WRITING SUBJECTS for 12th IPO
IPO 2004 AWARD ESSAYS
The will to truth requires critique -let us define our task in this way- the value of truth must for once,
by way of experiment, be called into question¡¦
Leopold Hess (Poland)
Well, that is a controversial statement, sending a shiver down our spine, isn't it? Instinctively we reject it, as it shakes the fundaments of our culture. How can one call in question the value of truth, or maybe rather Truth (this word was always treated like a sacred one and it feels like a blasphemy to start it with a small letter)? How can one criticize the will to truth? And nevertheless, that is just what Nietzsche did. Was he right?
Almost three millenniums of European history shout: "No". Since the times of Tales, the search of truth has always been the inspiration of human thoughts and deeds, the motor of progress, the parent of philosophy and science. Indeed, we can't imagine our culture developing without it. For all of us, especially for philosophers, the truth was always the most important. As Aristotle said: amicus Plato, sed magna amica veritas. And it means not only that he dared to criticize Plato's philosophy, but also that probably, if it was necessary, he would sacrifice his friend in the name of Truth. And we would understand it.
But still, there are arguments against the truth[1], even if it needs some courage to admit it. The problem with truth is that, if it is to be real, it has to be one and only, absolute Truth. And absolutes hate rivalry. We know it well from our history - the teacher of life, as Cicero said. Europe remembers the burning pyres of John Hus, Giordano Bruno and thousands and thousands of others - the effects of one and only truth of the Church - but still many people were able to believe in one and only truth of Marx or Hitler - and once again masses of victims burned in fire or froze to death in the snows of Siberia. And even today millions starve, so close to Seoul, in the name of truth.
Let's assume these are but tragic accidents. Nevertheless truth is often, as Foucault would say, a mean of power and slavery. It is a source of political and cultural discrimination of ethnic, religious, sexual or any other minorities - even in the so-called liberal democracies. This may sound very leftist, but, unfortunately, it is not an exaggeration. If we believe, as we often do, there is only one true and proper way of life, tolerance and freedom become hollow sounds.
The truth or the will of truth can also be a source of more subtle, 'inner' slavery. Our minds are often bound by opinions, customs etc. which are 'obviously true'. And even if we realize it, we are sometimes not able to think in other way. This is a slavery much worse than a political one.
"But, one might say, truth is a mean of power and slavery, only if we assume that we can know it for sure. And usually we just search the truth, not have it. This gives a field for criticism, freedom and tolerance." You're right, of course, but actually very few people can admit that they don't know the truth for sure and they're still searching (they are sometimes called philosophers¡¦). Most of normal, reasonable people are absolutely sure of what they know and believe. And there's also a bigger problem. If we can only search truth and not have it or know it, how can we ever find it? Isn't the search futile? Aren't we just chasing shadows? Isn't that terribly frustrating? Oh, yes, it is. And in our search of ever-running truth don't we lose something; don't we forget about our lives? Of course, I don't want to say we should just 'cultivate our own garden', like Voltaire wrote in Le Candide. But maybe we should rather search a good life than truth. One could say (e.g. Aristotle) there is no good life without the search for truth. And there is no culture and civilization. But aren't the culture and civilization just sources of suffering and pain, as Rousseau or Freud wrote?
So it seems there might be a conflict between the truth and good life (whatever this might mean)[2]. However the search of truth was always the essence of philosophy. But maybe that was wrong. Maybe we should have replaced metaphysics[3] with ethics (understood very widely as the whole of reflection over our lives) on the throne of "the prime philosophy".[4] Maybe we could live better lives if we considered truth as nothing but a pragmatic instrument. In fact there is quite a lot of philosophers who think like that (e.g. R. Rorty), mainly thanks to Nietzsche (and American pragmatists like James, Dewey or Santayana).
Why would that live without truth and 'will to truth' be better? First of all it would be free. Free of the boundaries of common truths, free of totalitarism and discrimination. Free for tolerance, individual opinions and faith, free for art. Also it could be better, since we would turn all our intellectual effort, frustrated in the vain search of truth, to problems of ethics and our own existence. Maybe we could get closer to Nietzsche's ideal of Superhuman or any other ideal of mankind.
"But, one could say again, without the search of truth, the science is impossible, so the progress and development is impossible." Is it really? Do the modern scientists search the truth or rather the ways of solving problems and satisfying our needs? But let's assume there is no progress without the ideal of truth. Do we really need the progress? Do we need better technologies and machines etc.? Weren't our ancestors happy without computers and cars and without the theory of relativity? Don't get me wrong, I do not think there were more happy than we are, I'm not a hippie, but I think we should not assume they were less happy. Indeed, conditio humana has very little to do with civilization. People from ancient times or from non-European cultures (who did not know our conception of progress or truth) lived in different cultural situations, different societies and political systems, but they were the same people. Of course, some aspects of the human condition do change, sometimes drastically[5]. But some things don't ever change. People always loved and hated, cried and laughed, they always asked the questions "how should I live", "what should I do". And I believe they didn't need, and we do not need in our times, computers and spacecraft, as well as the absolute truth of Christianity, communism or any other, to answer these questions. Thinking that all the people do need these is just another manifestation of the imperialism of truth.
So there are strong arguments against the truth. But there are also ones for it.. Firstly, we don't know if a man can lead a good life without searching for truth and knowledge. It is quite believable this is the actual best and most noble of human activities. And maybe the most natural. All the people, by nature, desire knowledge, says Aristotle. Secondly, the world still needs true ideas of justice and peace and freedom, and ways of achieving them. Thirdly, even if we treat truth as simply pragmatic, we still need it to solve our problems. We need true facts, opinions etc. for practical reasons. So we cannot refute the truth in general, but only redefine it.
Now, after all this, we can ask ourselves: can we or should we call in question the value of truth? But wait a moment - that's just what we did on these pages. After all, calling into question does not mean negation or refutation, just a revision and reconsideration. For many centuries philosophers reviewed and criticized many particular truths - the truths of common sense or religion, the truths of other philosophers. Nietzsche just said that it is time to call into question the very idea of truth. He crossed a certain border and opened a 'meta-level' of reflections on truth[6]. In fact, crossing the borders of thought is the real essence of philosophy.
We should all ask ourselves the question about the value of truth, but the answers have to be individual. Nietzsche rejected the will to truth, considering all truths to be in fact lies, metaphors used to falsify the reality. I wouldn't be so radical. The truth is certainly a value, but only as long as it is not given priority over life and freedom (in a very wide sense of this word). And I still would claim ethics and existential reflection to be more important than metaphysics or any other intellectual activity.
Is the truth beyond our cognition?
Joanna Kusiak (Poland)
1) Introduction
A man, as a human being, has a natural need to look for the truth. Hence philosophy - the very human nature is connected with constant asking why, with attempts at answering the question about the essence of the world as well as the essence of ourselves. This implies all the questions about the truth in the metaphysics, science, aesthetics, ethics etc. But we can interpret Nietzsche's thesis as a postulate not to search for the truth any more. Does it make sense to ever-repeat our trials if we have failed so many times? In this essay I would like to consider why should be the value of truth called into question, what the possible answers to this questions are and how it does affect our existence. It is important to highlight that Nietzsche's way of experiment means not only and not so much some empiric (scientific) methods. In fact, all the human reflection - rational, intuitive or even mystic - is an experiment, in which we, in many different ways, try to find out whether our theses on some essential problems are true - whatever it could mean.
2) Why is some (objective, transcendent) truth impossible?
If we consider the truth as something transcendent, there are many arguments that it is impossible to reach it. Those were sceptics who first gave the plenty of reasons that we are to fail. Then, this thesis has been often repeated over the years of philosophical tradition. Sceptics' ideas can be related to a common sense of an average man and can be derived from everyday's experience. Why also is the truth impossible?
a) the truth is beyond our competence (Kant, Wittgenstein)
It was Kant who completed Hume's ideas showing that we are not able to reach the truth. There are in fact two worlds - the first one consists of phenomena (appearances), the second one is the world of things in itself - noumena. We are able to know much about the former, but the fact is, that we know mostly this, what we ourselves put into this world (space, time, cathegories etc.). It is a kind of inter-subjectivity, so, in a Heiddegerian-like interpretation of the word, it is a subjectivity that is common, among us and affects our lives. However, it cannot proclaim the rights to any objectivity. The truth in ontological meaning (vide Plato) is beyond our competence. Hence every attempt at reaching it has to be a failure and implies antinomies. We can only postulate some metaphysical ideas to implement the idea of moral law and freedom (there is no freedom in the world of starry sky - of appearances). Such a way of thinking was also presented in the first philosophy of Wittgenstein (Tractatus logico-philosophicus), who was sure that what cannot be expressed has to be passed by in silence.
b) What we call laws are hypotheses (Popper)
According to Popper all that we consider as a truth (especially in science) is just a hypothesis. In fact, we can say that Popper rejects the truth as well as the falsity - the former is unreachable, the latter is not worth proclaiming and has to be falsificated. However, he never rejects the sense of our attempts. We have to search for the truth in order to be ever-nearer to it. The period of corroboration has much a pragmatical meaning. We have to put a hypothesis just to enable the science to develop - but it will always lead us to falsification and consequently to form the new hypothesis. Partly from this, a conception of Feyerabend that anything goes in science is derived. But the very conclusion of their ideas is that no one and objective truth is probable to be discovered. However, it should not disturb neither our development nor our existence.
c) Everything changes (Heraclitos, Bergson)
One more reason of our inability to reach the truth is that there is nothing in the world static and passive. Here Heraclitos as well as Bergson is to be mentioned. Panta rei - is the life, the world, the truth a part of elan vital? Probably is our intellect incompetent. We would like (vide Descartes) everything to be simple, clear and distinct. But the truth may be neither clear nor distinct, and in fact too complicated for the intellect, which, like a searchlight at night, cuts only a piece of reality and - in ontological meaning - a piece of truth. Bergson postulates to use an intuition - but there are both arguments for and against. We can never be sure that there is any common dimension, any objectivity or even inter-subjectivity of every man's intuition. Consequently there is no certainty that we find objective truth is allowed to be proclaimed.
d) Postmodern de(con)struction (Derrida)
Derrida rejects the notion of the truth by treating the reality like a great puzzle. To continue this metaphor, it really does for him no matter if the picture fits. He claims that his concept is derived from Nietzsche. However, the destruction is here not followed by any lasting construction that was present in Nietzsche's philosophy, as an idea of new values on the top of which the will to power is placed. Unlike Derridian, Nietzsche's nihilism was both passive and active. However, criticizing Derrida do not allow us to abolish his argument that every philosophical conception (also of the truth) is not full, it lacks something and therefore can be destructed.
e) Mysticism, Zen, Taoism
The western societies consider every notion as having two possibilities - either to be true or false. But the eastern mystics are convinced that it is our error - they say that something can be both true and false - and even something more at the same time. This idea has to be also mentioned even if it is treated by the western philosophers at least with reserve. However, in some of the aspects (naturally not fully, I am aware that is a provocative thesis), it can be compared to Hegel's conception, where everything is true and necessary. And the synthesis has in itself both thesis and antithesis - and even something more.
3. The immanent truth
Those are we who look for the truth. Consequently, we have to consider often repeated in the history of philosophy thesis, that there is no point in trying to transcendent somewhere beyond us to reach the truth. Since the times of Socrates, we must be aware of the possibility that the truth lives inside us ad we have only to find the way to give birth to it - or to find a midwife to help us.
a) Kierkegaard and Nietzsche - beyond good and evil, beyond truth and false
When Nietzsche says that the notion of truth has to be rejected, he means the upon-mentioned one objective truth which actually can never be fully justified. He calls himself a dynamite that destroys all those inflexible ideas - all that was reached by the philosophy up to his time. Paradoxically, though hating the Socrates has Nietzsche's philosophy much from his one. Want yourself - such an aphorism describes perfectly the rules of overman. In another aphorism he talks about the situation of him and his contemporaries (in fact also about our situation) - someone has wiped our horizon with a piece of sponge (own translation - aut.) That also means that if we are like a ship, trying to reach the coast of truth, we would never manage to do it. But maybe this voyage is the truth in itself - when we are cruising, we are the true. That meant also Kierkegaard when he wrote that the truth is subjectivity. Every man has to find the truth in his own existence. This is not relative in a sophistic, pragmatic way - it is just present inside everyone of us, to paraphrase St.Augustin's thought.
b) Postmodern (de)construction (Rorty, new rethoric)
It was Rorty who supplements Derridian destruction with some construction that allows us to escape from the void of sense, as Waldenfels calls it. Rorty postulates not to use the notion of truth - nobody and nothing is true, they are just the others. That implicates some plurality, but also it prevents us from ruling of such conception (in philosophy, politics, science and culture as well) that has the strongest voice to drown out the others. I would add to it what Husserl and Waldenfels consider as very important - the experience of strangeness. In fact, we all are strangers, but the truth about this strangeness is derived from our immanence (I find the stranger inside me). Hence, there is a common dimension. We should treat every Kierkegaard's truth-subjectivity with the Plessner's idea of the open immanence. We should be opened for the truth of the strangeness, like in a Socratic dialogue. Steiner postulates the idea of alternity - nothing is neither true nor false, neither better nor worse. The otherness has the same laws. This leads of course to a kind of anarchy, but this an-archy could be as well understood Heideggerian-like. Then it consists also of arche in an ancient Greek's meaning. Hence the otherness may be the essence of our lives, the truth.
c) The problem of some common dimension
Even when we, after Husserl, find the strangeness inside us and open us for the strangeness and its truth, there is no certainty that this would be enough to reach any dialogue. The Socratic truth is discovered when we talk to each other, trying to understand the stranger as well as ourselves. Here could help what Perelman calls a new rhetoric - the fair rhetoric. When we are not able to understand some aspects of the plurality. Hence we are to search for some cross-points, but also to listen to stranger's voice even without rational understanding. This would give us, due to Perelman, the whole picture of the world. From the two ways - destroying the otherness (also in the aspect of truth) and accepting the immanent truth of the strangeness, the second one is much better.
d) The impossibility to self-abstract
As Heidegger mentions, our Being is always Being-in-the world (in-der-Welt-sein). This implicates that we are so strongly connected to the world that it makes no sense to look for the truth somewhere beyond. There is no transcendent truth, my in-der-Welt-sein is the truth itself. As Merleau-Ponty notices, the truth of the world is a synthesis of all the possible horizons of experience. This synthesis is never full, but we have an acces to the truth from our side. The truth is a-letheia, something has to be covered in order for something to be re-covered (dis-covered).
4.Conclusion
We have the choice how to answer the Nietzsche's calling the truth into question. We can, for example, reject the notion of the truth. In opposite stays the dogmatism with all its advantages and disadvantages - but should it really be the attitude of philosophers? Another possibility is to admit that here are two main aspects of the truth - the transcendent and the immanent. I would propose to differ from them. For the scientific aims, the best idea seems to be the one of Popper, rejecting relativism and dogmatism as well, enabling us to develop the science and supporting some pragmatical aspects of living. As far as ethics is considered, it would be good either to accept Kantian postulates of practical reasons (with the conscious these are only the postulates), or to try to find the truth in our Being-in-the world, Being-with-people and Being-oneself. Generally, I am convinced that we definitely should not resign from our searchings - and so is my interpretation of Nietzsche's philosophy. I answers this ambiguous Nietzsche's quotation with another one that is also taken from his writings: Why not to err? There is no way to succeed but erring. Moreover, there is another advantage of constant asking. Hence I end up with Elzenberg's citation: The wisdom is just a side effect of our trials both to reach the truth and to systematize our acts and thoughts. Moreover, it is often that it is the only effect.
Jean-Paul Sartre on freedom
Lukas Steinacher (Austria)
"I am not 'free'[¡¦]"- that is the central thesis of this excerpt taken from "Being or Nothingness." And Jean-Paul Sartre, the author, against expectation does not base it on mere abstract theories. His central argument instead is taken from the experience of "common sense". (l.1) Therefore he describes the experience of "impotence", which he mainly grounds on the fact that we are "far from being able to modify our situation at our whim". (l.2) According to this point Sartre is obviously right. The examples given in the quotation make it clear. You cannot decide neither when you are born, nor where and-most important- you even cannot determine if you want to be born anyway. Concerning these facts you hardly could deny Sartre's that "the Other is the hell". However this sentence, as far as we can make it out from the thoughts developed before, is only valid in the sense that the Other roles you your freedom and for this reason disables you to decide from the autonomy of your will.
However Sartre claims wider validity for his thesis than just the meaning of dependency on the conditions of birth would have. For when he says that we are "unable to change ourselves" and justifies it with the same argument as above- the social dependency- the consequence must be that the individual has no qualities but the ones given to him by his social group. Every person at the moment of his birth would then be a "tabula rasa" not only in the narrow sense that he/she does not have experienced anything, but in the radical meaning it is a "nothingness."
Let us take this thought for true for a moment to see if it is persuasive or not. If we follow Sartre's type of argument, we will soon see that the common sense does not only suggest the idea of dependency, but the idea of freedom as well. Let us stick to an example of every-day-life to let this thought become clearer. If anyone hits another person the hidden one will not believe that the other one would not have been able to decide different. This is mainly because the hidden person for himself sees the possibility of acting a different way. He would basically justify this belive as follows: The person who has hidden me theoretically must have seen the possibility not to hit me (because I see that myself) he has decided to me, but it was him who did it - he knew what he was doing. He might have been in anger, but he would have had to control himself."
We see from this hypothetical situation. Common sense postulates the freedom of the will as well, as he might give us the impression of dependency. Therefore in case of our topic "Is the human being principally free or not?" common sense does not give a clear, but even contradictory answer. For this reason we have to find other arguments the question we are dealing with.
The example given, as well as the quotation itself, should be a hint for us to find a solution for our problem, which at the same time, if it is persuasive, must enable us to solve the "antinomy of common sense" we have discovered before.
In the example the fictive person thought: "He [the hitting person] knows what he has done." If we once take this for guaranteed, we are providing that the person has a self-consciousness and is able to reflect. So we cannot pass over the Cartesian Cogito. As it seems the key to the question of freedom is layed down in the opportunity of reflection. Reflection itself includes freedom: it is nothing else but the freedom of realization. It is this kind of freedom Sartre himself makes use of: He reflects on the entity of human being. This reflection includes the thought, I reflect¡¦-and this thought makes it necessary to see oneself as a free individual in so far as the reflection is based upon my will, because it enables me to recognize that it would even possibly not to reflect in this moment. You easily recognize that we developed the thought from an idea of absolute impotence-with the help of cogito to Kant's idea of the transcendental Ego. Kant's theory might even enable us to get a more precisely idea of the problem of freedom as it has shown up in the experience of common sense. The "antinomy" we saw there is nothing but one of the antinomies of practical reason, which is based on the fact that according to the laws of theoretical reason and the sector of the outward world which it refers to, everything is following unbreakable material laws; however there is also the experience of an autonomic will, which shows up, as we saw, as soon as you develop self-consciousness. (Herein, moreover, you can see another argument against Sartre's statement, because if you guess yourself just being a product of the outer world you could never develop an inner sense, could never discover an Ego, which you have to assume for any kind of reflection.) Kant, as you know, solves the practical antinomy with his theory of freedom, whereas he sets up to different worlds: the "sensual" and the "intelligible" one. It is clear as well that Kant was not able to solve the problem of freedom fully for it is necessary to make clear how the "transcendental entity of apperception" can cause anything in the sensual world, when itself is only a part of the intelligible world.
Nontheless it will be justified from the arguments given above to work with the idea of the autonomy of the will as a basis of our further argumentation. To accept this idea, by the way, does not mean to state that we are practically free- the consequence is only that we theoretically could be free in acting. Nothing else is meant by Kant when he claims freedom to be a "postulate of reason." As we have seen right at the beginning of this essay it is sure that we depend to a high extent on our (natural as well as social) living circumstances. However our will(no matter if good or bad) is standing up against this binding pressure of nature. He calls us to free ourselves and to become mature beings. Our worthiness is based on the consciousness of this postulate of reason and the possibility to follow it.
However here the notorious question comes up again: Are we able to follow our will, is in fact, our freedom a practical one?
Two anthropological qualities seem most important to me as regards this question. One is that we, as social beings, who can from a naturalistic point of view be characterized as "shortcoming beings" ("Maengelwesen" -Gehlen), the other is that we are mortal. Both illustrate our impotence and make up the decisive difference to the idea of God which especially since Aristotle can be defined as the "ens summe perfectum." It was Aristotle, too, who invented the idea of human as the "zoon politicon." He knew the dependency of humans well, he knew that they could not live without each other; however Aristotle's definition of man did not end at the point of pure dependency from nature, whose necessary development the state would. In common with the athenic tradition he thought of the state as a construct built by man and therefore politics as being based on the unity of the citizens' will. Does this idea of democracy based on the autonomy of the will have any justification if we at the same time have in mind that the state develops out of an anthropological necessity? If the development of a state- or let us say for the beginning more generally: a social construct- is a necessity the question must now be: Is there an absolute contradiction of necessity and freedom: Do they exclude each other a priori or might there be even an idea of a state, where one is including the other?
Before we discuss this question let us first have an overview about the generally possible access to the question of freedom. If you ask for freedom you can ask for it in two different ways:
1) What is one free from?
2) What is he/she free for?
It is easy to see that a definition of freedom, which takes only care of the first question will not be satisfying. In this case the superiest form of freedom, one can think of would be to be free from everything. However if you are free from everything you are as well a Nothingness as if you are free from nothing, because you then will not be able to define yourself. To be able to define something it is necessary to recommand its borders: If you have essential qualities they fix you and you are not completely free, but on the other hand if you do not have one, you are a Nothingness. Only the second question can tell us the way out of this paradox. If you are clear about what your essential qualities are, you are able to define what you are able to be free for seen from the "constitution" in the widest sense of the word and therefore you are then able to say what you should be free for. It is only possible to get this knowledge if you build up the ideal of yourself, because without this image you cannot say what is the aim of your will, because you are not clear about the "good will". According to this aspect Heidegger is right, when he says that you have to think about ontology before you think about ethics. If you have no idea about the essential conditions of human being you cannot found an ethic that fits to these conditions. That does not mean that only practical aspects are important to consider if you think about the possibility of a good life. Instead you have to bring the ideal to reality by considering its conditions.
Considering these conditions leads us according to Aristotle to the theory of politics and state. According to freedom we get a special hint in Hegel's theory. His idea is this of a dialectic development of state. The state develops from the state of necessity to the state of freedom(!) where the idea of "Sittlichkeit" has come true. This is reached, when every single will has become a unity with the "absolute reason" as Hegel imagines it.
However I would not follow Hegel in his idea in so far, as he states the development as a necessary process. According to the fundament we have worked out with the help of Kant's theory I am persuaded that the only possibility to reach this aim is laid down in the autonomy of the will. Therefore we will have to accept the idea that the state in reality may fail, because we have to accept the possibility of wrong decision.
We have to allow failing for the sake of freedom as long as we do not forget the ideal we are wanting to become reality. This concept obviously is an exceptional one and therefore it is not to be read as a practical advice.
It is instead written as a recommand of the necessity of utopia as an idea to go for and it is written as an apology of freedom; for the sake of humanity you are not allowed to deny freedom. Otherwise you are denying the possibility of man to be good-even if it is only within the borders of here and now.
FREEDOM ON A CHESSBOARD
Mert Bahadir Reisoglu (Turkey)
The remark of Sartre quoted above calls the ability to be free into question. It urges us to ask ourselves if we can be free while our freedom is limited by the society and even by our inability to control ourselves. It is a trick, for while Sartre seems to be reviewing the common claims of those who reject the possibility of freedom, he secretly defines what freedom is. Thus, in the disguise of an objective investigation of the counter-arguments that raises the question of 'Is it possible to be free?' the answer hides secretly in the structuring of the argument limiting the freedom of the reader to think of the problem in new ways.
Thus, instead of trying to answer this question of freedom, I'll analyze the ways in which Sartre defines what freedom is and thus raise a criticism against the existentialist idea according to which one can be free by making choices in one's life. According to my argument which follows the contemporary so-called antihumanist philosophy the argument of Sartre on the possibility of freedom depends on the assumption that human being is a subject, the very actor of his own actions. Therefore, for Sartre, being free is to be able to control oneself, to be sure that one's actions belong to oneself which one decides on his own. By making choices, by being 'himself'' one can be free despite the authority of the society and his own inability to control his own life. This idea requires a clear distinction between the self and others, as well as between the reason and the rest of the being of a human (such as instincts, emotions, etc.). However, to deny these binary oppositions and to accept that a human being is a 'thing among other things' (Heidegger), a being the identity of which depends on the whole structure of things will alter the definition of freedom made by Sartre. Freedom does not depend on making choices and determining who we are, but on the possibility of escaping one structure to enter into another, in other words, on being a traveller, on changing continuously and altering the structure in which the person looks for new ways to move.
After this brief summary about the argument of my essay which needs more clarification on the following pages, I can start analyzing the quotation of Sartre to see what type of a structure he imposes on the reader, and to try to find ways of escape.
If we look at the claims of those who reject the possibility of freedom, we can see that their claims depend on three different aspects of freedom :
1-) To be able to escape from the oppression of the society ('to escape the lot of my class, of my nation, of my family)
2-) To be able to control oneself ( 'to conquer my most insignificant appetites and habits')
These two distinctions serve to reach to a definiton of freedom and need to be investigated separately with regard to their links to the traditional philosophy and to the assumptions they bring forth.
People who are not familiar with the Western idea of the individual as opposed to the rest of society might ask why it is necessary to escape the class, the nation and the family to acquire freedom. This idea depends on the opposition between the self and others, and mainly stems from the Enlightenment philosophy in which the society is considered to be composed of separete individuals who are - in Lyotard's terms- in a constant 'Brownian motion' - an analogy to the movement of the atoms of a gas in a closed container. As separate atoms, individuals come together with their own goals and wishes, and give up their will for the common good obeying a social contract (Rousseau). In the new structure of society, they still continue pursuing their own goals in new ways and being a member of a society imposes several limits on their freedom. Hence, each individual has to face two choices : to accept the rules of the society and be a member in it or to reject its rules and to escape.
This type of argument seems to correspond to two different ethical considerations. On one side, the problem of being free is seen as an ethical choice between individual wishes, desires and the common good of everyone. On the other side, to be free is considered a political problem of oppression versus being oneself and rebelling against the rules of the society.
The first type of the conception of freedom which can be seen in religions as well as in the theories that emphasize the unity of the society takes the society itself as the most important. To be free is not to pursue one's own goals but to give up these needs, to serve to the society, which can be done by the help of ethical choices. The second one takes as its basis the individual itself, supporting not the integration of the individual into a unity but its differentiation from the whole claiming that serving to others is a totalitarian point of view which rejects freedom. It is said that in our contemporary society we are not able to be ourselves, to follow our own ends. Society imposes us rules that we must obey, giving us certain roles and demanding efficiency from us. Thus, we are stripped off from our identity. This can be seen in the works of most existentialist writers as well as in the avant-garde movement. In Camus' Stranger, Mersault, as a atomic individual who cannot figure out the meaning of his life, kills an Arab in his nausea whereas Breton, the founder of the surrealist movement, claims that 'The best surrealist action to make is to take a rifle and shoot over people.All of these explain the standpoint of Sartre according to whom 'The hell is others. One must either be a cog in a machine or to overcome that machine. The freedom of the individual depends on his ability to free himself from the chains of the society.
However, to reach to the true self beyond the tags and labels of the society, one must have a certain conception what the self is and what being ourselves means. For Sartre this is to be able to conquer our most insignificant appetites and habits, to be able to control ourselves. As the reader might guess, this force which decides what to do and what not to do, which decisions that will determine who we are to make is the reason itself. This is a separation, a dichotomy between the consciousness, reason and the rest part of our being. This idea can be traced back to the Platonic idea which states that reason governs all the other parts of our being like a horseman on a horse. But Sartre is mostly considered as a Cartesian who believes in the power of the ego and in our consciousness. When we obey the rules of our reason (as Descartes as well as Kant would agree) we can be free. Instincts, desires, unreasonable wishes prevent us from being ourselves, thus from being free.
Thus, for Sartre, being free is a combination of these two : It is to be able to control ourselves by reason, to be able to act rationally and to make decisions with clear thinking, by being conscious of our true selves not obeying the rules of the society but the rules of our reasoning. This is the way in which we act freely.
After having laid out the structure of the argument of Sartre in which he can prove that we can be free in our contemporary society, I can come to my criticism about the very elements of this structure, namely, the dichotomy between the self and the rest of the being or the dichotomy between the self and the others.
As Marx and then structuralists have shown, society is not a composition of different individuals who pursue their own goals, but a structure in which every individual acquires his own role. Our very goals, wishes and desires are determined in this very structure. Therefore, even if one escapes the institutions that have been formed such as the family, one is still not free, for his identity, his social being have been determined by the power relationships (Foucault). There is no outside of the structure.
This idea can best be understood while considering the self. Our selves are not dependent on reason for reason can be affected by our whole being. The effect of the subconscious (Freud), the effect of society and economical relationships (Marx) and power relationships and our will to power (Nietzsche) each influence who we are. It can be said that our choices and reasoning also effects this process, but it is clear that our perception of ourselves is open to change and society has a big influence on our identity. Our identity is not a unified whole, but it is directly relational to every other being (Heidegger). The hell is not others who influence our ethical choices but ethics (which is the way to acquire freedom) 'is the face of the other' (Levinas).
This introduces several problems to the existentialist idea of Sartre since while we make decisions, our decisions are in fact determined by the structure itself. In other words; to use Deleuzian terms, the domain of our possible choices is determined by an either-or mechanism in which we can choose something or the opposite of it, say yes or no, to be ourselves or not to be ourselves.
In this structure in which our every action is determined previously, in which the social terrain is structured like a chessboard, whatever we choose and whatever we do, we cannot be free since it is impossible to go against the society or to control our own actions. By trying to be an individual in fact we imprison ourselves to that identity which is a cog in a machine so that to be outside the mechanism is the same with being inside the mechanism/ To be an individual is not enough to be free. Instead, to reject the idea that freedom is to be ourselves, to be able to control ourselves and to determine who we are, what we are, and to try to distinguish ourselves from others and others' wishes with the illusion of a self is necessary to get freedom.
Therefore, the poststructuralist option in which we don't try to discover our identity and to control ourselves and hence to distinguish ourselves from others in an individualism but try to find new ways to exist, to seek to alter the conditions and not totally to reject the structure but to try to find its shortcomings and 'lines of flight' (Deleuze) is the best way to be a traveller, a person who continually seeks freedom and who in his travel from one existence to the other. As a conclusion, and as a line of flight from the structure of Sartre it is necessary to respond to Sartre's remark with a quotation from Foucault : "In our age what we can do best is not to discover ourselves but to reject who we are."
Existence and Freedom: Why Mankind can never be truly free
Seungwon Chang (Korea>
Man, ever since the beginning of human existence, has never been free. Social freedom, though it has been upheld by many esteemed philosophers, may actually be nothing but an illusion. Moreover, the notion that we are free seems ridiculous considering various circumstances. Sartre's opinion that we are not able to escape from the reality of our actual existence is a very good argument of this thesis. By saying that we are not free to "escape the lot of my class, of my nation ¡¦¡¦.to build up my own power or my fortune or to conquer my most insignificant appetites or habits," Sartre was trying to tell us that many aspects of social life are far beyond the control of ourselves.
Then why is it that we have no control of these matters, which are essential parts of our life and therefore presumably absolutely necessary to our existence? There may be many reasons, but I believe that one of the most important reasons is that the relationship between an individual and a society simply does not allow it. In the case of the individual and the society, there is a distinct difference in the powers either party can exercise upon the other. The individual is usually the loser, and thus we can deduct that one only has a weak influence on the society itself. Although there is the exception of social scientists and instigators, most individuals only have a flimsy appeal to society itself.
There is another aspect of society that we must not forget. According to the Taoist observations, society and all manmade things are nothing but wei, or artificialities. Moreover, Taoists claim that wei, as it is created by men, is imperfect and therefore prone to error and absurdity. This explains why personal freedom is hard to achieve in society when many philosophers and sociologists assert that freedom is a natural right of human beings.
However, these simple observations are not sufficient to explicate the true reason why we are impotent in achieving freedom. There is a deep, profound reason why we cannot acquire freedom. Therefore, I will attempt to delve into the matter, and explain why we are not free to do what we want.
First of all, I would like to define what freedom is. There is a closely related term to freedom - liberty - that many people use in an analogous way. But I dare to make a distinction between the two terms; liberty, I believe, is more of a political, economical type of freeness while freedom is the ability to do what we desire to. In defining thus, we can distinguish the freedom is in question today from the liberty that many people in the Enlightenment era craved for. I do not say that the philosophers of that era thought any differently as we do now; in fact Rousseau and Locke all asserted that mankind must be given the freedom to live as it desired. However, the common people of the day possibly believed that freedom meant a release from the tyrannical government of the aristocrats. Therefore, we arrive to one reason why true freedom is hard to find in our society of today; our forefathers who created the present system of government were more interested in the political freedom of mankind and less enthused about true freedom itself.
The second reason that we are not truly free is that mankind was never truly free from the beginning of its existence. As the English intellect Houseman said in his poem, "In a world I haven't made, I am a wanderer, afraid." We human beings were all born in this world not out of our own will, but by some other will, whether it be God, fate, or Providence. Our existence therefore, cannot be said to be truly free. We did not have the freedom to choose whether we are born or not, nor did we have the freedom of choosing our nationality, race, sexuality, etc. The claim of H.G. Gadamer that we belong to history is a different phrasing of this fact. What he was trying to say is that we are but a part of history, and it is not us humans that make history, but some other great force that also provided for our existence. Therefore, we are but small dots in the endless line of history, and we do not have much control of history, both the present and the future. Thus we can say that we are "wanderers" in this strange world that we did not make, and we can do nothing to change it.
Third, we should consider the kind of society we are living in right now. There are two types of society I will discuss here, Gesellschaft and Gemeinschaft. A Gesellschaft is, as you probably know, a society that is based on mutual interest and contract. On the other hand, a Gemeinschaft is a kind of a community, and it is not necessarily based on interest. This fact is very important because our society is a Gesellschaft. According to the theory of social contract, men have created a contract to protect themselves from the dangers of natural openness. If such is the case, we can see why men are not truly free; if society itself is a binding contract, then we are forced to uphold that contract, and therefore we are restrained for the sake of preserving it. Though the contract was created to safeguard mankind's freedom, we are again tied down because of our commitment to the contract.
Fourth, there is the age long debate of fatalists. The fatalistic claim that everything is done according to fate is quite radical and hard to accept without skepticism. We, though not perfectly, seem to exercise some freedom in our life; we can choose to eat something or not, and we can choose to study or sleep. However, if we look more closely into the matter, we can see some disturbing facts. For instance, if the weather outside is bad, we will choose to not go on a picnic. But who is it that made the weather bad? In the above case, we would have gone on a picnic if the weather is fine. Thus, the weather made us do something, and we were not free to choose. Let us take another example. Suppose that a person is walking in the street, and he or she suddenly feels hungry. Obviously, that person will go somewhere and eat, because he feels the need to. That person "chose" to eat, but in fact he was compelled to by his hunger.
Of course, the factors I mentioned are not absolute. A person could choose to go on a picnic when the weather is bad if he doesn't mind getting wet. Nor does he or she have to eat when he or she feels hungry. They could go on a diet of a fasting. Although this is true, we still cannot deny that these factors play a large part in the making of the decision. Here is an example. Suppose you like green instead of blue, so you buy a blue pen instead of a green one. At this point we can wonder, "Why is it that I like green?" Our appetites and tastes are something we cannot explain or control; we were simply created to be that way. We can never answer questions like, "Why do I like thinking?" or "Why do I hate beef?" What is important here is that these appetites and tastes which we have no control of play a huge part in our decision-making process.
Fifth, there is the problem of integration. Individual beings are integrated or incorporated into society. Then they are organized into various groups or classes. The terms mentioned just before - incorporate, organize - must be considered seriously. Incorporate comes from the Latin word corpus, which means body. Organize comes from the Greek word organa, which literally means barrel organ, but has been expanded to mean body parts. Therefore, we can deduct that the terms mean something corporal, or body related. From this arises the question of organicism. As the terms plainly show, becoming a part of society is akin to becoming an organ inside an organism. Having deducted this, we can now discover another reason why human beings cannot be free; if we are nothing but organs, then how can we decide things for ourselves? A stomach or a heart does not think for itself; it merely does what the brain commands it to do. Similarly, many of us human beings are forced to do what the creme de la creme of our society tells us to do, and thus our freedom is somewhat crippled.
One point I must mention here is the personalist point of view. Some personalists like Herbert Spencer flamboyantly argued that it is the characteristic of the individual that defines a society's traits, and therefore the individual can be deemed more influential. While I agree that this is true in the premature stages of society, this does not quite match the societies of today. For example, when the first human tribes gathered thousands and thousands of years ago, they probably had similar traits and personalities because they were closely related. Also, as the groups were relatively small, an individual would have had much more impact on the whole group. These members probably played a big part in creating customs and traditions of there respective groups. As the groups grew larger, groups with similar characteristics probably came together, because it is the nature of humans to socialize with those that have similar tastes. But when these groups eventually became nations and countries, the groups now grew into enormous masses of people, and the effect an individual has on the whole shrunk to almost nothing. By now, the characteristics of the societies would have been established, because of the groups' traditions and experiences. However, newborn members of these groups at this national stage have no power to change the tradition that has been established; in fact, they are forced to accept it.
Some will claim that as the generation changes, the traits and characteristics of a nation will change. That is true. But we must realize that we do not have a control over a generation's characteristic. Various external elements create generations, and we are not free to choose what our generation is like. Also, there is the problem of outsiders. The famous French writer Camus said that outsiders tend to go against the flow, and they are always away from the crowd. If a generation forms a person's character, we cannot explain the strange behavior of these outsiders. There are two reasons why outsiders go against the flow; they are influenced by different external elements than the population, and they tend to hold a skeptical view. Though outsiders may seem like they are free, and thus a proof that man is free, in truth they are not. As I explained above, most of there behavior comes from external elements that the normal population does not experience. Also, a psychological approach could be used here. Outsiders may be experiencing the opposite of the Newman effect. A Newman effect is the tendency of people to please others. But outsiders, feeling a deep resent of social restrictions imposed on them against their will, try to not please people to compensate for their mental damage. Though this may seem to be a ridiculous surmise, it does provide some insight for their behavior.
Sixth, the "alienated reification" of Feuerbach can also be used to explain why men are not truly free. Alienated reification on a social basis shows that every social idea is reified separately for each society. This theory explains why members of the same society hold a similar view on important abstract matters. Because of this social sympathy, a person's character is more or less formed as the society wants him or her to be. That being the case, our freedom to be what we wish to be is greatly lessened.
Seventh, there are economic explanations. Karl Marx's materialism holds that all societies are formed by its economic structure, and that political, social structure is dependant on the form of the economy. He asserted that mankind is Homo Faber, or producing man. While the materialistic viewpoint is somewhat extreme, we cannot deny that economy plays an important part in the creation of a society, and the formation of its political, social systems. Therefore, as the society is altered by economy, so is personal character and our ability to choose.
Another important effect that economy on our freedom is that it defines our lifestyle. If a person is born into a poor family, he or she is less likely to go to a university or a college than a person of a richer family. It does not matter whether he or she wants to go to college; his or her family simply cannot support it. Also, even if a poor person wants to live in a mansion, he or she cannot, because he or she does not have sufficient funds. Thus we can say that our freedom is limited by our economic status.
Some will ask why we cannot simply do whatever we want to. Those people say that the poor student in the previous paragraph could barge into a classroom and start listening. However, that is absolutely ridiculous. Every part of our society is a sort of an agreement, and we as members of society must respect these agreements. If such agreements are broken, then our society would fall into what Durkheim called anomie. Therefore, we can see that economic hindrance of freedom is in touch with the social contract theory. This is in accordance with the argument in my seventh paragraph.
Eighth, we can take a psychological approach to the matter of freedom. The person we are is usually represented by our ego. The state of consciousness that we are in quotidian life seems to make all decisions. However, Freudian theory suggests that there is a "superego" which we do not recognize normally. This superego is a sort of a supervisor that looks at our conscious ego and stops it when it feels that the ego is doing something morally incorrect. While some argue that we are still free because the superego is a part of ourselves, this is not true. The superego is really a different personality than our ego, and we have almost no control over it. If we do not have control over it, we can not say that we can make it follow our own free will. Therefore, the superego is not a part of our free will, and quite the contrary is true of it. The superego is something that restricts our freedom.
When talking of superegos, we must be careful not to mix it with the conscious anguish we have. Anguish is a product of the conscientious, and we are aware of it. Thus we can say that we make a choice with less or more free will. However, superego happens unconsciously or subconsciously, and we cannot exercise any power over it. The superego bans us to even think of the matters that it thinks is not worthy. Hence we must not say that we are free because we do not feel the function of the superego, or mistake it for mere inner conflict.
Finally, there is the question of human existence itself. Some people will say that this is far fetched, but if you change your thought a little bit, you can see that this is very important to the matter of freedom. If our existence is not free, it is logical to assume that we do not have freedom. Therefore it is very important to look into the matter of human existence.
Zhuangzhi, a Chinese Taoist, once had a dream. He dreamt that he was a butterfly, and he was very happy, flying around and playing among the flowers. Suddenly he woke up. After he woke up, he was stumped with a question. Was he Zhuangzhi, or was he the butterfly? He could not tell if he was the butterfly dreaming that he was Zhuangzhi, or if he was Zhuangzhi who dreamt of being a butterfly.
What we can infer from here is that the material world we see is not absolute but relative. Therefore, we cannot be sure that our existence in this world is true or not. This world may just a dream we have created for ourselves, or it could be a game that we are playing. We could be actors in a grand play, and we could be wanderers of a distant dimension. But nothing is for sure. We cannot say with surety that what we are experiencing is true. If such is the case, and if a different outer world exists, then how can we say that we are free? If this is just a play, then there will be script that we are following without knowing it. Thus we arrive at the question of ultimatum again. We cannot deny that there may be some universal order that the world is following. Then, our lives and our decisions may be predefined, and what we think of as free willed acts may in fact be our destiny. Though these are only assumptions, they are quite likely, and we have no evidence to the contrary. Therefore, we cannot reject the notion that we may be ruled by some preset order.
But a deeper problem arises from this train of thought. If we cannot define that the world we live in is true, can we define what is true at all? If there seems to be nothing definite, how can we tell if something is true or not? We cannot tell that freedom exists or not, and we cannot even be sure of our existence. Descartes' assertion, "Cogito ergo sum" is too weak to be evidence that we exist. The thought that we think and that we have the ability to think may also be an illusion. Descartes failed in denying human existence only because he had a profound belief that human contemplation truly exists. However, contemplation and speculation may also be nonexistent. It may be nothing but illusion.
Some will argue that we can never deny ourselves, because nothingness cannot imagine itself to be existent. But I will ask you this: have you ever been nothing? None of us have had an experience as being nothing. Thus how can we be sure that nothingness cannot imagine itself to be something? It is hard for us humans to even fathom what another human is thinking. Hence, we can, with certain limits, presume that nothingness could seem as existence.
If such is the case, if we are nothing, and if nothing is existence, then there is no point in arguing that there is freedom in our choices, because they will a mount to nothing. While this thesis is perhaps too grandiose, it does give us a certain point, and that is freedom cannot be confirmed with our singular experience. The traditional Yin-yang theory is also in accordance with this thought. Death and Life, Light and Darkness, and many other polarized elements would revolve around each other until one day they become one cosmic force, or chi . A material proof of this is the Mobius strip. In the strip, there is no difference between the front and the back. It ultimately becomes one, and there is only one side to be seen. If it is hard to imagine how two different things can become one, think of the Mobius strip. In all, we can say that freedom is the same is being not free, and thus freedom can exist and not exist. Simply said, we cannot be sure of the trueness or the existence of freedom, and therefore we cannot say we humans enjoy it.
In the pages above I have attempted to give many reasons why men cannot be truly free in many branches of the social scientists. The reasons given were political, social, philosophical, and social reasons. Also, attempts were made to explain the true sense of freedom through the problem of human existence.
Freedom, I believe, is just an illusion that mankind has created. However, it is a useful illusion, like money value is. Money does not have any value, but it still serves a useful purpose, and everyone accepts the idea. It is my profound belief that freedom is no different from money. Whether it is a mirage or not, it serves a noble purpose for the whole of mankind; it helps us keep our sanity, our self esteem, and our ego. Freedom should be sought for even if it does not exist. Freedom is just like veritas, an absolute and ultimate value that we human beings must try to conquer but will probably not be able to. But still, Confucius said that we "should follow our goal, even if it seems impossible, for some day we may achieve it." And what does it mean to us if we don't find it? The whole process of striving for freedom is one of the most valuable and noble things that we can ever do, even if it ends up to be a wild goose chase.
Does science need philosophy?
Matija Lavrinc (Slovenia)
1.Introduction
Science is highly esteemed nowadays. In our everyday lives we meet with expressions like "scientifically proved" or "confirmed by the scientists" which are trying to imply that some thing is definitely true (especially in the marketing). It plays an important role in our educational system. Science is in a way a synonym for the right way of approaching the truth, for the objective and proven knowledge - and this concept is not unjustified. Scientific and (especially) technological progress in the modern age have changed our live dramatically - we believe that mostly in positive way. Science has been able to explain and predict some aspects of our world very accurately. On the contrary, philosophy is not very appreciated among many people. This is well seen in the fact that the concept of philosophizing is many times being used to express useless thinking or talking (talking just for the talking itself). The view that in the age of science philosophy is no longer needed is generally held by many. (Comte was one of the first who was claiming this - his concept of progress was divided into three stages - the religious, the metaphysical and the positive stage. The metaphysics should therefore make room for positive, that is scientific stage).
2.Hypothesis
I think that concepts like this are can be very misleading and they stem from misunderstanding of the relationship between philosophy and science. So, in order to find out the answer to the given question, we must first look at how philosophy and science are related. (I would like to add at this point that in this essay I am mainly concentrating on the part of philosophy concerned with the problem of truth (the same problem that science is dealing with). There is of course another very important aspect of philosophy interested in the meaning of life, in the purpose of our being.)
3. Philosophy - the predecessor of science
The first connection is that science developed out of philosophy. What is true, how are the events in the world connected, why did something happen - this are the basic questions of science today, and they were the basic questions of philosophy for ancient Greeks. Science is interested in the explanation of the world (and consequentially in the prediction of events). Thales from Miletus, known as the first philosopher, was looking for the basic substance of the world (he came to the conclusion that everything is composed of water, which is of course wrong, but it is the question that is important). Also, he explained the flooding of the river Nile by winds (also not right) - this was the first time that some natural event was explained by other natural event and not in terms of some supernatural forces. Democritus, also ancient Greek philosopher, set the thesis that the basic matter is atom - and more than two thousand years after that this view has been confirmed scientifically (it was later found out that atoms are not undividable as predicted by Democritus, but that is the point of a progress - and also, science still seeks for the undividable parts of reality). Pythagoras saw the reality in numbers and it was Pythagoreans that first predicted that the world resembles some mathematical features and that it can be described in the mathematical language (something that today seems very clear to us, for we would be lost in physics without math). So the questions that has concerned philosophy are the same questions that has concerned science - philosophy used to be the universal science. And when the answers were found (and new questions arose, more specific ones), this universal science was divided on different parts (physics, chemistry), each dealing with its task more specifically.
I would like to add that beside philosophy there is another foundation on which science has been established - that is the practical point. Beside the truth man was also always interested in how to control nature, how to do something as practically as it can be done. Some chemistry for example was based on alchemy. But it is due to philosophical aspect, to the questions of truth and thinking of the first philosophers that science succeeded in such a way as it is.
4. Metaphysics
Still, some of the philosophy (as a universal science) remains only philosophical. Metaphysical explanations are still present today although science is taking over the question of truth. And that is why some hold the belief that it is useless and not needed. For example logical positivists claimed that it had to be ruled out of scientific field (they claimed that something is either true or false (analytically or synthetically checked) or nonsense - and by this criteria the metaphysics is therefore nonsense). Wittgenstein, from whom they got the inspiration, held the view that all the philosophical question arise from misuse of language and should be therefore abandoned. But if his advice was listened to by the ancient philosophers, than we would have never came this far in science (if it could even be called science then). And if the questions of philosophy has encouraged mankind to think and to come to some scientific discoveries ones (well in fact many times until now), than they can definitely contribute to science in future (or, to put in a logically valid form - there is no reason that they cannot). Therefore metaphysical thinking should be retained, if not even encouraged - philosophy is needed for the scientific advance.
One reason more for this is the astronomy dealing with the question of the beginning of the universe. It is publicly accepted as scientific, although the line separating it from metaphysics is very thin - all the theories are in a way metaphysical. Albert Einstein, responsible for one of the major physics advance (he developed a relativity theory), also emphasized the importance of metaphysics - because it frees the human mind of prejudices - that is of a specific, used way of looking at the world, which limits us).
5. Logic
Logic is the basis of human thinking - it is a formation of reasoning, which is the basis of all knowledge we have. It is a description of reasoning; it sets out the rules for it and distinguishes inductive and deductive reasoning. And it was founded on the ground of philosophy (rational thinking). Logic is a part of philosophy that is accepted as a formal science. The first who put it in a set of rules was Aristotle. That it is a science is also confirmed by the fact that progress was (and still is) needed. Some logical problems were resolved as recent as in the beginning of twentieth century (by Bertrand Russell or Alfred Tarski). So the position that philosophy is not needed in science is in a way a contradiction, since that would require abandoning logic too.
6. Philosophy of science - the explanation of explainer
The task of science is to explain the world, predict the events according to this explanation and use the results in benefit of human. The successes of science are definite - we are able to predict many things (so the explanation is also believed to be true) and the usefulness are well seen in the very fast technological development. The philosophical question here is obvious - how is this possible? What is in science that works so well - what is the scientific method? Epistemology has always been dealing with the question of how to attain knowledge. Then science happened - knowledge was somehow attained, and we are now concerned with the question of how did we attain knowledge. (Of course the original question of epistemology still remains, that is the question of real ultimate knowledge).
From the empiricism, which emphasize the importance of sensual data - the facts, comes the idea that scientific theories are generalizations of these facts. Scientists should observe the nature without any presumptions and collect data, on the ground of which he would then form a general theory (using inductive reasoning). This view was held by many scientist (for example Newton) and philosophers (Mill), yet is suffers a very big problem, (first pointed out by Hume), known as the problem of induction - one the ground of finite observations I cannot form a general law, which would refer to every possible event (inductive reasoning is not logically valid). Karl R. Popper solved the problem of induction by rejecting it - instead he set the theory that scientific hypothesis is constructed by the scientist (using their imagination and intellectual skills), and then tested with observation (test is an attempt of falsification for Popper). If it is falsified, the theory should be rejected; otherwise it is established true (not as absolute truth but as the best available approximation of truth). Also, pointed out that an observation must always be leaded by a theory - because only that way scientist can establish what actually he is observing, what is relevant for him. This account of science is much more comprehensible, although it also suffers some shortcomings - it can correctly describe the relationship between observation statements and scientific theory, the question of objective reality still remains (because sometimes the theory is true but the observation statements are false).
However, one might ask what is the point of seeking the method, since science obviously seem to be working just fine without it. But it could be of help at the question of demarcation of science (the distinction between sciences and non-sciences). And also, it uses the concepts of truth, which encourage philosophical thinking and that could lead to some new scientific discoveries.
7. Science and the meaning of the life
As I mentioned, beside the truth philosophy is also very interested in the meaning of life. Science can be also looked at from this point of view - is science good, does it brings happiness to the mankind, is the purpose of life hidden in science, and so on. Nowadays it is of course generally accepted that it is positive, but what if the purpose of our lives is elsewhere. Due to that reason to philosophy must remain present in our mind.
8. Ethical problems
In scientific advance, especially lately in genetics, we have come to some very difficult moral questions. Their answers will have major influence on the future progress of the science in this are. And it is a task of moral philosophy of science to deal with them - that is another reason more for the philosophy to be needed in the age of science.
9. Conclusion
Ass I showed philosophy and science are deeply related - science started from philosophy, some scientific problems are dealt with metaphysically, philosophy liberates the mind which necessary for the scientific advance, logic (formal part of philosophy) is used in every science, philosophy is also dealing with the question of science itself, it is needed to establish (or reject) positive effect of science on our lives, and to cope with some ethical problems provided by the science. From all this I conclude that science does need philosophy.
German Diaz (Argentina)
Sartre shows us a common-sense truth, which simply states that we are not free. The reason for this assertion is somewhat easy: how can we be free -how can we decide and change at our whim- if we just cannot change the situation we are into? At first sight, this might sound reasonable -why not, if it is common sense?- but there are some problems with this conception that we should consider. First of all, this popular opinion seems to match freedom with "whim", that is, with a totally subjective election. And, secondly, here the other people appear as obstacles to my personal freedom. The question would be: can we be free living surrounded by other people?
We cannot decide whether to live with other people or not, that is, we are always involved in some kind of relationship with other human beings, we always live in a human world. There is always someone next to me. But what does that someone mean to me? We can name and explain two different opinions. One of them says that other men are the worse thing that could happen to my freedom. The other one says that, on the contrary, there is nothing better for me than the existence and company of other men.
The first one shows men as selfish individual who only want to achieve some personal goals and satisfy individual needs of their own. But as everyone whishes to get what he wants, it is impossible that the "needs" of the members of a group do not get into conflict among themselves: it is almost certain that someone's wishes will be opposite to mine, so there has to be a struggle to achieve personal goals which will end up with someone not being satisfied. This person, thus, will not have been free to choose and get what he chose. This is, more or less, Hobbes' idea.
On the other hand, Spinoza says that, in fact, other men are the most useful thing for me. As Hobbes, he also says that men try to satisfy certain personal desires, and that this originates a conflict between men. But, as the only thing that prevents us and stops us from achieving our goals is that constant fight and opposition (because, according to him, one is entitled to everything one can), when we get together and find the way to solve the conflict -when we make that conflict disappear- we can be absolutely free. That is, as there is always some kind of conflict that challenges freedom, the only way of being free is solving that conflict, and that can only be done by those who are therein involved. In this way, there is nothing better than the others.
So, we see that men can be either "wolves" or "gods" to each other. This two ideas seem to be completely opposite, but they are actually not. They have in common a conception of man always acting "at whim".
Now, before going on, let us remember one of Charles Taylor's ideas. This Canadian philosopher establishes a difference between convergent and common goods . The distinction is related to their characteristics in relationship with other people. A good is convergent when it does not depend in itself of being shared with someone else. Taylor gives the example of the relationship with the State and the Police service: the Police is a good for every citizen, but as individuals (it would make any difference if I could accomplish its functions by myself, but, as I cannot, I have to make use of a public service like the Police). A common good, on the other hand, can only be achieved when it is shared with someone else. For example, political autonomy.
The point is: is freedom a convergent or a common good? If we accept that we always act because of individual preferences ("at our whim"), we can only say it is a convergent one. Why? Because thus we only care about our own interests, and we are only interested in other people when we need them to achieve our goals. Let us see in the examples we gave. The gathering Spinoza recommends is only "good" because it is the only way in which individual persons can attain what they want and are entitled to, but not in itself. The same happens with Hobbes'. But can freedom be reduced to simple "acting at our whim"?
This idea of freedom can be called (to give it a name) "individual". But it is certainly not the only one. We can find another conception: "political" freedom. Political freedom, as such, is a common good. Politics implies human groups, so it would make no sense to think of individual political action. But does "political freedom" mean? We can find an answer to this question in Hannah Arendt's work. Developing the whole of her analysis (namely, an analysis on the classical Greek thought about freedom) would make this too long, so I will skip it and only state those of her conclusions that can help us. The political sphere is the one that is placed above and goes beyond all natural and biological needs and determinations, and, as it is not determined by anything, it is a sphere of freedom. Here men have no reasons for not being equals (as they do have, for example, when performing those actions meant for the maintaining of life), and they are not only able to be equals, but they can also decide on any subject, for as we have just said, here there is not any kind of determination.
We have these two ideas (the individual and the political forms of freedom). They both seem to be legitimate, so the alternative is not easy. Which one should we choose? We said, in the beginning, that man is always involved in a human situation, in a human world. And I think that the conception that best suits this is the political one. The human world is a common world, there is no human world without a group of men. And the same happens with political freedom: it is a common good, whereas individual freedom could easily subsist in a world in which there is only one person: it does not (let us say it again) require the presence of other human beings.
The question we asked was: can we be free living surrounded by other people? Well, if we accept what we have said up to now, the answer is quite simple: it is not only that we can, but we can even be freer when are freedom depends of the other people.
Now let us go to Sartre's sentence. The "common sense" he talks about says we cannot act at our whim. And so what? We are not supposed to act at our whim. We are supposed to act regarding not only ourselves but also everyone else. It also says that we are not "free" to escape from those who surround me. I would rather like to change this sentence: we are not free IF we escape from them. And at last, I am not so sure that the kind of freedom we have been talking about does not allow us to "conquer our (¡¦) appetites or habits". The only thing it makes reference to is the way in which we do it, given that we cannot disregard the rest of the community.
As we can see, I think the opinion of the common sense Sartre refers to is wrong. Perhaps the problem here is that "common sense"
Valeriya T. Vitkova (Bulgaria)
Man is historically determined. Before we come to existence in this world, there are already established and acknowledged values, virtues and ways of behaviour. This has been done by the societies, civilizations that existed before us. We are inevitably exposed to their pressure. They influence our identity. In fact, in a way, they pre-determine it by taking part in the process of its creation. Therefore, we come into being that is already structured, constituted and determined.
The lot of my class, family, nation etc. has in itself already established a kind of "identity field". This "identity field" consists of the various, already acknowledged, identities I can choose for my-self. From this viewpoint I can conclude for myself that I have been deprived of my freedom, for I have the ability to choose amongst already determined field of possibilities. Thus I lack the ability to create my living self because the "identity field" has been previously established by other people. It is like a law to which I must conform to. Therefore, I cannot create my own truths and values, to define and re-define my individuality. I cannot change my existence and choose personally what is significant for me. If I conform to these already existing and defined patterns of conduct, if I follow them blindly, I would entirely lose my human freedom. And freedom is an "a priori" category for defining my individuality- the unique personal characteristics that constitute my very human nature. If I deprive my consciousness of freedom, I deprive it from the ability to choose and change. Thus I deprive my mind from the ability to think, for it would be a process no more useful in a determined and acknowledged world. Hence, it would not be possible for my very "I" to change itself. But if I lack this fundamental ability to change my-self as an existential being, then I entirely deprive my whole life, my living existence of meaning. I lack subjectiveness, I lack freedom, hence I turn my human quintessence into a lack. I transform my very human nature into the so called "being-in-itself" (Sartre). Since the "being-in-itself" is neither active nor passive, never-changing and non-personal, it remains closed in itself and cannot acquire being. It cannot surpass itself, it is a self-sufficient constitution and thus it cannot create its own existence. It cannot develop itself.
In order to save my individuality and fight the enslaving power of the determined world I should try to re-evaluate the already acknowledged virtues, values and ways of behaviour. I should have the power and courage to overcome the obstacles set upon me through history, to remove the boundaries of the determined world and re-gain my freedom. Finally I should be strong enough to free my consciousness and to provide my-self with the opportunity to produce its own personhood and uniqueness. Through freedom meaning "enters"(Sartre) my world. Since "existence precedes essence" we might as well conclude that freedom precedes meaning. That is why, when I find my-self into the hitherto state-of-affairs, I should be able to choose freely among the array of possibilities that occur at every present moment. Precisely this unique process of choosing is what enables me to create and define my essence. I exist and I acquire an extrovert stance towards the outer world. This means I am ready to communicate with the simultaneously existing beings in the outer world. To establish relationships and to re-define my personality. Thus, my very human nature becomes susceptible to change as a self-determining process.
This free stance of acting provides my existence with the aspiration to create and complete its essence. Therefore the aim to realize my human quintessence to the full becomes the main stimulant for my activeness and energy. Thus I turn into a "being-for-itself". My "being-for-itself", through its every act, strives after achieving completion of its essence. Thus I become a "being-for-itself" with the primary aim to become a perfect being-in-for-itself (Sartre). If my self achieves this level of existence, it would mean that my free consciousness would become the foundation of a totally new being-in-itself. This is so because the totally new "being-in-itself" would be able to think of itself in a reflective manner. It would be able to "bend back" its thoughts towards itself. Through this "bending back" my "being-in-for-itself" would be able to critically analyze its own essence and develop itself in a positive direction. Since this perfect and fully completed being is not achievable I can only define it as my ultimate goal. A goal, after which, I will strive through my whole life.
Having in mind the previously mentioned arguments, I would conclude that being able to escape from the enslaving effect of the historically determined world is being able to impose my very existence on it. To transform the world so that it is possible for me to be free. But transforming the outer world is identical with transforming my internal world, for it is my mind that creates the surrounding being and through its knowing manner. Changing the knowing manner of my mind would actually mean changing my consciousness. Thus I compel the already established values, truths and ways of conduct conform to my being as an individual. This means that I change them and create new ones. Through this act of changing I gain power to conduct my personal existence.
Through this fundamental activity I provide my self with the opportunity to create new values and gain significance. Precisely such values (which I have created all by myself) determine me as an individual.
The above described fundamental processes give positive direction to my existence. This means that although perfection is not achievable, I still have the privilege to choose to aspire to it. Thus I master my destiny and I undertake the responsibility for my future actions. But choosing for my self is equal to choosing for the whole humankind. (Sartre) Therefore I undertake responsibility for all humankind. And my responsibility turns into commitment to the other. This is my final "yes" to the world "here" and "now" and my final choice to struggle for my individuality and freedom.
Elena Bellodi (Italy)
The question proposed requests, first of all, the explanation of the terms called to our attention, science and philosophy. Philosophy, in the etymological sense of the word, means "love (philie) for knowledge (sophia)": this implies the speculative direction it took from its origins (*). Science, on the contrary, comprehends the theoric knowledges which are of the base of the practical applications, indicated under the word "technique." In both cases, it appears clear the involvement of human person: who does philosophy? Who contributes to the development of science? The answer is the same, the human being. So before entering the question of relationships between science and philosophy a clarification about "what man is" is necessary, and we can find this one in the Western thought.
This clarification refers at old Greek philosophy: one of the first definition of man dates back to Alcmeone, who individualized what was under and above man: man found himself in the middle between God and animals, because he was able to deal with reason empiric data, to elaborate a technical knowledge (Anaxagoras) which allowed him to modify nature. Then was formulated on anthropological paradigm with the characteristics of human species: Thales formulated an axiological scale where man was followed by woman, barbarians and animals, like Aristotle recognized in the fundamental characteristic in the intellective potentialities besides the vegetative and sensitive qualities in common with plants and beasts. His physical peculiarities came from the environmental influence, according to Aristotle, so that Greeks, living in temperate climates, were perfects and couldn't establish relationships with barbarians; with Sophists we find one of the most important definitions of anthropological relativism by Protagoras: "man is measure of all things."
As it appears from this short explanation, the definition of the concept of man was elaborated by philosophy and it contains a reference to the practical approach of man to nature (as in Alcmeone and Anaxagoras). The strict connection among these three terms - science, philosophy, and man - will be the key-point of my analysis.
The intimate structure of science shows, as I have hinted, presents a double face:
1. the rational procedure followed by scientist to come to new theories. (theory)
2. the translation of this theoric whole into "praxis", into the concrete environment where the same scientist lives.
1. If science has to develop herself, it has to follow some rules of procedure, which I call "method." About the method of science philosophers of all epochs have discussed, and this shows a first interconnection between the two terms. Decisive positions, from this point of view, were taken by empiricists and rationalists. Empiricists, as Locke and Hume in the XVII century, exalted a construction of science beginning from experience: man's mind is a "tabula rasa", an "empty box" which must be filled with empiric data picked up with objective behavior. This procedure, going from "singular assertions", where the importance is attributed particularly to observation, to "universal assertions" (hypotheses and theories), is called inductive-categorical process. In opposition to this, a rationalist as Cartesius sustained process from rational and universal hypotheses existing a priori to the particular assertions in touch with concrete reality: this is called hypothetical- deductive process. But, as Aristotle had given importance to the "right mean", I think that the best scientific behavior was theorized by these philosophers who saw the indissoluble relationship between the two aspects: the first was Galilei, who sustained that the observation of nature can't be direct, but mediated by preliminary conjectures, and that empiric data are necessary to improve and correct the waits(*). Now that I have indicated the 2 directions which can be followed by science, a question emerges: can these methods considered rigorous? Or, Can the scientist be absolutely sure of his results if he bases himself on one of the 2 methods, empirical or deductive one?
Here I see the first intervention of philosophy into science, which was asserted by Immanuel Kant. Kant, as a follower of Enlightenment, based his philosophy on the Critic of Pure Reason and Practical Reason, and also he brought the reason itself in front of the tribunal of reason. While metaphysics appeared to him a building without foundations, mathematics and physics appeared a rigorous knowledge, as Newton had showed it, but it was necessary to demonstrate how their process made them absolutely sure. His answer prospects a science made of "a priori synthetic judgments": through the a priori forms of space and time the scientist "absorbs" the empiric data from observations, which are filtered by these preliminary forms existing in the intellective knower "I". These observations, as they are in touch with nature, are called synthetic, because they join together the different natural particulars. Another, more recent example is represented by epistemology, which is properly philosophy of science, whose best representative is Karl Popper. Once the rigorousness of science had been founded and it legitimated the process to formulate a theory, now another problem was represented by the way a theory develops itself and a theory is surpassed by another. I think that Popper elaborated one of the most relevant discourse in this sense: he searches for a falsification, according to which a theory is scientific if it can be denied by base-assertions coming from experience. More "potential falsifications" allow a theory to become more precise, and so riskier, but at the same time with more empiric and scientific contents. This doesn't mean the exclusion of a theory after it has been falsified, because it is requested a better theory, in fact in Popper we find a multitheoric system based on the three-way comparison between two rival theories and experience. But the importance lies especially in the fact that on the methodological level a theory is never definitely denied, because scientist must consider all surest(*) falsifications always falsificable. Popper is father besides of the falsification theory also of fallibilism, which means the self-corrigibility of science, which is a non-definitive knowledge, (episteme)(*) trying to approach to truth, as a regulating principle: this is the essence of scientific progress, a darwinian selection of the best theories, in base of their proximity to truth.
2. A more complex field is opened when science becomes technique, that is application of theories. I think that to understand the deep connections with philosophy we have first of all to consider the human spirit who subtended the development of science. If in the preceding treatment at point 1 man presented himself as a mere scientist who uses reason, now reason is overcome by the passionate trust into human potentialities, that is the trust in progress. Beginning from Bacon and his "Novum Organum" (XVII century), the figure of Prometheus embodies the human capacity of making new conquests, the main characteristics of progress are indefiniteness, unlimitednesss, the possibility of improvement in opposition to the ancient Greeks who had a static conception of knowledge. Also philosophy of history, founded by Voltaire, presenting history not as a circular movement but a progressive linear succession of facts which are determined by men and not by a superior destiny holds a relevant place. With the positivistic culture, according to which science is the unique possible method of knowledge, metaphysics is denied, the term "positive" means factual and ameliorative, we have the relegation of philosophy to a mere general union of principles and results of all science, it owns no more a own statute: this determination of ambits between philosophy and science at the end of XIX century will bring to see only the economic-scientific development of men and set aside values. This brings to a second consideration of philosophy and man besides the first about method. Beginning from the 2nd Industrial Revolution, science and technique new an accelerated explosion, which, sustained by the positive thought, has brought nowadays to a transformation of nature and man. Some scenarios are illustrated by Jonas, who underlines that nature, if before was able to reconstruct his order when it was modified (but man created little changes to it), now technique elaborated on the base of science allows to destroy it; also man, if before belonged to the limited sphere of political and social sphere, is now able to modify his own essence through, for instance, the genetic engineering. From this point of view, science needs inside itself a non-scientific orientation because if it's able to interfere with human essence, another discipline must protect it: that is philosophy. Human nature is axio-logical and logo-theoretical, as Gilbert Hottois wrote: human is sense, that is union of value and symbol, which depends on his history and culture: "culture is a specific characteristics of man, as the neck of the giraffe (Dobhzansky, "Evolution")" and the widest system of symbols is language, the origin of definitions on man, the "being's house where the man takes shelter" (Heidegger): So language can be connected with "ethics" in its meaning of "permanence". Besides this axio-logical nature man has also a logo-theoretical one, which begins from the consideration of man as "look", attributing meaning to what is; so vision and symbol are strictly connected. Language and symbol exist before the technological world, but if the science of the beginning of XX century now allows to modify the same human nature, since man acts always in reference to values so that humanity and ethics are inseparable, I believe the same possibility of ethics is at risk: man has to choose between ethics and the other of ethics (the technological improvement allowed by science). Ethics means the choice of moral values which have been rejected in this "rationalized" world (Weber), the possibility for man to be still man and not to transform in a machine. In my opinion this problem must be faced by philosophy, both for the present and future time. I see in language, as I underlined above, the main instrument of a philosophical ethics of present, under the form of discussion, because discussion represents my opening to the Other: an ethics "of difference", like that of Levinas, elaborated after the violences of totalitarian regime, where the other isn't reduced to my interpretative categor
ies, but only for the fact he exists needs my responsibility to the point to put myself in his place. It's a condition of dis-inter-estedness, where being deprives himself of his ontological conditions of being: consideration of man is determinant and priority for the conception of all his relationships with the world, in this case in its scientific and philosophic aspects. The value of discussion is admirably stressed by Apel, with his ethics of global macro-responsibility, which, proposes three assumptions: the value of universality for the concepts of justice and solidarity, the possibility of all men to express their opinions, the collective resolution of human problems, in opposition to deontological ethics (Kant), utilitarian ethics, teleological ethics. The essence of Apel conception is the necessary permanent tension between a "real community", which makes factually possible the realization of problems, and an "ideal community", a regulative principle constituted by all humanity involved in these problems. Philosophy has the task to refound ethics, after the scientific transformations on society and nature, stressing the importance of truth, sincerity, collaboration (because problems are extended to the global sphere) and especially dialogue, a typically human characteristic. Individualism should be refused, and at the same time the refoundation of ethics needs the support of educational means, because man isn't influenced only by temporary rational speeches, but by a long forming based on the action models received with childish education. Also democratic open societies are requested, where a meta-structure surpasses the causes of the dialogue incomprehensions. I believe philosophy, as I mentioned before, need to have a look also at the future, at the possible consequences of technical-scientific process, as Jonas convention ("the principal responsibility. An ethics for the technological civilization") about an ethics of responsibility: his maxim is "in his year actual choices considers the possible repercussions on future generations" (fiat iustitia ne pereat mundus, in contraposition to the "principle hope" by Bloch, based on the wish of a best future. Jonas' maxim introduces a new subject of right, man of the future.
Science needs philosophy both for his objective method of development, and for his subjective and unforeseeable consequences on humanity, showing still once the interdependence among these three aspects. Philosophy represents the conscience of science, theoretical-methodological and ethical; the couple science-philosophy is the couple theory applied to practice - moral reflexion, that is the man himself.
On the changed notion of freedom in the postindustrial age of biotechnology
David Kovacs (Hungary)
The question of freedom is one of the most ancient questions in the history of philosophy. It is connected with morality, history and its lesson (and that is this even possible or not), the "human nature" (and thus mankind's relation to the natural world), art and modernity (and - again - the connection between them), and many other questions. At first I would like to divide some different notions of freedom. "Freedom" is used in varying senses, and it is important to clarify it, because many debates about it are partly based on the ambigousity of this world. I regard "freedom" to be used in the following meanings in the history of philosophy:
1. Metaphysical freedom. This is the traditional notion. Especially the existentialistic direction used the word "freedom" in this sense, however it looks back to a long past. Philosophers like Kierkegaard, Pascal or Schopenhauer meant under freedom an independence of nature, of the external world. In this meaning freedom means independence, indetermination - from a strictly meant metaphysical-ontological point of view. A main principle of every existentialistic metaphysics has been that in this sense human is free, or to use Sartre's paradoxical expression, 'is sentenced to freedom' (and responsible for his acts). This makes it probable that Sartre did not mean under "I am not 'free'¡¦" a metaphysical determination but rather he disclaims freedom in the word's 2nd and 3rd sense.
2. Historical and social freedom. Despite these notions do not mean the same, I took them under one category, because both refers to a more practical point of view (and because the historical state has a strong effect on social freedom - for example, freedom in the ages of feudalism meant else than in the early capitalistic England.)
3. "Genetical freedom". This is a typically modern contemporary meaning of freedom. In the 17th - 18th century there was an essential question, are we born with "withborn ideas (idea innata)" (like according to Descartes) or our mind is a "clear paper", like according to Locke, for example. We would say nowadays: are we genetically determined (or, to be more radical: predestinated) - or not. The modern sciences tend to show the second. We are submitted to our genes, and our ability to change ourselves is very limited.
4. Political freedom. I left this last not by accident: in many languages, freedom has a political meaning. English is suitable to make difference (like Locke) between political liberty (simply expressed: everyone does what (s)he wants to - until (s)he does not harm the interest of others) and the wider sense of freedom. However political liberty is also a kind of freedom, it is evident that in the quotation Sartre did not use freedom in this sense, while the other three interpretations, that human beings are socially (therefore historically), genetically or metaphysically determined are not surely (however the 1st is likely - only likely: we should think on the late marxizing Sartre's philosophy, which I think did not succeed to resolve the contradiction between Marxistic determination and existentialistic freedom - to be) excludable.
The end of this essay is to raise the attention on the actuality of this Sartre-quotation from the point of view of modern biotechnological progress and bioethics, therefore I will deal further mainly with the 2nd and 3rd notion of freedom, which are getting nearer and nearer to each other. The main problem is the following. The biological revolution of Darwin has radically changed the picture of man. In one respect it caused a really deep (and at first hardly acceptable) disillusion. Man has been no more considered to be the creature of god "after His face" but simply the creature of evolution, an inheritor of some "bestial" features, too. On the other hand, man has got nearer to know himself better. The biological revolution has radically changed the thinking of man and his history.
We know that our behaviour is at a significant degree directed by our genes. The reason why it restricts freedom - according to the present state of science - is that genes do no behave "for the sake of us" but "for the sake of themselves." The end of all genes is to copy its genetic program, and our body and thinking are submitted to this: that is the primer reason why we want to have children, to dislike snakes, to avoid loneliness etc. For a long time, the absence (or, to be more punctual, the limits) of freedom meant also that we cannot behave differently than what is permitted by our genes. The essential question is raised by the results of Human Genom Project: we have got known our "genetic map" and still we can modify them - therefore, we might be able to modify ourselves, the human nature (this was at first claimed by Francis Fukuyama). Our history can be considered to be logical and inevitable, like Hegel, Marx or Dilthey thinks or irrational and unforeseeable like according to Spengler or Tocqueville. In both case it is evident that the history (our political and cultural history) is a product of humanity. Our thinking about morality, law, history, arts etc. is tightly determined by our genetic construction. Although this construction slowly changes according to the evolution, the history of human kind is roughly 100 000 years old, and our political and cultural existence is even shorter: by no means longer than 6-8000 years, which is an insignificantly short period of time from the point of view of evolution. On the other hand: if we can modify ourselves through our genes, we can fasten and radicalize these changes. The solution of technical difficulties about it - it is just question of time. What does it mean that we may take the role of nature and of evolution? We might become the lords and creators of ourselves? We might create a "superior man", getting nearer to Nietzshe's prediction than we have ever thought? Does it mean freedom? It could be logically claimed that the ability of modifying our genetic construction would mean freedom, if the lack of it means "slavery".
On the other side I would like to raise the attention on the fact that before the discovery of Human Genom Project, it was also possible to change human nature for a short time through medicines: hyperactive children can be transformed into calm and attentive ones due to Ritalin, antidepressant tablets can cure depression, etc. We can decide not only how we would like to behave, but that how we would like to feel and think, too. But is this really freedom? It is alarming that medicines may endanger personality in a really treacherous way. In the modern society, some ways of behaviour are condemned and some are preferred by the common thinking. This means that all our feelings and emotions get an implicit moral sign: aggression, hatred or the feeling of pain are "bad", love, calm and feeling pleasure are "good". However, "negative" feelings had (and maybe have) their own role in our lives: to mention two example only, aggression was needed to defend ourselves against beasts, and pain is important to raise the body's attention to dangerous things (like fire). The reason why "negative" (maybe it is more precise to say sympathic, in the meaning of a part of our nervous system) and "positive" (parasymphatic in the similar context) feelings are judged so is that the balance among them has tipped over now. We especially experience the disadvantages of aggression, hatred etc., because the contemporary social ideal is kind, lovely and able adaptable. But in other historical states (for example in the 11th century's intolerant religious battles) these ones were not so evidently desirable features.
Medicines, which has an effect on consciousness, are in the hands of society, a "mega-self", which has a strong pressure on us. Though hyperactives, for example, feel the adventages of correcting their behaviour through medicines, significant is the temptation to use medicines like drugs, not to cure but to bring our features to perfection. Is it still freedom - not rather the press of the mega-self, society's macro-will on the individuals own will? Genetic modifications may have an uniformalizing effect on humans, much stronger than the one medicines have. We have the power to modify ourselves, but after this we cannot predict anything surely about the future, because what could be produced might be not human any more.
It is likely that if we step on the road of biotechnology, that would bring the posthuman epoch of "our" (how far can we claim community with the future "man") history. With a special attention on the meaning and possibility of freedom, there are many possible scripts of the future. I would like to just give a schematic of the main ones.
A) A possibility (a not very nice one) of the future is a genetically determined hierarchy among people. We know that we are different: people are born with different qualities, in families of different social state. But until now, the social and genetic lottery has been independent of each other. A more intelligent person, of course, has better chances to earn much money, to be reach and powerful, but (s)he cannot ensure the same to his children. The biotechnical revolution might change this. Anyone who had the ability to give his/her children the most advantegous genetic features (intelligence, good manner, beauty etc.) would do that. It is a serious reason for fear that rich people will have better chances of doing so, hence, in the long run, a genetically insured aristocracy would be created. Aristocracy is not unknown in history, but there are a big difference between this predicted and the in the past appeared aristocracies. In the past, however the supporters of aristocracy referred to their descent, the source of their power was rather their authority, their better education - so, social-historical reasons. They were not "better" genetically. In the later - still not existing - aristocracy, the referring to descent would be relevant because the advantages of this leading group would really be genetic. The ideas of the French revolution, the American Declaration of Independence, all the special human ideas of freedom and equality would loose their basis, because even in genetically people would be no more equal. Actually, such pessimistic visions were seen but Aldous Huxley in Brave New World. This book is especially actual nowadays. In Brave New World, Huxley draws a world based on castes: alphas are the intellectual leaders of society, betas are a bit less intelligent etc., eventually the semi-bestial epsilons do those works which a person living nowadays would find disgusting and shaming. Brave New World is a posthuman world: while the reader may think that world horrible and empty, everybody is contented with life. For the exceptions, there is soma or a separated island for the remains of humanity meant in nowadays sense.
B) Less pessimistic predictions are also taken. The other famous negative utopia, Orwell's 1984 has not come true. His dark predictions' starting point is not the biogenetical but the informatical revolution. Orwell was afraid of informatic revolution's possible antidemocratic consequences. Fortunately, he was not right (which of course does not decrease his artistic values). The informational revolution has not brought slavery but still more freedom to humanity, 'Big Brother' cannot rule people but people can rule 'Big Brother'-s. This is seeable on that more and more countries turn to democracies.
Maybe Huxley was not right, either. Genetic modifications on humans may bring us more freedom instead of a new kind of hierarchy, too. For this serious restrictions are indispensable, only international union can prevent the horror drawn by Huxley
From above it is seeable that Sartre's assertion is to be re-explained nowadays. Sartre - and the whole existentialistic direction involving Jaspers, Heidegger, Camus, Berdiaev or Gabriel Marcel - was a historically understandable reaction on the social changes from the twenties to the fifties: the crisis which followed the first and the second World War and the moral question raised by industrial societies. Now we live in our postindustrial age. Industrial age brought with itself a curious system I would call "three-'I'-method": a) industrialization, b) integration, c) instrumentalization. I mean under this progress: the industrialization caused that the spreading of similar ideas brought a similarity in thinking and economic structures, too. Integration in this sense is wider than globalization, because it is present not in the economics and cultures only, but makes a circle with the 3rd step instrumentalization: as economics develop themselves, in the thinking of people ends are transponated by time into the non-existing, the ambiguous far future (and this could be a special demystificated sense of existentialism's nothing-notion in industrial societies, bringing industry into a contextual role). People loose their end, they see instrument in everything, goods but not values. Of course, it is hard to accept: thus demystification is followed by "re-mystification", the reborn of idealistic mythos. This is exactly able to keep an eye on the thinking of many modern philosophers, Kolakowski for example, whose former Marxistic - later neomarxistic - attitude has started to get nearer to a catholic resignation.
The sense of freedom has essentially changed, and I am not sure that it is relevant in its classical sense - the Sartre-quotation is to be interpretated differently than earlier, too, because it is no more relevant to the present state of human beings. Parallel to MacIntyre, who claimed that the notions which classically used ethical categories referred to, do not exist any more, I would say that the notions of freedom strictly distinguished in the beginning, can be no more so separated to each other. Historical-social and genetic points tend to have one source: they are in a difficult interaction. Our history has led to the time when we are able to change human nature, but history has always been determined by human nature. This "equation with two unknowns" must make us thinking of our future - and of that will this future really be our one? Due to the Human Genom Project, we have come to a head, but - we should never forget this - this did not transform us into gods. Our responsibility is that how can we make the best of this opportunity, and the future will show, do we decide right.
On the changed notion of freedom in the postindustrial age of biotechnology
Andreea Elena Simion (Romania)
The human inside the human being reclaims its priority! The history of humanity reveals its own concept as the history of modifying the man like the concrete expression of human a priori in the human like the characteristic of one's epoch-man. But the essence remains the same, even in an unconscious way : the human is free above all¡¦and it gives man his independence.
But to be free also means that the individual can't be sure of his identity. The uncertainty of his Being is the first temptation towards surrender. The human impotence becomes a political instrument for domination. The man is convinced that he can't escape from his class, his nation or even his family. He is condemned to give up a part of himself for the sake of the social consent. His so-called "primary aggression" is used to legitimate the control of his appetites or will and the instauration of habit. Habits give our life the certainty we need and produces the illusion of the impotence to change ourselves. In consequence, the theme of the quotation which I have chosen is the freedom. Can be the man free inside the social system next to the others?
The common sense sees freedom like the absence of constraint. On the other hand, a society is firstly a system and, as a system, it reclaims the existence of rules. More than that, the statistical system proves our previsibility in our actions. So, in appearance they are two different areas, which are mutual excluding. In consequence, man as a social being can't be free. On the contrary, I think that the man is fundamentally free, but taking advantage of "memory abuses" (P. Ricoeur), the political domain denies it in order to follow its own interests. Free doesn't mean isolated.
The first argument which I like to invoke is the definition of freedom not as the lack of exterior constraint or causes, but the action in accordance with man's whole personality (Bergson). To be free means not to surrender to the world but to participate in it with one's interior structure. The fallacy of modern society took the rationality as the domination of desires, so, as the premise to liberty. But rationality eventually lead to irrationality and gave birth to the anguish. In fact, freedom includes human interests and desires as taking part in his personality. A first counterargument that could rise is that this definition isn't applicable in experience, due to the fact that following personal interests means harming the others. But I think that this affirmation mistakes individuality with egoism and altruism with collectivity. Even so, a consent is possible from the perspective of the "invisible hand" (Smith). A second counterargument is that man's entire personality is a social construct and the liberty is because of that just an empty concept.
The answer to this counterargument takes the form of another argument in favour of my thesis: it makes difference between the "empirical ego" and the "profound ego". The first one is a social construct; it represents the premise for the construction of the group. But the interior ego, the profound one, which is synonymous with the human, is in fact his real nature, whose characteristic isn't temporality such as we understand it, but the duration. So, man's interior structure isn't a copy of the exterior world; more then that, the duration is a form of freedom. An objection to my argument is that human nature doesn't exist than such as an instrument of uniformization, being the expression of the "hard thinking" (G. Vattimo), and those who sustain it are just expressing their "pretensions of knowledge about the human nature" (Rorty). I agree with the affirmation, but I must add that in my opinion, it refers to the rational knowledge about it. I think that not this is what does matter, but the fact that we have a certain intuition about it (not necessary logical). It isn't our conscience which surprises our essence; it's a feeling. And the felling of freedom is individual, not collective, so it doesn't hide a will to power. The freedom is the condition for the legitimitate existence of differences between human beings.
The third argument is the difference between sociability and socialization. Our nowadays societies are the result of socialization: the human has step out of his own world in order to dominate it by imposing different rules-social ones, political, in science and other types. Man's primary aggression is what makes it legal and it supposes his entire dedication to the norms. His freedom isn't useful in a practical society. On the other hand, sociability is the original characteristic of man: is what Heidegger called the "opening-towards-the-others". The human a priori isn't rational, but moral: it isn't about following rules, but a free choice between different ones, in acceptance with his interior essence. The moral sociability is the condition for forming a "communicative community" (Appel). A counterargument is its own impossibility to put in practice, and so, being just another speech four an utopia. First of all, I think that the great impact and the impossibility itself of utopia is what it's important of it. It's not a plan of action. But has practical influences in the critic of the existent society. Today is the domination of the common area- even the private is defined as the negation of it. More then that, technology increases our dependence for the common existence, especially with giving birth to new needs. In this context, the solution is to remember our humanity. The anguish will get smaller with the recuperation of the balance of relation between ethics and scientific progress or technique. Second, I don't think is actually utopia, in its exact definition, because it isn't an impossible society.
The fourth argument is the continuation of the previous: the political and social system is just a convention; it isn't natural (the essence of the social-contract theory). So, we can imagine an originally community, where man was both social being and a free one. It's the effect of his ambivalence : to have his own interests to follow and also to feel concern-with other words, the kindness- related with the other. The whole dedication to the general purpose is only the premise for the totalitaristic government and not a fundamental structure. To be free means to take the step out from the impersonal mass and the social role , to respect not what the collective conscience calls like the " human specific" , but to respect one's interior humanity. Going along with the judgement of Spinoza, I affirm that this way, we are the most useful to the other than if we renounce to ourselves for their utility.
The fifth argument makes also a difference between Force and Violence. The first term is the capacity to make a virtual future real. It's the condition for creating values and rights. In this case, the Violence becomes its failure. The concept of the impossibility of putting in practice a free society (of course, in a limited way) and man's impotence is owe to their confusion, by a process of metonymy. In a society in witch the force has failed, violence needs rules for man's self-preserving, due to the many conflicts, like crimes, wars and revolts. But human fundamentally structure is based on force, so it can fail, that is true, but it can't be destroyed. The force means that man is free to chose his sense of life, to project himself in the future; he is not just actuality, but also potentiality (Sartre). I think it needs a critical attitude in order to express itself in our daily activity and thinking. It's similar with what Popper called " the open society". An objection is that man is a conservative being, he prefers the stats-quo once a basic certainty is assured. He takes his decisions in relation with the past, that I accept, but he can't be reduced to its own history. It would be the domination of the past in the so-called "obsession of commemoration" (Rabossi), a political way to control.
The opinion which I have sustained puts in the first place not our welfare, but our individual rights. But if I want that my position itself to be legitimitate from the point of view of the postmodern philosophy, I have to admit that it isn't an universal situation and it depends of the contextually differences (a society's reserve of goods, for example). Even so, the political does not have the right to deny human freedom for imposing a general purpose-in fact, the expression of its own interests. He can take advantage of the "positive rights", beside the "negative ones", where the situation reclaims it. If not, I agree with Nozick that the state witch doesn't commit any abuses is the "minimal state". However, nowadays, the technology reclaims our attention and the liberty at a formal level is turning into "relations of series" (Sartre). Are we really free in the social domain or we mistake the absence of direct constraint with the absence of an unconscious one? A discussion can take place just on a conscious level¡¦