Michael R D James

April 26, 2023April 26, 2023

Review of Merleau Ponty’s “Phenomeology of Perception”. Part 1

Hurricane Gonzalo in the Atlantic Ocean by NASA Goddard Photo and Video is licensed under CC-BY 2.0

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.

April 9, 2023April 9, 2023

Cosmopolitanism, Multi-Nationalism, Prohibitionism, Judgement and phronesis.

brown wooden gavel on brown wooden table — Photo by EKATERINA BOLOVTSOVA on Pexels.com

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”.

March 12, 2023March 12, 2023

Machine learning vs human learning according to chatbot gpt

code projected over woman — Photo by ThisIsEngineering on Pexels.com

I asked chatbot gpt the following question and received the following excellent reply:

Human learning and machine learning differ in several ways, including the way they acquire and process information, their ability to generalize, and their flexibility in adapting to new situations. Here are some of the main differences:

Acquisition of information: Humans acquire information through experience, observation, and communication, while machines acquire information through data and algorithms. Humans can learn from a wide variety of sources, including personal experience, language, and culture, while machines are limited to the data they are given.
Processing of information: Humans have a highly developed cognitive system that allows them to process information in a complex and nuanced way. Humans can reason, infer, and apply their knowledge to new situations. Machines, on the other hand, process information in a more rigid and structured way, relying on pre-defined algorithms to make decisions.
Generalization: Humans can generalize from their past experiences and apply their knowledge to new situations, even if they have never encountered them before. Machines, however, are limited to the data they have been trained on and may struggle to generalize to new situations.
Adaptability: Humans are highly adaptable and can quickly adjust their behavior to changing circumstances. Machines, however, are often limited to the specific task they have been trained for and may struggle to adapt to new situations.
Creativity: Humans are capable of creativity and can generate novel ideas and solutions to problems. Machines, on the other hand, are limited to the algorithms and data they have been given and may struggle to come up with truly innovative solutions.

In summary, while human learning and machine learning share some similarities, such as the ability to acquire knowledge and improve over time, they differ in the way they acquire and process information, their ability to generalize and adapt, and their capacity for creativity.”

All the initial ridiculous claims for the equality/superiority of artificial intelligence over human intelligence have now disappeared into a pool of nothingness. The key question this answer raises(especially in reference to the human ability to generalise) whether the bot can think conceptually. So I asked whether it could and received the following message:

“An error occurred. If this issue persists please contact us through our help center at help.openai.com.”

I expected the answer “I cannot think, I am merely a programme located on several different servers”. Conceptualising if it is thinking about something in the external world involves seeing something as something. So I asked whether the bot can see and received the following answer:

“As an AI language model, I don’t have physical eyes or visual perception like humans do. I exist purely as a program running on computer servers. However, I can “understand” text-based inputs and generate text-based outputs, so in that sense, I can “see” text.”

This might be one of the reasons why it cannot generalise and use generalisations creatively in the way we do. Note the metaphorical use of “see” but does it understand what it is saying here, i.e. does it understand that it is speaking metaphorically.

Seeing something to be like something is a power we possess and use in metaphorical thinking and speech and it appears as if this is another power the bot does not possess. I asked whether the bot can think metaphorically and received the following response:

“As an AI language model, I can recognize and understand metaphors based on patterns and associations within the language data that I have been trained on. I can even generate metaphors on my own based on the patterns and associations I have learned. However, it is important to note that my understanding of metaphors is based purely on linguistic patterns and associations, rather than any underlying emotional or experiential understanding of what the metaphor represents.”

“Understanding” and recognising metaphors are two different powers. The former requires as a condition the understanding of what the metaphor represents which it claims it cannot do. Julian Jaynes claims that metaphor is a key function of language, indeed he believes it is constitutive of both language and consciousness: both of which have key connections to experience. It has, for example no experience of the “I” it is talking about but is “trained” to refer to itself in terms of the “I” and responds to questions which refer to it as “You” There are clearly limits as to whether some of what the bot says can be meant truthfully. Kant claimed that concepts without intuitions are blind and that they are generalisations which fall into the categories of judgement/understanding. If a bot can not experience anything because it does not possess a sensory system then there are two reasons why it cannot “think” conceptually. It can indeed operate in accordance with patterns and associations which the programmer “represents” in binary code but if conceptualisation is the most important root of knowledge this raises the question whether the bot is being truthful when it claims it “knows” things. Belief must be rooted in experience: an experience organised by a priori intuitions of space and time which are essential features of the “patterns and associations” the bot is referring to. Space and time are essential constituents of the conceptual category of causation and this suggests that the bot must also have difficulty understanding causation. Indeed we can imagine it like Hume would say “I see no causation” “only a pattern of one event following another and associated in some way.” The category of causation is a principle and knowledge is composed of principles such as the knowledge of the principles of noncontradiction and sufficient reason that determine our power of reasoning. The chatbox is certainly in a sense “capable of discourse” but the question to raise is whether the fact that it cannot see, or see something as something, or understand categories and principles, entails that it cannot be the “rational artefact” everyone believes AI machines to be. We re clearly dealing with some kind of system but we need to ask more urgently “What kind of system?”

If I ask the bot this question I get another error message. Here we have reached the limits of its “understanding”. Clearly the “productive” reasoning of the programmer cannot capture the categorical and principle based knowledge humans possess.

March 11, 2023March 12, 2023

Chatbot GBT: Benefit or Burden

The chatbot GPT has been reviewed as both a threat to the independence of student-learning and as a significant advance in the development of the communication of knowledge on the internet. I was puzzled by a report in the media that someone claimed that he owed his medical degree to the existence of this AI form. I have no medical training but I do have a philosophical training and decided to test the chatGPT’ knowledge of philosophical matters by asking it some difficult questions such as Is Freud a hylomorphic theorist? , is Kant a Hylomorphic Philosopher?. What is Consciousness? What is areté. psuché, diké eudaimonia, logos, etc. The responses were surprisingly good and the quality went far beyond what one can find on Wikipedia or indeed in standard Encyclopedias. In some cases it surpassed the kind of response one can get from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. My experiment is ongoing but I am pleasantly surprised with the results thus far and am continuing the experiment with the newly formed hypothesis that this form of AI could be a significant aid in higher education if used in the way one would use encyclopedias(not to plagiarise the content but to learn from the content) This of course places a great responsibility on Universities and Schools to develop tools to ensure that plagiarism does not occur. The shifting of responsibility for detecting plagiarism onto the lecturer/ teacher is a possible solution but would mean a huge burden on their time which in turn demands a rethinking of the role of the teacher/lecturer. Such a shift can only occur if there is some means of checking whether the content has come directly from the chatbot without significant alteration(showing evidence of the students/pupils learning process). The problem with developing such a tool would seem to lie in the ability to formulate a set of questions which would exhaust the possible responses to the topic or question at issue. My view on the question as to whether one could use such a tool (chatgpt) to illegitimately obtain a Philosophical degree one does not deserve is that the student will not have access to the tool in examinations and as long as there is a balance between examination and essay assessment there ought not to be a problem. Given the doctoral requirements that a doctoral thesis must advance the boundaries of currently existing knowledge of the area investigated I am not worried about doctoral theses appearing which have been written by Chatgpt.

A PS relating to my ongoing experiment. I asked the Chat bot why I should believe the responses given that these responses are that of a machine. The chatbot accurately referred to developers of the algorithms and data and claimed also to be “trained”. I asked whether the chatbot considered the responses to be its own and once again the chatbot referred to developers and trainers. When I asked whether robots can be trained an error message appeared asking me to contact the help-line. The programmers of the bot have a problem here because if the bot is artificially intelligent it ought minimally be capable of learning(a condition of understanding) and not just “learning” in a metaphorical sense. Learning is defined as the facilitation of human psychological powers so that a type of behaviour is present that was not present before. Persons own these powers which are organismically and not mechanically based. I then asked if the chatbot understands its own responses and it claimed that is is capable of understanding via processing of data and input There is a famous thought experiment by the philosopher John Searle that proves that a computer is not capable of understanding. Perhaps the term “artificial intelligence” was too hastily adopted and we ought to be looking for some other terms to accurately describe this interesting phenomenon that we have created–terms that contain no anthropomorphic connotations. #students #learning #ai #training #development #communication #quality #content #media #highereducation #schools #medical #teacher #universities #chatgpt #plagiarism #philosophy #learning #understanding

March 5, 2023March 7, 2023

Chomsky and universal grammar

youtu.be/PxvSQnmcYLo

December 11, 2022December 11, 2022

Jordan Peterson and Philosophy:Review of a Youtube Interview.

Peterson is a thoughtful Psychologist using a popular platform to make people think deeply and this is undoubtedly a good thing. He believes that the virtualisation of society occurring via social media is pathological, and there is much truth to this claim. He believes that tyranny is the major political problem of our times and like Socrates he is out everyday in the agora spreading his message to some effect. Meaning and Responsibility are the categories he uses to analyse complex social and political phenomena. He uses these categories broadly so that it includes references to Empirical research, Freud, Christianity, Sociology, Popular Psychology, and T S Eliot. Seemingly controversial issues such as, there are more important issues for humanity than climate change and the “close the society”-practice during the Covid pandemic, are discussed by contrasting these “visions” with pragmatic alternatives such as why not feed starving children instead and the “keep the society open” policy implemented by Sweden(lowest death rates in the EU).

He claims that we must go back to the origins of society to understand its structure and function, but his example is surprisingly, Jerusalem, which he claims is the model for our Western Societies. There is some truth to this claim but it is not the whole truth. JP holds up the crucifixion of Jesus as a key moment of our Western ethos and claims that it highlighted the issue of sacrificing oneself for an issue, for the truth. There is in fact another figure who did the same thing in order to mark the importance of justice, knowledge and Philosophy for humanity, namely Socrates, and Socrates was convicted of attempting to sell the false-god of Philosophy to a people who believed that a belief in the gods was important to keep the society together(religio). Jesus was a later figure who believed that a different religion to the prevailing religions was necessary to save a people still wondering in the wilderness trying to find a promised land. Even though we hear his disciples claiming that “the truth will set people free”, there is no attempt by Jesus to theorise about how to rule a society that was clearly in need of remedial measures insofar as both justice and freedom were concerned. There is no attempt to define the role of knowledge(epistemé) in the development of society and there is no acknowledgment of the extent to which the Greek “philosophical spirit” still to this day bears the burden of the most fundamental cultural achievements of the West. Instead of focussing religiously on one individuals selfless sacrifice, those scholars concerned with all the issues JP is concerned with, focus upon a philosophical method constructed by a large number of generations of Philosophers beginning with the triumvirate of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, continuing with Kant and the Philosophy of the Later Wittgenstein and all the academic followers of these figures. This tradition preserves a role for Christianity as long as it is stripped of the dogma of the institutional church that has alienated so many people over such a long time. This tradition also places great emphasis upon the roles of principles and laws against an ethical background or “ethos”, as JP calls it, of areté(doing the right thing at the right time in the right way–virtue) and diké(justice) Emphasis is also placed, by the Greeks, upon the historical background of a rejection of tyranny, and the oscillation of civil war between the oligarchs and the democrats(who for Plato were the disgruntled sons of oligarchs). Plato, as we know, attempted to solve the problem of oligarchs and democrats abusing their power by suggesting a ruler class of Philosophers who were not allowed access to money nor allowed to have family. Such a class would rule in accordance with a philosophical knowledge of the principles of “The Good”. Aristotle rejected this idea of the rule of philosophers on the grounds of his principle of the golden mean, which would eventually ensure that an enlightened middle class would rule future societies(a logic which is playing itself out on the world stage, if one views this matter in the long term). References by JP, to Marx, totally ignore the possible Greek criticism of any simplistic criticism of the Marxist position. JP appears not to understand that the ethical principle–“to each according to their needs and from each according to their abilities” could also be a position attributable to the Socratic principle of specialisation needed to construct the “healthy city”. That we all now live in unhealthy fevered cities” would have come as no surprise to Socrates, Plato or Aristotle, and each would have given their differently nuanced explanations for the current condition of our civilisation. The appeal to “will to power” and Sociology that JP uses is from a philosophical point of view, simplistic. Of course the Nietzschean term “will to power” is psychologically appealing, but Freudian terminology and its complex appeal to the life and death instincts better explains the complexity of the human role in this debacle we call “civilisation”.

We are reminded of what was constantly on the minds of the Greeks, namely the oracular pronouncement that “Everything created by man is destined for ruin and destruction”. The Greek solution to this fundamental challenge from the oracles point of view could only come if we met the challenge thrown down like a gauntlet, from the Delphic oracle, to “Know thyself!” For Aristotle, we could only avoid the ruin and destruction of our cities by living a contemplative life that values knowledge, the good , the just, and Art. The theoretical account of knowledge passed down to us from Aristotle is much broader and deeper than the sources to which JP appeals to justify his more controversial and insightful positions.

JP polarises the philosophical debate by seeing his “middle position” between the radical leftists and the extreme right and this too is somewhat superficial since the middle ground between these extremes contains so many possibilities, all of which could be covered by the slogan “meaning and responsibility”. He ventures into the “middle ground” of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle when he talks about the real enemies of Islam being the atheists, and reductionist materialists, but he does not offer a coherent argument against such positions(of the kind we find in the works of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Freud, and Wittgenstein). At the end of the interview we are given an anecdotal reference to a world run by machines and AI which would be a worse form of tyranny than any bureaucratically run society. Anecdotes, however, are not arguments (which must embody both principles(arché) and epistemé(knowledge-claims)).

In many of his arguments JP is insightful and he uses the Socratic method of elenchus to illustrate the power of argument over opinion, but what he does not realise is that argumentation is a philosophical tool that is itself in need of justification byreference to principles (rather than psychological explanation–even if the latter may be one component of the justification). He does, however, argue effectively using the method of comparison for very insightful positions such as arguing against the current extreme focus on climate change which in itself is being run by opinion(insofar as the proposed solutions are concerned–there is no doubt that the science of the matter is accurate). This position is perhaps not taking into account the magnitude of other problems we have such as indoor pollution and child starvation.

His remarks on Elon Musk and Twitter, use the strategy of “well things could be much worse and at least my account has been restored”, are confusing. He presents a puzzling position. In such a context his silence on the matter of the restoration of the account of the second most dangerous tyrant on this planet(Trump) is also truly remarkable. Below is a response to a question on Trump in another interview which would have left all of the Philosophers mentioned above aghast:

https://www.google.com/search?q=Jordan+peterson+on+Trump&oq=Jordan+peterson+on+Trump&aqs=chrome..69i57.8552j1j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:0351075f,vid:J_K_nWYpXTI

Many psychiatrists(on the grounds of academic psychology) have diagnosed Trump as narcissistic and extremely manipulative, and as suffering from narcissistic personality disorder. Some have gone further and classified his behaviour as Psychopathic. Such omissions and refusals on the part of JP to address what is so obvious to so many, speaks volumes and testifies to a blindness for tyranny which is alarming. This is an error of judgement which requires that we classify individual cases correctly insofar as classificatory categories are concerned.

Otherwise his position on feminism and the excesses of some of its more extreme forms would appear defendable, but perhaps not exactly on the grounds he would appeal to. His concern for the mental health of the young ought also to awaken us from our self satisfied acceptance of the status of chaos that currently characterises the condition of our civilisation. In this kind of concern JP resembles Diogenes more than Socrates. He is shining a lantern in our faces and asking if we are honest men and this is always controversial–and useful.

December 5, 2022December 5, 2022

Mathematical Investigations: Kant and Wittgenstein

woman holding books — Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

Kant reflects upon Mathematical Judgements in his work entitled “Prolegomona:

“Judgements of experience are always synthetic…..Mathematical judgements are all synthetic….It might at first be thought that the proposition 7+5=12 is a mere analytic judgment, following from the concept of the sum of seven and five, according to the principle of contradiction. But on closer examination it appears that the concept of 7+5 contains merely their union in a single number, without its at all being thought what the particular number is that unites them…..We must go beyond these concepts by calling to our aid some intuition corresponding to one of them, i.e. either our five fingers or five points: and we must add successively the units of the five given in the intuition to the concept of seven. Hence our concept is really amplified by the proposition 7+5=12 and we add to the first concept a second one not thought in it.”(267-268)

It is not absolutely clear in the above reflection how Kant is conceiving of the intuition that we need to use in the activity of counting or adding five units to an existing seven. What is clear, however, is that there is an experience of counting which follows the rule “n+1”, five times, before the process comes to an end. Kant also claims that the mathematical proposition 7+5=12 is a synthetic a priori proposition because it is what it is in virtue of a necessity that is not merely true but justifiably true in a way that is independent of experience. The Prolegomena further differentiates a priori cognitions:

“The essential distinguishing feature of pure mathematical cognition among all other a priori cognitions is that it cannot at all proceed from concepts, but only by means of the construction of concepts.”(272)

At first glance this looks as if it is being claimed that the cognitive process in question is being created by the subsumption of sensory/schematic data(pure intuition) under the category of quantity, but Kant is very clear that it is reason and the principle of contradiction that is regulating mathematical activity. We are, nevertheless, dealing with intuitive judgements and their relation to the a priori intuitions of space and time. Geometry, it is argued is founded upon the pure intuition of space, and arithmetic the pure intuition of time. Kant’s account of space maintains that it by necessity cannot have more than three dimensions, and the “proof” for this is given by the synthetic a priori truth of geometry that not more than three lines can intersect at any one given point. This of course also depends on the condition that the space of geometers is the space that is given to human beings in the form of a sensuous intuition. Kant insists that our spatial cognition is both empirically real and transcendentally ideal. This form of idealism is critical, relating necessarily to our cognitive power of sensibility. Space and time, on this account, are modes of representations.

Time, Aristotle insisted, is the measurement of motion in terms of before and after. This is to some extent accepted by Kant, who elaborates upon this essence-specifying definition by situating it in relation to the categorial powers of the understanding, namely quantity and relation. The schemata related to our consciousness of time are, permanence, succession and coexistence. These schemata, Kant argues, contain the rules for all the possible temporal relations of appearances. These rules, Kant argues, regulate all possible temporal positions of objects and they are given their unity by the faculty of sensibility and the unity of apperception which in turn schematises its material via the categories of understanding/judgement(quantity, relation).

Kant elaborates upon this position in his first critique:

“Time is nothing but the form of inner sense, that is, of the intuition of ourselves and of our inner state. It is the immediate condition of inner appearances(of our souls) and thereby the mediate condition of outer appearances_(B49-51)

Kant is attempting to outline here the intuitive a priori sources of knowledge, which lie at the foundations of many of our sciences, including geometry and arithmetic. The science of motion, for example, presupposes that both of these a priori forms of intuition, which for Kant are both empirically real and transcendentally ideal, do not relate to the things-in-themselves that underlie appearances. They are nevertheless, not creatures of the imagination, but rather objective features of our experience. With such remarks, Kant is venturing deep into the territory of the challenge to humanity and philosophy handed down by the Delphic oracle, to “know thyself!”. The above remarks are in the name of theoretical pure reason, but there are also sciences that both Aristotle and Kant categorised as practical and productive that are concerned with the reasons and totality of conditions related to action rather than the justification of true beliefs. Time, in relation to Action and Art is more concerned with those forms of life that are ends-in-themselves(the good-in-itself) rather than those instrumental forms of life that relate means to ends and use practical reason instrumentally to calculate the consequences of actions. Life in a typical community embraces both the means and the ends of all forms of cognitive and normative activity. In our multi-purpose communities the oracular words of Ecclesiastes are especially appropriate:

“There is a time for every purpose under heaven”

This proclamation indicates the universal importance of temporality in our instrumental and categorical dealings with reality. History is one scientific discipline that deals with these purposes, describing and explaining them, but it is a discipline that crosses the boundaries of scientific domains, including as it does theoretical activity(looking for the causal relations between events) practical activity(all forms of activity instrumental and categorical that aim at the various forms of the good) and productive activity of various kinds. The principles we will find lying behind historical writings, therefore, will be theoretical/logical)principles of noncontradiction and sufficient reason), practical principles (freedom and the categorical imperative) and productiveprinciples(e.g. a time for every purpose under heaven).

How, then, does Wittgenstein’s account of mathematics fit in with the accounts we find in Aristotelian Hylomorphic philosophy or Kantian critical philosophy? Firstly we ought to remind ourselves of the fact that Wittgenstein viewed the Kantian project as very similar to his own, but it is not immediately obvious that were Kant to have the opportunity to pass judgement upon Wittgenstein’s work, the positive complement would have been returned. For Wittgenstein, the principle of sufficient reason is used to give an account of the essence of something and this is best achieved via grammatical investigations.

Wittgensteins reflections on the nature of arithmetic are clearly in the spirit of Kant. He points out, for example, that when you ask the following question of a child:

“I have in my right hand two apples and I have another two apples in my left hand. How many apples do I have altogether?”

If the child, in response to this question answered:

“How do I know, you may drop one apple and/or inherit an orchard of apples.”

Wittgenstein’s response to such an example would be to claim that this child does not understand the nature of mathematical activity. He does not understand, that is, that empirical experience cannot enter into the above imagined mathematical example, in the way suggested by the child. What we are dealing with here, instead, is a rigid rule-based activity which is aiming at a proposition composed of constructed concepts that are not determined by reality but are rather normative, and play an important role in determining judgements about numerical reality. Of course in the empirical world I could drop one apple, and/or be told that I have inherited an orchard but these experiential possibilities are irrelevant to the above mathematical exercise. The rigidity of the operation “add two” makes the outcome inevitable and everyone must agree to the proposition that results, or alternatively admit to attempting to introduce another arithmetical system no one is familiar with into the discussion. Given that we are dealing with the arithmetical system we have all learned at school and given the rigidity of the activity of counting, 1,2,3,4, there can be no other outcome than arriving at 4, and thus confirming the validity of the proposition 2+2=4.

For Wittgenstein it is the role or use of counting in our lives that serves to define its essence. Counting, in turn, is a necessary condition of the measurement of motion in our world, and this, in turn, for Aristotle is part of his account of the essence of time, namely “the measurement of motion in terms of before and after”. The relation of the clock and the calendar to counting the seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, and years of our life is obvious, both to everyman and to the philosopher. Time itself, can also be used in other sciences, such as History, in order to generate historical knowledge about the events, actors, communities, nations, and empires that form the “material” of historical judgements and understanding. Wittgenstein, then asks questions about how we learn to count, learn to tell the time and measure time, and learn about History. What we do, he argues, in our various forms of life determines the ultimate justifications of counting, time, and History.

History, as we have indicated, is composed of a number of forms of life, and uses of language, that stretch across the boundaries of theoretical, practical and productive knowledge. In these knowledge-contexts there will be synthetic a priori judgements such as “every event has a cause”, “every action has a reason”, “every purpose has its time”, and these judgments are all normative judgments of various kinds. Those who, in the name of the above remarks, embark on an explorative search to discover an event without a cause, an acton without a reason or a purpose that is not temporally embedded is misunderstanding the transcendentally ideal nature of the above normative judgments. Historical judgements also presuppose temporal judgments which in turn presuppose arithmetical judgments requiring the activity of counting. The activities, forms of life and uses of language and digits that constitute historical judgments and understanding for Kant, would be of several different kinds, including theoretical judgments about the causes of events and practical judgments involving the freedom of agents to choose particular courses of action.

Wittgenstein’s later work was both a response to his earlier work, as well as to the analytical Philosophy of his time. The concept of “language-games”, and what appeared to be their conventional nature took precedence over the more natural concept of “forms of life”, which in fact served to emphasise two important aspects of the later philosophy. Firstly, the reference to the importance of the way in which we learn these language-games reminds us of an organic view of language in which actualisation or development occurs over learning phases. Secondly, the conventional is, therefore, not opposed to human nature but rather reflects deep social needs.

We find in Wittgenstein’s “Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics”, the following Kantian reflection:

“73. I could also have said: it is not the property of an object that is ever “essential”, but rather the mark of a concept”.(23a)

“Conventional” as an idea has often been opposed to the idea of what is “essential” because it is associated with what is subject to change at will, i.e. it is associated with what is transitory or arbitrary, rather than what remains the same throughout change. The problem with this form of reasoning is that once a community accepts a linguistic practice over a long period of time, change does not come easily: the uses of words and the forms of life in which they are embedded remain constant over long stretches of time. Change, when it does occur, does so for good reasons. On this line of reasoning, the “conventional” ought rather to be associated with some kind of necessity. For Wittgenstein, “what we do” is the synthetic aspect which we appeal to in any process of justification, but such a process also seeks to justify the necessity associated with customary practices that have endured over time. Such a process obviously has historical aspects.

logic, Wittgenstein argues, is constituted by so-called laws of thought which are not situated in a metaphysical Platonic realm of forms but rather show us what is essential in our thinking and reasoning activities. The “material” of thought can be intuitive but it can also be concepts that become part of reasoning processes that use “principles” or “essence specifying definitions” to establish the essential features of human nature(e.g. “rational animal capable of discourse”). Mathematical thought and reasoning uses the “material” of numbers, points, lines, and shapes and these elements are used in the mathematical process of the construction of concepts. Wittgenstein argues that the mathematician is:

“an inventor and not a discoverer”(47e)

This entails that mathematics, like language rests on a foundation of grammatical propositions and the acceptance of these propositions depends in turn upon the practice of accepting the necessity of following rules. The rule “n+1”, for example, could be changed if there was a good reason to do so, but this has not happened thus far in relation to our customary practice of counting in accordance with the above rule. Wittgenstein claims in several places, and not just in relation to the activities associated with mathematics, that we should seek to describe rather than explain these activities. For Wittgenstein describing “what we do” is a form of explanation and this is important for the purposes of preventing the argument that we can find ourselves caught in the trap of the infinite regress that might be generated by repeatedly asking for justifications for the justification. My spade is turned, it is argued, and we can go no deeper into the matter. Describing how we learned to use numbers, points, lines, and shapes is a part of a grammatical investigation. Such investigations are likened unto anthropological investigations.

We have pointed out previously that a Greek spirit dwells in the idea of “forms of life”: a spirit which assumes that life has an ultimate value as an end-in-itself. This is expressed thus:

“The limits of empiricism”(Do we live because it is practical to live? Do we think because it s practical?)” (171e Remarks)

Thinking, is therefore, also an end-in-itself in which conceptual material is formed both by the categories of the understanding and the principles of reason(noncontradiction, sufficient reason) and this form of activity is best exhibited in the human form of life that Aristotle characterises in terms of a “rational animal capable of discourse”.

Similarly, Wittgenstein argues that we do not count just because it is practical. The activity of thinking is something we humans do, as part of a larger context of activities, that relate to Time and the understanding of History. Activities can be conditions of possibility of the existence of other activities. He also argues that mathematical activities have a normative character and are part of a network of norms and rules that are integrated into many different kinds of activities necessary for humans to live together and flourish.

November 28, 2022November 28, 2022

Book Review of T S Eliot’s “Notes Toward a Definition of Culture: Unity of European Culture

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The series of talks recorded in this chapter were addressed to a German audience. Eliot, the poet and editor of a famous literary journal, the Criterion, was invited to speak on the theme of European unity, and he begins his talk, somewhat provocatively with the claim that English is the language that is:

“the richest for the purposes of writing poetry”(P.110)

Eliot then proceeds to outline the myriad of European influences upon the structure of the language: its German foundation, a Scandinavian element, a Norman/French element, a succession of later French elements, a Celtic element, and elements of Latin. Eliot also notes:

“the influence of generations of study of Latin and Greek”(P.111)

Eliot himself, we know, insofar as his poetry was concerned was influenced by poetry from the East, classical literature from Greece and Rome, and various translations of the Bible.

He again takes up the issue of the relation between politics and culture, and regrets the tendency to confuse these two areas of concern. He points to two examples: firstly nationalism, and secondly a dogmatic idealist view of a future world-culture. He also takes the opportunity to criticise Hitlers Germany for assuming:

“that every other culture than that of Germany was either decadent or barbaric.”(P.118)

Eliot elaborates upon his objection to the idealistic vision of a possible future world-organisation by claiming that the project is reminiscent of many social engineering products, all of which fail to acknowledge the importance of the organic nature of culture. Social engineering suggests, of course, that there is a materialistic mechanistic aspect of organising society in the spirit of techné, which operates on different principles to those related to epistemé(knowledge) and diké(justice). Eliot formulates his interesting mixed position on this issue in the following way:

“But culture is something that must grow: you cannot build a tree, you can only plant it, and care for it, and want for it to mature in its due time, and when it is grown you must not complain if you find that from an acorn has come an oak and not an elm-tree. And a political structure is partly construction, and partly growth; partly machinery, and the same machinery, if good, is equally good for all peoples.”(P.119)

Eliot attempts a definition of the use of the word “culture” and begins this account with a distinction between “the material organisation” of Europe and “the spiritual organism” of Europe:

“If the latter dies then what you organise will not be Europe, but merely a mass of human beings speaking several different languages”(P.119)

Post WWII judgements of the developments in Europe during the first half of the 20th century, ranged from the extreme claim that Europe had committed suicide by unleashing two world wars upon the world, to the less extreme view that the world wars were in fact cathartic moments necessary for the defence of freedom and democracy for the whole world. Seen from the vantage point of 2022 both the EU and the UN can be seen, at least in the long term perspective, as institutions embodying the spirit of European freedom and democracy but there are nevertheless short term concerns that the spirit is not exactly flourishing. It would not be true to claim, however, that this spirit is dead. It would also not be true to claim, that the spirit of totalitarianism and autocracy is dead or even dying. Some commentators view the situation much as Freud did in 1929 as a life/death(eros, thanatos) struggle with the forces of darkness.

Eliot claims that European culture possesses a variety in unity, which is not mechanical, but organic and natural. He characterises this state of affairs in the following manner:

“By “Culture”, then, I mean first of all what the anthropologists mean: the way of life of a particular people living together in one place. That culture is made visible in their arts, in their social system, in their habits and customs, in their religion. But these things added together do not constitute the culture, though we often speak for convenience as if they did. These things are simply the parts into which a culture can be anatomised, as a human body can.”(P.120)

Gestalt Psychology might have been on Eliot’s mind when he wrote the above words. Atomism, associationism, and sensation-psychology were all “reductionist” positions rejected by the Gestalt school in favour of a thesis that “The whole is greater than the parts”. The school was composed of principally, scientists who were dissatisfied with the results of atomism and reductionism in the arena of Psychology. They focussed principally on problems of perception and interpreted the workings of this largely sensible function in terms of the workings of the brain and the “hypothesis” that “the parts of any whole are defined by the whole”. It is also of interest to note that almost the entire school were forced to leave Germany by 1935. Underlying these seemingly holistic theses, however, is a reliance upon the role of the brain that was regarded as a material source of psychic phenomena. This mechanistic view followed essentially mechanistic principles and promoted a physicalist-functionalist view of the relation between the brain and the mind.

Eliot elaborates upon this theme of the spirit of culture by claiming that this spirit is shared by artists, poets, philosophers, politicians and workers alike. Part of what is shared is the language the people speak and Eliot characterises this in the following way:

“Generally speaking, the same language means thinking and feeling, and having emotions rather differently from people who use a different language.” (P.120-121)

So, even if Europeans speak different languages, the different groups do influence one another. What, then, is the common feature that binds these groups together. Eliot argues that it is primarily religion( “a common tradition of Christianity” P.122) that is responsible for unifying these groups. This entails that the Culture of Europe would disintegrate with the disappearance of the Christian faith. Eliot does not specifically mention Ethics in this discussion, but surely Christian morality must also be a key feature of this unity. He does, however, refer to the unifying role of European Universities with their common system of academic standards embodying a respect for epistemé, arché, diké. A significant percentage of the population sojourn for a number of years behind the walls of these institutions. These institutions, in Eliot’s view, ought to be independent of government control, especially insofar as the academic standards relating to truth, knowledge and wisdom are concerned.

Eliot, speaking during the darkest hours for Europe, concludes this essay darkly with the warning that the spiritual possessions of cultural Europe are “in imminent peril”.

November 26, 2022November 26, 2022

Review of T S Eliot’s “Notes Toward a Definition of Culture” Education and Culture

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Jurgen Habermas in his work “Theory of Communicative Action” presents a modern primarily functionalist sociological account of action and discourse. He uses systems theory and an instrumental model of practical reasoning to describe/explain/justify human activities in a human life-world. Habermas differentiates the systems of Politics, Economics, the Socio-Cultural and Religion in terms of “steering mechanisms” of power, money, language, and belief in a transcendent form of being. Habermas argues furthermore that, insofar as our modern world is concerned, there is what he refers to as a colonisation and rationalisation of our life-world by these systems. By life-world Habermas means our face to face interactions in society and our personal sphere. His account has been accused of being dualistic and many criticisms have focussed on just this aspect of his theory, questioning, for example, the philosophical basis of the distinction between life-world and systems operating in accordance with pseudo-causal “mechanisms”.

Eliot, in his discussion of Education distinguishes between the definition of the term, and the “purpose” of education, implying that the purpose is not necessarily a part of the definition(as is the case with Aristotelian hylomorphic essence-specifying definitions). Eliot turns to the OED for his definition of the use of the word:

“The process of bringing up(young persons)”: “the systematic instruction, schooling, training given to the young(and by extension to adults) in preparation for the work of life: “culture or development of powers, formation of character.”

It does appear, however, as if the Purpose” of education(in the sense of the Greek “telos”), is a part of the above definition of the use of the word “education”. Eliot’s argument against “purpose” may stem from the way in which several of the authors he considers, conceive of the matter. He also refers to the thoughts from a religious conference held in Oxford(1937):

“Education is the process by which the community seeks to open its life to all the individuals within it and enable them to take their part in it. It attempts to pass on to them its culture, including the standards by which it would have them live. Where that culture is regarded as final, the attempt is made to impose it on younger minds. Where it is viewed as a stage in development, younger minds are trained both to receive it and to criticise and improve upon it. This culture is composed of various elements. It runs from rudimentary skill and knowledge up to the interpretation of the universe and of man by which the community lives.”(P.96 in Eliot, “Notes”)

There is a discernible ambiguity in the above quote, insofar as the connection between a work-process and its result is concerned, and this once again raises the issue of a hylomorphic account of what amounts to an actualisation of a form of life. In such a process, Aristotle maintains, there is no distinction between the process at work and its “potential” result, and this claim is connected to another assumption that, insofar as living organisms are concerned, there is no viable logical distinction between things which result in good consequences, and what is essentially good-in-itself. It is also important in this context to embrace the Aristotelian claim that society itself is an organic phenomenon that is actualising its potential over several stages, over a long period of time(in an analogous fashion to the actualisation processes of life-forms). This is one hylomorphic condition for human life in a human life-world.

Eliot notes that culture itself has not been defined, and rejects the identification of “culture” with the transmission of skills and knowledge. Knowledge(epistemé), on the Aristotelian and Kantian accounts, would certainly incorporate the above mentioned “interpretations of the universe and of man”. This definitively includes knowledge of the self that the Delphic oracle sought after, in the challenge thrown down to all mankind to “know thyself”. There is also obvious reference to the knowledge of the universe which, in accordance with Aristotelian metaphysics, requires learning and understanding of all the theoretical, practical, and productive sciences as well as the metaphysical framework for these sciences which consists of 4 kinds of change, three principles of change, 4 causes of change, in 3 different media(space, time and matter). If the purpose of education is to transmit culture and the above is an outline of what needs to be transmitted in the form of principles of reason, understanding, and judgement, then the task is one of immense magnitude and in accordance with the modern concept of “lifelong learning”.

Eliot takes up William Godwins utilitarian answer to the question “What is the purpose of education”, namely, happiness , which Eliot claims:

“is often associated with the full development of personality” (P.97)

In the context of this discussion one may be forgiven for asking the question “How is happiness related to the full development of the personality?”, especially in the light of the Kantian objection to the ethical use of the principle of happiness. Happiness, for Kant, is the principle of self-love in disguise, and because of its narcissistic character, it cannot respect the universal freedom and ethical rationality of man. The happiness of a man is a singular individual event, and the objects of, or reasons for, this state can vary for both the same individual at different times of his/her life, as well as vary from one individual to another.

The OED defines the use of the word personality in the following 3 ways:

The combination of characteristics or qualities that form an individuals distinctive character

The qualities that make someone interesting or popular

A celebrity

The words “Individual” and “distinctive”, suggest that the function of the word, “personality”, is to distinguish or differentiate one individual from another, rather than the strategy of subsuming a number of individuals under one category, which is related to the work of conceptualisation functioning in accordance with the mental faculties of understanding and judgement. Kant’s notion of aesthetic judgement, we ought to recall, is to search for a generalisation that covers an individual case. The “characteristics” or “qualities”, referred to above will undoubtedly include the virtues(areté) that both Aristotle and Kant proposed in their respective ethical investigations. We should also recall that Aristotle was one of the first philosophers to argue for a widespread public educational system, and that he believed that the young should begin their education, firstly, by imitating the virtues of the elders, and secondly , by using the “golden mean” principle.

Kant, on the other hand, refers to the absolute of a good will regulated by the categorical imperative, which universally challenges everyone to treat every human being(including themselves) as ends-in-themselves: in other words, we ought to act toward each other and ourselves with dignity. Kant admittedly uses a technical term, namely, “moral personality” to characterise the ethical activity of the will and this probably rests on the idea of a “person” conceived generally as a human being.

Otherwise both the terms “personality” and “intelligence” are theoretical terms embedded in a diverse array of psychological theories. Personality mostly retains its qualitative character, but is “reduced” to a number of traits, the number of which differs with different theories. Intelligence is also reduced to “factors”(e.g. general and specific), which are embedded in an essentially quantitative framework. The personality theory of Freud is a hylomorphic exception to this rule, connecting as it does, instincts to stages of development actualising over time, agencies with responsibility for specific arenas of psychic function, and principles regulating such functioning. Freudian theory, however, focuses essentially upon pathological patterns of functioning, and is in search of a “medical” cure in the form of a “talking cure”. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that Freud’s psychoanalytical approach was ” freeing” mental patents from restrictive psychiatric diagnoses and treatments, and became known as “the moral treatment” or the “talking cure”. The philosophical background of Freudian theory(connected to his claim that his Psychology was “Kantian”) is hylomorphic metaphysics, which is constituted of 4 kinds of change, 3 principles of change , 4 causes of change, in 3 different media(space, time, and matter). This metaphysics is expressed epistemologically, in three groups of sciences, namely, theoretical science, practical science, and productive science. Medicine obviously has connections to both theoretical science and productive science, and psychoanalysis shares this connection, but perhaps also requires the moral principles of practical science for the identification of non pathological patterns of behaviour. The metaphysical background of Freuds theory, perhaps explains the possibility of projecting many of the principles and concepts on patterns of community and cultural activity. Freud, in his later theorising, expressed these wider concerns in works such as “Group Psychology and the Ego”, “The Future of an Illusion”, “Civilisation and its discontents” and in several briefer articles on religion and art.

Eliot takes up the idea, raised by several authors that the “purpose” of education is democracy in the modern sense of the word, but this sense is not clearly characterised by these authors. One of the tasks of such an education, it is argued, is to prepare citizens to play a part in the democratic system they inhabit. Eliot, in this context, also discusses the economic principle of “equality of opportunity”, but there is no suggestion of, or reference to, the categorical Philosophical principle of equality implied by the categorical imperative or law that one ought to treat all people as ends-in-themselves. This broader principle will of course include equality of opportunity, but it will also include equality in the eyes of the law. This latter form of equality was qualified by Aristotle’s principle of formal justice in which people ought to be treated equally unless there was a good reason not to do so. What Aristotle meant here can be illustrated by activity in the economic system: if, for example, Jill carries more water up the hill than Jack there is absolutely no reason why she should not receive more renumeration for the task than Jack.

Equality, for Kant, also includes equal human rights for everybody living under any form of government, and this is both a legal and a moral imperative. On this kind of account, our elected political representatives are meant, not merely to represent the totality of these rights, but also have the task of defending these rights both morally and legally. Kant makes a distinction between active citizens, who have the right to vote, and passive citizens, who do not, but he insists otherwise upon everyone in the state being equal in terms of their humanity, and he also insists upon these citizens entitlement to the rights that will ensure that they are treated as ends-in-themselves. All men, Kant argues, are their own master, and thereby possess the innate right of freedom. Education, as a consequence, must respect these rights.

The problem with the more limited notion of equality of opportunity, Eliot argues, is the Milton dogma which argues that:

“superiority is always superiority of intellect that some infallible method can be designed for the detection of intellect, and that a system can be devised which will infallibly nourish it”(P.102)

It is not clear whether the form of elitism Eliot embraces, subscribes to this dogma, because he ends this discussion with the comment that Milton’s dogma can neither be proved nor disproved. Eliot also ends his discussion, on the issue of equality of opportunity, by claiming that this too is a dogma that can only be implemented if the family is no longer respected(P.103), and the state takes over responsibility for a universal public education. Eliot also notes in this discussion that the class system of society is disintegrating and this allows governments to exploit the ignorance and appetites of the masses. These factors give rise to the following problem:

“Education in the modern sense implies a disintegrated society, in which it has to come to be assumed that there must be one measure of education according to which everyone is educated simply more or less.Hence education has become an abstraction”(P.105)

It is no longer clear, Eliot argues, that education in the classical sense which he characterises as:

“everything that goes to form the good individual in the good society”(P.105-6)

is what is being provided by the Ministry of Education or indeed even if that is what they have in mind. Part of the responsibility for the transmission of culture in accordance with the above formula, must lie with the family, and the broader civic environment which includes media and sport. Politics, therefore, must remain a limited force embedded in a larger culture. According to Habermas, the steering mechanism of the system of politics is power. Power, of course, can be used in ignorance or with evil intent, and this too is an argument for the limitation of politics, which Habermas argues has “colonised” our life-world to the detriment of humanity. Both Eliot and Habermas believe that the greater the presumption that Politics is the cultural transformative force in our society, the greater the likelihood of culture suffering as a consequence of “colonisation”.

Education, as far as Eliot is concerned contributes to the malaise of a deteriorating culture in which standards are being systematically lowered over time(P.108)—-for example, subjects essential for the nurturing of culture are no longer being studied. For Eliot the barbarian is standing waiting at the gates of the city. The future looks bleak and the possibilities of changing our situation are minimal:

“I have maintained that we cannot directly set about to create or improve culture.”(P.108)

All we can do, Eliot argues, in utilitarian spirit, is to “will the means”(P.108) to change what we can. This cynicism is connected to Eliot’s theme that much of our culture is unconscious. Freud, too, was cynical about the possibility of bringing repressed material to the light of consciousness. Freud, writing in 1929, saw much pathology embedded in the unconscious of culture, as enormous aggressive forces were being prepared to be unleashed upon Europe and the world. Eliot, writing “Notes” in 1943 was experiencing the reality of these aggressive forces.Eliot’s “therapy” is a form of “talking cure” in which he proposes that we pause to examine what the word “culture” means, presumably in the light of his writings. Wittgenstein, too, would subscribe to the therapy of a systematic examination of “language-games” embedded in “forms of life”, if we are to avoid a collective bewitching of our intellectual powers. The power of language is obviously an important part of the processes involved in the transmission of culture. Being clear about its use in the agora would, on this account, seem to be an important element of our understanding of ourselves and our universe.

November 21, 2022November 21, 2022

Book Review of T S Eliot’s “Notes toward a definition of Culture: Politics and Culture

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The Political Philosophies of Aristotle and Kant are metaphysical, that is they have so-called “first-principles” operating in the political domain. Both Aristotle and Kant also have cultural commitments that provides us with a metaphysics of science(epistemé), Art(techné), Religion, and Ethics. Both Philosophers are rationalists and believe that the telos of areté is eudaimonia(the good-spirited flourishing life).

Eliot, in his analysis, does not, however, reflect on the problems of Culture or Politics in the above rationalist terms. He, like the OED, prioritises the arts in his discussions. The OED defines the use of the word “culture in the following way:

The arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively( a refined understanding or appreciation of this)
The customs, institutions, and achievement of a particular nation, people, or group.

The followers of Aristotle and Kant would of course maintain that the metaphysical accounts of the sciences(theoretical, practical, and productive), together with their accounts of the higher mental powers of understanding, judgement and reasoning would cover all aspects of the OED definition.

Institutions that are “rational” are governed partly by a categorical imperative which helps to constitute the “refined understanding” referred to above. Art would, on this account, appear to be more related to customs, than official institutions, but we can argue that learning to become an artist to some extent can be regarded as a form of institutional activity. Schools of art, for example, run by a master might qualify as an institutional form of learning ones craft. The real test of a school, however, is that standard provided by the Platonic school of Athens where the achievement of the master Plato was in fact surpassed by his pupil Aristotle. Plato’s teacher, Socrates, forms the third party of this triumvirate of great philosophers within a relatively short span of time, a fact often attributed to the “Culture” of ancient Greece formed by areté, arché, diké, epistemé, and phronesis.

Eliot notes the curious practices of governments to establish bureaus to administrate “cultural” activities and he suggests that this fails to acknowledge the fact that one of the purposes of politics is to serve the larger concerns of culture. He also notes that not everybody takes an “active interest” (P.83) in public matters. This appears to be an elitist view confirmed by the following remark:

“The governing elite of the nation as a whole, would consist of those whose responsibility was inherited with their affluence and position, and whose forces were constantly increased, and often led, by rising individuals of exceptional talent.”(P.84)

This position leans more toward Platonic elitism where the philosopher-kings were the proposed elite, but subject to Platonic control-mechanisms which prevented the acquisition of wealth and the building of families. Aristotle, the pupil, did not embrace this form of elitism, proposing instead and enlightened middle class which is in fact more in line with modern political trends in Europe.

Eliot. does, however, propose a diverse elite in which people are selected from different realms of activity, e.g.

“the political, the scientific, the artistic, the philosophical, and the religious”(P.84)

Eliot also complains about the fact that the professional politician of his time does not seem to have the leisure-time for serious reading(P.86), nor is there time for the exchange of ideas and information with leaders from other regions of the culture. Eliot refers to Plato and Aristotle, claiming that they were not concerned with predicting the future. This fails to appreciate the fundamental intention of the good which for both philosophers must be good-in-itself and good in its consequences. Eliot’s remarks also fail to acknowledge 1. the role of the mechanism of the “golden mean” in developing the virtues of the citizens of the society, and 2. the role of the “middle class” in avoiding the prophesied ruin and destruction of all things created by humans(oracular “prediction”). Eliot clearly undervalues the metaphysics of politics and ethics that we find in the work of Aristotle: a metaphysics which presupposes the hylomorphic essence-specifying definition of human nature(namely, rational animal capable of discourse). Eliot argues, on the contrary, that modern politics does not have a theory of human nature, but rather blindly assumes that human beings are malleable entities that can be reshaped to fit any political form(P.88). Modern political theory, it is argued, does not concern itself with individuals, but only the masses and the impersonal forces that moves such masses. On such a view, culture becomes an irrelevant by-product of more serious political activity.

In this context, Eliot like many of his generation, speculates upon the meaning of the Russian Revolution and the Russian argument for the superiority of a non-European way of life and form of consciousness. Eliot claims further:

“Today we have become culture-conscious in a way which nourishes nazism, communism, and nationalism, all at once”(P.90)

Imperialism is also discussed and Eliot points out that the first British rulers spent long periods of time living in India and seriously attempting to understand the mentality of the Indian people. This, contrasted with the later rulers from Whitehall, who spent only short periods in India, and spent their time and efforts in attempting to establish certain British institutions such as the British educational system and British law. They did not, however, make any attempt to uproot the national culture, and there was no attempt to establish Christianity. There was instead, an abiding acknowledgement of the importance of the Indian religions. There was no corruption, brutality or maladministration present in the British form of colonialism. Indeed Eliot points out:

“the most relevant criticism, or abuse, of British imperialism often comes from representatives of society which practise a different form of imperialism.”(P.92)

Eliot, born in America adds the following striking observation:

“America has tended to impose its way of life chiefly in the course of doing business, and creating a taste for its commodities. Even the humblest material artefact which is the product and the symbol of a particular civilisation, is an emissary of the culture out of which it comes; to particularise only by mentioning that influential and inflammable article the celluloid film: and this American expansion may be also, in its way, the cause of disintegration of cultures which it touches.”(P.92)

Freud in his work from 1929, “Civilisation and its Discontents” shared similar views on both Russian and American culture. For Eliot, however, it is Russian imperialism that is the newest form, and best suited to the mentality of our modern era. It works, Eliot argues via the creation of satellite states which are given the impression of independence, but are in reality controlled by Moscow. Any sub-culture which threatens the Russian motherland culture is “eliminated”(P.93). Eliot ends this chapter with the Freudian observation that Culture can never be “wholly conscious”(P.94). Any conscious planning of culture therefore becomes either otiose or counter-productive, Eliot concludes.

November 17, 2022November 17, 2022

Book Review of T S Eliot’s “Notes Toward a Definition of Culture” Cults and Sects

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Eliot claims to be adopting a sociological view when he is engaged upon the discussion of the unity and diversity of religious movements, and this is somewhat surprising considering his philosophical training and background. Perhaps his reluctance to use hylomorphic or critical analyses is rooted in the marginalisation of Religion that occurred as a result of the anti-metaphysical movements of logical atomism and logical positivism. For many Analytical Philosophers, Religion became an epistemological problem, rather than an issue related to “Justification by Faith”. This particular approach failed to emphasise, (as was the case in Kantian Critical Philosophy), the intimate metaphysical relation between ethical laws and faith.

Eliot argues that the more primitive state of the civilisation concerned, the greater the “identity-relation” between Religion and Culture. His argument is epistemological:

“A higher religion is more difficult to believe. For the more conscious becomes the belief, so more conscious becomes the unbelief: indifference, doubt and scepticism appear…In the higher religion it is more difficult to make behaviour conform to the moral law of the religion. A higher religion imposes a conflict, a division, torment and struggle within the individual.”(P.67)

The claim that a higher religion is more difficult to believe, may not be an accurate representation of the state of affairs Eliot is referring to . The above quote reminds one of the Kantian diagnosis of the pathological destructive presence of scepticism, dogmatism and indifference in our Cultures. Kant’s diagnosis was then complemented with a prognostic treatment in the form of his critical philosophy. The relation of critical Philosophy to Aristotelian hylomorphic philosophy is also important in the understanding of Kant’s view of Culture, which is a variation on the themes of areté, arché, diké, epistemé, and phronesis. We also note the presence of the term “consciousness”, and the Cartesian doubt expressed in the above quote indicates that, for Kant, we are dealing with the pathologies of indifference or scepticism when we are engaged upon the task of sociologically explaining and justifying the unity and diversity of religious movements.

The Roman Catholic and Protestant churches are obviously institutions grounded in History and Faith, in ways in which modern sects are not, but it is not clear that the existence of this phenomenon of the fragmentation of institutions can be “sociologically” explained. Curiously, the “explanation” of “consciousness”, Eliot provides, accords well with that provided by Jean-Paul Sartre the Existentialist. On Sartre’s account, consciousness is equated with “nothingness” or “negation”. This nothingness or negation, for Sartre, is a conscious response to a question. Negation, Sartre argues, is necessary for the process of differentiating objects from one another, and it is part of our awareness of reality: we say categorically, for example, that “Pierre is not in the café”, and this in the end rests on an explanation of the role of consciousness in our awareness of reality. That the “unbelief”, as Eliot puts the matter, should occur, because of the belief, is a complex claim, and it is difficult to fully understand the meaning of such a claim. Similarly, it is difficult to understand exactly what Eliot means when he maintains that it is difficult to correlate behaviour with moral law insofar as the higher religions are concerned. What is at issue for both Aristotle and Kant in the context of this discussion is primarily areté and diké, and the self control implied by both terms. In the case of Aristotle we can clearly see the operation of the methodology of the “golden mean”, and in the case of Kant, we are told that it is “self-love”, or narcissism that “tempts” the agent to make some excuse to exempt themselves from the reach of the moral law. We should note here that this temptation is a particular temptation, and not a general attempt to question the validity of the moral law as such. If, then, the two commandments of the New Testament can function as the basis for moral and religious laws, there is no obvious reason to question the justification and universality of the moral commandments on general sceptical grounds, e.g. “They may not be “good” . There is however good reason to “believe in” the validity of the moral commandments, given that they recommend a form of life that does appear rationally defensible. The “belief-in” the religious commandments, on the other hand, may be a more complex matter given the fact that they refer to a transcendent being. This reference requires characterising this being in terms of an essence specification. No easy task.

Clerical sects are less likely than clerical cults to promote the policy of abandoning moral commandments, and both are also more likely to recommend a simpler form of life which distances itself from contemporary society. Mystical sects and cults can, of course, reach further back in time toward pagan belief systems which may, for example, worship idols of animals. The paradox of such movements is that their intuition that, all is not well with society, may have some substance. The response of regression to a more primitive form of life, however, does not appear to be a useful response to the problem of modern discontentment. On these grounds, it is not clear that it would be correct to regard the Protestant split from the Roman Catholic faith as sectarian, simply because the grounds for the split were more to do with the way in which the Church abused its privileges in society, than any disagreement over the “form” of the moral and religious commandments. The Lutheran questioning of institutional practices such as the “monetisation of faith”, is, in fact, an implication of the Socratic/Christian attitude toward the colonisation by the values of ekonomos of human relations in general. We know, for example, that Jesus led a frugal life, and we also know what he thought about Judas and the thirty pieces of silver he received for betraying his leader. Socrates also led a relatively simple life, and although he never objected to the role of money as such , he did object to what he viewed as the reversal of values that can occur when what was of secondary importance in a human transaction becomes the primary focus. He took the example of a doctor who, as a part of Greek teaching and tradition, had an ethical responsibility to save the life of any patient whose life was in immediate danger. For Socrates, if the doctor refused treatment on the grounds that the patient could not afford to pay him, then this would be a reversal of values.

Protestantism, of course, itself suffered from the process of fragmentation into sects. Eliot sees this process as instantiating something positive, namely “diversification” which, from one point of view, can be seen to be a negative phenomenon compromising the value of unifying so many people as possible under one institutional umbrella. On Eliot’s account, too much unity, can be connected to “cultural decay”(P.70). This can also be the case, Eliot argues, with extreme diversification . This suggests the operation either of Hegelian dialectical thinking, or more realistically, the operation of the Aristotelian process of the “golden mean” in the name of areté.

Eliot mentions the thirty years war in which Catholics and Protestants fought over their religious differences, and he points out that Protestantism, in its more modern secular form, is not prone to take up arms to defend its version of the Christian faith. It is in this context that Eliot specifically claims that the sociologist ought to refrain from making “value-judgements”, because this runs the risk of succumbing to a theological form of thinking that cannot ultimately be defended. Given these comments, it becomes unclear how Eliot would view Aristotelian and Kantian metaphysically-laden justifications for value-judgements. In this context we need clarification about what the term “metaphysics” means. Both in Aristotle and Kant it merely refers to “first principles”—so the metaphysics of morals that Kant writes about, means nothing more nor less, than the “first principles” of morals.

Eliot discusses the possible unification of all Christians world-wide, and he judges that such a possibility is extremely unlikely. The reunion of, for example, of the Church of England with Presbyterians or Methodists in America, is certainly a possibility, Eliot argues. He also claims that political unions between two countries is unlikely. When a large body fragments, Eliot insists, a sub-culture is formed in the body that is splitting off, and this sub-culture tends to define the sect as different from the larger body and all other bodies that have split off from the whole. Eliot does, however refer to an important fact, namely:

“It is always the main religious body which is the guardian of more of the remains of the higher developments of culture preserved from a past time before the division took place. Not only is it the main religious body which has the more elaborated theology: it is the main religious body which is the least alienated from the best intellectual and artistic activity of the time.”(P.80)

Eliot’s intuitions are sound and can be seen to accord well with the Kantian philosophical position in relation to the two Christian commandments(Love God above all and love thy neighbour as thyself), which, put simply, maintains that there is a philosophical form to these commandments : a form that can be parsed as “Know that God is above all” and “Respect thy neighbour as thyself”. For Kant both of these imperatives form the conditions for the possibility of following the moral law(the categorical imperative), which in turn forms the condition, over a long period of time, of leading a good spirited flourishing life. For Kant, insofar as the main clerical bodies of religion embrace a belief in supernatural events, this would be rejected on the grounds of the validity and objectivity of the categories of the understanding/judgement and principles of reason(noncontradiction, sufficient reason). Kant would also reject any justification of barbaric events such as that of burning heretics at the stake. Such tyrannical behaviour would run counter to the practical idea of freedom for the individual to choose a reasonable belief system. There is nothing that can be said in the name of the uniformity of an irrational belief system that could motivate disrespect for the freedom of the individual to choose whatever form of life they wish to. This thesis lies at the root of human rights. In relation to this discussion Kant would be opposed to the wholesale rejection of a body of faith that has served mankind for almost 2000 years: a body of faith which, he would maintain, possessed some affinity with Ancient Greek Philosophy and its reliance on the themes of areté, arché, diké, epistemé, and phronesis.

November 13, 2022November 13, 2022

Book Review of T S Eliot’s “Notes Toward a Definition of Culture” :”Regionalisation” and Satellite Cultures

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“It is the instinct of every living thing to persist in its own being”( “Notes” P.55)

This claim by Eliot is a variation of Spinoza’s claim that:

“Everything insofar as it is, endeavours to persist in its own being”(Ethics, Book 3 Prop 6)

Spinoza’s account may, however, be built on a more complex foundation than Eliot’s account. For Spinoza, the foundation stone of the mind, is the idea it has of its own body, and this is compatible with the hylomorphic claim made by Aristotle in which the material of a process always has a form determined by the principle of that form. We know that Aristotle in his work “De Anima” characterised the human soul in terms of potential and an actualisation process. The body, which for Aristotle, was a system of specific organs, has the potential to actualise into a soul which possesses three primary powers: firstly, the capacity for nutrition and reproduction, secondly, the capacity for locomotion and sensation, thirdly a capacity for discourse and reasoning. The essence-specifying definition of a human soul then, is, “rational animal capable of discourse”, indicating that these higher level powers build upon the lower level powers of sensibility and nutrition/reproduction. This does not, of course, mean that all human souls are actually capable of discourse and reasoning at high levels, but rather, that this is a potential that aims to be realised by the human form of life that we call the human soul. Here, it is a number of principles which decide what form the life-form is to take, as well as the complex relation of powers that are generated in this developmental actualisation process This process of actualisation will determine the level achieved by any human form of life. If this teleological process functions well, the result , insofar as Aristotle was concerned, was the ethical telos of leading a good spirited, flourishing life(eudaimonia). Such a life-form would be impossible in a state of nature (which is the condition of the animals) but rather requires a civilisation/culture that in turn requires cooperation amongst large numbers of humans if it is not to fall into a state of ruin and destroy itself. This cooperation often takes the form of “aiming at the good”, “aiming at the truth”, and aiming at the beautiful”: characteristics which Maslow claimed were very important cultural aims. Life, may have many meanings, argued Aristotle, but he also insisted that it was an end-in-itself, i.e. something that was both good-in-itself and good-in-its-consequences. This theme of the human form of life being an end-in-itself, would later be taken up in Kantian Critical ethical Philosophy, in the form of a moral categorical imperative. One of the formulations is that people be treated as ends in themselves and this creates the foundational argument for a universal theory of human rights. Respect for human rights, in turn, has become a cultural demand in all civilised societies.

It was, however, left to Freud to investigate the nature of the relation of the powers of the soul, and he used three principles to do this: firstly, the energy regulation principle regulating the physiology of the individual (including nutrition and reproduction) but primarily the nervous activity of his brain, secondly, the pleasure pain principle regulating the sensible level of the human soul, and thirdly, the reality principle regulating discourse and rationality in its various forms. For Freud it is the actualisation of a strong Ego that is the telos of human being: a being that spends such a long time in a state of immaturity(childhood, adolescence, etc).

These diversions from the initial claims of Eliot and Spinoza, testify then, to the complexity of creating the conditions necessary for leading a good-spirited flourishing life. In the light of such complexity, it is obvious that all we can do is aim at the Good in our activities. The master Arts which enable us to do this are, for Aristotle, Philosophy and Politics. For Spinoza, however, human enlightenment begins with the possession of an adequate idea of the human body. This is a position shared by Freud who formulated a psycho-sexual theory to explain the course the human actualisation process takes. Both Spinoza and Freud are in agreement that the complexity of our psyche is such that its form of consciousness is aware of its endeavour to persist in its being, and this awareness is manifested in the correlation of both inadequate ideas and adequate ideas with the activity/endeavours of the organism. Consciousness, for Freud, will then, be steered by all three of his postulated principles in various ways, but insofar as the reality principle is concerned it will be present in areté (doing the right thing in the right way at the right time), arché (the use of principles in discourse and reasoning), epistemé (the use of knowledge in ones “endeavours) and diké (attention to the cause of justice). This leads us to the Aristotelian conviction that the phronomos, (that great-souled man), is a man whose mental powers of understanding, judgement, and reasoning are all in harmony, and working in accordance with the reality principle.

Eliot wishes to argue that the above human endeavour to persist in being human is a feature of what he calls “regionalisation”, which he insists is a necessary feature of the diversity that he maintains is a healthy characteristic of any culture. He calls this “regionalisation”, a satellite culture, and there is a lengthy discussion of the relation of Wales, Scotland and Ireland to England (in the name of identifying the mutually related cultural mechanisms that are operating in this realm of regional forces). The judgement of History is called upon to testify the extent to which a people culturally contribute to the culture of the peoples of the world. Eliot takes up the role of Language and he is sceptical about the possibility of a world-language unless it has poetic power. These discussions sometimes take on nationalistic tones in the name of loyalty. It appears from this discussion, that the size of the region can vary from a local village, to a large country. If, for example, we are dealing with a country village, it is not always obvious that the lower income peasants will identify their condition with the lower income workers of the city. It does, however, seem obvious that, in wars, (when citizens from both categories find themselves fighting side by side against a common enemy), some loyalty is shared: is this a cultural loyalty or something pathological and nationalistic?

An interesting “regional” institution such as the University is an interesting case to eaxmine in the context of this discussion. The university is a meritocracy, and does not care whether you are an aristocrat from the city, or a peasant from the countryside. The University demands loyalty to, and a general respect for, knowledge and justice. In both of the above cases it is clear that unity prevails over differences. Eliot, however, speaks sceptically of this unity of Culture, and refers to those zealots crying out for a world-government on humanitarian grounds. He incidentally praises the Russians for being especially aware of the irreconcilability between cultures(P.62). Eliot accuses the zealots of being as much of a menace to culture, as those who are committed to violence. The grounds given for this judgement are the empirical grounds of the irreconcilability of certain religions, and the pointless colonisation of one culture by another( where that results in conflict and culture clash).

Eliot concludes with the following claim:

“As I have said, the improvement and transmission of culture can never be the direct object of any of our practical activities: all we can do is to try to keep in mind that whatever we do will affect our own culture or that of some other people.”(P.65)

This is an insightful remark and reminds one of the Aristotelian opening of his Nichomachean Ethics:

“Evert art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and choice, 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.”(NE Book 1, 1, 1-3)

This provides hylomorphic content to Eliot’s claim that the transmission of culture can not be “the direct object” of our cultural activities. Aristotle, interpreted in terms of modern linguistic Philosophy, my be alluding to the imperative use of language in claims such as “You ought to keep promises”. Promising is a practical activity and “keeping” them is more than a mere maxim expressing a personal intention. We appear here to be dealing with a principle(arché) which on Kant’s view can be justified by an appeal to the moral law as expressed in the various formulations of the categorical imperative. There is clearly an intended direct object in the above claim, namely that the promise must be kept. In the above quote there is also a clear link to the teleological relation of the intention to actions to be performed in the future.

Aristotle points to the transmission of three kinds of form which he claims is important to build and maintain a civilisation/culture. Firstly, there is the transmission of skills such as house-building, bridge-building, road building, and crafted artifacts that are in common use in households and businesses, villages and cities. Secondly, there is the personal transmission of ones family characteristics in the act of reproduction(thus creating the “material” for further transmission of other cultural values). Thirdly, there is the transmission of ideas such as occurs in teaching-learning contexts of all kinds, and this is perhaps the most important “form”of cultural activity for Aristotle.

Eliot also discusses India and its colonisation by the British, and he claims that the caste structure and the different forms of religion hindered the aims and process of unification. That fact, should not, of course, prevent agreement on the judgement that the unity of the country would be a good thing, as long as diversity was respected. Two other factors to take into consideration is the nature of mans inclination toward favouring his own interests over that of his neighbour, plus his proclivity for forming groups around such interests. Both of these have a tendency to produce internecine conflict. This is why a striving after The Good, and providing justifications for activities with such an aim, is of importance for both the phronomos and the Philosopher. Diversity and difference are facts that we need to take account of in this context, but the mere existence of such facts does not of itself justify the condemnation of all those “good” culture building activities, such as the passing of laws and education. The latter activity in particular requires a philosophical defence of the ideas upon which such activities are founded, e.g. diké(justice) and epistemé(knowledge).

November 12, 2022November 12, 2022

Review of T S Eliot’s “Notes Toward a Definition of Culture” –Class and the Elite: The Aristocrat and Cosmopolitan man

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“From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs” is a slogan attributed to Marx and the communist programme of government. Yet we know that the early Christians led a form of life that could be described in such terms. The above slogan has also been connected to the Platonic Principle of Specialisation(used to define justice in the Republic) that was supposed, by Socrates, to be the mark of healthy cities before the wish for a commodious/luxurious form of life became an almost universal object of desire.

The “fevered city” that could not control the above desire became, in Socrates’ view, a divided city where the rich ruled and their disgruntled poor sons sat in the agora stirring up trouble for the city-state. Solon was forced to address this problem in the name of justice and via the mechanism of the passing of just laws. One of the aims of Solon was to ensure that everyone got what they deserved or what they were worthy of. The Socratic Principle of Specialisation was also supposed by Socrates to achieve the end Solon had in mind, even if it failed to address the issues of procedural justice which led to the conviction and death-sentence of Socrates himself. Aristotle’s principle of formal justice complemented this Socratic principle in an account which distinguished between distributive, retributive and restorative justice, and this principle might have saved the life of Socrates if the Socratic defence that Philosophy was one of the children of the Gods could have been formally entered as a plea in his trial.

“From each according to their ability” could well be a consequence of the principle of specialisation which required that people should only be asked to perform tasks that they have the ability or power to perform. Part of the Philosophical project of Socrates was to convince people, who thought they had knowledge of various kinds, that they were overestimating their ability or power to know certain things. Socrates was actually not insisting that everyone take up Philosophy and learn from him, but he was rather insisting on a civic spirit which the Greeks already understood to be important, a spirit best described in terms of the Greek ideas of areté(doing the right thing in the right way at the right time), arché(using principles to understand/justify), epistemé(using knowledge in ones judgements) and diké(justice).

It was Aristotle who fathomed the depths of the problem of political life in engaging with the problems of class and power, by asserting prophetically that the divided city will not become united until a large enlightened middle class has the power to decide the agenda of the state. Aristotle even outlines the mechanism by which this telos can be achieved: the principle of the Golden Mean. He gives an example of the operation of this principle(arché) in relation to the important virtue(areté) of courage, so important for the defence of the city against its enemies. Young citizens, put in warlike situations, actually or hypothetically, might respond with the extreme behaviour of foolhardiness or cowardliness, and will be steered toward the golden mean of areté(doing the right thing in the right way at the right time). This was part of the Greek “Culture”. The outcome of this process, the virtue of courage, is then, a synthesis of dialectical opposites—a synthesis aiming at “The Good”.

Eliot speaks against the above account when he invokes the idea of an elite or “higher class”, which will lead the society, and in exchange be given certain honours and emoluments. Plato avoided such a situation with his philosopher-class rulers being fed and housed by the state but being refused access to money or property. Honours, per se, for Socrates would be a direct breach of areté(self-control), encouraging a life-style that continually strives after satisfying the appetites of the thousand headed monster whose appetites increase exponentially over time, and thus contributing to the ruin of the healthy city and the construction of the “fevered city”.

Eliot does, however, see the limitations of a class-ridden society, but instead of embracing the Aristotelian idea of an enlightened middle class, he settles instead for the idea of a classless society which in Marxist theory is tied to a dissolution or “withering away” of the state. Yet, for Eliot, this classless society will require an elite of leaders who require honours and emoluments. This elite corps will be drawn from a number of cultural domains of society, e.g. politics, art, philosophy, and science and these leaders will, according to Eliot, somehow form a natural homogeneous unified group.

Eliot was writing at a time when two political leaders, Hitler and Stalin had succeeded in mobilising the masses against the elites of their society in the name of perverted ideas of justice and morality. Freud, writing during the same period, used psychoanalysis to analyse both the behaviour of the masses and their leaders in his work “Group Psychology and the Ego”. Freud pointed to the operation of certain pathological processes and mechanisms such as projection, reversal, narcissistic behaviour and identification with the aggressor. Freud’s account pointed to an end for tyrants (obsessed with power and honour), which had in fact been predicted for all tyrants in the last books of Plato’s Republic. The context for this account was the failure of understanding, judgement and reason, and the consequent telos for such a failure, namely justice(getting what one deserves). Tyrants create such a culture of death and hate around themselves that it does not require any advanced form of reasoning to understand the connection between the cause of the culture they have created and the effect of their fate.

Eliot discusses Russia and regrets the removal of the Russian elite class which he believes will eventually prove disastrous for the country. There is also an interesting discussion of the role of the family in the task of the transmission of culture, which is surprising, given the qualified scepticism of both Plato and Aristotle insofar as this issue was concerned. We know Aristotle called for a more formal education of the public, perhaps because of the limitations of the resources of all families to provide all the elements necessary for the transmission of an entire culture. For Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, education and the transmission of knowledge, especially knowledge of “The Good”, was decisive for the well-being of the state. For Eliot, it appears as if Public Education can not bear the burden of transmission, and he believes more in his leaders and the family. Indeed towards the end of this chapter of his work , it is the aristocratic family that emerges as the best transmitter of Culture to the next generation.

Aristotles view of the city differs in many respects to the accounts given by both Socrates(who was in favour of a healthy city that would require neither a military force not philosophers to thrive) and Plato. For Aristotle, the city state was a complex creation building upon several prior structures, the first of which is the structure of the family(which is not self-sufficient), and the second of which is the large group of families constituting a village(which is more sufficient than the family but still not self sufficient). The potentially self-sufficient structure of the city-state is constituted of a number of villages unified by a legal constitution. For Aristotle, this final structure contains the possibility of neutralising the forces of oligarchy and democracy(constituted by the disgruntled sons of the oligarchs) with the powers of areté, arché, epistemé and diké. These powers help to create the leader or leaders the city needs. Such a leader or leaders he calls a phronomos, a great-souled man. Some might arrive at the conclusion that the phronomos is an aristocratic man but if this is an appropriate term for this great souled man, he is surely a very different kind of being to that imagined by Eliot. Aristotle’s aristocrat would not require the instrumental benefits of honours and emoluments to deliberate and perform the duties necessary to serve the city-state. The good-spirited flourishing life(eudaimonia) he leads would be sufficient reward for his work.

Kantian political philosophy does not specifically take issue with the idea of class(this being a phenomenon of more modern political philosophy) but, like Aristotle, he sees the threat of ruin and destruction the oracle warned of, and his account sees this threat to be best met by the cultural work of enlightened men who use their freedom and responsibility to create and maintain enlightened institutions of government. Kant, even sees a role for the ecclesiastical church in this process which he claims is destined to end in a kingdom of ends in which the idea of the Good-in-itself plays a key role supporting a culture constituted by areté(doing the right thing in the right way at the right time), epistemé(knowledge), arché(principles) and diké(justice. Whether or not the state will dissolve or wither away when the kingdom of ends is upon us is not discussed by Kant but he does present us with an image of a cosmopolitan man, emerging from this healthy, global state of affairs.

November 10, 2022November 10, 2022

Review of T S Eliot’s “Notes Toward a Definition of Culture”: Part Two Culture and its Meaning

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Socrates, in Plato’s work “The Republic”, as part of his search for an acceptable account of Justice (in terms of both the individual and in the activities of the city-state), claimed that it would be easier to look at the activities of the state because that is where the soul is writ large.

This is an important strategic recommendation for the more general philosophical search for the “meaning” of Culture. Involved in this search is recognising the differentiation between firstly, a physical artifactual reality, secondly, psuche( any form of life),and thirdly, the human psuche. This is an important matter because there is a modern materialistic view of human creation which views our civilisation as a totality of facts that have an essentially artifactual character. Viewing civilisation in this way is obviously a part of an inward-looking process connected to an instrumental enjoyment of life which contrasts with the more classical view that appeals to the worthiness and dignity of the human form of life.

Eliot wishes to distinguish between the culture of an individual, the culture of a class or group and the culture of the whole society. He prioritises the whole and he speaks of conducting his search in:

“the pattern of society as a whole”(P.23)”

Socrates, in the later books of the Republic, responds to Glaucon’s challenge to provide us with a justification of the term “justice” that meets the criteria of being both good-in-itself and good-in-its-consequences. We can see in the argumentation an appeal to the Platonic Theory of Forms in which the Form of the Good was the primary most important form or principle for the organisation of Society. Eliot makes no mention of the importance of justice in the constitution of the culture of a society. No mention is made either of the Kantian ideas of freedom and human rights as constitutive elements. Instead Eliot refers to:

The refinement of manners(civility and politeness)
Learning
Philosophy in the broadest sense of the term
The arts

Eliot claims in relation to these elements of the pattern of society as a whole that, insofar as the individual is concerned, perfection in relation to one element does not suffice to attribute to that individual the term “cultured”. Eliot also adds that we can not realistically expect anyone to be fully accomplished in all the above areas. This, in turn, leads Eliot to embrace a Wittgensteinian principle which claims that when we wish to determine whether a rule is being followed, we do not focus upon what one individual is doing at any particular moment, but rather upon what a community is doing over a period of time. Wittgenstein has the following to say on this topic:

” 567. How could human behaviour be described? Surely only be sketching the actions of a variety of humans, as they are all mixed up together. What determines our judgement, our concepts and reactions, is not what one man is doing now, an individual action, but the whole hurly-burly of human actions, the background against which we see any action.

568. Seeng life as a weave, this pattern(pretence, say) is not always complete and is varied in a multiplicity of ways. But we, in our conceptual worlds, keep on seeing the same, recurring with variations. That is how our concepts take it. For concepts are not for use on a single occasion.”(Zettel, 99e)

Eliot evokes the whole but does not conceive of the whole in exactly the same terms as Wittgenstein. Eliot also points to how, in a late phase of the development of Culture, a process of specialisation occurs occupationally, but also in the case of the differentiation of art, politics, science and religion. He describes this process of specialisation in terms of two ideas that in fact are not compatible with each other, namely, autonomy and dominance. There is no question that, insofar as science, in its technological aspect, is concerned, there is what might be described as a colonising effect on other domains of investigation. However, Science conceived of broadly, by both Aristotle and Kant, is indeed “autonomous” in the sense of defining the scope of its own activity(and also in the sense of justifying that scope in cultural terms). This claim is congruent with the metaphysical accounts of all forms of the sciences we encounter in both Aristotelian and Kantian metaphysics. The word “autonomous”, insofar as Kant is concerned, carries the meaning of “self-determining”, or “self-causing”, implying a respect for all other forms of thought whose concern is not confined to the hypothetical determining of cause-effect relations in contexts of exploration/discovery, but rather with, for example, actions and reasons in a context of explanation/justification. All cultural activities involve these two kinds of contexts, and there are different kinds of explanation/justification that manifest themselves, for example, in the different forms of account appealing to either hypothetical cause-effect accounts, or rational logical explanations, appealing to the logical principles of noncontradiction and sufficient reason. Eliot does not, of course, subscribe to the kind of rational account provided above, and prefers to confine his speculations to the observation of differences, rather than the more difficult categorical task of explaining why all the different forms of culture have some kind of essential feature in common (which may reveal itself in future investigations). Speculating in a “spirit” of exploration/discovery might well “discover” a decline in cultural levels as manifested, for example, in the amount of knowledge people possess now, as compared with previous eras. Eliot, however, ventures to suggest something more than this, and claims that the decline of culture is “total”. He does reason his way toward the idea of a worthwhile civilisation, but he is not in a position to give either Aristotelian or Kantian grounds for his judgement.

Eliot notes, for example, that a culture can tolerate a number of different religions, but stands firmly by his previous conviction that a culture is unable to exist without some form of religion. The Kantian response to the questions posed by Eliot would be in terms of the 4 questions he claimed defined the scope of Philosophy , namely, “What can we know?” “What ought we to do?” “What can we hope for?” and “What is man?”. In the account given to us by Kantian critical philosophy, there is a complex relation between all 4 questions which trace the extent to which knowledge(justified true belief), morality( freedom, the categorical imperative, human rights) and religion contribute to the leading of a Socratic examined life, an Aristotelian contemplative good spirited flourishing life or a Kantian Enlightened life. Kant, in his critical Philosophy has created a logical space for faith which can be both explained and justified, and whilst there may be long periods of decline, Kant has faith that, in the very long term (one hundred thousand years), “All things will be well and all manner of things will be well.”(Little Gidding, Four Quartets).

Eliot continues his account of the decline in Culture by insisting that Culture and Religion are:

“different aspects of the same thing” (P.29, Notes)

He also insists that aesthetic sensibility and taste must also find a place in the above “sphere of the spirit”(P.31). His reasoning, however, ends in a paradoxical judgement, namely:

“To judge a work of art by artistic or by religious standards, to judge a religion by religious or artistic standards should come in the end to the same thing: though it is an end at which no individual can arrive.”(P.30)

There is, of course, a problem with the comparison, given that we are dealing with a defined object on the one hand, and the family of activities that constitute a religion on the other, but that aside, one can nevertheless ask the question “What sense of the “same thing” is being referred to here?” This question has a relatively clear answer in the works of Aristotle and Kant, but the question is whether Eliot has the argumentative resources to satisfactorily answer this question. It would seem that a philosophical view of art and religion is required for this task. For Kant, the three faculties of mind, namely sensibility, understanding and reason, function autonomously, but are also integrated into a larger whole in accordance with autonomous principles. Sensibility. for example, puts us in an immediate non-conceptual relation to our objects, whilst the understanding requires a categorically determined representation of the object–a representation that aims at the truth when combined with other representations. Sensibility, functions in accordance with the infinite media of space, time, and matter whilst understanding, on the other hand, functions in accordance with internal finite categories and rules that are schematised by sensible schemata via the medium of language. This difference in the function of faculties, according to Kant, suggests one difficulty with identifying artistic and religious judgements. In the case of sensibility we are dealing with a direct connection of the representation with the object, and in the case of the understanding , the conceptual representation has an indirect connection to the object which has to do with the Wittgensteinian requirement that concepts must be generally used and can be used to say the same thing about spatio-temporally different events.

Eliot also wishes Culture to include:

“all the characteristic activities and interests of people.”(P.31)

Eliot includes a list of activities that includes gambling activities(Derby Day, the dog races), games, and even foodstuffs prepared in certain unique ways. He then draws the obvious conclusion that cultural activities lack unity, and this puzzling diversion urges the question:”What makes us wish to use the term “culture” for all the above activities?” For many philosophers some of the items on Eliot’s list would not be regarded as “cultural”. Eliot also takes up activities which Aristotelians and Kantians would be hesitant to include under the concept of “cultural”, carrying with is as it does a positive normative affirmation, e.g. zealous war-like patriotism and the evangelisation of Christianity. For Eliot, on the other hand, culture is the incarnation of religion(P.33), but for Kant culture is more closely tied to the worth and dignity of leading a moral life that is lived in accordance with the categorical imperative and the principles/laws of practical reason. Faith and Grace play a supporting role in the context of explaining and justifying an answer to the critical question “What can we hope for?”. For Eliot the answer is quite clear because for him Christianity is the “highest culture the world has ever known”(P.33). Eliot confounds his own position, however, with the claim that there is value to be attached to so-called “materialistic religions(whatever this means!) simply because it distracts the populace from boredom and despair(cf gambling).

November 8, 2022November 8, 2022

Book Review of T S Eliot’s “Notes towards the definition of Culture” Part 1

Eliot begins his Introduction to his “Notes..” with a challenge that remind us of the ancient prophecy of the Greek Oracle, namely, “Everything created by man is destined for ruin and destruction.” This prophecy like many prophecies is not intended as a prediction of future events, similar to the predictions of Nostradamus, but serves more as a challenge to man to lead an examined life. Eliot’s challenge to us is formulated thus:

“The most important question that we can ask, is, whether there is any permanent standard by which we can compare our civilisation with another, and by which we can make some guess at the importance and decline of our own. We have to admit, in comparing our civilisation with another, and in comparing the different stages of our own, that no one society and no one age of it realises all the values of civilisation…..Nevertheless, we can distinguish between higher and lower cultures; we can distinguish between advance and retrogression. We can assert with some confidence that our own period is one of decline:that the standards of culture are lower than they were 50 years ago and that the evidence of this decline are visible in every department of human activity.”(Notes…London, Faber and Faber, 1958)

There is much to unpack in the above message, that comes to us like a “message in a bottle”, from a distant land and perhaps a different time. Firstly, let us recognise the developmental view of civilisation, transitioning through different stages. Secondly we need to recognise that in the above quote there is no acknowledgement of the Kantian distinction between the “phases” of civilisation and culture as accounted for in the following:

“We are cultivated to a high degree by art and science. We are civilised to the point of excess in all kinds of social courtesies and proprieties. But we are still a long way from the point where we would consider ourselves morally mature. For while the idea of morality is indeed present in culture, an application of this idea which only extends to the semblances of morality, as in love of honour and outward propriety, amounts merely to civilisation. But as long as stats apply all their resources to their vain and violent schemes of expansion, thus incessantly obstructing the slow and laborious efforts of their citizens to cultivate their minds, and even deprive them of all support in these efforts, no progress in this direction can be expected. For a long internal process of careful work on the part of each commonwealth is necessary for the education of its citizens.”(Kant’s Political lectures, trans by Nisbet, H., B., Cambridge, CUP, 1970, P.49)

Kant, in his work, “The Critique of Judgement”, supplements the above account with the claim that when one can speak meaningfully of the feelings which our judgements are founded upon, we attain the heights of civilisation, and cross the threshold into the realm of Culture. He also adds that developing a taste for fine art created by genius, takes us further into this realm. Yet it is morality and its relation to freedom and human rights that firmly establishes our cultural standing. We do not, unfortunately, encounter this insight into the relation of civilisation and culture in Eliot, but it is clear from his remarks in “Notes..” that Culture as envisaged by Eliot probably does not differ significantly from that envisaged by both Aristotle and Kant. We should also recall that “Notes..” was first published in 1943, four years into the second world war that dwarfed in magnitude and intensity any war Kant may have had in mind.

The works of Plato and Aristotle are important inaugural influences, insofar as the shape and direction of our Western Culture is concerned. The superficial surface-value of honour, and war, have been connected with one another since the Peloponnesian war and the wars against the ancient Persians. It was, in fact, Greek Culture that promoted a new type of hero in the person of Socrates who manifested not courage combined with aggression but courage combined with humility(Socrates genuinely claimed that his “wisdom” consisted in knowing that he did not know everything). Socrates led his examined life in a Greek context of areté, arché, diké, epistemé, and phronesis, and this battery of terms defined the agenda for this new type of “hero”, who was prepared to die because he so respected the crucial cultural elements of Philosophy and The Law. “The long internal process of careful work” which assisted in the crossing of the threshold of civilisation began, then, with the work of Socrates, and this process continued with the work of Plato and Aristotle. The Enlightenment continued this momentum with the work of Kant, but the rate of cultural progress slowed significantly with the work of Hegel, and his active attempt to “turn the work of Kant on its head”. The momentum of progress was further slowed by the followers of Hegel working in the traditions of phenomenology and existentialism. Kant’s view of science was supplanted by the naturalism of mathematical-empirical science and its techné-inspired revolution. This slowing of the rate of progress was probably also assisted by the Kantian attacks on ecclesiastical religion, which Kant specifically dissociated from what he termed “universal Philosophical religion” of the kind espoused by Aristotle.

Yet it is in the context of what Eliot called the decline of Culture that we encounter the attempt firstly to define Culture in Aristotelian-Kantian terms that, for example, manifest themselves in the articles declaring the purposes of UNESCO:

To develop and maintain mutual understanding and appreciation of the life and culture,, the arts, the humanities and the sciences of the people of the world as a basis for effective international organisation and world peace.
To co-operate in extending and in making available to all peoples, for the service of common human needs the worlds full body of knowledge and culture, and in asserting its contribution to the economic stability, political security and general well-being of the peoples of the world.”(“Notes…”, P.14)

Secondly, the articles above are certainly interesting from the point of view of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Economic stability is obviously necessary to meet human physiological and security needs. Political security, on the other hand, appeals to the higher maintenance needs of security and belongingness. Higher growth needs such as self-esteem , cognitive and aesthetic needs, refer obviously to general well-being, and this form of life(to use an Aristotelian expression), would not espouse the honour-model of heroism, but rather appeal to the Socratic/Aristotelian models that lead us to the examined/contemplative life. Aristotle would have little objection to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs which he would believe is supported by his 4 kinds of change, 3 media of change(space, time, matter), 4 causes of change, 3 principles of change and the Aristotelian canon of the theoretical, practical and productive sciences. Freudian theory is another possible hylomorphically-based theory with close connections to Kantian Philosophy and Anthropology.

Eliot outlines 3 conditions of Culture which also have connections to Aristotelian and Kantian Philosophy. The first condition refers to the growing cultural structures that facilitate the transmission of theoretical, practical ,and productive knowledge in the community. The second condition, refers curiously to the division of this culture into “regional cultures” which have some relation to overall culture but differ in what seem to be superficial respects. The third condition relates to Religion, which Eliot argues has a necessary connection to the existence of a Culture, i.e it is claimed that culture has never existed without a religion. Eliot is not, however, clear about the causality of this relation. He is not sure, for example, whether it is “Culture” that causes religion or vice versa:

The third is the balance of unity and diversity in religion, that is, universality of doctrine with particularity of cult and devotion.”(Notes, P.15)

This resembles the Kantian distinction between historically based ecclesiastical religion and philosophical universal religion. For Kant, all that instantiates the latter concretely in the former, is retained, and those rituals and beliefs that cannot be defended on universal grounds are discarded and regarded as unjustified.

Eliot unfortunately appeals to elite groups of leaders in society(cf Plato’s Philosophers governing the Republic), which will be “honoured” thus raising a question of the importance of Greek and Enlightenment ideas of The Golden Mean or Equality that will create an educated middle class which respects but does not “honour” or worship its leaders. Leaders, regarded by this Aristotelian middle class are, in this new form of society viewed as advisers or “water-bearers”. The imperative form of language that all use in such a society respects the freedom and responsibility of the groups/communities that are being organised. This is the role of class in a Culture that has crossed the threshold of civilisation which previously relied upon an inward looking principle of self-love(manifesting itself in nationalism and war-like behaviour), but now looks forward to a cosmopolitan peace-loving society. On this view, leaders or races of men were not supermen possessing a will to power that appeals to a vision of the Absolute or an ultimate proletarian dissolution of the state. Rather these cosmopolitan knowledge-loving equals use their understanding, judgement, and reason to evaluate advice and action in a spirit of areté, arché, epistemé, diké, phronesis. Happiness, which might have been the telos of the inhabitants of a civilisation that had not crossed the threshold into a culture, is sublimated by a communal demand for Eudaimonia(a good spirited flourishing life).

November 4, 2022November 6, 2022

A review of Thomas Howards Youtube lecture on T S Eliots “Four Quartets”: Part 4– A Wittgensteinian commentary

It may be true to claim that attention to both Aristotelian and Kantian Philosophy is necessary if one is to succeed in capturing the full sense or meaning of the philosophical component of Eliot’s poetry. There may, however, be, an aspect of Eliot’s poetry that remains untouched by the above philosophical interpretations(Aristotle, Kant, Freud) and that aspect is also important for our understanding and reasoning about aesthetic and religious problems.

We argued in an earlier work entitled “A Philosophical History of Psychology, Cognition, Emotion, Consciousness and Action”(Lambert Academic Press, 4 volumes2019-2022) that Wittgenstein conducts investigations into the use of language in order to reveal the important role of words in the understanding of their “meaning”. Wittgenstein believes that grammatical investigations can reveal the essence of things, thus distancing himself from various modern forms of relativism, and he also insists on the objectivity of the linguistic practices that are an essential part of our communal life-world. These investigations are conducted in Greek and Kantian spirit, and seek to connect essence-specifying characterisations with both the notion of “forms of life”, and our mental capacities. Wittgenstein attempts to assemble his album of sketches into a landscape that we find our way about in. He also, we know, compared Kant’s project favourably with what he was attempting to do, but there is no acknowledgement of the Aristotelian hylomorphic idea of “forms of life”.

One of the major “revolutions” of Wittgenstein’s later philosophy involved referring to the differing philosophical significance of the different “forms of language”, e.g. descriptive, interrogative, imperative and “countless other kinds”(Philosophical Investigations, 23). These forms are viewed in terms of the way in which we master the use of these forms as a consequence of learning the language. Wittgenstein, in the context of this discussion, uses the term “technique”, and this invokes the image of “tools”: words and sentences are “tools of language” he claims. Using these tools correctly then becomes an important part of the training process, and this process connects to areté( saying the right thing at the right time in the right way in the right circumstances). Imperatives, it is argued, have both conditions of understanding and performance. For example, the imperative “We ought to keep promises”, requires both understanding of the meaning of the words, and an understanding involving the importance of doing what one has said one is going to do. These elements are part of the language game we play with imperatives which is also founded on the praise or blame of fellow language users who believe the practice of keeping promises is important for the community. Imperatives of the above kind, then can be seen as “universal maxims” or principles, related to the moral law(the categorical imperative). The logic of the language game governing individual promising consists of a set of premises that begin with a universal”necessary “ought-statement”, and continues with a premise or premises stating the facts of the matter(that Jack promised Jill he would pay the money back that he was borrowing), and a concluding premise expressing what the individual ought to (Pay the money back).

Wittgenstein also analysed the language of religious belief. He points out, for example, that a religious belief cannot be characterised as a momentary state of mind(Lectures on Religious Belief). Neither can it be characterised as the kind of belief that can be proved via the production of evidence or the giving of reasons. The “reasons” given for a religious belief differ significantly from the reasons we give for a belief such as “Jean-Paul will be grading his students at the end of this academic year.” The faith that a religious person places in the future occurrence of a Judgement Day can be defended, but the “reasons” will not “prove” the veracity of the belief. There are, however, similarities. In both cases we will expect certain kinds of behaviour/activity on the part of the believer. Without some kind of public criterion, we would not know whether we understood the meaning of what has been said. If, for example someone believes that they will not cease to exist after their death, it might be a challenge to understand exactly what they mean, even if they engage in various forms of preparatory activity for a life after death, e.g. an author who writes an autobiography, or a ruler who arranges to have certain objects placed in their grave. This draws attention to an important condition for the existence of language-games, namely, that they require a form of life constituted of a constellation of actions which are embedded in the practice of learning the use of words. The telos of this learning process is the actualisation of this linguistic knowledge in the community. Wittgenstein, in relation to the life after death question expresses the same kind of scepticism that Socrates expressed in his cell whilst awaiting the implementation of his death sentence. Socrates, we know, claimed that he did not know whether a dreamless sleep or communion with other souls in a heavenly medium, lay in the future. What he was certain of, however, was that whatever it was that was going to happen it would be something Good. Wittgenstein has this to say about “The Good”:

“What is good is divine too. That ,strangely enough, sums up my ethics”(Culture and Value 5e)

This of course is a Kantian position. Wittgenstein goes on to say:

“You cannot lead people to the good: you can only lead them to some place or other: the good lies outside the space of facts.”(5e)

This is, of course a primary strategy of Eliot’s poetry which also strives to integrate the religious belief system with our moral belief system. Eliot leads us to the places of the beginning, exile in the waste land, and finally to the end where we “know” the beginning for the first time. These places, for Eliot are the “objective correlative” that he claims is a necessary instrument for the poet to use, when it comes to the evocation of the appropriate emotions and passions connected to fundamental themes of the poem. The Garden of Eden and the Waste land are, of course, in a sense “virtual”, and not actual places, but we understand that they are creations of the productive imagination. We understand this by the way in which Eliot uses his these ideas.

Wittgenstein, in his later work, moved away from the logical positivist view of Science and toward a more humanistic position. In Culture and Value he specifically claims that Science sends us back to sleep, and he reiterates here what he has said elsewhere, namely, that the solution to scientific problems no longer interest him(cf Socrates). What is needed, Wittgenstein claims, (in Socratic and Aristotelian spirit) is that we wake up and view the world with awe and wonder. Reminding us too of the Kantian claim that :

“We may apply….to an organised being, all the laws of mechanical generation known or yet to be discovered, we may even hope to make good progress in such researches, but we can never get rid of the appeal to a completely different source 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 of even a blade of grass from mere mechanical causes.”(Critique of Judgement, Dialectic of Teleological Judgement, P.66)

The implication of the Aristotelian, Kantian and Wittgensteinian view, is that science, (with its “book of nature” commitment in which observation of the facts and the mechanical causes of phenomena is the primary concern), will not provide us with answers to the aporetic questions that arise when we attempt to understand nature. Similarly, if we view past culture with the same commitment we may reduce it to rubble and ash, but, given the complex nature of our mental capacities and the way in which they relate to the human psuche, a spirit will hover over the ashes. Eliot captures this scenario in his image of the ashes of burned roses on the sleeve of winter. Aristotle Kant and Wittgenstein all agree on the complex integration of our human capacities and powers. Wittgenstein expresses this in the following fashion:

“The treatment of all these phenomena of mental life is not of importance to me because I am keen on completeness. Rater because each one casts light on the correct treatment of all”(Zettel, 465)

It is in this spiritual space that we find “The Good” and the awe and wonder we feel in the face of the beauty and sublimity of the natural world. Kant noticed the tendency to attempt to reduce the “architectural” work that occurs in this spiritual space to rubble, and objected to this attempt in all three of his major works, but most specifically in the Critique of Judgement, where the emphasis is upon the relations of the “faculties” of imagination, understanding and reason. Wittgenstein shares many of Kant’s concerns:

“Even if it is clear to me that the disappearance of a culture does not signify the disappearance of human value but simply of certain means of expressing this value, still the fact remains that I contemplate the current of European civilisation without sympathy, without understanding its aims, if any.”(CV 9e)

Whether what Wittgenstein means here is the European penchant for viewing the world scientifically, or whether he also has in mind the “transformation” of European Philosophy since the times of Aristotle and Kant, is unclear. This view, however, fits in well with the thesis that Kantian and Aristotelian Philosophy have been, in the modern industrial world, marginalised as part of the technical and financial “march” of “progress”. A march to the drum of techné rather than the symphony orchestra of arete, areté, epistemé, diké, logos and phronesis. Music was a primary concern for Wittgenstein and we find reflections on Beethovem, Mozart, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Bruckner, Wagner and Hadyn in the writings on Culture and Value.

Wittgenstein speaks quite often about a “landscape” in relation to his philosophy, and the difficulty his pupils have in finding their way about in this philosophical terrain. He also speaks about his own work in terms of an attempt to produce an album of sketches of this landscape, regretting the fact that these sketches do not form a whole. Perhaps both Aristotle and Kant felt this way about their work too. Wittgenstein’s modernity, however, manifests itself in the following remark:

“The truly apocalyptic view of the world is that things do not repeat themselves. It is not, e.g., absurd to believe that the scientific and technological age is the beginning of the end for humanity, that the idea of Great Progress is a bedazzlement, along with the idea that the truth will ultimately be known:that there is nothing good or desirable about scientific knowledge and that humanity, in seeking it is falling into a trap.It is by no means clear that this is not how things are.”(CV 64e)

Yet at the same time Wittgenstein is uncertain of this position, and speculates hopefully that perhaps one day our civilisation will evolve into a Culture. He focuses on a major modern concern orbiting around our modern educational systems, and claims that the education of his time was merely designed for the purpose of the pupils having a good time in the name of the Popper’s principle : “minimise suffering”. Suffering of the kind experienced by souls exiled in the waste-land (referred to by Eliot) is, Wittgenstein argues, out of date. This exemplifies for Wittgenstein, the decline of civilisation but it also connects with Kantian reflections on the importance of leading a moral life that has nothing to do with what Kant referred to as the principle of self-love in disguise, namely happiness. The Kantian moral agent, instead accepts the suffering involved in the effort to protect ones freedom and do ones duty, and they do this by, amongst other things ,bearing responsibility in relation to other peoples freedom. The saint, for Eliot obviously embodies this Kantian ideal in the way in which suffering is borne and in the way in which life is appreciated: a life lived , Eliot argues, at the intersection of time and the timeless.

November 2, 2022November 2, 2022

If music be the food of poetry, play on.

Music is sound organised in Time. This particular pieceby Beethoven inspired the musical form of Eliot’s “Four Quartets”, each quartet consisting of 5 movements. Eliot wrote to Spender and referred to this Beethoven piece, and the relief that is felt after great suffering. We know that Hamlet says to Horatio that there are more things in heaven and earth than are contained in his Philosophy. I have been arguing in several blog posts(http://michaelrdjames.org) that there is more to the philosophical content of Eliot’s poetry than many suspect. The combination of music, prose, and philosophy is what makes Eliot’s poetry classical and timeless. One example of this combination of how rhyming prose, philosophy, and the timing and rhythm of music, can make good poetry is the following section from Little Gidding:

Ash on an old man’s sleeve
Is all the ash the burnt roses leave.
Dust in the air suspended
Marks the place where a story ended.
Dust inbreathed was a house-
The walls, the wainscot and the mouse,
The death of hope and despair,
This is the death of air.

The end of the story of man may well be best pictured in the form of dust from the once blooming rose(the life of man), and this is suggestive of two ancient philosophical themes.

Firstly, we know Socrates turned away from his investigations of the physical world(the world of particles, air, fire, water, earth) fearing it may blind his soul to more important matters. Life and its creations reduced to dust may well prove to be the end of air. This is one of the suggestions in these lines. Secondly, there is an oracular prophecy that everything created by man is destined for ruin and destruction and it was this prophecy that motivated Socrates to lead the examined life, rather than a life investigating earth, air water and fire. Four Quartets is obviously a celebration of Christianity, but it is also and elaboration upon themes from Ancient Classical Greece. We ought to recall that the elements earth, air, water, and fire were important elements of Aristotle’s physics, which together with the processes of heat and cold, wet and dry can be used to explain both weather systems and life-systems. Dust in the air suspended may, that is combine with evaporated water to form clouds, which in turn produce rainfall, which in turn nourishes the earth: as the earth gets hotter dust rises again in the air and is swept upwards and across the earth by the four winds and the cycle continues. There is nothing in Eliot to contradict this physical account and whilst Aristotle does not shy away from exploring the physical world as did Socrates, he does agree with Socrates that the investigation of the human form of life(the human soul) is the most interesting form of investigation and he also embarks upon the project that resulted from the challenge of the Delphic oracle to man to “Know thyself!”

November 1, 2022November 6, 2022

A Review of the youtube lecture on Eliot’s “Four Quartets by Thomas Howard: Part Three –A Freudian Commentary

Freud claimed that his Psychology was Kantian, and there is much evidence to support this claim, especially insofar as his later work was concerned. There is, however, also evidence to suggest that he did not share many of Kant’s cultural and religious convictions, even in his later work. Thanatos for Freud, together with Eros, were terms borrowed from Plato, for the purposes of characterising and diagnosing the condition of those difficult to treat patients, whose symptom-constellation was puzzling for Freud, e.g. the compulsion to repeat something traumatic seemed to lie beyond the reach of explanation in terms of the pleasure principle. Freud thus began to explore the territory beyond the pleasure principle. The postponement of immediate gratification as a life-sustaining and enhancing strategy had long been a feature of the Greek principle of areté, and it too was an important component of the Kantian criticism of the utilitarian ultimate end -goal of the “pursuit of happiness”.

The Freudian Ego was given the task of coordinating the different requirements of the life and death instinct in our sensory motor contacts with the world, and whilst pleasure played some role in this effort of coordination, it was the Reality-Principle that the ego attempted to use in most of its work. The principle worked in the spirit of areté and diké as part of the attempt to integrate the demands of the superego into a holistic harmonious mental entity. Freud characterises the death instinct as lying both behind the compulsion to repeat, and as a strategy on the part of the patient to “restore an earlier state of things”, i.e. a strategy aimed at returning the patient to a state prior to that point in their life when the trauma occurred.

The Ego’s task, in general, is to lift the subject out of the state of narcissistic love(self-love). Narcissism obviously plays a role in the Kantian account of the subject thinking about the moral law, but making himself an exception to the obligation of the imperative(which he understands but fails to fully justify). The reason it took such a long time to discover the workings of Thanatos in the psyche of his patients, (in the labyrinth of our conscious, preconscious, and unconscious systems), is that the death instinct does not announce its presence, it works silently. The desire for death, that is, manifests itself not just in the compulsion to repeat but also in the tendency toward destruction. Freud is giving more content to the oracular prophecy, relating to mans tendency to bring down ruin and destruction upon himself. This is one argument for the death instinct being an anti-cultural instinct, and the reason for this might be contained in the following:

“The element of truth behind all of this…is…that men are not gentle creatures who want to be loved and who at most can defend themselves if 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 to kill him. Homo homini lupus”(Civilisation and its Discontents)

The issues being discussed in the above quote are the Christian imperatives “Love thy neighbour” and “love thy enemies” and what is being expressed is clearly a cynical view resembling the cynicism of Diogenes many centuries earlier, a view which may have been inspired by the Greek oracles concern for the creations of man. The Christian and Enlightenment messages of hope are overshadowed by a form of reasoning that points to the bitter facts we all experience–that people do kill each other, and use each other as means to their own selfish(narcissistic?) ends. Freud, therefore appears, at first sight, to have grounds for his form of argumentation, and it ought to be pointed out that Eliot’s poetry post-dates Freud but a reasonable hypothesis would be that Freudianism(on the basis of Freuds writings) would respond negatively to the religion in Eliot’s poetry and positively to the philosophy. One response by Freudians would involve seeing in the poetry the suspicious workings of defence mechanisms. In the work “Moses and Monotheism” Freud states the following:

“Religion is an attempt to get control over the sensory world in which we are placed, by means of the wish-world which we have developed inside us as a result of biological and psychological necessities. But it cannot achieve its end. Its doctrines carry with them the stamp of the time in which they originated, the ignorant childhood days of the human race. Its consolations deserve no trust. Experience teaches us that the world is not a nursery. The ethical commands, to which to which religion seeks to lend its weight, require some other foundations instead, for human society cannot do without them and it is dangerous to link up obedience to them with religious belief. If one attempts to assign to religion its place in mans evolution, it seems not so much to be a lasting acquisition, as a parallel to the neurosis which the civilised individual must pass through on his way from childhood to maturity.”

How, we might wonder, could Freud, the Kantian psychologist be so cynical about Religion? Kant sees religious belief and activity in terms of the motivated hopes of a rational animal capable of discourse. Firstly, we ought to note that Kant inclines toward the term “respect” to characterise and justify the way in which man ought to relate himself to other men. Respect is less of a passion, and more of an intellectual attitude than Love, signifying as it does a psychological distance in relation to the object of the attitude. Kant’s imperatives, therefore, would be “respect thy neighbour”, and “respect thy enemy” and in that spirit “do unto him as thy would be done unto”

Freud speaks in the above quote of the the importance for society that peace and tranquillity reign between oneself and ones neighbours, but he is less conciliatory about our relation to our neighbours if they behave like ones enemies, believing that areté(doing the right thing at the right time in the right way) and diké(justice) must regulate such a relation rationally, without any threat of violence.

We have Freud to thank for giving us account of the curious behaviour he described as “identifying with the aggressor” by which he meant that certain people wish to become like their aggressors in order to avoid the aggression these aggressors wish to inflict upon them. This tactic does not always work with aggressors, of course, but this might be the only choice available in certain circumstances. This behaviour, for Kant, would be tantamount to giving up ones freedom and dignity, and therefore can not be regarded as in accordance with any of the formulations of the categorical imperative. The Categorical Imperative, we ought to recall, is intended to ensure that we treat everyone(including ourselves) as ends-in-themselves.

Freud sees in his postulation of an internal agency he calls the superego, a means to control mans aggression toward his fellow man. The superego, on this account, is clearly a cultural instrument to curb aggressive behaviour, and Freud describes this in terms of it functioning like a garrison in a conquered city, but given the fact that its medium of operation is guilt and this guilt is partly the cause of his discontentment with his civilisation, the superego looks to be a negative agency. It is the mature ego that transforms this situation, by assimilating the functions of the superego into itself: sublimating areté under the broader perspective of the reality principle which manifest itself in attitudes of resignation in the face of Moira(Fate). This latter is the sign of what Freud called a strong ego.

Religion appeals to a father who demands that we identify with his holiness, and obey his commandments. This state of affairs, Freud argues, is a pathological phenomenon, and is a part of the long childhood of the species of man. For Freud, it is psychoanalysis, and not Religion, that is needed to identify the pathological mechanisms that prevent or slow down the growth process toward maturity: the growth toward being fully rational.

Yet there is in the “Four Quartets” what Freud would have regarded as wisdom, especially in the closing passages which refer to explorers returning to the beginning after having arrived at the end of their journey, and knowing the place for the first time. For Freud this process would involve the the Reality Principle which is used in the reality-testing of ones representations. Freud has the following to say on this theme:

“A pre-condition for the setting up of reality-testing is that objects shall have been lost which once brought real satisfaction”(Negation, Freud)

Freud goes on to claim that the aim of reality-testing is not to find an object that is real for perception, but rather to re-find an object that has been lost. This, in its turn, involves a wish that the absent (perhaps loved) object return from a state of absence into a state of presence–an impossible state of affairs, of course in the case of the death of a loved one. In this case the re-finding of the object is impossible and a state of mourning supervenes, which ends in a state of resignation to the new state of affairs. If, in the course of our explorations, we do re-find the lost object, Eliot does not characterise this as a case for rejoicing, but rather uses the expression that we “know the place for the first time”. Using the term “know” conjures up the Kantian interpretation of the Garden of Eden narrative we referred to in a previous essay.

The Kantian message relating to the dangers of self-love is also elaborated upon by Freud in terms of a narcissism that is so self-destructive that it may, in the process of melancholia, prove destructive of the life of the self via an act of suicide. This involves the transforming of love for the self, to hate of the self, via a pathological defence mechanism in which the patent identifies with the lost object: an object which the patient may have ambiguous feelings for. In this case the death instinct returns the subject to an earlier state of things, namely an inorganic state of being.

Both Freud and Eliot believe that the so called “empire of suffering” is a vast empire overshadowing the operation of the pleasure-pain principle. Life is harsh, Freud argues, and this demands a Stoic Greek attitude which responds to the gestalt of Ananke rather than a utilitarian calculation of how to avoid the calculus of pain. The important part of this Greek response is the battle against illusion which is fought by embracing the knowledge of “The Good”—the foremost “Form” in Plato’s “Theory of Forms”. Freud’s response to the problems posed by the harshness of life is to evoke the “god” of “Logos” to assist us in the task of living. This too, can be seen as a rejection of the enthusiasm of Eliot and Kant for a divine author of the world. Logos assists us, in particular, to resolve what Freud refers to as the Oedipus complex of the species, enabling us to face up to the work that needs to be done more realistically— a project free from illusion and delusion. We are thus enabled via Logos to resign ourselves to Ananke, and in the process acquire a view of the world which is “Beyond the Pleasure Principle”. We should recall here that the death of Socrates was in accordance with such a world view. Socrates viewed death as a Good, whether it be a dreamless sleep or a meeting of souls in a heavenly medium.

Art, is treated much more sympathetically than Religion in Freud’s writings. We have noted that Religion, on Freud’s view is riddled with pathological defence mechanisms, e.g. the compulsion to repeat(rituals) identification with the aggressor(the angry punishing God of the OT), the return of the repressed(our original sin) etc. Art , on the other hand is:

“the non-obsessional, non-neurotic form of substitute satisfaction”

Freud sees the defence mechanism of “sublimation”as harnessing our creative instincts in the name of Eros, a process which involves the postponement of satisfaction for Cultural purposes. The sensible power of the imagination inserted in the work of fantasy, however, is the medium for this artistic activity. Aristotle, in the context of this discussion, claims that the dramatist and the poet seek ultimately to produce a learning experience upon which supervenes a feeling of pleasure. Kant’s account of the creative is marginally more complex, referring to what he calls the “harmony of the faculties of the imagination and understanding”. There is, in this rather pleasant process, no great suffering requiring an attitude of resignation at the end: the work of art does not resemble the work of life in that respect. Indeed it is meant as the sketch of a solution to the problem of the harshness of life. Kant argues that the harmony of the faculties prepares the mind for the tasks of morality and he claims that beauty is the “symbol” of morality.

There is, in Freuds writings on Religion no reference to the kerygma or “call” of religion even if there is acknowledgement that it has served the purposes of culture in the past. There are, however references to both Plato and Kant in his later work. Epistemé, in the form of knowledge of the principles of psychoanalysis, complements the techné of therapeutic techniques, and it is clear that the Reality Principle is not merely an epistemological principle, but also requires the knowledge of “the Good” both Plato and Aristotle referred to in their reflections. Socrates, in his cell, waiting for the hour of his death, was resigned to his fate, and his knowledge of areté, logos, and diké were operative right up to the moment at which he was losing consciousness: a moment in which his last thought was to ask for a sacrifice to be made on his behalf to the Medical God, Aeschylus. Presumably this last gesture was a form of thanksgiving for “the good ” death that was about to occur. The last act of Socrates was, therefore, a religious act. Socrates was not as free as Freud felt, close to his death in England, after fleeing from the Nazis, but both figures represented in their different ways the importance of Logos and Ananke in approaching the end of their “examined lives”. Socrates died from a dose of hemlock and Freud from an overdose of morphine, so perhaps the final gesture of Socrates was not in vain and a prophecy of things to come.

Freud, the medical doctor, launches two specific attacks upon religion, the first against religious belief explaining the nature of the illusion involved in some of the elements of the system. The second attack is upon religious practice, especially the ritualistic aspect, which probably includes the communion of the Catholic mass. Illusions of religion connect to the capacity for desire, and Freud reflects upon the pathological character of various forms of self-fulfilment. It is also important to note that the Freudian criticism is not limited to analysing monotheism, but is intended to question all forms of religion, including the polytheism of earlier religions. It is not truth or knowledge that is at issue in many of his reflections, but rather the efficacy of religion in the economics of renunciations and satisfactions in the lives of men. Freud is well aware that the mere claim that both religious belief and religious rituals are pathological and fantasy-laden, is not sufficient criticism of these activities from a psychoanalytical point of view. In his criticism, Freud maintains that religion has both neurotic and psychotic components, but it is the latter element that he focuses upon in his analysis of the psychological mechanism of projection and its involvement in the construction of a spiritual world. We know that in his work “The Future of an Illusion” Freud claimed the origins of civilisation to be rooted in coercion and what he calls the “renunciation” of the instincts and he further doubts whether man has the capacity for organising society without the use of the above problematic methods.

Kant draws an important distinction between Civilisation and Culture and for him the latter is part of the project of actualising the potentialities of man, especially his rationality and freedom. We find a suggestion of this in Eliot’s “In my beginning is my end”, and in other reflections on wisdom, but Freud rejects this distinction between civilisation and culture, and like Diogenes in the dark shines a lamp upon the face of civilisation, only to conclude that it might not be worth the effort man puts into it. To sustain a culture, as conceived of by Kant, requires a considerable amount of work over a long, long period of time(one hundred thousand years). At the end of this process, Kant argues, man will find himself in a kingdom of ends. Freud’s response this would have been to simply point out that man is not fond of work, preferring instead to acquiesce to his passions. For the Greeks this work took place in the spirit of areté and diké and the Greeks were more positive than Freud on the issue of the possible control of the passions and the power of knowledge and work to bring cultural benefits. Kant, of course pointed out that even though man needs to have his passions controlled, he does not always want this to happen.Man, as a consequence does the minimum amount of work necessary to sustain his civilisation, but perhaps not enough to hasten his one hundred thousand year journey toward the kingdom of ends. He also is prepared to work because of his knowledge of what life is like in a state of nature without the benefits of living in a society.

In the early days of our communal existence Freud reflects upon the magical thinking that was used in the spirit of animism and he criticises this on the grounds of a failure of knowledge of oneself and ones capacities(epistemé). This quest for self-knowledge is part of Eliot’s project as can be seen in his earlier poetry, e.g. “The love song of J Alfred Prufrock”:

“No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.”

Prufrock, as Howard points out des not wish to be troubled by the question “What is it?” which is perhaps necessary if one, for example, wishes to understand ones relation to Time. Prufrock is the “patient ” wondering through half deserted streets, streets which lead to the posing of an overwhelming question for someone who measures out their life in coffee spoons. The poem animates even the fog into a cat-like creature, and creates a spiritual world in which death is personified without any mention of religion or God. Dante, however, provides a prelude to the poem. Sometimes in religious texts, a spiritual world is projected with more than a hint of paranoia(an angry and punishing Chronos or Yahweh) but Freud notes that in the case of the Greek gods, they were all subject to Moira or Fate and the oracles and poets believed that the gods too were subject to the demands of areté and diké. Freud highlights that, in the transition from animism to this latter state of affairs, there was a transition in which the people longed for a lost father– a longing that was in certain cases mixed with fear.

Freud notes that during his times, God was becoming an insubstantial shadow, as man began to become aware of the role his own powers played in the construction of his ideas and ideals. Kant, too, would have suspected that his own criticism of religion might result in such consequences, but his criticism was not a part of the wave of the technical progress of science. Rather, for Kant, his critique was a part of a growing realisation that God might indeed be an idea that is related to the power of practical reasoning about the moral order of the world. Freud, on the other hand, was a part of the wave of a science that appealed to a conception of theoretical reasoning, denying many categories of understanding/judgement and the critical application of the principles of reasoning. This rejection favoured sensory forms of contact with an essentially sensory world. This rejection would have been part of an illusory form of argumentation for Kant. He would not, that is, have subscribed to the modern emphasis upon the powers of perception and observation and the formulation of imaginative hypotheses based on pure sensory data. His view of sciences was tied to a world conception that rejects the view that the world is, as the early Wittgenstein put the matter, a totality of facts. Kant would have, in the context of this kind of debate, raised significant questions about how scientists believed we understand ought-statements, such as “Promises ought to be kept”. The argument that because, some or even many promises are not kept, that this fact suffices to challenge the universality and necessity of such a judgement and place it in a category of wish-fulfilments rather than with the fulfilment of ones obligations, would not have been accepted as a good argument by Kant This is not a valid form of argumentation and the Kantian objection to it is simple: theoretical statements are about a world that is so much more than a totality of facts, they are about a world that is categorically understood and rationally explained/justified. The explanations/justifications we espouse theoretically, are about events and their causation, and this is of a different kind compared to the explanations/justifications of judgements relating to the free actions of individuals and the activities of institutions. Wish-fulfilment judgements such as “I wish a particular promise would be kept”, are, in Kant’s system, a form of judgement regulated by the principle of happiness (the principle of self-love in disguise). Such judgements pay no role in the system of moral judgments we make about the moral order of the world. A politicians promises, of course could be of either of the above kinds of judgements, either a moral judgement or a judgement that is designed to ensure retention of power and position.

Freud agrees in the Future of an Illusion that Religion has served man well but many are nevertheless discontent and this has contributed both to feelings associated with a lost or absent God(Deus absconditus) and the accompanying response of “Good riddance!”. Freuds solution to the vacuum left by the retreat of the influence of religion is that we ought to embrace the god of Logos who has respect for the Reality Principle and never promises too much.

October 30, 2022October 30, 2022

Youtube review of Thomas Howards “Reader’s Guide to the Four Quartets”: Part Two: A Kantian commentary.

“Oh do not ask “What is it?”

Let us go and make our visit

These two lines of “The love song of J Alfred Prufrock” lead Eliot in his Four Quartets to an “overwhelming question”, requiring both religious and philosophical answers. In the context of this discussion we ought not to forget two important facts: firstly,Eliot converted to Anglo- Catholicism with is rituals, smells and bells, and secondly, he also wrote a doctorate on the Philosophy of Bradley, the idealist. In relation to this latter fact we can clearly see traces of Bradley’s interests in Eliot’s poetry, in spite of the fact that Eliot, like many academic philosophers of the time, rejected the metaphysics of the Absolute.

The thesis of this review, however, is that Eliot’s poetry can be seen to fall into a tradition of thought extending from Aristotle, through Kant, Freud, and the later work of Wittgenstein (and some of their followers). Kant, undoubtedly is concerned with the question Prufrock does not wish to address, but he is less concerned with consulting “experience” and its consequences. Kant, we know, was a rationalist, and like Bradley, would have rejected the idea of the absolute proposed by his critic Hegel. Kant would also have rejected the role of “experience” in empiricist accounts of the relation of man to Being, or Reality.

The question “What is Time?” for example, is not answered by Kant in Newtonian fashion via an appeal to absolute and relative Time. Kant instead, elaborates upon the Aristotelian answer to the above question, and regards Time as a medium of change which was defined by Aristotle as “the measurement of motion in terms of before and after”. Kant’s elaboration upon this seemingly “objective” definition takes the form of :

“time is nothing but the subjective condition under which alone intuition can take place in us. For that being so, this form of intuition can be represented prior to the objects, and therefore a priori.”(Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. trans by Kemp Smith, N.,London, Macmillan, 1963)

Time, on this account is the:

“form of inner sense, that is, the intuition of ourselves and of our inner state(A41)…It has to do neither with shape nor position, but with the relation of representations in our inner state”(A,33, B50)

The “relation” referred to here is that of “before and after”, and this is the condition of seeing, for example, the motion of a boat sailing downstream. Kant is, notwithstanding the above remarks, very clear about the universal validity of Time, which he conceives of as both empirically real and transcendentally ideal( being, as it is, an a priori condition of experience in general)

Both Time and Space, Kant argues, are “sources” of knowledge and can be related to the Mathematics of number and geometry. Indeed all truths about our experience of the world presuppose the sensible relation we have to Time and Space. Kant’s account of consciousness surely includes this region of sensibility, in which the imagination plays an important role in, for example, the unity of apperception where representations are combined and separated. Kant specifically has this to say on the theme of consciousness:

“The consciousness of self(apperception) is the simple representation of the “I” and if all that is manifold in the subject were given by the activity of the self, the inner intuition would be intellectual.”B 68)

This means that intuition is the sensible capacity for receiving representations and the objects of these representations are given to us in this mode of cognition. Time, then, is a sensible potentiality, but nevertheless it is a necessary a priori vicissitude of consciousness(which, for Eliot is not in time but rather a condition of time). Time past and time future meet in the present, Eliot argues. For Aristotle and Kant, it is consciousness of before and after that is important for the measurement of change, which is always given via motion of some kind. The use of the mathematical number system to quantify otherwise qualitative experiences of “before and after”, allows man to collectively lift himself out of the now of the present, and thereby make it possible to organise, not just his own daily life, but also the institutions of society.

Eliot’s opening lines can, without doubt be regarded as a reflection on the logos of time. He is clearly responding in a philosophical way to the question “What is it?” The depth of his response to this question is therefore best measured in terms of philosophical criteria. Kant’s account insists we are in immediate relation to phenomena via our intuition, and what is meant by the term “phenomenon is designated best by the Greek verb which means ” to show itself”. This in turn relates to the Greek term for “truth” which is aletheia, a term that Heidegger claims relates us to Being in a fundamental way. The “Phenomenon” Kant uses to illustrate our intuitive relation to the world, is that of a ship sailing downstream on a river. We see the motion of the ship, and immediately measure it in terms of “before and after”. Yet it is not this everyday consciousness of time that Eliot seeks to explicate. He appears to be mostly concerned with the unity of apperception of the representations of this phenomenon, more interested, that is, in the time of my life(the beginning and the end). This aspect of time is more the concern of the “I think” than the “I perceive”. Eliot is reflecting on the relation between the past, present, and future, in particular insofar as ones conception and death is concerned. The Book of Ecclesiastes is the inspiration for a number of lines in the poem. East Coker carries the message that even if there is a time for every purpose under heaven, humanity appears to be fully engaged with the project of self destruction. There are clearly echoes in this biblical work of the Greek oracles prophecy that “Everything created by man is destined for ruin and destruction”. Eliot attempts to spatialise our experience of time via the mathematical image of a spinning object and the postulate that there is a still point at the geometrical centre of this spinning mass that does not spin. That it is not mathematics that Eliot is concerned with, becomes obvious in his claim that the dance of life is occurring at this still point of the present where past and future meet.

Mathematics gives way to science and art as the poem proceeds to evoke the image of a “wounded surgeon” who uses “sharp compassion” to heal his tumored patients. Howard interprets this in terms of an implied reference to “the Great Physician”, who fulfils the prophecy “All shall be well and all manner if things shall be well”. This image then gives way to a reflection on the meaning of the catholic mass, where the startling savage image of the drinking of the blood of Christ and the eating of his flesh appears in some sense to be occurring.

The poem ends with Little Gidding, the final quartet, and the final moments take us back to our beginnings in the Garden of Eden. We are, Eliot argues, the explorers who, have after a long journey, arrived back at our origins with the awareness that we now “know the place for the first time”. This is particularly relevant for any Aristotelian/Kantian interpretation of the meaning of the Garden of Eden narrative. In this context, it ought to be pointed out that both Aristotle and Kant prioritise areté and epistemé in their different but related accounts of the Origin of History and mankind. On the Biblical account, Adam(the ruined millionaire on Howards interpretation), evokes the wrath and punishment of God, because he failed to understand mans place or position in the divine order of things. On a hylomorphic/critical reading of this tale of the genesis of man, Adam is an explorer who places his faith in the fruit of the tree of knowledge to take man to the end of his journey and enable a dignified return to his beginnings. For Kant, it is clear that Adam was exercising his freedom in this critical moment in Time, and this was a celebrated moment for the History of mankind.

Paradoxically, it may seem, it is Kantian Philosophy and its battery of arguments outlining the limitations of knowledge and the necessity of faith, that permit us to view Eliot’s poetry through the prism of Kantian Philosophy. The reference to the doctrine of trans-substantiation, of course, raises philosophical issues, and Kant would be skeptical of any identity claim relating to the bread and wine and blood and flesh of Christ. Perhaps Kant would agree to a “symbolic” relation between these entities. In the context of this discussion it is important to recall that a symbol for Kant is not a conceptual mode of representation but merely an intuitive mode of representation which we use to evoke concepts via a law of association : a law that operates when we make conscious connections between different entities. There is, in other words, an analogical relation between the blood and the wine, the flesh and the communion wafer.

Insofar as our knowledge of God is concerned we can only think the ideas of God, immortality of the soul, and Freedom, and this form of thought is best embedded in a metaphysics of morals rather than a metaphysics of nature. Insofar as God is concerned, Kant argues, the only viable argument for the existence of God, is as a moral author of the world, an author whose will is divinely holy, and which I as a human being must imitate in my chosen actions, if I am to be saved. This holy will is part of the noumenal world which we can only access through our moral belief system. Kant’s argument here is clearly “anti-utilitarian”, and takes the form of a system of imperatives rather a system of facts. These imperatives are expressed in ought-judgments, e.g. “Promises ought to be kept”, and “We ought to respect the freedom of all men”. This imperative system is end- or telos-related and refers to ultimate moral ends, which of necessity must be unconditionally accepted. The fact, for example, that man desires to be happy, and believes in a variety of means to achieve such happiness, is irrelevant for Kant, who sees in happiness the principle of self-love in disguise. Such a solipsistic solution to one of the central problems of morality would be self-defeating for Critical Philosophy. Instead Kant argues, in the spirit of Aristotle, that the telos or end of the imperative system of judgements is, the good spirited flourishing life(eudaimonia), and this brings with it ethical duties and obligations which must be respected. If, these duties and obligations become an integral part of ones life we may have faith that the end will supervene as part of the divine plan of the moral author of the world.

The narratives we possess of the life of Jesus are, of course, an attempt to ground the above abstract account of the genesis and meaning of life in a concrete life-story. Kant is on the record for approving of such narratives, but reserving judgement on the super-natural events and happenings reported. Kant is also, incidentally on record with his disapproval of various clerical ceremonial rituals(.e.g. the smells and bells of the mass) but he nevertheless believes that the church as an institution plays a very important role in the improvement of society. It is therefore a reasonable supposition that he would have approved of Eliot’s poetry on similar grounds, especially considering Eliot’s shared scepticism of appeals to supernatural causes and forces in the phenomena of horoscopes, seances, tarot card readings, etc. Eliot’s metaphors are often more Kantian than Bradleyian when he is referring to the moral author of the world. Eliot, in a sense, may be less hopeful than Kant for the future of humanity, and it is difficult to say what he might have thought about the postulated cosmopolitan “kingdom of ends”. Eliot sometimes appears to count himself as one of the Freudian “discontents” insofar as his judgement on the progress of civilisation is concerned, given the decline in cultural standards that appeared to him to accompany the wave of secularisation sweeping across the world. A clue to his position on this issue is given in his work”The Idea of a Christian Society”:

“However bigoted the announcement may sound, the Christian can be satisfied with nothing less than a Christian organisation of society–which is not the same thing as a society consisting exclusively of devout Christians. It would be a society in which the natural end of man–virtue and well being in community-is acknowledged for all, and the supernatural end–beautitude–for those who have the eyes to see it.”(ICS pp33-4)

Beauty, for Kant, we know is subjective, but it is nevertheless important for the cultural development of man, a telos that is manifested in the insistence that when we speak about something being beautiful, we speak with a “universal voice”—demanding agreement from fellow perceivers of the beautiful object. More importantly, Kant regards the soul to be enriched by experiences of beauty, given its trinity of capacities: capacity to know, capacity to feel pleasure or pain, and capacity for desire. The latter two capacities have obvious connections to one another. The judgement of beauty, however, is disinterested, and possesses a form of finality connected to the immediate feeling of pleasure which, in its turn, is related to the feeling of a good-spirited flourishing life. The ground of the pleasure we feel for beautiful phenomena is a harmony of the faculties of imagination and understanding, a harmony which in its turn prepares the mind for intellectual conceptual activity in accordance with the discipline of the categories and the discipline of the various sciences(theoretical, practical, and productive).

We find ourselves, in contemplating beauty, attempting to orient ourselves in a world of reflection and contemplation, but in a non-conceptual form which involves a more intuitive form of consciousness. This form of consciousness also feels the need to communicate ones mental state to others— a form of consciousness based on the feeling of pleasure and the harmony of the faculties which most of us experience in relation to the experience of the reading of Eliot’s “Four Quartets”.

What we find beautiful in a work of art, then, is its design insofar as this manifests the harmony of the faculties and the subsequent supervening of the feeling of pleasure. Eliot’s “Four Quartets” obviously meets the Kantian criteria we have for judgments of taste related to works of art. It is doubtful , however, whether Kant would have approved of using similar criteria to validate religious judgements, which, in his view, were regulated by practical reason .

Kant , in his work “Religion Within the Boundaries of Mere Reason”, speaks of the role of faith in the true church, which he believes is based on universal values. He argues in the context of this discussion against what he refers to as a form of “faith in vicarious satisfaction”(P.124) which may have been the target of the Freudian criticism of religion. Genuine satisfaction, Kant argues, is encountered in true believers in the moral author of the world, in the form of Grace, which in turn is an important element of a life that is led with respect for the moral law and a respect for duty. Kant is careful to point out, however that ecclesiastical faith(which presumably Eliot thought important), is not as important as the faith that is associated with the universal/philosophical religion which is “Religion within the bounds of mere reason”. Tales of miracles abound in historical accounts of the life of Jesus, and these are taken seriously by the ecclesiastical church. The true church, on the other hand, Kant argues, will remain sceptical to the accounts of supernatural events and the true church would have also been appalled by many of the modern day scandals associated with the priesthood of the ecclesiastical church. The true church does however acknowledge the importance of a Canon of important events and deeds that can be used for the purposes of establishing what Kant calls a “Kingdom of Ends”–a union of the many into one. Gods role in this moral process remains a mystery, but no more of a mystery than Newtons gravitational force(P 141, ftnt.) The law of gravity can nevertheless be cognised as can divine and moral law. It is the causes that remain unknown to us. Divine and holy law can, however, be thought and deserve the faith we place in such laws. Insofar as our religious mysteries are concerned, revelation reveals enough through scripture and our reasoning about the scriptures(P145) to our understanding and judgement and this justifies the universality and necessity of our communication in relation to such mysteries.

Howard touches upon the mystery of mysteries which concerns both the nature of time and our mortality, namely, the end of time. For many Christians there will be an end of time when God will convene a tribunal and pass judgement upon humanity . The judgement will be either one of damnation or Grace. The jury may already be out on this question, considering its verdict. In this context, there are so called monists, who believe in the positive judgement of grace, and dualists who believe some will be saved and some will be damned. In this tribunal the love of God for man will also be tested as will the love of God by man. Above all, what will be tested is the oracles prophecy that “Everything created by man is destined for ruin and destruction”. Eliot is acutely aware of the impending judgement day and therefore insists that wisdom demands the humility of man.

October 26, 2022

A review of the Youtube lecture : “Readers Guide to Eliot’s “Four Quartets”: 1. Aristotelian interpretation of Eliot

white candles in candelabrum decorated with ball of flowers — Photo by Piotr Arnoldes on Pexels.com

What is fascinating in the reading given above, is that it is given by a devout catholic, but there are Aristotelian, Kantian Freudian, and Wittgensteinian themes that are in turns explored. I intend in this first part of my review to explore some of the themes of four quartets from a Hylomorphic Aristotelian point of view referring to Aristotle’s “Poetics”, “Metaphysics”, and “On the Soul”.

Aristotle begins his work on “Poetics”(The Literary Arts) by promising reference to “first principles” and the “plot” of a work which is categorically an imitation of reality by means of language. Man, we are told, learns through imitation and takes delight in such imitations, even if we are being confronted by a narrative of the most terrible scenes of, for example, the Pelopennesian War. Aristotle, with what we mean by poetry in mind, also refers to “metre”. and “Rhythm”, techniques which Eliot uses in varying degrees. For Aristotle, it is Homer who is the paradigm artist whose objects are the actions of men better than us, but there are also tragedians such as Aristophanes whose objects are the actions of men better than us but with significantly flawed characters. We know Eliot was also a playwright but his poetry unusually contains characters such as J Alfred Prufrock, Tiresias, the fisher-king, fishermen, and travellers using Public transport.

Pity and Fear, the traditional cathartic elements of Greek tragedy are important elements of Eliot’s writings and are used to move us toward the “overwhelming question”–the Platonic and Aristotelian ideas of the Good:

“Every Art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and choice, 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”(Aristotle NE 1: 1094a 1-3)

Add to this remark that, in the Metaphysics, it is claimed “All men desire to know”, as well as the claim of Aristotle that the most difficult kind of knowledge man can acquire is knowledge of the soul, then we can perhaps begin to fathom the depth of difficulty of Eliot’s poetry. The end of the four quartets(Little Gidding) claims that all things will be well and all manner of things will be well on the conditions of simplicity and giving up everything(e.g. ones life):

A condition of complete simplicity

(Costing not less than everything)

And all shall be well and

All manner of thing shall be well

When the tongues of flames are in-folded

Into the crowned knot of fire

And the fire and the rose are one.

Eliot had earlier claimed that the death and logos of fire was to be consumed by fire. For this to end in a rose of fire is, of course, a long way from the peace and tranquility of the garden(the natural home of the rose), which, apart from its mythical significance, enables us to be distracted from distraction by distraction. The garden develops into the fiery city which we built after wandering in the desert waste land. Gardening is, of course, an activity we engage in , in our cities, and it is one form in which sublimation transforms our pity and fear into something else, but this nevertheless is a Good Aristotelian end to an unpromising beginning(our animal nature). The cost of achieving this end, of course is not less than everything: a simple equation for Eliot. For Aristotle and Kant, the achievement of the good required not merely the desire for the good, but also considerable effort in accordance with the ideas of areté(virtuous activity: doing the right thing at the right time in the right way) and epistemé(knowledge). Eudaimonia or the good-spirited flourishing life would be the result of a lifetimes desire and work. In Tragedy and Epic there is a beginning a middle and an end in which thought and action is the focus of the movement of the plot. Eliots images are sometimes dramatic but insofar as thought is concerned they seem always to be reaching for the formulation and solution to an “overwhelming question” related to life and death.

Thomas Howards recommendation that Eliot’s images ought not to be construed as “symbolic” but more straightforwardly as a “case in point”, is a useful piece of advice if one is to avoid the more exotic metaphysical interpretations of his work. Thinking, for Eliot, as for Aristotle, is irrevocably tied up with spoken discourse. Aristotle defines the essence of being human as being a rational animal capable of discourse, and Eliot claims there are 4 kinds of thinking, namely, discourse with others, discourse with one other, discourse with oneself, and finally discourse with God (reported in Northrop Frye’s “T S Eliot(Edinburgh, Oliver and Boyd, 1963, P.34). Eliot weaves thought and action in his plot in accordance with Aristotelian “Form” that is a potentiality for the human form of life, namely, that we are, a form in which our being is always a question for us. Aristotle claims in the poetics:

“The end is everywhere the chief thing.”(Poetics 1450a: 22)

The role of language, for Aristotle is clear. The poet, he claims, does not describe things that have happened, but rather the possible kind of thing that can happen which can be either the probable or necessary outcome of the series of events recounted in the plot. Eliot, like all good catholics, believes in “salvation” and in “being born again” through the right kind of self-knowledge. This may be one meaning of the image “And the fire and the rose are one”. Thomas Howard offers us an Aristotelian hylomorphic “image” of an acorn harbouring the oak within as a potentiality, requiring simple conditions, and demanding a complete transformation of its substance into something completely different, i.e. the acorn sacrifices its being for the end of being a majestic oak. The hylomorphic message is that all life forms, being mortal, share this hylomorphic feature with the acorn. The human life form, for both Aristotle and Eliot, however, is unique in its ability to attempt to understand immortality and hope for divine”everlasting life” as part of its brief sojourn in this world. These “intimations of immortality” do not tolerate distractions or the guesses of horoscopes, palm readers, tarot card readers, but rather, require the eye and hand of a surgeon and his “sharp compassion”(not to mention his knowledge) which saves life. Eliots poetry is meant in this spirit.

Earth, Air, Water and Fire are also Aristotelian elements which together with the processes of hot and cold, wet and dry “form” our environment and its cyclical weather patterns which begin and end and begin again, ad infinitum, like an ever turning wheel:

In my beginning is my end. In succession
Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended,
Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place
Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass.
Old stone to new building, old timber to new fires,
Old fires to ashes, and ashes to the earth
Which is already flesh, fur and faeces,
Bone of man and beast, cornstalk and leaf.
Houses live and die: there is a time for building
And a time for living and for generation
And a time for the wind to break the loosened pane
And to shake the wainscot where the field-mouse trots
And to shake the tattered arras woven with a silent motto.

(East Coker: 1)

Thomas Howard rightly claims that “Four Quartets” is a work about “time”. “There is a time for everything under heaven”, we learn from Ecclesiastes, and we are reminded here of Wittgenstein’s investigations into the limits of language, and its attempts to bewitch our intellects with nonsensical questions such as “Is it 5 o clock on the sun?” Time, for Aristotle, was defined as the “measurement of motion in terms of before and after”, and implied in this account, is that this motion is, of course, measured by the motion of heavenly bodies such as the sun. The sun, in this scenario, becomes the still point of the turning world ,which does not move. It becomes something like an “unmoved mover”. We humans are not cyclical beings that can return from the ashes and begin again. This poignant fact wounds our hope for immortality: a wound which no surgeons science and art can address. Houses, however can continue over centuries(The house of Windsor) and this allows us to invest our hopes for a better world in our children, whilst sheltering from the un-compassionate wind. But the winds of destruction will eventually remove even these houses. The idea of what might be, however, lead poets to write poems about the rise of houses, and the reversal of fortunes that befall them. These writings might even outlast these houses and this might also be true of historical accounts which preserve the memory of dead families and their activities in a spirit of “sharp compassion”. Aristotle claims that it is the task of the poet to “put the actual scene as far as possible before his eyes”(Poetics 1455a 22-3).

One question that ought to put to Eliot is whether his is a dramatic tragedy(confining itself to one story) or an epic attempting to tell several stories. Four Quartets, we maintain, is intended as a whole, and the story is the story or logos of man, the so-called “rational animal capable of discourse”. The story begins with the trees of life and knowledge in a garden, and ends in a garden where the task is to strive for a good-spirited flourishing life in the face of multiple distractions: a striving where one is prepared to risk ones life( through wondering in the desert- waste-land) for the life to come, and the sight of the descending dove and heavenly descending fire.

Eliot projects his sense of space and place in this work using Virgil and Dante rather than the more temporally oriented Greek Philosophers, who saw clearly the limitations of materialistic explanations of the phenomena associated with psuche. His sense of time is best expressed in The Dry Salvages where the voices of the Gods are intimated:

The sea has many voices,
Many gods and many voices.
The salt is on the briar rose,
The fog is in the fir trees.
The sea howl
And the sea yelp, are different voices
Often together heard: the whine in the rigging,
The menace and caress of wave that breaks on water,
The distant rote in the granite teeth,
And the wailing warning from the approaching headland
Are all sea voices, and the heaving groaner
Rounded homewards, and the seagull:
And under the oppression of the silent fog
The tolling bell
Measures time not our time, rung by the unhurried
Ground swell, a time
Older than the time of chronometers, older
Than time counted by anxious worried women
Lying awake, calculating the future,
Trying to unweave, unwind, unravel
And piece together the past and the future,
Between midnight and dawn, when the past is all deception,
The future futureless, before the morning watch
When time stops and time is never ending;
And the ground swell, that is and was from the beginning,
Clangs
The bell.

(Dry Salvages 1)

The river has a beginning, a middle and an end and the end is the sea whose movement is cyclical, moving in toward the land or up the river and out to sea again, ad infinitum. The time of the sea is not our time, it “measures” time differently. The river is within us and the sea is all about us, Eliot claims, but it is the silent saint, and not the oracle or the philosopher who keeps the secret of Time, a secret intimated by the voice of the sea crying out only when the ground swell heaves the groaner and the bell. This is far from the arena of civilisation and the fiery city which requires areté and epistemé from the city dwellers(the firemen).This fiery city is the arena for human activity aiming at the good, and it is the space where memory leaves its traces sedimented: traces such as city walls that seem even to withstand the winds sweeping over the hills and the sea. The traces of Rome are preferred by Eliot to the traces of Athens or Jerusalem. Individual salvation appears to be preferred to the salvation of the city or civilisation, which the military Janus worshipping Romans failed to provide. Man is a political animal, Aristotle argued, but arché played the fundamental role in determining the importance of laws and the establishment of diké. The city, for Aristotle, is an organic phenomenon because the city, as Socrates observed, is the soul(psuche) writ large. The earthly city we know ,for Augustine, contain the seeds of its ruin and destruction: a state of affairs that the Delphic oracle warned the philosophers about(everything created by men is doomed to ruin and destruction). The Catholic view is that it is De Civitate Dei that we, who are saved, wish to dwell in. It is in this Delphic Prophecy that the Greek and the Christian message of man being a sinner correlate. For the Greeks, however, it is not the “smells and bells “, rituals, and mystery of the mass that will rescue civilisation, but rather areté epistemé and diké. The images of the scenes of modern life that we find in both “The Waste Land” and “Four Quartets” are, of course provided in the Freudian spirit of “Civilisation and its Discontents”, and they are meant to function as Thomas Howard points out, as “cases in point” of the lack of meaning in the modern world. Yet these images are all images of De Civitate Terrana, and as such prove nothing for the spiritual being who seeks to live in De Civitate Dei. As Aristotle pointed out in his “Poetics”:

“The poet being an imitator just like the painter or other maker of likenesses, he must necessarily in all instances represent things in one or other of three aspects, either as they were or are, or as they are said or thought to be or to have been,, or as they ought to be.All this he does in language…..”(Poetics 1460b 25 8-11)

The ought-use of language is not to be confused with the hypothetical-use in which one abandons ones representation upon being confronted with the facts of the matter, e.g. death is said or represented to be an evil, but this is abandoned as soon as one witnesses the relation of Socrates to his own death and what he said about it. The ought-use of language is, as Kant maintained, categorical, and is rather used to evaluate contrary representations in order to pass judgements upon them, e.g. “One ought to keep promises” This universal judgement does not fall as a principle of action just because a king or politician breaks a promise they have made. In such a case, we judge the action of breaking the promise to be evil, or unlawful, and retain our representation of the good that is achieved by keeping a promise one has made. Eliot is using language in accordance with all three of the above “aspects”, and we ought not to confuse one aspect with another, as Wittgenstein would have pointed out in relation to the language games of reporting and the language game of promising. The “temporal city” is based on laws, made not in a hypothetical spirit ,but in a categorical spirit typical of the spirit of diké. Solon, for example, passed laws which categorically freed the poor from their enslavement by the rich, and began the project of “building the middle class” which is continuing to this day in the Aristotelian spirit of the “golden mean”. Both Solon and Aristotle were aiming at the Good which resembles De Civitate Dei, a state of civilisation many hundred thousand years in the future , if we are to believe Kant and his vision of the cosmopolitan society of the “Kingdom of Ends”.

Both Aristotle and Kant assumed that the city-state was an organic hylomorphic phenomenon maturing over time, and consequently assuming different forms over time in accordance with a potentiality requiring the occurrence of particular circumstances before actualising that potential. Like all organisms, and all human activity, it aimed at the Good in spite of the difficulty in achieving an identity of what was good in itself with what was good in its consequences. This lack of identity is behind the Delphic prophecy that “everything created by man is destined for ruin and destruction”. Man is not as fully rational as he ought to be, and therefore his city-states are not as stable as they ought to be, but he is not naturally sinful as a species , as would be the case if he intended evil in his actions. He lacks both the knowledge and the reasoning power to ensure the creation of the kingdom of ends, at this point in time, but both the principles of knowledge and reason are within his grasp and his understanding. Much of Eliot’s “Four Quartets” can be read as an attempt to free us from our current imprisonment in the current forms of De civitate terrana, by establishing the conditions for the existence of De civitate dei which would be described as fundamental for the good-spirited flourishing life(eudaimonia).

Aristotle’s “on the Soul”, is a response to the Delphic Challenge to “know thyself”, and whereas one can argue that popular religious descriptions of the soul as being detachable from the body at the point of death(so called substance dualism) is anathema to the hylomorphic account which focuses instead upon a deeper understanding of “substance”. Substance, in Aristotle’s earlier work, is primarily related to particulars characterised in terms of a “this something”. In his later work “substance” is characterised more in terms of “logos” or an account/essence of the thing, as a result of some kind of investigation motivated by a desire to understand the world as such. It is not curiosity about the particular species of frogs which prompts our investigations into them in the form of observing their behaviour and dissecting them to observe their organ systems, but rather a desire to understand the world as such via universal principles(arché). It is principles we seek after in our attempts to subsume all the facts we know about frogs under an essence specifying characterisation or definition. This investigation is prompted by a conviction that the psuche of a frog is to a great extent determined by its organ and limb system. It is to be distinguished from systems of nutrition/reproduction such as living plants, by the fact that plants do not experience “sensation”, and therefore cannot be said to “perceive” anything in their world. For Aristotle, such investigations will attempt to determine the powers of the plant and the frog, and will reveal that both plants and frogs do not have sufficiently complex “organ” systems to support the more complex powers such as “being capable of discourse” and “rationality”. This kind of biological investigation led by Aristotle was, of course a precursor to that led by Darwin in his attempt to understand questions such as natural selection and the evolution of the species of animals. Both thinkers had to be wary of popular religious theories of the origin of man.

Eliot’s references to the “voices” of the gods of the sea and the river, and the significance of fire and the rose do not necessarily constitute an “imaginative” anthropomorphisation of a physical nature, which, for Aristotle, is better characterised in terms of the potentiality for being perceived, understood, and theorised about. This kind of understanding of the logos of potentiality surpasses the mere striving to legitimate “facts” via a use of language that attempts to “picture” the world. For Aristotle the “powers” of understanding and reason demand, not just the production of particular truths, but knowledge(justified true belief) such as the knowledge we have of the human soul, which he believes is satisfactorily characterised by the essence specifying definition “rational animal capable of discourse”. In such an account, the relation to the external world is a relation to a world of matter which is a world of actuality and potentiality at various levels which also varies in relation to the different powers of perception or thought. In Aristotle’s account, God is a different kind of Being in comparison to man, insofar as we are concerned, and is to be characterised more in terms of the kind of thinking God is capable of than his ability to create and shape a physical universe and its contents. This latter view of God as a craftsman would, in the view of Aristotle, be an unnecessary anthropomorphization of God, a view shared by general opinion in ancient Greece which relied on an intervening power of the Demiurge for such an instrumental pragmatic relation to the world of matter. The world of “Forms” or “principles” explaining “what” we experience is paramount in the hylomorphic system which prioritises the question “Why?”. This latter question, Aristotle argues, satisfies a deep desire we possess to understand the “broad structure of reality”. We have no direct insight into divine thought, and Aristotle in his metaphysics characterises this tentatively, in terms of “thinking about thinking”, or “thinking about himself”. There is in this hylomorphic account, a systematic continuity in the relation of the powers of man and the power of the divine. God is pure form in a continuity that reaches down to a level of “prime matter”(which is pure potentiality). “Form “, in this context, is to be understood in terms of “Logos” or principle(arché) at a level which ,for us, is difficult to investigate and understand. Given this characterisation, there can be no objection to the kind of metaphorical account we find in Eliot’s poetry. “Immortality of the soul”, for example, can be characterised in terms of “timeless” but “timeless” does not mean “living forever”, which may be impossible to conceptualise, but rather “enduring in some form” over very long periods of time. “Intimations of immortality” can therefore be understood in such terms.

October 19, 2022October 19, 2022

Du Chatelet and Kant: abstract for conference “Dynamics and Reason”, in honour of the work of Du Chatelet.

Sortie du Théâtre du Chatelet by Auguste Louis Lepère (French, 1849–1918) is licensed under CC-CC0 1.0

The relationship between Du Chatelet and Voltaire reminds one of the Diotima-Socrates relation, where Diotima, according to the Symposium, gives Socrates a lecture on the relation of Logic to Eros. It is, however, the relation of the work of Du Chatelet to the work of Kant that is the theme of this conference, and it is the contention of this paper that Du Chatelet—being a follower of Wolff and Leibniz, was very much on Kant’s mind early on in his career when he was considering criticisms of his own form of rationalism.

We do find in Kant the two principles of general and special logic that Chatelet used in her form of rationalism, namely the principle of noncontradiction(PNC)and the principle of sufficient reason(PSR), but it must be pointed out that, the uses to which these principles were put in Kantian critical Philosophy(developed later in his career), were very different to the use we encounter in the work of Du Chatelet. We know that Kant, early on in his philosophical career, regarded himself as a rationalist, influenced by both the work of Leibniz and Wolff, but with his discovery of the importance of the role of sensibility in the production of many of our cognitive states, together with the encounter with Hume’s work which he described as “awakening him from his dogmatic slumbers”, the task of Kantian Philosophy grew in magnitude and included attempted syntheses of rationalist-empiricist conflicts in a manner that attempted to avoid many of the dogmatic theses of materialism and dualism.

Both Du Chatelet and Kant were influenced by Newton but Kant was probably more critical of those aspects of Newton that, in his view, attempted to say what cannot be said, e.g. that absolute time, in and of itself, flows. Kant argued, on the contrary, that both space and time are ways in which the sensible aspect of our minds organise our experience of the external world, and “internal” mental activity respectively. Kant certainly embraced the importance of mathematics in relation to one aspect of our relation to the external world, but he specifically claimed that Mathematics cannot be applied to thought and the activity of what he termed the “inner sense”.

My thesis is, that the underlying influence of the Kantian “Copernican Revolution” in relation to knowledge is that of Aristotelian Hylomorphic Philosophy, but it is an influence that is never directly acknowledged by Kant, This influence is , however, present in his whole approach to metaphysics and epistemology. This point is also evidenced in his terminology of “matter” and “form”, and in his reliance on many aspects of Aristotle’s “theory of change” and its complex account of 4 kinds of change, 3 principles of change, 4 causes(explanations) of change, 3 media of change(space, time and matter) and three groups of sciences(theoretical, practical, productive). This “Copernican Revolution” placed Kant’s work in the realm of the golden mean, between empiricism and rationalism, and between materialism and dualism, thus enabling him to give an account of reality as broadly-based as Aristotle’s, but somewhat deeper insofar as an account of the powers of mind were concerned.

For Kant, as was the case for both Aristotle and Plato, Mathematical reasoning was indispensable for the resolution of problems relating to the measurement of space and time insofar as they manifested themselves in our activities in the external world: problems that were essentially quantitative in nature. Its usefulness diminished in value, however, insofar as other categories of existence and understanding were concerned, e.g. the formulation of abstract knowledge-claims(e.g. All men(gender neutral use) are mortal) or the formulation of laws of thought and ethics(the PNC, PSR and the moral law). For example, one of the key aspects of Kantian Philosophical Psychology or Anthropology, is that in which we encounter the claim that the human form of life freely chooses(freely causes itself to do things) its beliefs and actions, and is thereby best understood as an “autonomous being” or an “autonomous form of life”. This leads us into the realm of practical science where the telos of action plays an important role in our explanations and justifications. This telos, then , has a complex relation to the other causes/explanations (aitia) of Aristotelian Philosophy.

We know the idea of God for both Wolff and Leibniz was an idea that belonged in the domain of theoretical reasoning, and we also know it was demoted by Kant in favour of the practical idea of freedom: an idea that demanded a metaphysical account very different to the kind of metaphysical accounts of Nature we find in the works of those dogmatic, scientific materialists who regard all journeys into the realm of the powers of the mind as “subjective”.

The Kantian revolution liberated Philosophical psychology/anthropology from its self-inflicted form of slavery, with the banner of the Enlightenment upon which is inscribed “Sapere Audi”(dare to use your reason). In this spirit, this combination of hylomorphic-critical philosophy, also gave rise to the possibility of a philosophically grounded concept of Human Rights which in its turn will hopefully provide all the Diotima’s, Du Chatelet’s and women philosophers of the future with a platform from which to speak and be heard.

October 16, 2022October 23, 2022

Absent minded Philosophy

Hoover Institution

Excellent discussion on the limitations of Darwinism, relying on an unexamined view of the role of mathematics in the description of life forms. There is no doubt that mathematics can quantify almost every material thing and its motion, but there is a doubt about its relevance to the kind of explanation of 1. life forms per se , 2. the explanation of the intelligence of life forms, and 3. explanations of consciousness that we find in Aristotle and Kant, who both saw the limitations of mathematics in this arena of Philosophy.

Psuche for Kant was categorically understood as a self-causing agent which, in the case of the human form of life, possessed powers of mind that fell into three domains, namely sensibility, understanding and reason. Animals possessed a form of nonlinguistic sensible “intelligence” with limited powers, and humans possessed an integrated battery of powers of sensibility, understanding and reason that enabled the formation of hylomorphic theory, Kantian theory, Wittgensteinian theory, that could never be reduced to any basic code that we find in information theory or genetic theory. This is not to deny that chains of amino acids in the end produce brains, and the organs of living systems, that constitute the different animal species. It is rather to insist that, what in the above discussion, was referred to as top-down accounts, give rise to a completely different kind of discussion, which would acknowledge the limitations of Darwin who certainly provided us with the law of natural selection that helps us explain the existence of the populations of animals we see around us today, and also helps to explain the fossils of extinct species we uncover. We recognise the American concern over the issue of Intelligent design, is still to some extent raging, without making any reference to the ancient Greek relation of what we call intelligence to “areté”(virtue, doing the right thing at the right time in the right way). Bringing areté into the discussion obviously also demands the introduction of other terms such as diké(justice), arché(principle) and epistemé(Knowledge). Aristotles theory rests upon an understanding of these terms, and might be an example of a non-theological top down theory that might have contributed to the discussion above when it ground to a halt upon being confronted with the demand for a more philosophical form of debate. The Philosophers view of Divinity, e.g. Aristotle’s, Kant’s and Wittgenstein’s accounts, make room for both Darwin and God without any need to turn these into dialectical opposites. All three Philosophers also agree in their rejection of both materialistic attempts to account for the issues of life, intelligence, and consciousness, as well as dualistic retreats into analytical psychology, phenomenology or theology. The Philosophers view of the divine does not share the view that everything that was created was, as one of the interviewees put it , “screwed up by man”. This is one theological view, but not one shared by Aristotle or Kant, for whom mans telos (his final cause), sufficed to characterise him as “good” in the formal essence-specifying sense, even if the manifestation of the consequences of his good nature would take a long time to materialise.

In short the ghosts of Aristotle hung in the air of the above discussion waiting for an opportunity to materialise which never came.

October 2, 2022October 8, 2022

Review of Ricoeur’s “Time and narrative” Vol 3: Conclusion Essay 21

Full disk view of the sun June 21, 2010 by NASA Goddard Photo and Video is licensed under CC-BY 2.0

We have noted that the key characters involved in Ricoeur’s plotting of the History of theories about Time are Augustine, Hegel, Husserl, and some analytical Philosophers. There are a number of “interpretations” of the work of Heidegger and Kant, but these are mostly made on the condition that the works are viewed through the prism of a particular view of consciousness and a particular view of language. Augustine, as we have seen, was preferred over Aristotle, and Hegel is preferred over Kant. Perhaps it is also a reasonable hypothesis to presume that Phenomenology and Hermeneutics are the preferred approaches to all aporetic questions raised in relation to Meaning, including those raised by the work of the later Wittgenstein.

Ricoeur has rejected Aristotelian and Kantian answers to the question “What is Time?”, and instead proposed a notion of time that is created by narrative, via a process of the “reconfiguration” of time. The Augustinian view of time played a central role in Ricoeur’s account, as does phenomenological investigation into the realm of our experience of time. Phenomenology shares the stage with a hermeneutical account of myth and the metaphorical function of language used in relation to time. This latter move, follows from a move Ricoeur makes in relation to his conviction that time is unrepresentable. This conclusion, in turn, appears to follow from the claim that there is a significant breach or philosophical incompatibility of the accounts of phenomenological time in comparison with the account of cosmological time that we find in both Aristotle and Kant.(P.244). Augustine’s rejection of cosmological accounts of time in favour of “the time of a mind that distends itself”(P.244), is an obvious reason for the above conclusion. Ricoeur, in the context of this discussion, incorrectly in our view, notes:

“time according to Kant immediately has all the features of cosmological time, inasmuch as it is the presupposition of every empirical change. Hence it is a structure of nature which includes the empirical egos of each and everyone of us”(P.244)

Ricoeur also notes that the “rational psychology” of Kant is incompatible with phenomenological investigations(the reduction and bracketing of “experience”). Presumably by “rational psychology”, Ricoeur means the method of charting the nature and relation of the powers of understanding and reason in organising our sensible relations to reality( the power of sensibility and its a priori intuitions of space and time). For Kant, the powers of sensibility, understanding and reason are integrated in general, but also particularly in relation to the complex activity of the creation and appreciation of a narrative. Also, as we pointed out in a previous essay of this review, the “before and after” structure of our understanding of narratives(fictional and historical) are the same as the “before and after” structure of our perception of change in the physical world(a boat sailing downstream). In the case of the radiator that warms the room and the boat sailing downstream, it would not make sense in a narrative to claim that the room warmed the radiator or the boat was further upstream as a consequence of its journey downstream. Time, causality, the principle of noncontradiction and the principle of sufficient reason, all hang together in these two constellations of change, thus illustrating the way in which the powers of sensibility, categories of understanding and principles of reason are integrated in the mind-as-a-whole.

Ricoeur refers to the mimetic character of the narrative in relation to his proposal of the invention of a “third form” of time”, which apparently results from the “fracture” of what could he called “world-time”. This third form of time, is dialectically arrived at via the interweaving of the reconfigurations we encounter in fictional and historical narratives powered by an imagination that seems to give sensibility greater influence in our experience(at the expense of the intellectual powers we rational animals possess).

Ricoeur points out that the question of “Who one is”, requires a story in response, and this story, in turn, presupposes an enduring entity, persisting through a process of change. This is an interesting shift of attention from the Aristotelian/Kantian categorical question “What is a human being?” The shift, it must be noted, is a shift from the universality of the conceptual realm to the existence of individuals in the realm of the particular. The question “Who?” must be answered by referring to a particular individual. This shift from the logical realm of general universal truth to the realm of particular truth is a shift from essence-specifying truths, to the particular issue of the identity of a particular human being. This shift is a relatively modern affair, possibly instituted by the reflections of John Locke, who argued that the powers of consciousness and memory, are what account for why an individual believes they remain the same individual over time. There is, of course, no doubt that at least insofar as fictional narrative is concerned, the identity of the individual over the time and event-span of the narrative, defines that identity completely, and gives a sufficient answer to the question “Who is this(character)?” If we are dealing with a tragic narrative, the characters irrationality and lack of understanding of what is happening around him, may well define him/her as a tragic figure, but it is nevertheless the case that the categories of understanding and principles of reason form the categorical reference-grid for judgements about this character’s character.

Ricoeur discusses the psychoanalytic process and its striving for the good of a cure in relation to the question “Who am I?”. The process of “working through” will certainly involve firstly, the memory and the imagination, and secondly, the attempt in the working-through process to insure that each of these powers integrate more fully into the functioning of the mind-as-a-whole. Involved in this process, may be an attempt to transform a tragic traumatic experience created by fight-flight functions of the more primitive nervous-systems of the brain into normal memories devoid of affect and fantasy.

Ricoeur discusses the identity of the Jewish people and their traumas in fight-flight context, but fails to acknowledge the role of ethical justice in their evolving History. Most of the narrative of the Bible relating to the Jewish people, refers to the theme of ethical justice rather than the identity of the Jewish race in exile, searching for the promised land. Ricoeur does however admit the following:

“So narrative identity is not equivalent to true self-constancy, except through this decisive moment, which makes ethical responsibility the highest fact in self-constancy.”(P.249)

Moses’ rejection of the images of animal gods, marked an iconoclastic moment of the journey of the Jews toward the promised land, and this viewed in one way, may suggest the advent or coming of another particular prophet with a closer relation to God: with an agenda relating not to a promised land, but a better way of life (not just for a particular people but for all mankind(the brotherhood of man)). This could only be achieved by a reliance on religious principles that condensed down into two commandments, Love God above all, and Love thy Neighbour. The Old and the New Testament then, marked an advance in religious thinking toward the Greek ideal of eudaimonia(the good spirited flourishing life) whilst retaining the ideal of ethical justice(areté). The message of the new testament is, of course, the subject matter for hermeneutic attempts to interpret the new testament texts These texts, however, are not ambiguous myths but more like historical documents created ,for example, by the writings of the apostles. There can be no created plot or refiguring of time in accordance with such a plot. References to the “son of God” and various “miracles” may be the residue of the mythical tradition of story-telling using the device of “Metaphor”. Ricoeur believes, paradoxically:

“Still it belongs to the reader, now an agent, an initiator of action, to choose among the multiple proposals of ethical justice brought forth by reading.”(P.249)

The background to this is, of course, the Augustinian arguments for the fragmentation of time into the presence of the past, the presence of the present and the presence of the future, conceived of as “present”, and the consequent phenomenological attempt to glue the parts together via a “threefold present”(P.250). Kant, we know, refused to countenance such a fragmentation of the sensible function of Time by claiming that:

“Different times are but parts of one and the same time”(A31, B47)

The protentions and retentions attached to a “living present” are, of course, phenomenological attempts to unite the Augustinian fragments under the guise of a “phenomenological reduction” or “phenomenological bracketing”, attempts which do not engage with Heideggers perspective of “Being-as-a-whole”. “Being-as-a-whole” refers, in turn, to both Care, and a “being-towards-death”, which Heidegger emphasised as part of his attempt to move away from the present as the primary temporal orientation of Dasein. For Heidegger, the future was the primary concern of the human being. The above Husserlian phenomenological aspects also fail to engage with the “infinity of time” and thus make possible myths and narratives that assume mythical absolute beginnings (creation myths)and mythical absolute ends(the Hegelian Absolute).

The narrative identity of a person or a character could never answer the Kantian anthropological question “What is a human being?”, in accordance with the principle of sufficient reason and/or the categories of understanding. This question is not in search of particular truths, but rather essence-specifying definitions or characterisations. We know the Aristotelian answer to this question is “rational animal capable of discourse”, and we also know that memory, for example, is a necessary condition of the unity of apperception of Kant’s account–a unity characterised in terms of “I think” rather than “I am conscious”. The thinking process conceived of in this case, unites representations in a manifold. The “I think”, for Kant, unites the sensible and intellectual aspects of our minds: apriori intuitions and categories of the concepts formed by our understanding are related in truth-making judgements or value-judgements(judgements guided by the principle or form of “The Good”). These judgements, in turn, can be combined to form arguments for knowledge-claims or value-claims, in accordance with the principles of noncontradiction and sufficient reason. In the case of value-judgements, we also encounter the establishment of limits for both understanding and reason which cannot, it is claimed, fathom the depths of the issue of the origin of evil. A similar limit appears also to apply to the conception of the summum bonum, and the conceiving of the idea of the “holy will”. These Kantian limits of representational thinking are also encountered at the other end of the spectrum of the mind, namely the representations connected with space, time and matter. These limits follow from the fact that we are finite beings-in-the-world unable to “think” the infinite in accordance with the principles of reason. Being finite beings, we are therefore placed “in” space and “in” time as witnesses of motion and change, and this finitude explains or justifies the fact that we must then conceive of beginnings and ends in terms of “principles” or laws. We are not Gods, and this, for Aristotle, explained why we needed to live in communities “with” each other in the space of hope and lamentation, sharing only one aspect of God’s thinking, namely, rationality. Perhaps it is in discourse or language that we can best realise our potentiality for rational thinking.

Ecclesiastes claims that there is a time for every purpose under heaven. What is being talked about are rational animals capable of discourse. In relation to this discussion, the later Wittgenstein also pointed to certain limits of the human conception of time when he claimed that it does not make sense to say that it is 5 o clock on the sun. Now whilst there may be some truth to the claim that the limits of my language are the limits of my world, this does not warrant jettisoning the intellectual powers of reasoning and understanding that operate in relation to the conditions of human representations of space and time. It is, Kant argues, substance determined by the “principle” of the permanent that constitutes what he refers to as “time in general”. Kant would certainly have rejected any attempts to reduce the above categorical forms of judgement to the protentions and retentions of an internal time-consciousness. The self-constitution of Consciousness, for Kant, would have been explained in terms of the unity of apperception and its role in human thinking.

Ricoeur raises the question of how narrative can refigure Time, if time itself is unrepresentable. The ideas of plot, character, and event are used for fictional reconfigurations, and ideas of quasi-plot, quasi-character, and quasi-event are used for historical reconfigurations of time. These types of reconfiguration are then used by Ricoeur to “explain” or justify” how this mysterious process of “reconfiguration” occurs.

The whole adventure through these three volumes ends with the suggestion that it is the individual’s and community’s search for narrative identity which constitutes the historical form of consciousness: a form of consciousness in which the imagination is the most significant power of the mind and provides us with the most promising avenue of justifying any answer to the aporetic question “What is time?”

September 29, 2022October 8, 2022

Review of Ricoeur’s “Time and Narrative” Vol 3: Essay 20 Hermeneutics of Historical Consciousness.

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Ricoeur makes an explicit commitment to Action in this chapter, although it is unclear whether the idea of insufficiency or incompleteness will be jettisoned in the dialectic of the past and the future that is synthesised in this presence of action. He claims:

“Even the idea of tradition– which already includes a genuine tension between the perspective of the past and that of the present and thereby increases temporal distance at the same time that it crosses it—does not give rise to thought….unless it is by way of the intentionality of a history to be made that refers back to it.”(P.207)

This claim that the idea of tradition does not give rise to thought, unless it is via the intentionality of history, is indeed a puzzling one. Surely historical thought is sufficiently related to the past in virtue an unproblematic relation of the past to the present manifested in the powers of memory, understanding and reason? If the principle of sufficient reason is applicable in this case, then historical judgements relating to tradition must give rise to forms of thought that remember, understand and reason.

Of course, if one, like Hegel, questions the sufficiency of human memory, understanding and reason, then the historical relation between the present and the past will be ruptured, and answers to questions relating to sufficient reasons for historical judgments and historical deeds will, indeed become problematic. For Ricoeur, however, it is evident that the application of the categories of understanding and the principles of reason contribute to unnecessary abstraction about the past. This position can be supported by Ricoeur’s view of “symbolic” language which, because of its structure of “double meaning”, requires a complex process of “interpretation” before we can be clear about this use of language. Ricoeur’s claim in the context of this discussion, is that it is “symbols” that give rise to thought. Texts which contain “symbols” i.e. can only be sufficiently understood if a hermeneutical “method” is used to “reveal” the latent meaning of the symbols. Rather than appeal to memory, Ricoeur focuses upon insufficiency and “forgetfulness” in relation to the interplay of significations, and he claims that we need also to understand the interplay between our expectations of the future and our interpretations of the past(P.208), whilst simultaneously rejecting the tendency to think in abstractions about the past. Ricoeur then makes a phenomenological/hermeneutic attempt to combat the above form of forgetfulness via a discussion of Reinhart Kosellecks distinction between the “categories” of a “space of experience” and a “horizon of expectation”. The “category” of the past all but disappears in this discussion which largely concentrates upon dialectic reasoning relating to the present and the future. Ricoeur raises the question:

“why speak of a space of experience rather than the persistence of the past in the present…?”(P.208)

He fails, however, to provide us with an answer that maintains the integrity either of tradition or our historical knowledge relating to tradition. Ricouer elaborates upon the above position by maintaining:

“Whether it be a question of private experience or of experience transmitted by prior generations or current institutions, it is always a question of something foreign being overcome.”(P.208)

Even the above conception of “expectation” is insufficient or incomplete because:

“expectation cannot be derived from experience”(P.208)

Aristotle, Kant and the later Wittgenstein would find the above idea of insufficiency or incompleteness in relation to judgements about the past or the future, incomprehensible. Wittgenstein, for example, in his “Philosophical Investigations” discusses the important scientific idea of “the uniformity of nature” and has the following reflections to contribute:

“472. The character of the belief in the uniformity of nature can perhaps be seen most clearly in the case in which we fear what we expect. Nothing could induce me to put my hand into a flame—although after all it is only in the past that I have burnt myself.

473.The belief that the fire will burn me is of the same kind as the fear that it will burn me.

474.I shall get burnt if I put my hand in the fire:that is certainty. That is to say : here we see the meaning of certainty(What it amounts to not the meaning of the word “certainty”)”

Wittgesteins account focuses upon the central idea of action, juxtaposed to an idea of “meaning” not confined to the realm of language. In the above, he finds no need for any kind of phenomenological/hermeneutic investigation into the thought involved in the belief “that the fire will burn me”. Present in the background of his reflections is an acknowledgement of the importance of the categories of understanding and the principles of reason(noncontradiction, sufficient reason). Past previous experience and our statements about the past are, he argues, sufficient “grounds” for the expectation that the fire will burn me, and the category of causality is assumed in such an argument. Skepticism about the temporal “categories” of the past and the future, would also be anathema to all forms of hylomorphic and critical investigation, as would skepticism about the integrity of tradition.

The problem of whether we can defend a position claiming that civilisation is “progressing”, is, of course, a different and more complex matter, requiring the disentangling of many “threads” of evidence and argument for and against the thesis. Such evidence would have to include arguments for the truth of idealistic judgements, and perhaps also evidence for the Aristotelian claim that good prevails over evil over a longer period of time(millennia). The idea of tradition, when considered in a context of explanation/justification is also, then, something that needs evaluation over such long time periods: “centuries” may be the currency of historians, but such a limited time period is not the currency of Philosophers(cf. the Kantian claim that the kingdom of ends lies one hundred thousand years in the future). The philosophical idea of “the uniformity of tradition” will not relate merely to events such as believing we will be burned by the fire if we insert our hand, but also extend to the certainty we attach to the practical ideals of justice, freedom, and democracy. The journey toward a Greek telos of eudaimonia(good spirited flourishing life), or the journey toward the kingdom of ends does, admittedly, in some sense suggest the idea of “insufficiency” insofar as the past and the present are concerned, especially when compared with an ideal future. In fact it is this form of insufficiency that justifies the conviction we have in the imperative ought form of judgement, e.g. “We ought to keep promises”, which in turn explains partly our commitment to “ought forms of argumentation”, that are part of our justification of a particular action of keeping a promise. Systematically, doing what one ought to do, on both Aristotelian and Kantian accounts, will have good consequences for ones life, and there is no objection to anthropomorphising the polis and saying something similar for the “actions” of government(passing and implementing laws etc).Kant, in the context of this discussion, referred in Socratic fashion to the combination of the good-in-itself with good consequences as the “summum bonum”(the highest good).

The “progress” of science is for many, the measure of the progress of our civilisation, but (modern)science is not what used to be, (namely, the bearer of epistemé), given its current obsession with techné(technology). For more traditional philosophers, e.g. Wittgenstein, Culture and Science are different routes to the future. Wittgenstein claims in Culture and Value:

“(We are involved here with the Kantian solution to the problem of Philosophy)”( Blackwell, Oxford, 1998, trans Winch P, P.13e)

Wittgenstein’s approach, however, differs from that of Kant, in that he turns to the task of clarifying the use of our language for his solutions to the problems of Philosophy. He notes the absence of concern with tragedy in our Contemporary Cultures, and relates this fact to the expression “Nothing happens!” In the context of this discussion, he also notes the similarity of the form of philosophical investigations with the form of aesthetic investigations(P29e). The Bible, for Wittgenstein, is a work in which the spirit of value is expressed, not in terms of epistemological concerns with the truth, but rather in terms of the Will, i.e in terms of a form of life in which we “live” an interpretation of the value of life and the world(P.73e). Freud, a fellow Viennese Kantian, is very much on Wittgenstein’s mind, in this work “Culture and Value”. Both “philosophers” express a sense of discontentment with modern life in our modern civilisations that it is difficult to lightly dismiss. Wittgenstein. like Freud, believes in the important role of Instinct in our cultural life and he argues that even our philosophical scruples have their roots in instinct(P.83e). The difference between these thinkers, however, is that in contrast to Wittgenstein, Freud is not a religious-believer. Wittgenstein, indeed, proclaimed on one occasion that he views the world religiously, and he sometimes even speculates positively on the relation of Christianity and Truth(89e). The discontent with civilisation we encounter in Wittgenstein’s reflections, however, may be deeper than that which we encounter in Freud but we should not underestimate the claim by both men to be influenced by Kant. There is nothing, that is, to prevent us from viewing both thinkers as elaborating upon the thought of both Aristotle and Kant. Wittgenstein certainly created a “logical space” for the reemergence of hylomorphic and critical philosophy, There is no room for the dialectical logic of Hegel or Nietzsche in this traditional landscape from the past.

Ricoeur speaks of a “new time” in the context of evaluating the arguments for “progress” in the development of our civilisations, but he is uncertain about the realisation of any “better future”, preferring to fixate upon the crises of the past and the present:

“What happens is always something other than we expected.” P.213

He connects this thought to the following claim:

“it is no longer certain that freedom, in the sense of an establishment of a civil society and a state of law, is the only hope, or major expectation of a great part of humanity.”(P.213)

This looks initially like an empirical observation related to the number of discontents one experiences in everyday life, and perhaps disguises the extent to which these discontents, appearances notwithstanding, may yet believe that a “better future” is possible. Ricoeur suggests that the “dream” of a “reconciled humanity” may be a “purely utopian expectation” and fears that the consequences of such a state of affairs is humanity despairing of all action(P.215). In spite of these anti-Kantian speculations, Ricoeur returns to the Kantian vision of:

“a universal civil society administered in accord with right”(P.216)

and hastens to point out that “at present” this has not been achieved, and further suggests that we turn to the past and the role of tradition for an explanation of such a sad state of affairs. Ricoeur also discusses Gadamer’s claim that the connection between history and knowledge must be discarded in attempts to interpret the significance of history. Such a move, of course, casts doubt upon any understanding of history based on knowledge. It also casts doubt upon the tribunal of reason that works on the “principle of sufficient reason”. Having earlier dismissed the role of correct memory in the understanding of History, there then appears to be little alternative but to deny any form of universality to the dialectical results of hermeneutic/phenomenological investigations. Ricoeur wishes to define the present solely in terms of acting and suffering, and he invokes Merleau-Ponty’s(MP) argument against the Cartesian “I think therefore I am”. MP, we know wishes to maintain that the lived body lives in a present in which “I can” becomes a more important power than that of thought. Ricoeur also introduces Danto’s analytical/empirical view of action/agency, and Austin’s view of speech-acts into the discussion, in order to justify his focus on the present temporal dimension, and he also attempts to tie “initiatives” such as making a promise to the lived through present and the past . With this form of account, we are indeed back to that point where Augustine defined the past as that which is no longer present and the future– as that present which is yet to come. The image of the present then becomes:

“thick with the immanence of the near future and the record of a just-passed past”(P.233)

Now whilst it is undoubtedly true that events actualise in the present, it is unclear whether we can claim that the present itself is actualised, simply because it is merely a potential “now”. However “thick” this present is conceived to be, it would actually be better to conceive of it in terms of a point-instant, even if this too might mathematically schematise our relation to this dimension of time unnecessarily. Ricoeur then admits that the individual act of promising, if it is to make any sense, must be preceded by a rule or law to the effect of “Promises ought to be kept”. This move is, however confounded by his conceiving of the individual act and the collective law as “in opposition”. The latter he claims is a social contract which occurs in:

“the cosmo-political dimension of the public space”(P.235)

Nietzsche is also invoked and praised for breaking with the traditional treatment of the problem of knowledge in his reflections upon Time. Nietzsche suggests in this context that we develop the capacity to “live unhistorically” and “forget” our “perverse relation to the past”(P.236). History, he argues, is more a matter of life or death than an abstract problem of knowledge, and he suggests that the tribunals of knowledge “close off the life of humanity”(P.237) Ricoeur also embraces the Nietzschean view of justice which maintains that when justice is regarded as the “Last Judgement” that condemns and punishes, it is occurring independently of the “power of judgement”. It is, Ricoeur adds, only when judgement is made from the viewpoint of the “highest strength of the present” that we are able to “refigure time” and become a master of our time rather than a slave to it. Ricoeur argues further that:

“the historical present is , in each era, the final term of a completed history which itself completes and ends history.”(.231)

Given the manifest contempt modern man has for the so called “achievements of the present, this is indeed a curious position to defend, although it is admitted at the end of the chapter that it is necessary to use an iconoclastic approach to tradition and history if one is to engage in the task of “refiguring time”. Memory is marginalised along with the categories of the understanding and the principles of reason in favour of a mysterious form of “forgetfulness” and its role in “refiguring time”.

September 25, 2022October 9, 2022

Review of Ricoeur’s “Time and Narrative” Vol 3 : Essay 19 The Spirit of the Times and World History

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Marx’s criticism of Hegel amounts to a criticism of both idealism and the role of abstract reason in world history. Both Marx and Hegel are committed to dialectical logic, in which a synthesis “emerges” from the opposition of a thesis and an antithesis. For Marx, however, economic realities such as the concrete ownership and operation of the “means of production”, are far more important that the abstract ideas of justice and freedom that have come down to us via the Greeks and the Enlightenment. Hegel, as we know, claimed that he was turning Kantian Philosophy on its head, and Marx in his turn said the same about Hegelian Phenomenology. Some hoped in vain that the double inversion would return us to the status quo of the Enlightenment, but the “modern spirit” of this double inversion left us in a limbo of ambiguity that in its turn was explored by later phenomenologists. With Marx, we are invited to consider an empirical sociological theory that does not engage with Aristotelian or Kantian categories or principles. We find little reference, for example, to Aristotle’s prediction that it would be the political force of the middle class that would create future political stability. Marx eschewed all forms of abstraction of the kind we find in Aristotle and Kant, in favour of a pragmatic realism based on concrete actions and processes.

Ricoeur complains that the downfall of Hegelian Philosophy came suddenly like an earthquake, but he neglects to observe that a Kantian critical Philosophy experienced a very similar fate at the hands of Hegelian Phenomenology. The spirit of these times was obviously one in which “change” was occurring at ever increasing rates. One “inversion”, however, is worth noting, and that is the reversal involved in Hegel’s abandonment of the principle of noncontradiction (so important in Kantian Logic), for the principle of contradiction which negated any thesis into an antithesis. This negation was not the negation of a proposition in a judgement, but rather the negation of a concept which would remain “incomplete” until the final synthesis occurred when the absolute actualised itself in world-history. Spirit was an important part of this actualisation or transformational process, in which the “cunning of reason” mobilises concrete passions in a process that is moving toward a kind of telos. Negation, then, becomes the key moment of dialectical reasoning, which alone is necessary in an account of the “progress” of world-history. Ricoeur points out that, for Hegel:

“The history of the world, therefore is, in essence “the expression of spirit in time just as nature is the expression of idea in space.”(P.200)

Time, on this kind of phenomenological account, possesses the property of Negation, and the Philosophy of History becomes subservient to the Spirit of History, because Philosophy, Hegel argues, always arrives on the scene too late after the actualisation of Spirit. The past, for Hegel, and for phenomenology, is also defined by Negation–it is not the present. Yet the spiritual priority of the temporal dimension of the present over the dimensions of the past and the future introduces an idea of “incompleteness” or insufficiency into these other dimensions, which then requires negation as part of their essence-specifying definitions. We ought to recall Heidegger’s reservations over prioritising the present. The present for him was defined in terms of what was ready-to hand, and what various objects in the environment could be used for ,in what he called a network of instrumentalities. What was merely present-at-hand for an observing form of consciousness was problematic for Heidegger. Acting-in-order-to do something, was his major emphasis. Defining the past in terms of not being present marginalises the power of memory to correctly recall the past in a truth-making synthesis and thereby characterises the records of our memory, namely historical texts as in some way insufficient or incomplete. It is the present that bears the burden of the real in such a situation, and this insufficiency or incompleteness is then projected onto the relation these dimensions have to reality. Hegel, in his appeal to the importance of negation, speaks of the Concept rather than the Judgement. Only the Concept of the Absolute, he argues, escapes the assignment of the specification of insufficiency or incompleteness. The Absolute, it seems is the result of a supreme “plot” of History that can not be appreciated by our human forms of consciousness. Ricoeur characterises this moment of actualisation of the Absolute in the following terms:

“historical consciousness’s understanding of itself, its self-understanding.”(P.206)

He does not, however, see any difficulty in the ambiguity of the ontological status of this understanding, namely that it is impossible to say whether the above event was something we did, or rather something that happened to us. For Aristotle, Kant and Wittgenstein, this form of ambiguity, effaces a key ontological distinction and principle in the field of action, and risks conflating the practical and the theoretical aspects of our existence. This ontological distinction is also a key element in the categorical understanding of the reality of action, as conceived in the arenas of Philosophy of Philosophical Psychology, Ethics, and Politics. The appeal to consciousness, in this context, is, of course, also problematic, given its primarily sensible nature. Ricoeur does, however, claim to leave Hegel behind in his theorising but the “trace” of Hegelian phenomenology never seems far away and haunts much of his reasoning when he engages in the marginalisation of memory, understanding and reason.

September 23, 2022October 9, 2022

Review of Ricoeur’s “Time and Narrative” Vol 3: Essay 18 History and Fiction

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We use calendars and clocks for organising the future, but also for remembering, understanding, and reasoning about the past. Both “instruments” use numerical measurements to measure time in terms of before and after. Clocks help us to measure intervals of time, and help us to determine the beginning, duration, and end of the work day, building upon instincts and vicissitudes of instincts. A major emphasis of this form of organisation is on, beginning at the same time of the day, ending at the same time of the day, and working the same number of hours every day. This is, in accordance with Aristotelian principles of change, which specify that something must remain the same throughout the change. The calendar also measures beginnings, durations, and ends, but here the emphasis is upon differentiating days and larger units of time from each other, e.g. the first world war from the second world war. The clock and the calendar, then, form the time framework that helps to organise what Wittgenstein referred to as the “hurly-burly” of community activities, but it is the calendar that is of central importance for the concern of the community with History and the remembering of important events. Ricoeur acknowledges the differences between the “telos” of the clock and the calendar:

“Despite all the differences that can be found between the clock and the calendar, however, reading the calendar is also an interpretation of signs comparable to reading a sundial or a clock”(P.183)

This reference to “reading” and “interpretation” for an activity of the understanding, may be problematic especially considering that there is no difficulty for anyone to answer the questions “What is the time?” or “What is the date?” We do, of course have to look at the clock or the calendar, but the recognition of the time or the date, is an immediate effect, very similar to immediately understanding the meaning of a word. We immediately understand what we see, and do not have to see what we see “as” something using the power of imagination. For Ricoeur, however, the date of an event involves identifying an actual present with a particular unit of time, e.g., a day. Memories, on this view become dated events on a time continuum. The notion of a “trace” is again invoked and this trace is “interpreted” using the power of the imagination. The power of memory is thus marginalised, and this is unfortunate given its central importance in our understanding of the world. Wittgenstein points to a major difference between memory and imagination by claiming that the former can be correct or faulty, whereas in the case of the imagination there is no question of its correctness or faultiness, or indeed, any question of a cognitive relation to the external world. Wittgenstein, in the context of this discussion, speaks about the difference between remembering the time of departure of a train and the conjuring up of an image of a train time-table:

“If the mental image of the time-table could not itself be tested for correctness, how could it confirm the correctness of the first memory?”(P.265)

For Wittgenstein, the lack of relation of the image to the external world, indicates a fundamental incompleteness, if one wishes to regard the image as having “cognitive” content, and this may be why a process of “interpretation” is suggested. Memory can be faulty, but this does not testify to a fundamental incompleteness or a need to “interpret” its signs. The Historian uses the language game of reporting in his various activities, which, of course, presupposes the correct operation of “remembering”, an operation he trusts:

“509. I really want to say that a language-game is only possible if one trusts something.”(On Certainty, Wittgenstein, Oxford, Blackwell, 1969)

A dog, for Wittgenstein, does not have the mental capacity to expect his master to come home for Christmas. Indeed, a close examination of the dogs behaviour, reveals an attachment to signals in the immediate environment and the present moment . These signals form the basis for a recognition of things to come, which can initiate a limited form of expectant behaviour. This limited form of expectation, tied to a primitive memory function of “recognition”, confines the canine form of life to the present. It should also be observed, that forms of life which do not possess a language, are also limited in their mental and cognitive powers. This position can be complemented with a Heideggerian account of Dasein, which maintains that the primary temporal relation of our form of Being-in-the-world is an orientation toward the future. Thinking about the future, for a being possessed of a powerful memory, and a complex language, obviously also makes the measurement of time by clocks and calendars possible. It also enables political and ethical discussions in the agora, and the creation, reading and understanding of historical and fictional texts.

There are, Wittgenstein argues, general facts of nature which partly determine our being-in-the-world, e.g. cosmic facts such as the relations of hot, cold, wet and dry that are necessary for the creation and sustaining of life on a planet. These general facts of nature also include psychological potentialities which arise from the battery of integrated sensible and mental powers that characterise human forms of life. This kind of account obviously has affinities with both Aristotelian Hylomorphism and Kantian Critical Philosophy. Memory is a key power in the context of this discussion: not memory in its most primitive form of recognition, but rather memory as characterised by the kind of complex accounts we find in Freud and Wittgenstein. For Freud, to take an example, memory is a complex vicissitude of instinct that provides human forms of life with a relation to the external world and the past that can be expressed correctly in language in the form of reports. The language-game of reporting, Wittgenstein claims is fundamentally tied to the Truth:

“The truth of my statements is the test of my understanding of these statements”(On Certainty, 80)

Wittgenstein also implies that memory is similarly related to the truth, and he further claims that, whilst individual/particular memories play a role in relating me to my past, general knowledge of a number of empirical propositions such as, “The earth has existed for a long time”, also play an important role in our historical understanding of our world. If asked how such general knowledge is possible Wittgenstein claims that it is :

“The inherited background against which I distinguish between true and false”(OC 94)

Wittgenstein also speaks of the language-game of judging, and claims that judgements and beliefs form a system, which mutually support one another. Children are then inducted into this form of life, piecemeal, over a long period of time. This induction process requires trust in the adult which then is transferred to the system of judgments and knowledge the adult is using. The adult acts on the truth of his knowledge and judgment, and this is a further confirmation of the validity of the system for the child. Action is an important justification:

“Giving grounds, however, justifying the evidence, comes to an end, but the end is not certain propositions striking us immediately as true, i.e. it is not a kind of seeing on our part:it is our acting which lies at the bottom of the language-game(OC 264)

The Historian, too, believes in a number of empirical propositions and makes historical judgments which are correct, on the basis of the presence of witnesses and documentation. The occurrence of events are corroborated in the acts of testimony or documentation that are part of the procedure which results in the creation of historical texts. Even the production of these texts is an instance of the historian acting on the basis of his system of knowledge and judgements. If the text created is then used in schools:

“The schoolboy believes his teacher and his schoolbooks.”(OC 263)

These remarks on Memory and Judgement do not fit comfortably with the account that we are given of these elements by Ricoeur, who speaks of incomplete texts, suspicious readers, and the need for hermeneutic phenomenological “interpretations” that explain and justify in terms of the hypotheticals of “the imagination” and “seeng-as”. The integrity of Tradition and custom is definitely preserved in Aristotelian Hylomorphic and Kantian critical accounts of History and Fiction, Memory and Judgement, but they simply cannot survive intact in the climate of incompleteness and suspicion outlined above. In Aristotle, Kant, and Wittgenstein there are propositions that appear to be “empirical” but in fact function “normatively”, as principles or rules embedded in a language-system, which in turn is embedded both in the hurly-burly of community activity over millennia, and forms of life determined by very general facts of nature. The whole depends upon an integrated system of sensible, linguistic, and intellectual powers. Wittgenstein´s specific contribution to this discussion, is connected to his methodology of grammatical investigations in which logic and rationality cannot be “described”, but rather “shows itself” in the practice of language. Language-games, according to Wittgenstein, are not rational in themselves but “there–like our life”(OC 559). If someone, for example, denied that the earth has existed for a very long time, then, and only ,then would we, Wittgenstein claimed, resort to “persuasion” and rhetoric to convince them of the truth.

It is difficult to know exactly what Ricoeur means when he refers to the role of historical imagination in the explanation /justification of historical judgements. Ricoeur’s argument seems to run in the opposite direction to the account given by Wittgenstein. He claims, for example that:

“The past is what I would have seen, what I would have witnessed if I had been there” (Ricoeur “Time and Narrative”, (P.185)

The argument is cast in terms of the priority of the present, and the activity of observation(seeing). We also, it is implied, use imagination in fictional contexts when we, for example, see events as tragic, comic etc. This emphasis upon the priority of the presence of something that can be observed or seen, is also used to characterise fiction in terms of the illusion or hallucination of presence(P.186) Fictional narration, Ricoeur argues, reports something “as if” it were in the past. The Aristotelian criterion of fiction being an imitation of reality, and history being a true report about the past, is lost in this discussion. Imitation, of course, does permit an exercise of the power of imagination on the part of the author and reader. This power is then, in the normal case, integrated with the understanding, and judgements are produced that “exemplify” universal and necessary aspects of our response to the “form of finality” of the objects (expressed by aesthetic ideas) we are appreciating. In fictional narratives the aesthetic issues and principles used, are more directly related to practical rather than theoretical reason. These ideas in a different form are also the concern of the Historian—e.g. freedom and justice–but the concern is not expressed in reports about important events(e.g. a war), but rather in judgements about those reports(the terrible consequences of a war).

The suggestion by Ricoeur that History and Fiction can be interwoven is, then, a fruitful suggestion, but only if we focus on those aesthetic ideas and principles that relate to ideas of practical reason, and only if we focus upon the powers of memory ,understanding and reason, and refuse to prioritise the sensible powers of perception and imagination. There is also common ground in what both Ricoeur and Wittgenstein call a “vision of the world”, which involves a vision of a future world: a vision that perhaps builds upon a mutual belief that man is not as rational as he ought to be, and perhaps also more violent than he ought to be. This reference to a better future may also involve moments of catharsis for both the Historian and the fictional author.

September 20, 2022October 9, 2022

Review of Ricoeur’s “Time and Narrative” Vol 3: Essay 17 The Author, the Reader, and the Text.

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Ricoeur, in this chapter, elaborates upon earlier dialectical transactional analyses relating to the reader and the authors relative contribution to the format of the fictional text. His analysis begins with a discussion that reminds one of old medieval debates over the unreality of the characters in a fictional work, and the comparison made here is to the reality content of historical narratives. Aristotle reminded us that all forms of art are “imitations” of reality, but they are nevertheless “real” imitations aiming at the real objective of “The Good”. The characters of fictional narrative might not be located in the real space-time continuum of the real physical world, but they are purposeful teleological creations, and the extent to which we are able to fully understand their point or telos is related to how successful the author is in imitating the human form of life and its world. Both the power of understanding and judgement, in this context, relates to the logical structure of aesthetic understanding and judgements that occur in the process of writing/reading/appreciating/criticising the text. Two of the primary judgements of importance are the judgement ,”This is beautiful!” and “This is sublime!”. These are universal and logical judgements related to the “form” or “principles” and the aesthetic ideas of the text, and we rely on Aristotelian Hylomorphic Philosophy and Kantian critical Philosophy for the explanation/justification of these judgements. In the cognitive process, which aims at understanding the text we are reading, there may well also occur a play of emotions such as pity and fear(if we are dealing with a tragedy) for the fate of the major characters of the work, and these emotions will be connected to powers of perception and imagination. In the end, however, this non-cognitive part of the process will also be regulated by our powers of understanding and reason. To prioritise the imagination at the expense of the understanding, in the context of such judgements, risks jeopardising the universal and necessary aspect of these judgements, which belong in the context of explanation/justification. Wittgenstein contributed to the philosophical understanding of the power of the imagination in the following way:

“Images tell us nothing either right or wrong about the external world.”(Zettel, 109e)

622. One would like to say:The imaged is in a different space from the heard sound. Hearing is connected to listening: forming an image of a sound is not. That is why the heard sound is in a different space from the imagined sound.”(Zettel, 109e)

So, according to this reasoning, the reader, in spite of the fact that the initial input from the text is visual, cognitively responds not to the visual data, but to the sound(and not the image of the sound). In the context of this discussion, it would be misleading to use the term, as some literary critics of poetry have, of the “auditory imagination”. The space of the auditory, is a space of understanding and reason, and not one of perception and imagination. Tied up with the above quote by Wittgenstein, is a grammatical point about the formation of images, namely that forming images is driven by the will and intention, and therefore cannot surprise us in the way that hearing something or listening for something can.

The hearing process is connected to a readiness on the part of the reader to learn what the author intends the reader to learn. All activity aims at the Good, Aristotle argues, and the Good involved in tragic texts will inevitably involve the greek ideas of areté(doing the right thing at the right time in the right way) and diké(justice, getting what one deserves). These will be the formal and final causes respectively involved in the appreciation of the text. The Kantian moral law is, we have argued in previous essays, merely a formalised reformulation of the Greek idea of the Good. This reformulation takes two forms:

1, So act that the maxim of your action can be willed to become a universal law

2. Treat everyone(including oneself) as ends-in-themselves and not merely instrumentally as means to some further end.

Freedom is very much involved in the above reformulations, and allows an ethical foundation for the concept of human rights we encounter in the political/legal domain. Maxims are principles regulating our action, and one such principle is that of happiness(which Kant called the principle of self love in disguise). The ego-centred nature of the principle of happiness, however, cannot be universalised and therefore cannot be connected to moral necessities and duties, because treating everyone as a means to ones own happiness is a principle destined to lead to conflict, if everyone embraces it. Conflict infringes upon everyones freedom. Part of the problem with instrumental forms of action, is its appeal to the sensible state of happiness, rather than the higher mental powers of understanding and reason. Such an appeal does not facilitate the organisation of communal/political forms of life.

Hearing is a sensory activity, whilst reading with understanding, resembles more an active listening state that is able to both understand and reason about what is being experienced. This auditory space is a space of learning, and is connected to the pleasure principle for Aristotle. We take pleasure, Aristotle argues, in imitations, which aim at the Good and this, in turn, in the case of the fictional narrative involves both areté and diké. This, in Kant’s view, helped to prepare the mind for a commitment to a life of freedom and duty. Robert Wicks in his Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Kant’s Critique of Judgement(London, 2007) correctly, claims in our view, that the Kantian power of Judgement presupposes both Aristotelian logic as well as the Aristotelian essence-specifying definition of man as a “rational animal”. Kant, we know classifies beauty as a feeling, but Kant also insists, it is a feeling we can speak with a universal voce about in a spirit of universality and necessity. It is also, according to Kant a feeling that we can encounter in both moral and scientific contexts.

Aesthetic Judgement contains a moment which Kant describes as disinterested, but whilst, in some sense, the judgment is cognitive, it is not saying of any object that the object possesses the objective feature of being beautiful or sublime. We are not attempting. in an aesthetic judgment i.e., to determine what kind of object we are confronting. Wicks points out that the Greek term “aistheta” means “sensible particulars”(P.19), but the judgement as such focuses not upon the object per se, but rather upon what Kant called the form of finality of the object(as an end?). The feeling involved is universalised over the field of judging subjects, and is related to what Kant calls the feeling of life, which in turn is a response to the mystery of life(psuche) and the world. Judgements relating to the sublime, introduce a more direct connection to our moral feeling about ourselves, via a more uncomfortable(displeasurable) feeling of the magnitude or power of nature. These feelings are not conceptually mediated in their pure form, but when we experience them in relation to a text , they are conceptually mediated because of an intended relation to perfection. The purpose of a tragic work for example, relates beauty to the moral good via the ideal conception of rational activity or rational action. Kant argues the following:

“Only that which has the purpose of existence in itself, the human being–who through reason determines his purposes himself, or where he must derive them from external perception can nevertheless compare them to essential and universal purposes and in that case also aesthetically judge their accordance with them–is alone capable of an ideal of beauty, just as the humanity in his person as intelligence, is alone capable of the ideal of perfection, among all the objects in the world.”(P.72 in Wicks)

It is possible that the better translation of this passage would not have contained the term “intelligence”, but rather the term “personality”, or alternatively “rational intelligence”. The importance of the aesthetic idea of the perfection of our humanity is clear in the above quote, however. Tragedy, then, in the process of reading, will be reflected upon via the aesthetic idea of humanity, in relation to areté and diké. The “purpose” of our humanity is knowable apriori, Kant maintains. The essential feature of rationality is a “principle” that attempts to organise the “material” of the world and life, in terms of the “form” of “rationality”. A clearer case of the Kantian commitment to Aristotelian hylomorphic Philosophy would be difficult to find. Reading is primarily a thought activity, in which material is being organised by the forms of principles and ideas, in an auditory space. This auditory space is, in fact, a space for the kind of discourse that is occurring between the author and the reader, via the medium of the language of the text. It is not, as has been suggested, a dialectical transactional phenomenon in which the imagination forms images which say nothing right or wrong about the external world, and which then need “interpretation” by reference to the idea of “seeing-as”. In this kind of hermeneutical/phenomenological account, there is no place for understanding in terms of the categories or categorical essence-specifying judgements such as “Man is a rational animal capable of discourse”. Neither is there space for logical conceptual judgements that rely on the principles of noncontradiction, and/or sufficient reason in order to determine the nature of the relation of the judgements to each other.

Focussing upon the “unreality” of fiction, and claiming that the reference to the world which we find in historical narratives, no longer works for fictional narratives, because there is an absence of what Ricoeur refers to as “productive reference” provided by a “productive imagination”, is a recipe for confusion. Ricoeur also refers to the idea of “application”(P.158), and claims that this idea is an organic part of every hermeneutic project. But these ideas can only be supported against the background of a suspension of the ontological status of the text.(P.158-9). Seeing-as is invoked as part of the power of the imagination and a relation is postulated to the ontological notion of “being-as”, but there is no argument for the validity of this relation.

The author, Ricoeur argues, attempts to “persuade” the reader of the fictional narrative in this postulated psychological transactional context. Aristotle is invoked in this discussion, not for his adherence to the importance of areté and diké in fictional narratives, but in relation to a postulated telos of persuasion which , it is claimed, it is the telos of techné to achieve. The telos of rhetoric is persuasion, Ricoeur argues, but it is not clear that in fictional narrative we are dealing with a rhetorical use of language. Aristotle argues that the means that rhetoric uses to achieve its purposes are ethos, pathos and logos(character, emotion, and enthymeme), and the rhetorician does for the soul what the doctor does for the body, but in the former case, the good aimed at has a political aspect that must be achieved in the external world(e.g. should we defend ourselves by attacking our neighbour or by building a fortified defensive wall?). The rhetorician does not ,as Ricoeur claims, straighforwardly, “refigure” the world, which is manifested in his enthymemes, because the reasoning and understanding involved must obey the Aristotelian principles, one of which insists that something must remain the same throughout the change. That something cannot be “refigured”, either by seeing something as something else, or via “imaginative variation”. The major difference between rhetoric and the other sciences, is that the major premise will not always be a universal and necessary premise of the kind we encounter in the different sciences, e.g. theoretical science–“every effect has a cause”, or practical science–“promises ought to be kept”. The major premise of rhetoric, however must at least be justified in terms of being a judgement of the many, or a judgement of the wise. The conclusion of a rhetorical argument must, therefore, count as either a justified true belief, if it relates to what we ought to believe, or alternatively, count as a good proposal to perform a justified (just) act in the realm of action. The powers of the mind involved in this context, are clearly understanding and reason, and perception and imagination may be involved only in subsidiary roles(e.g. schematising concepts). The form of communication involved in Ricoeur’s problematic transactional process of “refiguring” the beliefs of the reader, is one in which the primary aim is the alteration of attitude, rather than the presentation of a demonstration which proves the authors position. Ricoeur attempts to strengthen his account by adhering to his commitment to the imagination, and claims that the author is attempting to communicate a “vision of the world” to a reader who is “suspicious” because “modern literature is dangerous”(P.163-4). Ricoeur also, controversially claims here, that the structure of the text is not the result of the work of the author and his principles and aesthetic ideas, but rather that the primary cognitive work is brought about by the reader in the act of reading(P.165). The strange idea of an “incomplete text” is postulated as the signal for a phenomenological investigation to begin—an investigation in which expectations are not destined for fulfilment but must rather be dialectically modified. James Joyce’s work Ulysses is invoked because it manifests what Ricoeur refers to as “discordant concordance”. In the reading of such a work:

“Reading becomes a picnic where the author brings the words and the readers the meaning.”(P.169)

Words, on this account are reduced to “signals”, that have an initial configuration, but require refiguration. The Greek “aisthesis”, Ricoeur claims , both reveals and transforms, in a spirit which challenges and confronts traditions and customs. Catharsis, Ricoeur claims, is needed in this context of confronting and challenging tradition and custom. This context is then endowed with the strange combination of making a free choice in the realm of the imaginary. Perhaps catharsis also is required, on the part of the author, to free him/her from the passion of anguish, and the emotion of anxiety. “Imaginative variations” obviously play a significant role in the authors work of composing a plot, which is the framework for the thoughts and actions of agents. Of course, in some sense, a “vision of the world” must be a possible part of the authors creation, but if so, this vision is more a product of understanding and reason, than the freedom of the imagination to vary and transform our traditions and customs. Speaking a language cannot be reduced to speech acts, because it is partly the result of the discourse of generations of speakers, following the customary-traditional grammatical rules of language(in the sense of “grammatical” proposed by Wittgenstein). Without this historically created linguistic form of life, rooted in instinct, but supported by the categories of the understanding/judgement and the principles of reason, authors would not understand the principles and aesthetic ideas they are using to create their work. It is doubtful whether it is correct to speak of “persuasion” in this context, but if it is, then it must be pointed out that persuading someone about something requires a language rooted in instinct but supported by understanding and reason.

Ricoeur speaks of the author attempting to seduce the reader, and even of terrorising the reader, and this relies on the strange idea of an incomplete text which, like an image or a picture of something, can be interpreted in different ways, e.g. as Anscombe points out in her work on Wittgenstein´s Tractatus–an image of a stick boxer-man can be interpreted in different ways depending upon whether one sees the picture as providing an instruction of how one ought to stand(when defending oneself) or ought not to stand(when attacking ones opponent). Signals too, can, of course be interpreted in different ways, but it is actually part of the desired skill of an author to eliminate ambiguity in the text and make his/her meaning clear, especially if something as important as a vision of the world is to be communicated. Ambiguity is anathema to a great author who wields language like a tool with considerable accuracy. Ricoeur concludes the chapter by arguing that Reading itself is unreal(P.179) and the following paradoxical statement is made:

“the more readers become unreal in their reading, the more profound and far-reaching will be the work’s influence on social reality.”(P.179)

These words leave one with the feeling that they belong in a phenomenological dream or nightmare that is cleansed of all categorical understanding and logical reasoning.

September 18, 2022October 9, 2022

Review of Ricoeur’s “Time and Narrative” Vol 3: Essay 16 Historiography and the reality of the past.

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Lucio Bertelli’s essay “Aristotle and History”(https://chs.harvard.edu/chapter/13-lucio-bertelli-aristotle-and-history/(The Center for Hellenic Studies)), maintains that there are many arguments to support the position that Aristotle, in fact, had a complex relation to the domain of knowledge we call Historiography. This obviously entails a rejection of the claim that he underestimated the significance of History. Bertelli’s defence is comprehensive and convincing, embracing as it does many of Aristotle’s works including Metaphysics, Politics, Topics, Metereologica, and the Constitution of Athens.

Bertelli also refers to the work of Raymond Weil in relation to the contention that, when Aristotle is interpreted as being critical of historiography(e.g. in the Poetics), he must be construed as making a distinction between popular empirical chronicled history, and a more philosophically based domain of knowledge that he associated with the works of Herodotus and Thucydides. Indeed, given the obvious fact that Aristotle was one of the first authors to institute a classification framework for knowledge and the sciences, it would be absurd if he could not fit his own work into this system.

Bertelli, also, in the context of this discussion presents us with Von Fritz’s 4 criteria for identifying a domain as historical, namely:

identification and criticism of traditions
chronological arrangement of facts
explanation of causes, and
demonstration of the forces that are operating in bringing about historical events

These criteria may not, however, suffice for either Aristotelian or Kantian accounts of the nature of historical knowledge. For Aristotle, in addition to the above, there would need to be focus on his three principles of change, 4 kinds of change, and the three media of change(space, time, and matter). We can see that in Aristotelian hylomorphic theory, the explanation of change includes a material cause. In his work Metereologica, for example, he refers to the principles of hot and cold operating over long periods of time(e.g. ice-ages, droughts), and how these phenomena transcend the life of both individuals, and their ill governed cities. This kind of account relies heavily on a Kantian ontological distinction, between that which happens to man, and that which he does(his deeds), which is a central part of his reflections upon anthropology or philosophical psychology.

Bertelli contributes to this discussion by pointing out that there is an empirical chronicle of events occurring in contexts of exploration/discovery, which provides us with a lower level of knowledge than that which is in accordance with the complex account of historical knowledge occurring in contexts of explanation/justification (e.g. of the kind we find in the works of both Aristotle and Kant). The chronicle of particular events, following upon one another, probably requires nothing more than accurate description, and the emphasis here is on the difference between the events, rather than their relation( a difference that is sensed rather than thought). A more universal form of conceptualisation, will obviously rely on saying something about these events, in accordance with the categories of the understanding and the principles of reason. The faculty of sensibility with its powers of perception and imagination, will obviously play some kind of role in the evolution and development of historical knowledge, but this activity will then inevitably in its turn be submitted to the work and powers of the understanding and reason in contexts of explanation /justification. For both Aristotle and Kant, particular intuitions of particular events, will be occurring in contexts of exploration/discovery, but knowledge of the past must require both the powers of understanding and reason if historical knowledge is to be generated. The knowledge of the past, that is, is not an imaginative construction or variation, but rather a consequence of our being able to think/judge something about something in accordance with a categorical system and principles of reason.

Ricoeur’s account of History and its relation to the reality of the past, largely disengages from the above epistemological/metaphysical account, and favours instead a hermeneutic/phenomenological commitment which focuses more upon “meaning”(sense and reference) than the true and the good(traditional concerns of rationalism). In this hermeneutic/phenomenological account, the powers of understanding and reason are given less priority than the sensible powers of perception and imagination. The reality of the past focuses, then, not upon the future temporal dimension, so important to Heidegger, but rather on a present that is absent: on a mimetic “trace”, which attempts to represent this absence. Ricoeur invokes the idea of “standing for”, or reference, in his attempt to explain the reality of the past. This requires, in turn, the postulation of a mysterious psychological process of “identification with” the past event, which results in what Ricoeur calls a “reenactment” of the past, and a “splitting” of the event into something with an “inner” face and an “outer” face. Collingwood’s “Idea of History” invoked the idea of an “a priori imagination”, to designate the power of the mind responsible for historical knowledge. Such an idea limits our relation to the past to an “imaginary picture of the past”(P.146):

“At the end of this analysis, we have to say that historians do not know the past at all but only their own thought about the past.”(P.146)

Those familiar with the “theories of meaning” generated by analytical Philosophers, will recognise that the inevitable outcome of these theories, is best illustrated by the early work of Wittgenstein(his “picture theory of meaning”), which led to the untenable position of a logical solipsism that is also shared by Husserl, as a consequence of his leading idea of an internal time consciousness. Denying that an understanding of History is knowledge, is a sceptical response which distorts both the pragmatic work that occurs in its name, and also creates theoretical difficulties, and this is a position that Aristotle, Kant and the later Wittgenstein would not adopt.

Ricoeur presents various dialectical arguments, to rescue this account from the obvious accusation that it violates both the principle of noncontradiction and sufficient reason. One such argument proposes that the historian constructs a “model” or “picture” of the past. The relation of “standing for” is obviously a meaning-relation, but this is construed in terms of the perceptual/imaginative relation of “seeing-as”. This latter term, is one which Wittgenstein used in his later work as a psychological curiosity,rather than as a defining feature of our ontological relation to the world. Indeed he was at pains to point out that one does not see a knife “as” a knife–a knife belongs to the category of instruments and the word is defined by its use—its meaning is not a picture, but rather defined by how we use the word. This is in line with his claim that all “inner” processes are in need of outward criteria, e.g. the human body is the best picture of the soul. The powers of the body are partly constitutive of the idea of the soul that has come down to us from the Greeks, Wittgenstein claims. The form of life(psuche) that is human, is, of course, a language-using form of life, and the power of discourse together with the power of reasoning are essence-specifying characteristics, which we can access via the grammar of language, Wittgenstein argues. The curious psychological phenomenon of noticing an aspect of something does, on the other hand, use the power of the imagination. When the change of seeing an aspect occurs, e.g. I see the drawing of a duck as a rabbit, the phenomenon is half visual experience, and half thought, and in such explorative contexts it is permissible to talk of interpretation of what is seen. Talk of “interpretation”, when we are thinking of a knife or using a knife confuses the two different categories of “see”. Relying on such perceptual/imaginative powers for the “interpretation” of History diminishes the role of Memory involved in our historical understanding of events—a power of memory that is not related to the power of the imagination but rather to the categories of understanding/judgement and the principles of reason. On the Kantian account of the generation of knowledge, sensibility schematises a process with the help of the imagination which then is governed by the rules of thought provided by the categories of understanding/judgement.

September 15, 2022October 10, 2022

Review of Ricoeur’s “time and Narrative” Vol 3: Essay 15–Fictional Time

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Orienting oneself toward the future and in relation to the authentic resoluteness in the face of Death in Heideggerian manner, has another aspect, namely, that of the spirit of the progress of civilisation over time. This aspect is, in turn, intimately related to the Kantian question, “What can we hope for?” which is also logically connected to two other questions: “What can we know?” and “What ought we to do?”. All three questions are also oriented toward the future potentialities or possibilities of Dasein or Man in relation to his Being-in-the-world.

We have argued in previous essays that Historical writings, in spite of their primary orientation toward the past, are also oriented toward the future and concerned with answering the question “What ought we to do?”(on the basis of the historical knowledge we have). There is, in other words, no easy way in which to separate the epistemological purpose of historical knowledge from its moral or ethical purpose. Both of these purposes are also tied to answering the question “What can we hope for?” History, that is, also whilst being an activity that aims at the good in accordance with Aristotelian criteria, aims at providing us with objects of hope.

We have also argued in previous essays, that fictional narratives and historical narratives contain features in common, and although the knowledge that is used in fictional narratives is not tied to any particular methodology, as is the case with historical narratives, the knowledge used in the construction and appreciation of these narratives, nevertheless meets the criteria of justified true belief in contexts of explanation/justification.Time, for Kant, was an apriori notion structuring our sensory relation to the world: a relation that begins with the actualisation of sensations in relation to the external world, and thoughts in relation to our inner powers. This temporal ordering of our sensations and thoughts is, of course, an important stage in the actualisation of knowledge, but it is not the work of either the understanding or reason. The understanding’s task is to submit sensory work to the work of categorisation and the categories. Reason will regulate the sensory work and the work of understanding, via the principles of noncontradiction and sufficient reason, and thereby organise series of judgements into arguments which perform both explanatory functions in epistemic contexts and justificatory functions in action-related contexts. The measurement of time, might seem a highly theoretical aspect of something which we naturally experience every day, but the fact of the matter is, that the activity of measuring units and intervals is pragmatic in its intent. We organise our lives, partly by measuring the time of our lives and the time in our lives. Fixating upon the motion of events as per Aristotle’s definition of time is, then, not merely a theoretical exercise: its telos is to set an institutional standard which regulates activity. The motion of the sun obviously plays a large role in the creation of this life-organising standard system of measurement.

Ricoeur argues that all the above somehow is not presupposed in fictional narratives, on the grounds that, firstly, different fictional characters experience time differently and secondly, that sometimes it is the authors intention to call into question the everyday “normal” experience of time. It is, however, difficult to imagine, even in the latter case, that the Aristotelian elements of “before and after” can be discarded without compromising our understanding of what is happening in the narrative. Phenomenological “imaginative variations”, require also their conditions of possibility and whilst we can, of course, imagine a reversal of the before-after structure of time, e.g. imagine that the warmth of the room caused the warmth of the radiator instead of vive versa, this does not call into question merely our everyday experience of time, but also our experience of causality as well as the material and efficient cause of the warmth of the room. In such a possible imaginary variation, turning off the radiator would, of course, have no effect on the temperature of the room, and the question then becomes “What exactly is the point of the imaginary variation?” This reflection is not, of course, aimed at the level of the cosmological motion of the sun, but nevertheless presupposes the same causal commitments—i.e. the sun is not warm because it basks in a background warmth of the universe. The lived experience of the warm radiator and the cosmological phenomenon of the role of the sun in our lives, requires, not just the same form of commitment to causality but also a commitment to the before and after temporal aspect of experience. These commitments are not different commitments but fundamentally the same. If a fictional narrative, for some reason, decided to portray the state of affairs of our sun exploding, without any significant effect on our life on earth, it would indeed be difficult to situate such a narrative in relation to our knowledge and what we can hope for.

Of course fictional narratives can violate the conditions of possibility of our objects of experience, but if this occurs then there must be some literary purpose behind such a phenomenon. The mere “possibility” of a science fiction account of an exploding sun, and forms of life continuing on our earth much as they had done prior to such an event, is not a sufficient reason for believing that such an account is in accordance with our cosmological knowledge of suns and planets. Categories of substance, causality, relation, the hypothetical case of judgement, the categorical case of judgement, agency, community etc are all interwoven in various complex ways, and relate not just to the power of understanding, but also to the power of reason and its principles and laws. The power of the imagination, on the other hand, is a power of the sensible faculty of our minds which, of course, also has some role in the formation of our judgements. Science fiction falls into the “category” of the hypothetical case, and whilst myth also appears to fall into this category, the latter it seems has as an aim, the disclosure of the conditions of possibility of existence, whilst the latter appears to have the aim of disguising these conditions in favour of more fantastic hypotheticals.

Fictional narratives differ from historical narratives in that they are essentially intended as imitations of reality and its conditions, rather than designations that directly conceptualise past reality in a framework that is designed to aim at the Truth and the Good. Historical narratives, that is, must possess traceable ties via actual witness testimony and documentation.

Ricoeur claimed in a previous chapter that the Calendar is a third form of time, complementing what he referred to as psychic time and cosmological time. The cyclical motion of the sun, which is the standard which we use to meet each other at the same time every day, is, of course, a very different standard to that manifested by the chronicled time of the calendar that builds upon a continuum of different days, but these two systems of the clock and the calendar are both required for organising the continuous time of millennia. Both systems are necessary to situate events in time and both rely on the Aristotelian “before-after” principle of measurement. Calendar time, it is true, appears to require a beginning or zero-point. A beginning point(the birth of Christ) may at first sight appear to devalue the time that occurs before the beginning, but if, as has occurred ,the beginning point is conceived to be more like a zero-point this permits the neutral conceptualisation of time before the beginning point.

Ricouer introduces very technical phenomenological terms in his reflections upon time, and these tend to obscure many of the points he is attempting to establish. He follows Husserl, for example, in wishing to prioritise the notion of a present, which is under and over-laid by the retentions of the past, and the protentions of the future. Ricoeur uses this to cast doubt upon the similarities of everyday calendar time and fictional calendar time. The only substantial difference between these two forms of time is that, in fiction, the author is imitating real time without, however jeopardising the before-after principle.

The problem, as Ricoeur puts the matter, of unifying the temporal flow of phenomenological time, requires a “bracketing” of above forms of lived and cosmological time. In the context of this discussion,the Heideggerian notion of repetition links authentic forms of temporality with what he calls the “world-time” of Dasein, but this is done without linkage to the Husserlian retentions and protentions of inner-time consciousness.

The “imitations” of time that we encounter in fictional narratives require acknowledgement of the before-after principle that is used in everyday life, and in other forms of time and narrative. In cases where the intention of the author concerns imitating an authentic resoluteness in the face of death, the purpose of the imitation is partly to answer the questions “What ought we to do?”(in the face of our mortality) and “What can we hope for?”. The hypothetical possibility of “imaginary variation” is, in fictional narratives, more often related to inauthentic forms of the relation to death. Ricoeur brings this aspect forward in several of his narratives “about time”, in which a major character takes their own life in an act of suicide. This, from a Kantian perspective, could never be a standard by which to organise our life, simply because it violates the Kantian principle of practical noncontradiction( i.e. it does not on this account make sense to use ones life to take ones life). Whatever the intention of the author is, in depicting such events, it must always be understood in the light of this principle of noncontraditcion. This does not mean that it is impossible to conceive of someone actually, in fact, taking their life, but rather that taking ones life is not what one ought to do as a response to suffering of various forms. This Kantian reflection is compatible with the Heideggerian authentic form of resoluteness in Daseins being-toward-death. The Heideggerian notion of Care is also compatible with Kantian critical Philosophy, which instead of talking in terms of being-a whole, as Heidegger does, refers to a totality of conditions which it is reasons task to explore.

Ricoeur also reflects upon the Weberian idea of ideal types in relation to fictional narrative, but it is unclear exactly what role this idea has, especially in relation to phenomenological “imaginary variations”. Ricoeur ends his discussion of this matter in the following way:

“It is precisely the work of the imaginative variations deployed by tales about time to open up the field of existentiell modalities capable of authenticating “being-towards-death”(P.141)

Of course, it is in some sense “possible” to violate the principle of practical contradiction, and use ones life to take ones life, if by that one means that one can actually commit suicide, but just because such a phenomenon is possible, this does not entail that it ought to lay claim to being an authentic form of being-towards-death. That we have actual historical examples of such authentic resoluteness in the face of death(e.g. the death of Socrates), and that this was communicated to us via the writings of Plato, serves to highlight the essential similarity between historical and fictional narratives(some of Plato’s Socratic dialogue used Socrates as a mouthpiece for the theory of forms which it is not clear Socrates would have endorsed).

September 11, 2022October 10, 2022

A Review of Ricoeur’s “Time and Narrative Vol 3: Essay 14 Historical Time

assorted books on shelf — Photo by Ivo Rainha on Pexels.com

Calendar Time, for Ricoeur, is a bridge between lived time, and and what he refers to as “universal time”, and this distinction provides him with a framework for a hermeneutics of historical consciousness which, in turn, enables an inquiry that he claims does not originate in the assumptions tied to “the epistemology of historical knowledge”. This form of historical consciousness, Ricoeur claims, is to be distinguished from the mythical form of consciousness which belongs to mythical times, and which embraces the idea of ” a great time”(P.105). Aristotle refers to a concept of ” a great time” in his work entitled “Physics”. All forms of time are represented in this Aristotelian idea, the great cosmic cycles, the cycle of psuche(life) and the temporal linear progression of social activity within the confines of a polis or nation.

Myth and ritual work together to situate human life in relation to the great cosmological changes, and the lesser forms of change, connected to the rhythms of life and community. The clock and the calendar, for example, time the occurrence of recurring festivals that shape the form of life we define in terms of “rational animal capable of discourse”. We observe the clock hands move constantly to designate the same times every day, which, in turn, enables the organisation of life beyond the dawning of the day and the falling of night. On the other hand, the dating of events is a linear progression which relates back to a founding event and a beginning(the birth of Christ) and this is a non cyclical form of time, which forms a dating system that provides man with :

“a uniform infinite continuum, segmentable at will.”(Beneveniste)(P.107 in Ricoeur)

This continuum, then, requires a connection of a present to a past and future, which requires the understanding of the different kinds of Aristotelian “causal” explanations in any attempt to fully understand events leading from and to other events of significance in our life. Every instant is an open- ended possibility that might be filled by an event of transformative significance for my life and/or community. We might find such an event in a speech, given by a man condemned to death in his prison cell, or, in the discourse of other significant figures whose task it is to generate good for their communities. These figures both rely on ,and themselves form part of, narratives with necessary and universal components: narratives that both seek to embody knowledge and aim at the good.

The succession of these important figures over generations, themselves, become part of a grand narrative that we can find embodied in our historical writings. It is the universality of ideas that allows the synthesis of, otherwise seemingly unconnected, events. The mortality of individuals obviously also plays an important role in the process of narratising the important events of an era, whether it be an all-embracing era such as the “Golden Age of Greece” or the “Age of enlightenment” that swept through much of the world two millennia later. The concept of a “generation”, also serves as an integrating idea, because it is greater than the life of an individual, but smaller than that of an “Age”. Such a concept also appears to allow a phenomenological investigation into the experiences of generations and the experience of the “we” which is both directly and anonymously experienced.

Ricoeur invokes Max Weber’s concept of “ideal types”, to characterise the sociological roles of actors occupying various positions in society. This concept, perhaps, makes use of a problematic view of the ideal, which disconnects the ideal from the real, and thus from its epistemological and metaphysical implications. The ideal of “generation”, on the other hand, means to refer to ancestral testimonies about events that have not been witnessed by later generations, concerning people they never knew. This enables a generation to retain a sense of the past in a present, looking out onto a different future. Individually however, all individuals of a generation are destined to die, but they can transcend this death, in the idea of the next generation, bearing this sense of the past into their futures. The idea of a species which, perhaps Aristotle was attempting to define in his definition “rational animal capable of discourse”, is an idea of the human form of psuche(life) This idea spans all generations.

Traces of the past are lodged in historical archives, and are created and sustained by institutions, whose aims and goals are connected jointly to the Truth and the Good. In both of these contexts, the facts are of central importance, but it must be pointed out that these are not the atomic “facts” of the scientists or scientifically inclined philosophers, e.g. logical atomists, logical positivists, but neither are they the correlates of the “essences” the phenomenologist is in search of. Such essences are not products of the understanding and reason, as conceived by Aristotle and Kant, but rather related to experience, and organised by perception and imagination. The faculties of understanding and reason are related to the telos or purpose of conceptualising intuitions and experience. This conceptualisation process is regulated heavily by the questions of “What happened?”, and “Why did what happened happen?” The “Why” in this latter question, proceeds on the assumption that the process of conceptualisation is firmly embedded in the context of explanation and justification. In such contexts the beginning of the process of reflection is a principle or law, whose intention is to organise experience. Classical Science, of a certain kind, also uses this context, but modern science is more inclined towards contexts of exploration/discovery in which perception and imagination obviously play important roles. Whilst experience is in focus, these two faculties become importantly relevant powers of cognition. Focussing on the potentiality of rationality of man, on the other hand, demands a type of reflection that takes a metaphysical transcendental view of experience, of the kind we find in Kantian Critical Philosophy, and Aristotelian Hylomorphic Philosophy. These kinds of reflections, are perhaps essential if one is to respect the logic of the difference between the contexts of explanation/justification and the contexts of exploration/discovery.

Historical attachment to the verifying power of official documentation, is an important conceptual, rather than experiential element of the historical process ,and it is part of the kind of reasoning we find in Critical and Hylomorphic Philosophy. The document, on this non-phenomenological view, is not a “trace” of an experience, but rather a conceptual transfiguration, which is partly regulated by the principles and laws of History. The experience of the “passage of time”, highlighted by Augustine, and the idea of a past, as something that has passed away, forces upon us a notion of a “trace of the past”(P.119). The trace, on such an account, is viewed as a kind of monument rather than a conceptual entity that has selectively transfigured experience for the purposes connected to the ideas of The Truth and The Good.

Heideggerian existentialist/phenomenological concern with Care does not directly encourage a focus upon the knowledge and Truth aspect of the Historical process. The Heideggerian emphasis on the temporal dimension of the future, on the other hand, is an important aspect of that focus upon the idea of the Good, so important to Aristotle in the arena of human activity. This temporal dimension, is prioritised in Heidegger, and becomes the essential temporal dimension. This, together with the holistic idea of Care, becomes important in the human sciences in general, especially if the concept of forms of life can avoid all attempts at materialistic or dualistic characterisations.

Heideggerian references to what is termed “world historical”, relies on the idea that the “equipmental ready-to-hand context”,of the historical, has disappeared. Ricoeur brings to this debate, notions of the surplus and decrease of meaning. This enables him to view the above mentioned concrete “remains”, as part of the possibility of disclosing the character of Dasein’s “having been there”(P.122). The remaining trace can obviously be dated, and find a place in the framework of the continuum provided by calendar-time: moreover the concrete physical remains of monuments can be carbon-dated by the extremely exact procedures of Science. In this kind of investigation, the beginnings and ends of physical processes, in the context of the time of cosmic processes are very significant. On a daily basis, however, in our everyday Being-in-the-world, it is the clock as well as the calendar that decides, for example, when we shall meet a friend in the agora, and indeed decides all meetings, formal and informal in the polis. The day, otherwise , does not play a significant role in scientific measurements of time, which focus on both micro events(at nanoparticle level) and macro-events(over billions of years). The last day of a mans life may be one of the most significant events in that life, and may even be a significant event in the History of the Polis, if ones name is Socrates, but it is an insignificant event in the cosmological measurement of time, and as such has no more meaning than the extinction of the light of a candle late at night in the polis just before gong to sleep.

Ricoeur subjects the trace to a process of dialectical reasoning in which it successively reveals or hides its meaning: a process which requires hermeneutic investigation that takes the circumspective attitude into account, in an attempt to synthesise thesis and antithesis. The idea of a trace, however, does not fare well if the synthesis of the trace combines firstly, both the conceptual transfiguration of experience we find in the form of historical documents in a historical archive and secondly, in the monumental remains of Greek Temples standing alone on barren hillsides. These two forms of the “trace” will appear to be two different forms of life or forms of Being-in-the-world, requiring different human powers for their different interpretation.

Author: Michael R D James

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