From another thread: Let us take up philosophy. Let me start with Kierkegaard: one cannot philosophize from the absolute point of view, because one cannot be indifferent to the impact of one's
speculations on one's own fate. There is a fundamental bad faith to a comprehensive philosophy that does not recognize the true situation of the philosopher...
Second, let us bring in Nietzsche: the connection of truth, beauty, and the good is an assumption that regulates most philosophy. As such, it limits what can be contemplated, and therefore calls into question the trajectory of any philosophy which takes it as a
starting point. What if truth is ugly? What if it is inimical to human values? What if life thrives on illusion? Since the stakes involved in speculating on the meaning of everything are so high, how could we possibly guarantee objectivity?...
Third, let us bring in the irreducible problem of post- Cartesian philosophy: granted that we encounter objects in consciousness, and that consciousness itself has its own forms that determine how objects are presented to us, how can we be confident that our intuitions and inferences adequately reflect the reality independent of consciousness? Kant tried to make a virtue out of agnosticism about the Thing- in- Itself, but Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel were dissatisfied, and Hegel developed an elaborate theory that made history the development of the Absolute, through human consciousness, and thus enabled the philosopher to take the Absolute viewpoint at the end of history, which he construed to have essentially fulfilled itself in the concept of ordered liberty present in constitutional
monarchy. Of course, the simplest objection to Hegel is to say that there was plenty of ideologically driven strife to go, and therefore it does not look as if he had attained the absolute standpoint. But in addition, the question is merely begged by the development of
several more or less likely narratives and thematic elaborations, as in "The Phenomenology of Spirit", "The Philosophy of History", and "The History of Philosophy". In other words, in the final analysis he assumes the principle, and than organizes the facts to make his case...
On the other hand, Kant is unsatisfactory, and it is clear that some reality about the Thing- in- Itself must be reflected in consciousness, since even in Kant the object supplies the
"matter" and the consciousness supplies the "form" of phenomena. Therefore, we are somewhere between pure agnosticism (or skepticism) and the possibility of an absolute standpoint. But before we go on, we must decide if we think the universe is ultimately hospitable to human concerns, or indifferent and/or hostile to them. This is such a
fundamental choice, because it has to be made before we can claim anything like knowledge of the matter, and we can never be sure of the extent to which it biases our subsequent speculation, that on the most important matters, philosophy is more like a way of clarifying our options then of answering our questions, and choice is finally
unavoidable...
I think that Kant is a sufficient answer to Hume (of course, I may underrate Hume), which is why I ignored him....
As a practical matter, as long as we are reasonably sure that the phenomena are amenable to analysis, we don't much care why inference "works", only how to do it well. We are like the mechanic who doesn't care much for the theory of the internal combustion engine, but wants to soup up his rod...However, the Abyss matters too, and now that the taken- for- grantedness of our values and customs has been disturbed, we need to figure out how to
proceed. For Nietzsche, we are free to encourage those values that embrace life, and therefore he encourages the elites to rebel against the democratic tide and create a world in their own image, proud, life- affirming, and full of the aspiration to create. However, this is
not sufficient, as even he recognizes in hoping for the rise of the Ubermensch, who can persist in the face of the knowledge of futility, embedded in the image of the Eternal
Return...
Positivism is less serious than Nietzche, because it tries to shrug off the problem as a cultural relic, as if we can go on with no care for the meaning behind our striving...Ultimately, I think that philosophy must acknowledge at least the possibility of an ultimate
grounding for the cosmos, whether it be God, or the Logos (or Tao)...
Well, that is very Nietzschean of you:-)...but the conviction that the Abyss is the truth is not truly forced upon us by the facts, either. Instead, we talk of resisting anthropomorphic hubris, or being manly enough to accept the facts, or some other such thing that indicates that we are proud of ourselves for not being taken in. Once, when I was much younger, I was on a bus with my wife on my way to Georgetown, in Northwest D.C. At a bus stop on Capitol Hill, a rough looking black teenager came on the bus, and as he passed us there was something that made me uneasy, but I couldn't put my finger on it. I had the impulse to move my wife's purse, but I didn't, because I was afraid that my unease was vaguely racist. Well, at the next stop he snatched the purse, that I could easily have moved with
out any commotion, and as I chased him out of the bus, only stopping as he hopped a fence into a project, I felt like an awful fool. I knew, knew! that he had eyed the purse as he went by, but my inability to make a clear case, and my fear of acting according to
stereotypes, led me to folly.Of course, if I had moved the purse, or if he had changed his mind for some reason, I might never have known for sure that I was right. In the same way, I feel that I know that there is something other than the Abyss, although I cannot
prove it definitively, and I might be accused of anthropomorphic hubris. Only this time, I don't care, I will move the purse<VBG>....
Nietzsche (of whom I am very fond, remember) made the best of a bad situation. Since there is no overarching, cosmic criterion by which to critique values, there is nothing to say that we cannot promote those values that we prefer, values which encourage strength
and creativity, and favor the talented and the brave. So far, not so bad. Of course, since we cannot rely upon argument to command agreement, we must either enforce the values through the common range of sanctions, formal and informal, or persuade through
rhetorical and propagandistic means. This assumes, of course, that the philosopher will ever have such a command of the "cultural levers", or that those the philosopher favors will see that they have the opportunity to break free of bad conscience and take control of
the cultural levers on behalf of those values. However, if one believes in a more laissez- faire approach to culture, then the idea of self- creating humanity is laughably far off, and we will continue to muddle through with the usual range of conflicts of belief and
value:-)...
As for God as the Moral Lawgiver, I agree with Kant that we have moral convictions before belief in God. He thought that we believe in God because it is the only way that we can conceive of justice being ultimately vindicated. To Kant, the belief was justified because the question was materially irresolvable, and therefore we were at liberty to believe that which squared with our sense of justice...
Now, Nietzsche himself was faced with a problem, which is that the Abyss is the Abyss is the Abyss, which he created a trope for--- The image of the Eternal Return, which is the ultimate image of futility, although one could just as well substitute the "heat death of the
universe", or the current fave, "the rubber- band universe" that expands until it collapses on itself, and begins a new cycle of BANG! (Where are your "progress and survival of the species" then?) Finally, the idea of the opportunity for man to take control of his own destiny wasn't enough, which is why he developed the idea of the Ubermensch. What was the primary characteristic of the Ubermensch? That he be able to embrace the Eternal Return and still affirm life!If one is honest, it is not so easy to do...
Anyway, there are various choices, and you have made one which is not ignoble, so I will leave it at that for the time being.... |
