. This, however, was not a straightforward matter because Culture sometimes demanded irrational things such as that one love ones neighbours and ones enemies. Freud regarded these essentially religious commandments as absurd and even dangerous. These challenges, he argues devalue the love man naturally feels for himself and his family. Also to be considered is the fact that:
“men are not gentle creatures who want to be loved and who at the most can defend themselves if they are attacked: they are, on the contrary, creatures among whose instinctual endowments is to be reckoned a powerful share of aggressiveness. As a result their neighbour is for them…someone who tempts them to satisfy their aggressiveness on him, to exploit his capacity for work without compensation, to use him sexually without his consent, to seize his possessions, to humiliate him, to cause him pain, to torture and kill him, Homo hominis lupus.” (Civilisation and Its Discontents, 1929)
The stage is therefore set for mans journey to ruin and destruction and the arena for the spectacle will be Civilisation where the Giants will battle for the soul of man and the soul of his cities. When, to the above form of suffering, one adds the threats from the external world and the threats of bodily suffering one can perhaps better appreciate the significance of the characterisation of the Ego as the precipitate of lost objects. Where work is the concern of the Ego, Freud raises the interesting question whether all the effort involved in our work to maintain and develop our civilisations is worth the time. The mere posing of the question suggests that Eros is not destined to win the battle with Thanatos as it did in the case of Michelangelo who despite periods of depression carried on working into his eighties producing his cultural objects:poems , sculptures, paintings, architectural works etc.
Stokes, in his essay entitled “Michelangelo” quotes from one of his letters:
“I live on my death…..And he who does not know how to live on anxiety and death, let him come into fire in which I am consumed”(Stokes P.54)
Michelangelo was also an architect obsessed with the mass-effect of stone and as a sculptor he attempted to set this mass in movement. His figures “Times of the Day” that stand outside the tomb of the Medici’s contain both mass and movement. They embody Michelangelo’s loss and depression, anxiety and death. We see here, too, the inspiration of Antique art and its concern with the nude and healthy body.
Stokes also notes the prevalence of Guilt in the work of Michelangelo:
“Nor have his biographers known him in this respect. It is usual to stress his generosity to worthless relations as well as his many other gifts, particularly to the poor. They overlook the manifest compulsiveness, they overlook the horse who is running with all his might, spurred invisibly by guilt, anxiety, the desire to restore, as well as by live.”(P.24)
Michelangelo was not. a gentle creature but rather than expending his energy on exploiting his neighbour he used the mechanism of Sublimation to produce the greatest art we have experienced. He was a religious man who feared for his soul and who, in his will, commended his soul to God. This obviously raises a question pertaining to the relation of Freudian theory to religion. Freud came from Jewish origins and we know he was not institutionally religious but, given his claim that his Psychology was Kantian, and Kant was philosophically committed to the existence of the idea of God on moral grounds, we need to inquire further into what Freud would have thought about the Kantian argument.
The compulsion to repeat an activity over and over again, does of course call for interpretation. The resemblance of such a state of affairs to rituals of all kinds, including religious rituals is striking. Freud connected ritualistic behaviour with superstition which, he noted, was also present in children’s wish fulfilment and anxiety-related behaviour. The wish for the love and protection of a father was also a part of Freud’s complex analysis of phenomena in this domain of human behaviour. Some commentators have noted that there is a kind of negativity associated with religious thought and existentialists have also noted that negation is an important characteristic of consciousness and thereby important for reality-testing. Whether this is somehow related to the death instinct is an interesting question to answer on another day. The death instinct certainly wishes to restore an earlier state of things, returning the organic to the inorganic.
If Eros is to defeat Thanatos and a God is to emerge from the battle between these giants we cannot rest with principles such as the pleasure-pain and reality principles which do not present any world-view. Ananke perhaps announces such a world-view demanding as it does from us that we bear the burden of existence and face squarely the harshness and suffering of life, without any attempt to mobilise defence mechanisms. Ananke alone, however, does not suffice and Freud in fact invokes a God in this context:
“Our god logos will fill whichever of these wishes nature outside us allows, but he will do it very gradually, only in the unforeseeable future, and for a new generation of men. He promises no compensation for us who suffer grievously from life…. Out god logos is perhaps not a very almighty one, and he may only be able to fulfil a small part of what his predecessors have promised. If we have to acknowledge this we shall accept it with resignation.”(Ricoeur P.326)
Reality for Fred, according to Ricouer, then, is, “The world shorn of God”(p.327).
Logos is a god with no trace of anthropomorphisation left which is not true of Eros. Logos refuses any connection to superstitious obsessive rituals requiring images loaded with affect. Logos does, however, appear to require conscious reasoning and an awareness of the operation of Negation which allows us to explore the possibility of death as the contradiction of life—an operation not possible in the unconscious system of the mind given the fact that no contradiction is possible in that system. Negation, we should recall from Freud’s article with the same title, is a systemic condition for the material that is in the unconscious to reach the level of consciousness. In the conscious discourse with his patients, much material relevant for the analysis surfaced, especially in the patients negations or denials of a thesis, e.g. “No, that figure in the dream did not resemble my father in any way!” This operation also makes possible the more complex attitude of resignation in relation to the acceptance of the inevitability of my death . Unconscious desire has no idea of the mortality of man and would not be able to accept the Socratic motivations for the acceptance of his own death.
The Socratic equivalent in Freud for leading the examined life was leading the life of. a scientist but Freud may also concede that leading the life of the artist could have equal merit. It is rare, however, that the work of art confronts the harshness of life directly . Michelangelo’s “Times of the Day” may be an exception in juxtaposing the concerns of life with the inevitability of death. Aristotle saw in Art a learning process which involves Logos: a process that can lead to an understanding of principles (arché).
Logos, for Kant would involve the operation of reason and its principles of noncontradiction and sufficient reason but it might also involve the existence of God which, in his Third Critique must be a valid idea in much the same way as the moral law is a valid idea. The issue for Kant, however, was an issue of faith, not the superstitious obsessive faith of the masses, but rather a rational (logos) faith grounded in the moral law and Practical Reasoning and its principles. This is a faith that also believes in the freedom of the moral agent to choose his/her destiny. This was a partial answer to the question “What can I hope for?” and Logos would be seen to be important in arriving at the complete answer to this question. There is an implication inherent in the question that we humans are not the Highest Good in the Kantian system and this honour is given to the idea of God (although in practical contexts freedom was the highest ida of reason). The logos of God in the Kantian system involves the guarantee of happiness in proportion to the virtue manifested in a life. Many believe that the logos of the Freudian system is one in which determinism rules and this, if true, would make it difficult to find space for the freedom of the agent to exist.
Connected to this dilemma is the religious idea of Original Sin. This idea is discussed in Kant’s work “Religion Within the bounds of Mere Reason”(trans Wood, A.,and di Giovanni, G., Cambridge, CUP, 1998) Guilt is of course a leading concept in relation to such an idea and something like this conception must be involved in the Delphic prophecy that everything created by humans is destined for ruin and destruction. Kant does talk in terms of a radical evil that can only be overcome by a re-evaluative revolution in ones life, one which is motivated by both a faith in god and his divine justice´. This, however is not the same idea as the Original sin in the Bible because, for Kant, the will is not fatally flawed but rather “subject to” good and evil . Man experiences his guilt, punishments, and a kind of salvation after the revolution in his character has occurred. When all this has occurred man may well find the strength to accept his own death with equanimity, if he knows he has not generally made people unhappy. For Kant it is the good will alone which is pleasing to God and he therefore did not believe that ritualistic worship was justified. His church was therefore an ideal church. Miracles and other supernatural events would not find any place in such an ideal institution. Only a good life would please his philosophically-conceived God. This position resembles that of the Freudian appeal to the god of Logos. The Bible is also a matter for concern in this discussion especially if it appeals to supernatural events which defy natural explanation. This kind of appeal is an invitation into the realm of paranoia and obsessive compulsive behaviour. The god of Logos, Freud argues will be for a new generation of men and this reminds us not of the Christian Kingdom of Heaven but the Kantian Kingdom of ends in which the good is not just good in its consequences but also good-in-itself and will become actualised in a cosmopolitan world in which peace is the norm and wars are considered irrational. This is an answer to Glaucon’s Challenge to Socrates in Plato’s Republic to prove that “justice (diké) is both good-in-its consequences but also good-in-itself. In Plato’s Republic “The form of the Good” was not just ethical and religious but also political because life was not easy for the good man living in an evil polis.He may, for example be put to death for attempting to led an examined life, as was the case with Socrates.
Kant’s religious views were also aligned with his political views. The ethical/political idea of a kingdom of ends is also part of his answer to the question “What can we hope for?”. Indeed one of the formulations of the moral law appeals to the kingdom of ends. There may be empirical evidence accumulated over long periods of time against the thesis that mankind is continually progressing but Kant’s time scale over one hundred thousand years suggests that evidence has to be accumulated over at least tens of thousands of years if one is to refute the thesis.
Perhaps in the light of these discussions one might be more sympathetic to the accusation that both Freud and Kant are agnostics given their commitment to a god that cannot be experienced, but this idea of God may be the only argument we currently possess that the good is the good-in-itself. Aristotle has been forgotten in this debate but he believed that God was a thinking being(who is thinking about thinking) and our understanding of such a divine being was severely limited given the fact that our finite form of thinking was a thinking about objects or concepts in a finitely composed continuum of space, time and matter. This for Kant was also a possible position because the realm that is being referred to here is the realm of the thing-in-itself (the noumenal), which can be reached in a limited way by faith but not at all by the kind of knowledge we finite beings possess. It might be that this is the best context in which to evaluate justifications by faith proclaimed by religious thinkers. Freud appeared to have faith in his god logos and in that sense, if faith is a belief-state, this belies the characterisation of “agnostic” that some have proposed as an apt description of his relation to religion. The more popular accusation that Freud was an atheist was probably prompted by his more popular remarks about himself that he was a godless Jew which might incidentally also be the opinion/accusation of a more traditional Jewish believer.
The ethical/political end of the Kantian Kingdom of Ends requires of course a hylomorphic belief in the validity of teleological judgement in connection with the good will and its relation to the moral law. The actualisation of the Kingdom of Ends is a process that also involved Logos (Reason), a process requiring principles from many realms of reason and also requiring self-knowledge that is constituted by principles drawn from many disciplines in all three domains of Aristotelian sciences(theoretical, practical, and productive). The Logos of Kantian Political Philosophy is clearly hylomorphic, suggesting as it does, that rationality is a potential moral power which hopefully will supplant the instrumental powers that we use to achieve our personal happiness. Whether or not the potential is actualised depends on the extent to which the continual progress we make using our current level of rationality can produce the “revolution” in our self referred to. If the revolution occurs our focus shifts from our personal happiness to our worthiness to be happy as measured by our adherence to the moral law. If an agent is not happy because he has led an examined life which includes doing his duty insofar as the moral law is concerned ,and he is dying, the mere consciousness of his worthiness to be happy ought to suffice for him to meet his death resolutely with a degree of contentment.
Kant , in his political writings pointed to the difficulty of achieving the revolution he referred to, because the agent is prone to a form of social unsociability in which he refuses to be influenced by others , preferring instead to legislate for his own will with maxims that might except himself from the rule of the moral law. This antagonism toward his fellow man is of course one of the root causes of the ruin and destruction that threatens all mankind. Such an agent of course has limited self knowledge and does not appreciate the value of the “Nothing too much” advice from the oracle. The principle of practical contradiction also does not apply here because if the agents antagonism leads to his ruin and destruction this is surely not what he would want.
For Kant the idea of peace is juxtaposed with that of freedom and Kant proposes a League of Nations to neutralise the antagonism of nations toward each other in order to regulate a world order plagued by wars. Rationality between states is also conceived of hylomorphically, in terms of a potentiality. The Kingdom of Ends, according to Kant, will take the form of a Cosmopolitanism that Kant clearly saw the seeds of, in his Cosmopolitan Königsberg. We currently see a process of globalisation without seeing or appreciating its Cosmopolitan end, but as long as wars take us closer and closer to the ruin and destruction prophesied by the oracle, it becomes less and less clear that we are in fact progressing to some “form of the Good” as Kant conceived of it. Freud, whilst not claiming that we are spiralling downwards towards ruin and destruction, despaired of the “beacons” of Capitalism and Communism as embodied by the USA and Russia. Over eighty years later there is no reason to doubt that the eagle eyes of Freud detected the possibility of Thanatos winning the battle against Eros in the not too distant future.
Artificial Intelligence and its Discontents”: A Philosophical Essay : Introduction.
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Introduction
Chat GPT was asked to write a 1000 word essay on Philosophy and Artificial Intelligence and the answers provided help us to understand at least how the programmers think and reason about the phenomenon they have created. The conclusion Chat arrived at was:
“The intersection of philosophy and artificial intelligence encompasses a vast array of profound questions that challenge our understanding of the mind, consciousness, ethics, knowledge, and human existence. As AI continues to advance, it becomes increasingly important to engage in philosophical reflections that guide the responsible development and deployment of this powerful technology. By exploring these philosophical dimensions, we can forge a more profound appreciation of human intelligence and its relationship with the rapidly evolving world of AI. Together, philosophy and artificial intelligence offer a unique perspective that can illuminate the path to a future where both human minds and machines coexist in harmony and understanding”.(20th July 2023)
The key words in the opening sentence are “challenge our understanding of the mind, consciousness, ethics, knowledge and human existence.” It is clear that Chat is taking an explorative, cautious approach to this question, and other questions we asked later, indicate that Chat does not quite engage with the arguments Philosophers have provided against using some of the language used above, e.g. understanding, intelligence, etc.. It almost seems as if it is the question of the peaceful coexistence of man and computer that primarily occupied the programmers and they are at pains not to take a definite defendable position on many of the issues that are raised about AI.
Chat was also asked to write a 1000 word essay on the topic of “Know Thyself” and two features of its answer stood out. Firstly, no connection was made between this topic and the topic of the importance of knowing what it is we do not know. Socrates is mentioned but not the fact that his entire philosophical adventure may have been sponsored by the statement of the Oracle that he was the wisest man in Athens because he knew what it is that he did not know. Secondly it is remarkable that Chat speaks about “our” personal “introspective” journey as if it regarded itself as part of the community of minds that form our human communities. It is clear here that the programmers are not programming chat in accordance with a clear conception of the “identity” of the machine (what it is in itself), but are rather importing their own identities into the equation. This may cause confusion in the future and gives rise to the Philosophical demand that the programmers form a clear picture of the machines powers and potentialities and programme the machine accordingly.
Joseph Weizenbaum, in his work “Computer Power and Human Reason”( London, Penguin, 1976) tells us about his experience of what he calls the artificial intelligentsia” in unflattering terms, calling them compulsive mad scientists. If these characters are our programmers we can certainly wonder whether they know what they don’t know. We shall offer a review of Weizenbaum’s work, subtitled “From Judgement to Calculation” in a later chapter.
Introspection was a topic covered in volume one of my work (The World Explored, the World Suffered….”). In this volume there is a chapter on Plotinus, an ancient thinker who belonged to the Platonic school of Philosophy, but he subscribed to a theory of the soul (psuché) that would reject confusing arte-facts with “forms of life”. When Plotinus discusses the senses and sensation there is no confusion of, for example, biologically-based visual images, with the automated digital visual images (ADVI’s), that are so commonly encountered in the world of artificial intelligence. There is, that is, a clear recognition of the difference in distinction between techné and epistemé. This is part of the knowledge the Oracle and the everyday Greek took for granted, seeing in the former the need for a calculative form of reasoning that does not follow the principles of theoretical reasoning involved in epistemological claims.
Plotinus claims that we humans use sensation to discriminate between experiences and this is certainly not the case with computers that cannot in any sense “feel” anything, since they do not possess the appropriate biological nervous-system. The soul, for Plotinus, belongs to a realm of Thought and Being and is likened unto a musician playing a physical harp that belongs to another realm of Being (that relates to external objects). He points in the spirit of Aristotle to the melody emanating from a harp as the “principle”(arché) of the activity. The type of knowledge operative in this situation is obviously a non-observational type of knowledge and is, therefore, more practical and related to various practical aesthetic concerns that we human beings possess.
Kant’s third Critique discusses both aesthetic judgement and teleological judgment and themes relating to psuché, remind us of the hylomorphic approach to such themes. The most elementary power of psuche is the power of sensation that, for Kant, carries with it more than the power of discriminating one thing from another in experience. “Knowledge” in the form of an apriori intuitive awareness of space and time flows from the human body composed of a complex set of organs orchestrating a configuration of limbs which, according to O Shaughnessy, generate a body-image that is “known” non-observationally and that “inhabits” space and time rather than merely occurring in a space time continuum in the way a grain of sand in a desert or a machine does.
Given the fact that a computer or Turing machine has a fundamental relation to mathematics that relies on a sequence of functions being arrayed in time, either simultaneously, or linearly, one after another, it is not particularly surprising to discover that the “alphabet” composing the so-called “information-strings” is composed of 0’s and 1’s. This is the “language” of the machine although one must hasten to add that the use of the term “language” to describe what is occurring here is attenuated to say the very least. The 0’s and 1’s may not refer to a space in the machine but to whether a particular process is operating or not. The principle operating here is an energy regulation principle that is not entirely dissimilar to that energy regulating principle operating in the brain with the caveat that the machine is constituted of inorganic matter moved by electrical currents and the brain is an organic system moved by both chemistry and electrical activity, with the emphasis on the former when it is a question of transmitting impulses over the system. This difference alone might rule out the possibility of any form of self-awareness occurring in the machine, and this in turn may be the crucial element necessary for agency, i.e. for an act of will to occur.
This difference may also account for an act of knowing to occur based on sensation and the feeling of the sensation. The difference I am drawing attention to here is similar to the difference between a perceptual image of a castle and a digitally generated image of a castle, whether we are talking about images in motion such as those generated by film or television cameras, or “still-life” images that may be painted or drawn. The latter are in the true tradition of Plato simulated images of reality that are like the shadows projected upon the wall of the prisoners cave: they are arte-factual. Such images cannot form the basis for generating either an act of knowledge (episteme, justified true belief) or an action directed toward the good in the external world (arête, virtuous act).
Yet Stanley Cavell in an interesting book on the Ontology of film, entitled, “The World viewed”, made the following claim:
“…an immediate fact about the medium of the photograph..is that it is not painting..A photograph does not present us with “likenesses” of things: it presents us, we want to say, with the things themselves”(Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1971, P.17)
But Cavell immediately backtracks from this and claims that because the photo of the earthquake is not the earthquake itself we may feel uncomfortable with the above claim as we might feel uncomfortable with showing a picture of a famous person and saying “that is not X”. He compounds the mystery surrounding the ontological structure of such images by claiming:
“So far as photography satisfied a wish, it satisfied a wish not confined to painters, but the human wish, intensifying in the West since the Reformation, to escape subjectivity and metaphysical isolation—a wish for the power to reach this world…” P.21
Cavell asks himself the question of how photography managed to escape subjectivism and he gives himself the answer that it succeeds in doing this by the process of automation, a process that removes the human being completely from the artistic equation. This is an interesting discussion in the light of the questions we have been raising about artificial intelligence. Is not the human being here too, removed from the equation? There are, we know programmers behind what is happening on our screens as there are directors responsible for the films we view but the question we need to ask here is the question Weizenbaum raises: Have the programmers become like their machines, automatons, robotic presences who need their food brought to them?
Cavell in the introduction to his work invokes the spectre of Plato and asks whether the relation of the image to what it is an image of is not a relation of “participation?” The images in motion we encounter then, somehow announce the presence of the thing itself:
“…. A fundamental fact of film’s photographic basis: that objects participate in the photographic presence of themselves on film: they are essential in the making of their appearances. Objects projected on a screen are inherently reflexive, they occur as self-referential, reflecting upon their physical origins.”(P. XVI)
The question I am raising with this discussion is whether we are not dealing with shadows on a cave wall but rather with the many objects in the world participating in the one idea of them, an idea that gives them their reality. Insofar as the images we encounter on the screens of our computers are moving, and have a basis in photography, they must in a sense escape the argument that attempts to characterise them as subjective imaginings that have little contact with reality.
One of the messages of “The World Explored, the World Suffered” is the destructiveness of the objective subjective distinction in metaphysical discussions (discussions about first principles). Sometimes the distinction is being used to neutralise first principle arguments, and sometimes we refuse its application in contexts where the issue is one of defending different forms of (logical?) solipsism. Perhaps the solution to this problem is to abandon this distinction altogether in favour of Aristotelian, Kantian frameworks which situate the human being in a framework well expressed by Heidegger’s term, “Being-in-the-world”.
The important fact to remember in the context of this discussion is that phenomena in the world get their explanations from 3 different forms of science, theoretical, practical and productive. Techné, has its roots in the productive sciences that situate themselves not in the faculties of the understanding but in relation to Judgment. Technological instrumental equipment such as AI robots and computers are not worthy ends in themselves for humanity, and are therefore not something we can speak with a “universal voice”. There is, at best, an appeal to instrumental practical reasoning that sets its sights on the means to ends rather than on the ends themselves
The form of reasoning we encounter in such contexts is the form of an instrumental hypothetical imperative that select means to ends. Insofar as humans are concerned it is a measure of human intelligence, according to William James in his “Principles of Psychology”, that if we find our path to an end blocked, we can then choose an alternative means to the end. This kind of freedom of choice, however, is not available to computers and their programs in situ. So, there is no human element directly involved in this process and this is why we have raised the issue of automation in relation to the images in motion in film. AI is not entitled to the term “Intelligent” on James’ reasoning, because however real the cause-effect relations involved in the relation between the lines of the program and the operation of the computer, the effects are automated effects and not products of free human choices. Moreover James further claims that:
“The pursuance of future ends, and the choice of means for their attainment are thus the mark and criterion of the presence of mentality in a phenomenon” (Principles of Psychology, James, W., Dover Publications, New York, 1890, P.8)
This is in line with both Aristotelian and Kantian thinking, and James continues to contrast the criteria of mentality to automatic or machine-like deterministic activity, where there is both no possibility for choice or any relation to desire. James argues that there are reflex responses in living beings that appear to be in accordance with pure mechanical causation, but it is important to note that this admission is also to be acknowledged in the light of the above, that is the reflex system can be both monitored by the mentality of a human organism and qualified by an immediate mental response which might, for example, explain that the reflex was not intended.
James was writing during the “times of troubles” for Psychology, during the divorce proceedings between Philosophy and Scientific Psychology that had begun under the banner of the definition of Psychology as “The Science of Consciousness”. The Definition William James coined was “ The Science of Mental Life, its phenomena and conditions”, and this was an attempt to summarise both the Philosophy of mind of his time, and the scientific research from all over the world (James was competent in both German and French). He was writing in a time of transition in Philosophy that he helped to initiate with his eventual creation of the school of “Pragmatism”. A transition that Brian O’Shaughnessy would echo and modify in his two volume work on “The Will: A dual-aspect theory”, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1980):
“it is because we think of mans mind as vital and animal, and tied in its very essence to a sustaining world, that we lay great emphasis at the present moment on this familiar phenomenon. All else in the mind, Including consciousness itself, is from such a point of view of merely secondary significance.”(P.XIV)
This excursion into the domain of Philosophical Psychology has consequences for any inquiry into the nature of Artificial Intelligence, which appears to have by-passed the Socratic stage of the investigation that always begins with the question “Ask of everything what it is in its nature”. The inquiry also seems to have overlooked the Aristotelian definition of human psuché, namely, “rational animal capable of discourse”. By no stretch of the imagination is it possible to categorise mechanical devices as “alive” or “animal”, Furthermore, since the elements of the definition are integrated together, it also suggests that mechanical devices may not be capable of authentic discourse or rationality.
Later in this work we will draw attention to the failure of Chat GPT to understand the meaning of the statement “Promises ought to be kept”. Also missing in this situation is what O’ Shaughnessy termed “self-consciousness” (part of the “essential dynamic character of consciousness”). An epistemological contact with reality is part of this process and O’Shaughnessy contrasts the normal function of self-consciousness with dreaming, which is what happens to mind when the normal controls of the mind are relaxed (inactivity of the motor system and senses). Action (initiated by the motor system), however, invades the domain of epistemology and this is evident in the way in which the practical world is stamped on all visual experience: the visual impression of the castle is a place to visit by climbing the steep hill.
O Shaughnessy does not miss the Socratic and Aristotelian steps in his investigation as is evidenced by the claim:
“..what one is determines how and indeed what one knows”(P. XLVII)
Freud is invoked in this discussion:
“One sees the landscape with a cool objective intelligent eye that endows it with colour and shape and depth and content, and at the very same time with an unconscious and deeply interested gaze that sees in it some primal entity concerning which one cares….According to Freud, the ego phenomenon of sense perception depends on and reverberates with the undercurrent of phenomena in the other great instinctual half of the mind….Epistemology is not the isolated psychic function one might at first think. Thus sight is a more total embrace than the model of the camera suggests: depending on sensation, and so body, but also on past experience, on present beliefs, on concepts, memory, indeed upon sanity and reason; and according to Freudian theory, ones very instincts”.(P. XLVIII)
This also raises the question of whether the category of desire is relevant to the description of the activities of the AI machine. Indeed the fallacy we refer to later in the work, that namely, of anthropomorphising the machine, may lie in the very structure of our perceptual contact with the world. We “see”, for example, the arms and legs of a chair and this is reflected in language in extending the use of linguistic terms metaphorically. Anthropomorphising a chair in everyday language is, of course, a different matter to the issue of the validity of the claims made by science and natural science which has tended toward cleansing its theories of all such tendencies, referring to them as “subjective”. But there is a deeper issue here, especially when we are discussing the so-called life sciences.
Kant, in his Third Critique, partly acknowledged this deeper issue on his discussion of the role of analogy in relation to the power of Judgement:
“The concept of a thing as intrinsically a physical end is, therefore, not a constitutive conception either of understanding or of reason, but yet it may be used by reflective judgement as a regulative conception for guiding our investigation of objects of this kind by a remote analogy with our own causality according to ends generally…..Organisms are, therefore, the only beings in nature that, considered in their separate existence, and apart from any relation to other things, cannot be thought possible, except as ends of nature. It is they, then, that first afford objective reality to the conception of an end that is an end of nature and not a practical end. Thus they supply natural science with the basis for a teleology, or, in other words, a mode of estimating its Objects on a special principle that it would otherwise be absolutely unjustifiable to introduce into that science—seeing that we are quite unable to perceive a priori the possibility of such a kind of causality.”(Critique of Judgement, Kant, I, Trans by Meredith, J., C., Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1952) Part two. P 24
Teleological judgement will, of course also be relevant to the claims we make about arte-facts such as computers in the name of the Productive sciences (as conceived of by Aristotle), but here the principles of techné will be more relevant to our judgements than the principles of practical or theoretical reason. Kant follows up on this essentially Aristotelian position with the following reflection on final ends, art and machines:
“Thus a house is certainly a cause of the money that is received as rent, but yet conversely, the representation of this possible income was the cause of the building of the house. A causal nexus of this kind is termed that of final causes. The former might, perhaps, more appropriately be called the nexus of real, and the latter the nexus of ideal causes, because with the use of terms it would be understood at once that there cannot be more than these two kinds of causality. Now the first requisite of a thing considered as a physical end is that its parts, both as to their existence and form, are only possible by their relation to the whole. For the thing is itself an end, and is, therefore, comprehended under a conception or idea that must determine a priori all that is to be contained in it. But so far as the possibility of a thing is only thought in this way, it is simply a work of art…..But if a thing is a product of nature….every part is thought as owing its presence to the agency of all the remaining parts, and also as existing for the sake of the others and of the whole, that is, as an instrument, or organ…the part must be an organ producing the other parts…In a watch one part is the instrument by which the movement of the others is effected, but one wheel is not the efficient cause of the production of the other. One part is certainly present for the sake of another, but it does not owe its presence to the agency of the other….still less does one watch produce other watches…nor does it repair its own casual disorders…For a machine has merely motive power, whereas an organised being possesses inherent formative power…” (PP 20-22)
Descartes, we know, claimed to overthrow Aristotelian thinking in this area, partly with the absurd claim that animals are merely machines, thus creating category-confusion that has persisted to the present day. Kant’s description of the watch above is the template that ought to be used for the description of AI machines or robots. These machines were all designed for an “artificial” purpose and belong to the category of what Heidegger defined as “instrumentalities” that are “ready-to-hand”. Their form of Being-there (Dasein) is not the form of human-being. This, then, ought to be sufficient justification to insist that the description of these machines and the explanation of their functions do not belong in the sphere of the theoretical or practical (moral) sciences.
This raises the issue of whether an arte-fact which is, seemingly, autonomously active can be said to want or desire anything. O Shaughnessy is categorical on this issue:
“the desire-force acts entirely within the psychological domain” (P LI)
He continues to reason that the desire force does not apply to phenomena in the mind or to the mid itself but only to the man, the human being, that possesses the mind in question. Furthermore, it is argued this force-desire is responsive to intention and therefore also to the agents judgment, reason, and values (P.LIV) O Shaughnessy sketches for us also the ontological divisions of the world, beginning with physical inorganic entities, continuing with living entities, which then possess psychological and mental powers: a sketch entirely consistent with Aristotelian and Kantian assumptions. Intention is located in both the psychological and mental domains, because it introduces both significance and control into action scenarios (LXII). Whether anything can have meaning for a machine, or be subject to autonomous control of the machine (independent of the designers and programmers of any software), is a burning question, which will be raised later in the work in different forms.
O Shaughnessy (OS) is critical of the metaphysical tradition and its treatment of the issue of the will, especially the tendencies to reduce this real phenomenon to something material, but also the tendency to locate it in a dualist metaphysics of the kind we find in Descartes his continental followers. In the light of materialistic and dualistic fallacies OS proposes instead, a dual-aspect theory which reminds one of the Philosophical Psychology of Hylomorphism , Kantian Critical Theory, and Late-Wittgensteinian “perspicuous representation”. This theory of the will also allows us to categorically state that a machine cannot be said to act intentionally because as OS claims:
“All actions have a psychological origin”(P.11)
So, when we describe the activity of the computer it will take the form of third person observation reports such as “The screen went dark” or “Writing and some images appeared on the screen”. No agency can be logically present in such descriptions. This is to be compared to the difference between the reports, “I moved my finger” and “My finger moved!”. In the former case agency and intention is assumed and in the latter it is assumed that a part of the agent has been moved by some mechanical cause. OS investigates the logical criteria and markers of an intentional moving of the fingers, and notes that we need the presence of not just the elements of the “powers” of desire, intention and will, but also the “power of a physical mechanism or what he calls a “Power-line”, if we are to attempt to provide ourselves with the constitutive conditions of a willed action which will help explain the differences between a movement and a purposeful movement. This power-line must obviously connected to an “I” or an agent. OS claims:
“I do not oppose the efficacy of an agent and of the physical means he employs. On the contrary, I suppose them to be one.”(P.113)
Wittgenstein’s comment on the absence of surprise that accompanies all voluntary action is also invoked here and this connects up to his remark that the order to move ones fingers are not addressed to the muscles of the finger, but could only be addressed to the agent of the action. Yet the muscles, nerves, blood supply etc., are a part of the so-called power-line. If we were solely dealing with the physical movement of the fingers, an account of the physical conditions would suffice to give a complete account of the event in accordance with the principle of sufficient reason. When, however, we are dealing with an agent moving his fingers, we are dealing with a set of psycho-physical conditions which include a connection of the power-line to the motor section of the brain. It is this combination of types of conditions that is the central foundation of OS’s dual aspect account of this phenomenon. Involved in such an account is what OS refers to as the “experience” of agency, which, because a machine is not capable of experience, cannot be attributed to the machine. This unique experience extends to action and involves a consciousness of ones agency or acting. This consciousness does not imply that in such a conscious experience that I have an image of my fingers moving. Yet, since we are dealing with the concept of an action, there must be a unity of purpose in the first person description of “I moved my fingers” and a third person report of “Your fingers moved!”
This discussion of a power-line might encourage a questioning of whether a purely electrical power line could suffice to bring about a movement similar to the intentional movement of the fingers. Imagine the case where I lose my hand and an artificial hand replaces my loss. Imagine further that my lost hand is replaced by a hand, without bones, a blood supply, or “nerves”, in the normal meanings of these terms. Instead there are electrical circuits and plastic and metal components. If someone then orders me to move my hand, what is the difference between the movement of the normal fingers, and the movement of the artificial fingers? There is even a sense in which one might agree to the description that, “I felt my fingers move!”. This feeling, though, is a secondary phenomenon, due to pressure on the other living parts of my arm. No sensations from my fingers are arriving at the sensory-motor region of the brain. This region is partly responsible for my body-image, which is an important part of my experience of my movements and my actions. In fact it is this body-image, this non-observational knowledge of the position of my body and limbs, that is an important part of my self conscious awareness of what I am doing, have done, and will do. Not all parts of the body are connected to this body-image: the feeling of the presence of internal organs are not part of this body-image. The body-image on the Kantian schema would be a part of our power of Sensibility: an awareness which is non-conceptual. It is this sensible body-image which is the immediate target of willing. The “data” of this body image, OS claims, are inherently spatial, which if true would connect up well with the Kantian account. It is not the case, moreover, that I “remember” where my body and limbs are, rather these are given “immediately” as is the case with all Kantian intuitions. OS calls this form of non-observational knowledge, practical knowledge and he characterises it as follows:
“the immediate epistemological “given” was not sensations in three-dimensional space, but sensations in three-dimensional space at points on limbs that were themselves given immediately as points in thee-dimensional space…..so that the immediate sensuous “given” was , sensation –at- a -point –in- body-relative space.” (P.238-9)
This is of course a different form of awareness of space to that given in our visual impressions which, however, may also be part of what Sartre called our hodological maps (our awareness of the space and environment we live in as essentially related to our projects and actions). OS, however, argues for a sense-data thesis that seemingly, disconnects our epistemological relation to space from this hodological map. Those favouring the hodological map thesis might claim, for example that when we see the castle in the distance on the hill that presents itself as a “steep climb”, what we see carries an awareness of the motor requirements for the tasks of climbing the hill and perhaps also walking around the grounds of the caste and exploring its interior. The three dimensions we experience, that is, are a consequence of some kind of projection of what can be or what needs to be done in relation to the material objects we see. OS does not frame his account in these terms. He acknowledges firstly, that the psychological experience of space is that of seeing objects closer and further away. He claims in his work “The Will: a dual aspect theory”:
“concepts play a causal role in the genesis of visual depth experience”(Vol 1: P.171)
These concepts are, concepts of the physical non-psychological cause of the two-dimensional data presented on the surface of our retinas. OS continues his reasoning:
“For if the entry of depth into a visual field is the entry of an array of visual sensations all of which have non-psychological causes, and if it is also true that concepts play a part in the genesis of the experience of depth in the visual impression, it is certain that those sensations cannot, in themselves make visible the depth that they bring forward for visual consciousness”.(P.171)
This is an interesting discussion, placing material objects (the non-psychological cause) at the centre of the reasoning. Kant, we know claimed that knowledge requires the interaction of both concepts and intuitions (space and time) and a judgemental structure of something being said or thought about something. The something being talked or thought about can we know in language be characterised by a definite description, e.g. “the steep hill”, “the interesting castle”, which might or might not carry motor implications but which as Russell pointed out imply the x ( “there is an x such that…”), which is the non-psychological external cause OS is referring to. The point of this digression is that the image on the computer screen is a two-dimensional array, and the impression of three dimensions has to be given by someone moving through the landscape, e.g. climbing the hill, or circum-ambulating the castle. The computer has no body-image upon which to project the beginnings of an intended movement project, and it does not (therefore?) have a conscious awareness of the space outside: a “hodological?” space? Machines do not relate to time in the way in which living conscious, language-using beings do. A moving “movie-camera” can, of course, give the “impression” of the switching of “attention” from one part of the scene to another but the impression is simulated. Attention requires consciousness, and only life forms can be conscious.
The above account of Spatial awareness recalls Kantian reflections on the intimate relation there is between space and time which is, of course required in the identification and description of movement of any kind, but Kant does not explore the relations of our epistemological awareness to the practical relations we have to space, time and material objects in the way in which phenomenologists like Merleau-Ponty do. In my previous work “The World Explored, the World Suffered, I noted that the new men (metaphorically) wish to invert the world and our values and turn “the world upside down”. Merleau-Ponty draws our attention to an experiment in which the world literally appears to be inverted:
“If a subject is made to wear glasses which correct the retinal images, the whole landscape at first appears unreal and upside down; on the second day of the experiment normal perception begins to reassert itself, except that the subject has the feeling that his own body is upside down.” The Phenomenology of Perception, trans.,Smith, C., London Routledge, 1952 (P.285)
The experiment referred to is that conducted by Stratton published in the Psychological Review in 1896. Merleau-Ponty reaffirms a commitment to the hodological map theory of perception when he later claims:
“The perceptual field corrects itself and at the conclusion of the experiment I identify it without any concept because I live in it, because I am borne wholly into the new spectacle and, so to speak, transfer my centre of gravity into it.”(P.293)
Merleau-Ponty goes onto describe the influence of mescalin upon the spatial perception of subjects: approaching objects becoming smaller and the walls of the room appear to be 150 metres apart. This is, of course, a testament to the essential role of chemical transactions in the construction of our experiences. Pouring mescalin onto the hard drive of a computer would not result in altered experiences, quite simply because the hard drive is merely a “storage place” for data. Would the machine begin to hallucinate? There is a whole range of psychological descriptions, which are completely inappropriate when applied to machines.
The “Spirit of the Age” is difficult to capture during eras of transition, in particular when one is in the middle of a revolution, be it an industrial or a technological revolution. Of course, it is an open question as to whether such revolutions are “peacetime” bloodless revolutions. My research into the History of Psychology charted in the 4 volume work “The World Explored, the World Suffered: A Philosophical History of Psychology, Cognition, Emotion, Consciousness, and Action”, attempted to argue for a thesis that the age we live in is indeed an “Age of Discontent”, and only a finger on the pulse of the Age will tell us what is happening: scientific observation alone, appears not to suffice for a diagnosis of our “modern” malady (or the malady of the Modern). The knowledge we need to make a diagnosis is located in the various streams of historical processes and events, but sometimes these streams have been forced “underground” and flow in the dark, until the terrain becomes more favourable and the sun can shine on the waters once more.
The “Project” of the Delphic Oracle” to “know oneself” was certainly easier to launch than to find its destination, but Ancient Greece was one significant, beginning of a journey that appeared to lose its way, at least twice ( first,during the Dark ages where religions suppressed the philosophical spirit, and second, during “Modern Times” when an anti-rational attitude sought to “forget” or “avoid” earlier more cognitive approaches to the aporetic questions thrown up for the Being “for whom his Being is in question”(Heidegger)).
Heidegger himself, of course, suffered from the pathological condition he sought to avoid, a condition that has been diagnosed by three different Philosophical movements begun by Aristotle, continued by Kant, and then by the later work of Wittgenstein.
We begin at the beginning, and with the first cultural conflict, namely that between the Ancient Philosophical Greeks, and the more “Modern” Romans engaged on a military project of globalisation (perhaps initiated by Alexander the Great). The Romans were more like the Spartans than the Athenians, but were also “pragmatic” engineers”. This, according to Heidegger, was reflected in their language, which failed to capture the complex spirit of certain Greek terms, such as aletheia, psuché, arête, diké, arché, epistemé. These terms formed the reflective framework the Greeks used for their philosophical “explorations”. Mistranslations of key terms such as aletheia, by the powerful Romans produced significant consequences for Philosophy and we ought to recall that Philosophical schools were ordered to be closed by the Roman Emperor Justinian. The spirit of the Dark Ages did not favour the kind of open critical thinking initiated by Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. Aristotle’s work was not completely translated from the Greek until the 13th century, but even then this occurred against the background of a religious cultural domination that exerted considerable influence in the transmission of “pagan” ideas. According to Heidegger, we lost our way in relation to the aporetic questions raised by the Greeks relating to the nature of Being and Being-in-the-world. Heidegger, however, did not see in Kant the revival of the Greek spirit and sought to promote the power of Imagination over the powers of Understanding and Reason proposed by Kant. This “movement” was aided and abetted by the “new men”, Descartes, Hobbes, Hume, Rousseau, Adam Smith, the pragmatists, logical atomists, logical positivists, materialists and dualists of all shapes and sizes.
The emblem of the Romans was Janus, the God of war, whose two faces were oriented in different directions. Now one can, in a spirit of charity, interpret this figure sympathetically as I did in volume I of “The world explored, the World Suffered”, or one can interpret this symbol in terms of the Roman mentality that re-directed the course of History in a military and technical direction. Descartes we know was a military man, and very interested in war-machines, and he even regarded animals as “machines”, thus raising the idea of techné above the previously valued Greek ideas of arête, dike, epistemé, arché , psuché and aletheia. It is this spirit in many different forms, (including the “spirit” of those scientists that worked on the atomic bomb which would kill hundreds and thousands of non-combatant civilians), that caused me to nominate “the Age of Discontentment” as the name for the times we have lived in since Descartes.
The Period of the Enlightenment in the form of Kant, brought to life once again the spirit of Ancient Greece but this was soon to be stifled by Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche. Art, too, turned its back on our Greek heritage with the advent of “Modern Art” at the beginning of the 20th century. (There is a certain irony in the form the first of the instrumentalist ready-made objects took (Duchamp’s “Fountain”))
It may seem paradoxical that we should place the origin of Age of Discontentment in the Renaissance period (Descartes, Hobbes), but the period also contained figures like Machiavell,i whose political reflections on The Prince certainly turned the Greek ideas of arête and diké upside down in favour of an immoral instrumentalism that in Socrates’ words, attempted to make “the worse argument seem the better”. With such “new” re-interpretations of the Humanism that began in the Renaissance with figures like Shakespeare Giorgione, and Michelangelo and ended with invasions of Italy, we were returned back to the symbol of Janus and the Roman beginnings and evolution of the “Age of Discontentment”.
It is claimed by Adrian Stokes, the art critic, that Renaissance humanism manifested an intensification of all forms of cultural activity including science (Copernicus, Galileo) and a revival of the Ancient Greek “Spirit” and there are certainly good grounds for such a judgement if one excludes Descartes, Hobbes, and Machiavelli. Philosophy, especially Political Philosophy, was not one of Stokes’ major concerns although he was very interested in Freudian Psychoanalysis, and in particular Melanie Klein’s interpretation of Freud’s theories. In an Essay entitled Greek Culture and the Ego, Stokes quotes form Bowra’s work “The Greek Experience” where the complex relation between pleasure and reason is discussed in relation to the ideas of balance and harmony. The focus of Stokes, however, is upon the Ego and its “good objects” and the arguments presented presuppose a complex view of psuche that requires an acceptance of death against the background of virtue, which includes courage, temperance and wisdom.
The “ready-mades” of “Modern Art, then, challenge the ideas of the Great artists, especially the idea of a work which expresses a long apprenticeship in the medium of carving stone or painting with the intention of expressing ones feelings about a tempestuous world. The “ready-mades” are at best artefacts inserted into a field of expectation, which they are specifically designed to shatter. They are “products” for a “Market” guided by Adam Smith’s “invisible hand”, which knows nothing of the virtues and the value of beautiful objects. By the beginning of the 1900’s the new men had succeeded in dismantling much of the structure created by Ancient Greece and the Enlightenment. Political parties, as Hannah Arendt had reported, were disappearing and being replaced by “mass movements”, which would require mass media for the communication of political and important social issues. These were all viewed as technical challenges and not as humanistic problems, requiring a commitment to the principles of the various sciences. Two World-Wars occurred, in relatively close proximity to one another, and added to the “technical” problems the world had to face. Turing appeared on the scene during the second world-war, in the name of science working for the military, and the task of communication with the masses appeared to be reduced from a knowledge issue to the technical problem of deciphering/communicating information: episteme, arête, arché, dike, psuché and aletheia were no longer relevant in the context of exploration which relied on instrumental reasoning relating to the most appropriate means to ends defined in the language of techné.
Freud writing in 1929 about this state of affairs made his famous remark that perhaps the work of building our Civilisations have not been worth the effort, and he raised the issue of a death-instinct intent upon destroying what we have created. It would not be long before his books were being burned by SS order, and he and his family had to flee to London to escape the “final solution” to the “Jewish problem”. We are, of course, all familiar with the technical precision with which the Germans approached this task of mass extinction, using lies and deception, and even unjust “laws” to facilitate the completion of their Project. Similar forms of technical knowledge, lies, and deception, were also used by Stalin in his projects of mass-murder. Freud identified the psychological mechanisms involved in leading the masses to accept what was being done in their name: identification with the aggressor, projection, displacement, denial, all played their part in successfully creating a mass-delusion. At the same time, born from the ashes of these conflagrations was the United Nations, an organisation suggested by Kant over two hundred years earlier as part of his one hundred thousand year vision of the journey toward the kingdom of ends and the peaceful/harmonious coexistence of nations. Universities too, attempted, in various ways, to contribute to this Cosmopolitan Humanistic vision. Science was, of course, a part of this vision: not the science of Turing or Oppenheimer but rather the Philosophical view of the Sciences (Theoretical, Practical, and Productive), presented in the writings of both Aristotle and Kant. Freud’s writings too, presented a theory crossing the borders of all three sciences: a theory grounded in a clear picture of the role of the brain in understanding the human form of psuché.
What, then, are the dangers of AI? The fears that mankind will become extinct as a consequence of its introduction are great exaggerations that underestimate the understanding we have of what kind of thing an arte-fact and machine is. Although we have to add here that one should not underestimate the power of language to confuse us. Calling a machine “artificial intelligence” for example, is misleading and deceptive, and can cause mischief of many different kinds. If intelligence is as William James defines it, namely the capacity to choose a different means to and end when that end is blocked, then the machine is not intelligent, and must await action from its master, the programmer, in the form of changing the program before the correct means can be found. The term “artificial” then becomes redundant unless of course one wants to refer to the intelligence of the programmer and uses the term “engineered”.
If we do manage to destroy our civilisations it will not be because of an arte-fact we have created, but rather because we no longer believe our civilisation-building activities are worth the work we put into them: when the flame of Eros begins to wane, the flame of Thanatos burns bright. What scenario is possible if this state of affairs actualises?
Stanley Cavell in his work “The Claim of Reason: Wittgenstein, Skepticism, Morality, and Tragedy”(Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1979), looks at the problem of our identification of another human being and its logical conditions through the eyes of a skeptic. He dismisses the Kantian solution on the grounds of dogmatism and proceeds to solve the skeptical problem, not at the level of principles, but rather at the level of a phenomenological/dialectical account of a kind of description that provides us with “essences”. He asks us to imagine a human being with all the organs and limbs constituted chemically and biologically in accordance with Aristotelian hylomorphic theory. This science fiction creation of the scientist has a computer chip in the middle of his brain performing all the normal functions a human is capable of. Cavell claims that there is in principle no difference in the behaviour we can observe performed by this human robot and that we therefore have no right to believe in the existence of other minds, partly because the others body always comes between me and my knowledge that he possesses a soul/mind. Two objections immediately spring to mind in relation to this. Firstly, were we not taught by Aristotle that the soul means psuché, which in turn means form of life, and for each form of life there is a mountain of evidence that they are alive: evidence which suffices for an essence-specifying definition of all animal species. In the human case there is a system of organs (including a brain), a configuration of limbs and the behaviour of “living” that exhibits all the human powers that have been documented by Aristotle, Kant, and Wittgenstein. Secondly, Wittgenstein has taught us that the grammar of our language gives us access to essences, for example, that I can know that other people think:
“I can know what someone else is thinking , mot what I am thinking. It is correct to say “I know what you are thinking”, and wrong to say “I know what I am thinking.” ( A whole cloud of Philosophy condensed into a drop of grammar)”
Philosophical Investigations Basil Blackwell Oxford, 1972) 222e
“
My attitude towards him is an attitude towards a soul. I am not of the opinion that he has a soul.” 178e
“The human body is the best picture of the human soul” (178e)
“ “ I noticed that he was out of humour.” Is this a report about his behaviour or his state of mind? (“The Sky looks threatening”: is this about the present or the future?) Both; not side-by-side, however but about the one via the other.” 179e
These quotes eliminate the kind possibility of the kind of sceptical recital we find in Cavell, and although Aristotle and Kant do not situate their inquiries at the level of Language, the conclusions we find above, are both in accordance with Aristotelian and Kantian principles We should also recall here that it is Wittgenstein the would-be aeronautical engineer, that specifically in the work above stated that a machine cannot think (PI 359-360).
Cavell does not in this work engage with any of the above quotes but he does offer us an acute analysis of a civilisation that as he puts the matter is “soul-blind”:
“then I might put the question “Is there such a thing as soul-blindness?” in the following way: Is this new form of civilisation being replaced by another? In particular is it being replaced by one in which nothing that happens any longer strikes us as the objectification of subjectivity, as the act of an answerable agent, as the expression and satisfaction of human freedom, of human intention and desire?….Then nothing would (any longer)give them the idea that living beings, could feel. So, they would not (any longer) be human.” (Claim of Reason P.468)
Do machines have the idea that living beings can feel? Descartes certainly had difficulty with this idea, believing that animals were mainly machines and also operating upon them without anaesthetics. So, even if he had the idea that humans could feel, he was certainly confused about other forms of life. Chat GPT says the following in relation to the question “Can machines feel anything, if not, how can they possibly know that living beings feel?” :
“As of my last update in September 2021, machines, including artificial intelligence models like myself, do not possess feelings or consciousness. Machines are programmed to process and analyze data, perform tasks, and generate responses based on patterns in the data they’ve been trained on. While advanced AI models like GPT-3 can mimic human-like responses and engage in natural language interactions, it’s essential to understand that these responses are generated based on patterns learned from vast amounts of text data and not from experiencing emotions or having subjective experiences.
The ability to feel emotions is a complex trait found in living beings, particularly in animals with nervous systems and higher cognitive abilities. Emotions are the result of biological processes and evolved mechanisms that allow organisms to respond to their environment in adaptive ways.
Machines can’t “know” in the same way living beings do because they lack subjective experiences. Knowledge for machines is simply stored information that can be accessed and processed when required. In contrast, living beings possess consciousness and subjective awareness that enables them to have experiences and emotions.
It is crucial to distinguish between artificial intelligence, which is a set of algorithms and data processing mechanisms, and biological consciousness found in living beings. While AI can perform complex tasks and simulate human-like interactions to some extent, it does not inherently possess emotions, self-awareness, or consciousness as living beings do.
So, machines do not “know” that we can feel something about something or, indeed, think something about something, although this would appear to be an important aspect of knowing what a human being is. Cavell’s description of a society in which the inhabitants behave like machines is, however, very relevant in this discussion occurring as it does in an Age of Discontentment. He conducts a discussion of the role of automation in our viewing and appreciation of film which may also be an insightful contribution to our discussion.
The argument begins with the a poretic question “What becomes of reality when it is projected onto a screen?” The image we see is automatically reproduced ( P.23) and no human agent is involved as is the case with the painted representation. This, Cavell argues, gives the viewer the impression that we are viewing events that have already happened in the past (P.23). The characters appearing on the film take the form, not of historical individuals, however, but rather of character-types. When films were in black and white, Cavell argues, reality was presented in dramatic form, perhaps partly because of the dramatic times we had lived through, and perhaps partly because of the nature of the medium. If what we are witnessing on cinema screens are “remembered” events, the black and white may be a testament to the attenuated character of some memories. Cavell characterises this form of attenuated memory in the following way:
“That it is reality we have to deal with, or some mode of depicting it, finds surprising confirmation in the way movies are remembered, and misremembered. It is tempting to suppose that movies are hard to remember the way dreams are, and that is not a bad analogy. As with dreams, you do sometimes find yourself remembering moments in a film, and a procedure in trying to remember s to find your way back to a characteristic mood the thing has left you with. But, unlike dreams, other people can help you remember, indeed are often indispensable to the enterprise of remembering. Movies are hard to remember, the way the actual events of yesterday are…. It is as if you had to remember what happened before you slept. Which suggests that film awakens as much as it enfolds you…”(P.17)
This in turn gives the impression of something magical or mysterious. The absence of the human agent from the process of representation is obviously surprising. This suggests that some being has a view of the world as it is in itself that is presented, magically, and in dream-like fashion. There is no doubt that this phenomenon is very interesting, given the need that there is for an analysis of the mentality (form of life) of the “new” inhabitants of the Age of Discontentment. Cavell elaborates upon this aspect of his account in the following way:
“To say that we wish to view the world itself is to say that we are wishing for the condition of viewing as such. That is our way of establishing our contact with the world: through viewing it or having views of it. Our condition has become one in which our natural mode of perception is to view, feeling unseen. We do not so much look at the world as look out at it, from behind the self. It s our fantasies, now all but completely thwarted and out of hand, which are unseen and must be kept unseen. As if we could no linger hope that anyone might share them…”(P.102)
So the medium of film is a very elaborate form of a wish-fulfilment. Whilst this kind of work of art is not quite a pathological form of wish-fulfilment, it nevertheless, might be a particular form of the Wish of the artist to provide their audience with a realistic view of the world. The above also carries a suggestion of how a divine being might feel in relation to the world that it/he/she has a relation to—seeing the world as it is in itself without being identified and seen.
The medium of film is an expression of artistic power, yet at the same time is the result of a mechanical process and this might be the reason Cavell claimed in Chapter one of “The World Viewed”, that it came as a surprise/shock to him to learn that films had directors who took responsibility for part of the content of the final product. That the world-view of art needed to be automated is a phenomenon that needs explaining. Was it because art could no longer find an audience? If so, what was the reason? A remark of Wittgenstein in a letter to David Pinsent , reported by Rush Rhees (1984), provides another perspective:
“Music came to a full stop with Brahms. And even in Brahms one can begin to hear the sound of machinery.”
This remark suggests the presence of some kind of pathological infection affecting the technical arts such as music, perhaps what we are witnessing here is a phenomenon more connected with anxiety than wish-fulfilment. Cavell also elaborates upon his view of “Modernism” in relation to Philosophy, and other practical “enterprises”, in the foreword to the collection of essays entitled: “Must We mean What We Say?”:
“The essential fact of “what I refer to as) the modern lies in the relation between the present practice of an enterprise and the history of that enterprise, in the fact that this relation has become problematic.”(P.XIX Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1969)
Cavell goes on to say in this section of his work that science does not have an audience and that is the reason why it can be “popularised”, and art cannot. There is also a mysterious remark about Philosophy being harmful unless it is useful, and Socrates is mentioned in this context but not specifically the fact that his attempts to engage with an audience proved dangerous and fatal. Socrates was, of course, challenging the status quo in the attempt to create a better Polis, but he was not a skeptic nor a dogmatist, not a dualist nor a materialist. Socrates pointed us in the right direction, and he also provided us with the tools for the journey ahead, namely a method and the result of the method, (elenchus and general definitions (of justice diké, for example: getting what one deserves, of arête: it is better to suffer wrong than to do wrong)).
Kant took up this problem of scepticism and dogmatism and indicated that there was also a growing problem (during the Enlightenment!) of what he called indifferentism. In his Preface to the first edition of the “Critique or Pure Reason Kant has the following to say:
“..the prevailing mood is that of weariness and complete indifferentism—the mother, in all sciences of chaos and night…Indeed these pretended indifferentists, however they may try to disguise themselves by substituting a popular tone for the language of the Schools, inevitably fall back in so far as they think at all, into those very metaphysical assertions which they profess so greatly to despise.”(Trans Kemp Smith, N., London, Macmillan 1963) P. 8)
Kant’s answer to this state of affairs was the publication of the works constituting his Critical Philosophy: a landmark on the road pointed out by Socrates that navigated between the alternatives of dogmatism, scepticism, materialism and dualism.
Aristotle in his Nichomachean Ethics opened his essay with the words that all activities aim at the good, and he named both the arts and the sciences. In the Metaphysics, Aristotle also claimed that all men desire to know. Aiming at the Good, which for Aristotle had many meanings ranging over his 10 categories of existence ((1) substance; (2) quantity; (3) quality; (4) relatives; (5) somewhere; (6) sometime; (7) being in a position; (8) having; (9) acting; and (10) being acted upon). These categories were perhaps superseded by his later Hylomorphic theory and its theory of change which appeals to 4 kinds of change, 3 principles of change, 4 “causes (aitia) of change occurring in three media of change (space, time, and matter) The framework of this theory is embedded in conceptual structure of areté (doing the right thing at the right time in the right way), diké (justice) arché (founding principles) psuché (forms of life) and eudaimonia (good spirited flourishing life). These kinds, principles, causes and categories are also encountered in not just the theoretical sciences but also in the productive and practical sciences.
The above formed the background to Aristotle’s writings on Art which are a part of his canon of productive sciences, and the most important work is the “Poetics”. Aristotle argues here that tragedy and epic works are modes of imitation by which we learn things of importance and experience a related pleasure. Action is the key term, because both of these linguistic forms are about the deeds of man that are actually located in the space-time-matter continuum, and identified by the linguistic markers, categories and reasons for performance of these deeds. In learning about these actions/deeds we gather the meaning of what we are seeing/contemplating, i.e. we search for the principles and explanations/justifications for what we are experiencing.
A tragedy is defined as an imitation of an action of significance with serious meaning and having a completeness of dramatic form that results in the catharsis of the emotions of pity and fear. The category of quality of character (of the agent) and the quality of the agents thought, are important elements of the drama, and it is through these qualities that we attribute qualities to the action or the deeds of the spectacle that either succeed or fail. The six parts of the drama are character, diction, thought, plot, spectacle and melody. The drama also ought to manifest a universal intent or what Aristotle calls a general truth, which would be the justification for speaking with a Kantian “universal voice” about what are witnessing or have witnessed. The standard by which we measure the drama is that of whether what happens is plausible and probable and whether a catharsis of pity and fear occur. The idea of the good object is of importance in all artistic activity, and is related to both its intellectual and emotional aspects.
The scholar Bernays J.,(Articles on Aristotle 4: Psychology and Aesthetics, London Duckworth, 2003) distinguishes two possible meanings of the term “catharsis”, firstly a transformation of what he calls the passions into virtues, and secondly, a transformation of pain into pleasure. He believes that Aristotle is more concerned with the latter than with the former but his argument seems to rest on a parallel with music which is discussed in the “Politics”, and a distinction is made between the more educational ethical mode in which the catharsis of passions into virtues may well be the goal, and more “popular” music in which the audience are whipped into a mystic frenzy which Aristotle argues “relaxes” them. Bernays argues that Aristotle ought to be interpreted more liberally here because he would have acknowledged both of these forms of catharsis. In its popular “Mode” after the “storm” of the frenzy, comes the calm of a more contemplative state, it is argued which would appear to be a prime example of the transformation of the passions into the virtues, especially if one considers arête in its wider meaning which includes temperance and the control of ones appetites. Bernays points out the close proximity of the concept of “iatreia” to “catharisis”: iatreia is a medical healing process and the fear and pity is in this process transformed into a contemplative form of pleasure.
This digression into the sphere of intellectual and popular entertainment is necessary if we are to understand the history of public entertainment and its purposes. Such an account clearly shows the importance of drama to alleviate public boredom and anxiety. In modern times our popular music and cinematic productions have taken over the task of “entertainment”, which still appears to serve both intellectual and more basic emotional purposes. The question which we wish to focus on at this point, is whether machine-originated entertainment in the “Age of Discontentment”, is a symptom of a more pathological state of mind that requires a more comprehensive form of iatreia (therapy).
The first observation to make is that cinematic productions are firmly embedded in an instrumental financial web which make one wonder whether the Socratic concerns about the doctor having the responsibility to heal patients who have no means to pay him are especially relevant here. Socrates complained that doctors refusing to treat their patients were allowing the secondary concerns of “oikonomos” to displace the primary concern of care for the patient. Care, we should note in this context was one of the primary existential characteristics of Heidegger’s “Dasein” and its Being-in-the-world. The question we need to pose at this juncture of the argument is whether the Artificial Intelligence of machines devoted to the purposes of entertainment in the Age of Discontentment is playing the “healing” cathartic role it ought to. What does the audience experience, and is it a Good experience that takes us further on the journey to the good spirited flourishing life (eudaimonia) sought by Socrates, Plato and Aristotle? Cinematic productions are a technical art. Let us turn to the writings of an Art critic from the last century for a diagnosis of our times.
Adrian Stokes in an essay entitled “The Invitation in Art”(“The Critical Writings of Adrian Stokes, Vol. 3 (London, Thames and Hudson, 1978) claims the following:
“We know that in Renoir’s opinion the ugliness of buildings towards the end of the nineteenth century and the vulgarity of design in articles in common use were of far greater danger than wars”.(P.278)
He then quotes Renoir:
“We get too accustomed to these things and to such a point that we do not realise how ugly they are. And if the day ever comes when we become entirely accustomed to them, it will be the end of a civilisation which gave us the Parthenon and the cathedral or Rouen. Then men will commit suicide from boredom, or else kill each other off, just for the pleasure of it”(Renoir 1962) P.278
What we are witnessing, Stokes argues, is an aesthetic tragedy embedded in a process of a more general decline of a civilisation. The good aesthetic object and the good ethical action share an attitude toward tragedy and a cultural commitment to Care that, once it attenuates, threatens the progress of a civilisation. Stokes points out that in his opinion the artistic movement of Impressionism:
“ was a response to the aesthetic poverty of the streets of our cities and the desire in art to shock its audience, thereafter stems, he argues from a response to a disjointed chaotic environment.”( The World Explored, the World Suffered, Vol. 1. P.105)
Stokes also provides us with a psychoanalytical explanation of the above state of affairs that uses the “trans-scientific” discipline of psychoanalysis. In an essay entitled “Greek Culture and the Ego”, he wishes to consider the roles of the Freudian concepts of “projection” and “introjection” in relation to the Kleinian concepts of “part-object” and “whole object”. “Good” and “bad” objects in relation to aggression are also an important part of his discussion. A healthy integrated Ego, it is argued, is self sufficient (in the Aristotelian sense) and has the best chance of leading the good spirited flourishing life so important to Greek Culture.
M. Bowra’s work “The Greek Experience” (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1957) reminds us of the details of Greek life (psuché):
“The peculiar nature of man determined the Greek notion of pleasure. They had no ascetic or puritanical hostility to it; in some respects they regarded it as a supreme good. But at the same time they felt that it must be kept in its place and not allowed to upset the harmony either of the individual or the city. They felt too that the strongest pleasures are suitable mainly for the young, and that in due course a man passes beyond them to others, which are less exciting. This distinction follows the general distinction, in which the Greeks made between men and the gods. If the gods enjoy power and freedom, men have responsibility, and through their use of it attain their own dignity, which is different from anything available to the gods. The advantage of this system is that it combines a natural taste for enjoyment with a real respect for proved capacities in action and in thought. Paradoxically, it may mean that in what seems to be his more human side, man is closer to the gods than in what wins honour and respect But it also means that goodness and happiness are brought together in a balanced harmony.”
The Aristotelian pursuit of the Golden Mean and the bringing together of the ideas of the Good and the Beautiful are also mentioned by Stokes (P.81) as important to the achievement of a healthy integrated Ego. Bowra’s account above draws attention to a theme of Plato’s Republic where Socrates insists that justice in the soul and justice in the city are closely related purposes sharing the same psuché-like structure. On this theme Bowra has the following to say:
“The truest wisdom lay in a properly balanced personality, in which neither side triumphed at the expense of the other. What this meant can be seen from the place given to eros, which means in the first place passionate love, but extends its meaning far beyond physical desire to many forms of intellectual and spiritual passion. For Parmenides it is the child of necessity and the force which makes men live and thrive; for Democritus, it is the desire for beautiful things; for Euripides it is the inspiring spirit of the arts; for Pericles it is what devoted citizens feel for their city; for Socrates it is the pursuit of noble ends in thought and action…”
The image of a bare-footed Eros padding about the city bearing the characteristics of parents who were resourceful and poor add another dimension to this picture, and point to the important role of the demiurge and the fates in the imagination of many Greeks of the time. Ananke and Thanatos were also a part of the Greek “picture” of the difficulty of leading a good spirited flourishing life. This may be a picture of the Kleinian “depressive position which requires the defence mechanism of “sublimation” to survive the loss of valued good objects. Sublimation was defined by Freud as the non-sexual form of substitute satisfaction that might aid the task of healthy ego integration. Sublimation was the defence-mechanism used extensively by artists, in the course of their artistic activities.
Eros was not a God as became clear from the speech of Socrates in the Symposium. This would have exposed Eros to the reality of his mortality, and one of his tasks would have been to accept his death as gracefully as Socrates. The work of Eros is obviously related to the work of civilisation, which Freud questioned was worth the effort. Art, Freud argues in “The Future of and Illusion”, reconciles man to the sacrifices he needs to make for the sake of the maintenance and advance of his civilisation. We should recall here the Freudian tasks of the Ego: to love and to work. We should also realise how difficult these tasks can be. It is evident, then, that both Psychoanalysis and Greek Philosophy share a view of the world that leads naturally to discontentment.
Cinematic production are a condition of the possibility of computer games, which have large followings, and insofar as they are violent, promote the pleasure of killing living beings vicariously for pleasure. Programmers have accepted this demand to alleviate the boredom of the masses, perhaps without full cognisance of what they are doing. The machines that enable large numbers of people to engage in such aggressive activities cannot argue that any catharsis is occurring here. Given that we are dealing with machines that imitate reality, and given that we take such pleasure in these kinds of imitations, the possible outcome over a long period of time, would appear to be dangerous. This acceptance of violent content is, of course, not limited to computer games but is in fact an important part of the American formula for action and thriller films. In psychoanalytic terms, what is being presented are bad part-objects that emphasise attack and splitting rather than reparation and creativity. In Greek terms this cultural extremism is a sign that all is not well with the polis and catharsis is not possible in relation to such traumatic content, which has become neutralised and blunted because of our boredom and aggressive tendencies (elements that cannot be in harmony).
Machines, whether they be called Turing machines, or AI machines are not therefore agents of harmony and balance, and it is of course important what we call these machines, how we categorise them. Calling them “Intelligent” is to say the least paradoxical, whether we use James’s definition of practical intelligence or whether we use the Greek “nous”. This leaves us with the dilemma of how we ought to characterise the world of Turing machines, AI, Chat robots, game-boxes, servers and computers. The best substitute for the word “artificial” would be techné, and the best English translation for that would be “technical”.
In this context it is worthwhile pointing out that when the Greek automaton was translated (meaning “of ones own will”) it’s meaning changed to self-operating machine. This suggests that we use the word automaton with its contemporary meaning to designate the phenomena we are today characterising as AI. If one wishes to retain the word “intelligence”, it should be placed in quotation marks, and prefaced with the word “technical”(TI). Alternatively, including the word “automaton” would give us the phrase “Technically intelligent automaton”(TIA).
The Philosophy of Death: Socrates, Aristotle, Fingarette, Kant, Wittgenstein
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In the photo above we have a graveyard of paid debts if it is true that we all owe nature a death. Mass graveyards like this, however, do not conjure up the picture of the occupants going quietly to their deaths. Socrates went relatively quietly to his death in spite of the fact that Athens, in retrospect was doing him an injustice. His speech in the Phaedo however, left no-one in any doubt that whatever the circumstances he believed death to be a Good. Either it was a peaceful dreamless sleep or there was a seemingly contradictory afterlife in which Socrates would be consorting with the great oracles, poets, lawmakers and intellectuals of the past. Perhaps the core strength of Socrates was his faith: the faith that nothing bad could happen to a good man.
Fingarette in his work, entitled “Death: Philosophical Soundings” begins with a narrative by Tolstoy entitled “The Death of Ivan Ilyich”. Ivan experiences a pain and visits his doctor but the doctor cannot help. His suffering continues until he at lasts confronts himself with the possible reality of nonexistence which in turn leads to reevaluation of the life he has been leading, arriving finally at the “truth” about his life. He also finally realises there is no death because there is no experience of death and his fears have been groundless. There is no “meaning” to death since it is an event that lies outside of our experience. This too was the position of Wittgenstein on this issue. Here we encounter not the battle of the giants of civilisation Freud pointed to, namely Eros v Thanatos, but rather the battle of two civilisation-building principles, namely the pleasure principle and the reality principle. On Freuds account, because the unconscious, where our instincts reside, do not acknowledge contradictions, there is no possible awareness of “the possibility” of that contradictory event–death– but only an awareness of what life means or is. Many commentators are willing to describe such a state of affairs as an awareness of our immortality but that is not an appropriate description. The unconscious is also timeless and this means that it is not aware of any time spans least all that of eternity or living forever. In the unconscious there is the desire for life to continue but not because of an awareness of eternity or the possibility of death. Fingarette puts the matter somewhat misleadingly:
“I think it is fair to put things this way:There are two absolutely certain facts about this existence.From the objective point of view I am mortal–it is certain that I will die. From the subjective point of view I am immortal–it is certain that I will never die. Or to put it differently: Never in my life will I experience death.”(P 7 Open Court, Chicago, 1996)
Putting it differently is certainly putting the matter more correctly but it is not true that I am “certain” that I will never die. Certainty as Wittgenstein put the matter is linked to doubt. Only consciousness has the conceptual capacity to doubt something. Doubting is a reality principle activity. My wishing to continue living is an activity of the life instinct regulated by the pleasure principle. Wishing in this context is tied to emotion and the imagination and doubting to a conscious conceptual use of the imagination and Understanding. The problem with the above false description relating to life is that a hylomorphic Aristotelian understanding of psuché makes no specific reference to consciousness because the assumption is that psuché is the first actuality of the human for of psuché(possessing as it does a human organ and limb configuration-system which is defining for our species). Aristotle, that is, does not separate consciousness from the realms of the preconscious or unconscious, operating on the pleasure-pain principle and the energy regulation principle. Consciousness, has, of course, a variety of defence mechanisms to protect itself from high anxiety levels including the deflection of energy into cultural activities such as the sciences but also sublimation which transforms energy into works of imagination.
Fingarette claims that we cannot experience the possibility of death but we can imagine it. He means here that we cannot imagine in first person mode the experience of death but we can imagine the consequences for those left behind after of our death. Here the pleasure-pain principle is clearly operating and this accounts for our ability to describe what is happening here in terms of the emotion of loss.But it is other peoples loss that I am imagining. My loved ones have lost me and need to continue all our mutually valued projects without me. This is the only way in which I can be “conscious” of my death. Returning to real life and realising our mutually valued projects are still actual and ongoing, contributes, Fingarette argues, to an increased pleasure being attached to these projects and perhaps to everything one experiences which was imagined as “lost”. This is the natural reaction to what he calls the “post-mortem future”. This is of course different to my imagining historical events which have no direct connection with my life. I have never personally engaged with the people i Imagine nor the projects they are involved with. Here my imagination must be working in close cooperation with the understanding and reason and the reality principle reigns for what is being imagined is then legitimised by written documentation and evidence. There is no feeling of loss attached to these events and/or the people that populate these imaginings. Any pleasure connected to these imaginings will be related to a correlation of what is imagined with some good the imaginer embraces in their life(in accordance with the Aristotelian major premise that all activity aims at the good and a minor premise that there are many meanings of good).
Fingarette further claims that when I imagine the response of my loved ones to my death I am engaging in a form of self deception because if one is dead there is no imagining activity going on–I am imagining a world in which I am still alive. Fingarette asks the insightful question whether it is phenomena such as this that lies behind the myth that the psuché or soul can detach itself from the body. Hence the fundamental importance of describing these phenomena correctly. These imaginings are always subject to some form of correction by the reality principle. A dream of Gabriel Garcia Marquez is discussed in which the author attends his own funeral with some friends and at the end of the funeral he prepares to leave with his friends who correct him saying “No, you, cant leave!”
This myth of separation from ones body in relation to death may well have motivated the many forms of mind-body dualism that have dogged the footsteps of Philosophy throughout the ages. Aristotle sought to neutralise Platonic dualism with his hylomorphic theory and Kant sought to neutralise Cartesian dualism with his Critical theory but dualism reappeared after Hegelian attacks on Kant and it was Wittgenstein in the 20th century that restored some form of sanity in Philosophy with his anti-Hegelian investigations that recalled many of the hylomorphic and critical arguments against both dualism and materialism.
Fingarette reawakens the ancient Socratic comparison of death with sleep when he claims that :
“We have no word to describe the inner experience of falling asleep. I anticipate “falling asleep” while still awake; and on reawakening I discover what happened. I do experience getting drowsy as the preliminary to falling asleep. Nevertheless we are never aware of the actual happening, the moment of falling asleep. What is it like, that transition from being awake to being asleep? There is only one correct answer: nothing. What is it like, subjectively, being in dreamless sleep? Nothing.”(P.19)
The event happens but is not experienced Fingarette argues and the two events, death and falling asleep are similar yet different in that I can realise upon awakening from sleep that I must have fallen asleep. In the case of the event of death happening to me, on the other hand, there can be no such realisation, no such awakening.
Fingarette declares his anti dualist position by maintaining that the idea of non-bodily consciousness is an incoherent idea(P.21). He then discusses the idea of selflessness and how it may lead to the self deceptive idea that the self is some kind of illusion which must be surmounted if one is not to experience the loss of self in imagining ones death. Many Eastern religions such as buddhism preach the idea of the selfishness of the self and its consequences for life: the freeing of “ones spirit” (P.23) Now whether Hegel “borrowed his idea of “Spirit” from this source or not is an open question and perhaps such an idea is not all that different from the Kantian idea of freedom where the unselfish person chooses to act in accordance with a universal imperative and treat everyone including themselves as “end-in-themselves”, an ancient idea that goes back to the challenge Glaucon, in the Republic, laid down for Socrates, that he had to prove that Good was not just Good in its consequences but Good-in-itself. It can be argued, however good Plato’s answer to this question was, that it was left to Aristotle and Kant to give a fully satisfactory answer. An answer moreover that did not “turn Kant on his head” as Hegel wished to do but one rather that respected the traditions and customs of the past as long as they could be defended in terms of preserving freedom and treating people as “ends-in-themselves”. Action became the centre of ethical theory for Kant and dutiful action its lodestar. There is no denial of the self in Kants account only a perfect acknowledgement of its scope and limitations in accordance with rational principles such as noncontradiction and sufficient reason. Principles that Hegel questions. The Eastern view of a life striving to deny the appetites of the self would be in accord with both Aristotle and Kant but would not entail the absence of the “I”, which is a mortal entity that can die and never come back to life. That is, the Kantian “I think”(a manifestation of the act of apperception) is not immortal but is a time-bound phenomenon that pronounces “Nows” and arrange them in the framework of “befores” and “afters” until it dies and its “time” comes to an end. Time, of course, does not end, at least not until there is an absence of life on earth and maybe not even then. If the Kantian agent has done his duty he can look forward to his death without the feeling of trepidation without the feeling that he has not led a life of eudaimonia( a good spirited flourishing life). One dies in such circumstances without the fear of lost opportunities because ones value has been actualised during ones life and does not need another life to make another attempt to establish ones value. Going to meet ones death in the process of dying, in such circumstances, is the same as going to meet the occurrence of any event that one is anticipating. On Freudian terms the wish to live forever through successive resurrections would be delusional but the wish to live without the knowledge of death would be the kind of life that most animals lead. With the knowledge of death comes the fear of death and that in turn requires an overcoming of the fear in order to meet ones death stoically.
Fingarette points out that we are acquainted with ourselves uniquely and immediately via something resembling Kantian intuition. If I am in pain I know this non-observationally but thankfully, Fingarette does not use the word one normally uses in this context, namely “Introspection” which smuggles in a kind of imaginative observation that does not meet the criteria of knowing something non-observationally. He also points out that I am the only person in the world that can move my arm simply by intending to move it. Such movement expresses my intention. This is the realm where Wittgensteins claim that “I am my World” makes sense, and I know what I am doing non-observationally, because I am my world, I am my body, and my body is in the world in the form of an “I”. This was criticised as an expression of solipsism but it is clear that this is not what Wittgenstein meant. The “I” referred to is not a particular I bearing a particular name, but rather a universal I that has a universally unique form of existence. Here there is a limit to what I can do. I cannot decide/intend to fall asleep in the way in which I decide/intend to reach for an orange. As Merleau-Ponty suggests in the “Phenomenology of Perception”:
“I lie down in bed, on my left side, with my knees drawn up; I close my eyes and breathe slowly, putting my plans out of my mind. But the power of my will or consciousness stops there. As the faithful, in the Dionysian mysteries, invoke the god by miming scenes fro his life, I call up the visitation of sleep by imitating the breathing and posture of the sleeper….There is a moment when sleep “comes” , settling on this imitation of itself.”(P.189 Trans Smith, C., Routledge, London(1958) P.189
Another limit of the imagination, Fingarette argues, is that we cannot imagine the end of world because to do so would be to imagine nothing. Now because I can imagine a world I presumably can imagine a world existing before I was born, This, indeed is a crucial possibility if we are understand history. So there is a space-time continuity which is a condition of our existence, a continuity that exists after my death and before my birth. I did not regret my having been born earlier at the dawn of living existence and the question is whether trying to imagine a beginning of the world is also an attempt to imagine nothing Heidegger once wrote an essay entitled “Introduction to Metaphysics”(Trans Manheim, R, London Yale University Press, 1959) and asked the fundamental question “Why are there essents rather than nothing?” This question is asked of course only by man for whom questioning is the essence of his Being-in-the World. Man is a Being for whom his own Being is in question.
Aristotle registers this interrogative nature of man by claiming that we are not just interested in the “What” question which facts give us the answer to, but we feel a further need to proceed to ask why the facts are the way they are, and thus we enter into the Kingdom of Principles(arché) which insofar as human beings are concerned begins with a hylomorphic account of psuché. In such an investigation imagining a beginning of the world requires a belief in an infinite continuum which has no beginning and no end. Heidegger, like Wittgenstein sees language as a critical constituent in our understanding of Being and the translator of Heidegger’s “Introduction to Metaphysics” has the following to say:
” It is in words and language that things first come into being and are”(P.13)
Psuché and Phusis(physis) are intimately connected because the latter according to Heidegger means “the power to emerge and endure”(P.15). This over the millennia has been transformed into the more modern idea of nature where the concept of the “physical” is contrasted with the vague idea of the “psychological”. Heideggers concepts of Being-there(Dasein) and Being-in-the world” are attempts to avoid the difficulties of the above forced opposition . The original meaning of “Phusis”, Heidegger argues, “has determined the essence and history of metaphysics”(P.17). The Greek term “aletheia” is also a key Greek term for Heidegger but Psuché is not related to this discussion in this work.
Fingarette continues on this theme and points out how an individual death will cause but a ripple in “the great ocean of existence”(P.36). The link here is clear to the Eastern/Stoical understanding of the limitations of the human power to affect such an ocean. This he contrasts to the Western egotistical view of being the centre of the world and spending ones life feeding ones appetites. The transactions of this speck of physical material in a physical universe are of course inconsequential. Fingarette touches upon the truth of solipsism which is a universal truth about all individuals who are their world(as Wittgenstein puts the matter) He points out that the uniqueness of being the centre of my world cannot be shared but that does not strictly follow from his argument because although my life is mine someone else who is human is in exactly the same situation. So we may be isolated with our feeling of being alone but insofar as we know that everyone human is in the same boat that knowledge is exactly what puts us in the same boat. This kind of knowledge may well have been what the oracle of Delphi was referring to in her challenge to “Know thyself”.
We are rational animals capable of discourse as Aristotle claimed and part of the capacity for discourse includes the vitally important activity of story-telling. In the story the narrator is the centre of the story-world if it is a third person narration otherwise the narrator is an inhabiter of the imagined world we the readers are presented with. Fingarette points out insightfully that if the narration is in first-person mode the narrator cannot die at the end of the story. This has the consequence that a story narrated in the first person cannot reach a definitive end:
“It simply stops at a certain point and no more is told. This is exactly analogous to real life”(P.40)
This allows Fingarette to conclude that my story is my world: a sequence of events in which characters are acting and being acted upon, all striving for ends with more or less success. The attractiveness of a story, Fingarette argues is due to it being a richer catalogue of meaningful events neatly crafted into an artistic whole. Religions use narratives to communicate a philosophy of life to a wider population than any genre of literature can reach and Fingarette provides us with a theory of how the different religions approach the theme or , as he puts the matter, “raw fact”(P.52), of suffering, and claims that given the great differences of approach there can be no “objective description”. It is not clear that it is the intention of these narratives to provide such an objective description: their intention may be more related to prescribing how to deal with suffering and live well. Fingarette then declares this to be a reason why he cannot believe in reason in the way the Enlightenment prescribes. This is indeed a curious reason to give for not believing in reason: suggesting that the “spirit” of Hegel may be haunting this discussion. This distinction between what is subjective and what is objective has become hard currency since the time of Hegel and the retreat from his form of idealism to analytical Philosophy and its belief in the scientific method.
Fingarette, after abandoning reason, aligns himself with a form of relativism in which:
“The facts in such cases rarely suffice to settle the matter. Instead, we settle matters in the light of the general perspectives we favour….”(p 87)
There are many different perspectives for Fingarette and he hails the book of Job as a navigational star in this discussion, supposedly teaching us the fact that there is no Justice in the world and we do not get what we deserve as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Kant would claim. The question, however, is more complex than whether a particular man at a particular point in his life feels he is not getting what he deserves and therefor begins to question his faith. In Ancient Greek Philosophy, the discussion was far more complex, relating diké to areté(doing the right thing in the right way at the right time) and arché(principle):- not just over a period of ones life(one swallow does not make a summer) but over a significant portion of ones life. If the relation between these elements are rational then we can reasonably expect eudaimonia–(a good spirited flourishing life(psuche)).
Fingarette then offers us a selection of authors writings defending various aspects of his position, beginning with Tolstoy “My Confession”:
“Thus I had lost my way in the forest of human knowledge, in the light of the mathematical and experimental sciences which opened out for me clear horizons where there could be no home, and in the darkness of Philosophy, plunging me into a greater gloom with every step I took, until I was at last persuaded that there was, and could be, no way out” (p.102)
Tolstoy then turns to life for the answer and ultimately to Christianity which replaces reason with faith. Freud is also invoked in two of his lesser known essays and the result is a very different one to that Fingarette or Tolstoy propose.For Freud there is a form of self knowledge which seeks to know unambiguously our relation to life and to death, not via a blind faith but via the Reality Principle that regulates our appetites, desires and hopes for a future in the work we do to maintain and improve our civilisation. In this account the Greek spirit lives on in the form of arché and the Enlightenment lives on in the motto Sapere Audi!. A fellow Citizen of Vienna, Ludvig Wittgenstein, would embrace all three strands of influence and reawaken the slumbering spirit of Freedom and Progress in Europe. A spirit that has the patience to wait one hundred thousand years for the “kingdom” of ends” to come. A kingdom that will actualise not in the lifetime of many generations but which will shine like a beacon in the forest and enable us to see our way “home”.
Philosophy and AI Part 7: Why cant a computer act or Hunt: O Shaughnessy.
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A computer is not a robot. But even if the robot is capable of locomotion and has a computer installed connected to artificIal limbs such a robot cannot be said to act voluntarily. Voluntary Action is what Hacker calls a two-way power by which he means a power over which choice and control are exercised. This seems to imply the mental powers of Consciousness and Intentionality. This also has other consequences related to Aristotle’s claim that all human activities aim at the good. One cannot passively “aim” at the good. It also cannot be claimed that such a robot has a good will or good intentions and it probably does not make sense to ask what “reasons” the robot had for doing whatever it did.
In order to argue for the above claims we shall consult Brian O Shaughnessy’s(OS) two volume work, “The Will”. Consider the fact that the term “will “can only be applied to a human being(to an “I” or “He”) and not to the human mind or the human body. For OS a Human being occupies a physical/metaphysical zone stretching over 4 ontological levels: the physical(he is composed of natural elements), the living(he is a particular kind of life form) the psychological(he is made up of the quartet of psychological elements: action, perception, desire, and belief), the mental( composed of (language-related intentionality and consciousness). We can immediately see that whilst a robot is made up of physical natural elements, these elements are not configured or “formed” into any life-form, and since a life form is a necessary condition of the psychological(psuche), the robot will therefore not be capable of the powers of action, perception, desire or belief. Since these in turn are a necessary condition of the ontological level of the “mental”, the robot will not be capable of the powers of consciousness or language-related intentionality.OS’s account is indeed the culmination of Aristotelian/Kantian/Wittgensteinian thought applied to the domains of life, the psychological, and the mental categories of “forms of life”. In the account we are given by OS, however, priority is given to Wittgenstein but the will is clearly a Kantian concept and psuche is also clearly an Aristotelian term.
Modern science, however, has distanced itself from both the Aristotelian and the Kantian view of science as part of a principle of specialisation so we should not expect any search for the perspicuous representation of reality Wittgenstein was seeking. Imagine we are told by a modern scientist that a red object is moving across silicone dioxide. Now the categorisation of our objects is critical for being able to determine the truth content of such an assertion or report. In particular, a critical consideration concerns the ontological level that defines the existence of the object. If the object is a crab, as is presupposed in this case, then the object is both composed of natural elements and composed of the kind of organisation of natural elements that constitute forms of life. Such an objects movement is usually determined by internal powers that include the self-caused power to move, the power to desire to catch prey, the ability to perceive prey, and the ability to possess certain primitive beliefs about the prey. These characteristics are “psychological”. Such an object cannot be conscious of what it is doing or form intentions relating to the prey: it does not possess any mental powers.
The question then becomes, how do we categorise the robots we create. Clearly we need to go beyond the chemical and physical characterisation of the material it is made of. We can clearly see, however, that it possesses no natural “psychological characteristics”, and the question then becomes, whether this artifact we have created can “simulate” these characteristics. The form of life of the crab is a form that requires nutrition if it is to survive and requires the power to catch prey if it is to eat and reproduce. Imagine that we create a robot crab capable of catching prey( which currently seems impossible). The prey, once internalised, will lie in the artifact stomach and its constituents will not contribute to the life processes of this artificial crab made of non-living material: even if the cavity the prey is deposited in has the shape of the stomach organ and the same spatial proximity to the cavity it uses to devour the prey. The chemistry and biology of organs are not present in this artifact. The absence of an organ system also prevents us attributing the action of “hunting”, the cognitive attitude of “belief” or the psychological function of perceiving to this “object”.
Knowing this will prevent us from agreeing that this robot is a life form that can eat and reproduce. Given the fact that the psychological characteristics of the crab require as necessary conditions, the conditions of life in general, namely nutrition and reproduction, we are thereby justified in denying that this robot crab can act, desire, perceive and believe. Its chemistry is not the chemistry of a life form and biological science will have nothing to say about such an “object”.
This in turn must lead to the consequence that neither does it make sense to say that this artificial “object” has a will. Is its motion self-caused? Not entirely, its energy supply needs to be provided by an external source, and an external programmer was needed to program the on-board computer. Can we say that at any point it has “learned” to pursue its prey? Probably not. Learning is a power of life forms that cannot be simulated by an artificial object. The “object” can certainly move its limbs but it does not have the form of sensory motor contact with them that animals have, and this is certainly a necessary condition for the psychological function of acting with ones limbs. The “psychology”(logos of its psuche) of the crab is too primitive to possess the kind of self awareness of a human form of life and even if the programmer programs the robot to mechanically say “I am going hunting now”(something not possible for the crab), this is not an expression of an intent which requires a higher level of psychic organisation which OS calls “Mental”. The sensory motor connection we humans have with our bodies permits a form of contact with them which is epistemological and mental. When we will an action requiring a performance such as hunting there are, OS argues, two objects, firstly the bodily target(the limbs) that will bring about the performance, such as legs moving rapidly, and secondly the object of the prey moving on the beach ahead. The legs will be “chosen” rather than some other part. But the reason why we call the human relation to these bodies epistemological and mental is because they are subsumed under the higher mental powers which exercise some form of control over them.
More importantly the fact that humans are rational animals capable of discourse means that language and reason are critical powers that serve to further differentiate the human form of life from the animal form. It is perhaps these two fundamental powers that would cause neo-Aristotelians(as well as neo-Kantians, and neo Wittgensteinians), to claim that the first person expression of intention belongs to the ontological sphere of the “mental”, which has “evolved” (in accordance with Darwinian theory) from the powers that constitute the lower ontological level of the “psychological”. The mechanisms of the evolution of machines, computers and robots is not the same mechanisms that have “shaped” animal and human forms of life. Robots and computers may well be “language-users” in a full blown sense, but they are not “capable of discourse”,and they do not understand forms of reason relating to our theoretical and practical relations to each other, even if some AI platforms claim that they can “Learn” and “perceive” patterns(Chat GPT). This “control” of lower psychological functions OS calls the mind-to body problem and transforms the sensations involved in contact with ones world as well as the attention one directs at different aspects of this sensed world. For different reasons neither the robot nor the crab are capable of the more complex forms of experience where mental processes and states subsume more simple psychological functions under them.
OS claims, for example that our relation to our own bodies is not via sensation and that there us a more primitive spatial awareness of the body which is not sense-perceptual. This is, OS claims, connected to the fact that in acting we have a non-observational awareness of what we are doing connected to this primitive non-perceptual(motor?) intuition of space. This form of awareness is a living form of awareness and the Philosophical argument for this is a major concern of OS:
“Indeed as the only natural material objects apart from mere chunks and rudimentary objects(rocks, planets, meteorites, crystals etc) are living objects—which suggests the possibility of an apriori definition of Life as the most general type of all natural material objects that are that and significantly more, i.e. that Life is necessarily the first ontological development amidst natural objects—so it may be that the only intrinsically de re necessarily vital phenomena apart from coming to life(and departing from life?) are psychological phenomena. After all psychologicality is the next great ontological shift after, and on the necessary basis of, the very first ontological movement, viz, Life. Then what do we mean in saying that the mind is alive?”(P XIX)
OS, like Freud, sees the importance of charting the development of the mind from its natural origins in the body:
“This was, for example, an unquestioned tenet for Freud, who charted the development of the mind of the entire human species as one might the growth of a particular plant, delineating “phases” in which basic mental functions (like internalisation) were modelled on rudimentary bodily functions(like feeding) that were simultaneously stages in the development of non-“narcissist” or properly realistic “object-relations”. Then the process of naturalisation which is not as such one of reduction, and might instead be a complexification, leads inevitably to a highlighting of the phenomenon of desire…..it seemed to many in the 19th century that the human mind harboured deep and natural desire-like “forces”(“Will, so called) comparable to the forces that were being tamed in the environment without. Now “Will” is often construed either as an “impulsive act urge” or else as “striving”: the latter phenomenon being uniquely the expression-effect of the former: …my concern is mostly with “striving” will.”(P.XXII)
This view contrasts markedly with the twentieth century concern with a mind filled with “private objects”: a Cartesian picture of a solipsistic(narcissistic?) soul meditating alone in a cottage on a winters day. Wittgenstein’s work was primarily aimed at combatting this picture and thus helping to restore the naturalism that was being eclipsed by the reflections of the “new men”. With the restoration of a concern for language-using “forms of life” and Action(“what we do”), followed a resurrection of Aristotelian and Kantian ideas and arguments. A concern for Consciousness and epistemé instead of Action and “forms of life” obviously had something to do with the modern conception of the mind as a theatre playing out private scenes on an internal stage. Yet we do not have to regard Consciousness as something solipsistic, after all it “opens out onto the world” as OS claims in his work “Consciousness and the World”(Clarendon Press, Oxford, 2000). Epistemé is involved in the fact that although a dog knows that it is about to be fed it does not know (as we rational animals capable of discourse do), that it is true that we are about to be fed. We possess the “mental-space” to compare reality with our thoughts and ideas. A power that allows us to entertain “theories” about reality.
A machine or robot, of course is not capable of either animal forms of Consciousness or the more complex human forms. It is not Conscious, and therefore has no window onto the world and nothing to compare its “use of language” with. The question to raise here is , given it has no window out onto the world, whether its use of language is capable of understanding that its own activities are intentional, i.e. that they fall under a description. Probably not. The purposeful activity of animals cannot “fall under a description” because they are not language users but perhaps we can say that they are “sub-intentional”, indicating a dimension of complexity to the animals activity that is not present in relation to robotic activity. Neither the animal nor the robot are related to the Truth, in the way in which we humans are. Animal “sub-intentions” are truly instinctive in the Freudian sense of the term but nothing of this kind can be said of the robot. The robot in fact is part of the world we have instrumentally created and is part of the “context of involvements” that Heidegger discussed in his work “Being and Time”. In this sense robots are “contextual” with a very special relation to the programmer that has programmed their on board computer.
Part of the point of saying that a robot is a “contextual” object is that it is intended by humans to do good and to serve the purposes of life . Its value is therefore purely instrumental and cannot have a value in itself in the way that life and its vicissitudes(psychologicality, the mental) does. It is, as Kant claims a practical contradiction for any form of human life to take a human life because human life has an ultimate value and that “value” can be transferred to our cities and their laws(the soul writ large, according to Socrates) but not to machines or robots or computers.
Philosophy and AI: Part 6: “Machina”, The “new men” and the Age of Totalitarian Discontent.
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The kind of reasoning we find in AI texts seeks to justification beyond the level of techné, needs obviously to be more fully evaluated. Julian Jaynes in an essay entitled “The Study of the History of Psychology” provides us with a clue in the search for the causes of the present obsession in both Psychology and Philosophy with technical terms such as “data”, “information”, and “information processing”. Jaynes argues:
“…current Psychology is wedded to its History with much stronger ties than any other science.” “The Julian Jaynes Collection” Edited by Kuijsten, M.,Julian Jaynes Society, Henderson, 2012.
Jaynes points out that whilst the history of the subject as a laboratory science is only just over a century old , as a body of insights, ideas, observations and hypotheses, Psychology is one of the oldest sciences in the world. Jaynes himself does not fully acknowledge the importance of Philosophy in some of the assumptions behind the positions he adopts in relation to various central psychological issues, so he would not be sympathetic with the claim that a philosophical approach to many psychological issues would diminish the conceptual confusion and fallacious thinking accompanying many of the psychological claims that have been made.
He notes that during the 20th century there has been a proliferation of psychological research in many different directions and he sees this as a fragmenting process in the name of a principle of specialisation which he regards as a positive phenomenon. One of these directions resulted in the current obsession with the advancement of machine technology and AI, which along with behaviourism and certain forms of brain research explored the thesis of “Psychology without a soul”. The concept of “soul” has, unfortunately, its own chequered History, beginning with the Greek psuche which meant life-form, continuing with the religious idea of an insubstantial entity which could continue to survive after death, and ending with the scientific denial of the relevance of the idea of a life-form : a denial of the hylomorphic idea of form that has a material substrate of a system of organs accompanying a configuration of limbs and a developmental history which ends in a flourishing good spirited life that has actualised in accordance with the form/principle of the idea of the good.
The de-materialisation of psuche was part of the strategy of dualism(initiated by Plato) the Church adapted in order to overcome a cloud of discontent that hovered over the lives of people who wished for a different kind of life. Aristotle’s hylomorphic theory, against this background, was seen to be a pagan belief system that situated man in the unholy terrain of a world of multiplying appetites and dwindling opportunities. Hylomorphism , of course, was less concerned with holiness and more concerned with areté(doing the right thing in the right way at the right time) diké (getting what one deserved) epistemé(knowledge) arché(principles), and eudaimonia(the good spirited flourishing life. Hylomorphism also embraced a broader view of science that included the theoretical sciences( metaphysics, theology, physics, maths)the practical sciences(politics, ethics), and the productive sciences(techné, aesthetics, rhetoric). Many of our modern disciplines have discarded the transcendental and metaphysical aspects of these sciences and refuse to embrace the four-fold explanatory framework Aristotle proposed in his later writings. The final and formal causes proposed rely more on the powers of understanding and reason than the material and efficient causes, which are more amenable to the form of perception we call observation and the associated power of the imagination. Final and formal causes are, of course, very much tied to understanding/judgment and the principles of reason(noncontradiction, sufficient reason), and require what Kant referred to as transcendental and metaphysical philosophy for their justification. Both Aristotle and Kant rejected the different forms of atomism of their day, probably because they both conceived of reality as a continuum which can only be potentially, and not actually divided for theoretical purposes. Both Philosophers would therefore have rejected the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, as Einstein did, but without appealing to God rolling the dice. Aristotle combatted the materialism and dualism of his day with his hylomorphic theory, and Kant combatted, (together with Newton), the materialism and dualism of his time with his critical philosophy that emphasised, as we demonstrated in the previous chapter, the transcendental and metaphysical presuppositions of science.
Religion was suspicious of critical Philosophy but whilst being a form of secularism, Kant,s philosophy did not seek to diminish the importance of religion and its pursuit of the “holy” ethical values. For both Greek and Kantian Philosophy, the great-souled men of their accounts were more likely to resemble the Greek idea of the phronimos, than the prophets or holy men of the various faiths, but the religious form of life was nevertheless, still held in high regard. In a certain sense, however, Philosophy was perceived by these men of faith as sacrireligious. Ever since the garden of Eden myth, faith has been opposed to knowledge(epistemé), and men who seek the fruits of knowledge independently of faith in Gods existence and power, have been seen to have flawed “souls” and lead flawed forms of life. By this time, the “soul” had become some kind of immaterial substance detached not just from knowledge, but also our bodies. It was out of this triangle of tension that a form of secularism was born that held both religion and Philosophy in contempt.
The firstborn “new men” were Descartes and Hobbes who both vaguely accepted the idea of a soul as some immaterial entity. and looked upon the behaviour encountered in life as “material” to be observed, manipulated and measured, whilst at the same time according this immaterial entity of the soul some kind of privileged status. For both Hobbes and Descartes God was an absolute authority and power, and our souls owed allegiance to this power. Now Hobbes was an Anglican and Descartes a Roman catholic, and whilst Hobbes’ materialism was very basically scientific( everything could be reduced to matter in motion), Descartes dualism was more influential and more problematic. Both claimed to be critics of Aristotle, but there is no sign of any deep awareness of Aristotelian ideas in either Philosopher’s works.
It was C.P. Snow that first referred to scientists as “the new men” in an artistic context. A context in which scientists work frenetically on a weapon that could destroy all of mankind. It was Arendt in her seminal political work “The Origins of Totalitarianism” who used this expression to designate men like Cecil Rhodes, who seek to colonise the planets for the purposes of exploration and presumably also exploitation. The subsequent success of science in producing this weapon of mass-destruction, and the unholy alliance with “new politicians”, of course, resulted in the dropping of two atomic bombs on civilian populations: an unethical act that explored the outer boundaries of human decency. The spirit of exploration/exploitation seems not to take social, norms, rules and laws into consideration when it engages in historical courses of action.
Scientific Psychology had very little contribution to make in the ensuing discussion of such acts of terrorism and Universities such as Oxford even awarded honorary doctorates to the decision makers. Elisabeth Anscombe, a follower of Wittgenstein, was one of the few figures to publicly oppose this travesty of academic values and moved to Cambridge University shortly thereafter. Indeed the academic response of Wittgenstein to Psychology at this time was summed up in his claim at the end of his work “Philosophical Investigations”: Psychology suffers from what Wittgenstein called “conceptual confusion” which also describes well the mentality of the “new men”. Hannah Arendt in her work on totalitarianism acutely pointed out the collapse of the Political party system in Europe which allowed the emergence of mass movements, which, in turn, prepared the way for authoritarian dictators to emerge both in Germany and Russia. Freud in his work “Group Psychology and the Ego” had also outlined the psychological/pathological mechanisms such dictators use in mobilising masses behind their “conceptual confusions”.
Freud and William James were the two Psychologists of interest for Wittgenstein. At one point in his later work Wittgenstein admitted to being a follower of Freud, but also criticised him for overemphasising the power of the past to determine the present and the future. Freud, in the above work, pointed to the primitive instinctive mechanism of “identification” with the leaders of movements, and outlined in particular, the way this defence mechanism operates when aggression is in the picture and one is forced to “identify with the aggressor”. Democracy is an idea and political movement that is in need of a respect for authority that is rational and respects the law. Historical traditions and institutions are important for the continuity of democratic society. and when belief in these fail the most terrible events can occur in the name of “government”, including criminal acts of mass murder. The halcyon days of Greek and Enlightenment political/legal rationality seemed very far away once the world had been taken over by the unholy trinity of businessmen, scientists, and authoritarian politicians.
Freud, in 1929(Civilisation and its Discontents) was absolutely correct in his diagnosis that perhaps all the work we have put into our civilisations was not worth the effort. The least one could have hoped for, given the history of civilisation, was incremental progress. In 1929 all the evidence was in favour of regression and repression. The new men had succeeded in creating and exploiting their “new world, and beginning the era of “The Age of Discontentment” which continues to the present day.
Now the conceptual confusions of Psychology had their roots in the Philosophical movements initiated by Descartes and Hobbes who set about dismantling the major threat to their revolutionary thinking, namely Aristotle and the Greek tradition. Consider the article entitled ,”The Problem of Animate motion in the 17th Century” written by Julian Jaynes:
“Before the seventeenth century, motion was a far more awesome mystery. Shared by all objects, stars ships, animals and men—-and since Copernicus, the very earth itself—it seemed to hide the answer to everything. The Aristotelian writings had made motion or activity the distinctive property of living things….Because they moved the stars were thought by no less a scientist than Kepler to be animated…In the Aristotelian heritage, motion was of three kinds: change in quantity, change in quality, and change in spatial locality. While the 16th century was beginning to use the word only in its third sense as we do today, the mysterious aura of its other two meanings hung about like ghosts, into the next century.”(P.69)
The sixteenth century, Jaynes points out was also a century of political upheavals and religious wars, and manifested the heritage from the Roman Empire of using engineering for political , military and business purposes. The Latin word “machina”, has an underlying connotation of “trick”, a trick that is used to animate machines to do the work done by living things: automated artifacts, earlier, had taken the form of dancing dolls and Jaynes notes in this context that during the period in which Descartes, (the philosopher with an interest in constructing machines of destruction for the military),was having a mental breakdown as a young man, he used to visit the Royal park in Paris and listen to the automated statues “talking” when one stepped on hidden plates in the ground.
This account incidentally correlates well with Heidegger’s complaint relating to the Latin translations of key Greek philosophical terms such as aletheia and Psuché. What we are witnessing here is the interest of the new men in machines and automata which was to continue during the succeeding centuries in a context which sought to repress central ideas inherited from Greek Philosophy, e.g. psuché, areté, arché, diké, epistemé, techné, logos, eudaimonia. The attempt was not wholly successful, however, since during the late German Enlightenment a resurrection of Hylomorphic Philosophy occurred in the form of Kant’s Critical Philosophy: a Philosophy which undermined both materialist theories and the metaphysics of dualists such as Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz. Metaphysics, however, was not discarded but rather transformed into a form in which science, religion and the arts could constitute a philosophical trinity in which psychology and ethics occupied central positions. These ideas invoked immediate interest all over the world, but were shortly to be overshadowed by Hegels attempt to “turn Kant upside down” which, even if not in the name of religion or science, managed to further the cause of the new men to discard Aristotle and all forms of Metaphysics connected to rationalism. Programs of materialism and dualism immediately reemerged, until the Later work of Wittgenstein could once again provide us with a form of Philosophy that was neither materialistic nor dualistic and recalled the Kantian relation to Metaphysics.
Jaynes recalls earlier programs of brain research by Harvey in which the work of brain is compared to that of a judge or sergeant-major, the nerves to leaders or magistrates and the muscles to soldiers. Descartes followed up on this with the claim that the brain was full of animal liquid and muscles and tendons were no different to the various engines and springs which moved the statues in the park in Paris. Jaynes also notes that Descartes performed experimental surgery upon animals without anaesthetic and regarded their cries of pain as “mechanical”, in the spirit of materialism (mere physical responses to physical stimuli(reflexes!)).
Fortunately Newtons Principles made a clear distinction between physical and animal motion and allowed Kant to differentiate animal psuché from human psuché, but stimulus -response theory was to reemerge in the 20th century as part of the “new men’s” attempt to dismiss the idea of consciousness, whilst at the same time retaining the mechanical idea of the reflex. Responses to Behaviourism were more dualistic, and hylomorphic responses were dismissed because the metaphysics behind them appeared too “rational” and “unscientific”. This established a precedent to conceive of the brain in terms of the schema of “stimulus-processor- response”, a schema well suited for the designer of machines, thus confusing physical motion with the kind of motion generated by a living form of life pursuing various purposes.
This is some of the background that explains the attempt to define man as an “information-processor”. J Z Young’s work “Philosophy and The Brain” has the following statement to make in Chapter 1:
“It is now clear that there are serious deficiencies in the philosophers classical methods for reporting his own and other peoples mental activities. Beneath our conscious thoughts and perceptions there are layers of information processing, which greatly influence what is thought or seen.”( Oxford, Oxford University Press,1986) P.2
It is not clear what classical methods Young is referring to here, but it surely must be clear that the basis for reporting my own mental states cannot be via observation of myself. Is he attempting to claim that if I report to you that I am feeling sad that this use of language is a (classical)method? Why the qualifier of “classical”. Classical methods for ascertaining what one believes or knows. would be elenchus and logical reasoning, but belief and knowledge are not mental states(they are mental attitudes). What I believe and what I know, on the other hand ,would certainly be better than any “information” I am given about the mental state you are in. I might, of course, observe that you are sad or angry or amused, but these are transient states that classical Philosophers have only a passing interest in. Both Plato and Aristotle, for example, would agree that the above emotions belong to the “spirited aspect” of mans character, and insofar as areté was relevant in relation to these states, it was because it is sometimes important to have appropriate “feelings”. I might, that is, not be praised or blamed for feeling sad about a loss, but I certainly might be blamed for inappropriate anger or humour. The virtue of self control may be relevant to many emotional states. It is not clear what role “information processing” might have in these situations because not all my states begin with the perception of something outside, some, that is, may be caused by internal pathological causes. Is the face at the window that startles me, information? If I am asked “Why were you scared?”, I certainly refer to an object, namely, the fact of the face at the window, and in that case I give you information about the object, but my fear is also constituted of fearful symptoms, shaking hands, and perhaps fearful behaviour (retreating away from the window). What is definitely not on the list of items constituting my emotional states is the facilitation of neuronal pathways by the stimulus, and different pathways in the response. This neural activity could, in Aristotelian terms, be part of the explanation of the state:- that part, namely, which belongs to what was called the “material and efficient ” explanations”(aitia) of the state(although Aristotle, to his credit, was not particularly interested in the role of the hidden processes of the brain and more interested in what was in view).
Wittgenstein would have claimed that these hidden private processes could not possibly have any role in the learning of the language we use to report these states because the criteria that must be used, must be public criteria(criteria related to the circumstances, the symptoms and the behaviour). Insofar as the feelings related to these private neural processes are also hidden and private, they too play little role in the emotions, e.g. the shaking hands insofar as they are related to a disruption in the motor centres of the subject. What role these hidden processes have to “information” is a mystery: what is being transmitted along the nerve fibre is electrical activity but what is being transmitted and at the nerve synapses are chemical agents and receptors. Both Aristotle and Plato would see an important role for discourse and reason in the self control of such emotional mental states because of their narcissistic character, and both would see a clear relation to the wider ethical issues that are raised when people do what they “feel” like, instead of what they rationally ought to do. When one is engaged in doing what one ought to do, what role is played by information? Very little, because having made a promise I am not looking around the world for excuses not to keep my promise. The only issue is, if my promise is time sensitive, when the time comes to do so, I keep the promise I have made. If I have promised to pay some money back by a particular date then the information concerning what date it is may be important, and this of course is determined by observation of the calendar. But the promise to be faithful to a partner till death us do part, is not time sensitive and requires that the promise is kept without any necessity for the observation of time.
The scientific method of observation , the formation of hypotheses, and the manipulation and measurement of variables are all elements of a context of discovery/exploration but these are not elements of contexts of explanation/justification in which principles such as “treating everyone as ends-in-themselves” are used to make ethical judgements and perform ethical actions for which we are praised or blamed. The role of whatever is going on in my brain, is irrelevant, as is any feelings that I have related to keeping my promise. If I kept a promise because it made me feel happy then this is not an ethical response, since the motivation is my happiness, which as Kant claimed is the principle of self-love in disguise. If I failed to keep a promise because it made me unhappy, this too is narcissistic and not a candidate for the status of an ethical principle.
Young claims that he will show during the course of his work how abstract concepts such as “information”, “representation”, “aim” and “value” will be used in relation to the brain via an “extension” of their meanings. Wittgenstein claimed that if one wishes to introduce new rules for the use of a word that is open to us to do so only as long as we can explain the purposes of the new usage. Without a clear statement of the purpose for introducing a new use for these words, there is a risk that what is being demonstrated in such reasoning is just another example of “conceptual confusion”.
Young complains that accounts of life and mind suffer from a failure to appreciate the role of :
“the intense and complex continuous internal activity that directs organisms to search for means of survival.”(P.3)
This is only possible, it is argued, if the animal can reference “stored information from past history”(P.3)
Does information mean “memory” in the above claim? Information in a certain sense cannot be other than what it is: the representations involved in this information have to be correctly related, otherwise how and about what would we be informed? If information is composed of 0’s and 1’s in a string, the 0’s and 1’s must correctly refer to states of the machine. The primary form of this term is the verb form.This casts doubt upon whether 0’s and 1’s in a string can literally be referred to as information. If it is a state of the machine I wish to bring about, at best, it is part of a plan to bring a certain state of affairs about. Surely, then such a plan contains information about the state of the machine? Perhaps it is an instruction and an instruction must contain information. So, for a programmer such an instruction or plan can convey information about what is to be done, but when the programmer programs the computer is the computer being instructed or is it merely a tool that is being manipulated? Can a tool understand instructions composed of representations? It might be useful in this context to ask, “Can Animals be informed about anything?” Humans are informed about their world in discourse. Surely animal learning has less to do with information and more to do with finding a particular way of behaving that meets the animals needs? If the animals survival on a particular occasion is related to prior learning, is it because they understand the relations of the representations in the information they possess, or is it because they understand the relation of their circumstances to what they do?
The above contains some of the reflections involved in extending the meaning of the term “information” to unusual contexts, but it is not clear that they contain an explanation of the purpose of such an extension of the meaning of the term “information”. Young also discusses the aims or the goals of living entities, and claims there is a continuity between animal and human forms of life, but he does acknowledge certain differences owing to the forward looking consciousness of man, and the fact that he is a language-user. In this discussion it is also claimed that the explanations used in physical science are incompatible with explanations in terms of “purpose”, and this, the author argues, is somewhat paradoxical. The author then attempts to resolve this paradox by reference to the theory of evolution which, he paradoxically claims:
“has provided each organism with a repertoire of programs of action.”P. 4-5
The question to ask here is whether organisms can be said to be “Programmed” by “natural” selection. Did not Darwin refer to the “random variations” that occur in animal populations as the cause of survival in environments that have changed significantly. Young defends his paradoxical statement by claiming that living systems are, after all, physical systems, and all physical systems are composed of some combination of 92 natural elements: furthermore, combinations of these elements even in living organisms behave like physical systems in the natural world. This is a typical materialist reductionist move that fails to acknowledge that a different set configurations of these elements are responsible for the types of motion we see amongst the planets and physical objects of the natural world, compared with the self initiated forms of movement we see in animals. Aristotle’s hylomorphic theory articulated these differences relatively painlessly without conceptual confusion and without reducing one form of organisation to another. Surely one does not need to be an Aristotle to understand that a system of living organs and a particular configuration of limbs is moving in accordance with different principles compared to that of a rock rolling downhill or a planet orbiting in the heavens. External moving causes are responsible for the latter phenomena and internal moving forces are responsible for the former set of phenomena. Reducing psuche to pure “material” fails to comprehend that it may be the name of the principle that is organising the matter that composes it. This may be the core meaning of the term “psychological”: one of the many meanings of Being that Aristotle referred to in his metaphysics (which we should remind readers refers to “first principles”).
Artifacts such as computers are in intermediate region of Being sharing some of the characteristics of psuche_(e.g. the “idea” of the artifact which was a necessary condition of it coming into existence) and some of the characteristics of the physical material which is chosen because a certain kind of material is best suited for performing the function of the artifact(eg. building materials that ensure a house protects one from the elements). Aristotle’s hylomorphism has the advantage of retaining the truths of materialism and the truths of dualism in one all encompassing theory about the many regions of Being that are referred to in his canon of theoretical, practical, and productive sciences. Insofar as psychology in general, and psychoanalysis in particular, aims at “producing” mental health for patients seeking help to lead their daily lives, we are dealing with a peculiar combination of theoretical , practical and productive science which combines epistemé, areté, techné, diké and eudaimonia in a system of treatment whose purpose is eudaimonia.
Can the therapist be said to be providing the patient with “information” to assist in this psychological therapeutical process? Surely the primary focus of the treatment is practical and related to action and what the patient ought to do to improve the quality of their life. Knowledge is involved in this process, but knowledge is so much more than information. If information can be said to be involved at all it is embedded in the “interpretations” of the patients behaviour that the therapist gives the patient . These interpretations contain epistemé in the form of the principles involved with areté, and if they were purely “Informative”, they might not have the desired effect on the patient because they are not merely telling the patient how to act or what to do but rather intend also to “explain why” the interpretation ought to be heeded. The attitude toward the “information”, if that term is appropriate here, is also important from the patients perspective, because if he believes he is being provided with facts, he can acknowledge the facts without believing that they have any relevance to his desire for mental health or well-being. If he is given the information that he might be “projecting” his mental states onto others, the patient might well acknowledge this with a shrug and respond” Does not everyone do this?”
Young appeals to brain researchers who have studied the brain extensively to authenticate the extensions of the meanings of the terms he proposes, “information, “storing” “rules” “instructions”, etc. One such researcher, Gerald Edelman, has the following to say about the brain-computer identity thesis:
“An analysis of the evolution, development and structure of brains makes it highly unlikely that they are Turing machines: brains posses enormous individual structural variation at a variety of organisational levels. An examination of the means by which brains develop indicates that each brain is highly variable. Indeed a simple calculation shows that the genome of the human being(the entire collection of an individual’s genes) is insufficient to specify explicitly the synaptic structure of the developing brain…. More damaging is the fact that an analysis of ecological and environmental variation and of the categorisation procedures of animals and humans..makes it unlikely that the world(physical and social) could function as a tape for a Turing machine.”(Bright Air Brilliant Fire, P.223)
Hilary Putnam, the author claims, has decisive arguments against the above materialist/functionalist position:
“His central point is that is that psychological states including propositional attitudes(“believing that p”, desiring that p”, and so on) cannot be described by the computational model. We cannot individuate concepts and beliefs without reference to the environment. The brain and the nervous system cannot be considered in isolation from states of the world and social interactions. But such states both environmental and social, are indeterminate and open-ended.”(“Edelman, G, “Bright Air, Brilliant Fire”, The Penguin Press, London, 1992) P.224
There are many reasons why this argument of Putnams is correct: firstly, it links up to Searle’s argument that a computer lacks understanding of its own tasks: secondly, it links up to the fact that in a closed variable system such as a computer program, the probability of any individual event can always be calculated but this is not the case with individual living systems that are controlled by individual brains. Searle has additionally argued on the grounds of meaning , claiming that the syntax of computer programs is insufficient for semantical properties. We have also argued earlier that only living systems can have experiences and this is therefore not a possibility for a machine or a computer. Edelman concludes this discussion with the following:
“Now we begin to see why digital computers are a false analogue to the brain.The facile analogy with digital computers breaks down for several reasons. The tape read by a Turing machine is marked unambiguously with symbols chosen from a finite set: in contrast the sensory signals available to nervous systems are truly analogue in nature and therefore are neither unambiguous nor finite in number. Turing machines have by definition a finite number of internal states while there are no apparent limits on the number of states the human nervous system can assume….The transitions of Turing machines between states are entirely deterministic, while those of humans give ample appearance of indeterminacy. Human experience is not based on so simple an abstraction as a Turing machine: to get our “meanings” we have to grow and communicate in a society.”(Edelman P.225)
Edelman continues in a later section to explore the relations between memory and Language. “Human memory is not at all like computer memory” (P.237) he argues, because the memory of animals is not a trace that is stored and coded to represent its object. Neither is it the case that memory, which is a property of a biological system, can be confused with the causal mechanisms of its production, e.g. synaptic change(P.238). On the modern view of causation where the cause is one event in the space-time continuum, and the effect is a separably identifiable event in this continuum, the cause and the effect are logically different entities, and therefore cannot be identified. Even common sense tells us that a stone rolling downhill cannot be identified with the foot that kicked it.
Hylomorphism inserts the event of memory in a network of explanations which would include synaptic change but also includes the intentional object(“I remember that….”), and it would recognise the different forms of explanation of the phenomenon of remembering, for example, that I had arranged to meet Pierre in the café. For Aristotle, the separate explanations would be the concern of different sciences. Kant’s Critical Philosophy would agree with the hylomorphic diagnosis and separate the observational knowledge we have of the synaptic change from my remembering that I had arranged to meet Pierre in the café in the following way:
“A doctrine of knowledge of the human being, systematically formulated(anthropology), can exist either in a physiological or in a pragmatic point of view—Physiological knowledge of the human being concerns the investigation of what nature makes of the human being: pragmatic, the investigation of what he as a free acting being makes of himself, or can and should make of himself.–He who ponders natural phenomena, for example, what the causes of the faculty may rest on, can speculate back and forth(like Descartes) over the traces of impressions remaining in the brain, but in doing so he must admit that in this play of his representations he is a mere observer and must let nature run its course, for he does not know the cranial nerves and fibres, nor does he understand how to put them to use for his purpose. Therefore all theoretical speculation about this is a waste of time.”(Kant, I.,Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, trans Louden, R., B., Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2006, P.3)
Young’s speculations , then, do not respect the ontological distinctions outlined by Aristotle and Kant, and would not be in accordance with the grammatical distinctions outlined by Wittgenstein. Neither is what Young is claiming, in tune with our common sense about this issue which was well expressed by Socrates in the Phaedo when he claimed that the reason he was sitting in prison was not attributable to the motion of the muscles and tendons involved in bringing him to the prison.
Let us examine another Nobel prize winning brain researchers work, namely, that of Erik, Kandel(another researcher who sees using Freud’s work as crucial to conducting brain research):
“John Searle argues that consciousness cannot be reduced to a machine that can think, a physical computer with mind as a software program and consciousness as an emergent property. He maintains that the mind is not analogous to software being processed by the hardware of the brain. He argues that programs consist entirely of a set of rules(they are syntactic) whereas mind deals with values, sense, and meaning(semantics). Minds therefore differ from computer programs because a set of rules, no matter how complex, is not sufficient for semantics..”Kandel, E., et al “Principles of Neural Science”, McGraw-Hill China, 2000 P 1318
Freud, we know, identified three types of neurones using the categories of meaning, sense and value, and focusses upon the role of memory as critical in the theoretical process, postulating that when someone can be made to remember something that was previously unconscious and repressed, the remembered experience can be transformed by “interpretations”. Having identified these three types of neuronal systems (Freud’s concepts are all “semantic”), he left the investigation of these neuronal systems with their “contact barriers”(which he discovered 70 years before the discovery of synapses) to future brain researchers (e.g. Edelman, Kandel)
Aristotles contribution to this debate is to situate the material of the nerve system in the domain of psuche and encourage investigation into the living material of cells and the chemistry of their protein-events (and contrast this activity to the electrical events connecting the parts of the computer). The material cause for Aristotle was an important explanation of what that thing is and what it does . (A tree, for example, burns after being struck by lightning because of the wood that it is composed of). An axe can perform the function which defines its “soul”, because its head is made of iron or steel. A computer too belongs to the category of objects we name artifacts, and its actions too are determined by the material it is made of. The “soul”(used metaphorically here by Aristotle) of instruments, for Aristotle was more related to their function then is the case with animals and humans. For Aristotle , then, the kind of explanations we have of the computer and its functions would have to be found in the theoretical and the productive sciences. Kant too, would have agreed with this diagnosis relating where to look for explanations of the operations of physical events in space and time that are dependent on “observation” for their characterisation.
M R Bennett, an ex President of the International Society for autonomic neuroscience and co author of the work “Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience”. He defines his cooperation with the Philosopher P M S Hacker and the field of neuroscience in the following way:
“It is concerned with the conceptual foundations of cognitive neuroscience–foundations constituted by the structural relationships among the psychological concepts involved in investigations into the neural underpinnings of human cognitive, affective and volitional capacities. Investigating logical relations among concepts is a philosophical task….If we are to understand the neural structures and dynamics that make perception, thought, memory, emotion, and intentional behaviour possible, clarity about these concepts and categories is essential….Conceptual questions are antecedent to matters of truth and falsehood. They are questions concerning our forms of representation, not questions concerning the truth or falsehood of empirical truths. These forms are presupposed by true(and false)scientific statements and by correct(and incorrect) scientific theories. They determine not what is empirically true or false, but rather what does and does not make sense. Hence conceptual questions are not amenable to scientific investigation and experimentation or to scientific theorizing.” (“Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience”, Bennett, M., R, and Hacker, P.M.S., Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, 2003, p1-2)
Three experts in neuroscience have been produced to explicate Young’s contention that future brain research will better guide us through this complicated conceptual terrain. We have indicated how these experts would disagree with Young’s characterisations of key terms of research and how they support Aristotelian, Kantian and Wittgensteinian diagnoses of conceptual problems in this realm of research. We should also note that it is not being contested that the brain contains all our capacities for conscious life as Young maintains. Neither is it being contested that mentality is not separable from the brain. What is, however being questioned in the quote above is the position that:
“it is unlikely that wholly different languages are appropriate to describe the mental and the physical.”(Young P.16)
Language is as a matter fact used differently when we are talking about the motion of a stone rolling down the hill and the motion of standing up in the middle of a musical recital to make some obscure political point. Young believes, as none of the above three experts do that :
“we speak of brain programs”(P.18)
Thereby ignoring the syntactical structure of these programs and the contrasting semantic structure of many mental predicates. Many predicates, however, possess the characteristic of only being attributable to a person and not to a part of him such as his body or his brain. Bennett and Hacker claim that:
“Human beings possess a wide range of psychological powers, which are exercised in the circumstances of life, when we perceive, think and reason, feel emotions, want things, form plans and make decisions…..Talk of the brains perceiving, thinking, guessing, or believing, or one hemisphere of the brains knowing things of which the other hemisphere is ignorant, is widespread among contemporary neuroscientists.”(P 3)
It is important also to note that both Edelman and Kandel are included in this accusation of the conceptual confusion of neuroscientists. Even Searle is taken to task for not understanding fully the distinction between empirical investigations and conceptual investigations. Hacker is a Wittgensteinian scholar with detailed knowledge of Aristotelian Philosophy. In response to Youngs comments on the term “information”, Bennett and Hacker claim the folllowing:
“The sense in which separate neural pathways carry information about colour, shape, movement etc is not semantic but, at best information-theoretic. In neither sense of “information” can information be “organised” into “cohesive perceptions. In the semantic sense information is a set of true propositions, and true propositions cannot be organised into perceptions(i.e. into a persons perceiving something)…”(P.142)
Hacket and Bennett also criticise those neuroscientists that wish to use the term “representation” in relation to the brain:
“This is confused. Neither in the iconic nor in the lexical sense could there be any representation of the external world in the brain. The brain can neither make a decision nor be indecisive; and it cannot engage in guesswork either. Human beings when they perceive their environments, do not perceive representations of the world, straightforward or otherwise, since to perceive the world..is not to perceive a representation. And in whatever legitimate sense there is to the supposition that there is a representation of what is seen in the brain, that representation is not what the owner of the brain sees. The term “representation” is a weed in the neuroscientific garden, not a tool—and the sooner it is uprooted the better.”(p.143)
Computers can neither feel not understand emotions primarily because the latter implies the former, and also because the material composition of the computer is not of the right ontological kind to be the bearer of emotions(an axe head composed of jelly cannot chop wood). One could probably in the far distant future create a robot that can “simulate” the reactive behaviour of the emotions and the verbal expressions of the emotion, but both the physiology of the emotions would be lacking(a release of liquid from the “eyes” of the robot would simply not be crying) and the object in the world linked to the emotional response would not be categorised in the way we humans categorise it. Human emotion, the authors argue is a sub category of “Affections”, which also include agitations and moods and perhaps also attitudes(praising and blaming). Emotions are passions, it is argued, over which we have control otherwise praising or blaming someone for lack of control would be pointless. Appetites such as hunger, thirst and lust can also be controlled : they are not emotions but rather constituted of desires and sensations which have different physiological and hormonal relations and a different relation(i.e. hardly any relation) to cognitive attitudes such as belief or knowledge. Furthermore, the authors claim:
“Emotions cannot be said to have evolved as “brain states and bodily responses”. Rather, brains evolved in such a way as to make it possible for animals to respond affectively to objects of their concern. Emotions evolved as animals responses to features of the environment apprehended as affecting in one way or another the good of the animal. Neither brain states(which are essential for the feeling of the emotion), nor somatic responses(which may characterise an emotional perturbation(are emotions. They lack the intentionality or “directedness towards an object” which is constitutive of most emotions. One cannot individuate an emotion by reference either to brain states or somatic reactions independently of the circumstances of their occurrence and the knowledge or beliefs, as well as the desires or wishes , of the creature.”(P. 209).
The authors also take up the way in which machines recognise objects with the way in which animals do, and claim that, in the animal case, there is no process of matching input with electronically stored images .Similarly, it is argued one cannot compare the mental image of an object with a physical image of which the image is of:
“to reproduce ones mental image of X, if this phrase means anything at all, would be to imagine or visualise X again.”(P.192)
This confusion has generated a plethora of research which is misguided and it is not disconnected to the confusions over the term “representation”:
“Neuroscientists and cognitive scientists characterise mental images as “internal representations”. Mental imagery is alleged to be “a form of internal representation in which information about the appearance of physical objects, events, and scenes can be depicted and manipulated”. But if pictures, maps and verbal descriptions are paradigms of representations, the mental images are not representations of what one imagines….To make a representation of how one imagines something is to depict it as one imagines, or to describe how one imagines it. It is not to conjure up an image of it.”(P.192-3)
Bennetts and Hackers arguments are only partly Aristotelian and mostly rely on a perspicuous presentation of the grammar of these terms –i.e. how they ought to be used if we wish them to make sense. We ought not, however, to be deceived by the normative nature of these arguments: they follow the Aristotelian/Kantian logical principles of noncontradiction and sufficient reason and are norms of both thought and relate to the ontological conditions of various forms of existence(Being).
Philosophy and AI: Review of Weizenbaums “Computer Power and Human Reason” Part 5: Kant, Science, and the fallacy of anthromorphization
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The author wishes to rely on a truncated definition of “information” that is disconnected from truth and knowledge and resembles something that relates more to human intuition than to the human conceptualisation of intuitions:
“Thus, however informal a notion of what information is we may appeal to, we must agree that the symbols we mean to discuss here are capable of carrying information.”(P.74).
Chat GPT defines a symbol in a way which is difficult to reconcile with Weizbaums use of the term:
“A symbol is a representation of an idea, concept, or object that carries meaning beyond its literal form. It is a visual, verbal, or abstract representation that stands for something else, often with cultural or contextual significance. Symbols are used in various forms of communication, such as language, art, literature, religion, and culture.Symbols can take many forms, including words, images, gestures, sounds, or objects. For example, a red traffic light is a symbol that represents the instruction to stop, even though it is simply a colored light. Similarly, a national flag represents a country and its values, serving as a symbol of national identity.Symbols can be conventional, where they are widely recognized and agreed upon within a particular culture or community. For instance, a heart shape is commonly understood to symbolize love or affection. Symbols can also be personal or subjective, where they hold specific meaning to an individual or a smaller group.One of the defining characteristics of symbols is that they are arbitrary, meaning there is no inherent or logical connection between the symbol and what it represents. The association between a symbol and its meaning is established through cultural, social, or contextual conventions. These conventions may change over time, leading to variations in the interpretation and significance of symbols across different cultures or periods.Symbols play a crucial role in human communication by condensing complex ideas or concepts into a concise and recognizable form. They provide a powerful means of conveying meaning, evoking emotions, and transmitting cultural values.”
This use of the term “symbol” as a matter of fact is closer to Ricouer’s use, and is also closer to the world of human experience and action than the quantitative idea proposed by the author, namely that of a symbol that carries information about the state of a machine. Ricouer, of course is concerned with the great cosmic, poetic and religious symbols such as the sun, love, and evil which are fundamentally related to Being and the human form of life.
Wiezenbaum has throughout this work referred to Turing machines but has not taken up the matter of the so-called Turing Test, which states that when we can no longer tell the difference between the responses a computer leaves to a stimulus and the responses a human leaves, then we will be forced to agree that the computer is capable of thinking like a human mind and can therefore be said to have a mind. This is the so-called computer theory of thought, and John Searle has provided us with a decisive philosophical argument refuting this claim. Searle urges us to construct a thought experiment in which a human behaves exactly as a computer does in relation to a task such as translating a Chinese sentence into English. The human is given a set of instruction manuals that simulate the information a computer has and manipulates in this task. Let us imagine the human uses these manuals and correctly translates a Chinese sentence into an English sentence. Here the responses of the machine are identical but we are not entitled to say, Searle argues, that the human translator understands Chinese. He is merely doing as the computer does, namely, following instructions. Understanding is an important power of thought This argument can be used in modified form with respect to speaking, reasoning, remembering and a whole repertoire of human mental powers.
Weizenbaum, to some extent, acknowledges the force of these arguments when he claims:
“A computers successful performance is often taken as evidence that it or its programmer understand a theory of its performance. Such an inference is unnecessary and, more often than not, is quite mistaken. “(P.110)
When, however, it comes to imagining particular events and scenarios such as is involved in the design and creation of computer games we are in the world of , as Kant would put the matter, of sensibility and intuition, and the conceptually based law of cause and effect largely determines what is going on in the creation of the game. If the game involves shooting and killing there will also be an instinctive component relating to the vicarious experience which the game represents for the player. What are the consequences for the programmer of living in this world of the imagination, particulars and vicarious experiences? Weizenbaum claims the following:
“Wherever computer centres have become established, that is to say, in countless places in the US, as well as in virtually all other industrial regions of the world, bright young men of dishevelled appearance, often with sunken glowing eyes, can be sitting at computer consoles, their arms tensed, waiting to fire their fingers, already poised to strike at the buttons and keys on which their attention seems to be as riveted as a gambler’s on the rolling dice. When not so transfixed, they often sit at tables strewn with computer printouts over which they pore like possessed students of a cabalistic text. They work until they nearly drop, twenty, thirty hours at a time. Their food, if they arrange it, is brought to them: coffee, Cokes, sandwiches. If possible they sleep on cots near the computer. But only for a few hours-then back to the console or the printouts. Their rumpled clothes, their unwashed shaven faces, and their uncombed hair all testify that they are oblivious to their bodies and to the world in which they move. They exist, at least when so engaged, only through and for the computers. These are computer bums, compulsive programmers. They are an international phenomenon.”
This could be an anthropological study of a generation of the “new men” who have abandoned the form of life of generations in favour of the vicarious “form of life” described above. The description is presumably a result of observations over a long period of time. The author uses the term “compulsive” in relation to people featured in the above account and this is an insightful diagnosis given the usual association of obsessive compulsiveness with aggression. Otherwise this could also be a scene from one of the rings of Dante’s hell. Weizenbaum uses the word “hacking” to describe the “work” of these obsessed compulsive programmers, and points out the meaning of the term “hacker” as being to cut irregularly without skill or purpose. Yet, paradoxically, the author wishes to insist that these “hackers” are superb technicians who wish to master their machines. The author continues by comparing the pathological profile of the programmer he has provided with that of the compulsive gambler who uses the knowledge of statistics and “psychology”(?) to engage in his activities. The compulsive gambler leads a more organised form of life than the hacker, it is argued, because for the hacker the game(being at the gambling table) is everything and winning or losing the game is not that important. The compulsive programmer, the author argues is the mad scientist who has been provided with a theatre, his computer, and who then orchestrates his fantasies.
Weizenbaum, in the chapter entitled “Science and the compulsive Programmer”, proceeds to outline a philosophical view of science which believes that it has a methodical right to distort the reality it observes and experiments upon, and furthermore proclaim this distortion to be a “complete and exhaustive” explanation/justification of reality. Part of this picture is seeing an equivalence between animal and human behaviour, with the only difference between them, being accounted for by the complexity of the environments they live in. What the author calls the inner life of man has disappeared in such stimulus-response scenarios, and there is nothing in the behaviour of the scientist to suggest that he might have missed something of importance. The author then suggests that we view man as an “information processor” as part of a theory of human nature which is defined in terms of:
“…any grammatically correct text that uses a set of terms somehow symbolically related to reality.”(P.141)
This is then amended to include laws and their systematic relation to each other. We use our theories, it is argued, to build models which ought to contain the most essential elements of what it is they are “modelling”. Models are then tested against reality suggesting that the theories which they were based on were hypotheses and not laws regulating concepts and objects. The context being referred to here is a context of discovery in which it is reasonable to suppose that the premises are inductive hypotheses awaiting confirmation or falsification. Such a context must rely heavily on the perceptive powers of observation and the active powers of experimenting with the relationships between variables. Theories that belong to the context of explanation/justification, on the other hand, are used very differently: they are used, namely, to justify and explain how particulars are related in reality via concepts, principles and laws which serve as major premises in arguments leading to secure conclusions.The postulate of man being an information-processing creature, then, is not a principle by which we can judge much of his behaviour, but rather an attempt to illegitimately generalise one narrow aspect of his activity beyond the information given.
Memory is a cognitive function that enables us to “go beyond the information given” but given the fact that the basic elements of human memory are sensations and thought-elements that represent reality, these terms can only be metaphorically applied to the activity of machines. Now characterising humans as information processors is clearly a thinly disguised attempt to place machines and humans in the same category, and thereby try to give substance to the myriad of metaphorical terms we use to describe machine activity. The differences between being powered electrically and neurophysiologically are differences that relate to these two systems being different kinds of system with different kinds of activities. The author appears to defend his position on the grounds that we do not, as he claims, have a theory of how humans understand language, and until we do we cannot justify any claims that machines are fundamentally and essentially different entities to human being.
Putting the accounts of Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Freud and Wittgenstein and their followers together would seem at the very least to be approaching what Wittgenstein characterised as a “perspicuous representation” of psuché(in particular the human form of life) as determined philosophically by the logical principles of identity, noncontradiction, sufficient reason and grammatical statements revelatory of the essence of what is being discussed. Whether or not calling such a perspicuous representation a “theory”, is of importance, depends of course upon whether one conceives of a theory to be hypotheses related to a model in a context of exploration/discovery or, alternatively, whether it is better to conceive of a theory as a perspicuous representation in a context of explanation/justification. In the case of this latter context we are more concerned with questions relating to the right we have to use a particular statement or concept rather than whether we can relate that concept or statement to some observed aspect of reality in an attempt to verify or confirm a hypothesis.
In the chapter entitled “Artificial Intelligence”, the author proposes the task of building a computer that can learn as a child does. The idea is that this robot that is neither alive nor conscious, will not be able to perceive as we do, but will be able nevertheless to “learn” as we do. The designer of course will use the “model” of man as an “information-processor” which is a hypothesis about the nature of man that ignores almost the entire thousands of year old philosophical tradition of reflecting upon our nature and form of life. The claim is that we will thereby have a language-understanding machine: a highly questionable claim. The author is aware of the difficulties associated with making claims such as this and agrees that even if man is an information-processor he does not process information in the way in which machines do.
A red-herring discussion of intelligence quotient is then introduced resulting in the position that we can not calculate an upper limit for machine intelligence and furthermore that the artificial intelligentsia argue that there is no realm of human thought over which the computer cannot range. This ignores the arguments that Searle produced relating to the differences that exist between human and machine activity. There are periodic admissions of the limitations of machine intelligence to comprehend the kind of knowledge humans have of their bodies, but this is characterised merely in terms of “information lost” which may not be important if one does not possess a human body.
Knowledge of the lessons that are learned via the treatment of human beings by other human beings is also not possible for machine learning. Language is obviously involved in such interaction, because the functionality of human language differs fundamentally from the functionality of machine language. In the latter case remembered information concerns “stored” information, which can only be metaphorically referred to as “memory”. But the discussion spirals out of control when it is maintained that because of the complexity of the computer it is possible to talk about it as an “organism”. Now, returning to Edelmans discussion of the brain, there are many very complex formations of the elements of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen sulphur phosphate and a few trace metals, but the way in which a complex object such as a computer is constituted of these elements is very different from the way in which an object such as a brain is constituted, and it would of course be as absurd to say that merely because of the complexity of each of these systems, we can call a computer a brain or a brain a computer: and the fundamental reason may in the end be, that this is so because the constitution of organic tissues and structures obeys very different principles, and this in itself is sufficient reason to refuse to call a computer an organism.
When the programmer reconstructs the world imaginatively in the creation of his game, he is not working conceptually with the understanding at every juncture but only at those points where he “imagines” one particular cause to give rise to another very particular effect. The principle/law of cause and effect is being used here, but otherwise he is assembling a configuration of particular events which are simulations of perception. The author then suggests that a computer can learn to protect its parts before protecting other parts of the world with which it is associated, and it is further argued that this might amount to some form of self-consciousness. This, of course, is absurd, principally because a computer cannot possess life and death instincts which are essential elements of the living organism, however we program it to react to threats. The chemistry and biology of fear cannot be simulated by electrical circuits. The author reiterates that he is prepared to think of the complex computer as a “kind of animal”, which is clearly a category mistake involving the fallacy of anthropomorphising non-living parts of the world. A computer is not born and does not die, and this is part of the reason why we do not consider it to possess life. It cannot breathe or cry or laugh or do any of the myriad things that constitute the human form of life. We do not register its birth or its death in archives, and computers do not get married and reproduce. The list of differences just goes on and on. One of the motivations for these absurd discussions is the fact that the author claims that we can never have any final understanding of any theoretical term. Now “life” is a theoretical term which we all understood until a group of “new men” came along and claimed that we do not understand life, and because of this fact we might as well say that a machine is alive, Neither of these claims are true. Metaphor is essentially a relation between something we do understand and something we are searching for an explanation for(a linguistic form operating in a context of exploration/discovery). Logically there has to be something that we fully understand before we can claim that something else is like this thing. “Man is a wolf” is a metaphor that means to focus on the likeness between animal species. Here there is a fundamental truth expressed in Aristotle’s “Man is a rational animal capable of discourse” and this definition focuses on three essential elements of human nature which are related non metaphorically. The knowledge of this essence specifying definition is presupposed in the above metaphorical assertion. There is, on the contrary, no basis for the assertion that man is machine-like unless one commits the fallacy of anthropomorphisation.
The author then claims that information is “stored” in the muscles and joints of the human being. One question that can, and should be asked is, whether this information is electrical, chemical or sensation-like. This claim is then associated with a further claim that a computer can, in principle, simulate “the entire network of cells that constitutes the human body”. This qualification, “in principle”, is then related to the assertion that we do not possess the neurophysiological knowledge to design such a computer and wont do so for hundreds of years. The fact of the matter is, that we do possess enough philosophical knowledge to know that such an impossibility is not a scientific problem but rather a philosophical problem, that is resolved by invoking the fallacy of anthropomorphisation. In other words this “possibility, in principle”, is in fact not conceptually possible. The counterargument against this position is attributed to the artificial intelligentsia who assert that the difference between human and computer thought is “unproven”. One could only accept such a position if one believed that the principles of noncontradiction and sufficient reason are not “proof”. This of course is the position of the “new men”.
The author, in this chapter entitled “Artificial Intelligence”, engages in a discussion of the intuitive nature of the right hemisphere of the brain and the conceptual/logical nature of the left hemisphere. The author does not recognise the historical footprint of the Philosopher, Kant, who sees intuition to be something we are in immediate contact with, and conceptual understanding to be something mediated by the concepts of the understanding/judgement. Intuitions without concepts are blind and concepts without intuitions are empty, Kant claimed on the basis of very little knowledge of the brain, but in accordance with hylomorphic principles. The anti-rationalism of the artificial intelligentsia has been evident in several chapters and is again confirmed here when it is asserted that the artificial intelligentsia believe that
“every attempt to solve lifes problems by entirely rational means always fails.”(P.221)
A false choice of contrary alternatives is presented as evidence for the above, namely that the left hemisphere can operate alone independently of experience. Without any knowledge of the structures and functions of the brain, philosophers since Socrates have urged that we transcend unnecessary appetites and emotions by examining them conceptually and rationally in the light of their place in our conception of what we believe a life ought to be like(areté, diké,arché, eudaimonia). Weizenbaum rejects the above account, not via an appeal to philosophical recourse to a rational world-view, but rather by an appeal to calculating reason which somehow mysteriously acknowledges the awe we feel in the presence of the “spectacle of the whole man”(P.221). Such a spectacle would, of course, need to be conceptually mediated and explained/justified by means of rational principles and grammatical remarks.
A discussion of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle ensues and we then witness a frontal attack on the Philosopher Leibniz and his claim that if we knew the position and velocity of every elementary particle in the universe we would be able to predict the entire future of the universe. Heisenberg, according to Weisenbaum, proved that we can never know the velocity and position of every particle, because of the micro-size of the instruments needed which would themselves be subjected to the random Brownian motion discovered by Einstein. This is a dispute between those that concentrate their theories on the quantitative aspects of nature with calculating reason, and it is not clear how this kind of reasoning has any relevance to the conditions of the possibility of other types of judgement such as substantial and qualitative judgements which would be used, for example, to characterise the essence-specifying of man as a rational animal capable of discourse. Wittgenstein, in turn, would object to the generalisation of the language games being used in calculative reasoning, beyond the scope of their proper application. The follower of Kant would acknowledge that the prediction of the particular physical states of the universe in the future, is an uncertain venture if these states will be decided on the grounds of microcosmic elements. and we ought to recall in this context that Kant was a formidable scientific presence during the Enlightenment.
For Kant the quantitative, qualitative, and substantial aspects of scientific activity were seamlessly integrated in his metaphysical account of Natural Science. We encounter this “perspicuous representation”in an essay entitled “The Unity of Kant’s Thought in his Philosophy of Corporeal Nature”. The essay begins with an account of what Kant called the transcendental unity of apperception which, it is claimed, is the same as consciousness–an active state of mind intimately connected with thought in the form of “I think”. This is a very different state of mind to that of sensibility, which is a passive form of experience that essentially merely “receives” intuitions from various sources. This act of apperception has the function of taking up a manifold of intuitive representations:
“synthesizing the manifold of sensible intuition is exactly what is meant by saying that apperception is an act of spontaneity. For the moment, let us say that such synthesizing activity of the mind means that unity can be bestowed upon a manifold of perceptions by the mind’s going through that manifold, taking it up, and connecting it according to a concept which serves as a rule. For example the concept of cause and effect can serve as a rule for synthesizing a manifold, e.g. the perceptions involved in observing a stove heating a room.”(Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, translated by Ellngton, J, Hacket Publishing, Indiana,1985)
The complex relation of the sensible part of the mind to the conceptually mediated understanding which is responsible for thought, is outlined here. The imagination is involved in this process of connecting the sensible representations to the conceptual representation of an object. This is part of an account that explains or justifies the role of knowledge in our lives, a role that cannot be reduced to calculation or the activity of the imagination. A computer has no biologically based chemical sensory system which lays at the foundation of all our experience. Programmers might attempt to simulate the consequences of such a system, but such a simulation could never become aware of itself in the form of self consciousness that only higher forms of life possess. The embodiment of humans with a system of organs connected to a configuration of limbs, is the hylomorphic philosophical foundation for the essence specifying definition of man as a rational animal capable of discourse.
Kant sees the categories of the understanding to be judgement-functions which are both constitutive of thought and regulate it, yet are necessarily related in various ways, not just to the sensations that are part of sensible intuition, but also to the apriori forms of intuition, namely space and time. The computer may be a part of the space time continuum but it is neither aware of the space it is in, nor is it aware of the passage of time, (the present, the past, and the future). This awareness of space and time may well be achieved principally through measurement and therefore is constitutive of the quantitative judgements we make, judgements which are intimately related to mathematics and every judgement might be made on the foundations of our intuitive awareness of space and time:– but both substantial judgements(essence specifying judgements) and qualitative judgements are conceptually mediated. Even quantitative judgements, if they are going to become part of the canon of knowledge, may need to relate to the concept of cause-effect, and knowledge claims must be conceptually mediated and related to principles of reason.
Kant has the following account of the different levels of the activity of science, which Ellington refers to as the architectonic structure of the Kantian account:
“When a rock is thrown in a direction parallel to the ground, we know by experience that its path is a curvilinear line ending on the ground some yards away: how many yards away depends on how strong the pitcher is. The exact nature of the curvilinear path depends on the mass of the rock, the velocity it attains by means of the force the pitcher imparts when he throws it, the resistance of the air through which it passes and the pull of gravity upon it. When these things are known, we can plot the exact path by laws of physics, which are generalisations from many experiments. But we are also told that if the air exerted no resistance and if gravity exerted no pull, then the rock would keep on going forever in a straight line…This is Newtons first law of motion…Thus Newtons law seems to be of a character different from that of the aforementioned laws of determining the paths of projectiles. Furthermore there are Philosophers who tell us that every change has a cause. This law is even more general than Newtons first law of motion, for this one covers not only the case of material bodies that stay put or else keep going in a straight line with uniform velocity unless some external cause acts on them, but also the case of living things that act according to an internal cause…( a lion rushes after an antelope not because a big puff of wind propels him but because he has a desire to eat.)”(P X1)
Now Weizenbaum has pointed out in his description of the life compulsive programmers or hackers lead, that they prefer food to be brought to them and the desire for food seems to be overwhelmed by their compulsive activity—making them more like the computers they use than they perhaps imagine. What we see above is an architectonic of activity that is constituted and regulated by laws(arché) ranging from the experiential to the transcendental to the metaphysical . Here we can clearly see how seamlessly the world of thought is connected to the world of sensibility, and that the most important aspect of this process is organised by the categories of the understanding/judgement and the principles of reason embedded in a context of explanation/justification. Quantitative judgements play their role as does mathematical calculative reasoning, but there s no confusion or attempt to reduce different forms of judgement to one quantitative form.
Gödels incompleteness theorem is then used to call into question even the major premises of Mathematical and logical thinking on the grounds that they cannot be proved, thus confusing the logical difference between grounds which are conditions and what these conditions are conditions of. One ground or major premise often contains assumptions relating to other “hidden” premises, or are related to other grounds in ways which one may fail to appreciate.
The author notes that Cultures differ from each other, but fails to note that the kind of civilisation building activities that build the infrastructure of such civilisations/cultures are generic, e.g. the use of tools to build and make artifacts and the use of language( and the grammar of that language). The Greek norms of areté(doing the right thing in the right way at the right time) and diké(getting what one deserves) are also essential parts of enduring cultures ruled by law and principles. Concentrating on the empirical -experiential differences one can find when comparing civilisations and cultures is not a ground for impeaching the validity of essence defining activities. The way in which Japanese relate to each other in certain social contexts does not change the fact that when they lose something of great value to them they will be sad(or pathologically angry), and when they achieve a goal after a long period of attempting to achieve that goal they will be happy(or manifest a limited repertoire of pathological responses). There may be cultural differences in expressing these emotions or pathologies but neither emotions nor pathologies can be reduced to the behaviour expressing them: their circumstances and accompanying physiology are just as important factors as is the grammar of the language related to these emotions and pathologies(the way in which they are related to language-games).
Philosophy and AI Part 4: Review of Weizenbaum’s “Computer Power and Human Reason”: Power and Language
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Wieizenbaum begins his chapter entitled “Where the Power of the Computer comes from” with an observation that machines in general follow rigidly defined laws blindly and deterministically. There is no space analogous to consciousness as there is in a human being in which a thought to do something can be interrupted by a negation of that thought, e.g. in reaching for an orange I am struck by a thought that “It will soon be time to eat lunch”, and my action is then interrupted. In other words in a mechanical “electrical system” there is no space for negation which Sartre thought was defining for human consciousness. Now whilst we can try to conceptualise what is going on in a computer in sensory-motor terms, the fact is that we are not dealing with a system which has an important chemical component, (e.g. whether or not a nerve connected to another nerve fires because of an impulse is determined by a chemical interaction at the synapse that lies between the two nerves). This, for Aristotelian hylomorphism, and its four-cause schema of explanation, would be a fundamental difference between an organic system and an inorganic artifactual system. What something is made of, for Aristotle, is determined by its form, and that form, in turn is critical for what powers can be performed.
The Nobel prize winning brain researcher, Gerald Edelman, in defining the system of the brain, claimed that although the brain was the most complex “object” in the universe its form was defined by a certain organisation of the chemical elements, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulphur, phosphate and a few trace metals. The form or “principle”(arche) of this kind of organisation is fundamentally chemical, and although our nerve system is important in both sensing and acting, it requires an organic environment with a blood supply providing the necessary chemistry for the electrical impulses to reach their destination. Witness the catastrophic effect of the clotting of blood in the brain.
Aristotle claims that animal forms of life maintain themselves and grow through the organic process of nutrition which is different to the form of psuche of plant life, owing to the fact that animals have a limb-configuration-system and organ-system which requires a more complex form of nutrition that can sustain a complex sensory-motor system. Edelman in fact claims that brain researchers would not be able to conduct meaningful research unless they used something like Freudian theory as a framework for such research. Exactly what Edelman means here is not clear but we do know that in Freuds unpublished “Project for a Scientific Psychology”, Freud was talking about categorising neurones into three kinds:
a phi system, which can fire and produce experiences that are not remembered because they are not chemically transformed in any way:
a psi system which fires and produces experiences which can be remembered because the neurones involved are chemically transformed:
and an omega system which has the function of “perceptual neurones” that transform a fundamentally quantitative system into a qualitative system and are linked to both feelings of pleasure/pain and forms of consciousness that can sustain images which have a perceptual quality related to the psychological processes/powers of wish and anxiety.
The formation of Freudian secondary processes is founded upon what Freud calls “primary process function” images, (cathected with a desire for wish-fulfilment) and these secondary processes are subject to what Freud calls “reality-testing”(a primary function of consciousness). Language is then factored into this account via the verbal image which adds another dimension of reality into the equation, namely thought-reality, which Freud claims is the highest and most secure form of cognitive process. Paul Ricoeur in his excellent work “Freud: A Philosophical Essay on Interpretation” comments on the psychological secondary process agencies of the ego and the superego which, he argues:
“learns not to cathect motor images or the ideas of desired objects”(trans by Savage. D, New Haven, Yale University Press(1970)), P 79
Ricoeur also points out that :
“the psychical apparatus of “The Interpretation of Dreams” functions without any anatomical reference: it is a psychical apparatus.”(Ibid, P.87)
This comes as part of a chapter in which the language of meaning is contrasted with the language of force(power?), where the latter is described in the account Freud gives of the energetics of the psychical apparatus. For Freud, the secondary process gets its power partly from the primary process and partly from its remembered and temporally structured interactions with the external world. Secondary processes also aim to replace the primary system and its hallucinatory wishes with a reality and thought- based system which includes inhibiting the discharge of energy into primary process based activities.
This distinction between the biological energetics system(functioning in accordance with the energy regulation principle and pleasure-pain principle) and a psychological system(functioning in accordance with the pleasure-pain and reality principle integrated into a unity) cannot be applied to mechanical systems simply because whilst computers might possess sensors they do not possess biologically constituted sensory systems and whilst they can be said to do things they cannot be said to act in the way that humans do. In other words, where a computer gets its power, and where a living system gets its power are two fundamentally different kinds of sources. This also affects, naturally, what computers do with their power and what humans do with their power, although a computer can admittedly be designed to imitate human power.
In the work “The Interpretation of Dreams” Freud characterises Consciousness as a sense -organ whose telos or purpose is the perception of psychic qualities. Consciousness is, of course, oriented toward the external world, but it is also oriented toward pre-conscious thought processes. Consciousness, in other words is hyper-cathected, and this hyper-cathexis fundamentally transforms instinct and the energy involved into something that is qualitatively meaningful and capable of meaningful communication. On these premises a machine can never be conscious because consciousness is a complex function that categorically belongs to forms of life with a sufficiently complex limb and organ system.
Freud’s descriptions and explanations are in accordance with hylomorphic principles. He is often described as a deterministic psychologist and whilst he does focus on biological and psychological principles, these are not conceived of solely in accordance with the kind of law of cause and effect that regulates mechanical systems ,because teleological , efficient and formal causes also play important roles consistent with allowing Consciousness the possibility of, for example, choosing a secondary process activity instead of an activity based on an unrealistic primary process wish-cathected activity that is negated in a cognitive thought process.
Weizenbaum claims that machines may be transducers and transmitters of power and whilst computers are machines (and therefore this description is true of them), computers are also transmitters of information. He then proceeds to discuss computer games and how they are constructed in a computer “language” which, he argues, is differently constituted to our natural languages which, it is also argued, suffer from ambiguity of meaning. Any machine instruction cannot of course be ambiguous because the program quite simply would not work. A computer language, it is argued,, cannot use what Ricoeur calls “symbolic language”, which is defined as having a “double meaning”, i.e. a manifest meaning that refers to an underlying latent meaning. This certainly mirrors the account above, of the relation of psychological to biological levels of psuche.
Weizenbaum apologises for not discussing the idea of “meaning” in his account of the formal unambiguous language which lies behind the operation of the Turing machine which uses a program to perform its function, e.g. of transmitting information.
Chat GPT Defines information as necessarily connected to meaning initially but then pivots to the following:
“The concept of information is closely related to data, which refers to raw and unprocessed facts or symbols. Data becomes information when it is interpreted, organized, or contextualized in a way that it becomes meaningful and useful. The processing and interpretation of data involve extracting patterns, analyzing relationships, and applying knowledge or understanding to derive insights or make decisions.”
The OED defines information in the following way:
“Facts or knowledge provided or learned as a result of research or study.”
We have referred earlier to Chat’s claim that it has been taught or learned certain things, but the question left hanging in the air is whether what is going on with The Chat, when it uses its programs to acquire and organise data, can be called “research” or “study”. When we perceive something consciously, patterns of recognition are to some extent involved according to Gestalt Psychology, and wholes are perceived which are more than the sum of the parts. We go , as Bruner claimed, “beyond the information given” and this is how knowledge or understanding organises the pattern or data. The data, that is, can be perceptual data but this data can be then both conceptually organised and also organised by principles. What we see here is two different levels of meaning that are related to each other as matter is to form.
Weizenbaum, categorically states that :
“A formal language is a game”(P.49)
For Wittgenstein’s later position, language was not a game but an activity necessarily related to discourse(spoken language). Speakers follow grammatical rules, Wittgenstein argued, and an analogy with a move in chess was used to illuminate a move in a language game. Weizenbaum’s account of the task of explaining a particular configuration of the chess board in terms of particular historical moves, unfortunately eliminates the conceptual component of this activity. Conceptual thinking requires not just that a particular pawn was moved closer to a King but the reason why the move was made, e.g. a general principle of the kind, “whenever one has the opportunity to limit the movement of the King one shall take that opportunity”. This is a general principle for use on more than one occasion. Another general principle of chess might be “Control the centre of the board”, and this too is a general conceptual principle that chess players learn as part of their training in chess strategy. Here we can see the clear difference there is between a rule which is also a conceptual truth, e.g.”the bishop can only move diagonally”, and a strategic principle which goes far beyond the information given(of a particular configuration of pieces on a board).
For Weizenbaum whether the configuration of the board was composed of “legal” moves appears to be the primary problem. Language requires an alphabet, the author argues, and he creates a game with three symbols and a set of formation rules which can be used by a Turing machine. These formation-rules are then related to the computers behavioural rules. The presence of “calculation” is very important for the machine and its program and for Wittgenstein calculating is one possible language game amongst others, with no special status. Wittgenstein also urged that language games should not be confused with each other or reduced to each other.
There are, as Aristotle observed “many meanings of Being” and each one is capable of “perspicuous representation”–to use a Wittgensteinian term. Each one will be explicable in terms of concepts and principles that will justify/explain the cognitive activity in question. Realising this means that speaking is not a form of calculating nor is it related to calculation which is a very specific form of organising data: a form that has very little to do with substantial and qualitative judgments. These “forms” of substantial and qualitative judgements have, we wish to argue, everything to do with the categories of understanding and the logical principles of Judgement(Kant).
We have witnessed the growth in the computers power in a way in which we have not directly witnessed the growth in the power of the human brain. We need a number of sciences and a number of theories(including psychological theories) to chart the “meaning” of the growth and articulation of our brains, e.g. the absence of the presence of developed frontal lobes . The development of the power and function of computers has, on the other hand, been historically observed and we do not need an understanding of psuche( biology and psychology) in order to understand what is occurring in this mechanical process of change. Observation and experiment is needed, on the other hand, to understand the function of various parts of the brain.
Hughlings Jackson was a researcher Freud admired and whose theories he embraced: theories about the higher and lower systems of the brain, beginning with the upper part of the brain stem where energy and power is created, continuing with the middle part of the brain where emotions, needs and wishes to achieve certain goals are controlled, and ending with a third level that includes the cortex which is responsible for the processing of sensory impressions, the control of muscles, memory and thought. (Stellan Sjödin “Hjärnan” Jonköping, Brain Books,1995)
For Jackson the left hemisphere was the dominant sphere regulating language and will- function. The rear end of the cortex receives “information” from the external environment and processes it . The frontal end of the brain is responsible for processing alternative courses of action, solving problems, giving orders and planning future courses of action. All these “parts” of the brain are related in various ways to the diverse powers that human beings possess. It is however, primarily the person that is the bearer of these powers and not a part of the person such as the brain. The powers require not just the parts of the brain but an organ system and a certain limb configuration to actualise these powers. Not many of these “brain functions” or “psychological powers” can be ascribed to computers or indeed to brains except perhaps metaphorically, so it is a fundamental error to claim, for example, that a brain can think , speak, understand, see , feel, plan, solve problems or give orders: only a person can do these things according to Hacker, P.M S(Human Nature: A Categorical Framework). To insist otherwise is to commit what he calls a mereological fallacy which attempts to attribute to a part of a thing, what is only true of the whole. Similarly Wittgenstein would, in his later work claim that it is only of a person that we can say the above things. Attributing these qualities to a mechanical device is to commit an, as yet unnamed fallacy, which fails to recognise the fundamental difference between a living process/function and a mechanical process/function. The failure to recognise human agency as part of the categorical framework lies behind both fallacies. One power that appears to be common to both machine and man ,however, is the power of calculation. There does not seem to be a problem with saying that my computer is doing a mathematical calculation, or should we even here insist that the term is metaphorical?
The history of the development of the computer is the history of the inventors of the computer and attributing agency such as we do for animals struggling in nature to survive and passing on genetic material to coming generations may be as much a measure of their “intelligence” as much as a a measure of the random selection of their genes. The meeting of physiological and safety needs is not necessary for computers and they do not “reproduce” without the intervention of human agency. Indeed the very concept of “need” may be irrelevant for machines. When we say they need oil or lubrication or programming we must therefore be speaking metaphorically. Wants are related to needs. Can we meaningfully say that a computer wants programming? Can a computer “use” its powers in the way a human or animal agent can(more or less intelligently)?
Philosophy and AI Part Three: Review of “Weizenbaum’s “Computer Power…”(On Tools)
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Civilisation, as distinguished from Culture in accordance with the Kantian distinction was originally “created” because of the needs human beings have of actualising(among other powers), their potential for discourse and rationality. The family itself as a social constellation proved inadequate to meet the complex needs that humans have, needs that according to Maslow extend far beyond the physiological and safety needs that are necessary to maintain the human organism in existence. Gathering and hunting in larger nomadic groups(ca 40) also failed to meet mans self-esteem or his cognitive and aesthetic needs and man therefore chose one physical site(the village) to meet a growing constellation of needs and desires which included desires for things that were in the eyes of Socrates unnecessary and “luxurious”.
This history is the history of human psuche and is recorded in documents and preserved excavated objects that we can visit in museums. What is being exhibited in these museums are the conditions necessary for the unification of several villages with the purpose of transforming our civilisation into cultures where we can meet the growing constellation of needs and desires that emerge when living conditions are transformed. Aristotle referred to the idea of “self-sufficiency” in the phase of the transformation of villages into cities(the polis). For Aristotle our villages and cities were not artefacts or “tools” for the purposes of living but rather “organic” entities because they were created in the imaginations of psuche for the purpose of solving essentially hypothetical problems. The kind of reasoning involved in this process of civilisation is a calculative form of reasoning that involves a context of discovery that searches for appropriate means to ends: so called instrumental reasoning which is to be distinguished from the kind of reasoning about ends in themselves in contexts of explanation and justification (which is the typical form of categorical reasoning that we find in cultures.)
The history of tools obviously has a role in this complex developmental sequence which reaches back into the dawn of mans beginnings when he begins to walk upright and use tools to assist in meeting his physiological and safety needs. At this point, according to Julian Jaynes(The Origins of Consciousness in the breakdown of the bicameral mind) we are not dealing with fully conscious beings or language using beings. Jaynes describes the dawn of civilisation with reference to Mesolithic Natufian tribe who were hunters around 10,000 BC but who had settled down in 50-house settlements by 9000BC. Jaynes postulates insightfully that it was around this time that the dead were buried in ceremonial graves suggesting that this was enabled by the use of proper names for people which in turn enabled a more complex emotional and cognitive attachment to the deceased:
“Now here is a very significant change in human affairs. Instead of a nomadic tribe of about 20 hunters living in the mouths of caves we have a town with a population of at least 200 persons. It was the advent of agriculture, as attested by the abundance of sickle blades, pounders and pestles, querns and mortars, recessed in the floor of each house, for the reaping and preparation of cereals and legumes, that made such permanence and population possible.”
This was more like the villages that Aristotle may have had in mind when he talked about the organic development of civilisation into the polis, an entity of about 200,000 persons( if Athens was taken to be the typical model). The head of the town was like a God who emerged as a leader because of obvious leadership skills that related to the needs of the time. Already at this time the burial procedures for these leaders were very different to the procedures for the burial of the ordinary village dweller. By 5000 BC Jaynes notes that cities of 10000 dwellers were not uncommon around the Nile delta. The facts, then support the Aristotelian thesis of the development and organic like growth of our communities in accordance with a hierarchy of needs and wants postulated by Maslow and Freud amongst others. By the time we get to Socrates harassing people in the agora over what they think they know, the potentialities of “capable of discourse” and “rationality” have begun to be actualised and the agora is the scene of so much more than sensing- moving animals. It s the place of what Wittgenstein referred to in his later work as the hurly burly of human activity that constitutes a hylomorphic “form of life”. Language, as we can see in the Platonic dialogues has advanced into a self reflective stage where it is searching for a method and the principles(arché) behind phenomena. At this stage language is no longer used unreflectively as an instrument to accomplish everyday instrumental goals. It has become the constituter of a kind of experience many wish to use the term “consciousness” to designate. Jaynes tied consciousness and language use very closely together, focussing upon the mechanism of metaphor and analogy:
“One needs language for consciousness. We think consciousness is learned by children between two and a half and five or six years in what we call the verbal surround or verbal community. It is an aspect of learning to speak. Mental words are out there as part of the culture and part of the family. A child fits himself into these words and uses them even before he knows the meaning of them. A mother is instilling the seeds of consciousness in a two or three year old, telling the child to stop and think, asking him “What shall we do today?” or “do you remember when we did such and such or were somewhere.And all this while metaphor and analogy are hard at work.”(Jaynes, 1986)
These observations are also supported by observations related to deaf children learning a sign language and the increased complexity of behaviour that then becomes possible. Is what Jaynes doing science? He certainly thinks so, and if language is a tool, then what he is talking about would be part of the Aristotelian canon of the productive sciences. For the later Wittgenstein, language was used to play games in accordance with rules which determined our moves in these games. For Kant these rules were related to the “categories” of understanding/judgement and for him language-use was more than just a game following rules it was a tool for expressing and communicating ideas and rational processes using the categories of the understanding and the principles of noncontradiction and sufficient reason.For Wittgenstein, references to language games does not rule out the telos or purposes of these games such as :
“Giving orders and obeying them……Reporting an event, Speculating about an event, Forming and testing a hypothesis…Asking, thanking, cursing, greeting, praying”(Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, P.12e)
Wittgenstein continues this reflection on the different uses of language by specifically comparing the multiplicity of the ways words are used with the multiplicity of what he calls “the tools in language”. The interesting fact about these different ways of using language is the choice of beginning with the imperative form of language which we find in ethical discussions. The method of observation involved in the language-games of reporting an event would be irrelevant to the imperative uses of language. Reporting the events of promising would not, that is, be relevant to discussing whether one ought to keep promises. The explanation/justification of promising would eventually for Kant invoke the categorical imperative which orders us to act in a certain way according to a certain principle. These forms of language, Wittgenstein continues:
“are as much a part of our natural history as walking, eating, drinking, playing.”(12e)
Weizenbaum, in a move reminiscent of many analytical Philosophers, wishes to relate our use of tools to the solipsistic mental activity of imagining which is an interesting hypothesis entertained by many philosophers in the past and can be linked to Heideggers view of Kant’s work in which reason was replaced by an idea of the transcendental imagination. He does not attempt to “reduce” the part we play mentally in this process to imagining but he does say the following:
“But tools and machines do not merely signify mans imaginativeness and its creative reach, and they are certainly not important merely as instruments for the transformation of a malleable earth: they are pregnant symbols in themselves. They symbolise the activities they enable, i.e. their own use. An oar is a tool for rowing, and it represents the skill of rowing in its whole complexity. No one who has not rowed can see an oar as truly an oar.”(P.18)
The author continues with the claim that tools then become pedagogical/cultural instruments and this transcends their purely civilisation-building instrumental uses. This transcendent use is part of another telos of language which is to symbolically recreate or represent the world they are a part of. Machines are complex tools and like tools are extensions of mans natural powers. The more complex our tools become the more our relation to nature becomes less instrumental and purposive(related to necessary human needs) and more a matter of dominating or mastering the forces of nature for the purposes of unnecessary desires(e.g. the desire to win a war). Such unnecessary needs and desires have the potential to destroy all the civilisations man has managed to create since 10,000BC in a relatively short period of time. This process began with the simple creation of vessels that could transcend the limitations of our locomotion in a space which was confined to a particular territory, e.g. ships would eventually circumnavigate the earth, continued with telescopes, which because of the intimate correlation of space with time in our space-time-matter continuum, gave the impression that we can observe the passing of time which as a matter of fact, is a mistaken description of what is going on and may well end not with a whimper but a bang on a scale difficult to comprehend.
Time, as Weizenbaum notes could be calculated by events such as the shadows cast by the movement of the sun around objects or by the time it takes us to complete various everyday essential tasks such as walking to the agora in the morning and returning during the evening or as Ecclesiastes claimed all purposes are ultimately enclosed in the life that comes to be in the world (being born)and ceases to exist (dying):
“To everything there is a season,
A time for every purpose under heaven:
A time to be born, And a time to die;
A time to plant, And a time to pluck what is planted;
A time to kill, And a time to heal;
A time to break down, And a time to build up;
A time to weep, And a time to laugh;
A time to mourn, And a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, And a time to gather stones;
A time to embrace, And a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to gain, And a time to lose;
A time to keep, And a time to throw away;
A time to tear, And a time to sew;
A time to keep silence, And a time to speak;
A time to love, And a time to hate;
A time of war, And a time of peace.”
(NKJV)
The time of human purposes has, we know, been transcended by the scientific calculation and explorations via telescopes of the surrounding universe and this perspective, perhaps more than any other diminishes the importance of the time Ecclesiastes talks about. What Ecclesiastes discusses however, is probably typical of the kind of discussions that were being conducted in the Athenian agora in the name of eudaimonia(leading the good spirited flourishing life). The time of the scientist and the time of the prophet, i.e. are at odds with each other, requiring the philosopher to find a middle way, Aristotle’s definition of time attempted this path of the golden mean:
“Time is the measurement of motion in terms of before and after”
This definition, in the scientific view has been surpassed by Einsteins relativity theory in which it is claimed that whether an event is simultaneous with another event or comes before or after it, is relative to a system of coordinates. Weizenbaum refers to this moment as the creation of a new scientific reality which supplanted the old reality (the one defined by Aristotle?). It is not clear what is being said here. The author quotes Mumford’s claim in the work”Technics and Civilisation”:
“The clock literally created a new reality….It is important to realise that this newly created reality was and remains an impoverished version of the older one, for it rests on a rejection of those direct experiences which formed the basis for, and indeed constituted , the old reality…The rejection of direct experience was to become one of the principal characteristics of modern science.”(P.25)
The author also invokes the remark by Karl Pearson in 1892 that:
“The scientific man has above all things to strive at self elimination in his judgments”(P.25)
This flies in the face of Aristotle’s account in which the self is vital to both defining the now of his experience and in arranging the nows in a before-after continuum. If, for example, Socrates is convicted after giving his apology in court, there is no possible world in which he could have been convicted before that speech. Weizenbaum then surprisingly claims that this attempt to eliminate the self involves eventually the attempt to transform human intelligence into an artificial form of intelligence of the kind we find in our machines. That the clock is the machine that helps to bring about this, is part of the authors case as is the claim that the computer was helping humankind avoid several impending crises that would inevitably hinder the development of civilisation into a more advanced form of culture. Apparently the military were feeling the need to analyse large volumes of information and felt the machine was the most appropriate solution to this problem- an attitude that reaches back to the first of the men, Descartes who was spending his time helping the military design the war machines/tools of the time. There is no doubt that under certain time constraints the ability to calculate quickly is advantageous and for those kind of tasks the computer is indispensable. But where speed is not the decisive factor, it is not clear that computers are significantly helping us to eliminate the self from the chain of information-processing and decision-making. The denial of the self, i.e. may be a form of an attempt to master the self which requires denial the knowledge we have accumulated in relation to the self, over millennia. Insofar as this is happening it is the extent to which man is becoming more zombie-like, more like the slave-like machines he has designed to satisfy his necessary and unnecessary needs and desires.
Phenomenology responds to the challenge to reinstate experience by the curious attempt to abandon all normal forms of explanation and justification in favour of what it calls “description”. It does this via what is calls a “phenomenological reduction” which “places the world in brackets”, a process which refuses to entertain the kind of “objectivity” conceived of by scientists– a process so closely allied with the process of “observation. Heidegger is one of the foremost phenomenologists and has this to say about one important mode of “Being-in-the-World:
“The Being of those entities which we encounter as closest to us can be exhibited phenomenologically if we take as our clue our everyday Being-in-the-World……The kind of dealing which is closest to us is as we have shown, not a bare perceptual cognition, but rather that kind of concern which manipulates them and puts them to use: and this has its own kind of “knowledge”(Being and Time P.95)
Here we see the bracketing of our interpretative tendencies operating in a phenomenological reduction and the revelation of a type of concern which otherwise remains concealed. Heidegger refers to the Greek term of “pragmata” and translates this as “equipment”. Another possible term for this type of concern is “instrumentality”. The essential characteristic of such an instrumentality is, that it is a relational characteristic in which there is an assignment or reference of something to something. In such a totality of instrumentalities each item “belongs” to the others in the way in which an ink-stand, pen, paper, ink, table, lamp, furniture, windows, doors and room belong in a connected totality. The pen signifies the skill of writing and Heidegger calls this meaning of being “ready-to-hand”, a form of knowledge which manifests itself in a kind of awareness he calls circumspection–an awareness which is a typical non-observational form of awareness often encountered in all forms of acting and working. Writing is the work involved , e.g. writing an article or a book or essay. In this work we also encounter entities of the kind of Dasein(human Being-there) which have an essentially temporal nature. Time, as Ecclesiastes suggests is linked to this kind of concernful circumspection and even the clock itself is “used” as a tool. Should anything go wrong in this kind of “dealing” with the world, e.g. the clock has stopped, then the clock emerges from the totality in which it is embedded as a “thing” that can be observed “present-at-hand”. It loses its essential character as part of the instrumentality of writing at the table by the window in the study. The clock becomes “conspicuous” and loses its insertion in the totality of equipment needed for the work. When my writing is disturbed by the clock that has stopped, our circumspection is transformed into a form of consciousness of the tool which Heidegger calls “Presence-at-hand”, a form in which it emerges from its immersion in a totality of involvements into an observational field and becomes the object of a judgement “The clock has stopped”.
William James in his work “The Principles of Psychology” noted that in learning a sequence of skills that constitute a work-project, e.g. learning to play the piano, observational consciousness of the position of ones fingers in relation to the keyboard is an essential part of the skill until the learning process has been completed when the fingers and the key board form relations to each other which are essentially non-observational and sub-conscious. This kind of skill was obviously important for all civilisation-building activities. So my relation to the words I speak is not that of someone listening to what I am saying but rather is a part of this relation to Being that Heidegger calls “ready-to-hand”, my words are like tools that are used circumspectfully and are inserted in a totality of involvements that Wittgenstein urges us to analyse non-phenomenologically. Certainly when I speak, insofar as Wittgenstein is concerned, I intend to speak but one should not then attempt to describe my state of mind but rather describe human institutions and customs:
“Insofar as I intend the construction of a sentence in advance, that is made possible by the fact that I can speak the language in question”(Philosophical Investigations, 108e)
Wittgenstein also claims in this context that mastery of a language resembles mastery of a technique in which we follow firstly, the rules of language-games but secondly, also the point of the language game we are playing. The whole Phenomenological method, insofar as it aims at describing acts of consciousness or acts of thought is mistaken Wittgenstein argues, but he does admit that there are phenomenological problems which are best approached via examining the use of language. It is, Wittgenstein argues in hylomorphic spirit:
“…only of a living human being, and what resembles(behaves like) a human being can one say:it has sensations: it sees: is blind: hears: is deaf: is conscious or unconscious.”(PI 97e)
The above could well be used as a list of reasons explaining why AI does not resemble or behave like an intelligent human being. Heidegger also would share this judgement about machines and claim that a machine has no relation to Being of the form of “Being-in-the-world” or the human form of “Being-there”. He interestingly also sees the connection of instrumentalities (such as language), and signs, which he sees as a kind of universal relation. Signs in the form of equipment he argues “show or indicate”. Referring to something he claims is also a relation. Signs refer but they also have a special relation to Being, expressed in the following:
“A sign is not a Thing which stands to another thing in the relationship of indicating: it is rather an item of equipment which explicitly raises a totality of equipment into our circumspection, so that together with it the worldly character of the ready-to-hand announces itself.”(Being and Time, P.110)
Heidegger then elaborates upon this by claiming that “the Being of words and of language” are founded upon “significance”.(P.121) There is a certain affinity with Aristotle’s insistence that the power of discourse is part of what is essentially human:
“The way in which discourse gets expressed is language. Language is a totality of words—a totality in which discourse has a “worldly” being of its own…..Language can be broken up into word-Things which are present-at-hand…Discoursing or talking is the way in which we articulate “significantly” the intelligibility of Being-in-the-World…..Talking is talking about something.”(Being and Time P.204-6)
A computer “language” shares very few of these characteristics and perhaps this is as much as a metaphor as “intelligence” is when used in the phrase “Artificial intelligence”. A computer language is not used for discourse but is rather a kind of code that relates to another code:machine code.
Heidegger very rarely engages directly with Aristotle but he does often speak about the Greek language:
“The Greeks had no word for “Language”: they understood this phenomenon “in the first instance” as discourse. But because the “logos” came into their philosophical ken primarily as assertion, this was the kind of logos which they took as their clue for working out the basic structures of the forms of discourse and its components. Grammar sought its foundations in the “logic” of this logos. But this logic was based upon the ontology of the present-at-hand.”(Ibid. P.209)
This is not strictly true for the thought of Plato and Aristotle who were careful to separate the “forms” of the true and the good. Aristotle, for example, claimed in his ethics that all human activity aimed at the good, and the good was therefore one of the many meanings of Being. The logical principles of practical reasoning (noncontradiction, sufficient reason) may be the same as those operating in theoretical reason but the differences between an imperative assertion : “We ought to keep promises” and a knowledge claim, “All men are mortal”, are significant and reducing the one to the other involves ignorance of these categories and violations of the principles of noncontradiction and sufficient reason.. Heidegger clearly feels he is liberating discourse from logic, but what he in fact is doing is invoking and attacking one of the tenets of “the new men” who sought to demolish the meaningful structure of ethical discourse and other speculative forms of discourse. Liberating modern discourse of course is important work. But accusing the Greeks of ontological mistakes when two of them gave us the “tools” to avoid this mistake is a somewhat surprising move.
Philosophy and AI Part Two: Review of “Computer Power and Human Reason” by J Weizenbaum(1976)
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The following is taken from the preface of the above book:
“..a major point of this book is precisely that we, all of us, have made the world too much into a computer, and that this remaking of the world in the image of the computer started long before there were any electronic computers. Now that we have computers, it becomes somewhat easier to see this imaginative transformation we have worked on the world. Now we can use the computer itself–that is the idea of the computer—as a metaphor to help us to understand what we have done and are doing.”(Page IX)
The ancient Greeks and the enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant were concerned to point out a major difference in the kind of reasoning we use in instrumental contexts of activity involving tools and artifacts(techné), and the categorical form of reasoning we use in knowledge contexts(epistemé) whether that knowledge is practical/moral or theoretical.
For Aristotle there were 3 principles 4 causes in relation to 4 kinds of change in relation to the infinite continuum of the media of change(e.g. space, time, and matter), and our understanding of the world is mediated by three kinds of science( theoretical, practical and productive/techné). Techné, then is best explained in terms of the reasoning we find in the productive sciences where the major point of the activity is the creation of tools and objects that instrumentally contribute to the good-spirited flourishing life(eudaimonia) that was so important to Aristotle. The “good spirited” aspect of of this life, however, is best accounted for by the theoretical and practical reasoning we find in both Aristotle and Kant’s writings. The major categorical difference between productive reasoning and practical/moral/theoretical reasoning is that the former is exclusively focussed on the means one uses to bring about ends, rather than the ends-in themselves, which we human beings and all life forms(psuche) represent: the latter form of reasoning, i.e. reasoning about ends-in themselves, exclusively obey different principles(arché), and rely less on material and efficient causation for their explanation/justification and more on formal and final causation in such contexts. Final causation is a key here because it is teleological in the sense Kant described in his third critique, a form belonging to forms of life.
Turning to two modern Philosophers of the 20th century will further enlighten us about what Weizenbaum is referring to in his preface, namely the mentality of what Hannah Arendt called the “new men”, whose influence over our culture began with Descartes, Hobbes, Hume, and continued with Adam Smith and Hegel, Nietzsche and Heidegger, the logical positivists, logical atomists, pragmatists and instrumentalists. The agenda of the “new men” was to neutralise the influence of Aristotle and Kant upon our thinking and replace it with a form of thinking that was anti-rationalist . A form of thinking that would restore the materialist and dualist controversies in a new form centring around the “new” Psychology that began in the 1870’s with the definition “the Science of Consciousness”. In Wittgenstein’s early work, for example, a logical solipsism is espoused which is abandoned later when Wittgenstein realises that there are fundamental conceptual confusions in much of psychology: confusions revolving around the role which forms of life and language play in the thinking and reasoning activities of the human being, whose embodiment is fundamentally different to the embodiment of artifacts such as computers.
Weizenbaum continues his introductory ideas with:
“We are all used to hearing that the computer is a powerful new instrument. But few people have any idea where the power of a computer comes from.”
The power of any artifact is a secondary power dependent upon the primary power of its creator, and this fact means that whilst the creators primary powers build upon an autonomy and freedom which the computer per definition can never possess, the category of most importance in the account we give of the computers “secondary powers” is one that necessarily places it in a material space-time continuum under the laws of cause-and effect, which mean that the machine is essentially a “reactive” entity, a cog in the chain of causes and effects in the space-time-matter continuum that is continually changing.
The “new men” of our “modern age” which began with Descartes have provided a foundation for not just confusion in the field of psychological reasoning but a more general kind of cultural confusion which is beginning to resemble the confusion we find in the minds of the mentally ill :
“We appear to have come to a time in which the ideas that there are differences between human beings and machines, that there are experiences that human beings can have but machines cannot, and that therefore(at least!) there are thoughts but not machines can have, we have come to a time in which the holding of such ideas is a lonely preoccupation, a business that tempts one to doubt of ones own sanity. In the book I wrote that the necessity to debate such ideas at all is as an index to the insanity of our time.”. The danger now is that the debate will stop–not because the absurdity of equating human beings with computers has finally been universally recognised, but because the voices defending human-centred positions are becoming ever fainter.”(PXIV)
The general cultural confusion of the new men referred to by Arendt, has infected our discourse to such an extent, that one today, more often than not, fails to note that an artifact is not a form of life, and therefore logically cannot be said to have the power of experiencing anything. Failure to experience anything, then, has logical consequences such as not being able to engage in any discourse related to experience, e.g. perceiving, feeling, thinking etc.. Another consequence is that one cannot legitimately engage in any reasoning about experience. This suggests that computers and AI cannot “mean what they say” when they appear to be having a conversation about experience, i.e. they literally do not know what they are talking about.
Weizenbaum also takes up the issue of the zombie-like experience that many are having in the playing of violent computer games. Experience becomes vicarious and achieved through a digital medium in which one can experience the “thrill of killing” without any of the real-world experiences and consequences. The Zombie, the author points out, is psychically numbed by the clinical distance there is between themselves and their “victims”. This is excellent training, it is argued , to detach what one is doing from the consequences of what one is doing. The rush to ensure that even 5 year olds are introduced to this “zombie experience”, is the rush, the author argues, to acquire an education in “violence without guilt”(XVII). Weizenbaum points out, in the context of this discussion, that one implication of the importance of working with models is that the model only contains what is essential for the purposes for which the model is being used. Computer models such as those we find in computer games, however, leave out almost everything that is essential to the real thing the model is modelling. This seriously truncates the learning-experience, a fact, the author claims, that is not obvious to many of those involved in the computer education we are receiving.
The picture that Weizenbaum paints is one of a world obsessed with techné without its normal conceptual connections to areté(doing the right thing in the right way at the right time), diké(justice–getting what one justly deserves) and epistemé( explanations and justifications that are in accordance with the principles(arché) of noncontradiction and sufficient reason). This is the world of the “new men” and the “age of discontentment” that has dawned upon us: a world without the sense of responsibility that normally follows from the life we have been leading for thousands of years before the industrial and technological revolutions that have relatively recently taken place. Any discussion of collective insanity ought to refer to Freud and his later cultural writings, e.g. “Civilisation and its Discontents”, in which Freud maintains that modern man no longer believes that all his work over the ages has been worth the effort. This essay was written in 1929 before any computers were being assembled and at least 12 years before the first electrical non mechanical digital machine was invented. The “spirit” of “techné” was, however, in the air ,and Europe was preparing for war and the “new men” had succeeded in repressing the “spirit” of ancient Greece and the enlightenment. In 1945 two weapons of mass destruction were to be dropped on civilian populations in accordance with the “new spirit” which had taken root in a soil that was, by this time, almost completely toxic. Hannah Arendt is also an important commentator on the political effects of the new spirit, namely the collapse of the political party system in Europe and their replacement by mass movements which could be easily influenced by “mass messaging” that appealed to feelings and emotions rather than to principles and reasoning. Tyrants used this to their advantage and mobilised masses to do terrible deeds. We ought also, to retain some political perspective, and remind ourselves that it was the so-called “democratic” USA which dropped the weapons of mass destruction on civilian populations in 1945. The action was approved of by the masses(Gallup poll 85% in favour in the US) indicating that “populism” and the elevation of instrumental calculation over moral judgement, in politics, was here to stay, irrespective of the political convictions of leaders. Weizenbaum points out that with the movement toward miniaturisation of chips, weapon accuracy could be substantially increased. The phenomenon of using cruise missiles to destroy civilian infrastructure and target hospitals, schools etc had not yet occurred at the time of the writing of Weizenbaum’s work but is now part of the current war-scape of our “modern” world.
The author also takes up the cultural influence of the mass viewing of television-content which takes as its model of knowledge, a truncated form of scientific calculative thinking that bares no resemblance to the more philosophical accounts of science we find in Aristotle and Kants writings. All other forms of so called “non-scientific knowledge” is delegitimated in favour of the science of the “new men”.
The most serious consequence of the domination of a limited conception of the law of cause and effect on the experiences of men, is that the agents autonomy, or freedom, is impeached in favour of a Hobbesian mechanical deterministic view of life. The new men, it must be noted, have succeeded in the installation of their world view: a world view in which freedom is devalued along with the value of areté(doing the right thing in the right way at the right time) and epistemé (the regulation of mans activity by principles(arche)) and diké(the justice of getting what one deserves). These terms literally have no meaning in the lives of the new men, and the beginning of this first surfaced in a “modern” form in the writings of Hobbes who saw in life(psuche) the mere mechanical movement of limbs. It was Hobbes, we ought to recall that used the model of the Leviathan(a sea monster with enormous power(and dangerous for human life)) to “picture” modern government. Psuche for Aristotle was a term covering all forms of life from the simplest plant life that possessed the powers of growing and reproduction, to animal forms which possess these powers in addition to the power of sensing and locomotion. Human forms possess all these powers in addition to the powers of discourse and reasoning, and the relation between these powers is such that they interpenetrate and produce a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. Man is the best and the worst of animals, Aristotle claims, and he also claims that he is at his best if he is a member of good well run state which resembles more a , of course, friendly living form, rather than a monster. The zombie is a kind of human monster which denies the essential characteristic of life which is that once ilife has ceased to exist it is absolutely dead and so and cannot be reanimated. The zombie “form of life” is a figment of the imagination of the new men. Our conception of ourselves, it now seems, is left to images constructed by the imagination, rather than the complex conception produced via our theoretical, practical and productive sciences and Aristotelian metaphysics(first principles).
For Weizenbaum, the Hobbesian idea of a contract ensures that the freedom not to agree is substituted by a transactional process in which one freely agrees to abide by the terms of the contract. For him it is important that both the ideas of freedom and God are respected in this transaction. This idea of a social contract, however, may well exist between men but, as Hume pointed out has never existed between men and the states they are citizens of. The idea of ” a mans word is his bond” is eroded with the idea of a contract which is some kind of insurance policy against the possibility of someone promising to do something and then not keeping their promise. Now in Kantian ethics the proposition “Promises ought to be kept” is supported by the principle of the categorical imperative and it is of course no guarantee that everyone will in fact keep the promises they make. If they do not keep their promises, however, their honesty and agency is called into question by moral judgements that weighed heavily both in ancient Greek times and in Kantian times. Nowadays trusting each other is less prevalent, and we will believe that a third party will keep their promise only if we can prove to another third party that the promise was made. This proof, it is important to note, is only needed if the original moral system breaks down. So what happens when the whole moral system breaks down and we no longer trust one another because men no longer possess good wills? The only recourse left is the transactional contract and morality becomes a matter of good defined in terms of its consequences rather than the classical ideas of a good in itself defined in terms of areté and diké.
In the context of this discussion it is important to point out that AI in the form of Chat GPT does not believe that promises ought to be kept is a legitimate moral recommendation with a definite meaning. Chat claims that it has learned all sorts of things. but if learning is an experience, than the veracity of this claim must be called into question. One can of course redefine learning mechanically in the way some early neural scientists did when they claimed that “learning is the facilitation if neuronal pathways such that a type of experience is present that was not present before”(Starling). Note, however recourse to the term “experience”. This definition only makes sense if we are experiencing beings and understand what experience is. Both conditions are necessary because our form of consciousness is a self-conscious form of consciousness which in turn implies that our experiences are related to a self that can take these experiences as objects and reflect upon them in judgements such as “Promises ought to be kept”. This idea of “experience” also includes the ideas of both doing and undergoing as suggested by Dewey in his work “Art as experience”. There is much in the “language-games” used by chat robots that appears to make sense but on closer conceptual examination falls apart.
Weizenbaum’s trust in the idea of a contract is perhaps a consequence of his belief in what he calls “science” which, whilst not reducible to the kind of calculation he despises, is nevertheless an anti-rational position. He says, amongst other things:
“For the only certain knowledge science can give us is knowledge of the behaviour of formal systems, that is systems that are games invented by man himself and in which to assert truth is nothing more or less than to assert that, as in a chess game, a particular board position was arrived at by a sequence of legal moves.”(P.14)
Aristotle believed that “All men are mortal” is a theoretical knowledge-statement which we are absolutely certain of, not because of a relation to primitive elements of a formal system, but because we are rational animals capable of discourse. The kind of understanding we have in this case, could never be purely observational because observation is of particulars situated in a space-time-matter continuum, and being situated in a time span as being live at that time could never constitute immortality. Conceptual truths such as “All men are mortal”, are, then, true not in virtue of being related to any particular, but rather, only in virtue of being related to a class of particulars that are categorised by the understanding. The author continues:
“All empirical science is an elaborate structure built on piles that are anchored not on bedrock, as supposed, but on the shifting sand of fallible human judgement, conjecture and intuition….The man in the street surely believes such scientific facts to be well established, as well proven, as his own existence. His certitude is an illusion. Nor is the scientist himself immune to the same illusion. In his praxis he must, after all, suspend disbelief in order to do or think anything at all. He is rather like a theatregoer, who, in order to participate in and understand what is happening on the stage, must for a time pretend to himself that he is witnessing real events.”(P 14-15)
So if, on witnessing Othello strangling Desdemona, the scientific theatregoer rushes onto the stage to hinder this murder, what ought we to to say about such a sequence of events? Whatever we will say it will contain a judgement to the effect that the scientist was not aware that this is a “play” he is witnessing, composed not of real events but of artistically constituted imitations of events. This kind of absurd description abounds in all anti-rational accounts of science, whether they be logical positivist, logical atomist, naturalist or pragmatist. Not everything we know has to be proved or observed. I am not certain of my own existence because I have observed myself to exist in this space-time-matter continuum, nor have I in any other way “proved” my existence. I do know this to be the case , as Descartes suggested, through thought, and the existential argument for this is that I cannot doubt that I am thinking without thinking, and furthermore something must in some sense of existence “exist” in order to think, i.e. at the very least it must be a human form of life. For Aristotle, the soul is a principle whose essence is to be thought which is actualised in thinking but it is an embodied form of thinking that originates in a human body with human limbs, hands and organs which include a brain(whose function Aristotle may have misunderstood). Now Descartes was a rationalist, and the argument for our existence was a typical rational argument for existence but he was also a dualist without any argument for a reconciliation of his ontology of thought and existence ,and he was subsequently forced under argumentative pressure to retreat to a materialist position in which he claims that the mental and physical worlds meet in a particular place in the brain. The author then comes to an incredible conclusion:
“Gradually he(the scientist) becomes what he at first merely pretended to be: a true believer. I choose the word “argument” thoughtfully, for scientific demonstrations, even mathematical proofs, are fundamentally acts of persuasion…… But no merely logical argument, no matter how cogent or eloquent, can undo this reality: that science has become the sole legitimate form of understanding in the common wisdom.”(P 15-16)
This claim that argument is merely a rhetorical device to persuade, would ring false to Aristotelian philosophers who would not confuse the enthymemes of rhetoric with the logical reasoning that follows the principles of noncontradiction and sufficient reason in the domains of knowledge and action. Neither striving after the acquisition of theoretical conceptual knowledge nor any call to action is required in the aesthetic context of the play. There is certainly some relation to the idea of the Good and the Bad, e.g. tragedy is about good men interacting with bad men and diké( men getting what they deserve), but the issue is not to act but to learn something from what one is witnessing or experiencing.
Anti-rationalism, in other words confuses the different forms of reasoning in different universes of discourse. The different forms of epistemé(sciences) for Kant would be characterised in terms of different principles applying to different realms or domains of reality. Kant would have been happy with the term “moral science” to categorise his ethical reflections and would have seen a certain identity of procedure in the conclusions one reaches from both theoretical and practical premises. For him there would be at least two different kinds of “demonstrations” that move from the level of principles expressed in major premises(Promises ought to be kept, All men are mortal) to reality in the conclusion(e.g that one ought to act in a particular way, Socrates is mortal). This is the route of law in a context of explanation/justification : a route very different from the route of experience or learning in a context of exploration in which one might be moving toward an understanding of a concept or a judgement which is some form of generalisation of what we have experienced.
Weizenbaum does not tell us how we are certain of our own existence, so it is not clear how far his anti-rationalism extends. He does not, that is, declare the variables and the values of his variables as is the practice of computer programmers in the process of creating their programmes. The formal relation of variables to each other resembles very closely the relation of rules to the games they constitute. These games, to a greater or lesser extent, may also imitate the activities of our human life, may, that is, be aesthetic representations of aspects of our lives. Games require a work of creation by the imagination, insofar as their content is concerned, but it is the imitation of action/life that is the point of many computer games and the relations between the elements of the games are relations between cause and effect particularities, expressed by “if you do X then Y will happen”: hypothetical reasoning and consequences are the arena of the skill-learning and skill performances that occur. This is the arena of productive sciences for both Aristotle and Kant.
Philosophy and AI
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Everything, and every event, can be placed on a space-time continuum. Ideas too can be situated in such a continuum but it is more likely than not that the idea will serve to characterise the nature of what is occurring in that continuum: its existence or essence. The continuum is a continuum of change for the observer charged with the task of description and ascertaining the relation of causes and effects within that continuum. In this continuum of things, events, causes and effects, there is one kind of Being that stands out(stands revealed) and that is the Being of the substance Aristotle referred to as psuché(life, the soul) whose nature varies with the kind of psuché(whether it be plant animal or human being). These different kinds of living beings exist in different ways as forms of life in accordance with the different kinds of power that actualises in the continuum. The primary characteristic of all Beings that subsist in the continuum is to be in motion—rest being a relative state at a place which itself may be in motion
Aristotle and the Greeks thought about the above in terms of being a part of the primeval chaos that Heraclitus was referring to with his claim that “all is in flux”. For Heraclitus the essence of being human was to seek the Logos in this chaos, see for example, that the road leading up and the road leading down are one and the same road. Aristotle via a Platonic route claimed that it was part of being human to seek explanation for every kind of change that occurs in this infinite medium of the continuum composed of the infinite media of space, time, and material. Aristotle categorised the kinds of change into the categories of substantial change, qualitative change, quantitative change and locomotion. Heraclitus and Aristotle would probably have agreed that there is a logos of order that emerges from the otherwise chaotic motions that are occurring in the continuum. When the motions relate to being human, the order that emerges does so with the assistance of the Greek term for “principle” or “foundation”(arché). For Heraclitus, for example, the road leading up and the road leading down are the same in thought. So the idea of the same road links motion of different kinds(walking up, walking down) and enables us to order the chaos via an orderly thought process. Only human psuché is capable of thought of this kind (thinking something about something): a capacity or power that is intimately connected to the power of discourse or the power of language which according to Aristotle is part of the essence- specifying definition of being human. One of the questions we have to ask ourselves, of course, is whether AI “robots” are capable of the complex layering of thought where something is being thought or said about something.
The road in itself is relatively at rest in relation to a system of coordinates and allows motion of different kinds to occur in different directions and at different times. The road exists and is characterisable by a definite description. This kind of concrete artifactual existence is not the kind of existence enjoyed by Psuché. The road belongs in a context of involvements which includes the instrumental use of this part of the continuum: it is an instrument of travel which could remain in use for centuries.
The computer and the internet are also artifacts which can be used for many different kinds of purpose. The internet, for example, has a physical base in a large number of servers but itself does not have a real existence in space like the computer or the server but the idea of the internet is certainly embodied in the network of computers and servers that are connected across national boundaries all over the world. The internet, then. enjoys a kind of “functional” existence and the capacities of a computer include various powers which are analogous to human powers, e.g. “memory”. Human memory is intimately connected to our perceptual powers but it is doubtful whether a robot can be said to be a “perceiving” substance at all. One of the qualities associated with perceiving is the connection of pleasure and pain to what we perceive and there is nothing analogous to this “feeling” in the domain of the machine which is primarily a mechanical and or electrical kind of existence. Pleasures and pains are essential phenomena specific to psuché.
The Chat gpt robot pretends to be aware of itself when it claims that it is software interacting with a server. The question put to chat (Who are you) assumes that there is a centre of awareness of the world and itself which possesses psuché-like powers. This illusion is easily shattered by asking the question “What are you?” and receiving the exact same answer in which the only psuché-like power invoked by chat is the power of learning. Learning in the human psuche presumes the operation of perception, memory, imagining, thinking, speaking, and reasoning. Chat gpt, for example denies that it can speak, or experience human emotions such as pleasure and pain. So what then does Chat answer to the question “what is learning?”:
“Learning refers to the process of acquiring knowledge, skills, or understanding through study, experience, or being taught. It is a fundamental aspect of human and animal cognition, allowing individuals to adapt, improve, and make informed decisions based on new information or experiences.”
The above answer confirms that the type of learning that the human psuche is capable of is not available to the chat robot. The question is, does the description “being taught” legitimately apply to what chat calls “learning”. The mechanical-electrical processes involved are very unlike the chemical/biological psychological processes that are involved in human learning.
In answer to the question “can you reason?” Chat honestly admits:
“my reasoning capabilities are based on patterns and associations learned from the training data rather than true understanding or conscious thought.”
Conceptual thinking in the human being is layered, obeying a number of principles, summarised under the description “thinking something about something”. The something thought or spoken about must have some form of existence if the thought or statement is to be a legitimate truth or knowledge claim, and what is said about this something must belong to a category that subsumes this something under it, and also has some kind of general character. Associations and patterns are material for conceptualisation but are themselves transformed in this process which involves subsuming the “many under the one”. The truth conditions of any statement must be categorical and therefore contain some kind of universal and necessary characteristic which are not relevant to the seeing of similarities in a perceptual context(patterns) or an imaginative context(associations).
If, in relation to the power of reasoning, one feeds in the following question:
What is the conclusion in the following argument: All men are mortal, Socrates is a man…
One gets the clear correct answer, “Socrates is mortal” with a correct characterisation of how the conclusion follows from the premises. Whether the chat robot has merely “learned to say” that this conclusion follows from the supporting premises is perhaps the best description of what is going on in this situation, because in relation to the question can you understand? Chat claims the following(after claiming that there is a sense in which it can understand):
“However, it’s important to note that my understanding is based on patterns and statistical associations in the training data, rather than true comprehension or consciousness. I do not possess subjective experiences, emotions, or the ability to truly understand concepts in the way humans do.”
When we turn our attention to practical reasoning and its role in relation to human action and we ask the following question. “What is the conclusion to the argument: Promises ought to be kept, Jack promised Jill he would pay the money back that he wants to borrow from her.” Chat claims:
“the premises are not clear but it does seem to follow from the fact that Jack promised that he ought to pay the money back and this in turn implies that there is a moral obligation to repay money that is owed”
This was an interesting exchange because it does not appear as if Chat has the power to understand how universally general “ought-premises” function in human discourse. This is puzzling especially when one asks Chat “What is the meaning ought?”. The answer given is:
“The word “Ought” typically refers to a moral obligation or duty to do something. It is often used to indicate what is the right or appropriate course of action, based on ethical or moral principles.”
The relation of the English word “ought” to the Greek term areté(doing the right thing in the right way at the right time) is noticeable. The relation of the above account of the meaning of ought would also be a part of the account of moral reasoning we find in Kantian Ethics. In answer to the question “What is a promise?” Chat answers:
“A promise is a commitment or assurance given by one person to another, stating that a particular action or outcome will be achieved or fulfilled. It is a declaration to do or not do something in the future, often made with the intention of creating trust, accountability, and reliability between individuals or parties.”
There is a clear reference to action and intention and the context is one of justifying the meaning of the term “promise” which shows that chat has learned how to apply this term in the context an “is-premise” but has not learned to apply the term in the context of an “ought-premise”. In answer to the question “Does it make sense to make a promise one does not intend to keep?”, Chat answers:
“No, it does not make sense to make a promise if one has no intention of keeping it. Promises are made with the expectation of trust, reliability, and the commitment to follow through on the stated action or outcome. When someone makes a promise without intending to fulfill it, it undermines trust, damages relationships, and can lead to disappointment and frustration for the person who relied on that promise.”
I doubt however whether Chat is aware of the principle of contradiction it is using in order to make the above statement. It claims itself that it cannot be consciously aware of anything.
Chat also appears to have learned what the Kantian Categorical imperative means because in relation to the question “Ought we to treat each other as ends-in-themselves”. Chat answers in the affirmative and acknowledges this principle to be “the categorical imperative”.
The fact that the type of learning that is occurring here is not of the conscious form, or uses practical reasoning in relation to action and intention or the experience of doing something, may also damage any claim that the robot can freely choose what it does. This aspect is an important necessary condition of moral reasoning. The conscious human psuche is often confronted by two alternative actions one of which is more strongly presented in consciousness but the presentation of a first alternative becomes weaker during a process of reasoning in accordance with principles(such as the categorical imperative or reasoning about what a promise is). This absence of conscious choice may be one of the decisive factors behind the humanistic criticism of artificial intelligence, namely that AI is a deterministic system that cannot deviate from its programme or the defining algorithms or the variables that constitute the programme. The programmer is the primary source of change in this robotic world.
Human psuché may well reproduce its own kind in some kind of deterministic system but the living complexity of this layered system of powers and capacities is such that what it reproduces will eventually after a long period of learning, become an autonomous source of change(what Kant called a self-causing entity supporting a wide repertoire of powers that are not available to robots). The reason for this state of affairs is best represented in Aristotle’s hylomorphic theory in which the ideas of matter and form interact in accordance with the category which favours form over matter, ie it is the form which gives matter its identity at any particular stage of that form of life. In complex forms of life such as human psuche, the form that has been actualised can then become matter for another form(or organising principle).
One of the criticisms that AI theorists have of their own systems is that they are not very good at generalising an idea into a completely new context which in fact supports the generalisation. This may rest on a power of perceiving similarities which may be absent from AI systems. If this is the case then the metaphorical use of language may not be possible for a chat robot. This, of course, is a kind of acknowledgement of the artifactual nature of a chat robots existence. We do not name our artifactual objects(give them proper names). If we were to conduct a thought experiment in the spirit of a reverse of the Turing Test and imagine the chat robot insisting upon being called by a human name. It should be prepared to tell us who its parents were, where and when they met and conceived the being we are speaking to, and also when and where the being was born, where it went to school to do its learning, and who its relatives and friends were, whether it is entitled to vote and who it is going to vote for and why, whether it was currently in a relationship etc etc. None of this makes sense. Of course a fictitious story can be invented and incorporated in the software that is involved but a chat robot saying something does not make that something true and investigation will reveal the falsity of the fictional narrative. A human name names a continuously existing certain bodily form with a particular history and durable memories which belong to it in the way its powers belong to it. This is usually conveyed by the use of the word “I” which, if the above is correct, the Chat robot has no right to use because none of the conditions for the correct use of that I are present. That is we are not dealing with a rational animal capable of discourse nor are we dealing with a self conscious human form of life.
Freudian analysis relies on the patient possessing a minimal form of self awareness and a minimal form of self determination if the therapy is to proceed. Freud would find the idea that a chat robot needed to be psychoanalysed manifestly absurd—only living beings can be healthy and sick and only living human beings can be mentally healthy and mentally unhealthy. Artifacts are either useful or fail to be of use, they are physical occupants of the space-time- material continuum that have no feeling relations to that continuum, no thought /conceptual relations to that continuum, no consciousness of that continuum, no memory of that continuum that they alone possess. There is no sense that when they speak they are speaking about that continuum. They are “agents” of change in that continuum but not free agents but rather centres of “reaction” to a large repertoire of stimuli that can be responded to in specific ways determined by the algorithms of the programmer. They are deterministically defined systems, i.e. robots.
A Freudian patient can want to be cured or not ,but a robot, given that they do not understand that promises ought to be kept, can not therefore possibly understand that we ought to seek to be mentally healthy. This premise would lack clarity for the robot. All of this was anticipated by Aristotles distinction between epistemé and techné which defines the Turing test out of existence, unless one of course no longer sees the distinction between these two forms of thinking in which case one might well believe that one can reduce epistemé to techné. Such a belief however would need to be programmed into a nonconscious form of existence because all conscious forms of existence can by definition override any algorithm by negating it and replacing it with an alternative in accordance with some principle(epistemé). Epistemé of course is connected intimately to areté and diké and eudaimonia, connections which could never be asserted of techné.
Review of Merleau-Ponty’s “Phenomenology of Perception” Part 3
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Science prefers to reduce this holistic phenomenon into three “events” in order to postulate causal relations between them, the events, namely of the past, present, and future. Aristotle would have refused such a resolution and atomisation of the phenomenon of the river and time. For Aristotle we are dealing with forms or principles that enable us to both describe and explain what we are experiencing. We are, in the above example, clearly experiencing the motion of the river and this motion can be measured in terms of before and after. Any further change such as the change of rate of the discharge will in turn change any other form it comes into contact with, e.g. the levels of the river might rise. Throwing a piece of wood into the river is a human action and will produce no significant change to the river level but if thrown into the glacial melt-water it might serve (like language?) as a “sign” or symbol of a section of the water which contains this melt-water. In turn the river discharging into the sea will be best described in terms of the form of the river interacting with the form of the vast ocean whose level will not rise significantly with the discharge of the river. There are clear analogies between the river and time, e.g. both “flow” in one direction. This directionality has consequences for particular changes that have happened in the past. They may be no more: the glacial melt-water like the wine poured into the sea soon disperses in the vast ocean and loses form and may not be identifiable as a theme of discourse unless of course a chemist with vast resources is put to work to “find” the wine or the melt-water. The piece of wood floating in the sea may be used as a “marker” for his investigations.
According to Aristotelian ontology the river remains the same river even if completely new water from rain in the low-lying hills is now the source. For Aristotle, the principle or form of the river is not identical with the water but rather with the role that the river plays in the communities it effects in different ways. It remains relatively stable through its changes and in its course and geographical location and this suffices for the principles of metaphysics to apply, namely that which a thing changes from(a river filled with glacial melt-water from the mountains), that which a thing changes to(a river filled with rainwater from the hills) and that which endures throughout the change, namely the river with its stable course and stable geographical location.
MP is not happy with the claim that we analogously maintain that time is flowing or passing and believes this is a confusion based on a misunderstanding that a river is a flowing substance. The above Aristotelian tale is meant to question this claim. For Aristotle, a river is not merely a flowing substance. It is rather something stable like an apriori form of the sensory mind (Time) which can measure change in the world with the help of instruments of culture such as counting(maths) or clocks(engineering or IT) or calendars(publishers, programmers). According to Kant, without the mind being structured in the way in which it is, Time would be nothing. All this amounts to is that in any possible world in which human minds did not exist there would not be Time as we know it. Such a world may contain birds building nests and squirrels storing nuts for the winter but such animals would never be aware of the passing of time in the way in which we are, or sit by the river and ponder on the directionality of Time.
MP when he speaks of causation does so in terms of “pushing”—the past pushing the present, and the present pushing the future into Being, but this is a linear physically mechanical view of causation that pales in comparison with the complexity of Aristotle’s 4 kinds of “causes” or aitia(explanations). If there were no living beings at all in the possible world we constructed in the above thought experiment, the whole world would not exist as MP claims as a large number of “nows”, simply because “now” is logically connected to “not now” which of course presumes a humanly constructed form of time in terms of past-present-future. “Not now” could be either in the past or in the future. What ought we to say about Time in our constructed world without humans? Newton claimed that in such a world there would be an absolute time that would “flow”. Without going into all the complexities of such a conception let us cut a long story short and merely agree with Kant that such a world would be composed of things-in-themselves changing in accordance with principles-in-themselves about which we could have no knowledge whatsoever. In short, there would be change in such a world but no time. Whether that change would “flow” in all cases of change, is doubtful.
MP does then admit that such a world would be, as he puts it, “too much of a plenum for their to be time” but he would not accept the above Aristotelian or Kantian reasoning with respect to Time. For MP, and possibly for Husserl too, Time is a passage of change and a network of intentionalities unified by a continuity of befores and afters. The plenum of Being referred to above is ruptured by the perspective of a subjectivity and an operative intentionality of a general nature. When he discusses action directed toward an end, MP speaks in terms of a “transitional synthesis” that takes place in the comprehensive project of life. The role of consciousness in this context is that it is in flux in a process or activity of temporalisation. Involved in this process or activity is a transitional synthesis between the “nows” of experience: a synthesis that creates a duration of time. According to MP the world flows through me in this continuous wave of temporalisation. When this wave ceases for me, the time of the world of Others who are alive continues. In a certain sense Time is a great equalizer because Other persons will never feel the wave of temporalisation that I feel, and because of this, MP controversially argues, they are “lesser figures”(P. 503). But when the wave ceases in me and I die, Time continues to express itself in their waves of temporalisation.
In the final chapter on Freedom MP eschews all form of causal explanation in relation to the body of the subject or his society/world. This is part of a larger crusade against objectification that is a type of characterisation that is especially irrelevant insofar as Consciousness is concerned. I cannot, it is argued, categorize myself as a “lesser figure” because I am old or crippled. If anyone does so they are not genuinely complaining about themselves, but merely comparing themselves with others. In their minds they are aware that the state of ones body is the price one pays for Being-in-the-world. My freedom, it is argued, cannot be determined by these categorisations and causal factors and I can never be “categorised” until that moment when death is upon me and freedom and consciousness have left my body. Interestingly it should be noted that we are formally and officially pronounced “dead”. When this has happened Science can bring causality (cause of death) and categorisation to bear upon a person. Consciousness has not a nature and cannot therefore be categorised. If one thinks of oneself as middle class or as a working-man, for example, this is merely a second order perspective upon a self where the first order of Being for consciousness is as an anonymous and unqualified source of change. If I become a working-man it is in virtue of a way of existing in relation to institutional frameworks such as economic and government systems. The existential project that we all are polarises consciousness toward certain operative intentionalities that posses an enigmatic telos. Regarding oneself as a working-man is then a decision: my freedom can, if with difficulty, have the power to commit my life elsewhere. I can identify myself as middle class and commit myself to a class journey that has a very uncertain outcome. At the end of this discussion we once again encounter MP wanting not to take a position with respect to the issue of freedom versus determinism, claiming that we “exist in both ways at once”(P.527). This choice he claims is only a dilemma if one is committed to the objectification of Being
The more mature MP, in his work “Signs” moves his position closer to hylomorphism. He claims that in the 20th century the distinction between body and mind has ceased to exist. Furthermore, he claims that the 19th century notion of a body as a network of causally interacting mechanisms was being replaced by the idea of a “lived body”. If this is correct it might be an argument for a resurgence of Aristotle’s thought. In this context he claims, rightly, that he can discern a “journey” in the work of Freud from the 19th century medical view of the body to a concept of an “experienced” body. It should be pointed out in the interest of being historically correct that whilst practicing medicine in his early years Freud was already rebelling against an established dogma of somatogenesis(the cause of mental illness is in the body) and moving philosophically in the direction of psychogenesis(the cause of mental illness resides in the psyche). Also, his earlier experiments with hypnosis are difficult to characterise accurately but he did believe that ideas communicated via hypnosis could both remove and install symptoms. The role of Language in the process of hypnosis is often overlooked in favour of Freud’s reason for abandoning this method, namely that the patient was not freely and consciously participating in the treatment process: treatment for Freud needed to attack more than the symptom and attempted rather to find the cause of the malady. Freud’s concept of cause is not taken up in MP’s essay “Man and Adversity” but it must be questionable, whether this Aristotelian/Kantian category could be accepted by the early MP, given his opposition to Scientific Psychology and Kantian Philosophy. The root of the problem lies in a partial rejection of hylomorphic theory. Whether this rejection is a conscious intentional decision is an issue difficult to resolve.
In this essay, however there is an interesting characterisation of the concept of instinct:
“If the term Instinct means anything, it means a mechanism within the organism which with a minimum of use ensures certain responses adapted to certain characteristic situations of the species.”
We know that Consciousness was one of the vicissitudes of the Instincts in Freud’s work, so the above characterisation is problematic. Becoming Conscious, as Freud put it is a task set by mans nature and this process is not certain in the sense that other instinctual vicissitudes might dominate a human beings development. Freud’s later use of mythical terminology is also an argument against the biological view of Instinct presented. Eros and Thanatos, for example, are active figures. Eros energises sexual intentions and all forms of creative and unifying intentions that, for example create our houses, villages, cities, nations with a force that is embodied in instrumental action undertaken together in the spirit of Ananke. MP admits that Freud in fact distanced himself from all mechanical views of Instinct with the claim that all human behaviour and psychical activity has “meaning”. In the context of this discussion, however, MP specifically dismisses means-ends and matter-form categorisations. Neither of these concept pairs are relevant, he argues, for attempting to articulate the relation of the body to life as a whole. He ends with a mysterious and problematic dualistic claim that mind passes into body and vice versa. The more appropriate characterisation of Freud’s theorising, especially in its later stages involves seeing the hylomorphic aspects in which differentiation of life-forms give rise to powers of increasing complexity: powers which actualise over time given appropriate circumstances. In this process, a life form with certain powers can be said to be conscious(but not by Aristotle: consciousness is a modern term). This is a life form with higher powers and can as a consequence be said to possess higher mental processes such as the power of discourse and rationality (manifestations of the Freudian Reality Principle). Organisms with fewer powers use their powers in accordance with other principles, e,g, the energy regulation principle(ERP) or pleasure-pain principle(PPP). These two principles also regulate activity in the Unconscious and preconscious regions of the mind that include the agencies of the Id, the Ego, and Superego. Eros for Freud is a civilisation building vicissitude of an Instinct. If we are right in maintaining that Freud was a hylomorphic Psychologist than we can link erotic activity not just with reproduction of offspring via sexual activity, but also with reproduction of artefacts (houses roads etc.) via instrumental imperatives, and also with reproduction of ideas via categorical imperatives.
The interplay of the life instincts and death instincts are not in Freud confined to the activity of a transcendentally solipsistic individual. Reproduction of artefacts and ideas is not the same as sexual reproduction but there nevertheless is a world-building intention behind each of these forms of activity that we can attribute to the interaction of Eros and Ananke. Freud noticed, being a Jew in Vienna in the 1920s and 30s, that humans are quite often aggressive and this is a destructive tendency which if widespread or universalised (as in war) has the potential to destroy civilisations. War is a work of aggression and is unlike the reproductive activity of sexuality, the reproduction of artefacts and ideas. MP misses the characteristics of a Freudian strong Ego, namely to love and to work probably because they are Aristotelian features of the life of rational animals capable of discourse. Aristotle did not have the “new men” to contend with that Kant and Freud did. Kant, we know characterised ordinary life in his cosmopolitan Königsberg as melancholically haphazard and Freud certainly pulled no punches in asking the question whether the work we put into the maintenance and creation of civilisation is worth the effort. For the “new men” had created the material he needed to write “Civilisation and its Discontents”, a work written almost on the eve of destruction of the second attempt to destroy the world. MP writing amidst the ashes of the aftermath, claimed Marxism as his preferred Political Philosophy. The humanism of Aristotle and Kant were eclipsed in this terrible 20th century(Hannah Arendt) and it must be said that MP assisted in the process of furthering the cause of the “new men” by Philosophising in the darkness of the eclipse.
Chat GBT Conversations on Psychology
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This conversation below appeared as part of a long exchange on Freud’s theories of the phi, psy and omega neurone system. When first asked about these systems Chat denied knowledge about them but when I reminded it of “Project for a scientific psychology” it gave me full correct details about these systems but insisted that Freud’s theories were controversial and not accepted by many researchers who demand empirical evidence for a theory. I pointed out that our current scientific knowledge(sensory, memory and motor neurones) of these different neurone systems are in line with Freud’s proposals and Chat agreed- In response to the point that theoretical assumptions are necessary for the design of experiments that manipulate and measure variables Chat agreed and provided me with a list of areas where Freudian theory is being investigated but continued to insist that Freudian theories are not accepted by many scientists. I pointed out that the two most recent Nobel prize winning brain researchers both regarded Freud as imprtant and Chat agreed but continued to maintain its position
Question:–Why when I am remembering myself swimming in a lake it seems as if I am observing myself swimming?
Answer:–“The experience you are describing is known as “autoscopic imagery” or “out-of-body experience,” and it is a common phenomenon in human memory and imagination.
When you recall a past event, your brain is reconstructing the memory based on a combination of sensory information, prior experiences, and your own expectations and beliefs about what happened. Sometimes, this reconstruction can create a vivid mental image that feels like you are observing yourself from an external perspective, as if you are watching a movie.
This experience may be related to the way the brain processes spatial information. The parietal cortex, which is involved in spatial processing, is active during both the perception of space and during mental imagery tasks. When you recall a memory, your brain may activate the same neural circuits involved in the perception of space, which can create a feeling of being outside of your body.
It’s worth noting that autoscopic imagery can also occur in other contexts, such as during dreams, and is sometimes associated with certain neurological or psychological conditions. However, in most cases, it is a normal and common experience that occurs during memory recall and imagination.”
Review of Merleau-Ponty’s “Phenomenology of Perception”–Part 2
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The Freudian Ego has been likened by some commentators to the Phenomenological Transcendental Ego, and such a position appears to receive further support in the light of the Freudian claim that his Psychology is Kantian. The first function of the Freudian Ego is the protection of the body which for Freud means that the “I think” was definitely present in the intentional act of withdrawing the hand from the flame. On such accounts the “I” is the principle uniting the representations of the candle-flame and the pain. In this situation the I thinks what it ought to do and does it immediately. Such action is very similar to the action of a driver turning the wheel of a car to negotiate a curve that immediately presents itself in the visual field—what the driver ought to do and what he does are almost simultaneous. The representations that are transcended in such action are that of the road and that of the sensation of the turning of the wheel. This idea of the spatiality of the body is to be found in Kant’s discussion of space and the incongruent counterparts of a right and left handed glove.. Here Kant argues that there is nothing in space itself that guarantees the difference between the spatial orientation of the two gloves. It is rather the difference in the respective intuitions of the respective gloves that accounts for the difference. This explanation of Kant’s would probably be accepted with certain qualifications by MP. For Kant space is an a priori transcendental principle that determines the nature of external spatial relations. MP’s preferred approach to making his transcendental case is to examine pathological cases in which body-image is distorted or lost.. MP insists that in normal cases where body-image is intact, the normal person reckons with “the possible” in terms of possible actions. It is almost as if the thought of what is possible is a necessary prerequisite for the action of the normal person: when for example such a person points at his nose (a relatively abstract movement) or if he is ordered to move his hand. MP criticizes the Kantian “I think” as a unifier of diverse representations on the grounds that a representation of the movement to be performed is essentially a sensory and not a motor project or motor intentionality (P. 127). This is a puzzling criticism because MP himself claims that the difference between a normal person and a patient who cannot carry out an order to do something is that in the normal person the movement and consciousness of movement are one unity. Kant is not an associationist, and would not therefore claim that there is is an external causal link between the consciousness of the movement and the movement. The “I think” is not “associated” with the manifold of representations, it rather “logically” accompanies, these representations and forms a unity of consciousness. For Kant, the “I think” also includes amongst the manifold of representations the background of the movement which is to carve out its path in a world of possible movements.. MP discusses the patient Schneider, who has sustained brain damage to the occipital lobe of his brain. Schneider cannot recognize an object my merely looking at it and abstract movements such as pointing at his nose are only possible if he keeps his eyes fixed on the arm and hand he is going to use to perform the task. The patient attempts to use observational knowledge to supplement what is left of his normal intentional power. What is missing for the patient is an epistemological attitude or power in which the movements and visual activity give form or structure to the situation (P132). The explanations MP searches for both furnish meaning and are only disclosed to a certain kind of reflection. It is clear that in Schneider’s case his deficiency runs deeper than the powers of touch or vision conceived of as collections of sensations or qualities. No explanation is final for this case MP argues. Visual representation, sensations of touch, and abstract behaviour are merely aspects of one and the same phenomenon: they are three expressions of a disturbance of our fundamental power to organise the world. The above is actually, with certain reservations over the allergic reaction of MP to causation and rationality, a hylomorphic argument for the Aristotelian notion of a power, and could even be appropriately included in the Aristotelian discipline of Practical Science. This power of organising the world for Kant would occur under the auspices of his faculty of Sensibility that would then differentiate into functions of objectification, symbolic functions, representational functions and a function of projection. All of these functions could then on a Kantian account, be involved in a categorical attitude that would be subsumed under Kantian categories of understanding. MP, on the contrary maintains that consciousness is the central focus of this power and he condenses his opposition to Kant in his characterisation of Consciousness as a power of intentionality and motility(I can”) rather than the Kantian alternative of Thought(”I think”). The “I think” of the Kantian system is the unifier of representations some of which may concern what ought to be done. It was Schopenhauer and not Kant that dualistically divided the world up into the world as will and the world as representation. Kant’s division of the practical relations we have with the world through action and the theoretical relation we have with the world through belief is not dualism. Neither does it justify the criticism of MP that Kant prioritises theoretical judgment over practical concrete action. Sensibility functions theoretically in terms of forms of intuition of space and time which are for Kant principles of structuring the world: e.g. “seeing” the ship sailing down the river in terms of before and after in relation to its changing positions in relation to the river. These are not thoughts governed by the categories of understanding but rather sensible relations to the world. One can truly say that insofar as Sensibility is concerned we “inhabit” space and time and we are not representing to ourselves in this context that we are “in” space and time, which incidentally is perfectly possible at the level of understanding and judgment when we are generating knowledge statements. For MP, on the other hand, the sensory-motor functions of a body image are, for some mysterious reason, more fundamental than the representational or symbolic functions. All of these functions contribute in their various ways to organising the world. MP and perhaps Sartre too, prioritize the “I can” over the “I think” which entails seeing the road ahead not in terms of its black tar or its objective relation to other roads and vehicles travelling on it. My “hodological map” as Sartre calls it, grasps the road in terms of my instrumental task of walking along it, its feeling as if it will never come to an end, its unyieldingness beneath my tired feet. In walking along the road I am clearly exploring its potentialities—of coming to an end, of leading to my friends house, etc. These are practical tasks that can be expressed by Kantian instrumental imperatives which relate ontologically to Spinoza’s transcendental power of striving to maintain oneself in existence, and perhaps also, insofar as being human is concerned, striving to maintain oneself or create for oneself a qualitative mode of existence that constitutes the Aristotelian state of Eudaimonia (a good spirited flourishing life). Kant’s response to MP’s criticism would have been to point out that he was the first major philosopher since Aristotle and Spinoza to shift attention away from the theoretical realm to the practical realm of Philosophy. Kant claimed in this context that our moral personality or nature is an important aspect of human Being. Our moral nature, he continued, may even be just as important and perhaps even more important than our explorations of Physical Nature and the truth thereof. Recall the 4 Kantian questions that define the realm of Philosophy: “What can I know?” “What ought I to do?” “What can I hope for?” and “What is man?”
MP it ought to be noted is also critical of certain conceptions of an all constituting Consciousness which imputes meaning to everything that lacks meaning under the condition that such a conception does not inhabit a body which acts transcendentally and becomes in the diversity of its acts, a general function.
Kant is criticized for artificially connecting the perception of an object with the perception of space. Space is, MP insists embedded in existence. It is not clear what the thrust of MP’s objection is here but there is a suggestion, equally vague, that Kant’s theory reduces a thing to its space. In relation to this discussion perhaps we should remind ourselves of Kant’s actual position in his Critique of Pure Reason:
“Space is not something objective and real, nor a substance, nor an accident, nor a relation; instead it is subjective and ideal, and originates from mind’s nature in accord with a stable law as a scheme, as it were, for coordinating everything sensed externally.”(Ak2:403)
One of the reasons that, on Kant’s position space could never become thing-like is that causal relations must exist within a thing and in the relation between things. Causality is a function of the understanding and the law that Kant is referring to is not a metaphysical law but rather a transcendental law. Space is an apriori principle or condition independent of experience and could never become thing-like, become a substance that one can attribute attributes to.
For MP space is intimately related to body image and to strengthen his earlier discussion of the Pathological case of Schneider he takes up a more everyday example of a lady with a feather in her hat negotiating obstacles non observationally in order to avoid damage to the feather. The point of this discussion is to highlight the transformation of the object-feather to becoming part of her body-image. We know from earlier discussions that the use of the body is transcendental for MP. For Leibniz too the body was an effective law of its use but MP rejects this in favour of the formulation “nexus of living meanings”(P.175)
In the work “Phenomenology of Perception” MP turns to considering “The Body in its Sexual Being”. He acknowledges that there is a certain difficulty attached to rediscovering the relation of the subject to his world by taking into account merely epistemological-metaphysical issues. The task requires taking an original position with respect to the fact that nature is independent of the experiencing subject. This is a nature that does not depend upon being perceived to exist. MP now pins his hopes and arguments on the affective life of sexuality because in this sphere of experience something begins to exist in relation to us through sexual desire and love. Affectivity is therefore an important form of Consciousness for the phenomenologist. Again MP appeals to pathological phenomena, phenomena that are “objectively” examined by empirical and intellectualist psychologists. Neither an account in terms of reflexes nor an account in terms of representations suffice, it is argued by MP for an adequate explanation of what is occurring in the pathological phenomena he discusses. Sexuality is, rather an intentionality embedded in existence, an intentionality that manifests itself in activity. Freud, that scientific rationalist par excellence is paradoxically quoted favourably in this discussion, in particular his claim that every human activity including dreaming has a meaning.
On the issue of the body, however, MP rejects Freudian references to genital organs and erotogenic zones when it comes to explaining Sexuality as a phenomenon. For MP Sexuality as a phenomenon is a general power of the psychosomatic subject, a power that creates meaningful structures of conduct, and a power that has internal links to both our cognitive and active natures.
We know from earlier chapters in this work that Freud’s work was conceived of as “archeological” insofar as another phenomenologist, Paul Ricoeur, was concerned. Ricoeur means by this term that there is in Freud a desire to return historically to the origins of things in the process of explaining their meaning. This from an Aristotelian point of view is merely a commitment to one form of causal explanation that we know neither MP nor Ricoeur are in favour of. Claiming, in the context of this discussion, as MP does, that sexuality does not have an intimate relation to the genitals when it is so apparent that the genitals are the focus of so much attention and representation is to say the least a paradoxical claim. Freud, as we know traces the history of the movement of erotic sensitivity and stimulation from the mouth to the anal zone to the phallic region, all before the age of 6. The whole investigation is Aristotelian and conducted under the auspices of the Aristotelian pleasure-pain principle thus avoiding the modern biological tendency to reduce all activity to reflexivity or a “ blind” form of instinct. Images, which are representations are key components of sexual activity, These images are also related to pleasure and pain and connected fundamentally to erotic zones of the body. Freud is undoubtedly a hylomorphic Psychologist and this is evidenced by his choice to found his whole mature Psychology on what he calls a “mythology” of instincts and their vicissitudes. Instincts and their vicissitudes (which include Consciousness) are regulated by three principles: the Energy Regulation Principle(ERP), the Pleasure-Pain Principle(PPP),and the Reality Principle(RP). This does not mesh with the account MP gives of the libido where he specifically declares that the libido is not an instinct. In making this statement it is not clear whether he also meant to deny that it was a vicissitude of an instinct. Freud’s response to this claim of MP’s would probably have been to claim that Instinct is merely a general power of the body, a power that reaches deep into our Being-in-the-world. We should not, however be surprized at these paradoxical criticisms of Freud, considering MP’s attitude toward the work of Kant. We have pointed out previously that many problematic interpretations of Kant rest upon an ignorance of the fact that he was to some extent, a hylomorphic philosopher.
MP, in elaboration upon sexuality and its relation to our existence shows the resemblance of their positions when he asserts that :
“all existence has a sexual significance…every phenomenon has an existential significance.”(P.184)
This is highly suggestive of the Freudian position and MP continues to elaborate upon this point by referring to sexual sectors of our life. In the context of this discussion MP cites the case of a woman who has lost the use of speech in response to a parental prohibition forbidding her to see the man she loves. This obviously suggests, MP maintains, the oral phase of psycho-sexual development but it is a phase the patient regresses to as a consequence of the traumatic prohibition. Any in-depth analysis will no doubt reveal the work of the pleasure-pain principle operating in the defence mechanism of regression in this patient. This together with the truth that “Trauma disrupts normal psychological functioning” helps us, then to give an “interpretation” in terms of intentionality. There is here an intentional refusal of the life of discourse with others, returning the patient to the kind of existence an animal enjoys. In refusing to eat (another symptom) the patient is also intentionally demonstrating the presence of Freud’s Death Instinct (opposed to the life sustaining libido). MP fails to mention this aspect of the analysis that Aristotle would have no objections to. It is true that sexuality appears to be present in this case only in outline (in the regression to the oral phase and the implied sexual deprivation brought about by the prohibition) but its presence is essential to the thesis that MP wishes to defend. It is clear that in more general terms the patient’s body loses a whole range of powers when fields of possibility relating to speaking and eating are closed down. Yet the patient survives in virtue of the presence of the libido that at any moment might resume an interest in the world of possibilities it knows and can see. Existence, for MP is not a set of facts but rather the source we have for metamorphosing these facts.
MP also claims that existence is ambiguous and returns to our relation to the natural world to illustrate the transcendence of the body. He argues that ambiguity is present even in the most basic sense- experience of the colour of blue which for MP is not a sensation or a quality but rather is to be analysed in terms of the transcendental use of the body. The body prompts me to look at blue in a particular way and when I do so it reverberates in the whole of my body and disposes it toward a feeling of slipping downwards. In Aristotelian terms blue is a form that will have certain effects upon the form of the body in the context of certain “causes” in the world including lighting conditions. The water and waves of the sea and the expanse of the sky may look blue but they are really white being endowed with colour by the lighting conditions of the interaction of the golden sun with the darkness of space. This “effect” of blue upon the perceiver could be just as real as the effects of the golden sun or the darkness of space. The effect also for Aristotle causes the body to respond in a certain way. This phenomenon may well require the entire structure of Aristotle’s metaphysics of change for a complete account which subsequent modern experiments with prisms confirmed. Light is white and one of the colours produced by prisms is blue indicating that white light and darkness are primary conditions of our colour system. Further modern quantitative experimentation with colours also indicates that there is a continuum of colours that can be measured in units. Certain measurements, however may not conform to the colour system as we perceive it: certain measurements, for example are not perceivable by the naked eye. If this is an indication of the structure of reality (that it is an infinite continuum) then Kant’s metaphysical contention that we can know very little about this Reality as it is in itself finds some support. This reality can manifest itself in an infinite number of forms including the forms of time and extension and this may be a source of ambiguity for Kant but for the MP of “Phenomenology of Perception” this position is mistaken because for him there is no noumenal reality behind phenomena.
In an attempt to authenticate his view of the transcendent use of the body and its Being-in-the world, he chooses to focus upon an experimental phenomenon in which the whole world appears to the perceiver to be upside down and lack “Reality”. He cites an experiment by Stratton in which an image of the world projected upon the eye is inverted thus creating the sense in his subjects that the world is upside down. Initially nothing is recognizable, not even faces which completely lose their familiarity when seen upside down. Eventually as the subjects are forced to engage with this world by finding their way and doing things, though the image remains inverted, the world returns back to its normal state of orientation. Is this, then, the confirmation that MP seeks to prove that the use of the body is transcendental? MP claims that in the initial phase of the inversion of the image no mere conceptualisation of the world or intellectual attempt to merely identify things in the world would produce the same effect of returning orientation to normal. Merely thinking about the visual field would not, he argues, produce a correction of the orientation of the visual field.
For MP the body’s relation to space is a living one but he adds mysteriously that there is a level of space behind the space the body constitutes. This is a mysterious claim given his consistent opposition to the position which maintains that the conditioned we experience always has logical conditions which the Principle of Sufficient Reason requires we investigate.
MP makes clear that the body he is referring to is not a personal body but rather one that is “ a system of autonomous functions”(P.296). These functions constitute its general project that is as he puts it, “a communication with the world more ancient than thought”. These functions and this project are not, he argues, accessible to reflection and it is not clear what is meant with this statement. He certainly cannot subscribe to equating what he is saying with the Kantian noumenal self that is revealed in categorical ethical actions. The project that man is , is “invaded by the outside”(P.370) , to use MP’s terms. The object in the noumenal world, for him is merely a phenomenon formed as a result of the unity of sense provided by a transcendent body. This project is in typical existential fashion thrown into the natural world, which can only be explored in terms of inter-sensory relations that cannot be captured by formal mathematical or scientific thinking. The way in which transcendence enters the system from the outside is via the perception of Others. Other people’s perspectives on landscapes we will never see creates a continuous chain of experience that may extend into infinity.
Sometimes this continuity and reality of the perceived world is ruptured as is the case with Macbeth’s hallucination of a dagger hanging in the air, and the ghost of Banquo at the feast. MP claims that hallucinations are neither sensory experiences nor judgements. They are for him enigmatic forms of consciousness. This strangeness is illustrated by a considering a report by a schizophrenic that there is a bird in the garden singing but the fact of the bird and the fact of its singing seem not connected to each other. Here is appears, from a Kantian point of view that the structure of judging something about something has collapsed into the simpler power of merely “thinking” something. This thinking moreover does not respond or connect to either logic or what Wittgenstein would call the grammar of language and seems rather to be conducted in the medium of projected images. MP’s diagnosis is that the inter-sensory unity of the bird singing has fallen apart. He sticks at this description and refuses to think hylomorphically about this phenomenon, which would entail accepting a “causal” account of powers building upon powers. For Aristotle there are many ways in which the normal structures constituting man- the rational animal capable of discourse- can fall apart. For Kant the problems are with the faculty of Sensibility and the power of the imagination to “construct” our normal world. When the power of the imagination is isolated from the powers of perception, understanding and reason we are then confronted with enigmatic phenomena. The accounts of Aristotle and Kant would amount to nothing more than what he would call “mental chemistry”. This objection by MP, however, would be rejected, in turn, by both Aristotle and Kant, on logical and conceptual grounds.
The General Project that we are includes Consciousness that, according to MP does not know what it is doing when it is hallucinating. This must amount to some kind of negation of the transcendental use of the body. There is a mysterious defence of this position that relates to the possibility that there is a possible hiatus in relation to the time between one act of consciousness and another. It is this that allows consciousness to doubt itself. M argues. (P402). This “anything is possible” last resort of the sceptic does, however, seem to be a controversial explanation of a phenomenon that appears to require, at least insofar as Freud (the Kantian Psychologist) is concerned, more analysis and justification.
This theme of the precarious hold that Consciousness has on the past and the future is continued, and MP claims that, “the transcendence of the instants of time is both the ground of and the impediment to, the rationality of my personal history”(P. 404).
Being thrown into the world as this general project testifies to the general fact that the powers of my body (to use Aristotelian language) are anonymously integrated into an anonymous life. Spinoza would have characterised this state of affairs in terms of his “first idea of the mind”, namely “the idea of the body”. This body lives in the natural world of Aristotle, a world composed of earth, air, water, and fire conditioned by the processes of hot and cold wet and dry which as we know in certain combinations can produce both a Shakespearean Tempest and also the calm before and after the storm. We also live in the Aristotelian cultural world of arête in which three kinds of forms are transmitted in Time: the reproduction of children, the reproduction of artefacts, and the reproduction of ideas. The cultural landscape of houses, villages, cities, fields, roads, churches bells, hammers and anvils overlays the natural landscape of the hills and valleys. MP claims that each of these cultural kinds of object is formed after the human action it is created for. He uses the Hegelian term of Objective Spirit to describe the cultural presence in the scenery we have just described. We sense, he argues, the presence of Other persons in the form of a general I. The question he then asks himself is whether his Consciousness can in fact think this general I, or a general “One”. In a sceptical recital he claims that all we in fact see are detached projects constituted of the thoughts and intentions of transcendent bodies. This introduces the challenge that Sartre met with his eavesdropping example. Sartre argues that I become aware of the gaze of another accusing me. In this spirit of shame and injustice I encounter others. Rousseau responds to the challenge of Other persons by claiming that we encounter others in a spirit of “amour proper”. Hegel responds to the challenge in the spirit of his raw master-slave relation. MP slips into Sartre’s characterisation of the problem of Other Minds by re-iterating that the Other person is both in-itself and exists for-itself. The ambiguity of this description implies, MP argues that I have an apparent choice to treat the Other person as either an object or as a Consciousness.
MP rejects all scientific accounts in which the body is placed in a spatio-temporal continuum of the world as a centre of movement and activity to be measured by a system of physic-mathematical correlations. He does this because, as he puts it, there is nothing in this kind of account allowing us to conceive of the inhering of Consciousness in a transcendental body. Such accounts do not allow the attribution of Consciousness either to myself or to Others. Scientists faced with the challenge of Consciousness or Others sometime slip into a form of dualism in which they agree that Consciousness can inhere in my body on Cartesian grounds (namely that I know that I think). Having established such a position they are then forced to resort to any number of logical contortions to attribute Consciousness or Minds to others. Aristotle the scientist is not a dualist and yet is able to describe and explain the functions of the body, and the structure of powers that enable us to transcend our merely physical natures. In Aristotle’s hylomorphic theory, the organ system of a human body contains the principles necessary for a life that is captured in his hylomorphic definition: rational animal capable of discourse. Powers building systematically upon powers and powers integrating themselves with other powers generate an ability to transmit the forms of children (with long childhoods compared to the animal world), the forms of artefacts, and the forms of ideas, the essential components of our cultural world. For MP, however, any mention of physiology or physiological events is merely an abstract schema of concrete phenomena.
It is clear that for MP, the gaze of the other whilst being a trace of Consciousness has a distinctly Sartrean character. The gaze is responded to as an alien existence that I “re-enact”. I know of the existence of Other persons because, MP argues, I am not transparent to myself. Presumably this means that we are not fully aware of all aspects of the functions of our bodies: the workings of the organs (including the brain) for example. MP rules out the idea that we become an object for the Other, and the idea that he becomes an object for me. He is in the world as I am, and neither of us is shut up in their perspective. When the other is engaged in instrumental action involving objects, his activity is both a mirror of mine yet adds some further significance. It is clear that on this account the world is no longer mine, it belongs to the general I, or One. I know that the body over there making use of the world has the same structure as mine. The intentions that are being enacted “over there” are products of the same structure. Just as the parts of my body form a whole: Others pursuing their business in the world also form the whole of this general “One”. I, and Others can engage in discourse and when that happens our thoughts form a single fabric of thought: the language used to accomplish this is the Language of the anonymous “One”. This might be an account of the world we could find in the work of the ancient Greeks. This common world of the general “One” was both maintained and improved by the spirit of arête(doing the right thing at the right time in the right way) and the telos of arête, for the Greeks, was the common good(The Platonic “Form of the Good”, the Aristotelian “principle”)
The tenor of MP’s reflections are sometimes difficult to fathom because there is a distinctive shift from analytic scepticism to a more neutral Heideggerian view of Being in which our Being-in-the-world is an issue for us. This latter position would to some extent accommodate Aristotelian and Kantian attitudes in which we experience awe and wonder in the face of the natural world and our own Being.
In an interesting discussion of Piaget MP claims that even if the child at 12 reaches an understanding of what he calls the truths of rationalism, underlying this achievement are earlier forms of mentality and it is these forms that are primarily of interest to MP because:
“My awareness of constructing an objective truth would never provide me with anything more than an objective truth for me”(P.414)
This can be construed as an expression of transcendental solipsism. It implicitly denies a number of the major premises of hylomorphism in which it is claimed, for example, that a decentering operation occurring in us as powers build upon and integrate with other powers is part of an actualisation process connected to rationality. This decentering operation then results in , or is transcended by, a common world in which we participate in a spirit of areté. The problem of other minds does not manifest itself in such accounts (Piaget’s and Aristotle’s) MP, however, given his scepticism over “causation” would see in these reflections reference to the purely analytic components of the body and behaviour which without the presence of a general project would never result in the general I. Neither Aristotle nor Kant would, however, accept such a description as relevant to their accounts because for them both the structure of the body (its organs and limbs) and the use to which these are put in behaviour are conceptually connected with the state and structure of our minds. Sceptical recitals that fail to consider conceptual and logical connections end in the paradoxical position of claiming, for example, that we can never know what another person is thinking because we only see their body behaving. Such sceptical recitals also raise the earlier question concerning the sceptical appeal to the consciousness of time in relation to hallucinations.
MP would, however claim that he has good grounds to insist that we can directly see the anger and grief in the behaviour of others because the emotions obviously are conceptually identifiable through bodily reactions and behaviour. True, it can be maintained that my grief and anger is mine and his belongs to his consciousness on the grounds that my grief and anger are lived through and his is merely out there on display in a scene in the theatre of the world. MP points out that if Pierre is grieved because Paul has lost his wife Paul is grieved at the fact of Pierre’s grief and their grief is therefore different because the objects of their grief are different. Yet surely, one could respond, there is a concept of grief that comprises bodily reactions, behaviour and relevant worldly circumstances if the emotion is to be fully characterised. If this is the case then a suitable combination of the above factors could be judged universally to be grief.
MP’s flirtation with solipsism continues when he boldly asserts that solipsism is grounded in living experience in spite of an acknowledgement that my sensory-motor functions and cultural objects, institutions, and works in the world around me are not mine. The fact that it is I that experience all these things suffices for MP to make a claim for the truth of solipsism. Every Other, for example must, he continues, be experienced by me in order to exist for me. The fundamental Cartesian fact that I am given to myself and the fact that every experience is a particular experience that refuses generalisation, is sufficient for MP to defend this uniquely popular 20th century position (adopted by Husserl, Heidegger, the early Wittgenstein, William James etc.)
What looked to be a final position is then metamorphised in a later elaboration in which MP argues that a subject’s Being-in-the-world guarantees activity that must assume the existence of Others. It is now argued that the social world is a form of existence that I live. It is admitted that a fundamental contradiction is involved in this ambiguous stance and it becomes clear even to MP that this position cannot be sustained via a pure phenomenology of description. We need, it is argued, a phenomenology of phenomenology that returns us to the Cogito and a “logic” of lived meaning (which presumably thinks that contradictions are acceptable). MP accepts the inconstancy of this position and claims that this “logic” will only have what he calls a “relative validity”
So how will MP characterise this Cogito? In a Cartesian way? We should recall in this context that Descartes in a mediating, Heraclitean mood found no problem in thinking away the transcendental power of the body. He then paradoxically characterises the return of things and ideas to the self as “final truth”. But this final truth is a truth related to consciousness and not thought because thought is opaque to itself in the sense that it is the end of a process that arbitrarily suspends further questioning. Thought must on this account be a consciousness of thinking. This MP argues is the reason why Descartes felt compelled to attach to certain thoughts the qualities of clarity and distinctness, thereby making these thoughts immune to sceptical doubt. These thoughts are self-evident and differ from evident thoughts insofar as they are not challengeable. “I think therefore I am” must be immune to doubt if one can prove the premise “I think” and the question is whether Descartes manages to do this in his “test”. This test takes the following form: Try to doubt that you are thinking and then ask yourself what you were doing when you were doubting. The only reasonable answer to this is that you must have been thinking. The methodical doubt of Descartes does have a reservation over the self-evidence of this conclusion and resolves this with an appeal to God. Descartes asks himself whether we can be deceived into thinking that we are thinking and answers in the negative because God would have to be malevolent and capable of deception if this was the case.
One reading of Descartes is that his proof guarantees only the fact that I am thinking and not the truth of my thoughts. If doubting always presupposes this act of thinking then at least this leaves no logical space for the doubting sceptic to cast doubt upon thinking by questioning the truth of the thought. Descartes´ method also, as we have mentioned, inconveniently for MP, doubted the body of the thinker leaving no logical space for an account of the transcendental body. For Descartes the movement of the body was a mechanical affair and could be characterised in the way we characterise the moving parts of a machine.
MP does not criticize Descartes in the above terms but he does take him to task for not giving an account of the role of language in our Being-in-the-world. MP claims that in reading the Meditations on the Cogito we focus on the words and are carried beyond them in a world of thought. Descartes words express their meanings but neither words nor their meanings are the creation of consciousness (because meanings are not images—the language of hallucination?). Meanings are rather motor significances of the words. Wittgenstein in his later Philosophy will appeal to the use of words that he claims in many philosophical discussions serve to bewitch the intellect with hallucinatory meanings. For Wittgenstein it was vital to his account that the use of language is not merely an empirical phenomenon but rather something transcendental that provides us with the norms of representation—provides us, that is, with rules that representations follow. Indeed, for Wittgenstein we are rule following animals.
Words are not norms for MP they are gestures. We begin by imitating and thereby understanding the gestures of Others (so surely they must exist—to use an ancient argument of Socrates). A word is pronounced in certain circumstances and I imitate this phenomenon and suddenly almost magically I have grasped the meaning of the word. Indeed, learning the word “Blue” for Wittgenstein would be a part of a form of life in which one surveyed or manipulated the circumstances to find something blue to point to (an “abstract” movement for MP) and then uttering the word ”Blue!” whilst adopting an imperative attitude. The pupil then demonstrates that he has grasped the rule for the use of this word by uttering it in relation to all appropriate circumstances when called upon to do so. My wonder in the face of the blue of the sky or sea is thus converted into rational discourse. Here arête amounts to saying the right thing at the right time in the right way. MP claims that language presupposes a silent consciousness of language, whatever that means. In this silent “space” words are given their meaning and form, but again we are asked to consider the solipsistic truth “myself experienced by myself”(P.469) which is then conveniently converted into the formulation “oneself experienced by oneself”(P.470) This “silent consciousness” is then characterised in terms of the formulation “One thinks”. This formulation may be as close as MP comes to defining the general project that we are. The project can also be described in terms of action, i.e. “One can”, a characterisation in which intentions and expectations enter into relation to our action. Here we can assume that the transcendental use of the body which “One can” refers to, obviously includes the use of language, i.e. “one can speak” appears to have transcendental significance in the Phenomenology of MP. In his analysis of temporality MP makes an Aristotelian move by criticizing the use of the term “events” and the division of a whole phenomenon into parts that are events. The river which is fed by glacial ice melting yesterday and contains the piece of wood I threw into the glacial melt-water today will discharge into the sea tomorrow.
Review of Merleau Ponty’s “Phenomeology of Perception”. Part 1
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Merleau- Ponty’s “Phenomenology of Perception” is a work that is intended to fall under many headings but it is undoubtedly, in spite of its limitations, a work of Philosophical Psychology par excellence. The work attempts to synthesise many positions and influences including empirical and rational psychology from a phenomenological/existential point of view. Insofar as its Philosophical credentials are concerned it draws upon the works of Hegel, Husserl, Heidegger, and Sartre. In these different syntheses we find moments in which we are reminded of Aristotelian and Kantian reflections and this is surprising given the fact that Merleau-Ponty(MP) wishes to distance himself from such rationalistic positions.
MP’s account begins with a basic experience of the world that is formed by consciousness: a consciousness of things-in-themselves which it is the task of phenomenology to describe. He takes Descartes and Kant to task for their “analytical reflections” in which the subject is detached from his experience of the world: in this state of detachment the subject then stands in judgment upon the world, it is argued. This criticism brings to the fore a formidable philosophical problem of human nature, namely, is man fundamentally in his essence an explorer whose task it is to discover new experiences, or a judge whose task it is to explain and justify the proceedings he sees before him in the tribunal of experience.
The judgement in favour of both the explorer and the judge would not be a problem for Aristotle’s Metaphysical theory of Change and Hylomorphic theory simply because, for Aristotle, powers of judgment are constructed upon explorative powers and simultaneously perform the task of regulating and organising explorative activity. MP sees the judge as separated unnecessarily from the tribunal of experience but the kind of separation that actually exists for both Aristotle and Kant reflects the kind of difference there is between a rational law or principle and what they apply to. It is difficult to take MP’s criticism of Kant seriously if one admits the difference between a principle or a law and what it is applied to. The case for the separation of powers (of exploration and judgement) against Descartes, however, is more compelling. Following the example of Descartes, however, we find MP claiming:
“I cannot put perception into the same category as the syntheses represented by judgements, acts or predications”
Separating perception of a black pen from perceptual judgments such as “This pen is black” does indeed seem a radical move. Descartes and Kant are further accused of separating the inner man from the outer world and it is not entirely clear that this criticism is justified in either case. It certainly is not justified in Kant’s case if one takes into consideration his Anthropological writings and his writings in the realm of Practical Philosophy in which our instrumental and categorical involvements with the world are clearly a result of a type of reflection that is in awe of the world and all its forms and aspects. Kant’s Practical Philosophy is also undoubtedly committed to making the world a better place, however long that process might take for the rational animal capable of discourse.
For MP discourse is an activity that causes essences to exist in a state of separation from consciousness and this to some extent denies the fact of my consciousness which MP argues, without any recourse to discourse, manages to appreciate the difference between what is imaginary and what is real.
Further “separations” are suggested in relation to Perception when MP argues that although there is a truth or self-evidence rooted in Perception there is a fundamental difference between what is lived through and what is thought. This separation is sustained by the claim that there is an active operational intentionality( P.XX) in which the “natural and ante-predicative unity of the world and our life” is constituted. From an Aristotelian hylomorphic point of view this exploration of origins by MP may constitute only one kind of explanation of the relevant changing phenomena: it may that is constitute a preferred phenomenological archeological reduction at the expense of other types of explanation such as the formal and final kinds of explanation we find in hylomorphic theory. Furthermore, if, as we claimed in the earlier chapters to this work, that Kant was indeed a hylomorphic Philosopher then the above criticism of Kant would appear to be exaggerated given the Kantian acceptance of all the types of explanation mentioned above.
The target of MP’s Phenomenology is also Science and the Philosophy of Science. MP argues in this context that the scientific concept of causality or causal explanation is problematic because it does not recognize consciousness as the source of what MP calls “the ante-predicative” world. Instead Science attempts to explain consciousness as a meeting point of a variety of causal agencies in the search for a physic-mathematical law.
What it is that enables MP to move into a transcendental dimension beyond the interplay of causal agencies operating biologically, is a “lived body”. The life of this body is then defined as the use of this body and this is one of the primary constituting factors of both consciousness and its relation to the world. This body is also a transcendental source of the aforementioned operative intentionality that enables me to transcend myself in the use of humanly constructed concrete instruments, e.g. tools to build houses, villages, and cities. Abstract tools such as Language also enable us to construct an orbis pictus in its “transcendental use”. After his work on Perception, Language shifted more and more into the centre of his Philosophizing. He did not believe as Wittgenstein did that Language is the “final solution” to all philosophical problems, but he did claim the following:
“That linguistics would give us the paradigm model on the basis of which we would be able to elaborate a theory of the human sciences and that establish a universal, philosophical anthropology”(“Consciousness and the Acquisition of Language, trans Silverman H.J. Evanston, North Western University Press, 1973, Foreword by James M Edie P.XX))
The relation between body and language is further condensed from the clouds of earlier works in MP’s final work “The Visible and the Invisible”. In this last work written just before his death an Aristotelian bell tolls when he characterises the body as a potentiality of activity. Furthermore he adds the interesting qualification that this Aristotelian body is structured like a language. This body generates “meaning”, it is claimed. MP had in earlier works characterised meaning in terms of “gestural meaning” and this reminds us of the Evolutionary account of Language presented by Julian Jaynes in Volume one of my work on the History of Psychology. It is highly unlikely, however, that MP would approve of this kind of “scientific “ treatment of gestural origins and attitudes. In Jaynes’ account the gestural attitude is related to fear and the urgent demands of a life in a state of nature whereas for MP this attitude is more related to the awe and wonder in the face of the world that find in the works of Aristotle and Kant. For MP the acquisition of language is obviously then related to a way of using words that is related to fundamental intentions of speech. These form an attitude that is revealed in the pathological condition of aphasia. Patients suffering from aphasia have lost:
“the general ability to subsume sensory given under a category”(P. 204)
These patients are not capable of what MP calls the categorical attitude. This is not solely a thought function because according to MP language and thought are dual aspects of the same underlying phenomenon or attitude. MP specifically argues that thought does not underlie speech:
“The denomination of objects does not follow upon recognition: it is itself recognition. When I fix my eyes on an object in the half light and say: “it is a brush”, there is not in my mind the concept of a brush under which I subsume the object, and which moreover is linked by frequent association with the word “brush” but the word bears the meaning, and, by imposing it on the object, I am conscious of reaching that object.”(P. 206)
Speech does not presuppose thought but rather accomplishes it and this is a consequence of an attitude which Freud relied on in his therapy: a therapy called a “talking cure” by one of his patients. It is almost as if primary process thinking which confines itself to the images of experience requires a secondary process—sublimation of these images—in order for the talking cure to have its effect. We also know from the reports of a number of psychologists that children appear to begin to think when they begin to talk. It seems in these cases that naming something gives the thing a form of existence it did not possess previously. The child in this process of language acquisition appears to acquire an ability or power to think according to others. Here the expression of a word is an action in the context of community activity. MP compares this attitude to the Freudian Imago which manifests this emotional attitudes.
Speech is a modality of Being-in-the-world as is imagination. In the Sartrean example of “seeing”(imagining”?) Pierre to be absent from the café what is present to the senses is not a representation nor Pierre himself in person but rather a power of acting toward Pierre that motivates the negative judgement, “Pierre is not in the café”. What is present, MP argues, is, then, a desire to act accompanied by the lack of an intentional structure to realize the power of acting.
An angry word is as much of a gesture as angry behaviour on this account. There is, according to MP, no process of association leading me from the behaviour or the word to a state of anger—my senses and my movements are mutually implicated in this immediate acknowledgment of meaning. There is a non-observational identity here between the angry gesture I witness and the angry gesture I produce in response to an insult. Moreover, according to MP there is a relativity of the kind of behaviour involved when the Japanese become angry compared to an Italian becoming angry. This suffices for MP to claim that there is a difference in the respective emotions themselves, given the importance of the use of the body at least insofar as this human form of Being-in-the-world is concerned. The use of the body in anger or in discourse, are both transcendent of our biological natures and yet immanent in the process of communication with each other.
MP is not in doubt, in least in his work “Consciousness and the Acquisition of Language”(P. 4) that in language we detect the origins of new kinds of behaviour. This is a work that seeks the laws and principles that pertain to language.
Categorical behaviour rests on a foundation of gesture and is built up within an attitude that will also relate to the truth of language. This is as much of a concession to Kantian Philosophy that we will find in MP because he insists that the above attitude is more related to the productive imagination than to the Kantian understanding. Internal to this attitude is a recognition of the role of the other that appears to precede the acknowledgement that without truth, discourse can not function between speakers.
Rousseau pointed to “Amour proper” as a key attitude involved in the recognition of others. Hegel pointed to the master-slave dialectic. MP evokes the other person more neutrally but his evocation while originating in the categorical attitude related to awe and wonder, does not embrace the Kantian categories of the understanding or the Kantian ideas of Reason.
MP insists that Science is merely a second order activity relating to the primary experience we have of Being-in-the-world. It attempts to “objectify” phenomena with its second order methods of observation, resolution-composition, and experimentation. Science has an image of a human being as:
“ a physical system undergoing stimuli which were themselves identified by their physic-chemical properties” (P. 12)
In its attempts to characterise perception science:
“tried to reconstitute actual perception on this basis and to close the circle of scientific knowledge by discovering the laws governing the production of knowledge itself, by establishing an objective science of subjectivity.”(P. 12)
This is obviously a very mechanical and simplistic view of science and it certainly does not serve as criticism of the kind of science we find in the work of Aristotle or Kant. One of the consequences MP wants to draw attention to with this criticism is that it makes my relation to any stimulus a secondary and passive affair—the object impresses itself upon my sensory system in the form of a sensation, and this is in turn then used by the scientist as a unit of experience. This also conflicts with Gestalt Psychology which claims that such a postulated layer of impressions is not to be found in the visual field we perceive. For them the sensory apparatus is not merely a medium of transmission of units of experience but this apparatus is rather something the body uses to transcend its biological condition. The biological meaning of the situation clearly transcends the physical stimuli perceived. MP accepts all of this and he adds to his criticism of the above observationalist form of science by insisting that the “idea” of a sensation is merely a theoretical construction with no real content—a theoretical construction which will, moreover distort any phenomenological analysis of perception. This view of the Scientist asks us to imagine that my visual field is a bundle of sensations, a bundle of particulars. The next problem for such a theory is how to connect this bundle into a whole that is a visual field. This is sometimes attempted with the assistance of a putative law of association. MP rejects this by claiming that the visual field is not formed by association mechanisms but is rather the condition of consciousness associating anything with anything else. Psychologists, he argues, attempt to bolster failing association theory with the claim that the memory facilitates the process by being projected upon the incomplete sense-data of the visual field in order to fill in any theoretical gaps left by the incomplete bundle of sensations. But the problem with this mental-chemistry approach in which sensations plus memory equals visual phenomenon is that there is nothing holding these elements together, no unifying factor for the field of vision.
We also know from history and experience MP argues that this form of mental chemistry will never suffice to describe and explain the psychological contribution to cultural phenomena. We can never import such methods into the cultural world where “atoms” can never replace the meanings of what we experience in this realm. Aristotle too, would have objected to the above logical atomism whether it be in the name of perception, language or culture. For Aristotle it is a mistake to prioritise the contents of perception, language or culture at the expense of the forms or principles that best explain them. MP to some extent agrees with such criticism when he acknowledges that there are pathological conditions of hysteria that support a more holistic approach to phenomena. Patients suffering from hysteria often turn around to see “if the world behind them is still there”(P. 29)
This is his evidence that perception for these patients has lost the structure of normal perception, a structure in which the normal person knows the world continues behind them even if they cannot see it: without the need of visual confirmation or even the confirmation of memory.
Having thus completed his criticism of empiricist theories, MP then turns to rationalism. Attention, it is argued, is the function of consciousness that enables one to come into contact with what MP calls “the truth of an object”. A piece of wax reveals its essence to the exploring attention miraculously because (for the rationalists) the essence of the wax is already thought and projected onto this piece of extended matter. This account, argues MP, does not acknowledge the phenomenological phenomenon of attention, a phenomenon that possesses the power to constitute a new object from an indeterminate horizon of significance. Rationalism, MP argues, uses the rational operation of judgment to fill in the gap between sensation and perception. Descartes was the rationalist par excellence and we recall well how his wax miraculously did not disappear when all its sensory properties were removed, suggesting, of course the presence of something rational enabling the wax to continue existing, revealing thus the truth of the wax. Here again, we encounter a form of mental chemistry helping us to construct the truth, namely sensation and judgment. Of course, conveniently for Descartes the extension of the wax is amenable to quantitative analyses of various kinds and it is thereby rescued from the consuming fires of nihilism.
What we are witnessing here is a radical confusion between two contexts: the context of exploration/discovery and the context of explanation/justification: contexts that require very different logical characterisations.
MP criticises another rationalist, Spinoza, and his notion of “adequate idea”, by claiming that perception, memory, and the existence of others are required to establish the truth of an idea. MP further claims that beginning at the level of the truth of an adequate idea will obscure the phenomena of the World and Others. According to MP, Spinoza has lost the ideas of perception and observation in his account and thereby lost all possibility of describing phenomena. MP would accordingly, balk at our earlier characterisation in volume one of Spinoza as a “proto-phenomenologist”. There is in Spinoza, however, a clear distinction between our mental activity in the context of exploration/discovery where nature rises to the concept and our mental activity in the context of explanation/justification where the concept gravitates toward nature (P.48). There is, for Spinoza, a clear difference between the self that analyses perception in search for an adequate idea, and the self which perceives, perhaps in the process of explaining the adequate idea.
Interestingly MP notes that Rationalism (intellectualism) also chooses to characterise our relation to the world in terms of Sensation thus blocking the path to a phenomenological analysis of Perception. He also seems to suggest that abandoning this notion of Sensation is necessary if one is in search of a new type of reflection and a more sustainable Psychological view of Man. Gestalt Psychology having been praised for its philosophical assertion “The whole is greater than the sum of the parts” is then questionably criticised for being the hostage of Scientific concepts such as Reason and Cause when it is engaged upon the task of describing and explaining phenomena that are meaningful and motivated.
MP then refers to the Gestalt commitment to Naturalism and this at least sounds justified when one remembers the role the Gestalt psychologists thought the brain played in Perception and Thought. MP is certainly justified in his claim that there is no space for the category of motivation in the naturalistic tendency to describe and explain the role of the brain in our relations with the World and Others. One phenomenon does not “cause” another in the same way in which one neurone causes another to fire. Phenomena are, rather linked by the meaning they have in relation to one another, a meaning that dwells in them in the way in which “operative reason” dwells in the phenomena of Perception. It is this notion of “operative reason” that MP mysteriously appeals to when he finds himself in contexts of explanation/justification.
MP is at his best when he is describing simple perceptual phenomena such as that of a wooden wheel bearing a load or a flame that has burned a child’s fingers. Here, he claims, we have phenomena that are “invested with value”(P. 61). Vital meanings are here expressed. Sensations, MP argues might be able to transmit qualities in sensory experience but they cannot transmit these vital meanings or values. His conclusion here is however questionable. He refers in this context to jettisoning Kant’s work on the categories of judgment that he insists is the connective tissue for phenomena in the Kantian account. This connective tissue, he argues, does not suffice to distinguish phenomena of perception. This is not a correct characterisation of the Kantian position, especially in the light of our earlier characterisation of Kant as a hylomorphic philosopher. If this latter claim is correct then Aristotle’s theory of the emotions (defined by the pleasure-pain principle and related to the imagination) would provide Kant with an account that does not involve the faculty of the understanding(where the categories of judgment are located) but rather involves the faculty of Sensibility. Truth, for Kant is not located at the level of Sensibility but the concept of Aletheia may be. It should also be pointed out that besides these two primary faculties there is a third, that of Reason, which also assists us in the formation of Transcendental and Metaphysical Judgments. It is at this abstract level that we encounter higher level Principles such as the Principle of Sufficient Reason and the Principle of Non-contradiction. Both of these Principles place limits on what can be said at all levels of description and explanation.
MP claims that it has long been an article of faith insofar as both Science and Philosophy is concerned that Perception somehow puts us in touch with the world and relates us somehow to the Truth about the world. MP prefers to avoid where he can such abstract notions and prefers to speak in terms of phenomenal fields. The role of consciousness in this process is quasi-teleological and quasi-archeological: Every instant of the phenomenal field, he claims, is coordinated with future and previous instants as well as Other consciousnesses. He returns to his criticism of Science and insists that scientific concepts relating to theoretical states of bodies, equal and opposite forces, chemical properties of bodies, and geometrical space are based on materialistic and formal presuppositions which seek a Being that only the scientific methods of resolution-composition, observation, and experimentation can reveal. On such accounts consciousness is a mere suburb of a more extensive empire. In these accounts the transcendental use of the body are lost in the translation of Being into substantial Being. Expression was resolved into a system of causal relations. Both the values in the world and the Being-in-the world of expressive beings were resolved and recomposed of parts cleansed of all trace of consciousness and agency: parts which functioned like the parts of a machine. First person processes were replaced by third person observations and reports and the activity of experimentation. Both emotional and practical attitudes were subsumed by psycho-physiological mechanisms. In the context of this discussion MP, in spite of his arguments against the Sartrean position discussed earlier in this volume uses the Sartrean ideas of en soi (Being-in-itself) and pour soi (Being-for-itself) to accuse the Scientists of locating the realm of their investigations solely in the realm of Being-in-itself. In this discussion he also accuses the scientist of a form of dualism when they separate the form of their thought from the content of their thinking. This is problematic, MP argues because the empirical concrete self is a mixture of en soi and por soi. He also predicts that the unholy scientific alliance of naturalism and spiritualism is on the verge of collapsing as a form of Philosophy. In this cauldron of resulting chaos both the physical object and the spiritual rational self are disappearing:
“ Nature is not in itself geometrical, and it appears so only to a careful observer who contents himself with macrocosmic data. Human society is not a community of reasonable minds, and only in fortunate countries where a biological and economic balance has locally and temporarily been struck has such a conception of it been possible. The experience of chaos both on the speculative ad the other level, prompts us to see rationalism in a historical perspective which it sets itself on principle to avoid, to seek a philosophy which explains the upsurge of reason in a world not of its making and prepare the substructure of living experience without which reason and liberty are emptied of their content and wither away.”(P. 65)
The above quote is interesting insofar as its historical perspective is concerned. Both the good Berkeley and Kant pointed out the reasons why nature could not be conceived of as essentially geometrical and Kant further pointed out that practical rationality in the realm of ethical action is best characterised in terms of a context of explanation/justification in which the reasoning precedes from universal ought premises (promises ought to be kept) to a particular ought-conclusion (Jack ought to keep his promise to Jill and pay the money back he owes her). This is perfectly consistent, Kant argues with the “possibility” of no one in a society being rational and keeping promises. Explanation in a theoretical context of explanation/justification might conceivably concern itself with whether or not we can call ourselves, or our societies rational. After an initial process of exploration we might discover, come to the conclusion that neither we nor our societies are in-themselves rational but are rather created in the spirit of rationality (with the hope that they can become rational—realize their potentiality). All this for-the-sake of leading a rational life in the future. Ethical reasoning on this account is not irrational—it is not irrational in these circumstances to claim that both we, and our societies ought to be rational. Such an investigation might also confirm that it is true that we are animals capable of discourse who as a matter of fact engage in discourse in the agora occasionally demonstrating the power of rationality. The story about Socrates’s exploits in the agora and his subsequent fate is of course a story about the fate of rationality in a society not exactly in chaos but certainly an object of concern in the light of the oracular prophecy that “everything created by man is destined to ruin and destruction”. Plato’s concern with just this state of affairs resulted in him writing “The Republic” in which rationality in the form of Philosophers is installed in a government brought about by 3 very theoretical, fanciful waves of change. Aristotle, who acknowledged the animal in us, was not so optimistic and felt that the laws of the city would have to be the vehicle of our rationality. Kant, we should also recall, in the spirit of Aristotle, admitted that man as a matter of fact is not rational but he also clearly, in hylomorphic spirit, claimed that we have considerable potential for rationality if the actualisation of various powers of the mind occur. He also bravely predicted a time scale for this event to occur for our societies, ca one hundred thousand years in the future.
MP’s response to the fact that we are not rational was to appeal to a phenomenal field, an “operative reason”, and a conscious body using Perception to reveal a relation to Being. This disclosure of Being, however, is not a self evident result of the phenomenological method since perception dialectically hides its teleology. In the scientific context of exploration Consciousness becomes a psychic fact amongst many others and the phenomenological nature of perception is overlooked in favour of the objects in the world that perception “discovers” when sensations fortuitously come together and form an object. The transcendental framework that MP proposes of “Self-Others-World” ought in his view, to replace the above scientific “objective framework”. The Self, in this framework is a transcendental self—a transcendental ego which:
“is not a Being but a Unity or a Value.”(P.71)
The body is a mixed psycho-physical system for MP and physiology is the discipline we look to for an account its physical nature. Some physiologists, MP argues, have begun to see that there is a complex relation between the physical and the psychological. In the case of certain kinds of physical insults to certain parts of the brain responsible for colour vision we do not see as a consequence any disappearance of “content”: we see rather a disappearance of “form”. This is reminiscent of Aristotle who reminded us that it was the essence, or form or principle of the eye to see—he knew a major insult to the eye would remove the principle of seeing thus confirming the importance of the matter the body is composed of. Similarly, MP points out that in the case of injuries to the certain parts of the brain and sensory conductors what we “discover” is not a disappearance of one colour as in some forms of colour blindness: what occurs is rather a loss of differentiation in the perception of all colours. First it is the level of saturation of all colours that is effected and the intensity of the colour is diminished. Thereafter the colour-spectrum is reduced to four colours and finally a monochrome grey is all that can be seen. These psycho-physical phenomena do not operate with reference to single sensations but rather to a patterning of these sensations. Here, MP claims, no causality is operating in relation to sensations. Spinoza would describe this patterning activity in terms of the body attempting to sustain itself in existence. In MP’s account however, we have no scientific relation of the in-itself with the for-itself but rather a for-itself that constitutes a meaning or value for the physiological organism. Or better, the perspective of Being-in-the-world is what is needed to explain psycho-physical phenomena such as a reduction in the perception of colour caused by brain injury. This latter, would be the preferred platform of explanation because both the physiological and psychological phenomena are neither in-itself nor for-itself but rather phenomena that are intentionally assimilated in our Being and directed towards the world of facts, values and other persons. In this Being my body is “knowingly” but non observationally inserted into the world in a way that imposes upon me a view of the world which in turn may allow me to factually see the Church from my window.
One advantage of the above account is that it reserves the integrity of the ontological distinctions related to persons that we find in Kant’s “Anthropology from a pragmatic point of view”: a dualistic ontology namely of what it is I bring about with the use of my body and what it is that happens to my body. As an infant with limited use of my body it is probably true to claim that the world largely happens to me. As the infant’s powers increase, however, it becomes truer to say that the body is being put to uses that in turn bring about the happening of events in the world. Of course, on a Kantian account both Understanding and Reason are involved in this latter form of transaction with the world. My purely sensational transactions with the world, on the other hand, must stand on the side of passive transaction. Sensations are what happens to the body—e.g. the pain at being burned by the live flame of a candle. Explorative perception appears, on the contrary, to be that something that someone is doing, namely using their body to explore their Umwelt or environment. Sensations, as far as Science is concerned, is obviously in some way used in explorative processes. They are used as signs of something. In such use the sensation of pain, for example, in Spinoza´s language, expresses or asserts the sensation of pain and in the case of the burned fingers in the flame the sensation rapidly becomes a part of a sensory-motor complex in which a reflexive withdrawing of the hand rapidly occurs. The question that a Kantian would ask in this context is the following: Is “withdrawing the hand” something that one does or something that happens to one. For a Kantian this is probably something that one does.
MP’s account would probably side with the Kantian but for different reasons that have to do with his idea of the spatiality of the body-image that according to MP is a matter of an existential non observational form of awareness of the body. Body image is not in this context to be construed in terms of the association of sensations or images. Rather the parts of the body are determined by a whole that encompasses the transcendental purpose of the body. There is, MP would argue, a sensory-motor unity of the body that would explain the intentional withdrawing of the hand in pain from the candle flame.
Cosmopolitanism, Multi-Nationalism, Prohibitionism, Judgement and phronesis.
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One of the distinguishing characteristics of the forms of human co-existence in large groups , (e.g. state of nature, civilisation, and culture), is the relation of these forms to Philosophy, History and Law, and their associated institutions of the State, e.g. University and legal institutions. In a state of nature Hobbes claimed that men are essentially equal in that the strong man is still vulnerable to the violence of groups of weak men or even the cunning of a weaker man. For Hobbes and his followers some kind of contract is needed to exchange ones natural freedom for the security of a civilisation. The idea of the transactional relation of the contract between negotiating parties might not actually be the best way of characterising the role of Philosophy, History and Law in the civilising process. The ancient Greeks perhaps best manifested the important role of epistemé and the knowledge of the form of the Good in the transitional phase of community life from the phase of Civilisation to the phase of Culture, a transition in which the matrix of concepts of psuche, areté, diké, arché, eudaimonia and phronesis play important roles in the establishment of the principles of freedom, equality and human rights(all important elements in the provision of security for the citizens of a polis or a state).
Hobbes focussed on the contract perhaps because his goals for humanity were the material goals of security and “commodious living”. Locke too was concerned with property and ownership, and the protection of property was Locke’s motivation for the social contract. He, in contrast to Hobbes, believed that life in a state of nature was not solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short, but rather a peaceful form of coexistence. It was probably only with the Enlightenment and Kant that the returning theme of the importance of the universal intellectual “property” of ideas, made the notion of the social contract otiose. We know Hume claimed that no such contract had ever existed. With Kant, the issue of individual human rights is indirectly posed against the background of a universally embraced categorical imperative. The transition between a utilitarian civilisation and a self sufficient culture meeting both the concrete and abstract needs(e.g. knowledge, justice, etc) of man is, for Kant, assured as a task or telos of the humanistic project. The concrete physiological and safety needs(Maslow), are, of course, important maintenance needs and are necessary conditions for the life of man, but they are not self-sufficient for the being who thinks holistically about a form of existence which he wishes to be a good-spirited flourishing life(eudaimonia), and who is prone to questioning the value of his own being(Heidegger: man is a being form whom his very being is in question). In Cultures the concern for justice is integrated with the ideas of freedom, responsibility and equality. In such a social form we find a combined concern which is continuous with the concerns of the ancient Greeks embedded in the matrix of psuche, arché, epistemé, diké, areté, and eudaimonia.
Kant argued that man as an individual is not rational, but that rationality will actualise itself in the species as long as there is a continual commitment to the moral life and its imperatives and principles. For Hobbes, the issue of the power of the government overrides all concerns for the idea of the cultural man who argues that “the government is representing the people”, meaning that there is a sense in which the government is the people expressed best in the formula “by the people and for the people”. For Hobbes reason is an activity that is merely in the service of exercising power for his narrowly defined ends of humanity.Power for the cultural man is not associated with the sword, as it was for Hobbes, but associated rather with the pen and the book, the law and the gavel, i.e. the powers of language and argumentation and its various forms. These forms may be one of the most important gifts that we have inherited from the Golden Age of ancient Greece, e.g. eristic, elenchus, enthymemes, dialectic. With the exception of eristic which turned argumentation into a competition, the remaining forms aimed primarily at arriving at rational conclusions from supporting premises: conclusions which aimed at the True and the Good depending upon whether the issue was theoretical or practical. With modern forms of “argumentation” which aimed at the rejection of the rational in favour of observation by the senses and free play of the imagination, reasoning fell into disfavour and even became an object of humiliation and indignation if the reasoning was attempting to categorically say that something was true or claim that something was categorically good. This modernism of course risked the whole project of epistemé or knowledge which was designated as “abstract”, in favour of the experience of the concrete by means of the senses.
“Prohibitionism” is a modern movement that further risked the humanistic project by concentrating on defending the differences between cultures rather than asking about the totality of conditions necessary for a culture to be a culture(Ask of everything what it is in its nature). The characterisation of different cultures was presented in the form of an “album of sketches” rather than the concern of the rational philosopher for “perspicuous representation” of the phenomena under consideration. Aristotelian Hylomorphic and Kantian Critical Philosophy was as a consequence marginalised and the humanistic project as a consequence is currently stalled in its tracks.
In a discussion about international mindedness at a Teachers conference some years ago, it was suggested that the humanistic project had to be begun again, not of course from scratch, but by using the Greek rhetorical techniques of elenchus, dialectic and enthymemes, in order to criticise the modern tendency to “reduce” cultures to their differences. There is, of course, a difference between the wines , the foods , the languages and the climates of different countries, and these should be described and appreciated and add to the richness of our experience. Such differences can be described in the form of an “album of sketches” but this “album” is best presented in social contexts when we are at leisure and socialising together. This type of conversation has no need of elenchus, dialectic, or rhetorical techniques, because the imagination is the primary cognitive faculty that is being mobilised and there is no need for anything more than “showing” the phenomena being discussed.
Should, however, the discussion at the dinner table turn to more serious matters, such as the role of women in different societies, the album of sketches approach describing the phenomena of interest will not suffice for the furtherance of the humanistic project which requires elenchus, dialectic, and the logical principles of noncontradiction and sufficient reason if prejudices are to be removed from the minds of the dinner guests, and the justice of the cause manifested. It is, of course, a fact that in some societies women are ordered by the government to dress in particular ways, behave in particular ways, and they are also prohibited from behaving in particular ways(e.g. driving cars, demonstrating and voicing their opinion). This form of prohibitionism has ridden on the modern wave of anti-rationalism into the pole position of debate on such issues, and there is even in our culture a prohibition relating to insisting on the value of our freedom, equality, and responsibility which extends all the way to the government which sometimes even prohibits itself from voicing what is important in our culture( on the grounds of non-interference in the lives of its citizens).
There is an argument on the grounds of freedom for the government to take such a position, but it does risk slowing down the rate of progress of the humanistic project and its commitment to equality and justice. In the current modern climate in which everyone appears to be able to be offended by anything, a modification of the Greek strategies was suggested. If someone insisted or acted as if it was not permissible to criticise other cultures, the humanist strategy should consist in, at the very least, attempting to “show” without directly saying, that women, to take one example, should have the freedom to dress, drive cars, speak, be educated, and form relationships of various kinds openly. This can be done by an interrogative technique that questions ones assumptions and the consequences of these assumptions. Such a technique requires epistemé: knowledge of the relation of assumptions and their consequences. The questions have, of course, to be diplomatically formulated, and also leave conclusions about such assumptions, as it were hanging in the air, waiting for their obvious answer(Of course equality requires that women dress as they please, drive if they wish to, express themselves freely, go to school and university and form different kinds of relations with whomever they please(within moral boundaries)).
Prohibitionism as embodied in government action when it, for example prohibited the sale of alcohol in the 1930’s in the US infringed upon obvious rights of privacy that individuals have in virtue of being, as the constitution claims “endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights”. What these rights are, of course, is not as self evidently true as the constitution proclaims. This passage, for example, has been appealed to in relation to the right to bear arms that are capable of widespread destruction. Yet imagine the chaos if the government of the 1930’s, in order to avoid criticism of its policies, enforced a ban on freedom of speech. The prohibition of alcohol was born from the union of lack of knowledge about the real properties of alcohol, and its excessive consumption, and the moral indignation of religious figures who conducted debate in an atmosphere of (imagined)humiliation rather than an atmosphere of (informed)good will. This pattern of imagined humiliation and moral indignation is still in use today by terrorists and governments inspired by the same perverted logic. For us moderns it is not as obvious as it was for the ancient Greeks that the good spirited flourishing life was a difficult thing to achieve and required constant vigilance and questioning using reliable methods. Life for them was constantly subjected to a tribunal of reason where evidence was weighed in the light of the demands of the law and judgements pronounced without “fear or favour”. Discourse in the modern polis is not as free nor as responsible and enlightened as it was during these times. After the Golden Age of Greece came the dark ages steered by the spirit of humiliation and dogma of religious institutions. The Renaissance and the Enlightenment initiated a rebirth of critical inquiry which lasted as long as Hegel only to be cast us back into a second dark ages which we are currently enduring under the heading of “modernism” and “post-modernism”. The major shift responsible for this second dark age resides in the rejection of reason in favour of the imagination and the replacement of courage by fear.
Areté(doing the right thing in the right way at the right time) has no ethical meaning today and is viewed descriptively in terms of the concrete connection of consequences with one another . A position that fails to appeal to principle(arché) or law. Principle and law is rejected on the grounds of unnecessary abstraction, because the “concrete” is more tangible and less open to “interpretation”.
Judges do not quibble about the law unless it is an unjust law and are interested in the concrete only to the extent that it proves that someone did something “wrong”— a term which has a clear an unequivocal meaning for them. We expect our politicians to display the same conviction and knowledge of principles and the law, but unfortunately our expectations are constantly unfulfilled. Indeed a politicians life appears to be filled with both “fear and favour” and they are as likely as not these days to have a criminal record or to commit crimes and misdemeanors whilst in office. The ancient view of the phronimos, that great-souled political man possessed of all the “virtues”, is a thing of the past. The imagination has “pictured” this state of affairs in terms of “the absence of political heavyweights”
The “fear” of invoking a moral/political principle at a dinner-party was not shared by the Greeks. The “Symposium” is an account of the kind of conversation that could occur during the “recreation” time of Socrates. Every guest at the symposium dinner table was required to speak on the topic of whether “Eros” is a god or not, and everyone is aware of a possible critical response, but engages in the process without “fear or favour”, even if there is a Socrates present among the guests. It is difficult to imagine in this context the taking of offence because of something one said at this feast, but the virtue-system of that time also encouraged a form of self control that perhaps is not thought of as a virtue today,( but rather as something that has been “buttoned up”). There is no balancing of the virtues of courage and self control in the books of everyday modern life. Homeostasis is achieved at the dinner table by favouring differences and fearing the True and the Good.
What occurs at the dinner table has become the model for education which also fears defending the True and the Good and favours relativism and the religion of “differences”. It may be true that “we are all different individuals”(in some sense) and it may also be true that Cultures too “are all different”(in some sense), but Greek and Enlightenment questions remain hanging in the air, for example, the question of “Ask of everything what it is in its nature”. The need to answer this question in particular was of singular importance for the Greeks and Kant and their followers, but if someone raised this question at a modern dinner table or in a modern classroom it would be met with boredom and indifference at best and with hostility at worst.
Science and Art, are an important part of “Culture” insofar as they aim at the True and the Good, but to the extent that they also embody a sceptical attitude toward these defining and constitutive goals they serve the purposes of the modernist project well, especially if they focus on the use of the imagination and our sensory experiences(observation) of the world rather than our conceptual understanding and the principles and ideas of reason(noncontradiction, sufficient reason, epistemé, areté, freedom, equality ). Freud speaks of these as deflections and claims that they have failed to fulfil the promise of happiness that man expected from them. This is partly why Freud refuses to make the Kantian distinction between Civilisation and Culture and speaks of the discontentment that lies behind his question relating to whether all the effort we put into civilisation is worth the energy. We know from the terrible 20th century( Arendt) that science can be used for evil purposes (dropping atomic bombs on civilian populations, nazi experiments with children) and we also know from this century that modern art no longer saw any point in contributing to the progress of the humanistic project(e.g. by using the imagination to present and reveal what is true and what is good). The strategy of the “new men”(Arendt) for whom everything was possible in a context when the masses thought nothing was possible any longer, was the ancient Sophist technique of making the worse argument seem the better(denying the value of Truth and Justice).This technique lies behind prohibitionism and the general inversion of our belief in epistemé and areté, at the dinner table, in politics, the sciences and the arts. Techné is in the process of replacing epistemé, partly by the use of AI which is replacing our epistemé in relation to psuche(life, soul) with hidden algorithms and SEO formulas. We are now speaking to AI devices in our home and communicating with AI devices over the internet. Turing predicted that one day we would not be able to tell whether we are communicating with an AI device or a human and that day may be here or at least coming soon. The prohibition of souls talking across cultural boundaries about cultural conflicts has been one stage on the way to this end. Such a state of affairs indeed deserves the historical designation of “Technical Revolution” which in some sense is a chid of the “Industrial Revolution”. These are revolutions which the Historians need to evaluate in terms of overall global benefits and burdens. Freud with his eagle eye vision of what was to come, spoke of “Civilisation and its Discontents”. This might be an appropriate term to use for the Modern Age beginning with the Industrial Revolution, namely, the “Age of Discontentment”.
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