Improvisation

In its usual usages, 'jam' connotes something contrary to 'free-flowing'. Hence, the rubric 'jam band' applied to rock music is often ironic or snide, since what is classified as such is regarded by many as undisciplined, self-indulgent, and erratic. Possibly because this genre is held in such low esteem by an industry and an audience that prefers predictability and manageability in its products, the more honorific label 'improvisation' is rarely heard in this context. The latter term would assimilate this music more directly to its more respected cousins jazz and comedy 'improv', thereby revealing how difficulting it can actually be. For, improvisation requires personal inventiveness, which entails an ongoing development that is both coherent and novel from what has just transpired. Furthermore, the collectivity of the setting demands unceasing alertness, receptivity, and responsiveness to one's partners in the adventure. In other words, improvisation is collective creativity, a notion which imparts dignity to the idea 'jam band', while its combination of personal integrity and interpersonal respect can stand as a paradigm of Ethical excellence.

Libertarian Principles

Perhaps the prototypical articulation of 'Libertarianism' is presented by John Stuart Mill in On Liberty--No government has a right to do harm to any person who is not doing harm to someone else. A stronger version might be 'No one has a right to interfere with what someone else is doing, except when the latter is an interference with someone else.' On this basis, 'Liberty' can be defined as 'the right to not be interfered with when one is not interfering with someone else.' One obvious main problem with such a principle is the vagueness of 'interfere'. For example, generally defending a right to 'free speech', Libertarians tend to agree that inciting to riot is an act that leads to harm, while the writing of MeinKampf is not, perhaps drawing a distinction based on a source's causal proximity to the harmful effects. Likewise, in the economic sphere, many contemporary American Libertarians insist that government regulations tend to infringe on business Liberties. and yet they are noticeably silent, or even defensive, when those 'Liberties' are asserted to be a source of public harm, e. g. polluters, reckless investors, etc. But perhaps the greatest challenge to Libertarianism comes from one of Kant's insights. He understood that nothing qualifies as a 'principle' unless it is universally applicable, and so set as one of the tests of soundness of any principle, an assessment of what would happen if 'everyone were to do it'. Mill, for one, indeed grasped that his Libertarianism is subject to his 'greatest happiness for the greatest number' criterion. But, today's political Libertariansim rarely seem to possess the far-sightedness and broad-mindedness to consider all the consequences of the promotion of universal Liberty.

The Socratic Method

Though Socrates is often cited as the first 'Philosopher', no particular doctrine is associated with his name. Instead, the innovation that is most generally attributed to him is the 'Socratic Method'. Yet, despite its seeming univocality, the expression has a variety of meanings. First, because Socrates himself left no writings, and because his most prolific portrayer, Plato, represents him both with historical accuracy, and fictitiously, for his own purposes, some versions of the Method might be more accurately described as 'Platonic'. Second, there is a debate as to what is the nature of the procedure so denoted. For, there are three main interpretations of its structure: pedagogic, aporetic, and maieutic. With the pedagogic method, the examiner leads the interlocutor from a set of inconsistent beliefs to a coherent one that is set in advance. The aporetic process leads through a thicket of contradictions, but only to the conclusion that nothing is known. Finally, in a maieutic dialogue, the examiner is a catalyst in the interlocutor's clarification, for himself, of his own beliefs. Irony plays an important role in especially the first two, as the examiner feigns ignorance at certain junctures of the discussion in order to spur the interlocutor onward. All three have their prominent contemporary applications: the pedagogical for the transmission of settled knowledge, the aporetic as a tool for the sceptic or cynic, and the maieutic for the cultivation of specifically personal development. But a much less appreciated fourth alternative can be gleaned, by merely taking at face value a statement of Socrates' appearing in the Apology, the dialogue that is usually accepted as the most historically accurate of Plato's works. Therein, he pleads ignorance in response to claims presented to him, explaining that the reason that he so aggressively scrutinizes them is that he simply might learn something in the process, which suffices to distinguish him from rhetoricians who seek to dazzle with words in order to have an argument conceded to them. So, perhaps the greatest irony attached to the 'Socratic Method' is that its most literal meaning is hardly known to the majority of its purported practitioners.

Anti-Manicheanism

Manicheanism is an ancient belief system that may be as influential today as it was millennia ago. One measure of its current prevalence is that it is such a deeply-ingrained ingredient in a variety of doctrines that it is not even recognized as such. Another is that challenging it is not as easy as some have taken it to be. Its basic premise is that Reality is fundamentally an Ontological conflict between Good and Evil. One standard form of challenge to it is to argue against its simple-mindedness, by asserting that there are shades of Gray between Black and White, or even a whole spectrum of colors, as the film Pleasantville has put it. But, while such a counter-argument charges Manicheanism with oversimplification, it still concurs with the other fundamental facet of the latter, namely, that Good, Evil, and whatever might lie between, are still features of objective reality. Hence, Nietzsche, notably, has analyzed that aspect of the doctrine as being a projection onto the universe of an Us vs. Them mentality. This diagnosis is one of the primary results of his notion 'Beyond Good and Evil', to which he contrasts the value system 'Good vs. Bad', one that explicitly embraces the human origin of such judgements. Furthermore, he is typically astute enough to realize that merely replacing the term 'Evil' with 'Bad' does not suffice to distinguish his orientation from the Us vs. Them that he is trying to overturn. Hence, one important distinction for him is in the attitude to be taken towards 'Them'--while the Manichean calls for the obliteration of 'Evil', the anti-Manichean should bear with 'Badness', but keep it at a distance. Yet, this still fails to distance him from the Us vs. Them dimension of Manicheanism. A more complete break with the latter would entail rejecting both its ontological pretensions, and its bivalence, resulting in a value system that is gradated, e. g. from Worst to Best, and to limit its scope to human activity. The resultant anti-Manicheanism would thus be a better guide for human conduct than Manicheanism.

Empiricism and Neo-Conservativism

A standard course in Academic Philosophy is 'British Empiricism', typically covering 17th and 18th Century philosophers Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. The main tenets of Empiricism are that there are no innate ideas in humans, and that all experiential knowledge is derived from sensory information. Locke, the earliest of the three, proposed a distinction in that information, between the 'primary' and the 'secondary' qualities of a perceived object. The former are such features as shape, size, and motion, while the latter are color, sound, taste, feel, and smell. The former group subsist in the object itself, and are merely replicated in perception. The latter, in contrast, reside only in the mind of the perceiver, as effects on its sensory apparatus, of transmitted molecular motions inhering in the object. It is hardly a strain to posit Berkeley as a successor to Locke, because his version of Empiricism is the expressed result of his criticism of the latter. For, he presents a counter to the primary-secondary distinction, arguing that even the former qualities are only in the mind of the perceiver, e. g. the size of the sun appearing to be smaller than a finger in front of the eye that can block it out. Now, as previously discussed, a student might take this course, and a teacher might even give it, oblivious to the fact that Locke is also a seminal figure in Political Philosophy. And, they might suppose that Berkeley's thoughts on Politics are, analogously, a tweaking of Locke's theory of Democracy. But that is hardly the case. For, while Berkeley does not seem to touch upon the topic at all, his subtle adjustment to Locke's Epistemological Empiricism seemingly amounts to a more profound reaction to the latter's concept of Democracy. Locke's primary-secondary distinction also grounds a public-private one, notably insofar as his notion of the kind of contract that is the basis of political legitmacy claims objective validity. So, Berkeley's eradication of the 'primary' category is also an elimination of the reality of publicness, and, hence, is a denial of the legitimacy of the contract that is the basis of Democracy. When Berkeley reduces all experience to privacy, he goes further to contend that all experience is a communciation between God and the subject, which is essentially a subordination of public Democracy to. private Faith. As often expressed by George W. Bush, a prominent contemporary example of this attitude is Neo-Conservativism, which exposes their essential anti-Democratism. So, as previously argued, disorder in Academia is not without its significant public consequences.

Philosophy and Darwinism

Heidegger is often credited for the novelty of his notion 'Being-in-the-World'. The latter portrays humans as essentially implicated in an envirnoment, as opposed to traditional construals that have us, at least in principle, isolable and self-contained entities. However, this heterodoxy is not as unprecedented as some of Heidegger's advocates seem to maintain. For, Dewey precedes him in this respect by at least years, if not decades, with a less cumbersome, better fleshed-out portrayal of the environed human organism. His conception is an expressed elaboration of the Darwinian notion of adaptation, that human life is fundamentally a rhythmic drama of an organism's disequilibrium and re-harmonization with its environment, and nothing more. Dewey's theories of Psychology, Ethics, Logic, and Aesthetics all take this notion as their basic context. Likewise, one weak spot is his picture also exposes a central flaw in Darwinism. He notes that moments of interactive harmony with one's environment fail to persist, and that destabilization is inevitable, but he never explains why that must be the case. This explanatory gap is inherited from one of the basic premises of Darwinism, that adaptation, as well as the evolutionary drive in general, is a means to survival. That would imply that if that end were achieved, then the evolutionary process would cease. Hence, an organism would never of its own accord initiate a disintegration of a successful adaptation, and, so, destabilization can come only from without, from its environment. In other words, on the Darwinian account that Dewey is appropriating, destabilization is contingent and not inevitable. Nor does it explain such familiar facts as boredom and restlessness. In contrast, these latter are entailed in a concept of Evolution as an end-in-itself, as an incessant drive to higher levels. On basis of that concept, Dewey could more justifiably propose that adaptation is itself, in essence, not a termination, but a point of departure for further developments. More generally, if some of the attention to Heidegger were re-directed towards Dewey, the philosophical potential of Darwinism might be more fruitfully developed.

Religion and Mathematics

The great modern enemy of Religion is usually thought to be Science, but, as previously discussed, the two are not antitheses, but are merely differing admixtures of Faith and Rationality. However, for at least millennia, it has always had a more formidable rival. One of the earliest formulations of the latter was presented by Plato in the Euthyphro. To slightly paraphrase the problem that he poses there--Is something Good because it is commanded by God, or does God command it because it is Good? The former reduces adherence to God to blind obedience to moral arbitrariness, while the latter entails that God is less powerful than the Good, either of which is a challenge to the presumed omnipotent goodness of God. Plato is here being more than a casuistic gadfly; his notion of the Good is based in his Theory of Forms, of which Pythagorean mathematics is the paradigm. To pose the problem in mathematical terms: Could God alter 2+2=4? It seems unthinkable that he, or any entity, could do so, which, again, imposes a delimitation on his powers. Furthermore, the presumed Divine characteristics of Eternality and Perfection seem pre-eminently true of mathematical propositions, and once Descartes showed how to quantify Geometry, Physics mathematized spatial relations beyond Pythagoras' wildest dreams, rendering Mathematics omnipresent as well. Voltaire might have had trouble finding God at the Lisbon earthquake, but geologists can find an easy explanation for it. So, what could be more Divine than Mathematics? Not a 'God' who is himself subject to it. One other recourse is to attribute Mathematics to the Mind of God. But Spinoza tried this, to the general satisfaction of neither the Faithful nor the Rational Secularists.

Physics, Philosophy, and Time

These days the primary experts on the topic of Time are taken, especially after Einstein, to be Physicists. No doubt that their brilliant mathematical contortions of the past century or so have yielded concrete practical results. But quantitative Time is not Time itself, a topic still in the purview of Philosphers. Probably the most innovative thinker concerning the nature of Time has been Kant, who developed an alternative to two traditional standard notions of it. Those two are, first, that Time exists independently of humans, either as an ingredient in the objects of the world, or, as in many mythologies, a general feature of reality. Second, is the position that Time does not exist at all, that it is a subjective misunderstanding, or even an illusion. Kant's alternative is that Time is a 'Form' of our experience, namely a condition of how we process what we perceive and do. The inner structure of that Form is successiveness--that our experience is one-after-another. This means that Time is neither something independent of an experiencer, nor a mere illusion of the latter. Furthermore, it challenges the common conception that Time is a collection of unrelated moments, by binding them one to another. Perhaps, to dispel the lingering possibility that even these linked moments are in themselves static, Bergson later insists that the succession is a flux. However, the notion of a continuous flux can easily suggest that the only dimension of Time is the ongoing Present. Thus would be lost the insight that the earlier moment is ingredient in its successor, just as a flux is only a present point unless there is retention of an earlier phase. Hence, Time is cumulative, like a tree and its rings, as discussed in a previous posting. This conception of Time refutes those that, while admitting the reality of the Present, assert that the Past does not exist, since it proposes that the Past exists as part of the Present. (The nature of the Future has been previously considered.) In any case, Physicists would do well to consult Kant, who has something valuable to teach them about their theories regarding the 'beginning of Time', not to mention about their efforts to concoct a unified theory of existence.

It's More Than Academic

If Academia is the Mind of the body politic, it is no wonder that American society is so fragmented. A particular incoherence that is prevalent throughout this country's higher education is the standard assignation of Philosophy and Political Science to two different, often incommunicative, departments. Traditional great philosophies aim at systematic comprehensiveness, so that, e. g., a thinker's theory of Logic is of a piece with that of conduct. A notable example is Locke, whose most famous idea is probably 'Tabula Rasa'. This notion is significant to him in two respects. First, it asserts that humans are born possessing no innate knowledge. Second, it proposes that no human is innately superior to any other. The first established Locke as one of the pioneer Empiricists in the field of Epistemology. The second constituted an argument against the premise of a 'Divine Right of Kings', that for centuries validated Monarchism, and, hence, it is one of the foundations of his Democratism in Political Philosophy. But insofar as the first is to be learned only in a Philosophy Department, and the second in Political Science, how can Academia do justice to this, or to any other similarly pivotal, thinker? The consequences can be more than merely Academic, as can be seen in tracing the development of the Neo-Conservative movement. Significant stages of that growth were in Political Science departments around the country, where for decades, its acolytes were able to breed a generation of politicians with eccentric interpretations of the likes of Locke, Plato, etc., that were unchallengeable simply because they were taken out of context. So, if there are Academic bureaucrats who have been horrified by the antics of Bush et. al., they have, to a certain degree, no one but themselves to blame.

The Future

The Future does not exist. Such an assertion might seem counter-intuitive, but intuition, or any other mode of cognition, would be hard pressed to demonstrate the existence of the Future. It might be more accurate to assert that the Future will exist, but if and when that occurs it would no longer be the 'Future'. Of course, there are those who argue that 'extra-sensory' perception can accomplish just that cognition; however, they have difficulty not merely explaining where exactly its object is, but how the awareness in question is anything other than present vivid imagination. More mundane, but similarly, an intention of some goal being worked towards is often casually treated as the incarnation of that Future in present consciousness, but, again, it is nothing more than an currently entertained image, the relation of which to the actuality of that goal being determinable only in retrospect. Likewise, the present is sometimes characterized as containing the 'seeds' of the Future, or that is 'pregnant' with the latter, but, again, these are all implicitly future perfect tense assertions, pre-supposing some attainment from which the Present is assessed in hindsight. Perhaps, most radical of all, Heidegger has proposed that one's own Death is an everpresent determinant of the Present. But, while one way to respond is that he confuses Death with its possibilty, more penetratingly, insofar as Death means 'no Future', if Death is everpresent, than so too is no Future, which is the very point being asserted here. While all this might seem to be a matter of intellectual or semantic gymnastics, the implications are significant in practice. For, they counter the notion of inevitability that tends to thwart creativity, i. e. if nothing beyond the Present exists, than if anything is to come about it has yet to be determined, and is thus in the hands of the Present. Thus, that the Future does not exist is, among other things in practice, an antidote to Defeatism. In theory it means that if Time does exist, then the Future is not a dimension of Time. Instead, its association with the idea of openness suggests that it is Spatial, rather than Temporal.

The Abortion Debate

Probably the most polarizing debate of current times is over abortion, with no resolution in sight. The dispute is usually characterized as between two Rights, 'To Life' and 'To Choose'. There is no arguing that a conflict in those terms is a fundamental one, one side asserting the right of an entity to not have its life taken from it, the other of a woman to not have what transpires in her body to be decided by bystanders, often males, often those who treat women as mere incubating vessels. But the whole controversy turns on a more fundamental issue. The idea that 'Abortion is murder' implies that what transpires is the taking of a life that is in some sense equivalent to that of post-birth human entities. In other words, the basic question is whether or not 'Life begins at conception'. For, if there were some agreement about that, then there would likely be no debate, even if abortions were to continue. However, for some, Life begins at birth, and for others, at the moment of fetus viability outside the womb, circa the 25th week of preganancy. Furthermore, there is variation even among anti-abortionists. Taboos against certain forms of contraception imply that life might even begin with the coital event that leads to conception. And, if it begins then, why not at the dinner that sets the stage for the coitus? In other words, the determination of when Life begins is completely unsettled, and, possibly, arbitrary, in which case, the debate reverts to the secondary question of who should decide if and when an abortion should take place. It is at this secondary level that the plain priority of the person bearing the fetus is invoked. But this Right to choose will never be recognized by someone who maintains that Life begins anytime before birth. Hence, this debate seems unlikely to be resolved at any foreseeable time.

The Metaphysics of Dancing

For centuries, from Plato to Kant, Music had been regarded as the least philosophically significant Art. This is primarily because both Art was conceived as a form of Mimesis, and what Music was taken to represent, e. g. feelings, sounds, etc. are among the least meaningful phenomena. Schopenhauer revolutionized the appreciation of Music by contesting both those premises. For him, first, the essence of the world is Will, and second, Music is the expression of Will. Nietzsche developed these insights further, by introducing the notions 'Dionysian' and 'Apollinian' to distinguish expressive and representative Art, and, more generally, Motion and Form, and by according priority to the former. He later elaborated on his concept of Music, by explaining that it is special instance of Dance, i. e., it is the movement of some of the body, communicating in the specific medium of sound to an audience. Now, while the early Nietzsche seems intent on systematically relating the Dionysian and the Apollinian, the latter concept seems to disappear as an explicit theme in his later writings. But, their unity is easy to see in dancing, which is in itself the synthesis of motion and form, even prior to its serving some other representative purpose. The philosophical significance of this synthesis is that it is a union of Body and Mind, a problem which is the focus of much theorizing in Metaphysics. Consequently, for example, on the basis of the paradigm of Dancing, an activity such as Pure Reflection, which is exemplary for many systems that accord priority to Mind over Body, is merely one in which Body is relatively immobile, and not, as those systems often take it to be, Metaphysically superfluous.

The Origin of Invention

'Necessity is the mother of Invention', according to a well-known saying. The phrase entails three assertions, depending on which term is emphasized. First, it describes something that can transpire on the occasion of some urgent need presenting itself. Second, it explains what gives rise to creativity. Third, it invokes maternity as a metaphor for the way in which Necessity breeds Invention. The first of these seems uncontroversial, and its very assertion is a subtle reminder that taking action in the face of difficulty is preferable to doing nothing at all. The one curious aspect of the third is that the metaphor is never fleshed out to the extent that paternity is addressed. But perhaps the reason for that is that the parental connection between Necessity and Invention is questionable to begin with. The usual interpretation of the saw is that it explains the origin of inventiveness as a reaction to some problem, or, in other words, that creativity is a means to an end. It thus precludes the possiblity of spontaneity, and even of pure novelty. Such a contention is not surprising in a Newtonian or Behavioristic system, but even Darwinism agrees with it. For, evolutionary development for the latter is ultimately only a means to an end, namely survival. Hence, it, too, subscribes to the saying. But, if Evolution were an end-in-itself, it would hold that Invention is the not merely the product of spontaneous generation, but is the latter process itself. Its alternative maxim might then be: 'Invention is often adopted by Necessity.'

Property

'Property rights' are a significant aspect of any moral and political theory and practice, but the notion of 'property' seems rarely to have been characterized with precision. One way to begin defining it is to distinguish between four different types of property: Natural, Vital, Created, and Acquired. 'Natural' property is what one is born with, namely one's own body. 'Vital' property is whatever is necessary to the maintenance of Natural property. 'Created' property is anything that one has oneself made or produced. Finally, 'Acquired' property is anything else. Now, Property, in general, is to be distinguished from Possession--the latter is something which is de facto at one's disposal, but subject to conflicting claims regarding at whose disposal it should be, while Property is the disposition of a contested item that results from the settling of conflict via some accepted procedure. Hence, Property is a possession to which one has a 'Right', namely a possession that cannot be taken away except by some accepted procedure. An 'Inalienable' right to a possession is one that cannot be taken away by any procedure. Inalienability would seem most inarguable with respect to Natural Property, and increasingly less so to Vital, Created, and Acquired. Plainly, there can possessions that are not one's property, and, there can be property that is not in one's possession. Even Natural Property might not be in one's possession, i. e. in slavery. Justice, both in theory and in practice, turns on the potential conflict between Property and Possession; one definition of Justice is 'the coincidence of Property and Possession'. Where the distinctions in types of Property is more pertinent is to judgments of injustice. The latter tend to reflect the recognition of a hierarchy of Rights, analogous to the sequence of Property kinds presented above, e. g. Natural has priority, then Vital, etc. For example, depriving someone of their Natural Property, i. e. killing them, is usually treated as the most heinous crime, and depriving a needy person of food is generally regarded as more egregious than grabbing somethin off the plate of someone who is well-fed. The classification also helps explain one of Marx' fundamental criticisms of Capitalism--the payment of wages for labor forces the laborer to accept a lower level of Property, Acquired, in exchange for Created Property, the fruits of their labor. Hence, as this scheme tends to substantiate, Capitalism is fundamentally unjust.

Ethics vs. Morality

'Ethics' and 'Morality' are two terms that are often appear in the same breath and used interchangeably. But, as briefly touched upon in a previous discussion, there is a subtle but significant distinction between them. The former, from the Greek, means 'habits', while the latter, from the Latin, means 'customs'. While both pertain to social conduct, the latter refers to impersonal norms, while the former, personal ones. Customs are general behavioral practices which anyone is to follow, e. g. the Ten Commandments are addressed to all. In contrast, habits are characteristics that are specific to a given person, e. g. the same action might be an example of Courage when performed by one person, but reckless coming from someone less physically capable. Similarly, they can involve two differing applications of Reason. In Kantian Morality, Reason universalizes, i. e. posits actions that can only be performed by anybody and everybody, while in Aristotelian Ethics, Reason moderates, i. e. establishes intra-personal equilibrium in one's conduct. But, as Kant himself implicitly asserts, Ethics is of wider scope and deeper import. For, he shows that in order for Morality to have any meaning at all, it must be interiorized by a subject, or, in other words, Morality must be incorporated into Ethics. However, he has difficulties with the converse; his Reason has no basis for distinguishing one subject from another, which means that it is indifferent to personal histories and pursuits of happiness. Thus, Ethics can entail Morality, but not vice versa. Also, Ethics can help resolve one of the more vexing theoretical problems associated with the latter. Morality prescribes what one ought to do, and what one ought to do is what anybody would do. These are what count as Morally 'good' deeds. But such a definition fails to account for 'superogatory' actions, namely acts that are 'beyond the call of duty', i. e. not what just anyone would do. Indeed, some Moralists have gone so far as to deny the existence of such a category of acts, in order to resolve the systematic problems that they pose. However, Ethics easily accommodates those kinds of deeds without stripping of them their extraordinariness: one person's Courage is not necessarily another's, so a courageous act can be both Good with respect to them without it being what anyone ought to do. So, again, Ethics and Morality are different, most notably insofar as the latter might be an aspect of the former, which defines the more general scope of conduct cultivation.

The New Paradigm

The phrase 'new paradigm' is usually associated with commercial activity, as merchants and entrepreneurs are constantly on the look-out for better ways of doing business. However, the notion has its roots in Science, for which the term 'paradigm shift' was coined by Thomas Kuhn to describe significant, irreversible changes in scientific theories, e. g. the replacement of Ptolemaic Astronomy by Copernican. But the idea can be even more generalized, and can account for one of the fundamental cultural conflicts of the past two centuries. This struggle is between the old paradigm, which might be called 'Humpty Dumpty', and the new, 'Evolvement'. The former conceives of the fundamental cosmological process to be one of a shattering, followed by the effort to put the pieces back together. This paradigm is the main pattern shaping most mythologies, both Occidental and Oriental. It is the structure of any development from an original position of unity and perfection into multiplicity and imperfection, e. g. 'the Fall', 'the Breaking of the Vessels', 'the Big Bang', 'illusory individuation', etc., to recovery and reconstruction, e. g. 'Salvation', 'Dialectics', 'thinking Nothingness', etc. In contrast, 'Evolvement' is sheer ascent from less to more complex, with no prior circumstance conditioning it, and, hence, no upper limit presupposed. The most familiar manifestation of this Paradigm Struggle is, of course, 'Religion vs. Evolution', but that debate is only a more selective, superficial version of what underlies, e. g. usually focusing on the creation of the human race. For, even where common ground is suggested, e. g. 'evolution is the motor of God's creativity', it does not e. g. begin to reckon with the potential Evolutionary emergence of creatures more highly developed than what Religion holds is the 'crown of creation.' But the more subtle manifestations of the Struggle are occuring at the microcosmic level, e. g. between theories of Human Nature as the potential to achieve wholeness, and those which are based on the premise that the fundamental human drive is constant growth. In other words, this Paradigm Struggle has only just begun, because the implications of the New Paradigm are only starting to be understood.

Kant's Revolution

Kant is widely acknowledged as a pivotal figure in intellectual history, but the axis of that turn is often misplaced. The Enlightenment tradition into which he entered regarded Knowledge as the recording of the world as accurately as possible. But unease with that project was dawning, due to the gradual realization that there can be no independent way to verify not merely how accurate an interpretation can be, but whether interpretation in principle could corresponded in any way whatsoever to purported objects. So, Kant effected what he called a 'Copernican Revolution': just as Copernicus showed that instead of the sun rotating around the earth, the latter rotates around the former, Kant reconstrued Knowledge as instead of an adaptation of human cognitive faculties to objects in the world, an adaptation of the latter to the former. Hence, instead of aiming at accuracy of recording the world, Knowledge, according to Kant, should be embraced in its status as mere interpretation, with the criterion of success now being internal coherence of interpretation. So, what Kant is usually taken as revolutionizing is the enterprise of Knowledge. But that understanding of his project still takes Knowledge to be a recording of something or other, whereas a more detailed reading reveals that for him Knowledge is more: a construction of a world and its objects. In other words, for him, Knowledge is a process of anthropomorphization of the world--a shaping of it, in human image. As Marx later put it, Knowledge is not to understand the world, but to change it. Likewise, for the Pragmatists, Science is essentially Technology, a process of controlled experimentation that seeks not Knowledge for its own sake, but Knowledge that can help enhance the quality of life. In other words, the more profound revolution that Kant effected was in the relation between Theory and Practice--no longer is the latter an incidental application of the findings of the former, but, rather, the former is an abstraction from the latter that helps improve it. Or, as Kant himself put it, in an underappreciated comment on the ambitions of his system, Reason is in its element not in theorizing about the world, but in shaping how we conduct ourselves.

The Work Ethic

Despite its appearance at the Auschwitz concentration camp, the phrase 'Work Will Set You Free' continues to flourish, especially in contemporary America. The idea has theological roots: given the premise that mankind is guilty of 'original sin', Work is taken to be the path to Salvation. But even in the more secular dimensions of American life, it is one of the prevalent Ethical principles. Wealth and poverty are frequently taken to be expressions of divine judgment; taxation of the former evokes moral outrage in many, while even the most disenfranchised of the needy often have employment strings attached to the receipt of assistance. The general public adherence to the Work Ethic is perhaps best observed when athletes who are extremely well-paid to play a game, go out of their way to describe how hard they work, or when one of the most influential singers of the past few decades is famously 'The Hardest Working Man in Show Business'. Now, the social and psychological damage done by this precept has been well-analyzed by Herbert Marcuse, among others, so suffice it here to add that the correct counter to that principle is 'Creativity Will Set You Free'. For, more precisely, Creativity IS Freedom, and insofar as Creativity is the synthesis of Work and Play, the inscription at Auschwitz is a fitting monument to the limitations of mere Work.

Tolerance and Respect

The main interpersonal lubricant in contemporary pluralistic society would seem to be Tolerance. People are told to 'Be tolerant' when confronted with those who are different. But though what it prescribes is a form of inaction, its scope is hardly internal and private. 'Be tolerant' really means 'Don't be intolerant', and the latter is more than a merely internal attidude. For, being intolerant generally implies taking action that would counter the object of intolerance. So, the protection of the rights of others is certainly socially significant. But a criticism of Tolerance is not necessarily a defense of Intolerance. The real meaning of the word can be more plainly seen in usages like 'tolerating pain'. In these, the object of tolerance is something disliked that one can rise above and withstand. Similarly, in a social context, Tolerance connotes an attitude of condescending disapproval that is not acted upon. Thus, a pluralistic society based on Tolerance is neither a truly harmonious nor egalitarian one. An alternative to Tolerance is suggested by Kant: Respect. However, the object of Respect in others is not just any aspect of them, but their Rational nature. Appealing to the Rationality of others is the one true mode of respecting them, even if they themselves are lacking in self-respect, and the only way, according to Kant, of promoting true pluralism.

Why?

When people ask 'Why?', there are apparently two different sorts of answers. When answering 'Why did the tree fall down?' with 'It was struck by lightning.,' the latter supplies what is generally called a 'cause'. But when answering 'Why is he running?' with 'He wants to catch a bus.', a 'purpose' is being offered. Aristotle called them both 'causes', distinguishing between an 'efficient cause' and a 'final cause', respectively. In contrast, Kant's general term is 'reason', drawing the distinction between 'theoretical reason' as the source of scientific hypotheses, and 'practical reason' as the generator of conscious intentions. Regardless of the terminology, a defining contrast is between what preceded the event in question versus what that event will lead to. While this distinction clearly separates the two, on some crucial occasions they are in conflict. In jurisprudential situations there are frequently disputes as to whether or not what transpired was due to a cause or to a purpose. In a murder trial, for example, the prosecution would likely argue that the killing was done, say, in order to get someone out of the way, while the defense could respond that a genetic irregularity, a chemical imbalance, or extenuating circumstances, led to the fatal behavior. In such a case, the decision will likely hang on which type of answer to 'why?' prevails. But this conflict is not localized; it is an instance of a more general debate over the nature of human motivation--antecedent physical causes vs. conscious intention, a debate that is so sophisticated that each side can explain away the opposition. The physicalist often argues that consciousness itself has no motive power, and merely assists those non-conscious drives. Contrarily, intentionalists maintain that the diagnosis of physical causes serves to inform conscious responses to a problem. Interestingly, both Aristotle and Kant implicitly suggest a third explanation of human motivation. Both offer principles for the control of the physical part of a human by the rational part. Such rational self-control would seem to be neither cause nor purpose, since it is effected not prior nor consequent to action, but constantly in the developing course of it.

Morality, Freedom, Reason

Kant is generally thought to be among the most difficult thinkers to understand, and for good reason. But it is not because his ideas are so obscure, but because they are complex convergences of familiar notions. For example, he demonstrates how Morality, Freedom, and Reason intersect, that is, to be Moral is to be Free is to act Rationally. For him, Morality, if it is to have any dignity at all, must be an end, not a means to something else. In other words, being 'good' with the expectation of a reward, or to avoid punishment, is not being Moral at all. Hence, it cannot be a conditioned response of any kind, whether to an incentive or a threat, even from a Diety, or to physical or emotional drives, which seek only their own satisfaction. So, Morality can only be freely generated, and, furthermore, the only force capable of such independence from subjective circumstance or condition is Reason. For, Reason is the power of transcending the merely selfish, since what it asserts pertains to any person, regardless of particular nature or situation. Conversely, it is impersonal Reason that is the source of the notion that others are like ourselves, which informs common Moral formulas such as 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you'. And, Reason originates its own principle of generative power, often characterized by Kant as the 'Categorical Imperative', which means that any purely rational conduct is autonomous. So, for Kant, Morality, Freedom, and Reason are one and the same, which, if nothing else, poses a challenge to anyone who might believe that they have any one of them without the other two.

Moral Relativism

Right-wingers often accuse Liberals of 'moral relativism', so let's see if there is anything to that. By that term, the accusers seem to mean 'amoral', i. e. 'anything goes'. But, clearly Liberals do not believe that, because they surely believe that right-wing principles do not 'go'. More precisely, 'moral relativism' can mean one of two things--that one person's opinion is as valid as anyone else's, or, that what is best for two different people might not be the same. The most prominent version of the former is known as 'Emotivism', which holds that moral judgments are just like expressions of taste, insofar as they are no more than subjective and personal. Now, Certainty is a feeling, and, therefore, no more than subjective and personal, but since it is right-wingers themselves who claim to possess Moral Certitude, it cannot be Emotivism that they are charging their opposition with. The prototype of the latter is Aristotelian Ethics, which holds that Virtue is moderation in conduct, relative to each person, e. g. what might be courageous action for a stronger man might be wreckless for a smaller one. But right-wingers invoke ancient thinkers like Plato and Aristotle as paradigmatic contrasts with modern Liberalism, so they cannot be referring to that version of 'moral relativism', either, which leaves the words of their accusation empty of meaning. On the other hand, the progenitors of modern Liberalism, Spinoza, Kant, Mill, and Dewey, for example, present Moral notions that are firmly grounded in rational methodology. So, until it is better explained, this criticism of Liberalism seems no more than a piece of empty rhetoric.

The Invisible Hand of God

Empiricism is the doctrine that holds that all knowledge is based on sensory information, with the aim of clarifying mental confusions, such as superstitions. Perhaps its most stringent representative was David Hume, who ruthlessly turned its principles even on himself at times. For example, 'the wind' is only a generalization of sensory phenomena such as the feeling of a chill pressure on exposed skin, resistance to walking, a hat being flung from one's head, etc., and not some independently existing entity or spirit. Another Empiricist, though less innovative than Hume, was his buddy Adam Smith. The significance of this fact is that it means that Smith's perhaps most famous single idea, 'the invisible hand of the market', was intended by him to generalize a set of observable economic phenomena, and was not an invocation of some self-subsistent entity. But, alleged acolytes of Smith, who also ignore the fact that his book on Morality asserts that Sympathy is the basis of Goodness, continue to defy Empiricist principles. First, they cherry-pick evidence that tends to bear out that market forces, when left alone, do indeed produce fair results. But, more damagingly, the 'invisible hand' gets divinized, so that Capitalism is taken to express the will of God himself. No doubt, the alliance of the Religious and the Economic right-wing is based in such an appropriation of Smith's thinking. If so, then any credibility problems besetting that political sector are of its own making.

Metaphysics

The forbidding word 'metaphysics' had a very down-to-earth origin. Aristotle's works began as lectures, and then were published by specific topic. The compilers had difficulty coming up with a name for the subject matter covered in the work following 'The Physics', so they settled on 'The Metaphysics', with 'meta' meaning 'beyond', simply denoting 'Beyond The Physics'. But this rubric wasn't entirely inappropriate, since the content concerned the aspect of reality that Aristotle conceived as not describable by 'physics'. The latter pertained, for him, to the changeable aspect of existence, hence its focus on a theory of Causality. In contrast, the later topic studies the unchanging dimension of reality, so 'beyond Physics' does apply, but not in the sense of most of the current-day connotations of 'metaphysics', e. g. paranormal or mystical phenomena. For Aristotle, the main question of Metaphysics is the problem of 'the one and the many', i. e. how Unity and Multiplicity are related. His view is that everything is both One and Many, as can be easily seen in any object, insofar as it is both a whole and consisting of parts, as well as in the Universe as a whole, which likewise consists of a plurality of items. While that analysis might seem to be so commonsensical as to be inarguable, where a God is regarded as separate from the created world, the One and the Many are Metaphysically distinct. Likewise, in a cosmos entailing an original Nothing and a plurality of illusions of individuality, for Nothing and One are both undifferentiated samenesses. So, 'metaphysics', in the common current sense of paranormal or mystical, is actually a watered-down version of a Metaphysical theory that disagrees with Aristotle's, not the fundamental meaning of the word.

Knowledge of Good and Evil

Perhaps the most significant words in Western Civilization are 'knowledge of good and evil', since according to its probably most influential document, the entire history of the human race turned on the eating of the fruit of a tree that went by that name. Somehow, though, the lesson of that fateful moment seems to repeatedly go unlearned. Surely nothing qualifies more as answering to that description than Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics, and yet Medieval Theologians already commited to the Biblical understanding of humanity did not hesitate to try to digest that Greek's Science of the Good. One product of that effort was the peculiar species of argumentation called 'Proof of the Existence of God', as if Logic were the ultimate determinant of the existence of the Deity. One version of that 'proof', usually regarded as the weakest, was known generally as the 'Argument From Design', the main point of which is that the orderliness and regularity found in the world can only be the product of an Intelligent Creator. Even though all such proofs were conclusively refuted by Kant over 200 years ago, that version has recently re-emerged as the 'Intelligent Design' argument, now being used to counter Evolutionism, with questionable success. Interestingly, proponents of that argument tend to more generally maintain that they possess Certainty, when it comes to Morality. Without the least hint of irony, they continue to insist that they are devoted adherents of Biblical lessons.

Self-Knowledge and Capitalism

Ever since Socrates was advised to 'Know thyself'', philosophers have sought after self-knowledge. The most famous result of that quest is Descartes' conclusion that 'I think'. However, that thesis was undermined by, especially, Locke and Hume, who demonstrated that no two momentary I's in consciousness can be shown to be the same. Kant therefore took a different tack, and argued that the object of self-knowledge can only be determined via some object external to consciousness. Hegel continued in that direction, presenting a theory of self-recognition in which one knows oneself via one's perceptions of modifications of the outer world that one has oneself brought about. This insight became the cornerstone of Marx' criticism of Capitalism. For, the sense of self-worth is rooted in self-recognition, and self-recognition is in essence recognition of one's self in one's work. Capitalism thus effects a profound psychological violation by alienating the worker from the fruits of their labor, because the business owner, not the worker, owns the labor performed, and compensation in the form of market-value wages only reinforces the impersonalization and demoralization. Socialism is in part an attempt to restore the sense of self-worth to the working class. Now, not only does the fact that the Soviet Union 'lost the Cold War' not disprove Marx' psychological insight, but many in a Capitalist society express their agreement with it whenever, e. g. they disapprove of a recording company's taking advantage of a musician, the rights to whose music the company owns. Furthermore, this aspect of Capitalism contains its own internal contradiction. On the one hand, it is touted as the economic system of 'personal responsibility', but, on the other, it ruptures the self-knowledge without which that sense of self-responsibility would seem impossible.

Psychology

Psychology is a topic that was first defined and examined by Aristotle. 'Psyche' is Greek for 'soul', so 'psychology' means 'science of the soul'. Two main features of Aristotle's theory, drawn from ideas originating with Plato, are, first, that the Soul consists of three main parts, and, second, that it stands to the Body in a Form-Matter relation. The three parts of the Soul, in ascending order, are the vegetative, the animal, and the intellectual, with the latter best-fitted to be the ruler. By 'form', Aristotle understood not inert shape, but the dynamic shaping of lifeless material. But, whereas for Plato, Form is separable from Matter, and imperishable, for Aristotle, they are two sides of the same coin, and, so, Soul is as perishable as the Body of which it is the Form. Aristotle also abandons Plato's attribution of a Soul to the Body Politic, in which the 'vegetative' and the 'animal' levels are, by, analogy, the mercantile and the military classes of society, to be ruled over by a wise leader. Medieval Theologians, commited to the notion of an immortal personal Soul, sided with Plato in that regard, but rejected one of his concept's more problematic entailments, namely, that the vegetative and animal levels would thereby also be immortal. Their solution was to detach the upper Soul from its lower functions, rendering it merely intellectual, with some added religious capacities, and, with one consequence being that animals were henceforth conceived to be soulless automatons. Centuries later, despite presumed secularization, the 'soul' remains the province of Theology, 'Psychology' now handles animal motivation, and the pure intellect is the subject matter of such academic disciplines as 'Theory of Mind' and 'Epistemology'. The contemporary fracturing of the ancient Soul is perhaps even more legible in the Body Politic, where, generally speaking, the mercantile and/or the military classes rule, while academia prefers to remain detached from the rest of society.

Some Easy Answers

Three questions that are commonly thought of as profound 'philosophical' puzzles are actually easily resolvable. 1. 'If a tree falls in the forest, but there is nobody there to hear it, does it make a sound?'--The definition of a 'sound' is the effect of certain waves on a receptor, so if there is nobody there, then there is no sound. 'A recording device?'--There is no sound until someone plays it back, etc. 2. 'Which came first, the chicken or the egg?'--Some theories of Time are linear and finite, which means that there are things that came before other things. But other theories have Time as eternal recurrence, which means that nothing came before anything else. In other words, that is a loaded question. 3. 'Is the glass half empty, or, half full?'--To someone who is thirsty, the important question concerns the content of the glass. But beyond that, the glass is plainly both half full and half empty, the lesson of which is something like, 'Appreciate what you have, but don't get complacent.' Instead, an example of a serious Philosophical question, perhaps the fundamental one, is what Aristotle called the problem of 'the One and the Many', e. g. 'Why is there both something and many things?' All theories, Religious, Secular, East, West, at bottom tackle this theme in one form or another, and the way that they do so is the essence of the differences between them.

The Function of Ethics

Everybody is aware of the existence of Ethics and Morality in human experience, but even those who have studied the topic have rarely, if ever, examined the role that it actually plays. The main reason is that its function is so widely and deeply taken for granted that any questionability is difficult to emerge. In America, 'Morality' is primarily attached to Religion, so its assignation is to serve as a means to the ends of the latter, e. g. one obeys the Ten Commandments in order to win favor in the eyes of God, perhaps, even, to secure a preferred afterlife fate. Furthermore, in Evolutionism, generally regarded as the main ideological alternative to Religion, while Darwin was generally silent on the topic, his more recent followers are beginning to settle on the postion that Morality is a survival strategy. In other words, it agrees with its opponent that Morality is a means to an end, just a different end in its case. One significant alternative to this status comes from Aristotle, who conceives of human nature as fully actualizing itself in rationality, and Ethics is the personal dimension of the sphere of that actualization. So, for Aristotle, Ethics is an end, not a means. But unhappy that that status is still contingent on that view of human nature, Kant ambitiously attempted to accord to Morality autonomy, namely that being Moral was only achievable unconditionally, sheerly on the grounds of its principle itself. However, he found it impossible to complete that project without ultimately having to invoke the rewarding of good deeds by God, thus being forced to revert to the orthodoxy that Morality is a means to an end. A further alternative to all of these is suggested, though never developed explicitly, by Aristotle's view. His conception of Virtue as conduct guided by moderation can also be interpreted as a program of self-cultivation. Interpreted in this way Ethics converges with Aesthetics, with the Moral agent an artist, their life as a work of art, and Ethical precepts as the principles of both good art and good living.

An Ideology of Incompetence

Conventional wisdom has it that the deterioration of the popularity of George W. Bush was due to the gradual dawning on the general public that he had mislead the country into invading Iraq, thereby casting doubt on the purity of his motives. But, the colder fact of the matter was that it was his incompetence that the country turned its back on; his duplicity might have been overlooked or forgiven if control of Iraq had been secured as quickly and painlessly as promised. Accordingly, apologists have since attempted to argue that what was an essentially well-intended, sound plan fell victim to unforeseen circumstances. But, his failures were not due to quirks of fate--his political philosophy is the expression of a doctine that unabashedly places a low value on competence, as can also be seen in its disdain for Science. That doctrine has its roots in the theorizing of the likes of Leo Strauss, whose thinking was based on the premise of the inviolability and incontrovertibility of private experience, a position sometimes known as 'Phenomenalism'. Easily derivable from such a principle is the privileging of the few who do in fact possess such 'certitude' of beliefs. Competence, in contrast, is publicly demonstrable, subject to challenge by objective criteria in the democratic arena of trial-and-error. So, Bush's failures stem from his ideology, which none of its partisans yet seem willing to admit. But, at least they are ideologically consistent.