Friday, September 30, 2011

Will, Utilitarianism, Libertarianism

While Moore, Kantianism, and Dewey offer significant criticisms of Utilitarianism, perhaps the most decisive one comes from elsewhere in the oeuvre of Mill himself. For, in contrast with the descriptivist Universalism of his Utilitarianism, is the prescriptivist Individualism of his own Libertarian doctrine. In the few passages in which he seems to recognize that conflict, he accords priority to Utilitarianism, i. e. by arguing that even personal freedom is conditioned by its consequences for general happiness. In so doing, however, he briefly exposes the prescriptivism of his Utilitarianism, i. e. by arguing that, in some circumstances, one should not perform an entertained possible action. In the process, he, furthermore, reveals how Utilitarianism entails Will. For, the argument that one should consider more than one's own interests entails that one should extend oneself towards as many others as possible, i. e. will is the principle of self-extending in Experience.

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Will and Utilitarianism

According to Utilitarianism, the value of an act is determined by its consequences, specifically the subsequent pleasure and pain that it causes. As is widely recognized, the prime target of this Consequentialism is Kantianism, for which the value of an act is determined by the antecedents that motivate it. Less appreciated is that Utilitarianism precludes the possibility that Will, i. e. the performance itself of the act, can be a bearer of value. One problem that that preclusion presents to the doctrine is that the performance itself can be pleasurable. Furthermore, even if that pleasure were to be classified as a 'consequence' of the performance, it still does not take into account how that pleasure can be a function of some antecedents of the performance--e. g. to what extent the performance is innovative in the biography of the performer, whether or not it is an accomplishment of what was initially intended, etc. Hence, Utilitarianism does not, and, apparently, cannot account for at least some of the pleasure involved in the performance of an act.

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Will and Sympathy

'Sympathy' is typically spoken of as if it were a unitary feeling that forges a bond between two people. However, it is actually an experience that rapidly combines four distinct moments. First, one extends oneself towards another. Second, one comprehends their projected situation. Third, one emotionally reacts to that comprehension. Finally, one compares that emotion with that evinced by the other. Hence, Sympathy denotes not a feeling, but a similarity of feelings. Furthermore, it does not create a bond between two people, but is an expression of Will, i. e. of the original extending of oneself towards another. Accordingly, insofar as Morality is construed as consisting in the forging of interpersonal fellowship, and Sympathy is conceived to be the basis of that forging, Will is the foundation of Morality.

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Will and Altruism

Initially, an encounter is an obstacle to Motility, i. e. to Will, but it can develop as an opportunity for novelty. Similarly, an encounter with another person begins as interference, but with the potential for growth, via access to an otherwise inconceivable perspective. Thus, in contrast with traditional concepts of 'will' as an expression of Selfishness, Will, here, is not only enhanced by benefiting others, but is the very ground of altruistic conduct.

Monday, September 26, 2011

Will and Prejudice

In some circumstances, the assertion 'We are all the same inside' is an expression of a metaphysical doctrine, i. e. that a single substance, e. g. Mind, underlies a diversity of its manifestations. But, more usually, it is offered as a corrective to prejudicial behavior. As such, it is based on the presumption that the hatred of differences is best treated by the denial of Difference. Plainly, to prescribe the denial of difference to cure the hate of Difference only validates the hate-ability of it. In contrast, the non-evasive corrective to the hatred of Difference is the cultivation of an appreciation of it. In other words, the effective cure of prejudice entails the cultivation of Will, the mode of comportment towards another qua other. It also may entail a rejection of metaphysical Monism, insofar as such a doctrine is the source of antipathy towards Difference.

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Will and Duties Towards Others

Rational agents are equal before Kant's Moral Law. Hence, the distinction that he draws between duties towards oneself and duties towards others is problematic within his system. The very distinction between self and others presupposes a principle of Differentiation in Experience, i. e. Will. On that basis, the fundamental duty towards another consists in a cultivation of respect for them qua other, i. e. a cultivation of Will as being-towards-others. Non-interference in the Freedom of another is one expression of that respect, to which the closest that Kant can approximate is non-interference in the Freedom of a rational being, who must remain anonymous, according to his rational principle.

Saturday, September 24, 2011

Will and Other as End-in-itself

Kant sometimes conceives an other as an 'end-in-itself', the promotion of whose happiness is one's duty, a duty which one does not have towards oneself. This concept is the product of a questionable teleological representation of Freedom, beginning with an inference from the prohibition of interference in Freedom, to the obligation to promote the happiness of the possessor of Freedom, i. e. that of a rational agent. On empirical grounds alone, the inference is invalid, because the promotion of the happiness of an other can sometimes support their Freedom, e. g. the provision of food can strengthen them, but can, on other occasions, amount to the same indulgence that seems to be Kant's reason for not obligating one to promote one's own happiness. More likely, the inference is based on his thesis that a rational agent 'deserves' Happiness, a thesis which, as has been argued previously, questionably presupposes that the happiness of an individual is of interest to impersonal Reason. So, absent the admirable but unconvincing teleological interpretation of Freedom, an other, to Kant, is a self-activating entity, i. e. is a possessor of Will.

Friday, September 23, 2011

Will and the Motility of Others

What, for notably Sartre and Levinas, plainly distinguishes the Look or the Face from other phenomena are elements of animation. Thus, the positing of the existence of another entails the attribution of Motility to an entity, i. e. of self-activation, just as does the ascription of a 'soul' to any fauna. But, Motility is Will. Hence, in at least those cases, the ground of the positing of the existence of others is their presumed possession of Will.

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Will, The Look, The Face

The occasions that for Sartre and Levinas are encounters with alterity only betray the methodological priorities of each. For Sartre, the consciousness of the 'Look' of another is the basis of Being-for-Others, while for Levinas, the 'Face' of another constitutes an interpersonal demand on one. Sartre, therefore, implies that there is no being-for-others in the presence of a blind person, while Levinas implies that a cry in the dark is a merely impersonal phenomenon. In other words, both cases attest only to the fidelity of each thinker to the privilege of vision in experience, which, if a legacy of Berkeleian Phenomenalism, also entails the denial of the reality of depth in Experience. Furthermore, that an auditory experience can also be the occasion of an encounter with another confirms that the decisive dimension of such an encounter is Will, i. e. how one extends oneself towards an object of an encounter on the basis of what is given in the encounter.

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Will and the Existence of Others

The question of 'the existence of others' is typically classified as a cognitive problem, i. e. as a possible fact requiring methodical grounding. Even for Levinas, for whom it is the fundamental problem of Ethics, that existence is given as a phenomenological datum, i. e. the Face of an other. In contrast, for both Aristotle and Kant, the existence of another is a practical problem, i. e. posited in the treatment of another as the same kind of 'Self' that one is. The shortcoming of such an analogy is that it assimilates an other to oneself. In contrast, in Will, the principle of indefinite Diversification, one comports oneself toward an other qua irreducibly other, i. e. what it posits is the existence of a truly 'other'.

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Will, Perspectivism, The 'Look'

As previously discussed, the Perspectivism of Heidegger entails Will, because it entails the positing of the existence of 'the' world that exceeds that of one's own world, and Will is the principle of Excession in Experience. More generally, Perspectivism also entails Will, insofar as it entails the existence of alterior perceptual fields. because Will is the principle of Diversification, i. e. any projection beyond one's own world to that of another entails Diversification. Without such a projection, even the awareness of being looked at, which Sartre and Levinas each cite as proof of the existence of others, remains only an uncomfortable phenomenon. In other words, insofar as each remains committed to phenomenological methodology, for which projections such as analogies and inferences are not evidentiary, the 'look' that each attributes to an 'other' never transcends the interiority of a for-itself.

Monday, September 19, 2011

Will, Phenomenon, Thing-in-Itself

According to the model of Experience being developed here, a phenomenon represents immediately an encounter of Will with some object to it. Hence, the proper characterization of a basic phenomenal datum is 'I have encountered something', not, as is traditionally the case, some quality. Further refinement of that basic datum often yields a proposition in which a constructed 'object' serves as the logical subject. Now, it is easy to conceive that the actual object of an encounter is modified by the encounter, e. g. an ice cube will immediately begin to melt when touched by a warmer finger. Hence, it is unproblematic to distinguish an object qua 'appearance' in an encounter from that qua 'in-itself', i. e. from its condition outside of the context of an encounter. In other words, on this model, a phenomenon is neither equivalent to an appearance nor does it represent a thing-in-itself. This concept of a phenomenon plainly diverges from that of most Phenomenalisms, and, seemingly from Kantianism, as well. On the other hand, that the product of Kantian cognitive processes is a proposition, not a thing, suggests the possibility that this concept is implicit in that system.

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Will, Comprehension, Individuation

As previously discussed, 'individual' has two meanings--the common one, 'discrete', and the literal one, 'undivided'. The two are not equivalent--the discreteness of A and B from one another does not entail that either is internally coherent, while the internal coherence of A does not entail the existence of any other entity. In the context of personal Experience, discrete individuality can be characterized as 'public', and coherent individuality as 'private'. Heidegger exemplifies a typical confusion of public and private individuality, when he treats the totalization effected by Being-towards-Death, a private process, as public individuation. Similarly, some influential contemporary political Egoisms, e. g. Rand's and Goldwater's, believe that private selfishness suffices to establish social opacity. In Formaterialism, private individuation is a product of Comprehension, while the public variety is effected by Will, in a process in which, as has been discussed, the establishment of one's own individuality entails the recognition of that of others. This analysis that public individuation is not exclusionary, confirms the result of Kant's different procedure that demonstrates that the 'I' only has objective validity as universalized. So, Rand's hostility towards Kant is understandable, but its groundlessness is not justified.

Saturday, September 17, 2011

Will and Self-Objectification

Among the objects that Will encounters, and perhaps the most frequent ones, are parts of one's body, e. g. when one's right hand touches one's left wrist. Such an encounter itself is to be distinguished from the Comprehension of it, i. e. from the representation of the entire process, on the basis of which the existence of the object of touch can be inferred. But, an encounter entails the resistance of an object to Will, which in this case is the Motility of the left wrist, i. e. of Will itself. Hence, the event entails a double encounter, including, as well, one in which the right hand is an object to the left wrist, which, in turn, is also represented, by another exercise of Comprehension. An intra-corporeal encounter can thus be characterized as 'self-objectification', which is not to be confused with the more fundamental process in which Will is the matter of Comprehension.

Friday, September 16, 2011

Will and Individuation

Self-individuation deliberately effects secession from the world. However, while Heidegger presumes that his 'Being-towards-Death' produces self-individuation, what it actually accomplishes is an interiorization of one's involvements with the world. It, thus, entails, like the Cartesian phenomenalism that it continues, a nihilation of any external realm. The fundamental flaw of this approach is that self-individuation requires not interiorization, but exteriorization, i. e. Will. For, individuation is a two-place relation, i. e. it is only in the process of extending oneself towards others in the recognition of their individuality that one distinguishes oneself from them.

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Will, Death, Extension

Heidegger's 'Being-towards-Death' serves the same individuating function as Doubt does for Descartes, but without disembodying the Individual. However, he accomplishes the preserving of Corporeality by interpreting Extension teleologically, thereby ensnaring him in a notion of Death which, as has been previously argued, is convoluted and ultimately specious. What he misses is the process of Extending that he, as much as Descartes, hypostasizes as Extension. In contrast, here, Will is the process of Extending in personal Experience, and its Material Principle, thereby suggesting that the Formal Cause-Material Cause pair affords a more effective characterization of Individuation than does Teleological Causality.

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Will, Death, Certainty

Just as Descartes finds Certainty in Doubt, Heidegger discovers one's ownmost possibility of being-in-the-world in the thought of one's own Death. The parallel exposes Heidegger as located where he presumes he is not--within the Cartesian tradition that can be characterized as the 'History of Self-Certitude'. Now, as has been previously discussed, Heidegger never succeeds in presenting the thought of one's own Death as anything other than anonymous and empty. Consequently, the entire concatenation of involvements constituting being-in-the-world, for which that thought serves as the telos, similarly dissolves. What remains is Will, i. e. the principle of indefinite Motility in Experience, which Heidegger either neglects or suppresses en route to his securing an Understanding of Being.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Will, Perspective, Point of View

A 'perspective' is often understood to be a facet of some object. But, in the context of the expressing of an opinion, that it is the implicit 'whence' of the expression--a point of viewing more precisely than a point of view--becomes more obvious. In turn, a point of viewing is, most generally, the point of departure of viewing or of expressing that is implicit in any represented facet of an object. Now, as proposed here, Will is the dimension of Experience that proceeds from a point of departure. Hence, Perspective entails Will in this respect, as well as in that previously discussed.

Monday, September 12, 2011

Will, Being-in-the-World, Perspectivism

'Perspectivism' is a theory that can accommodate the experiential structure 'being-in-the-world', though it is unclear if Heidegger would accept the classification. For, a perspective is a uniquely personal locus of experience within a larger transpersonal arena. One main difficulty for Perspectivism is to ground the positing of a larger arena on the given inner locus. The model of Experience presented here offers such a ground--Will, as the principle of Excession, is the process of transcending the given, and, hence, is the origin of the possibility of a realm beyond what one perceives at any given moment. Thus, at least one coherent concept of being-in-the-world entails Will.

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Will and In-the-World

Also problematic for Heidegger's notion 'being-in-the-world' is the 'in'. For, its implication that all experience is intra-mundane seems to preclude the possibility of the private features, i. e. 'one's ownmost possibilities', that are central to his doctrine. In contrast, here, a 'world', as a totality of phenomena, is antecedent to the Comprehension of it, i. e. what is represented necessarily precedes the representation of it. Hence, such a totality has been interiorized by a subject, as part of its immediate past, as one's own world. On the other hand, Will is the exteriorizing principle of Experience that, in its encounters with other entities, exceeds its given world. In other words, Will is always outside a world, and, so, one is never currently 'in' a world. The contrast demonstrates that with the 'in' of 'being-in-the-world', Heidegger's ambition to challenge the traditional concept of a possible purely private experience, e. g. Leibniz' Monadism, overshoots its mark, i. e. it precludes any private dimension whatsoever.

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Will and World

Heidegger's notion 'being-in-the-world' implies the existence of a unique transpersonal world. In contrast, here, 'world' can be defined as 'the totality of encounterable objects', i. e. as 'the totality of objects to Will'. So, since, Will is one's own, the world which correlates to it is, likewise, one's own, i. e. there are a plurality of worlds. Accordingly, as Heidegger progressively discovers that the horizon of Experience is 'one's own possibility', he seems to fail to appreciate that the status of 'the' world becomes increasingly problematic.

Friday, September 9, 2011

Will, Comprehension, Being

In Being and Time, Heidegger pioneers a model of Experience in which cognition is not discrete from other organic processes. Accordingly, with some modifications of that model, the homeostatic function of Comprehension can be appreciated as 'Ontological'. The first of those modifications is the transformation of one's engagement with one's environment from a deficient mode to the expression of a positive principle, i. e. of Will. Second, a cumulative concept of Temporality replaces his 'ec-static' one. Finally, 'Being' is understood, in all cases, to be the Being of some specific person, which Heidegger insists upon in B & T, but seemingly strays from later, when 'Being' appears in contrast to 'beings'. The result of the modifications is a concept of Being as fundamentally a process of growth, entailing Will introducing experiential novelty, and Comprehension as integrating the novelty into the ongoing development of Being. As such, Comprehension re-stabilizes Being, a homeostatic process that can thus be classified as 'Ontological'.

Thursday, September 8, 2011

Will, Cognitive Dissonance, Data-Processing

Moments of 'cognitive dissonance' are like stumbling while walking--a struggle to integrate a new encounter into ongoing experience. They thus demonstrate the homeostatic function of Comprehension. Accordingly, the eventual resolving of the dissonance, resulting in a representation of the encounter, demonstrates that any phenomenon, like the maintaining of balance while walking, is the product of a stabilizing absorption of a disruption to Will. It is only upon subsequent analysis that a phenomenon is abstracted as a 'datum', and that Comprehension is construed as 'data-processing'.

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Will and Phenomenon

While Experience for both Heidegger and Sartre is both phenomenological and temporal, neither seems to recognize that the two principles conflict. Each inherits a model of the Consciousness-Phenomenon relation from Brentano, i. e. while a phenomenon is relative to a specific consciousness, it is, nevertheless, independent of it. Thus, though the course of Experience may be inter-phenomenally temporal, a specific phenomenon is experienced, intra-phenomenally, as a-temporal, e. g. Sartre's characterization of a phenomenon as 'being-in-itself', i. e. as unaffected by the temporalizing consciousness that entertains it. The systematic ramifications for each of their commitments to this uneasy hybrid are significant, e. g. Heidegger can present his readings of other doctrines as both interpretive and descriptive, and Sartre can conceive Consciousness as both a retentive and a dissociative process. In contrast, here, a phenomenon is a representation, the product of a synthesis the manifold of which is the process of Will conforming to an object that it encounters. Accordingly, a phenomenon is retained by the Comprehending mind, with the dissociation from it accomplished by a different process. And, a reading of a specific philosopher is as interpretive as the general historical theme in which it is framed.

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Will and Existential Knowledge

'Objective' knowledge is based on the representation of an encounter of Will with some object, articulated as 'there is something there', with that 'something' serving as the substratum subsequent predication. Thus, the 'existential quantifier' of contemporary Propositional Logic, 'there is an x', to which is conjoined, 'such that x is P', accurately formulates the basic proposition of objective knowledge. Similarly, the Existentialist doctrine, 'Existence precedes Essence'--i. e. that something is precedes what it is--typically applied to the subjects of experience, also accurately pertains to the objects of experience. Hence, it does not seem inappropriate to characterize the fundamental stratum of objective knowledge as 'existential' knowledge.

Monday, September 5, 2011

Will and Impression

The traditional Empiricist concept of an 'impression' is of a passive atomic experiential event. Peirce, among others, challenges the presumed Atomism of the concept, by arguing that even the barest sense-datum is the product of a synthesis of a manifold of neural vibrations. Furthermore, since, following Kant, such a synthesis is an internally generated process, Peirce's analysis also reveals that an impression is not entirely passive. However, insofar as the neural manifold is the effect of an external stimulus, it remains partly passive. In contrast, according to the formulation here, that Will is the immediate matter of Comprehension, the manifold of an impression is Motility conforming to an encountered object, which Comprehension represents as a unified sequence of motions. In other words, on this model, an impression is not something that is received, but is something that is taken.

Sunday, September 4, 2011

Will, Acquaintance, Knowledge

Russell's notion 'acquaintance' typifies the Empiricist concept of the subject-object relation. Acquaintance consists, most fundamentally in an object producing a sense-datum in the subject, with knowledge of the object further determined via an inference from the affect, to which the object presumably corresponds. Hence, acquaintance is an atomistic event that presupposes a tabula rasa condition of the subject, i. e. that it is discrete from any previous experience. In contrast, here the subject-object relation is conceived as an encounter of an object to Will, in which the Motility of the subject is impeded. Accordingly, the affect is, more precisely, a modification of the subject, i. e. a transition from one condition to the other, and, hence, is not discrete from previous conditions, e. g. even a bare sense-datum, prior to any further inference being drawn, is the product of a synthesis that combines two conditions of the subject. Hence, the distinction between acquaintance and encounter reveals that Russell's famous formulation, Knowledge by Acquaintance, presupposes Comprehension of an Encounter, and that any correspondence to an external object presupposes the attainment of intrasubjective coherence.

Saturday, September 3, 2011

Will, Comprehension, Object

In contrast the with traditional locution 'object of Knowledge', the relevant formulation here is 'matter of Comprehension'. For the latter expresses that Comprehension both effects Formal Causality on a manifold, and interiorizes it, i. e. 'object' is inappropriate insofar as it connotes 'over and against'. The more precise experiential relatum of an object is Will, specifically in the relation 'to' Will. For, Will is Motility, and the fundamental interaction of Will with an object is an encounter, i. e. an occasion of the impeding of Motility. Hence, an impediment can be characterized as an 'object to Will', with the encounter potential matter of Comprehension.

Friday, September 2, 2011

Will and Curiosity

By proposing that Intellectual Virtue is the highest virtue, Aristotle seems to imply that Curiosity, i. e. the desire to know, is not only a universal human drive, as he asserts at the outset of the Metaphysics, but the pre-eminent one. However, whereas his ideal of Knowledge is thought-thinking-itself, at the end of that paragraph in the Metaphysics, he clarifies that Curiosity often seeks to bring to light "the differences between things", which seems antithetical to the private, self-sufficient homogeneity of the ideal. Now, as developed here previously, Will is the principle of Diversification in Experience, so Curiosity entails Will. On that basis, Aristotle's privileging of Intellectual Virtue seems, with respect to the rest of his theory of Knowledge, as anomalous as it is with respect to his notion of Practical Virtue, which entails that the locus of the fulfillment human Rationality is the public association with others.

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Will, Comprehension, Vitalism

The traditional debate, often rendered as 'Rationalism vs. Empiricism', and classified as 'Epistemological', is an expression of a more fundamental conflict--Intellectualism vs. Vitalism. The former holds that the desire to know is the highest human principle, while the latter, that the drive to stay alive is. In contrast, the concept, presented here, of Comprehension as fundamentally homeostatic, is Vitalistic, but without subordinating Comprehension to self-preservative processes. For, the life-principle that is proposed here, is what has previously been introduced as 'Evolvement', i. e. growth, and to Evolve combines a Formal Principle and a Material Principle, i. e. Comprehension and Will, respectively. Hence, even qua serving its homeostatic organic function, Comprehension, is, in this system, not depreciated, as are intellectual processes in the various traditional Vitalisms, e. g. Sentimentalism, Bergsonism, Existentialism, etc.