Fear, Lies and the Liar

"Fear is an idiot" according to Ambrose Bierce.  As I recall, his point was that fear is unintelligent, indeed stupid in the extreme.  Fear cannot think, according to Bierce; it has no brain.  Thus, when possessed by fear (the equivalent in some ways to being possessed by a demon) a person has no brain, doesn't think--cannot think, in fact.

Bierce was treating Fear as if it was a person, or being of some kind, to which human attributes may be ascribed.  In the same fashion and for the same purpose, we may say that Fear is a liar.

How could it be otherwise if Fear is an idiot, incapable of thought?  Fear can't speak the truth as it can't know the truth. Ascertaining what is true in a particular case requires inquiry into a situation.  As C.S. Peirce and John Dewey would say, inquiry is appropriate and effective when there is a problem to be solved, i.e. when we're confronted with something uncertain, unclear, confusing.  Inquiry doesn't arise, though, when interpretation of circumstances is preconceived or predetermined.  Then analysis of a situation becomes a kind of special pleading.  What seems to be uncertain isn't construed as uncertain.  Instead, the situation is deemed to be an instance of X or Y, and efforts are made to make the circumstances conform to the assumption made without taking them into account in any meaningful way.

H.L. Mencken wrote that to a government, the most dangerous person (he said "man," actually) is someone who can think things out without regard to the prevailing superstition.  That may be true.  But in these strange times, who is there who can think things out, let alone think at all?

Lies are ubiquitous now.  Social media and some traditional media are full of them.  Some lies are made with the intent to confuse or promote fear.  Some lies are merely circulated, as instantly as they're made, by those who believe them.  Some merely misstate the facts.  But it seems that lies are believed more and more as more and more lies are made and spread across the World Wide Web, and repeated again and again.

We live in a propagandist's paradise.  Joseph Goebbels would be amazed by the possibilities available, and enthralled by the opportunities presented.  It's so very easy to lie, easier still to spread the lie, now.

Which brings us back to Fear.  There are many liars and so there is much fear.  We have a president who according to available evidence lies virtually every instant.  This is unusual even in a politician.  

Fear is here, and is as ubiquitous as are lies.  Fear of the new, fear of the strange, fear of change, primarily; fear of violence, fear of division, fear of displacement, fear of others unlike ourselves.  Fear the liar takes advantage of Fear the idiot.  Fear the idiot accepts the lies of Fear the liar, without reservation. Fear the liar incites Fear the idiot to thoughtless reaction and to a thoughtless desire to be free from fear and thought, or the need for thinking.

 

The Pertinence Maxim: A Matter of Time

While I was attending college, a new professor appeared on campus.  Although it was, and still is so far as I know, a small liberal arts college, that in itself wasn't extraordinary or significant.  Professors would appear now and then and some would leave after a time; some would not.  What was unusual in the case I recall here was that this particular professor was said to be a sociologist.  He was the first of his kind at my college.  At least, he was the first to be called a sociologist.

As a professor of philosophy I admired and respected thought him to be worthy, I signed up for one of his classes.  The class in question addressed Time.  If I remember correctly, the first thing we students were asked to do was submit a paper describing what we felt Time to be.  I think I wrote something to the effect that time was a concept by which we determined when certain events took place or should take place (planting crops, for example).  I thought, in other words, that we came to keep time because it was useful to do so for various purposes, especially as our societies became larger and more complex.  This I suppose was a kind of anthropological view.  Time was a method used in determining and defining what takes place or should take place.  Such was, and is, my guess, in any case.  But in all honesty I'm not sure just what I thought.  That was a long time ago. 

I confess I thought my view of Time to be superior to the views of others in the class who relied on Simon and Garfunkel (Hazy Shade of Winter) and others to arrive at a definition.  The professor, though, treated our views as equally deficient and dismissed them all in a rather cursory manner.  To this day I have no idea what he thought was the correct definition of "Time."  I know only he was almost contemptuous of what we thought ("Ah yes, this is the so-and-so. view of Time").  He may have declined to give us a definition.  He was one of those professors who thought that teaching consists of asking, not answering, questions.  I encountered a few like-minded professors in law school.  It may be there is or was a widespread belief that this style of teaching is the fabled Socratic Method.  I find it hard to believe that anyone who actually reads Plato can come to such a conclusion, as I think he carefully prepared his dialogues so that they would inevitably result in a position he thought appropriate through the device of questions; much as a lawyer prepares questions to put to a witness.

It happens that Time is a subject of philosophical analysis.  There are philosophers of Time and so must be a Philosophy of Time.  The ontological status of time is studied and debated.  Philosophers discuss the difference between the past, the present and the future.  They consider why Time seems to us to be an arrow.  They wonder whether there truly is anything but the present.  They wonder about fatalism.  They ask why Time seems to move swiftly in some cases or to certain people.

For my part, I wonder as I do in most cases whether these wonderings make any difference to how we live our lives, and am inclined to say they make no difference whatsoever.  Also for my part, I feel that if they make no such difference, debating them is futile.  This may well be a fault of mine.  There may be something lacking in me.

Perhaps the professor of sociology I encountered (or did I? It was in the past!) would have though that C.S. Peirce's pragmatic maxim would be of some assistance in defining Time; more assistance, even, than Paul Simon's lyrics.  It's hard to say.  The maxim has appeared in different forms, but I'll make reference to the form in which it appeared in Peirce's essay entitled How to Make Our Ideas Clear: 

"Consider what effects, that might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object."

I can't remember whether I knew of this maxim when I studied under the eminent sociologist, but would have recourse to it now if recourse was required.  Happily, it isn't.  But I think the maxim would indicate that our conception of Time would be one which is made up of the uses to which we put that concept in doing things we do, e.g. eating, sleeping, working, taking vacations, parking cars, etc. 

I find myself baffled if I seek to define Time or even think of it in any other way.  Baffled, I say, in finding any reason to do so.  Clearly, we say there is a difference between what has happened and what is happening, and in identifying such things the concept of Time can be useful.  Should we say that there is such a difference?  Why not?  How do we err if we do?  Should we say there is no past?  Why? 

Won't we keep on living as we do, using Time, making Time, regardless of the ontological status of Time?   Won't we continue to distinguish past, present and future regardless of the differences there may be between them?  It seems we understand the differences between them well enough, and those differences hardly seem surprising or worthy of analysis.  Will we ever, seriously, claim that nothing happened in the past, that there will be no future?  Do we ever make the distinctions philosophers make or reach the conclusions they do as to Time while living our lives?  If we don't, doesn't that tell us something significant about the Philosophy of Time?

Perhaps another maxim along the lines of the pragmatic maxim would be useful.  Something like this:  "Consider what effects, that might conceivably have practical bearings, which may result from our study of the subject in question.  If there are no such effects, then our study serves no purpose."  Let's call it "the pertinence maxim." [Copyright Ciceronianus, 2017.]

It may be that there are aspects of Time that may usefully be subject to scientific study, e.g. the reasons why we perceive times' passage in different ways in different circumstances.  Of course, Time has also been a subject of study in physics.  It seems to me, though, that this kind of study is one best pursued by scientists, not by philosophers.

Tempus Fugit

The title to this post is also that of one of my favorite Miles Davis tunes.  It means, of course, "time flies" but may have been derived from a line in Virgil's Georgics--Fugit Irreparabile Tempus.  That line has a darker meaning.  Time passes swiftly, and once it passes, is irretrievable.

The past is the great and inaccessible storehouse of our lives, and contains all our mistakes, our achievements, our actions, thoughts, and too often loved ones and friends.  It is the quintessential thing not in our control; there's nothing we can do about it.  Yet it haunts us, rides us like a hag.  It also, though, has made us what we are.  If we can control ourselves, why can't we control our past?

Well, because it's not here, though we are.  What we may say, employing metaphor, "made us" need not be here with us.  We remember the past; we don't possess it.  Remembering the past doesn't consist of living the past.  We did that already.  We can, in a sense, repeat the past, which is merely to say make mistakes we made before.

Just what the past consists of is, like so much else it seems is apparent, a subject of philosophical debate.  I doubt if it can be intelligently claimed to be anything but things that happened.  Nobody thinks the past is taking place now; nobody confuses it with what takes place now.  There seems little need to debate this, but it has been made a subject of debate.  The past isn't the books, films, sounds about the past we read, see and hear.  Again, this is an obvious conclusion.  We know the past can be misrepresented.  So can what takes place now.  There is no reason to believe the past is or is not exactly what common sense indicates is the case.  For some, of course, this only makes it a more attractive subject for consideration, common sense being prima facie deficient to certain of us.

The past is a concept regarding which I think it would be useful to apply the pragmatic maxim:  "Consider what effects, that might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object."

Peirce, the maker of the maxim, seems to have reconsidered it over time, and there have been those who have different ways of looking at it just as Wallace Stevens noted we may have thirteen ways of looking at a blackbird.  But it appears to me that Peirce thought of it most consistently as a method by which to make ideas clear; particularly ideas that are bandied about in philosophy.

The "past" has practical bearings to the extent it is thought of, studied, used by us, here and now.  There are various ways in which it can have practical bearings, on us and on others and on the rest of our world, which is to say that it has consequences.  There is no need that it be defined any further than that requires.  To the extent we define it otherwise, we're engaged in flights of fancy.  Such flights of fancy usually involve our tendency to think in terms of things.  Thinking of the past as a thing naturally leads one to treat it as a thing, an object regarding which we speak.

What has practical bearings is not the thing which is past, it's what happened in the past and its effects we encounter today. 

We need no flights of fancy in order to acknowledge the significance of the past.  The past is hugely significant, as it effects how we think, feel and act.  Our past, though, is in particular irretrievable and because it necessarily involves things we did or did not do, those we knew but no longer see, it is inevitably a source of regret though it may also, sometimes, be a source of be a source of fondness.  There are good memories as well as bad.  But we humans tend to do or not do more that we regret than we are proud of, and when we regret what we did or did not do that regret arises from our sense of responsibility.

What's done cannot be undone.  This is the tragedy of the time-bound.  We can't avoid the mistakes we've already made and the consequences of those mistakes can only, at best, be mitigated. 

The Stoic and the Ubermensch

Nietzsche famously, or infamously depending on your perspective, condemned the Stoics (in his understated way) thusly:

You desire to LIVE "according to Nature"? Oh, you noble Stoics, what fraud of words! Imagine to yourselves a being like Nature, boundlessly extravagant, boundlessly indifferent, without purpose or consideration, without pity or justice, at once fruitful and barren and uncertain: imagine to yourselves INDIFFERENCE as a power--how COULD you live in accordance with such indifference? To live--is not that just endeavoring to be otherwise than this Nature? Is not living valuing, preferring, being unjust, being limited, endeavouring to be different? And granted that your imperative, "living according to Nature," means actually the same as "living according to life"--how could you do DIFFERENTLY? Why should you make a principle out of what you yourselves are, and must be? In reality, however, it is quite otherwise with you: while you pretend to read with rapture the canon of your law in Nature, you want something quite the contrary, you extraordinary stage-players and self-deluders! In your pride you wish to dictate your morals and ideals to Nature, to Nature herself, and to incorporate them therein; you insist that it shall be Nature "according to the Stoa," and would like everything to be made after your own image, as a vast, eternal glorification and generalism of Stoicism! With all your love for truth, you have forced yourselves so long, so persistently, and with such hypnotic rigidity to see Nature FALSELY, that is to say, Stoically, that you are no longer able to see it otherwise-- and to crown all, some unfathomable superciliousness gives you the Bedlamite hope that BECAUSE you are able to tyrannize over yourselves--Stoicism is self-tyranny--Nature will also allow herself to be tyrannized over: is not the Stoic a PART of Nature? . . . But this is an old and everlasting story: what happened in old times with the Stoics still happens today, as soon as ever a philosophy begins to believe in itself. It always creates the world in its own image; it cannot do otherwise; philosophy is this tyrannical impulse itself, the most spiritual Will to Power, the will to "creation of the world," the will to the causa prima.

It's hardly surprising, of course, that Nietzsche, who seems to have been an insistently, deliberately, emotional thinker, wouldn't find Stoicism congenial.  If ever there was someone overwhelmingly disturbed by things not in his control, it was Nietzsche.  It's unfortunate but typical of him (at least from what I've read) that he condemned it in this fashion; delivering yet another rant rather than a serious analysis.

I wonder sometimes if his frenzied style was typical of his time rather than a personal quirk. William James was more or less his contemporary, and C.S. Peirce; J. S. Mill was older, dying it seems when Nietzsche was in his thirties.  Imagine any of them writing in this fashion, and you (or at least I) can't help but laugh.  Perhaps this was the style in continental Europe, though, or at least in Germany.

Nietzsche's exclamatory comments are very Dionysian, certainly, but if you like me are unimpressed by mere denunciations--argument by exclamation--it's difficult to see in this excited outpouring much that is coherent or much of significance.  I'll perforce address what he seems to be saying to me.

First, he states that Nature is indifferent and we, by living are otherwise than indifferent; we value, have preferences, are unjust.  Of course the ancient Stoics didn't feel that nature was indifferent in the sense being used by Nietzsche, as it was infused with the Divine Reason and had a purpose, so Nietzsche rather than addressing or even acknowledging that is merely telling us what he thinks Nature to be.

Let that pass, though.  We humans are parts of Nature, however, and so our feelings, desires etc.--which Nietzsche seems to think of as contra Nature--are, therefore, just as much part of Nature, as natural, as we are.  So when the Stoics refer to acting according to Nature they obviously refer to acting according to human nature as well as Nature in general, as human beings interacting with the rest of Nature.  It's not possible for us to live "otherwise" than Nature as Nietzsche claims.  Nietzsche's distinction between us and Nature is thus unsound.  Perhaps, though, he didn't think of us as parts of Nature. 

Next, he equates the Stoic dictum live according to Nature to "live according to life."  It's not clear to me, though, why he does so.  In what sense is Nature "life"?  In the sense that it exists?  It does of course exist, but it has certain characteristics, as do we.   Is Nietzsche seriously claiming that the Stoic dictum in question is simply "exist" or "live"?  That would indeed by silly, and it is silly of Nietzsche to maintain that is the case.  The Stoics clearly refer to living in accordance with certain characteristics of Nature and humanity, i.e. to living in a certain way, not merely living.

Then, he accuses the Stoics of imposing morals and ideals on Nature.  He does not trouble to explain this claim anymore than he did his others, but he seems to be saying that the Stoics purport to see in Nature what to think and how to act. 

This makes no sense either, though, as the Stoics quite consistently insist that what is in our control is very limited, and what is beyond our control is vast.  The great majority of Nature, therefore, is not something with which we should concern or disturb ourselves.  So, we would not "see" Stoicism in Nature.  Instead, being Stoics, we understand that Nature is to a great extent something we lack the ability to impose upon.  Also, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius state that our lives are what are thoughts make it; that what disturbs us is not what takes place, but our feelings regarding what takes place.

Stoicism doesn't appear in Nature, but Nature and our nature, and our interaction, necessarily figure in how we should act.  We live according to Nature when we live as reasonable human beings, based on what we know of Nature and ourselves.

He also calls Stoicism "self-tyranny", again for no stated reason.  Just what tyranny is involved in not being unduly disturbed but rather tranquil, being calm and reasonable, is not clear.  But Nietzsche may have so committed himself to being full of Romantic sound and fury that even the merely sensible seemed to him vile and evil.

Not content to denounce Stoicism, he proceeds to denounce philosophy in general.  Indeed, why not, being Nietzsche?  What did he do that was not, directly or indirectly, a denunciation of something?  Nietzsche was an extremist, I think, and more an artist (a tortured one, of course) than a philosopher.  The reference to Bedlam in his condemnation of Stoicism is unfortunate in his case.  Perhaps if he had been a Stoic he wouldn't have gone insane in the end, identifying himself so much with Dionysius that he claimed to be the mad god.

An Uncommon Faith

John Dewey did a series of lectures which were eventually published as a book called A Common Faith.  George Santayana, who was inclined to give other philosophers a hard time now and then, gave Dewey a hard time over that title, maintaining (or so I've read) that the faith described in the book was not common at all, or perhaps altogether too common (Santayana himself could be as obscure in his writing as Dewey, sometimes, though Santayana was clearly the better writer).  In any case, he thought the use of the word "common" inappropriate--perhaps even uncommon.  The title of this post is an effort to escape this "common" problem.

I think Dewey may have intended in using "common" in this fashion to contend that the faith he described in his lectures could be a faith all could accept, if they would but abandon the supernaturalism characteristic of religious faith and treated as religious what he believed should be and would be the focus of religious feelings and ideals once the supernatural was discarded.  He quoted Santayana on the similarity between poetry and religion (perhaps Santayana felt that to the extent Dewey extolled Santayana's idea as an example of the faith Dewey sought to instill, such faith must necessarily be uncommon as in "extraordinary").  Art, knowledge, wisdom and acceptance of our role as a part of the universe, not apart from it; these seem to be the "religious" ideals Dewey believed worthy of, or could be the result of, a common faith.

I have a certain sympathy with this view, this "faith", whether it be common or not.  I think our tendency to believe in the supernatural--which in this context would be something transcending the universe, generally a transcendent God--is unwise and unfounded.  The supernatural is something we cannot know and cannot establish.  Indeed, it's something we can't even describe or intuit or feel, being "bounded" by what we are; that's to say living creatures in the universe, parts of nature.  To the extent we purport to do so, we ascribe to the transcendent powers, thoughts, desires, intents all of which are things we experience and know of as creatures that are parts of nature, and are therefore natural themselves.

Of course, some of us also maintain that there is something transcendent about us as well, which presumably allows us to know the transcendent God if only dimly, imperfectly.  That dimness and imperfection, plainly, results from the fact that we though somewhat transcendent are too much a part of nature.  So we partake of original sin or are otherwise deficient, just as is nature itself.

This belief in the supernatural or transcendent thus brings with it a belief in our own uniqueness, as we necessarily cannot be merely creatures of the universe, parts of nature, in order to be saved.  We fail when we are too much a part of nature in this view; we succumb to our animal nature.

Interestingly, Dewey seems to feel that this tendency on our part to believe ourselves unique and special is shared by those he describes as "militant atheists."  He thinks that those who condemn not merely belief in God but religious feelings in general detach themselves from the rest of the universe as much as do theists, but in a different way.  If I understand him correctly, this is because the refusal to acknowledge what Dewey considers to be religious ideals, to be entirely materialistic, disregards the connection with the universe we must partake in to be truly what we are, i.e. creatures of the universe.  This is not clear to me, I'll admit, but I think I know what he meant by it.

Dewey seems to think that what he calls religious ideals as noted above are worthy of reverence.  Here I part from him.  Certainly they're worthy and are to be sought.  But for me, that reverence should be accorded to the amazing universe we've come to know more than ever in the past 500 years or so, but which I think is so boundless and remarkable that we still know it very little.  What we have considered supernatural may turn out to be natural (that would be a surprise).  Our moments of transcendence, to the extent that means becoming aware of something greater than we are, may be entirely natural as well; a recognition of something that's also a part of nature.

The Stoics thought this to be the Universal Reason, the controlling principle of nature, a small part of which we carry with us as beings capable of reason.  The Universal Reason was immanent in the universe, though, not beyond it, something which was material and could be such according to the physics of the time.  C.S. Peirce felt that the universe, though chaotic in its inception, has a tendency towards reason, forming reasonable relations and even laws by virtue of the interaction of its parts.

I feel they may have been on to something, but it's just a feeling and I recognize that it's just that.  Feelings don't inspire respect though they're an essential part of us (perhaps a contempt for such feelings is something Dewey felt was a weakness of the militant atheists he refers to which separates them from nature).  Perhaps if I thought I could do so without inciting ridicule or contentiousness I would venture to air this view in a certain forum I've frequented, but it is a very practical view and the practical seems to be something increasingly frowned on by those who participate in it.  Theorists are an intolerant bunch, and philosophers are nothing if not theorists; nothing but theorists, I suppose.  When one deals in contention as a job, it's no enjoyment to be exposed to it in one's free time.  Such forums are tedious if they can't be enjoyed.

Perhaps religion is an intensely practical thing just as ancient philosophies such as Stoicism and Epicureanism were practical.  Or at least religion can be and has been practical in the sense of being concerned with how we live in the universe.  That practicality began to diminish as people focused on the transcendent and a next life instead of the one we actually live.  Given social conditions in the later Roman Empire, it's likely that many were so miserable that the promise of some life other than that being lived made Christianity and the mystery religions quite enticing.  One would think that this disregard of life would dissipate as life gets easier to live, but it seems life isn't easy enough yet, or that we're still seduced by our own dreams of transcendence.

Differences that Make no Difference

"A difference that makes no difference is no difference at all."   This neat little sentence is one of many neat little sentences William James (I fondly call him "Wild Bill"), came up with while rampaging through philosophy and psychology.  He was a wordsmith, and also a great teacher, so it's said, and a popularizer (if there is such a word) of pragmatism and other things.  Not the most precise thinker, though, and that prompted C.S. Peirce to call his philosophy "pragmaticism" to distinguish it from that of James.  It also prompted, if it did not require, John Dewey to step in to tone down James' exuberance in response to criticism by such as Bertrand Russell.  Being a Lord, and British, Russell had no tolerance for exuberance of any kind.

But though rambunctious, James could be most insightful, and one of his insights was that purported differences, some of which have occupied great minds far too much, make no difference.  That is to say they do not result in any change to how we live.  They don't satisfy any desire or urge, they don't serve to solve any question or problem we encounter in living, they don't impact what we do, how we react.  They accomplish nothing, and cannot accomplish anything, unless perverted.

The perversion can result when a difference which makes no difference in itself is accepted as the fanciful grounds for or basis of a system or unwarranted inferences.  For example, because we can't know what the world really is, and what it seems to be to us is all that we can know and perhaps even all that really is, the world is ours to make or shape; we are the masters of the world and may do with it what we will.  This perversion is similar in some respects to religious beliefs; it breeds a kind of righteousness as it is founded on something which cannot be challenged. 

Unfortunately, we persist in considering that which makes no difference, practically speaking, to be of greater worth than that which does.  Too many feel truth and what is good are founded in something having an existence separate from the world, the world being fundamentally flawed.  A holdover from Plato, perhaps, or religious beliefs.  Whether or not there are ideal Forms or a transcendent divinity or absolute spirit, the world will be what it is and we will live in it as it is and we will be as we are, and so such creations of thought and belief make no difference themselves.  But some of us take such speculations and impose them on ourselves and others

Differences which make no difference seem peculiar to philosophy and religion.  Law has its share of fictions, but those fictions serve a purpose or at least make a difference in the sense that they must be treated or used in a certain fashion, may do certain things and not others.  It may be said that philosophy seeks to explain life or aspects of living, and in that sense is not concerned necessarily in making a difference to how we live.  That in itself is a noble and significant enterprise.  The function of explanation, though, is being preempted more and more by science, and given the fact that philosophical explanations never seem to be accepted by most philosophers, even, it is unclear that explanations will ever be forthcoming from philosophers.

Making a difference is significant because the failure to make a difference indicates that what is being touted as a difference is at best trivial and of no account, at worst subject to perversion or malicious manipulation.  Thus, while it may be the case that what we perceive as X is not what Kant would call the X in itself, we cannot know and have no reason to care whether it is or is not.  We will keep on perceiving X as we perceive X and will do or not do what we always have and always will do or not do regarding X.

The consideration of whether what is claimed a difference makes a difference is, I think, a most effective way of determining whether some idea or theory is worth any interest or concern.  If it makes no difference to how we live, then plainly we are best advised to devote real time and effort to something that does.  Something that makes no difference is also something that cannot be tested or observed, and in that sense will always be speculative.

Pragmatism's focus on consequences, on effects, is one of its most attractive aspects to me.  Although such as Russell insisted that it wrongly confuses what is true with what works, that seems to me a very simple-minded criticism.  It isn't a question of proposing that what works is true.  It's more an insistence that unless something has effects or consequences, i.e. makes a difference, it is not something which can be made use of, tested and judged as good or bad, right or wrong, useful or useless.  Most of all, it should not and cannot reasonably be used for any purpose.  Those who seize upon such things in making decisions make decisions for no good reason.

So it may well be that William James wrote philosophy like a novelist, and his brother Henry wrote novels like a philosopher.  I can't speak to Henry James, though, as I've never been able to read him.  I get the same impression reading him as I get when I read Henry Adams--the overwhelming impression of artifice, contrivance.  It may have been the style of the time.

However, William James must be respected as someone who, with Peirce and Dewey and others, sought to make philosophy pertinent to how we live by judging it by its effects on how we live and disregarding it when it has no effects.

Some Thoughts on Sokal and his Hoax

I've recently finished reading Alan Sokal's Beyond the Hoax, which I was rather annoyed to find is a collection of works previously published (rendering it a hoax?) and am given to muse a bit about what the Sokal Hoax or the Sokal Affair as it's also been called tells us about science, philosophy, the "science wars" and other things.  It may not be as big a deal as it once was among the cognoscenti, and postmodernism may be less a force than it was, but I think the Hoax retains some  relevance in these dark times.

I'm neither a scientist nor a philosopher.  I'm not a literary critic or a social scientist either, nor am I an academic.  So in some manner I'm probably not qualified to opine on the Hoax or anything related to it.  If the dangers of pontificating regarding complicated matters of which one has little knowledge was what Sokal was trying to demonstrate, I think he did demonstrate those dangers, and so am entering into dangerous territory myself.  But I think more was involved than a rather sharp reminder that our ignorance is most on display when we not only stray into such matters but take it upon ourselves to make claims regarding them in print. 

Such reminders are useful and appropriate, I think.  I've often found myself dismayed by what's called the philosophy of law when those writing in that area display a profound ignorance or even disregard of the actual practice of law.  I tend to think that practicing law would inform any philosophy of law and am suspicious of philosophers of law who have not done so.  But I recognize, grudgingly perhaps, that philosophy of law is something different from the practice of it.

Reading Sokal would probably do those who know nothing of physics and especially of quantum physics some good.   Those who are not physicists often seem to have a tendency to indulge in fantastic inferences from the little they know of quantum physics, and there is no harm in putting a stop to such inference.  But Sokal clearly feels he was out to accomplish more than this, or did accomplish more than this even if he did not set out to do so.

In Beyond the Hoax and elsewhere, Sokal identifies himself as a Leftist, and claims that the denizens of postmodernism and academics out to denigrate the sciences by asserting that, e.g., the findings of science are no better, no more correct, than the assorted myths of various cultures do us all a disservice.  Those of the Left, according to Sokal, and progressives generally have advocated social programs and other efforts to better the lives of the downtrodden and in doing so have maintained that certain policies more effectively achieve this than others, and refer to empirical studies in doing so.  When academics, historically important figures in liberal politics, go about claiming science and scientific reasoning is no more reliable than, say, dowsing, the entire agenda of the Left is endangered.

I sympathize with the view that efforts to denigrate science and reason and rationality generally are dangerous, glib and silly, though not because I'm of the Left.  I think I understand Sokal's point in emphasizing his political leanings, however, as those called conservatives delight in exposing academia as a kind of fountainhead of relativism.  For my part, I think those who engage in such efforts are disregarding what should be obvious--the successes of experimental science--primarily by being over impressed by the obvious, i.e. the fact that culture, customs, personalities, politics, money and other things influence the focus of the scientists and science.

The manner in which such things impact science is no doubt interesting and worthy of study.  However, the fact that they do should surprise nobody, as all human conduct is so influenced.  It doesn't follow, though, that all human conduct is similarly baseless, i.e. that one kind of conduct or thought is no better than another.  Science and reason, and rational inquiry, are distinguished from other human conduct by the method employed by them in problem-solving and addressing questions, and this method has had significant success in solving problems and answering questions, to our great benefit.

To nonetheless argue that such success is insignificant in judging the worth of an approach, or that the success is mere coincidence, is senseless.  What is it that drives certain people to insist that despite this success there's no good reason to prefer this method over mythology or other "narratives"?  I can't accept that this can be attributed only to stupidity, or even laziness (rational thinking is hard, so attacking it as without merit can be comforting to those who would rather avoid the difficult).

We seem to have a depressing and I think bewildering tendency to maintain, sometimes regardless of what is in fact the case and what we accept to be the case if our conduct is any guide, that we can't really know what is the case; that everything is a matter of opinion, for example, or all is relative.   Of course, we nonetheless act as if we know well enough what is appropriate, and how to conduct ourselves.  We know what is important, we know what problems are when we encounter them; we try to resolve them intelligently if we have any wisdom.  We purport to think X but we persistently do not act is if we think X.  Oddly, we seem to feel that this is not disingenuous or false, or idiotic.  Indeed, we seem to believe that this reflects a kind of sophistication, that thinking in this fashion distinguishes those who do from those of the "common herd."

C. S. Peirce was right.  We should not pretend to doubt in philosophy (or in other areas) what we do not doubt in our hearts.  When we do, we make fools of ourselves in more ways than one, as we are proud to be foolish.

Time Out of Mind

According to Cicero, "there is nothing so absurd but some philosopher has said it."  I'm not sure just what it was that prompted this comment.  I like to think that there are limits to absurdity, or at least limits to the deliberate promulgation of absurdities as fact, but I confess I'm given to wonder now and then.

Consider, though:  there are, or apparently were, philosophers who are or were unconvinced of the existence of an "external world" independent from our minds (dealt with in prior posts) or perhaps more properly that its existence cannot not be demonstrated to their (and therefore appropriate) satisfaction, and that mind and body are in some sense separate, and that Forms of absolute, perfect reality exist regarding which that which we experience is but a poor facsimile, and that we can't know just what "things in themselves" (like, for example, the computer on which I'm typing at this moment) really are; so, perhaps Cicero was right. 

I'm doing some reading at the moment regarding the question whether the past is real.   Some philosophers feel it isn't.  Some, unsurprisingly, think it is.  Most of us common folk, I think, would  maintain that it was, but is not now.  Most of us would probably assert that in the past, Roman legions marched around Europe, dinosaurs walked the earth, galleys manned by slaves were used for ocean transport.  However, that is no longer the case.  So, Roman legions, dinosaurs and such galleys certainly were real, but as they no longer exist, they can't be said to be real now.

A philosopher may be inclined to say, however, that we have no business referring to the past as real in any sense if it no longer exists, or that we can't state anything regarding what happened in the past, past events, past people, without purporting to come to conclusions regarding that which does not exist, which we cannot do legitimately.  How can we rely on our memories, or even records of the past?  There is no way to verify them, properly.

Some might question this kind of view, though.  There is now evidence that certain animals existed which no longer exist.  There are buildings we see which must somehow have come into existence, unless we're satisfied in thinking that they suddenly appear at the time we first encounter them.  There are people we knew who are no longer present.  Isn't it reasonable to infer from such evidence that there was or were some animals, things, people but now there are not?

Time is I think a particularly difficult subject for philosophers to analyze and explicate now, because physics has significantly preempted the field, or at least complicated it.  In the realm of physics, there be dragons I certainly cannot slay, in any event.  Physics may eventually ascertain that the past continues to exist in some sense, or can be retrieved, or perhaps indicate that there is a possibility of time travel to the past (if it has not already done so).  However, until that occurs, just what can be said about the past?  What is it?

In answering that question, I'd be inclined to apply some variant of Peirce's pragmatic maxim (he formulated several versions of it).  This would entail defining it by reference to its practical consequences.  The past is something that we recall, sometimes with pleasure, sometimes sadly.  It thereby and in other ways can effect us and our dispositions and our lives.  It can be used as a reference.  We can make decisions regarding what is transpiring now based on what has taken place in the past.  The world we interact it was in many respects shaped by the past; is a result of the past, and knowing the past can help us understand the world, ourselves and our fellow participants in the world.

The past is clearly something we think about, and something that influences us and how we live and act now.  In that sense, it is clearly real now, i.e. it is a part of our world, our reality.  Isn't that sufficient for our purposes?  Why could or should it be "real" in some other sense?  In what way does it matter whether if is "real" in some other sense (again, given the extent of our abilities and knowledge in the realm of physics at this time)?

No doubt I'm just demonstrating yet again why it is I'm not a philosopher; but once more I wonder why it is we devote ourselves to questions the answers to which, and problems the resolution of which, seemingly will make no difference to how we live, and what we do.

The Appeal of Santayana

I'm given to speculate regarding just what it is that attracts me to this philosopher, this man who was, I think, more than a philosopher--a kind of Renaissance Man to the extent someone who lived most of his life in the 20th Century can be considered such.  Not "just" a philosopher, but a noted poet and novelist.  I wonder sometimes if there is something of the old Catholic in him which speaks to the old Catholic in me, or something of the Latin in him that speaks to the Latin in me.

He writes so well and in such a fashion I think it's sometimes difficult to think of him as writing philosophy.  He doesn't seem to write of things as a philosopher would, though it is clear that he is engaged in a most piercing analysis of the subject matter he addresses.  Perhaps that in itself is the basis for his appeal.  He seems both rigorous and artful, even artistic, in his approach to things.

In certain ways it seems that his concerns and assertions are contradictory, but I think this is part of a universalism which perhaps may be said to have characterized Catholicism at one point, paganism as well, at one point; that can even be said to have been pretended to by Rome, or dreamt of by it's more noble exponents, like Virgil, who wrote of the skill of the Roman being that of ruling the various and dissimilar nations in peace.  He respects and acknowledges the place of ritual, ceremony, art, mysticism in human life, but he also subjects them to analysis--and thereby elucidates their flaws and limitations--even while honoring them and although he seems to believe that they are necessary aspects of the way we live.  He does the same, I think, to science and philosophy.  He is a proponent of reason but speaks of its limitations as well, and accepts them.

As should be apparent, I find it hard to think of him without thinking of Wallace Stevens' poem about him, To an Old Philosopher in Rome.  In that poem we see glimpses of the Catholic and the Roman, sometimes as day to day appearances and perhaps sometimes more than that.  "Total grandeur of total edifice, Chosen by an inquisitor of structures, For himself...."  It amazes me that such a man should have been so completely devoted to naturalism and yet devoted to those characteristics of humanity and those works of humanity which evoke seemingly the desire if not the claim that there is something more, something greater, than nature.  One feels as if he noted and painstakingly studied what it is to be human in all respects, without bias and even coldly and with no illusions, and yet at the same time appreciative of a certain grandeur or at least the capacity for grandeur.

There is something of the stoic in him, I think, that comes with the acknowledgement of limitations and even to a certain extent the inevitability if not appropriateness of those limitations.  Something of the pragmatist as well, though it seems a very individual pragmatism, more like Peirce than James or Dewey.  Dewey's philosophy was a very social philosophy, and Santayana does not strike me as a social thinker.

But there's something else as well, and I think that something may well be the better, or at least the singular, part of him  I'm finding it very hard to define let alone describe just what that is, though I suspect that if I ever do so I'll have discovered what it is that makes him such a unique and--to me at least--fascinating figure.

The Magnificent Seven (American Philosophers)

There was quite a bit going on in American philosophy, starting in the late 19th century and extending well into the 20th.  These names stand out, I think:  C.S. Peirce, William James, John Dewey, Josiah Royce, Ralph Barton Perry, George Santayana and Roy Wood Sellars.

Santayana was actually born in Spain, of course, but spent only his early years there; his philosophical career can fairly be called American.  And, I don't mean to discount other American philosophers of prominence in the 20th century, some in the pragmatic tradition, some not.  But these seven seem to me to be of particular significance.  Perry and Sellars, unfortunately, are mostly forgotten, it seems.

They were all, naturally enough, influenced by the theory of evolution.  They were all not religious in any traditional sense.  They all had concerns which related to practical and social (science, education, politics, art, law) matters in addition to any concern they may have had with the "special" metaphysical or epistemological concerns of philosophy which seem, to me at least, so apart from the way we live our lives (Peirce perhaps can be said to have had more of an interest in certain of the "special" concerns than the others, but as the creator of the pragmatic method he was something of a revolutionary and turned the focus of those concerns to us and the world in which we live, and away from futile speculations induced by the tendency to "doubt in philosophy what we do not doubt in our hearts").  And, they all felt philosophers could, as philosophers, address those concerns; and they addressed them.

One wonders if the time in which they worked contributed to their emphasis on the real.  There were great changes being made in technology, the character of America was changing with massive immigration, there was the Great War, the new movements in art, music and literature.  The world was rather hard to ignore.  Some think we live in a similar time.  Perhaps we'll be fortunate, and we'll encounter similar minds.

Of course, they differed in very significant respects as well.  But they were all participants in an effort to "recover" philosophy, to use Dewey's word, to addressing the "problems of men" to use Dewey's phrase.  I think that philosophy may have returned to the contemplation of the practically useless for a time.  But there are indications that might be changing.  In any case, I hope that's changing.

An Engaging Rant by Edward St. Amant

I suppose his Atheism, Skepticism and Philosophy might also be described as a screed.  In any case, I downloaded it on my admirable Nook, and am currently reading it.  I find myself in sympathy with much that he writes.  He has the disconcerting habit of referring to "women and men" (instead of "men and women") which is not seriously objectionable, but has an annoying whiff of political correctness about it.  He also has a somewhat bewildering habit of citing the years of birth and death of the great figures of philosophy, and others, he more often than not denigrates.  Their respective life-spans do not seem of great importance generally or for purposes of his book.  More significantly for me, his only (passing) reference thus far to pragmatism as a philosophy seems uninformed--he is apparently among those who think, incorrectly, that it sanctions subjectivsim and cultural relativism, a view which I think is defensible only if one hasn't read the pragmatists, or has limited reading to Rorty, who was not one but periodically claimed he was, or James, who was an important figure in pragmatism but was a kind of extremist in certain things.

The Web tells me he's written a good deal, largely fiction it seems, but tells me little about his education or background.  I don't know if he's a professional philosopher; since he's critical of them, I doubt it.  I find him engaging, of course, because we agree that modern philosophy no longer seems concerned with the problems we encounter in life or, to the extent it is concerned, has abandoned reason as the most intelligent means by which to resolve those problems.  Of course, I'm no philosopher, as someone named "Anonymous" noted kindly in response to a prior post about Heidegger.  So the fact that St. Amant may not be one either doesn't in and of itself disturb me.

To summarize his points as I understand them:  Those who are generally referred to as Continental philosophers glorify the irrational and even indulge in mysticism, particularly the "Teutonic" philosophers such as Nietzsche, Hegel and Heidegger; those who are generally referred to as Analytic have narrowed the scope of philosophy to such an extent that it is essentially irrelevant, and can be said to have abandoned reason to the extent that they have accepted Hume's position that we just can't really know whether, e.g., the sun will rise tomorrow.  The Analytics due to the narrowness of their focus have abandoned philosophy as a guide to living and solving the problems of life, and have as a result abandoned the field to the irrationalists and the mystics. 

I'll be interested in where he takes this, but can't help but note that his criticisms of modern philosophy and views regarding what should be the concerns of a philosopher are similar to those of the pragmatists with whom I'm primarily familiar, such as Peirce, Dewey and Hook.  I think he may be too critical of religion qua religion, though think his criticisms of organized religion are apt.  The belief in a God need not be destructive or necessarily contra reason, even if it cannot be established by reason.  Being prejudiced in their favor, I'll note the stoics as representative of such a belief.

He's also clearly engaged in a defense of Western culture and democracy, from what I'd call a classical liberal perspective, and I find that engaging as well.  I suspect he may be a libertarian, although I hope not a Libertarian.  We shall see.  In any case, it's far more likely I'll finish reading his book than I'll finish reading Maimonides' Guide.

Peirce's Guess at the Riddle

I've just finish reading an interesting little book by John Sheriff on this topic.  The riddle in question is that of the Sphinx, (as described by the sometimes inspiring and often muddle-headed Ralph Waldo Emerson) and it seems C. S. Peirce had hopes of publishing a book to be called A Guess at the Riddle which Sheriff believes was to set forth Peirce's unified theory of cosmology, including the meaning and purpose of human life.  Sheriff takes a shot at describing that theory.

Peirce was a remarkable thinker, though difficult at times to read and understand.  I find him fascinating, and if Sheriff's interpretation is accurate, I find this "unified theory" fascinating as well.  Peirce apparently speculates  (this is a very rough and simple attempt at description after a first read) that the universe could have resulted from a nothingness which was somehow pregnant with potential, that time came into being when it somehow became potential, that it slowly came to take on characteristics of what we perceive as order by "habit", a kind of repetition of possibilities, that the repetition by repetition came to be in the nature of rules or law, that the universe over the ages came to be more complicated but also more organized, that its tendency toward organization is something we participate in and is a kind of creative process in which we can play a part.  We do so, and should do so, through the exercise of Reason; however, we understand that Reason is appropriate through sentiment.  Also, we function as a community in the exercise of Reason.  Reason, and knowledge, is social.  Reason and ethics derive from knowledge which has developed over thousands if not millions of years as we humans have interacted with each other and the rest of the universe, and found through trial and error--and sometimes even through the use of the experimental method--that certain acts had certain consequences, and were desirable to us as a community.  The exercise of reason and enjoyment of knowledge being social, we ourselves should be social, selfless, creatures--loving, apparently in the Christian sense--in order to assist and participate in the process of creation.

Peirce evidently came to such conclusions through his creation (he would say discovery, I think) of a triadic system inherent to all which he felt explains everything, which he factored into all of his thought and work.

Part of what I find interesting is the fact that (at least to someone like me, with no knowledge of physics) it sounds familiar to what one hears may be a plausible explanation for the development of the universe.  Peirce's cosmology, like his pragmatism, was evolutionary, of course; the influence of Darwin on the early pragmatists was profound.

I'm also struck by the fact that his conclusions regarding Reason and morality, and love, arise from nothing that is supernatural, or beyond nature, but from the very development of the universe itself.  He doesn't vary from his fondness for logic and the experimental method in making these inferences, though he sees those methods as themselves developing naturally as consequences of creation.  Finally, it seems interesting that this theory lead him to conclusions regarding how to live which seem on their face to be very similar to the Stoic belief that a kind of Divine Reason governs the universe, and that we partake in that Reason when we live according to reason and nature, and leads to the position that we should be selfless and love others.

Peirce, God and Musement

I find myself fascinated by C.S. Peirce's article A Neglected Argument for the Reality of God. I fear part, at least, of the fascination results from the fact I find it so difficult to understand. I wish he had elaborated on the argument (perhaps he did in some work of which I'm not aware).

These days, it is hard to avoid encountering some book, or person, or article, or forum, or blog where the reality of God is not debated. I'm of the opinion that the debate is futile. I have trouble accepting the possibility that an argument, based on sound reasons, is available in support of God's existence. I think we lack the capacity to even create such an argument. We know, simply, what we know, and what we know is the world in which we live (or rather know it to a certain extent). We can to a certain extent explain things in that world. Our whole ability to reason, to argue, to explain is grounded in and results from that world. If God is beyond that world, we cannot truly know him, let alone explain him or his existence.

But, Peirce makes me wonder.