Are we living
in a decadent society ?
August 30th, 2000
The first café philo of our third year was as crowded as its predecessor, the last of our
second. Shah, the owner of Bamiyan, had fixed the much needed air-conditioner a little too
well; some of us were looking for blankets. Or was it that our exchange never got very
heated?
I had once heard a definition of decadence, and I believe it came from one of the social
sciences, which stuck to me because I thought it captured the concept as I understood it.
It went something like this: a society is decadent when less than half of its members
contributes to its maintenance or growth.
Likewise, then, an individual is decadent when he or she stops contributing to his or her
maintenance. Etymologically, a decadence is a falling away from some roughly
understood original or primal state. Smartly, Richard (of PA), at one time, requested that
we clarify this original state, from which our society fell, if indeed it fell. No one
volunteered a specific answer, but because there were a number of allusions throughout the
evening about the Puritan Pilgrims, I wondered whether some of you wanted to identify this
period of American history with the original position.
Much of our discussion focused on the meaning of decadence rather than on the question
whether or not we lived in a decadent society. At one time Michael K. thought that we
should take a poll on the question, but I objected. We don’t want votes; we want
arguments, or as, someone behind me astutely noted, polling is unphilosophical.
Sharon pointed that we ought to let each other know what it is, the individual or society,
we are predicating decadence of. But Harvey considered some behaviors, rather than
individuals or society, such as being overly self-involved or overly oblivious of the
social good, could also be predicated of decadence. Sharon and Diana thought that des
Esseintes, Huysman’s main character in his novel, À
Rebours, was the portrait of the quintessential decadent individual. For
Sharon, it was because he was exclusively involved with his sensuality, but for Diana, it
was because he had stopped nourishing himself in a conventional (natural?) way. He was
doing everything, as the title suggests, in reverse. I thought that Fellini’s
Satyricon best represented what I understood to be a decadent society, in that case,
Nero’s Rome. The film is based on a book that bears the same title and that many
scholars believe Petronius, a one time director of etiquette for Nero, authored. The hero,
Trimalchio, lives a life of debauchery; he is eccentric, sensual (he privileges the senses
over reason,) and amoral. As an example of his “decadent” behavior, he is
portrayed as rehearsing his own funeral so he can judge for himself the sincerity of the
grief of his “friends.” It is no surprise, then, that one of des Esseintes’
favorite author, in À Rebours, is Petronius (his
other favorite is Flaubert when he writes about exotic life).
We had some other suggestions about what made a society decadent.
For Tudor, a society that has no central purpose or a culture that has no set of values,
that emphasizes subjectivism, qualifies as decadent. But Genadyi felt that if that was to
be our understanding of decadence then only countries such as Cuba, North Korea and the
former Soviet Union would qualify as non-decadent. Harriett argued that a lack of
idealism, a lack of creativity a decline of the importance of reason, a lack of edifying
values and an abundance of cynicism were markers for decadence. For her, to give way to
base instincts is to be decadent. Frank felt that if we lived in a time when the threshold
of sensation, what turns people on, had to be constantly raised, then we were flirting
with decadence. An aspect of decadence, for him, was a lack of anchor, a lack of
cohesiveness, and a lack of good morals. Will somehow agreed that decadence was excessive
sensual self-indulgence, but argued that such behavior, although harmful to society was
good for individuals. His comment steered us into the issue of whether decadence was good
or bad. Genadyi complained that many of us, including myself, had cloaked the term with
opprobrious connotation. He agreed with Will that, for the individual, decadence was good.
Rich thought that only the religious right freaks call things decadent, and Harriett
mournfully added that decadence was good for business. “Call your product decadent
and it will sel,” she said. For a while I wondered whether some were conflating
immorality and decadence, or “bad” mores and decadence. Warren, for example,
argued that the gradual disappearance of classical music on radio, as well as the lack of
responses to calls to order in the classroom were signs of decadence. (Michael K. informed
him that the internet was the place to listen to classical music today). And Genadyi
warned us that decadence was the complaint of the Puritans.
Soon, it became fairly clear to me that the issue had come down to whether or not
excessively self-interested behavior, which was linked to decadence, was morally
acceptable. There, we found the defenders of wild capitalism pitted against the defenders
of social democracies, the proponents of libertarianism against the communitarians. Ragu
and Anupam went to bat for the former arguing along the lines of Adam Smith that seeking
self-interest was a human trait and led to a better society by benefitting all parties.
For them laissez-faire is preferable to rigid structures such as the ones present in
Japan. In capitalism, voluntarism is rising, Ragu argued. However, he did not think that
capitalism was very democratic and he admitted that unchecked capitalism could lead to
individual and environmental abuses. Ann noted that we lived in a good society, and Joan
underscored that we lived in a society that was kinder that the ones that preceded us
because help was available everywhere. But they did not go so far as to credit capitalism
for it.
The defenders of a social democracy inveighed against corporate welfare, and the neglect
of public education. And Mike insisted that regulations were important in the market, and
he added that the extreme opposite of self indulgence was ascetism and that both extremes
contributed to decadence.
Morris told us about some oddity. He argued that self indulgence led to non-reproductive
activities, which in turn led to self destruction. He did not consider the business world
to be self indulgent, but he thought that the art world was. The interesting part consists
in the social fact that the business world pays artists to be what they cannot be. Why is
that? At times, I noticed that some thought of decadence as part of an unavoidable
community dialectic, a series of cycles that community go through. Thus, Michael thought
that decadence was defined by generations.
Diana thought that it was an aesthetic term and that it was relative. Kasuyo felt that
there was an interconnection of decadent and non-decadent forces in a society and that
this interconnection brought about changes. Rich thought that only the religious right
freaks call things decadent. Nathaniel put it historically, “If you work hard, you
prosper, and if you prosper, you luxuriate, and if you luxuriate, you become effeminate,
etc. Richard thought that only prosperous societies could become decadent, and cited
Ancient Rome. Nathaniel agreed and pointed out that the founding fathers were obsessed
with Rome. Will brought our attention to the way the painter Fragonard described
pre-revolutionary France. In decadence, there is too much concern for appetites, and he
concluded that societies consisting mostly of overweight individuals were decadent. Tudor
credited Plato for having prophesyzed this dialectic. In the Republic he had alluded to
such cycles when he talked about the unavoidable decays of forms of government, for
example, an aristocracy, Plato’s favored form of government, inevitably decayed into
an oligarchy, which then deteriorated into a democracy. Finally, a democracy inebriated by
too much freedom had to turn into a tyranny.
Reading over the notes, I ask myself whether there was a consensus reached as to whether
or not we lived in a decadent society. I think that many felt that some aspects of
morality or of behavior had declined from what they were. We never discussed this
“higher” place. But many also felt that we lived in a better world than that of
our ancestors. Societies do change from generations to generations, but does change
inevitably mean decadence? It seemed that those who felt we lived in decadent times
believed that we had changed for the worse, but those who did not feel that we lived in a
decadent society believed that we had changed for the better. A truly decadent society
does not change, however, it perishes. But let’s be careful; that all decadent
societies perish does not imply that all societies that have perished were decadent.
|
When
do Principles become Tyrannical ?
September 13, 2000
I first reminded everyone that we would not be able to meet at Bamiyan for our next café
philo because Shah, the owner of the restaurant, had booked “our” room for an
event we must assume is more lucrative to him than our café philo.
But we are good spirited travailing philosophers whose wares, though weighty to the mind,
are light to the body; so, we may consider adopting the following motto, HAVE MINDS –
WILL TRAVEL. Diligently, thus, we hoof our way to where anticipated hospitality awaits us.
Sharon suggested the Sha Sha Café on Hudson Street, and I suggested the Push Café on
Third Avenue. The Push Café is located at 294 Third Avenue (between 22nd and 23rd); it
serves the spectrum of coffees and teas, wine and beer, and sandwiches. It draws its
clientele mostly from the neighboring School of Visual Arts. It has a windowed private
room that is visible from the heart of the place. It is furnished with comfortable looking
sofas and chairs, and I gather it can sit about 20 to 25 people. I spoke to the owner who
informed that if we wanted to reserve it we would have to pay a rental fee. However, if we
just come in and squatter, provided no one beats us to it, the room is ours at no rental
cost. Of course, the owner expects us to eat and drink. If I have a chance to scope out
Sha Sha, I’ll report back to you. In the meantime, if you have other suggestions,
please send them along, and until you hear otherwise, the Push Café is our default
location.
I also reminded you that I was now sending the announcements and summaries of the cafés
philo to the ListBot discussion list. Those of you who are interested in continuing to
receive our material must subscribe to the list.
The procedure is painless and the service is free: simply go to http://click.to/cafephiloforum and give your email
addresses. There is an optional questionnaire; fill it, if you feel like it. Those who
still resist passing the virtual threshold must give me SASE’s (self-addressed
stamped envelopes), and I will mail them the summaries through the post office. I will
also continue to bring hard copies of the preceding café philo to our meeting.
I opened the café philo recounting one of my favorite passages from J.S. Mill’s On Liberty. Mill saw a threat to the rising tides of
democracies in nineteenth century Europe in that the rule of the majority could turn into
what he called the “tyranny of the majority.” It is a social environment
where those who dare to challenge the beliefs of the community are demonized, harassed or
completely alienated. Later on Leslie would illustrate for us a case of the tyranny of the
majority by describing what it was like growing up in a very “proper” New
England community. My admiration for Mill would remain unblemished were it not for the
fact that in the same work he argues that “developed” countries are to
“undeveloped” countries what parents are to their children. Because the former
has full use of reason, he or she is justified in impinging upon the liberties of the
latter who has not yet full use of reason.
Does the full use of reason, whatever that may mean, grant its possessor the right to rule
the one he or she “reasons” does not have the full use of it? Is Mill simply
repeating Aristotle’s arguments justifying slavery and dominion of women by men? I
asked you whether here you did feel, as I did, that Mill, as had Aristotle and other
philosophers, was making a tyrannical use of reason. I also suggested that we understand
tyranny to mean an excessive infringement on individual liberties. Certainly there can be
malice in the use of reason, that’s what casuists do, but can there be tyranny?
Finally, I pointed out to a list of principles that I had sent together with the
announcement. Some principles belonged to logic, others to morality or religion. I
suggested we do not privilege any one kind.
Sharon, who had suggested the topic, responded first by noting that she could only speak
for herself, and that in her case the rule of reason is not always justified in taking
over. She smelled a rat in the way of thinking that uses reason to send people to the
battlefield. She said that she was skeptical of ideology. She favored instead a context
where all views could be aired. Her skepticism, however, made her rather uncomfortable
because she also realized that we needed principles to guide us in our conduct. So, she
enjoined us to help her find a middle way between radical rationalism and extreme
skepticism.
She suggested we use our common sense and we strive to do the right thing.
Sharon’s remarks prompted a golden rule-wielding Harvey to say that no principles
could be tyrannical, and Frank to add that he looked up to “men of principles.”
In essence Frank was asking why we praise principled people, if principles are tyrannical?
Ken raised a problem: “What happens when someone’s principle conflict with
someone else’s?” I thought that was a good question. I ask myself whether reason
could decide which of the two is the better principle, but then, I wondered whether I was
becoming another Mill.
Tudor steered us in a good direction by arguing that there had to be principles that were
better than others, and that we needed to figure out what criteria to use to tell good
principles from bad ones. He advanced a utilitarian argument, suggesting that one way of
telling the good from the bad was to figure whether the principle served the interest of a
community or the interest of the individual.
Unwittingly, Tudor uncovered another problem, namely the extent of the community. Should
we consider the interest of the municipal, state, national or international community? But
then, Tudor also suggested a deontological approach making the right principle the
“just” principle, where justice is praised for its intrinsic value rather than
for what it does to the community. Tudor also added that he thought that philosophers did
not like Kantian deontology.
Gennadiy agreed that there could be a tyranny of reason when an individual’s
well-being was threatened. He saw the problem in that principles had too much of a
universal scope. By their very nature they admitted of no exception, and no such rigidity
could apply to so many diverse situations.
Norman, with the support of the National Rifle Association slogan, suggested that
“principles did not kill, but people did.” If we all understand the full meaning
of principles there can b no unresolvable conflicts. Principles become principles in
virtue of the fact that they have been tested for a long time. Anne acknowledged that she
wanted to be a principled person, but also admitted that some flexibility was necessary.
She agreed that for a statement to become a principle it had to be fundamentally good.
Echoing Augustine’s remark on laws, she added that a bad principle is no principle.
Sharon expressed uneasiness about principles because they are, as she put it,
“disembodied.” Principles somehow make their way to a body; the body absorbs
them either in an intelligent manner or in an unintelligent manner.
Will addressed the people who consider themselves principled. The claim makes him shudder
because it implies that whoever claims to have principles is certain of their truths, and
the certainty closes off any possible discussion.
Leslie offered her own Scarlet Letter-like experience as an example of principles that
admit of no discussion.
Harvey posed a conundrum. “Is no principle a principle?” Radical laissez-faire,
in a sense, does away with principles, and in another sense it imposes itself as the sole
principle. Harvey’s question reminded Norman and me that some principles do not act
like principles. For example, if I adopt as a principle of social conduct a caring
attitude, it does not seem to me that I am being “forced” to be caring, for if I
care from coercion I can’t be caring. This is little bit like the golden rule; it is
a principle, but the moment it becomes tyrannical, it is no longer followed or obeyed.
Megan added that as long as the principle did not result in an unnecessary loss of freedom
there was no harm in heeding it.
Gennadiy brought us the issue that principles come in sets, rather than in single form. He
favored a set of principles that is consistent. Tudor objected, and argued that the just
and the good has to be used as the standards of “good” principles. That led to a
heated exchange of short views between two or three of you. Sharon, wisely proposed that
all principles, excluding this one, ought to be subjected to “genuine”
examination. I did like the suggestion, but I demurred at the thought that this principle
could not be subjected to itself.
Somehow, after this fruitful exchange, the discussion drifted into matters of forms and
semantics. We worried about the distinction between, principles, axioms and postulates. I
guess it was a way to explore the viability of examining principles. Maybe things become
principles after they have been examined to death; so, why reexamine them. Well, things do
change, and only few principles, if any, seem to be able to survive all the changes. What
about principles of logic, like the law of non-contradiction? What about the principle
underlying the American Constitution that all men are created equal? I think that the
consensus was that even these principles had no universal applicability. We are, qua human
beings, after all, contradictory; why, then, should we submit to the principle of
non-contradiction? As to being created equal, it seems that the principle is so general
and vague that it applies to everything and nothing. As a matter of fact, if we take God
out of the picture ofcreation, the principle is plainly false. Tudor proposed the
conciliatory position that we apply the spirit, rather than the letter, of principles.
|
What reveals more truth: Art or
Philosophy ?
Held at the Push Café in New York City, on September 27th, 2000.
Our substitute space worked out pretty well. The people who were there before us
gracefully left when we started our discussion, although we extended them an invitation to
stay. The authority of our discussion dragged two young women out of what seemed to be
their intense exchange. They stared in surprise for a few minutes, and then tiptoed their
way out of the room like two movie goers attempting to leave unnoticed a movie they
don’t like. In the end, then, we had the room to ourselves, and it was a good thing
because we rapidly achieved the SRO status–well, some were sitting on the floor,
others on the arms of sofa, and still others on coffee tables. I sank in a soft sofa,
nestled between Kasuyo and Joan. Two other café philo animators were there. Ken, and his
friend Ralph, again traveled all the way from D.C.
His café philo at Les Halles in D.C. is building up momentum. He hopes that anyone going
to D.C. will visit him. And Judge Juan, whom we had not seen in a long time, was also
there. He told us that his monthly café philo, at the Sans Culottes restaurant, was
striving; he averages an attendance of 25. He also had wonderful news in that Harper
Collins was about to publish a novel of his. Congratulations, Juan!
Before we started, I was a bit apprehensive about our topic of discussion. Were we going
to talk about art, about philosophy, about truth? I could only think of Plato and Hegel as
philosophers who had discussed the contribution to truth of these two disciplines.
Plato’s view is well known; he disparaged what art represented as a copy three level
lower than “reality.” Hegel was kinder in that he made art “the first
instructress,” that is a first stage that ought to have been followed second by
religion and last by philosophy. Hegel’s system was a way out of what he saw as
Kant’s too timid attempt to lift us out of Hume’s skepticism.
Leslie began with a few questions, “What exactly did we have in mind?” “Are
there parts of truth?” And she thought that philosophy addressed general and abstract
issues of movement, politics, ethics, power and of historical movement, while art, and she
was mostly thinking about literature, dealt with individuals and with emotions. Harvey
argued that philosophy was helpful in helping us recognize truth whether it was revealed
by art or by philosophy. “Without philosophy,” he asked, “how would we know
we have found truth?” But then, he added that truth was “seen” and
“felt.” At first I was a bit taken aback because I feared that philosophy was
pretty limp when it came to feelings, but then I sensed that he was thinking of truth as
something that reveals itself, and that is precisely what the ancient Greek word for truth
means. And this was also the way Heidegger explained truth.
This first exchange led many to want to know the ways in which art and philosophy were the
same and /or differed. Anne suggested that they each had different approaches or
methodologies, and that each made different kinds of demands on their audience. She
thought that the artist wanted us to understand what he or she said, and that was not so
evident in philosophy.
Ellary offered a slightly different view; she said that the artist presented
“conditions wherein the viewer could recognize something true himself or
herself.” She added that the artist’s truths were local, but the
philosopher’s were global. And that was fine because, leaning against Baudrillard for
support, she felt that there was a lot more reality to discover. Tudor, after admitting
that Heidegger was obscure, quoted him as saying that “Art lets truth
originate.” Tudor then steered us into searching our memory for a mental
representation of Raphael’s School of Athens where he felt we would find an answer to
our question. After reminding us of some of the details of the painting–Plato points
up, but Aristotle points down–he concluded that the painting “said it all.”
By that he meant that art and philosophy were complimentary. He qualified his claim by
adding that Plato was both a philosopher and a poet. Michael also thought that the two
disciplines had similarities, but for different reasons. He stressed that the two had
similar histories; they had proceeded in Kuhnsian leaps of paradigms.
Warren and Leslie moved us away from painting and back into literature. Warren thought
that literature showed a process through the plot and through a succession of experiences,
which eventually led to some revelation. The revelation, in turn, took the character of
truth. Warren, as Harvey has earlier pointed out, equated truth with revelation. Leslie,
on the other hand, suggested that great art asked questions about human conditions, and
its quality is measured by how open it is to interpretation.
She illustrated her point by citing Flaubert and Tolstoi and noting that we still argued
about the behavior of the heros. Ken added that art tapped the unconscious.
Ralph directed us at considering the meaning of revelation. He asked us to look at the
properties of the expression. Philosophy is abstract expression; art has different genres.
He then asked us to consider how a poet/philosopher would be received by an audience.
Ellary spoke next, and noted that she was an artist, and as such she felt that an artist
was more interested in experiential things than a philosopher. Philosophy is conceptual,
but a lot of the assumptions that underlie its claims are couched in metaphors. She
suggested that we search the basics of each discipline and that we see whether we can get
close to the truth that way. Frank sided with the artists and said that the writer wrote
in order to discover. What was discovered was the depth of the unconscious, and he cited
Hamlet as a example of what he meant. He feared that in philosophy there was no
exploration of the self.
Tudor took the side of philosophy, and, echoing Plato, told Ralph that poets, although
they were inspired, did not know–in the strong sense of true justified belief--what
they were talking about. He concluded that if an artist knew the truth he or she was
revealing then he or she necessarily had to be a philosopher. But Harvey did not think we
should use such strict criterion of knowledge because many philosophers, if we did, would
appear as not knowing what they were talking about. For him truth is reality, and he asked
whether reality was an ideal or the result of using reasoning. The artist, he argued, is
not interested in reality the way the philosopher is. In fact he often deals with concepts
that have no reality. What mattered to art, for him, was that it be original and unique,
not that it sought truth.
Warren shifted the emphasis and bemoan the lack of art, excepting Plato, in much of
philosophy. He enjoined philosophers to be more generous in their writings so that their
readers could get something out of the texts. I concurred with Warren that philosophical
texts were notoriously stingy in that they gave little back on first readings. On the one
hand I thought that some philosophers were partly to blame for writing unbeckoning texts.
As Ellary would later point out, the vocabulary is too conceptual. On the other hand, I
also felt that the reader was not always willing to accept the object of the debate as a
“real” issue. Philosophy is hard precisely because many of the issues it
addresses are non-issues to the non-philosophers. In a sort of undeservedly proud way, I
pointed out that the café philo movement was an effort toward sensitizing
non-professional philosophers to some of these issues. Ellary’s project, which
consists in using the new resources of the Internet to promote intellectual reflection, is
another attempt at raising our repertoire of issues to which we become sensitive.
Leslie confessed that she had a hard time reading philosophy, and that it was easier for
writers than for philosophers to sensitize their readers to an issue because they could
follow the emotional line. She asked to consider Pearl S. Buck’s The Good Earth and
to compare its effect on readers to Karl Marx’ Das Kapital. There was no doubt in
her, and in Ellary’s, mind that the former would leave more genuine sensitive marks
on social issues than the latter. Frank demurred at the view that philosophers were not so
concerned about their writing; he thought that Schopenhauer was a great writer because he
wrote about the creative and writing process. But he admitted that philosophers were
limited in their craft by the tool of reason, and, quoting Pascal, he added that “the
heart had its reasons that reason itself ignores.” Ellary concluded from the exchange
that the best philosophers were also great writers, and Plato and Nietzsche came to her
mind.
Ralph argued that philosophy used scientific, mathematical and literary modes of
expression, and that reading philosophy required a certain mental preparation. But he
didn’t think that philosophy’s only tool was reason; he thought that
philosophers were also motivated by passions and struggles.
Philosophy has many traditions, but I must confess that the reason(s) why philosophers
choose a tradition over an other, choose to become an analytic philosopher or a
Continental philosopher, for example, is as mysterious and personal to me as why one
prefers Bordeaux wines over Bourgogne, Mac over PC , or the Côte d’Azur over the
Brittany coast.
Rich could not fathom the possibility of a philosopher coming across a truth that only a
few could understand. That would not happen in art. For that reason he stated that the art
had to precede philosophy. Warren characterized the work of the philosopher as overly
didactic. Tudor cautioned us that good writing gets in the way of reason, and he talked
about his experience of reading Nietzsche, whose prose “sets his soul on fire,”
but whose philosophy leaves his reason cold. He added that neither art nor philosophy
revealed truth, and when asked whether he thought anything revealed truth, he paused for a
second, and then said, “religion, in the form of mystical experience.” Frank
picked up on Tudor’s remark, but replaced religion with music, “there is more
radiance in Beethoven’s Ode to Joy than in a thousand sermons,” he said.
Philosophy exacts too much work; music, on the other hand is irresistible. “You
can’t stiffen up against something that gets to your heart,” he concluded.
Harvey took us back to the idea of truth revealing itself, and, I guess in response to
Tudor’s example of mystical experience as a revelation, he said that “if
revelation was there to be gotten, there would be no need of art or of philosophy.”
He added that every revelation was a subjective construction.
Sharon warned us that we should not look at philosophy as a monolithic enterprise. She
told us of her experience of philosophy at Berkeley’s in the late 50's where she was
force-fed the analytic writings of A. J. Ayer. She wished the curriculum had included
works of philosophes engagés She also did not think much of Scruton’s argument that
showed that in Kant the study of beauty allowed rationality to fulfill itself. “What
does that mean?” she asked. She wanted, like Miguel de Unamuno, that philosophers be
made of flesh and bones. She argued that if philosophy wore human clothing then art and
philosophy informed each other. Ellary added that works of art or of philosophy radiate
when they reach us, “philosophy could be an art form.” Truth, likewise, is a
personal experience because it originates in the human being. Truth ought to be, in her
words, “fluid.” Ken contrasted Ellary’s characterization of truth with a
rigid version and asked whether we should readily dismiss the possibility of a (rigid?)
universal truth that all could recognize. I pointed out that this contrast reminded me of
the view of a recent feminist philosopher of science (I can’t remember the name) who
had argued that if science had been done by women the basic unit of study would have been
fluids rather than (rigid?) solids.
Ralph agreed with all that was said but wanted to return to the properties of each genre.
He wished we would ponder why certain things are better described in art than in
philosophy or vice versa. Does it have to do with logical structure? He did admit that he
preferred art to philosophy, but that may be because philosophy has more limits in its
expression than art. Frank’s ast word was in the form of a declamation, “art
energizes,” to which I mournfully added, “and philosophy puts to sleep.”
|
What is Wisdom ?
Oct. 11, 2000
Who wants to be wise? A mature man told us that wisdom was of no interest to him because
the wise are the guys that end up being accused of taking everything too seriously or too
literally. Indeed today, wisdom is neither a live issue in philosophy nor a coveted human
trait in American culture. It seems that wisdom was an obsession in Antiquity. You only
need to consider how many books of the Old Testament are devoted to its inquiry. And then,
we have the irony of Socrates who felt that the gods were right in calling him the wisest
of all Athenians; he found out that he was the wisest after he discovered that he alone
knew that he knew nothing. The wisdom of all that was that only God or the gods were wise.
Well, Plato and Aristotle were not ready to give up so easily; so, they tried to tell us
what wisdom was. But after them, the interest in the topic waned. So, why are discussing
wisdom? I asked Tudor, the one who suggested the topic and our participants, the ones who
overwhelmingly voted for it.
Tudor sent us copious quotes from Aristotle’s Metaphysics where the “sage”
of Stagyra, as Aristotle was later to be called, argues that wisdom is knowledge of causes
and of principles, and that the wise man “knows all things (i.e., he has the highest
degree of universal knowledge), as far as possible,although he has not knowledge of each
of them in detail,” and finally the wise man knows those things which are the hardest
because “they are the farthest from the senses.” The principles that matter to
Aristotle are those culled out of the exact sciences, geometry and arithmetic; the causes
are the four causes, which Tudor explained to us using the empty chair in front of him as
an illustration. The formal cause of Shah’s restaurant chair,he explained to us all,
is the mind who conceptualized this particular chair; the material cause of it is wood,
leather, nails, and whatever other material entered into its production; its efficient
cause is the carpenter who crafted it; and its final cause is the purpose for which the
chair was built. Good! But would we today call an individual who relies more on conceptual
thought than the world ofexperience a wise one? I think not. Isn’t Aristotle’s
sense of wisdom in the Metaphysics privileging theory over practice. Is it not more akin
to knowledge than to wisdom? These questions pretty much defined our discussion.
I contrasted Tudor’s account of Aristotle’s wisdom to that of Plato who, in the
Republic, argues the possessor of wisdom is just, courageous and moderate. And a just
individual is understood as he whose behavior is ruled by reason. These virtues are a bit
out of place in today’s American society..
Although they may be morally desirable, they are contrary to the spirit of capitalism. The
“bottom line” has eliminated justice and courage, and moderation is anathema to
consumerism. But maybe the unrelenting cruelty, cowardice and waste of today’s
society makes us long for the kind of wisdom Plato was describing. Is that why we are
discussing it today? Well, after this fiery display of encyclopedic prowess, we tried to
bring wisdom down to earth.
Our discussion of Plato and Aristotle steered us to differentiate knowledge from wisdom.
Angela proposed that wisdom had to do with everyday affairs, and knowledge had to do with
rigid and quantifiable data.
The difference can be felt by the kind of questions each asks. The wise can address the
question, “How should I live?” and the knowledgeable can look at the question,
“How should I build a house?” I asked whether the distinction was similar to the
one made by our use of language when we say “I know that...” (knowledge) as
apposed to “I know how...”(wisdom). Tudor didn’t think so. Wisdom, for him,
had to be both.
Who is wise? Who considers himself or herself wise? “Look at the way they live and
you’ll know whether or not they are wise,” Angela said. We seemed to agree that
the wise was the individual who can analyze problems and accurately predict outcomes. We
find in this account some remnant of Biblical wisdom, for the wise then were the Prophets.
We also find that in many African cultures, each community has its own sage, the
individual who is contacted in order to resolve conflicts. The people responsible to
resolve conflicts in our community are judges, and judges popularly convey an aura of
wisdom. Kasuyo made an interesting comparison between the Japanese and the American
judicial system. Japan has no jury trial because everyday individuals cannot have the
wisdom of experienced judges. Who is wiser, the judge or the jury? I reminded you that a
few years back, when we discussed the meaning of justice, someone remarked that if he were
guilty he would choose a jury trial, but if he were innocent he would prefer to be tried
by a judge or by a panel of judges. The reminder, I sensed, impressed you–I heard a
kind of group chuckle–and that may be because you were inclined to think that a
formal education, like law school, was necessary to achievewisdom. I questioned you on
that point.
Warren thought that morality and knowledge of the good had to be component of
wisdom, but he stopped short of telling how one acquires this knowledge. Do we need higher
education to be moral and good? Leslie thought that wisdom required “a deep
understanding of human nature.” She reminded us of the story of “wise”
Solomon who commanded an act, the cutting of a baby in half, with the full knowledge that
a “motherly instinct” would prevent the act from being committed. Harvey and
another gentleman suggested that the wise was he or she who had “mental coping
skills.” Will was a bit more vague; he said that wisdom required an understanding of
the world in a particular way. Michael, on the other hand, offered a pragmatic approach.
He argued that we consult the wise to solve problem, but often a radical approach, like
that of Alexander in the presence of the Gordian knot, was just as good in that it got rid
of the problem. But that seemed to miss an important part of wisdom, namely the gathering
of experiential history.
Alexander’s solution was expedient, and I think the question ought to be whether or
not Alexander was wise in choosing the expedient over the complex analysis.
For Sharon, wisdom starts with the knowledge of oneself. This talk about quantified and
universal knowledge is much too disconnected from personal reality. Michael strongly
agreed with Sharon, “I can only know others from my self’s point of view, and if
you know yourself you know your slants and you’ll become more objective,” he
said. Will concurred and added, after asking us to look at the way we perceive
intelligence today, that knowledge was about building up one’s sensitivity to certain
issues. Did we have to include emotions in this picture? You hesitated. Strong emotions,
passions, get in the way of reason, but, on the other hand philosophy is the love of
wisdom. Thus, reason does not stir you to the search of wisdom , but emotion does.
Theoretical knowledge is, for Angela, much too abstract. We don’t know how to move
from the theoretical to the practical. She suggested that a Buddhist approach of
compassion was preferable to an acquisition of theoretical knowledge. Harvey pointed out
that she should also include those things which are actions even though they were omitted.
He was thinking of Taoism whose theory of action is one of inaction. Tudor, however,
continued to insist that theoretical knowledge had to be an integral part of wisdom. And
Leslie conciliated by saying that to be wise one needed broad vision, and that one
acquired breadth of vision through theoretical knowledge. However, she also sprinkled the
theory with some emotional component. Genuine understanding of abstract concept does seem
to include an emotional component. Otherwise we are just like encyclopedias.
The wise, then, has an emotional and practical (experiential) bond to his theoretical
knowledge and he or she predicts with accuracy. Final words of wisdom were quoted from the
wise by Leslie: “A fool who persists in his folly is a wise man,” and
“Happiness is the perfect wisdom.” The first quote was attributed to Pope and
the second to Colette.
|
What is Time ?
October 27, 2000
This was to be our last “October day of the year 2000.” This innocent looking
sentence conceals six references to the notion of time. I say ‘conceal’ because
were we not trying to understand time, the sentence would play its usual role of evoking
various things to various auditors. For example, to many New Yorkers, “October days
2000," cannot be separated from the excitement of a subway series; the first one in
44 years. And that very night we met the Mets and Yankees were facing each other in the
fourth game of a strange “world” series. A few die-hard intellectuals faithfully
gathered to dispute time, entropy, objectivity and, to Linette’s insistence and
despite our repeated protests (I should be a tougher order keeper, Sharon suggested), her
upset at the French courts’ handling of Khadafi. But this was the last October day of
2000, the last café philo before America elects a new president, and it ought to have
been permissible to let politics invidiously color and infiltrate many of our thoughts.
Indeed, in the past couple of months four politically charged messages have been posted to
our discussion list: one was against G. W. Bush, one was against A. Gore via B. Clinton,
one was in support of the latter and one against it and that one featured our very first
expletive. We’ll soon find out whether we make ListBot black list. Even though, as
the Book of Ecclesiastes so elegantly puts it, there is a time for everything, time can
also be for everything.
Time is big and unsexy. At least as far as concepts go. A spunky heavy-accented British
woman, fresh off a London plane, joined a delightful dinner party that Leslie and Arthur
had put together for Laura and me.
Inevitably, the conversation flowed toward our café philo and, after we told the woman
the kinds of topics our group voted for, she politely found them “very big.” How
can we narrow time? Marc Sautet, the initiator of the café philo movement, in his book, Un café our Socrate, describes one of his most successful
café philo, which was on the topic of “First Time.” That’s a fine way to
narrow it down. In the meantime we were committed to the daunting vastness of time.
Tudor, who generously contributed copious quotes, began by interpreting Aristotle’s
as arguing that time was a measure of change. But then, he noted that the notion of time
could be psychological as well as objective. He also told us that today some physicists
thought of time in term of an increase in entropy, and asked “Can there be order
without time?” He thought that there could. Linette confessed to her ignorance of
such savant language and wanted to steer us into distinguishing timing and time. She was
concerned about astrology and saw patterns of regularity in human events that had more to
do with timing than with time. Later, she would note that timing was a sort of animal
instinct.
Sharon said that she loved Augustine’s talk of time in his Confessions,and brought up
Eva’s book (I didn’t write down the bibliographical reference) that, she feels,
Aristotle, Augustine and Kant inspired. She particularly liked explaining time by making
reference to the “counting soul.” She did agree that there was a connection
between time and measurements. Marty added that the notion of direction had to be made an
integral part of time; we advance to the future as we distance ourselves from the past.
Angela suggested that we distinguish between the ethical dimension of time, which she
thought Linette was concerned about, and the scientific dimension of time, which she was
interested in. She wanted to know what entropy meant, why entropy was getting worse, and
whether or not there was a beginning to the universe. Tudor made an attempt at explaining
something by noting that entropy measured the loss of energy in closed system. For
example, hot and cold water mix rather than remain separate, and in so doing lose energy.
What does that mean in a bigger system such as the universe? If indeed the entropy of the
universe increases (if there is an increasing loss of energy) it will reach a point where
there will be no energy left to do the work, and the universe will die. Less pessimistic
accounts look at entropy as the measure of disorder, in which case the more information we
gather about a system, the less entropy we have. William Van Orman Quine, the premiere
American analytic philosopher and an advocate of doing away with the notion of time in
language, speaks in his autobiography, The Time of my Life
(MIT Press: 1985), of his experience working in a post office: “I worked in the post
office for a week or two with Bob and a classmate of his, sorting mail during the
Christmas rush. We stood before banks of pigeonholes, busily reversing the entropy that
kept billowing in. It was not unpleasant as routine work goes, but it left me subject to
hemorrhoids.” (39) Sharon expressed some frustration at all this obsession for order,
and asked why we should consider the mixing of cold and hot water more orderly that the
two remaining separate. Harry wanted to equate sameness with order, but Will denied that
there was a state. I began to feel lost. Kasuyo added to my intellectual entropy. She
noted that the term ‘I Ching’ meant both
change and no change. She is not concerned to know whether or not there is time, she wants
to know what time is, whether or not time makes us age, whether or not there is going to
be an end to the universe, and what happens after the universe ends. “Why does time
rule the world?” she asked.
Will offered some help. He said that time was a created concept, and that there were two
concepts of time, one circular, as when we talk about the motion of the planets, and the
other linear when we talk about human affairs,for example when we talk about a before, a
now and an after. Harvey added that each experiences time in a different way, and this
might be due to the fact that we have biological clocks. Linette thought that the
scientific talk was a way to hide our fear of dying, which we would not have if we did not
have a concept of time. “I want to know how much time I have left?” she
exclaimed. Sharon agreed with Will, and said that we had two spins on time: one concerned
with some internal organization that is the origin of our talk about death, and the other
addresses problems of physics and links with the issue of space. “Which one are we
interested in?” she asked. Angela answered that the quantification of time had to
come from what Sharon had described as the internal sense. She added that humans searched
for immortality.
Frank, by referring to Marcus Aurelius’ remark that only the present existed awakened
the British idealist, F. H. Bradley (1846-1924), who had given his own version of
Zeno’s paradox to show that the present could not exist. Since the now must include
some past and future, which is impossible, “the present cannot be a time span, it
cannot be part of time, which is absurd [...] Therefore, time is unreal and exists only as
a delusive appearance.” (Quoted in a page from Morris Lazerowitz the title of which I
do not know). But Tudor said that we could not represent outside of time, and Sharon
pointed to the formidability of memory as a tool to make the past real. Harvey agreed that
without memory we could not perceive change. Michael noted that life spans had not changed
and for him this was an indication that there was some objectivity in the concept of time.
Will added that if time did not have some objectivity people like the mystics would not be
trying to suspend it–but Sharon, in a show of resistance to the ONE, did not want to
take the mystic seriously--and Angela said that since we often talk of wanting to escape
time there had to be some reality to it.
We had talked for two hours, and it was time to end our discussion and consider a future
topic of discussion.
1. “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a
time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to to pluck up what is
planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast
away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to
refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to
cast away; a time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace. What gain has
the worker from his toils?” Ecclesiastes, 3:1-9
|
Friendship
November 8, 2000
I had remarked, at the end of our café philo on the subject of time, that the next time
we would meet we would have a new US President. How wrong I was! Instead of indulging in
the usual post election chat our language consciousness is now entertaining weird objects
like pregnant and hanging chad (my computer does not recognize this word; I shall add it
to its memory). After years of being the paradigm of clean voting, we are today on the
threshold of a heart-wrenching examination of the way we elect our leaders. Our café
philo will be an ideal venue for exploring the wisdom of the founding fathers.
Let me first say a few things about the café part of our activity. I apologized for being
late, but I was coming with the members of my seminar from Sarah Lawrence, and we had to
deal with less than fluid traffic and with parking attendants reluctant to harbor the
Sarah Lawrence van because of its height. We happily found a well meaning attendant who
volunteered to drive the van to its berth in a zig zag pattern so as to avoid ripping the
ceiling pipes of the underground garage. When the twelve of us entered Bamiyan, Shah
smiled and rubbed his hands, and we proceeded to our room. It seemed that we had less
tables than usual, and as a result many had to scurry for the scarce seat.
The waitress took me on the side and showed me the menu where it was written that each had
to spend a $5 minimum. I paid little attention to what she said because some time ago I
had spoken about this matter with Shah, and after he somewhat reluctantly admitted that as
a group we more than averaged $5, he led me to believe that he would not enforce the
minimum. However, I learned later on from Harriett and Warren that the restaurant that
night had enforced its minimum policy. When I settled my bill, an agitated Shah insisted
that we meet the house policy, and went on to complain that three people from our group
left without paying the last time we had our café philo. If indeed that was true I
assured him that it had to be an overlook rather than a deliberate intent to defraud him.
But he was too excited and busy to talk to. I will approach him on the matter in the near
future, when he is calm.
After I sat down I announced that I would be giving a talk at a forthcoming second
international conference on café philo in Castres, France. The talk,titled, “The
café precedes philosophy,” will attempt to argue that a café culture–the kind
of social dynamics that one encounters in a typical Parisian café–can inform
academic philosophy the way unaided observation can inform the scientist. I will talk of
the difficulty, in America, of finding a social equivalent to the café. As soon as the
paper is completed I will post it on our web page.
I must say that never in our short history has a topic of discussion generated so many
quotes to our discussion list; you can check them at http://cafephilo.listbot.com. They range from the
very cynical to the ideal.
The quotes coming from France, not surprisingly, were the most cynical.
Generously and courageously Harvey opened our discussion with a proposal for a definition.
“Friendship,” he said “is a voluntary reciprocal relation between two
living things.” He added that friends cared for each other, offered mutual support,
realized expectation, made themselves vulnerable to each other, and respected each other.
He insisted that friendship was not limited to human beings, but to all living things.
Sayings like “a dog is man’s best friend,” ought to be taken seriously. To
which, Danielle added the saying, “ a diamond is a girl’s best friend.”
Harvey didn’t seem to balk at the suggestion that his definition could be expanded to
include a relation between all things. Ruthie was curious to know whether friendship
started as a result of need. Do we become friends because a need gets us together or do we
become friends first and then realize that we can be useful to each other? Harvey thought
that friendships were a better subject of conversation than a state of affair.
Friendship, for him, is too burdensome. He always seems to be giving more than he is
receiving. Someone thought that the burden could be eased by being honest. One ought to
remain true to oneself and not accept to do more than one can do. There is positive and
negative and the two ought to balance out.
Leslie suggested that friendship happens in a context. A profession and geographical
closeness are examples of contextual markers. Friends have things in common, but also we
form friendship because of a fear of being alone. Harvey did not fully agree with Leslie.
He felt that neither agreement nor physical closeness were necessary components of
friendship. In fact, he thought that a sentiment of caring was more permanent in a long
distance friendship. Angela held a less idealistic view. She argued that company,
discussion (a deep exchange), and the ability to see through each other’s mind were
the kinds of things she was looking for in a friendship. Ruthie, echoing Cicero, added
that friends brought good things out. We need friends to exercise our good qualities.
Warren added that good qualities could even come out of destitute people; he had in mind
the story of Midnight Cowboy.
Rich noted that there was a difference between the way women and men viewed friendship. He
thought that women sought intimacy, but men looked for affinity. But Megan objected to the
generalization, because they tend to add an element of social pressure. They suggest that
women ought to be intimate.
Leslie took us back to Ruthie’s comment that friends brought out the best in us. She
mentioned having what she called frivolous friends, the kind of friends you go out
shopping with or you gossip with. But she also mentioned that she had difficult friends.
All in all she thought that friends allowed her to explore sides of her nature, in
particular the mental or spiritual side of her. She concluded by saying that friends were
sympathiques to each other. Leslie’s remark prompted someone to note that there were
different levels of friendship, and that we should make some distinctions between
frivolous and serious friendships. Frank quite agreed with the distinction and added that
in true friendship there was a sympathy of mind, there was someone who understood you.
Social acquaintances are not true friendships. And for him, listening to Beethoven was
like being with a friend that never lets you down. He went even further and said that art
is a friend that never lets you down. “Good artists validate me; they know what I
feel and they listen to me, and in turn I do the same to them.” Harriett added that
true friendships required time, but that was not true in case of casual relationships.
Then she asked what the nature of the exchange was, and whether it was ever possible to
communicate. She seemed to be skeptical about the possibility of true exchanges.
Andrea saw the distinction as one between what Aristotle calls complete friendship and
friendship of utility. She argued that in a complete friendship there was a joining of
intellects, but not an exchange of tangible needs. Sergio redirected the focus to a
consideration of how we judge some people by the friends they have. He went on to tell us
about the many friendships he has had, and how he often betrayed his friends. For example
he told us about his getting involved with his friends’ wives. He also told us about
the dangerous friends he knew; those who encouraged him to do drugs. He concluded by
saying that “friendship was the mirror of your soul.” For Alexis, however,
friendships don’t stand still. She spoke of an evolutionary process, and of the way
the best friendships were those that grew. Harvey saw the evolution as a sort of
dialectic; the reciprocity includes telling your friend off when it is deemed appropriate.
That was fine for Ruthie as long as each wished the other good. That was a way to bring
out each other’s potential.
Leslie liked the autobiographical approach of Sergio, and his liking of friendship to a
mirror of the soul. From it she discovered that friendships had to be between equals. She
did not think that the very rich could befriend the poor or vice versa. But she feared
that peer stuff could hurt friends. Maybe the equality had to be spiritual. Harriett did
not totally agree. She noted that some people collect friends, and they use whatever
privilege they have access to to cultivate friends. She insisted that she had
“seen” friendship between artists and patrons. But when asked to describe what
she saw she could not articulate it. Becky objected to linking the making of friends to a
collection. She said that a collection implied a sort of power relation. Warren demurred
at making equality a condition of friendship. He thought quite the opposite; he said that
“in order to have respect there needs be difference.” Angela somehow echoed
Warren’s sentiment. She asked us not to conflate friendship with collaboration.
Ann took us back to the example of the artist of the patron. Like Harriett,she has
witnessed such friendships. She also said that she liked the mirror metaphor of Sergio.
Friends make you look at yourself. It seemed to me that the room was pretty evenly divided
over the issue of equality in friendship. My view is that in friendship there must be a
genuine feeling of equality, and I fear that the more tangible differences there are
between two individuals the more difficult it will be to reach that genuine feeling.
Harvey kind of threw a monkey wrench at our discussion. He admitted that although it would
be nice to have a friend forever, he was content to take breaks from his friends. For
example he would not want to go on vacation with a friend. His comment seemed a bit odd to
me. A vacation is precisely the kind of thing that I would want to share with a friend. I
do remember fantasizing about a friend during the rare vacations that I have taken by
myself. The hard part of friendship to Harvey was that it required too much altruism. Rich
then asked whether friendships were selfish or altruistic. He did not think that they were
in nature altruistic; for him friendship could not require sacrifice. Danielle wondered
whether altruism was possible. She noted that whenever she does something for someone else
she feels gratified. If she got something out of giving then giving could not be
altruistic. Harvey took the remark a bit farther and asked whether contributing one’s
gene to the pool was altruistic. Ruthie argued for the possibility of altruism; she cited
Christ as an example. Michael said that whenever you do something for someone without
expecting something in return you’re acting altruistically. He also asked us not to
confuse altruism with sacrifice.
Sergio and Angela took us out of the discussion of altruism and directed us to the element
of fantasy in friendship. Sergio started by asking who could be his best friend. He
answered his own question by telling us that friendship begins in fantasy, and then
“a future friend will fulfill the secret fantasy.” He told us of a good friend
he had when he was 17; contrary to the way he himself was, this friend was cool and
generous, even though he had a history of betrayal. Angela concurred, but confessed to
some limitations. “Yes,” she said, “at first there is excitement, and then
comes annoyance. Sergio cautioned that friends need to be careful with each other.
“Honesty can ruin a relationship, and emotional demands can exhaust it,” he
said. Therefore, he concluded, “we need friends for all occasions; we need care
because we change and we need to be attentive to the changes.”
Michael returned to altruism and said that it was outside of friendship. A more
appropriate attribute of friendship was loyalty. Although people grow and interests may
diverge friends remain loyal to each other. Leslie added that for her, friends were the
family she could choose, “they are that close, they can withstand fighting, but there
is no betrayal.” Rich wanted to know more about betrayal; he wanted to know what was
owed that could be denied, for example.
Margo did not think betrayal was fatal to a friendship; she cited a friendship that
started after a betrayal had been forgiven, thus suggesting that forgiveness had to be an
integral part of a friendship. Frank thought that if there was integrity there was no
danger of betrayal. It was fine to make friends angry; that is part of the development.
Harvey added that there could only be betrayal following a spoken covenant. Leslie made
her notion of betrayal precise; she said that it was “maintaining a lie over a period
of time.” Angela asked whether we should tell our friends when we have negative
thoughts about them.
Andrea suggested that friendship ought to be able to sustain periods of dryness. When the
reconnecting takes place, there is catching up to do, but the absence and reconnecting are
good for the friendship. Megan talked positively of picking up after a long lapse. But
Margo was a bit skeptical about these periods of dryness; she wondered whether an actual
reconnecting could take place. The thing that keep people together despite a physical
separation may be love, but if that’s the case, Rich asked whether friendship
included love. I detected a silent nod, but no one spoke up on behalf of love in
friendship. Frank went back to Beethoven and Ruthie had the last word saying that
friendship was a search for another self.
|
Death
November 29, 2000
This was the night that the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree was to be lit. Birth and
death are closely related.
We began by hearing what Diana Frank, producer of ABC News Productions,had to say about
the possibility of filming a café philo on the topic of "Freak Accidents," a
Discovery channel show called, "On the Inside."
She told us that she wanted to propose to her other producers a kind of an
"inside" look at the universe that would include a discussion panel, about ten
of us, that would talk about the meaning we give to freak accidents, and about the way we
differentiate freak accidents from accidents tout court. The content of the show, she told
us, would be entirely decided by the producers. I had announced the proposal on the
discussion list a few days before our café philo encouraging those in favor and those
opposed to the idea to come and ask questions to Diana. I received about seven positive,
one negative and two ambivalent responses. The concerns of those opposed were heard in
their questions and comments to Diana. Sharon saw a serious contradiction in an
intellectual endeavor such as ours getting involved in a medium that is openly
anti-intellectual, namely television.
Harvey and Mary Ann were concerned that what we would say would be taken out of context,
selectively edited, and that in the end we may be made to look like fools. There were also
concerns that such exposure could radically change the nature of our café philo by
attracting more people than the spirit of the café philo can handle. Those who were in
favor of the project argued that we can never foresee what a project like this one can do
to or for us. Nevertheless, we should be interested in finding out, and the only way of
finding out was to try it. I ended the exchange with Diana by telling you that if the
project were to go through, it would do so only with people who volunteered to do it, and
it would not interfere with our normal schedule.
Gale Prawda, an American expatriate who lives in Paris and who animates cafés philo in
French and English there, wrote to me that she had been similarly approached by the
Discovery Channel some time ago, but that after attending her café philo, the producers
decided against it because the discussion would be "too boring" for a TV
audience. Well, yesterday, Diana Frank left a message on my telephone and, without saying
so in plain English, let me know that the project had little chance of being accepted.
She did not give reasons, but that may be because the reasons are the same as the concerns
of Sharon and the comment of Gale.
At the end of our café philo, Harvey gave me a letter lamenting the way I had portrayed
him in my last summary on Friendship, "your summary made me sound like I find
friendship aborant [sic] in addition to making me sound like a misanthropic ogre or
miscreant." He attached a copy of my summary and made comments in red ink in the
margins. He wrote that I could send his comments to the discussion list. I want to say a
few words about Harvey's legitimate concerns. The work that we do at the café philo
itself is, in my opinion, only a part of the work we do. By thinking a specific topic
before, during and after the café philo, we take our work outside the café philo locale.
There is a reason for choosing a topic two weeks in advance, and the reason is that it
gives each us a chance to think about the topic. It's not that people, as Marc Sautet
feared, read up on the topic and then come to the café philo and parrot it out, it's that
most of us genuinely think about it. Then, during the café philo, we get a chance to
voice our opinion, and to hear those we choose to hear. I take notes, and then redact a
summary. The final stage of our work consists in your reading and commenting upon what I
perceived you as saying. This stage, is, in my opinion, a crucial one. I certainly may
misrepresent what you said, or simply be selective in what I remember you said. I take
notes, but I do not write everything you say; the very fact that I record some things and
not others is itself an indication that my summaries are tainted by some of my beliefs.
The selectivity truly bothers me. When I read my students' class notes, it always
surprises me when they write something I said that in retrospective was not worth writing
down. That's why it is crucial that you to correct or complement what I write in the
summaries. This is the reason we have a discussion list; but, you, not me, have to post
your comments and corrections to the list. Do not give them to me in private!
Now it is true that I am subject to mistakes and biases, but there is another side to this
coin, and I ask you to consider it honestly. Reading what people perceived you as saying
is a little bit like hearing yourself on a tape recorder, or seeing yourself on a
photograph or video. At first, you have a hard time recognizing yourself; how often have
you exclaimed upon seeing yourself on a video or hearing yourself on a recording:
"that can't be me!"? And yet, there you were. It is the same with our discourse:
there is what we want to say, and there is what others hear us say. Some people are
experts at manipulating the way others perceive them; they are the people you hear and see
on TV everyday. Thankfully, we are not like these people. And, yes, we ought to be
thankful because we learn so much about our beliefs and about ourselves in relation to
others by tossing our thoughts in the café philo hat. Thus, please post your comments to
the list, and then, you'll find out whether or not others perceived what I perceived.
Remember that what others perceive is, more often than not, not that you intended to
project.
I'll be sending the rest of the summary by the end of the coming week.
Part II
“Death, as the end of ‘I-Being-There,’ is ‘I-Being-There”
ownmost possibility.[...] The more unveiledly this possibility gets understood, the more
purely does the understanding penetrate into it as the possibility of the impossibility of
any existence at all.” Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, Joan Stambaugh, tr. (SUNY
Press, p.303 and 307).
I opened our meeting by passing a incomplete colored computer printout of Pieter Bruegel
(1525-1569), “Triumph of Death.” The painting is a disturbing reminder of how
much death fascinates our species. It’s not so much that eventually death triumphs
over each and everyone of us, it is that death triumphs over us every living day. We
surround ourselves with death mementos. But there is something odd about our fascination
with death. Whereas the death of others is not a rare subject of conversation around the
dinner table, it is either bad table manners or vacuous discourse to talk about one’s
own death. That may be because the death of others is experienced as a loss, not as death
proper, while our own death, because of an absence of experience, is unspeakable. How
could we talk about something so personal that we’ve never experienced? In the quote
above, Heidegger captures the difficulty. To understand our death while we still live is
to understand (in the genuine sense of understanding) the possibility of our
non-existence. And by “ownmost” Heidegger means that death is the most personal
of all our experiences; we can’t share it, we can’t ask others to do it for us.
Plato, in the Apology, has Socrates argue that “there is great reason to hope that
death is a good thing.” (40c) Where does the “great reason” come from?
Since there are only mythical a posteriori (from experience) accounts of death, if Plato
wants a “rational” account, he’ll have to argue a priori (from outside
experience). And this is precisely what he does. He has Socrates argue that death is one
of two possibilities, it is either a conscious state or an unconscious state. If the
latter, it is nothingness, that is neither good nor bad, but if it is the former then he
will have an opportunity to continue philosophizing with other great “dead
souls,” and that’s a good thing. That there is life after death is a belief held
by some, but its defenders were either absent or present and timid that evening. Some
mentioned it as something others find solace in.Thus we were left to discuss the meaning
of death as the end of our existence. How do we view this total end, I asked? Do we feel
that something has been (fairly or unfairly) taken away from us? But can we miss life, if
we are dead? Thomas Nagel, in his article, “Death,” has remarked that we are
more likely to feel bad about the time missed about death than about the time missed
before we were born. Why is that?
Sharon: There is an episode in Proust Du côté de chez Swann, where he thinks of
posthumous happiness. I wish I could know how it will turn out. It’s curiosity.
Jacob: We must distinguish between psychological death and physical death. In
psychological death, there is no response to memory.
Harvey: I want to be a fly on the wall. There is a longing for continuity. The finality of
death is heavy. Can I see myself rotting in the coffin, if I’m conscious? I think the
issue of consciousness is central to death.
Rony: Why are concerned about the future? Let’s focus on the present. I guess it must
be our nature to be concerned about the future.
Ellary: We have no clue as to what is going to happen. Even when it stares us in the face.
If we are healthy, we don’t consider our own death, and we rarely think about it.
Mary Ann: I’m egregiously ill. I think about it all the time, I’m frightened of
the unknown. Tur, death could be better than what I have now. But it’s not something
we talk about; we don’t personalize it. No one ever came back. Who can believe
its’ the end?
Nathan: I don’t complain about it. Death is fearsome because there is no testimonial.
I don’t know what it feels like to be a carpenter, but I could become one. I
don’t know what it feels like to be dead, but I can’t become dead. We don’t
know how not to know; I don’t see a now. I have a problem with the problem of the
present. It goes by too fast; the past and the future are the only times we can reflect
on.
Rich: Holland, yesterday, made euthanasia legal. No such law can pass in America because
our culture can’t face death.
Diana: I think that euthanasia was made legal in Holland because Europeans have a greater
trust in their system than Americans do.
Sarah: America champions the individual. There is still a spiritual understanding; we
better ourselves and we deny. Yes, we have no communalsense for a greater social good.
Harriett: Death is a difficult individual notion. The day we’re born, we begin dying.
We let cultural institutions such as religion, address the issue.
Rony: The way we view death is subjective. You see yourself in a way that’s right to
you. Personally, I can’t see that I’ll be nothing.
Sharon: (addressing Nathan) The range of living possibilities for a twenty-year old is
infinite. It diminishes as you age.
Julius: At one time in my life, I became obsessed about dying. I think that if I became
very sick, I would want to die. The AIDS epidemic makes me feel sad today because when
young people die I think of all the unfulfilled things. Senior citizens pay half fare when
they get on the bus; it’s the same when they die. Life is like an ice cream on a
scone; when you get to the end of it, it’s not so bad.
Norman: Past, future, ice cream scone! I say that it’s so. I’m enjoying an ice
cream now. However, the thought of death can be useful.
Harvey: In existential psychology, one becomes aware of incoming death. But you can change
until you die. Death is only entertainable when you’re alive. Think of it as choosing
a master game; there is no purpose in or for life. Take a game and play it as if your life
depended on it. There is a group of people who believe in life after death.
Ellary: Death is meaninglessness. We struggle for certainty. Our anger toward death is due
to our loss of control. Can we not participate in our own death in a creative way? The
more one experiences radical joy the more one can speak about death. How about having
fantasies about death?
Nathan: (addressing Sharon) The possibility of death increases with age. Older people are
more susceptible to diseases than younger ones. (addressing Norman) We only exist in the
now, but the now consists of many moments.
Sharon: I think we experience the now. Phases of time are real to us.
Nathan: It’s very brief.
Mary Ann: Thinking about death has changed me. The present is a flash. Death will come.
Let’s enjoy the now! See the flower! Awaken every moment! It’s OK to talk about
dying. I think that in Europe death is more a part of life;they went through more wars
than we did. I am for euthanasia; our life is our own, and we are philosophers of life.
Harriett: Death is a future in our life. We want to preempt death. But it’s not just
our death because science predicts that our universe is dying.
Jacob: (addressing the audience) What if we found out that we are psychologically dead?
Just ask yourselves: am I psychologically dead? Do death and love go together?
Frank: Death and love are two subjects dear to Freud. There is also the unconscious. Death
is the loss of love. Young people are not afraid of it. I now have more fear of death than
I earlier had. I will not be loved anymore.
(addressing Julius) People do die when they are not sick. The promise of death is with us
at all times. We are what we are at the time of death.
Rich: (addressing Sarah) Dying is more interesting than death because of the emotions
involved. I think one needs to push the envelope; go out and bungee jump! It’s a way
to ameliorate death. If one believes in teleology then you can contribute to something
greater than yourself.
Norman: (addressing Ellary) The burden of meaninglessness is not a burden. I see no
meaning, and I see no burden. (addressing Jacob) Whether I’m psychologically dead or
alive, I don’t care, because I’m comfortable. I had a friend who had a
fascination for love and death–he loved Tristan’s love death song–he went
to a mental institution.
Rony: Our interest in death is connected to our interest in numbers. We figure how much
there is left.
Sharon: Love and death! It’s a literary theme. In the Middle Ages to die meant to
have an orgasm.
Mary Ann: An orgasm is like death. I’ve no distress over the meaninglessness of life.
I put meaning into it every moment. I’m responsible for making myself happy, and
I’ve achieved plenty of happiness. Why do we strive? It’s different for
everyone.
Harvey: You can’t live life, if you’re afraid of life. There is an issue of
continuity, and religion brings solace.
Sarah: There is nothing like the sight of death to organize our thoughts. Part of what we
do consists in finding activities to obscure the inevitability of the end.
Ellary: I hound the dictionary. How authentic are we? The etymology of the word
‘authentic’ is murderer. In the USA we defy death by achieving. What I fear is
loneliness in dying. I wish we could consider ways of dying, for example suicide. The
fantasy of death would be an interesting subject for a book. What if I could choose my
death?
Jacob: Fantasies and theories are not real. Just stop doing, and you’ll know whether
or not you are psychologically dead.
Julius: Strange how when I traveled to Egypt everything monumental is about death.
Mary Ann: A fantasy book would be good. But it’s another technique to avoid the
issue. What precedes death is suffering, emotional and physical. That’s the bad part.
As you get older something happens to your body that makes you think of death. Death
frightens me, but it’s a relief to talk about it. I experienced near death in a car
accident; it felt good. When I woke up, I was in pain.
Frank: There is a paradox in death. Death is terrible for the living. It’s not a body
trying to get out of a coffin. It’s nothing; Goya said it best: “¡Nada!”
We
want to prolong life. Religious beleievers should not fear death.
Harvey: (addressing Jacob) Are we always dead? Are we a figment of our imagination? In
death there is an anticipation of being out of control.
Jacob: My brain is dull; I’m not insensitive. It’s the ending of unfeelingness
when we cease to want to know. But I want to know what this does to us. Let’s ask
ourselves the question! What happens when we don’t allow joy to come to us? If I see
that I can commune then death is life.
Nathan: I don’t understand Jacob. How can you wish not to have knowledge? If you seek
something you accumulate knowledge. Even when we do nothing. If we could ever stop to
desire, we would be dead.
Jacob: (addressing Nathan with agitation) Look at yourself! Hang out and look!
Nathan: The looking is something. I’m bombarded by my understanding.
Jacob: Give it up!
Norman: Animals see death, but they are not aware of their own. There are emotionally
healthy. People do that too. We don’t talk about death because it is boring. People
don’t want to die in pain. We want an easy death. The pope and Billy Graham
can’t be looking forward to death.
Kathy: Relationships improve when death is imminent in a family. You write your own
obituary. It was not morbid. Marriage was brought up in the middle of your talk about
death. Both are good things.
Harvey: Taoism? Reincarnation? The purpose of life is to get back to itself.
Rich: Purify your concept of what it means to be alive. Right now, it’s all cultural.
Each of us ought to approach death as terra incognita. Our culture tells us that it is
wrong, and that’s a bit helpful.
Mary Ann: I see spontaneity in the ducks and in the geese. We’re not like that.
I’m with Jacob. The more you let go , the more you live. Be less intellectual!
Life is meaningless.
Ellary: I want to speak in defense of the intellectual life. By knowing more you acquire a
sense of wonder. I think that being your true self is beautiful. Yeah, we should let go of
the clutter; be yourself and defeat death!
Frank: What Jacob said made sense. Jesus also said that letting go was good.
Jacob: The me cannot be quiet. Make the me absent, then love comes. When
you see the horror of the me, it stops. Try it! Stay with it!
Harriett: I don’t think we can see ourselves.
|
Is
There Anything New Under The Sun ?
December 13, 2000
Our meeting would end half an hour before Vice President Gore was scheduled to speak to
the nation. Most likely, it was to be a graceful and ironic concession speech. Pythagoras
suggested that the cosmos was harmonious, and Plato, thinking the ideal city a
micro-cosmos, arrogated harmony and made it a sine qua non condition for it. Their
harmony, I presume, had to be genuine. Will the anticipated proposed harmony be genuine?
Not too many of you were eager to get home on time; you were all confident that the speech
would be replayed ad nauseam throughout the evening.
The topic of our discussion comes from a celebrated book of the Old Testament (nothing new
about that one), the Book of Ecclesiastes. My interpretation of the quote is that it would
take an act of God to produce a real change in the universe. Spinoza would later give an
even more radical interpretation; he would argue that all is necessitated by the very
nature of God or Nature. This means that not even God can change anything. Frank noted
that he favored Kierkegaard’s view over that of Spinoza who, in Repetition, argued
that all is a repetition, but that God could change that. And since we were throwing names
around, we could not help but mention Nietzsche’s doctrine of eternal recurrence,
which suggests that, given the finitude of resources and the infinity of time, every event
had to be repeated infinitely many times. The doctrine intrigued many, and Sarah asked how
the repetition took place. Does the world replay itself and its history in its entirety,
or do identical slices of time reappear in different contexts? Is the Sarah of this moment
the same Sarah that made up the time slice in which “she” appeared previously? I
only had bad answers to her good question, the worst of which was that Nietzsche never
developed his doctrine. After briefly discussing these doctrines, we turned to our topic.
It seemed that we wanted to think that we were capable of new personal experiences; after
all, if it is true that we experience déjà vus then it must be true that the rest of our
experiences are new. But there was a sense that this new newness was not entirely new, but
more of a variation on an old theme. A radically new experience would have to be outside
the bounds of experience. This kind of new can’t even be talked about. It would be as
if we entered a different consciousness. Quine talks about deviant systems of logic in his
monograph, Philosophy of Logic, but notes that the talk is vacuous because a language that
denies our present rational system would be incomprehensible. But if nothing is new in the
world of the mental, what about the physical? What if we discovered matter that could not
be explained in terms of our existing ontology? Well, we would have to rewrite our
sciences from the bottom up, but the system would still make use of reason as we know it.
Is a species fundamentally different from what we know conceivable? These are the kind of
questions some of us will attempt to answer.
Harvey: If time has no beginning and no end atoms can combine in similar patterns, but the
difference in time makes a difference. I’d rather take it less metaphysically, and
focus on our lifetime. Within our lifetime, as we perceive it, everything, including the
sun, is different. Focus on difference rather than similarities. Things can be viewed as
new.
Rich: The quote from Ecclesiastes is a Biblical statement. It’s a God thing, but it
is nor true for man. Everyday is different to me.
Sharon: I agree with Rich. The sun is not us. Yes, there is finitude, but it has little or
nothing to do with human life.
Sarah: I’m thinking of the saying, “The more things change the more they stay
the same.” I think it’s true. However, although certain building blocks, like
our ability to love or our sense of loyalty, do not change, other things like our emotions
change. Also, we can change, if you want. Look, we have replayed Hamlet many, many times,
but each performance is a new experience.
Leslie: (addressing Frank) Do our finger prints repeat? Is it not true that there are no
two identical sets of finger prints? Does the human face repeat? Are there absolutely
identical Leslie-faces somewhere in the world?
Frank: To think that Kathryn Harris, Florida’ Secretary of State and Bush supporter,
has a double is terrifying.
Rich: We all look different, and we all have different finger prints.
Harry: I hear that no two snowflakes are identical But all that means is that no two
identical snowflakes has been found. What about life? Has there always been life in the
universe? If not, was life be considered new when it came out?
Frank: I’d like to know what we mean by ‘new.’ The child is new, but the
kid looks changed. Life is derived from the primordial soup.
Harvey: The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. There are emergent properties.
Take three lines and combine then, and you’ll find that there are infinitely many
forms. I maintain that time makes a difference.
Eduardo: Harvey’s point is linked to functionalism. The sum of the parts make
something greater in the whole. There are infinitely many possibilities. Is there more
matter in the universe? If yes, and if functionalism is true, then there is new stuff.
Harvey: Space increases, but not matter.
Jacob: There is evidence that we have evolved physically. Newness is something fresh,
something never seen. What I am interested to know is whether or not we, humans, have
evolved behaviorally.
Fred: Give us an example.
Jacob: Something new?
Fred: Religions are like what you describe.
Jacob: Let’s look at ourselves. Is there a new behavior?
Megan: (addressing Jacob) It’s fresh to that person’s perception, but the
elements are the same.
Jacob: Fresh! It has no opposite; it’s not connected to anything.
Sharon: (addressing Jacob) Why don’t you distinguish between newness in species, and
newness in behavior.
Michael: There is a confusion between the particular and the general. The particular may
change, but the general is constant. Every individual is a unique combination of elements,
and we have different values and perceptions. Species, in general do not change.
Jacob: (addressing Michael) Look at our brain consciousness! We can’t help but want;
can we change that? Can we become an non-wanting animal?
Michael: (addressing Jacob) You vacillate between the particular and the general.
Eduardo: (addressing Megan) The word ‘new’ is hard to define. It’s
subjective.
Jacob: (with agitation) Have you evolved? We still kill; we still live in tribes. Nothing
has changed.
Frank: Look at the Greek comedies of Antiquity. They could be sitcoms today. How many
possible plots are there in fiction? People don’t change. We still bury our dead; we
learn to adapt; we have the same genetic makeup. In the face of danger, we fight or we
flee.
Harvey: Look at similarities. There is sameness in everything. DNA is everywhere there is
reproduction. (Addressing Jacob) If we look for opposite, we apply fallacious reasoning.
Kasuyo: New and old are impressions. The new is different from the old. The old is the
same. I now have a new idea of Jacob. The telephone is something that is physically new,
but from a functionalist point of view it’s not entirely new. The impression is
psychological. Everyday is a new experience.
Sarah: I want to speak up for the new. A tribe is not the same as a nation. We have new
experiences; I am not sure what they are, but they are new.
Sharon: We speak of new things. Such language is used as a regulative principle. If you
take the newness away, things are drab. We must act as if there was newness.
Leslie: We talk about verities; it’s a large concept of human personality. Verities
endure. Look at a tree. It always has a trunk and branches, but the trunk and the branches
are very different in each tree. There are constants, and those constants just permutate.
Have we evolved? Before 1850, the West thought that children had to read to get character.
Today, children need to read to get personality. We have a different way of looking at
things.
Michael: We use different concepts and we perceive newly. We become changed because we use
different lenses. We can’t deny that recent generations change more drastically than
generations of the past.
Rich: As I drove home, I listened to NPR Radio. The people said that there were only a
handful of scenarios upon which all plays were built. There is nothing new under the sun.
As long as we stick to the human categories that we have, nothing is going to be new.
Harvey: The sun is new. Built in the DNA is a response based on an expectancy within the
environment. Scientists look at the way we look at things. We have built in sets of
reactions. We react through a template.
Frank: I am thinking of Heraclitus’s famous dictum, “We never step in the same
river twice.” Only God can repeat. For us, it’s never the same; nothing remains.
Emmanuel: Why is the new good psychologically?
Kasuyo: I agree with Frank. A birth is a birth, is a birth...After that no one can predict
what will happen. We fantasize human cloning because we want the same person to endure.
The same is comforting, and it is safe. A new adventure is exciting, but too much newness
in an adventure is scary.
Jacob: We are under the illusion that we have done something new. Everyone wants; I wanted
to grow, and then I stopped. What does that do? Let’s examine! Can anything be new?
Frank: Variety is good. We vary the crops. And if you get tired of who you are, you create
a new you. We are like gods, we create diversity.
Rich: (addressing Harvey) Children, sentient beings, experience something new, but we
categorize it. We’ve sen it all before.
Sharon: There is danger in rigid categories. Leslie’s tree is poetic. Categories are
nothing new.
Jacob: Unless knowledge ends, the new cannot be. New is the modification of the old.
Sarah: I recall a stupid Yale study; it was about bad hair days. Little things like a new
hairdo change the perception that you have of yourself. When you perceive yourself
differently, you perceive things outside you differently. Can we have a new logic? What
about mystical experiences? I once ad a vision of eternity.
Leslie: I’m amazed by the many utterances and sentences we can make. It’s not
superficial. Language is an interesting way of looking at it. No one has ever written a
line of T. S. Eliot. The emotions it expresses are new. The microcosm is a reflection of
the macrocosm. Space and time repeat. We see a wholeness of possible infinities. Since
human beings are part of the cosmos we must havean infinite number of emotions.
Megan: I agree with Leslie. In music and writing, you can have new sentences or melodies,
but the raw material remains the same. You can’t come up with a new B Flat.
Eduardo: There are new varieties. Changes come from within. Our perception changes.
Jacob: Does newness originate in the mind?
Frank: Old fashioned clothes come back as the new fashion. The very old is marketed anew.
There are new things. The combinations are new. Melodies are not new.
Harvey: (addressing Leslie) It’s ironic that the stars can be out there, but we see
them because we have a new telescope.
Harry: By definition, mutations are new organisms. But life is not new; it may have
existed before our planet existed..
Kasuyo: Newness depends on your mood.
After I went home, I learned that we had a new president in virtue of Mr. Gore’s
concession. An old office has a new face.
|
Is There a
Difference Between a Liberal and a Conservative Mind ?
January 10, 2001
The spring semester has just begun; I am a day away from our next café philo, and I am
already playing catch up with the summaries.
I opened our first café philo of the millennium by noting that what I thought would add
up to a "conservative" or "liberal" mind was a list of moral,
political and personal values. If we could identify some of these values and agree that
they contribute to the making of a conservative or of a liberal, I thought we might better
understand this divisive division.
Norman surprised us all by signing to us a song that he learned twenty years ago. I forget
the title or the words, but I think to remember that it praised people who had firm
beliefs.
Norman: It's all in the genes! You are conservative or liberal genetically. It's all
begins in the womb. Listen to my song!
Frank: I don't think it's a clever song. I want to know what one means by these
categories.
Rich (who are proposed the topic): The liberal is more inclined to change.
Frank: Nationalist China wanted to change, but it came up with a dictatorship. For an
economist, conservatism is less government; NRA is for conservatives. Finally the
conservatives want individuals to have more liberties.
Anupam: I think we need to differentiate between the social and the economic conservative.
The social conservative is concerned about maintained moral values. He or she is often
associated with religious fundamentalism. The economic conservative, like Milton Friedman,
wants hands off government.
Norman: It's determined in the womb and in the playground. The top dog generally becomes
conservative, and the underdog becomes liberal. Government is OK, if it helps. The Feds
are good for the underdog; State governments are better for whatever. The liberals like
oral pleasures: speech and the press. Economic conservatives like money.
Richard: I don't agree with the genetics picture drawn by Norman. Anupam is a bit unfair,
because some of my best friends are social conservatives, but they are not
fundamentalists. The social conservative looks back; things would be better, if they were
the way they were. They promote family values.
Rich: There is a motivation to become conservative. Everything before us has made a
patina. We look up to the Founding Fathers; we revere them.
Angela: Family values are part of the conservative agenda. There was a vibrant
intellectual life in the 1920's (I'm a conservative for that), but women would not want to
go back to the 1940's. Besides, we can't quite recreate the past. We need to find a new
way to make it work.
Rich: You're conservative for a liberal age.
Angela: It was too elitist.
Harry: A conservative wants to keep things the way they are; he or she who wants to go
back is a reactionary. There is a social difference. I surprise myself being conservative
on some issues, but I also find that conservatives want the whole world to share their
values.
Patty: I think more in terms of classes. For example, Jewish people are liberal. What is
missing from the conservative? I think, there is a lack of compassion and empathy.
Anupam: Let's differentiate between the social and the economic conservative. You can have
an economic conservative who is pro choice and libertarian, but a social conservative is
against everything that is not part of the his or her religion.
Gretchen: I want to address Norman and Patty. We have a very conservative friend who is an
underdog. I think it's how you perceive yourself. Conservatives don't empathize with
people less well off.
Richard: Harry complicated things. He says that conservatives want to impose their views,
but liberals do that too, however, they do it with political correctness. I'm not sold on
the top dog theory. We need to ask what liberals and conservatives coalesce around.
Liberals fear power and wealth, but not ideas; conservatives love power and wealth, but
limit ideas.
Angela: What does it mean to have a vision for society?
Sarah: Conservatives have more social role than liberals. Conservatives are fearful of
changes, for example a change in aesthetic value.
Harriett: Conservatives and liberals have definite views on human nature. Their views are
as different as those of Hobbes and Rousseau. It's a changing society; even our views on
liberalism and conservatism change.
Anupam: Look at the results of the last election! Liberals are in heavy city centers.
Kasuyo: My position on this issue is different. Most typically, it works on personal
matters: when my personal interest is threatened, I am a liberal. My idea comes from the
talks I have had with American men. We talked about McVeigh's death penalty. An American
man I know opposes it. What if you're a victim's relative? He'll want to have him killed.
If you're personally affected, you're more liberal because you're used to battle for your
interest. Take a very stable society with no evil; yet, it does not welcome outsiders. I'm
an outsider here, and I feel that the US has become more conservative these past years.
There is also political correctness.
Harry: Political correctness comes from the liberal element. But the proponents of PC are
the worst kinds of conservatives. They are like McCarthy.
Norman: Take the last declaration of the Southern Baptist Church: women must obey their
husbands. Some do; some want to be housewives. Others want to be free. What's the
difference between the two women? It's genetic. Ayn Rand, a woman, thought that only men
could do great things. The Southern Baptist does not force you to become a Southern
Baptist.
Frank: There are no personal traits that are characteristic to religions. Hitler started
as an underdog; he aligned himself with those in power. Categories hide.
Richard: Harry and Rich mentioned PC. Conservatives do not endorse PC; they invented it.
They wanted to undermine the liberal program. Conservative ideas are those that most
people agree to.
Norman: You're saying that some ideas are correct. The majority rules, and the minority
waits.
Angela: Some people call themselves conservative or liberal. Look at the issues: you can
be conservative on some and liberal on others. What does that make you?
Harry: Gun users like conservative views.
Angela: The conservative community encourages you to accept the whole agenda. Some
positions, like tax and education, contradict each other. People can change: Norman is not
right.
Gretchen: There are real differences. There are personality differences. Take the
willingness to consider change, to take a risk, to resist change! This willingness
translates into attitudes.
Anupam: Conservatives want to do what works. The family is an example. It's not that there
are not compassionate. I think we should give school vouchers to poor children.
Nancy: What works? Compassion? Fear-drivenness? There are politicians who call themselves
conservative or liberal; it seems to me that their goals are different. A liberal wants
fairness and justice for all; a conservative wants a system that benefits the individual.
He is fearful of too much equality.
Rich: Norman sounds like Aristotle. I disagree: there is no more genetic conservative than
natural slave. Is religion a driving factor? You can rebel against it. Risk and fear are
two key words. Conservatives are afraid of risk; they protect property. It's easy to be
liberal, if you have nothing to lose.
Frank: A friend says that everyone is a racist. Is that genetic? Many kids take
antithetical positions to parents. Freud was a great liberal, but he wanted no alien
influence. Toscanini was politically liberal, but musically conservative.
Patty: Are you progressive because of personality or because of class? The classic case of
the progressive is the homophobic. Look at what the vision for society ought to be? It's a
good way to classify the two sides. The conservative is practical; the liberal is probing.
It's a good rallying point.
Norman: Conservatives are not afraid of changes. Conservatives want to stay comfortable.
Orthodoxy is bad conservatism. It's normal that one would want to keep what one has.
Megan: Conservatives fear a loss of power. Liberals want to diffuse power.
Michael: Look at the election demographics. The poor vote liberal; people with higher
education vote liberal. There are cognitive make up differences. It rest on different
assumptions on the way life should be organized. Republicans are the architect of their
lives; liberal think about social responsibility. Republicans tend to have simpler ideas.
Let the market solve things, let it take care of itself.
Sarah: Conservatives have diminished imaginations; that's why they have a simple way of
thinking. Clarence Thomas is a conservative; he denies what it means to be African
American. He blanks it out. It's easier. Toscanini is not musically conservative, he is
stubborn. Saul Bellows, Philip Roth are conservative.
Harriett: I am weary of definitions that are too easy. Labeling others is easy. The
struggle for power is in polarized system. A crucial factor for making you conservative or
liberal is what relationship to power and to divergent views you have.
Rich: Conservatives align with senility. They don't like complication. God said it;
therefore it's the truth. Liberals understand and conservatives reject; they don't listen.
Norman: Clarence Thomas doesn't care about other people. Do we have an obligation to care
about others? The conservatives say give whatever you have to your family; the liberals
say diffuse it, sprinkle it to others. The law of the jungle is that the lion rules; the
market is the same way.
Harry: The jungle is not a good analogy for the free market. A person's ability is not
related to his personal aspect, but to his social class.
Anupam: I don't agree with Rich. Economic conservatives are frustrated that liberals don't
understand them. What is a just society? Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Angela: The pursuit of happiness is a euphemism for the pursuit of property.
Rich: Milton Friedman is not thoroughly controverted.
Michael: There are huge disparities in the US. Look at W, would he survive without his
family?
Sarah: Conservatives don't look at possibilities other than their own.
Harriett: Movement that start for equality end up unequal. Look at trade unions. When
power is achieved, it's no longer equitable.
Frank: Norman is interesting. My problem with liberals is that they think that they are
right. There is no law of the jungle in society.
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Summary of "What should be the
goal of education in a democratic society?"
January 26, 2001
I thought that a good way to start our discussion would be to expose three common views of
education, at least that education, which falls under the K-12 (kindergarten to last year
of High School) schools. There is a view, advanced by Montaigne (1533-1592) in his essay,
"On the institution on children," which countenanced the forging rather the
filling of a mind. It aims at making the minds of children critical. John Dewey
(1859-1952) somewhat echoes Montaigne's views. Another view, advocated by yet another
Frenchman–sorry, I don't mean to blow the French horn– Montesquieu (1689-1755),
and this view gives the educator the charge of turning subjects into moral subjects. In a
republic this translates into "the love of one's country and its laws." (Spirit
of the Laws, Book IV, Chapter V. M. Ritcher, tr. The third view, spelled out by Nietzsche
(1844-1900), wants future adults to go through hard schools so that they can learn to obey
and command: "What does one learn in a hard school? Obeying and commanding.' (Will to
Power, 912. W. Kaufman, tr. Guia also sent us quotes from the Bhagavad Gita, which
suggests that a mind ought to be train to be in harmony, and that the way to train a mind
was to deliver it from passions. And Frank contributed a series of quotes of Joubert,
Huxley, Hobbes, Wilde and Montesquieu. Most seem to recommend Montaigne's approach, namely
that minds should be forged so as to be able to will what is best for the individual.
Anupam had proposed the subject; so I gave him the floor.
Anupam: Is there a structure of education that promotes education, rather than resemble a
form of indoctrination? Communist China, for example, does not educate, but indoctrinate
its children.
Harvey: In the three views that Bernard introduced, there are overlaps. Where is the
emphasis of the topic? To love one's country is not specific to democracy. A good citizen
loves one's country. We also need to learn to obey and command. It is the same with an
education that promotes the critical mind.
Warren: Is education the way it is by accident or by design? Unfortunately, the emphasis
seems to be on learning how to take care of oneself. We live in a selfish society; few
people have interest in politics or in their community. Tocqueville (1805-1859) raised
legitimate concerns about excessive individualism.
Norman: When I was 7 years old, I had a teacher, Miss Festner, who was telling us about
Columbus. It was not something that was then very popular. I like the kind of schooling
where there can be disagreement. It does not tell to think or act in a certain way.
Angela: There is a tension. A raw child is being groomed and given tools to pursue
individual freedom. Individual freedom makes you want to be involved in politics. What
makes the individual is society.
Frank: There is nothing wrong with being non individualistic. The craftsman masters the
artist that precedes him. We do benefit from some generalities, from memorization, and
from discipline. The world is in flux; many multiples must be imparted. You want to be
ready for anything. For example, I am in favor of teaching all religions. Let each
individualthen choose which he or she thinks is best.
Anupam: Let's try to understand what our Founding Fathers intended. Jefferson based the
systems on the European model. It was goal oriented. Inform so that business can flourish,
so that we can express ourselves, so that we can preserve the spirit of America, so that
we can understand our duties. But, we also need to let the parents do the moral schooling.
Parents feel out of control in their children's education.
Nick: Jefferson's ideas were for specific people. It favored the rugged frontiersman, the
white male. Education must allow for dissent; it can't be anti-American or non-patriotic,
to criticize America. I think that Oslo or Rome has a greater democratic ideal than we do.
Warren: I don't agree with Anupam. The parents' role should not be emphasized. In today's
society, parents neither have the skills nor the time to deal with their children's
education. Schools feed breakfast and lunch, they baby sit after school, they give birth
control pills, psychological counseling, vaccines, even housing. These are not old school
responsibilities. I am a high school teacher, and parents constantly complain that they
don't have the time or the knowledge to help their children with their schoolwork.
Anupam: I disagree. Go to Bedford Stuyvesant. No matter what is done, the schools remain
bad because the bureaucracy does not allow you to change anything. For example, there
should be innovations in the curriculum, and sexual education should not be included.
Megan: I agree with Warren. Parents are overwhelmed. Look at Newsweek in its recent
article on education. It makes no mentions that parents are concerned about the types of
classes. I think it's a kind of bourgeois attitude to place such emphasis on testing.
Norman: The three R's. Read, Write and Arithmetic are essential to education. Why do we no
longer think so? Computers have made arithmetic obsolete. Children are taught to press a
button instead of calculating. Mathematic stretches the mind. You can't be creative unless
your mind is stretched.
Bernard: But arithmetic is memorized before it is understood. Is memorization a
mind-stretching activity?
Norman: Yes!
Nathaniel: There are difficulties with Anupam's proposals that parents be more involved
than they are. Schools have standards and standards re needed. Parents have an idea of
what their children should do, but the schools can teach the skills. The school is an
extension of them. Parents do not want school to be tedious. (Addressing Norman) What do
parents want their children to be?
Sarah: Parents have too much to do. Are schools meant to socialize individuals? I think
so. Home schooling is criticized precisely because it doesn't not socialize. By the way,
what is an educated person? One who pronounces names right? If you do, like Gore did, your
standing in the polls drop. Does being educated mean being well read, to know operas,
popular music? Should schoold prepare you to take tests?
Al: I agree with Montaigne's program to give children an ability to judge well. This leads
to moral excellence (arete). The things of the soul need to be cultivated. And the
individual goals must be balanced with the collective ones.
Frank: Think hard enough about he world. Marcus Aurelius told us that emotions get in the
way of knowledge. We need to impart the thought that we are all part of a whole. A proper
education prescribes a sense of the whole. You can't indoctrinate or command anyone to be
nice, kind or humble, but you can convey the inherent good of these qualities, so that one
would want to be nice, kind or humble. What is fundamental to human nature? Freedom? The
only artist who is free is he who has mastered his art.
Angela: Yes! You can indoctrinate "good" principles or values. There is a way of
teaching morality that is not genuine. It is the kind that repeats don't! don't! don't!
This is too oppressive. (Addressing Frank) Education is good for happiness.
Frank: I meant the teaching of moral values in a genuine way.
Norman: In my days you had to learn foreign languages. It stretches your mind. I say,
forget foreign languages! Focus on English! Learn how to write it and read it! Taxpayers
should not subsidize the teaching of foreign languages.
Warren: I disagree. Foreign languages can help understand English. When I learned Latin, I
learned English. I think there are people who are experts in education, and we should
leave it to them because they think about the issues. But Board of Ed bashing is
fashionable.
Harvey: A fog has settled over the original issue. We need general reasoning skills. We
can also learn from using programs, and set theory.
Al: (addressing Warren) There is a lack of political interest. The glaring similarities
between moderate democrats and compassionate republicans has made political discourse
boring. We have lost interest in the political process. We are becoming a nation of sheep.
We must change that; no one
can be above politics; one must be engaged. Ideology or teleology do not matter anymore;
there is a lack of cultivation, and education must stem the tide of the current apathy.
Anupam: No one won the election. Milton Friedman is my hero. Education must be proper; it
must include the 3 R's. The individual must also be taught to be economically
self-sufficient.
Norman: Ben Franklin said that the only two certainties were death and paying taxes. Well,
that's all we have to do. In a democracy, a child is more an end in itself than a means.
Look at each individual, but teach them skills: the 3 R's, but in particular learn how to
master the language of a driving test manual.
Rich: The dilemma of education is to balance individual desires with communal desires.
School vouchers is a serious issue. Good things happen through competition. It may happen,
but it looks more like a smokescreen for social division. Equal education may not happen.
Education is good for the vote.
Ragu: Aristotle appeals to me. I like his doctrine of the golden mean, the doctrine that
countenances a middle conduct between two extremes. But people don't always act rationally
as consumers. The Government imposes standards, and it is good because an unrestricted
system would not be better. Let's experiment the voucher system, if you want. But don't
adopt it before you have tried it. Public schools and public colleges have turned out
great minds. In some cases, freedom has to be mitigated.
Sarah: A major goal of education should be to teach optimism. Our country was founded on
optimism. Democracy works, if the individuals count.
Harvey: Vouchers are meant to weed out the bad schools. They don't take away free
education.
Anupam: Vouchers are absolutely necessary for a democracy.
Nick: Vouchers privilege religious schools because that's all the money the Federal or
State Government gives you will buy.
Nathaniel: Vouchers cannot be extended to every student. Privatization can't work because
if it did it would become like a public school system. Some private schools are better
than public schools because they are smaller.
Anupam: If the public school is good, the child will stay.
Warren: Private schools are exclusive, and will not accept special ed students, failing
students or the learning disabled. Governments, instead of giving the money to private
schools, should give it ti public school so that they can hire more teachers and spruce up
the locales.
Anupam: Private schools can educate a child better and more cheaply than public schools.
Do you that it costs $9,000 a year to put a child through public school?
Nathaniel: Vouchers promote religious schools. If they have to increase their rolls, their
standards will drop.
Ragu: In Texas, a voucher plan was instituted in a district. It was found out that it
discriminated against disabled students. We need both private and public schools.
Al: We need to safeguard the separation between church and state. The voucher system
threatens this safeguard. Or, if students have an option to use their voucher for a
catholic school, religious instruction ought to be optional. All the founding fathers were
deists.
Scott: Sweden and other Scandinavian countries, France have successful education systems.
What do they do? Why don't we send our people out there to do empirical surveys? What is
their canon?
Frank: I think theat the DWM's (dead white males) must remain an integral part of the
curriculum, otherwise we'll just reinvent the wheel.. The use of language is reducible to
activated synapses; that's OK. Anything new is good. Increase and know language as much as
you can; it's pleasurable, expansive and liberating. Language teaching must be mandatory,
and so must the teaching of world religions and cultures. And, of course, teach moral
conduct.
Rich: Scott suggested studying other systems. That's good. But what is the goal? The most
gifted members get what they need. Each member is encouraged to be civilized.
Ragu: Quine said that philosophy of science is philosophy enough. Let's get the
foundations in the secular sector. Let's not teach creationism but evolutionary theory.
The government, not the parents, should have the say.
Al: Critical thinking is good. Start trouble by questioning the curriculum. It's
good–pardon the cliché–to think outside the box. Escape the narrow framework;
go with the spirit of John Dewey and encourage a critical framework.
Anupam: Ben Franklin's curriculum included rhetoric and science. A democracy wants to
produce citizens.
|
Summary of “What is Critical Thinking?”
February 7, 2001
Where was everyone? Shah was complaining that his restaurant was empty, and the few of us
were waiting for the rest of us to come. We chatted a while; it was mostly about books and
the internet. Some wondered whether the internet would ever replace libraries; others
categorically said that it was never going to happen. Harvey, who had chosen the topic,
came fully armed with the results of his internet research. Tudor had sent a quote that
argued that philosophy was about making distinctions, and Frank, blessed be his humanist
soul, had sent us literary quotes.
We did not get to talk about critical thinking until 7:30. I told you what it is that I
teach when I teach a course called, “Critical Thinking.” In such course I talk
about ways of recognizing an argument from a non-argument, about ways of identifying types
of arguments, and about ways of detecting good or bad arguments. We also talk about
language in general, for example what it means for a word to mean something, and how we
construct definitions.
Kasuyo pointed out that critical thing was a strictly human activity, and that computers
could not achieve the level of critique that humans could. I think that the difference
between a computer language and a natural language is that the former is unambiguous and
precise, whereas the latter is full of ambiguities and vagueness. Thus, we may very well
find ourselves disagreeing with the conclusion of a good argument. Most likely, the reason
is that there is a disagreement about the meaning of one or more of the premises. We
played for awhile with a good argument that had a bad conclusion: knowledge is power and
power corrupts; therefore knowledge corrupts. Frank quickly noted the ambiguity of the
word ‘power.’ In the case of the knowledge, power is over things. But when power
corrupts, it is a power over people. Thus, in critical thinking jargon, we would say that
the author of the argument commits the fallacy of the fourth term. Since the word
‘power’ has two meanings, the syllogism has four terms instead of three.
Tudor reminded us of Pascal’s famous thought that the heart has its reasons that
reason itself ignores. What about the reasons of the heart? Are they logical? They
can’t be; that’s why traditional reason can’t identify them. Heart’s
reasons then clash with our logic. Our logic, then, is only a part of ourselves. Frank and
Harvey questioned the practice of psychotherapy, which attempts to find reasons for our
emotions or our behavior.
Harry asked about the difference between reasoning and rationalizing. I suggested that we
rationalize when we find reasons for our actions after we have acted. Rationalization
weakens the claim that our beliefs determine our actions.
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Summary of "What is Life?"
February 21, 2001
This is one of three questions that have kept philosophers employed for over 2500 years.
The other two are, “Why is there something rather than nothing?” and “What
is Consciousness?”
The question about consciousness won the most votes for our next café philo, and I
remember that the question over why there is something rather than nothing has been
proposed a number of times, but has never gotten enough votes. So, as the urgent questions
that matter to our everyday life seem to run out, we are compelled to ask the all
important ones.
I received some comments about the new format I have given to our summary, and I must say
they are not positive. The reason I have adopted the dialogue form and abandoned the
narrative is that I save time. The former version could take me up to four hours; the new
one can be done in just about an hour. Right now, I have more work than I can keep up
with; so, please bear me with me, and as soon as I catch up, I’ll go back to the old
format. I do agree that it is easier to read than the dialogue.
I began the café philo by comparing a machine to a living thing. I remarked that I could
take a machine apart, lay out all its parts, reconstruct it, and then it would work as
before. This deconstruction and reconstruction cannot be done to a living thing. I asked
what it is that is responsible for life. It was not long before a division between
essentialists and non-essentialists surfaced. The former looked to science for answers;
the latter looked to literature and Bergson. Did they hear each other? Tudor, who had
suggested the question, started.
Tudor: I had no particular axe to grind. I just wanted to know what people thought.
What’s the cause of life? I’m looking for essential properties. I also would
like to know the difference between the kinds of life, for example, between animal and
cellular life. That’s right, I want to know the essence of life.
Harvey: Your analogy with the deconstructed machine does not do it for me. I believe that
with good enough technology we can do it. Life is nothing apart from its elements.
Sharon: I’m not sure about the question. Are we talking abut human life or life in
general? One obvious feature of life is the ability for self-movement.
Harry: Cryogenics is interesting. Are the things kept “alive” in a frozen state,
alive? Like Harvey, I don’t think that Bernard’s analogy with the machine is so
strong. I think we need to ask what the difference is between animate and inanimate.
Norman: The question takes me back sixty years when I was in school. I had a teacher named
Mr. Cohn, and he told us that he was all life was about because his name spelled life:
carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen. Outside of this the question doesn’t interest
me. I don’t know why. I guess that life is perseverance.
Sarah: For life to obtain there must be a cycle; it begins with birth, and ends with
death. There is also a struggle. But, then, I wonder whether or not this table is alive.
Tudor: Cells remain alive and parts are alive. There’s got to be more than cycle.
Leslie: Life is a force, it is the élan vital of Bergson. It’s about persisting in
one’s own state. For humans life has to do with the celebration of life. When we say
that someone is full of life, we mean that he or she is enamored of being alive.
Frank: Coral reefs are alive. It’s strange because they are hard and they look dead.
But I think that life is teleology, it means moving to tropism.
Harvey: We’re not biologists; let’s not search for biology! The issue of tropism
is unsettled. Let’s go down to the microscopic level, and we’ll notice that life
has to do with one’s potential for reproduction.
Kasuyo: There is a biological answer to the question. But there is also a psychological
one. All living things have a desire to survive. We are so programmed, and we have several
instincts. I think that it’s easier to talk about human life than about all lives.
Tudor: I read Stephen Gould’s article that compares the number of genes in worms and
in human beings. The small difference will startle most of you. But we need to think in
term of permutation, because the genes don’t order anything. They are not selfish
either.
Kasuyo: Maybe there are other basic instincts beside the survival one.
Norman: If we had an instinct to die, we would not be alive. Freud talks of the death
instinct; it makes no sense to me. As far as what Leslie said about the love of life, it
seems to me that he who lives intensely does not live as long as he who lives quietly.
Leslie: I was thinking of life force. Celebrate life qua life! The party goer type tries
to feel alive.
Frank: I want to know more about this celebration. What does it mean to celebrate life?
The Marquis de Sade spent time in prison; it did not seem to take life away from him. He
found affirmation in creativity. Contemplators relate to life by using temperance. Is that
a form of celebration? A drunkard does not love life, but does he celebrate when he
drinks? Look at Mahler! Don’t you think he must have loved life?
Tudor: We’re off the subject. Let’s try again! What’s alive? Take the
simplest organism! Take a cell! It seems that we can’t create life from no life.
Harvey: When we look for life, we look for certain chemicals.
Bernard: I heard the talk of an organic chemist yesterday; she is studying tube worms.
They are very strange organisms that live in environments that would be lethally toxic to
humans. They live at ocean depths that are so great that there is no light, and they feed
off the hydrogen sulfate that neighboring underwater volcanic eruptions emit. They have no
apparent digestive or reproductive system, and her team of chemists is trying to identify
their chemical structure. Chemists, then, could give us the most minimal chemical
structure of life.
Harry: What if science could create life? Would we then know what life is? I guess we
would have a functional definition of life, but not the essential one that Tudor is
looking for.
Harvey: Are computer viruses alive? We know they are reproducible. Do you think they have
a chemical structure?
Tudor: Tell me what the difference is between being alive and being dead? Things that are
not alive have entropy. They dissolve. Things that are alive organize everything in the
manner of negentropy.
Rich: The criterion that tells us that life is present if negentropy, teleology. Ask
anyone in the universe about life, and you’ll find out that the category is essential
to all. There is no simple answer. It is a pattern like a DNA, but they are also more than
patterns.
Sharon: I’m overwhelmed by Tudor’s content. There is a desire to organize the
chaos, but this is not life. Look at a crystal or diamond!
Bernard: Are diamonds entropic? I thought they were forever.
Tudor: Put a flame next to a diamond, and see what happens! The diamond will burn. In
order to know what life is, we need to know the causes of it. The ultimate final cause is
the good, for the purpose of life is the good.
Rich: The net result of all waste is entropy, but somehow life takes place in its
backdrop. It’s a kind of reverse entropy, the net result of which is more results.
Sarah: Order is part of social life. Chaos is underwritten.
Frank: The key word is self-regulatory. All life tend toward death; even inanimate objects
tend to a state of rest. Life is a parenthesis, a forgetting about what we want to do.
Life is qualitative, and all life is stardust sun, primordial soup, Who’s is to say
that rocks don’t have the potential for life? Life is an arrangement of molecules
fired by solar energy.
Norman: Life is something I like.
Leslie: Let me introduce another idea, the spark of life. What is the spark of life? Pure
energy? Something like energy?
Harry: Spark is present in myths, religion and science fiction. It’s metaphorical.
Frank: It’s also scientific.
Kasuyo: Life force is vitality. If you experience sadness, you’re depressed, you are
without energy. It’s hard to find scientific evidence for the movement of energy. The
mind does not display the change. There are two aspects, one that is subject to scientific
investigation and one that escapes it.
Tudor: God’s creation is mysterious; we only have the Scriptures to go by, and
that’s not mysterious.. Rich has a good objection; there is always life, and it seems
that more and more life reverses the entropy.
Rich: You can’t have more negentropy than entropy because the net result will be more
entropy.
Tudor: Life is a property of the universe. Is life a transcendent property?
Rich: The unknowable part could be anything.
Tudor: The soul?
Rich: Soul is a metaphor.
Harvey: The soul!
Tudor’s friend: Why do we have a concept, if nothing corresponds to it?
Harvey: Soul is based on faith.
Rich: A concept without a referent is what I have in mind for life.
Norman: Life is whatever all living things share. I’ll bet my life that soul
doesn’t exist.
Tudor: What is sufficient for a wheel to be a wheel?
Leslie: Meer licht! We heard a lot about Goethe’s last words. Again! To the kiss!
Audrey: There is something about life that moves and inspires us. The energy in this room
shows that there is life.
|
Summary of “What is
Consciousness?”
March 7, 2001
We had a very nice turn out that included a number of new faces. We began with an informal
discussion about the summaries, and Tudor suggested that,since they were either accurate
but selective or plain inaccurate, I simply give the highlights or the spirit of the
discussion, and omit the names. I’d like to have some feedback from other
participants. In the meantime, I’ll stick to the old format.
Leslie had suggested the topic, so I asked her to open the discussion. She had given it a
great deal of thought. She agreed that the sense of self was in the act of knowing, but
also thought that there was more to mind than to consciousness. For example, one needs
mind to reason, but not necessarily consciousness; also, it seems that people are able to
talk without consciousness. She said that she had looked for an understanding of
consciousness, and had come up with three concepts. There was what she called the core
consciousness, which she described as the phenomenon accompanying the “knowing
now.” Then, there was an extended consciousness, which memory and anticipation made
up; and finally, there was a proto self, and that was a brain consciousness of the body, a
sense of the body that is processed by the brain.
Tudor: It seems that animals could have the type of consciousness that Leslie describes.
Animals, however, do not form concepts.
Pradeep: What level of consciousness are we seeking? There is a basic level that is
manifested in the statement, “I am a human being.” But consciousness in human
beings traverses much deeper than that; it extends to the universe, and it links every
thought to every other thoughts. There is a human need that wants to tap into this world
consciousness. We know that because when we can’t reach it we feel misery.
Harvey: What is that pie that Leslie explained?
Leslie: If we think of our sense of self we know it’s us. The sense of self is a
great mystery; it’s what we call consciousness.
Harvey: The sense of self may not be different from other sensations.
Ellary: One way to understand consciousness is to ask why we need it. Let’s start
with the telos or purpose of consciousness. It seems to pull us forward; it’s
evolutionary; we keep going because of consciousness. What’s evolutionary ? It is our
ability to create or formulate meanings. For example, dreams are ways of experiencing
danger before it happens. Consciousness is akin to light or combustion.
Rose: I like what Ellary’s view. It reminds me of a good book I read, Scarry’s
Dreaming by the Book. We need perception to be aware, but...
Pia: We react to TV stimuli in a manner that is different to the way we watch a play on
stage. TV is relaxing, but it turns me off.
Pradeep: It’s the same thing, except for the effort.
Alex: Responses are necessary for all the experiences.
Pradeep: Emotions help.
Frank: There are more multiple contingencies in the theater than on TV. Pia used a
flashlight effect. Look at the Tao of Physics. It marks the beginning of modern life;
it’s not Descartes’ metaphysics. Alan Watts said that we could be connected to a
universal consciousness. But consciousness is an inferior form of instinct.
Shannine: If we ask what consciousness shows then we are conscious. How could we remain
conscious? The mind must be a universal consciousness. How do we function like this?
Pradeep: How do we become conscious?
Ellary: We don’t want to confuse conscience with consciousness. TV and theater bring
the notion of choice. Is that a brain function? Brain is either matter or no matter.
It’s like light; it’s either wave or particles.
Michael: Take a functional perspective. We reflect on our thought and we project. I
don’t think animals do that–maybe bears do. Our ability to reflect on past
experiences is a function of our consciousness.
Somack: I heard that people who receive organs from other people have experiential
flashbacks of the donor. There is also the mysterious force behind the will; it seems that
when we want something bad enough, it happens. Is that the subconscious?
Shannine: It’s an awareness beyond the world of sense and ego.
Pradeep: The consciousness of being is not the same as consciousness. The former has a
cosmic or holistic dimension.
Eva: Let me add an Eastern European touch. For me, consciousness is close to the truth.
I’m obsessed with lies and truths. When I was in Poland and Poland was still behind
the Iron Curtain, I was conscious, and yet I was being manipulated. I thought I was
conscious, but I was not.
Harry: What would that do to Descartes? ‘I am’ is the first truth.
Ellary: We are not omniscient. Our consciousness may not be that helpful to us now; there
is so much out there
Harvey: Are there levels of consciousness?
Tudor: The problem is not about tuning in to the universal consciousness. It is more like
consciousness of our experience. We can’t process all sense-data. Whatever we see is
in the theater of our mind.
Rich: I had clear ideas, but when I try to explain, I find that we have assumptions about
the world. We each understand the same world. We don’t discuss the problem of
different perspectives.
Michael; Is there a world out there? It’s possible to be and not be conscious.
Leslie: The external world is predicated on our sense of self.
Michael: Reflection, metacognition, knowledge of the self are part of consciousness, Is
the will necessary for consciousness. It seems that an effort is necessary in order to be
conscious.
Ellary: Our physical side impinges on our consciousness. If we are in pain,the pain
dominates. But, let’s take a look at the content of our consciousness.Is there
progress? Are we today more refined than we were at earlier time?
Pradeep: There is a level of consciousness that one experiences and that comes and goes.
Consciousness is linked to every action.
Rose: I don’t know whether or not an effort is required to be conscious. Is
daydreaming an experience of consciousness? What about meditating? Do we interrupt our
consciousness when we meditate? Is it a failure of real
consciousness?
Pradeep: Daydreaming is superficiality of the brain. Meditations help us; they allow the
entire being to be. Being is being conscious; consciousness is the art of being.
Eva: Whether or not you are conscious?
Frank: The flashlight aspect of consciousness has been reduced. A true sensation may
create a perception. Look at a mirror. Perceptions accumulate. (Editor’s Note: Frank,
feel free to fill in; I realize I missed something in what you said).
Shannine: Daydreaming is about visualization. It’s another aspect of reality.
Meditations fascinate me; I don’t know why we teach what there is rather than teach
how to meditate.
Harvey: Why in this universal consciousness do we need to do what Shannine says? The mind
is limited. There is no higher or lower level of
consciousness.
Michael: There is a paradox: are we or do we need to make an effort in order
to be? It takes an effort to meditate. I heard of an Indian prison where the
prisoners had to meditate three days a week. All prisoners rehabilitated.
Pia: Definitions are problematic. We can try and define in term of outcome.
Meditation creates a focus, and the focus may be the origin of the reformed prisoners.
Tudor: It can easily be expressed the way Leslie did. It’s connected to the
‘I.’ I think means a capacity to form judgment.
Ellary: We all have consciousness, will or no will. But what is its power? Can the brain
affect what goes on in the world?
Eva: Tudor says that consciousness is “I think.” Pradeep thinks it is being. For
me unconsciousness is being. Life is beautiful. Our discussion underlines a fundamental
difference between Poland and the US. Consciousness is valued in the US; in Poland it is
suppressed. Consciousness has to do with responsibility.
Rose: What if you’re in denial?
Frank: Denial is a function of consciousness, and so is ignorance.
Tudor: the awareness of perception is the same as implicit judgment.
Harvey: My idea of consciousness is an amalgam of all others: it contains the
thinking subject and the universal consciousness.
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Summary of “Imagination”
March 20, 2001
It was a particularly nasty evening; a strong cold wind vigorously led a hard rain to whip
and wet your body, what you wore, and what you carried. The two short blocks that separate
my apartment from Bamiyan nearly got me soaked, and, as I finessed my way through the
drops, I felt certain that those of you who had to commute from other parts of the city
would stay home.
Besides, I thought to myself, this was an unusually fertile week for philosophy in New
York. So, why bother come to a café philo? Martha Nussbaum was scheduled to talk at NYU
that evening, and Columbia held its rare three-day Woodbridge Lectures with Miles Burnyeat of
Oxford as the invited speaker. Worse yet, this evening PBS was broadcasting a live
performance of Wagner’s Tristan, from the Met. You can imagine my surprise when I
walked in Bamiyan’s back room and saw that not only nearly every seat was taken, but
also that Linette had brought two bottles of pomegranate juice to help us celebrate the
Afghan new year, the “Nowrose” holiday. Even Frank, our inveterate Wagner fan
jealously held his seat! Nay, even Ellary, who had to travel back to Westchester, Richard,
who had made the journey from Pennsylvania, and Inge, who was visiting from California,
were there.
Frank and Harvey had sent a number of very interesting quotes to our discussion list, and
Richard Siegel had brought a sheet of definitions and quotes. I asked Frank to choose his
favorite quote and to read it to us. He chose a passage from Sartre’s
“Psychology of the Imagination,” where the author argues that the act of
imagining requires an act of the will and an effort, so as not to be overtaken by a
perceptual act. Harvey also read from an essay by Stephen Thaler, which he had found on
the internet. I prodded Tudor, who had proposed the topic, to tell us what had prompted
his suggestion. He could not quite remember, but he thought that imagination played a role
in consciousness, in remembering and in predicting. I then noted that, in western
philosophy, the faculty of imagination, until Kant, had been considered the lowest
cognitive faculty. That is to say the faculty that captured what is least substantial or
“real,” if it makes sense to think of reality
in terms of degree.
Most of you thought that the imagination played an important role, not only in
understanding concepts, but also in the creative, normative, empathetic or emotional
processes. Some difficulties surfaced, however. One was about distinguishing daydreaming
from other “serious” functions of the imagination; another was about trying to
figure out where our concepts came from; and yet another one dealt with abuses of the
imagination. On the first difficulty, Nancy argued that daydreaming does not involve any
personal effort, and that it is often, if not always, pleasant. There was a consensus that
the imagination produced concepts, but the issue changed and asked whether the concepts
had an external or internal origin. Tudor’s view was that we imagine them or we
invent them, but not freely. On the last difficulty, Kasuyo pointed to an interesting
division of labor between the novelist and the philosopher. She thought that the former
used the imagination, while the latter would use the understanding, but she warned that
when the imagination is overworked, it becomes fancy.
Further, the discussion about the origin of concepts prompted Ellary and Inge to show
their differences. Ellary argued that we were born with certain moral concepts. One such
concept is that light is a good. In this respect, the imagination plays a pivotal role.
But Inge responded that all the contents of the imagination were learned. She used the
example of an experiment that was done where a growing child was placed in total
isolation. The subject acquired no language. She also argued that the imagination had
nothing to do with morality, since it was social. When asked which faculty of the mind she
thought captured the moral discourse, she told us: “memory.” Harvey brought in
Piaget’s theory that we had some innate ability, but Richard did not think that we
needed words to think. If Richard is right then Piaget’s view is weakened. Ellary
added that the sensory date had to be organized, and she
thought that the imagination had to be credited for that ordering; scientists use their
imagination to order. Sarah agreed with that, and she added that artists also make order
out of chaos.
We finished the café philo on a weird tangent. Tudor said that revelation was an act of
the imagination, and that triggered a discussion whether or not revelation and unveiling
were the same. Richard argued that in the case of revelation, there was need of a
“revealer,” but it was not so in the case of the unveiling. The agent himself
can do the unveiling, and we noted that the Greek word for truth, “alethia,”
literally meant unveiling. The experience of revelation had a dark side, too. Someone
tossed the example of Sartre’s hero in Nausea who experienced existential angst at
the staring of a tree. I suggested that Sartre was making fun of Buber’s
“Ich-Du” experience of a tree. Tudor brushed the suggestion aside.
“Why are so many ancient and early modern philosophers afraid of the imagination
?” asked Ellary. “Imagination kills,” answered Frank. “We create
vision of ourselves, and we live according to them; imagination precedes us throughout
life,” added Sarah, and Harry explained that philosophers shied away from the
imagination because they must be rational .But Kasuyo noted that the slow progress,
(stalling?) of Artificial Intelligence may be traced to its failure to capture the
imagination.
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“Why
is it fashionable to denounce religion?”
April 4, 2001
Frank sent us some good quotes from Freud, Tudor a long one from Nietzsche, and Richard
Siegel brought us a photocopied hand out of a page from Ravi Zacharias’ Deliver Us
from Evil, where the author warns us about the secularization of religion. We had a most
heated and loud debate. It’s a good sign; our group is coming out in the open.
“But Paul never met Christ!” I protested. “That’s not true!”
retorted Tudor. Could I be so wrong in my history? I asked myself; I didn’t think so,
and so, I insisted, “Paul lived thirty years after Christ’s death; how could he
have met him?” Tudor hesitated for a very short second, and, sitting upright, his
legs crossed and his hands clasping his knees, he said: “Christ came back to life to
speak to Paul.”
“The heretics of early Christianity were never persecuted!” Norman loudly said.
“What about Giordano Bruno?” I asked, cutting him off. “That was in
1600,” he quickly replied. And then, he proceeded to tell us in the same loud voice
that religion was the crutch of the people, and that we should never pull it out from
under them. “Religion is better than opium or alcohol,” he added, as if getting
away from this world was what all of us sought. He warned us not to trash Mary, as the
Brooklyn Museum seems intent in doing, “Madonna is good,” he said, and he
continued to defend religion by noting how kind the church recently had been by decreeing
that hell was not a place. But Ellary saw in that decision the need for the church to
adjust in order not to lose votaries; “It’s an attempt to update.” I could
not resist adding that if hell was not a place, it had to be utopia. Ellary later said
that religion are resilient; they can take the criticism. In fact, she added,
“spirituality has not diminished; it mutates.” Richard M. seemed a bit bored
with the importance of religion, “It’s an artifact of culture. If you have
faith, who cares? Don’t spread the word!” He spoke like an anthropologist.
There were less dramatic moments in our heated café philo. Some suggested that it was
fashionable to denounce religion because it gave us a sense of belonginess; in so doing we
belong to a group of people who denounce authority.
It’s the same when people align themselves with a group like feminism. Ellary
suggested that religion was outmoded. Michael argued that science and technology had a lot
to do with people denouncing religion. We no longer need to ask the big question that
religion attempted to answer. And we are too busy with our machines. Sarah, on the one
hand, did not think that it was fashionable to denounce religion, and, on the other, said
that, if it is denounced, it is because some people are disappointed that they are not
getting what they are praying for.
And she added that there was a certain satisfaction in denouncing; “Look at Voltaire
and Rousseau,” she asked us. Tudor likened the feeling to Nietzsche’s
ressentiment. What an irony, I thought, that ressentiment, the sentiment that Nietzsche
felt had been the fuel that had emboldened the church people to wrestle authority from the
noble, should now be used to denounce religion.
Others thought that the denunciation was sour grapes, “No! Interjected someone else,
it’s bitterness.” Just because some people can’t reach the religious
stance, they denounce it. Frank went as far as likening it to Freud’s penis envy.
And then there were the usual calls for preciseness. What is religion? What does
fashionable mean? “What makes something fashionable?” asked Allan. What does
denounce mean? Calumniate? Put down? Richard Siegel wanted all sets of beliefs to qualify
as religion. “Atheism is a religion,” he said. Tudor suggested that religion was
a way of life. Harvey agreed to that , but also wanted to add some spirit to the way,
“Call that spirit what you want,” he added. Kasuyo wanted meditations and
spirituality to be part of religion, and she found these two elements missing in America.
She noted that religion was too politicized here.
“When you’re in court, you have to swear to tell the truth while putting you
right hand on a Bible.” She concluded that religion had roots too deep; it could not
be denounced.
Well! How well did I misrepresent all of you?
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