WRITING SUBJECTS for 13th IPO
IPO 2005 AWARD ESSAYS
On Topic III
by Mikolaj Ratajczak (Poland)
In "Also sprach Zaratustra" Nietzsche wrote, among many others, one famous sentence, very similar to some of Christ's: now you all should forget about me, but when you'll find yourselves, I'll come back to you once again (it's not a quotation, but the sense was like this). And some might say, that Nietzsche did return, but not in the way he intended to - with the help of Hitler. And some might say, that the return of Nietzsche is only possible by the "eternal recurrence" that Nietzsche's demon speaks of, but it is not his thought that can be revived within the history of mankind.
What I'm trying to stress here is the fact, that the main body of Nietzsche's philosophy turned out to be impossible to be imposed on the culture. And this is not only the problem of Dionis himself (and his followers) but this is an issue that concerns more and more people all over the world. What do I mean by that?
I think (or, rather, I hope), that I couldn't find nowadays an educated person that wouldn't know Nietzsche's writings, or just the general outline of his thought. But what is strikingly common is the fact, that it is the critical part of Nietzsche's elaborated philosophy that had its influence on world's culture, not the positive one. There would be probably a large group of people that would say: "Nietzsche had some positive ideas? I think he was only impugning the basis of metaphysics and culture." And the way we percept Nietzsche's philosophy today shows the pitiful state of our contemporary culture.
It is the question of ethics, culture, philosophy, but mainly, it is the question that millions of people demand answer to: "What do we have left?" Is really hedonism, pessimism, utilitarism and eudemonism the only paths we can follow today? Today, after the second World War, today, after the evolution of critical and deconstructive thought and finally, today, when, as the song tells as: "All faith has been washed away". Nietzsche, and many great philosophers .that spot this problem before it has occurred so distinctively didn't want to leave us hopeless and their intentions were to show us the way we can place ourselves over the values and over ourselves.
We have to admit, that today world lives with no values that would be, firstly, respected by all humanity and secondly, built over a sacred authority. They are not transcendental, they are not given to humanity by a God. Of course, religions still have many believers, but nowadays there is no religion, that would, like Christianity during the Middle ages, create one, general version of a culture for many nations. Even Europe, the most religious and fanatic continent in history renounced with its tradition and heads towards secularism (like France). The works of such a philosophers like Nietzsche, Marx, Freud, Stirner, Camus and Sartre managed to debunk the religious values and the tradition of ethics. So, is the humanity, with the field of thought totally wiped of any authority and any imposed way of development, able to "overturn values", to make their existence beautiful and not senseless with no imposed or bequeathed values and without escaping into hedonism or pessimism?
For me the problem is, that we can't almost find something that we can dedicate our lives to without metaphysic, and not making it humanity. It is obvious, that if we reject redemption and such terms like heaven or hell (or any other religious terms of prize and penalty for our lives), only two contradictory ways of living will be left: an egoist and an altruist. It is obvious. But, the problem remains, how we can define "an egoist" and "an altruist". With religious way of thinking, "the egoist" and "the altruist" are not easy to define: for example, how would we call a monk, that spent all his live in a monastery? An altruist? But he wasn't doing it for others. An egoist? But its hard to call one, that has rejected the pleasures of the world for his God, an egoist. Is a monk in Tibet an egoist? It is not so distinctive. But when talk about egoism and altruism without any religious and metaphysics terms, they are still hard to define. The easiest way would be, if we call an egoist someone, whose priority is to satisfy himself (make him happy). An altruist then would be someone who tries to make happy as much people as possible (it can also includes him, but he doesn't situate himself over others - his happiness is of the same or lesser importance than the happiness of others).
It might seem, that the problem of definitions is solved. But does it mean to serve yourself, to make yourself the most happy one? Or, can we call an altruist someone, that rejects himself and dedicates his life for something better than people (from his point of view). Who is an artist? Who is a scientist? Who is a philosopher (Nietzsche called him a combination of beast and God)? Are really hedonists and eudemonists the only possible egoists and are utilitarians the only possible altruists? Are people unable to find within the boundaries of this world something more than themselves to dedicate their lives to?
It is a dangerous question. Nowadays culture teaches us, that we should be the goal of our lives. Our happiness and the happiness of our relatives and friends is what counts the most. I think, that this way of thinking has evolved mainly due to many psychologists' works (but not Freud!). They assert, that an unhappy man is a sick man, mentally ill, and that their job is to analyze his character and make him less alienated from the society. Treating great artists and writers as neuritics explaining their genius as a sickness leads to conceiving them as unhappy people that tried to gain some happiness or tried to fight their demons with the help of a pen or a pencil. This way of thinking leads to them being declined in our eyes. The genius is no longer someone that we should cherish, but he turns out to be someone that we should generally help, not listen to. Since Freud, that did his best to ensure people, that culture is needed and that man is nothing more than a animal without it, psychologist tried to impose on the culture their concept of an ideal human: happy with his wife or husband (no lovers), with some children, working hard and taking pleasure from it, spending rest of his time on leisure activities. If you're not in this scheme, you are bound to be treated as neurotic and other people, tempted by nowadays experts' of human psyche promises of easy luck will try to make you undergo a therapy. Remember, that psychology is a science, so they have scientific basis for their words. Maybe I do show it in a exaggerated way, but in my opinion, the trends in psychology nowadays tends to kill the diversity of human nature, treating more or less each person, that is not satisfied with his or her existence, in the way he or she feels the need of an Absolute or misses the mysticism of religion (one of the sources of philosophy) as a neurotic that should undergo a therapy. Thinking this way, will soon turn all philosophical universities into hospital for mentally ill people.
The other problem is the answer of today culture for the question: either to have or to be? The issue raised by many philosophers, among them the most famous like Fromm or Marcel (and also by the pope John Paul II) shows the problem of fast enhancing and rich societies. If there is no reasons for me to elaborate myself, I can stick to the easiest way of gaining pleasure - to buy it. Two problems: the term of perfection and the way of gaining pleasure. The perfection is hard for us to understand if we made the renunciation with the values. The perfect man is of course someone who fits the best the pattern of a culture. If we are religious, the one that fulfills the will of God is the perfect one. But who is perfect when the religion is no more and when people have no respect for the tradition? If the society doesn't share some general values, the perfect man (or the best among them) is the one, that can make his perfection more visible. And if they can't see the values (like Scheller would say), the only thing they can see distinctively is splendor, physical beauty, richness. In time, those easy to see characteristics become the respected values, because they are easy to be recognized, and within this new tradition it is easier for one to become perfect (better than others). And because people have the tendency for the will to be better than the others, the mechanism is almost fully explained. With the death of the general, sacred values together with the death of the values of our ancestors we have no way of proving that we are better than the others by being better, because being better needs certain rules that we can fulfill. So, we have to be better in some visible way, ind it is to have more than the others. Its easier to say who is richest when I have one car and he has four cars. But it is harder to say who of us is better. And though is it hard to say now, which of us is better, we are making the possession, that is easily comparable, the criterion of perfection. The result is, that people today are searching for perfection in the material world - world of money, to be explicit. We have lost the will to be perfect in the world of Spirit, even if its no longer metaphysical.
The easy pleasure is a problem combined with the problem of having or being. The easy pleasure, such as eating, sex or plain talking with friends might not be the best sources of eudaimonia, but they are also very distinctive. In the times of multiculturalism we suffer from the feeling of alienation, perfectly described in Fromm's "The escape from freedom". The process of individualization leaves us alone, apart from the society, and we want to restore those binds. One of the ways to do it, not mentioned by Fromm, is to search your escape from freedom in easy pleasure. When you can no longer exist in the world of cultural pleasure, where such a high kinds of pleasure were to be found like art, poetry etc., people tend to look for the easy pleasure, with no cultural attachment, because it is easily recognized by others, no matter what culture they are from, and they get the message: look, I'm happy! And when you no longer cherish the religious values of afterlife prize and penalty, the happiness here and now turns out to be the only value. So it is the way one can feel better than the others, and the others see the way of being better the the other others, and in this way, the easy pleasure, like the material perfection, leaves us a way to escape from our freedom and from our egos, by making us easy to compare with others and making us exist in the world of values cherished by others. The bad thing is also, that the easy pleasure made its position in today culture, mainly due to popular culture from rich countries, focused on profits ( sex sells itself great), but also, in my opinion, due to psychologist, the priests of today culture, who would treat their patients by making them happy. And if, together with the decay of traditional culture and cherished values, the way to be happy is either to feel pleasure or not to feel alienated (which are nowadays combined), the treatment might go only in one way.
The sad conclusions are, that people could easily destroy the tradition of values and debunk the basis of those values, but it is hard for them to create new goal for their existence. Nietzsche knew, that people need to "overturn values", to put, by themselves, something that oughts to be cherished in the place of old gods. But what can it be?
The four ways mentioned by him: hedonism, pessimism, utilitarism and eudemonism, are all focused on a man - single man or all humanity. As I have said before, with no metaphysics there are only two general choices for a man: to be an egoist (than he'll either become hedonist, or pessimist or eudemonist) or an altruist (that he'll either become hedonist or pessimist). What do we have to concentrate on to abandon ourselves and the humanity and find a goal that humanity is worth of?
We can make ourselves a goal, but not in the way contemporary culture mentions. We can try to rebel again the material perfection and restore the term of a perfection of a spirit. A perfection of a man that is perfect and not only has perfection. I will focus here on existentialism, especially on that of Heidegger's, that I find the most suitable as an answer to this demand. But of course, the last word will belong to Nietzsche, as it should in this matter.
If you make yourself as a goal of your existence you have to think about your life in a certain way. The way for example Stirner proposes is not enough - we need an ontological basis to treat our life as a piece of art, like romantics would say. And the fundamental ontology from Heidegger's "Sein und Zeit" gives us such basis. A man is being that is under the process of temporalisation. It means that we are not fully what we are or what we could be in every moment of our live. And that we exist in time, what also includes the possibility of reference to our being (this way of being Heidegger calls "Dasein"). Thus "Dasein" can think of itself as a being in time and that is sees its own death as something unavoidable ("Sein - zum - Tode"). With the consciousness of its certain death it can finally live an authentic life. Such questions arises: what is the authentic life and is my life now in the way I let it be worthy the fact that I live and that I'll die? We often do not think of our death as certain, but hen we do, we think of the way to make this life as much valuable as possible. And we soon find out, that pleasure and pain do not make our lives worth living or not. Like Sartre would say, we are not what we feel or think, because than we are nothingness, but we are what we make ourselves to be.
One way to live an authentic life, and this is also a goal for all humanity other than humanity itself, is of course art. By expressing your emotion or making our "Weltanshaung" objective to others we are making our existence a source of beauty, and beauty, in every culture and times, was also conceived as metaphysical value, sometimes even as the only one. Even if do not get closer to truth by thinking about the world or making art, it is still my victory over the element of life, like Dilthey used to call this process, that we could create beauty and add it to the beauty of life and world. The art truly has the element of Dionis in itself, and when we do feel abandoned by God, when we feel like orphans, alone in the universe and with no clear concept of the meaning of our existence, when we renounce with the optimism of the past, that we are able to ascertain the truth, we enter the path of Dionis and with no hope for us, we start to create art. And this is our victory, and this is gaining the perfection in the world of Spirit, the world that we create ourselves. The art is also a better way to create new criterion of perfection than the material ones (the ones of having). Every artist is an artist and whoever creates is already better than those, that do not create at all. It's only his decision if he wants to be judged by others, but it is still the judgment of what his art really is. And he still is an artist. Existing as an artist in a world of Spirit, the world of beauty, restores the basic criterion of perfection as being perfect, because as an artist in the world of Spirit I am beautiful thanks to the art I create.
But our existence may also gain meaning if we dedicate it to something else, maybe even more noble - the search of the truth. The decision of that kind of living is very hard, from many reasons. If you are an artist, you are an individualists, but although your activity is followed by lesser or higher degree of usefulness, it has usually only the aesthetic value. If you create only for yourself you win with the feeling of loneliness, because you live in the world of Spirit and through this medium you can communicate with past and future artists. But if you create for others you are a better or worse artist, because you create for them and they can judge you. It is a risk. But you can also work both for human, for yourself and for something more - for the truth. This is harder, because if you remain just an artist with the consciousness that you create beauty and nothing else, you can decide whether your work is to be judged or no, but in any case it has sense. But a philosopher or a scientist must have the faith in something qualitatively better than anything from the world of matter, even the humanity - the truth (even the truth - it - self). Many philosophers treated philosophy as a kind of philosophy, that shows only the "Weltanschaung" of a certain philosopher (like Dilthey) but some even conceive science as a discipline of solving riddles, not ascertaining the truth (like Kuhn). We can always say, that their philosophy is thanks to their critical thought a part in our way to the truth, but what if there is no truth? And, what is more, nowadays any philosopher or scientist is bound to work in a team due to enormous amounts of knowledge he would have to otherwise ascertain, ant by that, he works with humanity and is automatically judged by it. He cannot remain anonymous, and remain in the world of Spirit (the world of humans' creation), but he has to work in the medium of the rest of the people. And it sometimes may be harder.
But nevertheless a man who menages to see the reality of his existence and the certainty of his death, will seek for the meaning of his existence either in religion or in altruism or somewhere else, but he will never be satisfied with hedonism or eudemonism. That is what I think and what I feel, and although there were hedonists like Epicure, who treated life like something, that is and that will pass, and that we shouldn't pay much attention to it. These are the thoughts of someone that is afraid of life and that is weak, like modern psychologist suggest us to be, taking care only of our happiness and not mentioning the fact that life is something to be made worthy, it is not worth living it just by itself. And some may point out the eudemonism of Aristotle, but remember: in his philosophy searching for truth gives us the most pleasure. It is not the easy pleasure.
Summarizing, I think that if we are truly aware of what we are as a humans, we'll see, that there is, or there should be something more than our simple lives that we can dedicate them to. Some find it in religious promises of heaven or nirvana, some will find it in art, some finally will try to understand why is it like that and ascertain the truth, with faith that it is somewhere out there. If we are looking for a criterion of what makes an existence authentic, I think we'll find it within Nietzsche's thought. It's the positive answer for demon's answer: "do you want your life to be your eternity?". Can we sacrifice our eternity to something that might be only "human", bur not "all - to - human"?
On Topic III
by Tomasz Przezdziecki (Poland)
Nietzsche is probably one of the most subversive and critical philosophers. He deprecates systems of values. He claims that they are shallow and superficial. They take into account merely pleasure and pain. What's more, their intrinsic trait is the fact that they are utterly theoretical. Nevertheless, human actions, people's behaviour is visibly practical. Bertrand Russell asserted that we have two moralities - the one we preach and the one we practice. Nietzsche opposes these highly theoretical constructs and proposes a new vision, which is no more ethics as such.
What Nietzsche suggests is the expression of pure individualism. He claims that people should relinquish the ethics imposed on them but, in contrast, immerse in their own axiological activity, which is the expression of the will of power. Ethics suppress the will of power, being shallow, deprived of uniqueness, and, what's even more significant - conformist.
The main distinction of the statement consists in the dichotomy between shallowness-conformism and individualism - so far on the field of ethics.
Nevertheless, Nietzsche is known as one of the three masters of suspicion (along with Marx and Freud) of the Modern Epoch. It is requisite to discern that the ethical dichotomy between shallowness together with conformism to old philosophical systems and indvidual axiological activity has much deeper implications.
Conformism and individualism constitute two attitudes towards reality that can manifest themselves on various fields-such as social-political matters and cultural issues
The main questions that Nietzsche's statement gives rise to are:
- what are the reasons for which the old ethical systems should be deprecated? Or maybe they can still be accepted?
- Is individualism and one's own axiological activity better then compliance with old systems, and why?
- What are the social-political and cultural ramifications of the two attitudes: individual and conformist?
I. What are the reasons for which the old ethical systems should be deprecated?
(faults of conformism and shallowness)
There are manifold systems of values that have been constructed throughout the history of philosophy. They have constituted coherent, cohesive systems. It is possible to make a distinction within these systems- there are:
-deontological systems of values, ethics-these claim that ethical acts demand a duty or standard. Kantian ethics belongs to deontological systems.
- teleological systems of values, ethics-these appeal to the objectives and consequences of one's deeds. Utilitarism, hedonism belong two this group.
Another imporatnt distinction is the distinction between morality and ethics - ethics is a theoretical system, nevertheless morality does not have to correspond to ethics - morality is the real practical system of values.
What are the reasons why ethical systems should be deprecated?
1. They are excessively theoretical, they are never abided by in reality.
Ethics is considered to constitute practical philosophy. Notwithstanding, ethics is still theoretical, it is in many cases composed of stringent rules and nobody really conforms to these rules. Sometimes it may be virtually impossible, for various reasons. An epitome is hedonism. This ethical system consideres the fulfilment of pleasures as the most significant objective of a human being. It turns out that the practice of hedonist philosophy would be almost impossible in a society, as a complete lack of interest for others and thorough egoism could lead to its disintegration.
What about other systems? Let's consider stoicism. It recommends apatheia and atharaxia. One should restrain oneself and not get overwhelmed by emotions. It is possible, although very difficult to attain. It couldn't work as a philosophical system for the whole society as it appears to be too strict. It turns out that ethics is mainly a theory. Some people claim to stick to certain systems of values and regulations, nevertheless rarely do they practice them fully.
2. They impose regulations on people, thus precluding them from acting freely.
Only free will is ethical per se - contended Kant. He found the realization of the idea of freedom in the autonomy of a human will. If one's maxim conforms to the categorical imperative and does it not because of external influence but on the basis of his/her own decision - it is possible to say that this is freedom. Hegel shared similar viesw.
History is the realization of the consciousness of freedom. In ancient far-Eastern countries people were free in-themselves (an-sich). They were ont conscious of freedom and only specific despots were free. In Greece and Rome citizens were free, but not slaves. In the German-christian epoch the spirit of the world became free for itself, fully aware of its freedom. Freedom was, according to Hegel, achieved only in a state.
But is this vision of freedom really free? In Kant's and Hegel's philosophy one is free with lots of impositions and duties. Such freedom is veri idealistic, but indeed still leads to conformism.
What has freedom to do with ethical issues? Nietzsche contended that metaphysics, religion, ethics deprives people of freedom and endows them with slave-morality. If something can be called good-it is the expression of onesels. Thus Kantian ethics does not provide preedom in Nietzschean sense.
3. They prevent the discovery and implementation of new ideas.
I deem that we can extend the thical understanding of Nietzsche's statement so as to make it encompass also other philosophical issues. Nietszche himself was also an opponent of metaphysics and some interesting parallels can be percieved between ethics and other domains of philosophy in terms of the dichotomy: individualism - conformism.
Obsolete theoretical systems preclude and hinder the discovery of the theories. If we were controlled by one ethical system, it would be impossible for us to consider some new ideas and concepts. It is even more distinct in the theory of knowledge. Induction dominated methodology until the beginning of the 20th century. It was contradicted by Karl Raimund Popper, who propounded a new methodology-the hypothetical-deductive method. Thus ideas can be derived from many sources, it is possible to create new theories and supersede the old ones with better new ones. Therefore we need tolerance, to be able to search for better solutions to problems. Theories should be exposed to as much criticism as possible and there should be numerous attempts to falsify them. If it gets falsified, it can be replaced by a better theory. Thus knowledge can develop.
Cannot ethics be treated in a similar way? Maybe there are better ethical systems, which will be practicable and agreable for more people? Or maybe they will have other good points? This is why we shouldn't stick dogmatically to one system, but develop. However, many philosophical and ethical systems are dogmatic and announce that only they are ethical. There is a clash for instance between Kantism and Utilitarism(especially its brench emphsizing individual advantage) as Kant claimed that only good will is ethical. Utilitarists maintained that what should measure actions are the consequences. Kant's theory appears rather dogmatic. There are arguments that prove that the search for better theories should never be abandonded.
4. In fact, they are morally corrupted.
This argument is derived directly from Nietzsche. Religion, christian morality and most other ethical systems are the creation of resentment. They can exist only in hatred and opposition to other people - masters. Moreover, ethical systems usually accentuate certain values- such as freedom, apatheia, compliance with divine will. Nietzsche refuted the concept of metaphysical truth. Therefore ethical sytems that are imposed on people have been constructed solely to ensnare them and make them reactive - make them represent resentment. They preclude individualism, pluralism and self-expression, which are the characteristics of the morality of masters.
5. They have deleterious social, political and cultural effects.
This argument stems from the previous one. The fact that ethics and rekligion are products of resentment implicates that there are reactive forces within a society. This causes animosities. Conformity has another drawbeck - it creates masses, people deprived of individuality. This, in turn, also prevents the development of new ideas.
I have reached the conclusion that ethical systems are in many cases excessively theoretical, they preclude people from acting freely, preclude the search for better theories and might be considered to be immoral themselves as reactive and constraing (in Nietszche's view). Conformism and dogmatism are deleterious not only on terms of ethics, but also on other fields- for instance science. There are, on the hand, certain practical benefits from ethical systems- for instance social order. They can't be criticized in all respects, nevertheless while thay become dogmatic they become dangerous.
II. Is individualism and one's own axiological activity better than compliance with old systems, and why?
The problems stemming from old systems, not only ethical, but also political, scientific and philosophical are: conformism, shallowness, dogmatism. Nietzsche was one of the first philosophers to demonstrate that metaphysical systemats are futile and pointless. Truth can never be attained, it is relative and depend on interpretations. His philosophy advocated the refutation and rejection of dogmatic metaphysical claims which made people conformist. This idea has been realized in Postmodernism. Wittgenstein created a theory of language games, which announced that there are pluralistic maifold language games. Philosophy belong to noe of them. The benefit that seems to accrue from postmodernism is that is has emphsized the relavence of certain ontions and the possibilty of the creation of one's own syncretic perception of the world. What are the benefits stemming form individuality:
1)unrestrained intellectual freedom
Individualism in Nietszcheam view consists mainly in construction one's own system of values. Nevertheless, it can be syncretic, variable, adjusted to an individual. This is why he mentions an artist's conscience. Wittgensten's conception of language games says that everyone may find themselves in a language game appropriate for themselves. Therefore postmodernism touches upon the issue of freedom- freedom is here not compliance with the categorical imperative, but arbitrary self-expression. I deem it is a more thororough realization of the idea of freedom. It is also highly intellectual. It consists in the opportunity to share one's own views. It surmounts conformism and dogmatism.
2)The emergence of new, avant-garde ideas
Individualism leads to the emrgence of new art, new forms of culture. Cubism, Futurism,
Surrealism would never have been fathom if artist had clung to obsolete ideas and norms.
If culture is to develop, individualism is requisite.
3)self-acceptance and self-expression
Individualism enables people to express themselves. In Nietszchean interpretion it is the expression of the will of power. Otherwise, people can't express themselves and become reactive. Lack of self-expression and fulfilment may also lead to frustrations and mental problem, according to Freud.
4)the possibility of further discoveries.
Again, there are parallels between axiology and the theory of science. Individualism and lack of dogamtism enable new discoveires and theoretical progress. Feyerabend claimed that there should be no limitind, especially inductionist methodology, but there should be Epistemological Anarchism. He adduced the case of Galileo. He conducted research counter-inductively and broke the contemporary paradigms in science. His individual effort proved better than conformism to contemporary paradigms. Thomas Khun constructed the thoery of scientic revolutions. It turns out that if science is to proceed, there have to be room for indivisualism, otherwise there may come a stanstill.
The above-mentioned arguments prove that individualism is a better policy than conformism.It enables development and self-expression. Of course, we need a criterion to evaluate these consequences as benefits. It may seem that some ethical code is indispensible. I deem that we can expound the attribution of the name-benefit to these consequences. We can treat our curerent theoretical level as metalevel from which we evaluate other ethical thoeires.
III.What are the social-political and cultural ramifications of the two attitudes: individual and conformist?
The individual attitude towards values and the conformist one have deeper implications.In the previous sections I noticed that there are parallels between the theory of science and ethics in terms of dogmatism and conformism. Conformism precludes the search for better ideas. Similarly, conformist conscience is not only conformist and shallow in terms of morality, but in many other ways. The clash between individualism and conformism is present in a mass society. In a mass society there are increasing masses of undistinguishable people who do not attepmt to be individual but prefer to be like the rest of society. What is the link between ethics and social matters?
The same realtionship emerges. Conformism to old ethical systems deprives people of axiological individuality. Conformism to political systems also deprives people of individuality.
1) Social consequences of a mass society
Nietzsche himself presented an etimological and historical account of the genealogy of morals. It is sometimes believed to be exaggerated. Nevertheless, there are contemporary political theories pertaing to the rise of a mass society which are based upon the Nietzschean concept. One of such concepts has been presented by Oatshott.
Individulaity appeared at the beginng of the Renaissance. Certain individuals stared to develop their own views, attepting to be outstanding. Before the Renaissace, people would identify with communities, but didn't intend to stand out. Whaen individuals appeared, the members of the past communities found theselves lost. They did not belong tio ythe emerging class of individuals. Therefore their policy became reactive. They detested individuals because of their own lack of uniqueness. Therefore they could indentify only with groups. They needed a leader- but the leader had to be a reflection of those common people. It can be exemplified with Stalinism and the working class. There were very scarce diveristies among the society. Unindividuals people could not decide about themselves and needed a leader who would rule them but would be a reflection of the mass. Such conformism prevent the development of any new ideas, any new concepts, any individuality.
Such a situation is lethal for development. It leads to a standstill in social development. Popper contended that tolerance is indispensible and a tolerant - open society is a better solution as it guarantees the search for the better. Individuality and new initiatives should always be approved of.
Ortega y Gasset claimed that a mass society can annihilate itself. It depend upon individuals who care for technology that sustains the society, however when there are no individuals buy merely mass people who do not show any effort, don't get educated and nevertheless are allowed to politics and social mattersm, then this society won't be able to control and develop its technology and politics.
2) Cultural consequences of a mass society
a) the creation of culture
A mass society appears to be incapable of developing a unique culture. It is deprived of individuals. Therefore its culture, its art is also mass culture. Mass culture doesn't go beyond its surroundings but aesthetizes the elements of the contemporary world. An epitome is Pop-Art. Of course, it had quite many faces and in certain respects it was a very intellectual formation, but tha fact is that it incorporated everyday-use items into the world of art. To attempt to transcend reality was made.
b) the reception of culture
A mass society's attitude towards art is also discrepant from that of a balanced society.
Hannah Arendt distinguished three stages in the development of the relationships culture-society. In the first stage, art constituted a virtue in itself. Later it became a means of ascending social hierarchy. Arendt called this phenomenon philistinism. People used art to become more educated, more valuable. Thus art was subject for a certain purpose. The situation deteriorated further in a mass society. Art and culture are no more a value but an object of consumption.
It turns out that individuality is necessary both for creating art and culture and for receiving it.
IV. Conclusion
Should we really look at hedonism and utilitarism with pity? We should try to evaluate each theory critically and assess what deserves depracetion and what is satisfactory. We should never tolerate dogmatism and conformism. Conformism leads to a stanstill in social, cultural and political development. It is not only a question of ethics. An ethical attitude affects social, cultural and political matters.
We should, however, advocate individualism. Self-expression leads to development and progress - also social and cultural. Nevertheless individuality cannot become dogmatic itself and produce even more conformism. There are many games - as Wittgenstein claims - and everyone should be allowed to have his/her own.
On Topic IV
by Alexandru Marcoci (Romania)
PRELIMINARIUM
I intend to analyse, from a critical standpoint Wittgenstein's conception on language. Some may consider this absurd, but it is my firm conviction that only integrating fragment 203 in the framework of Wittgenstein's thought will we be able to properly understand the meaning of this excerpt. In order to achieve this goal I will analyse some key concepts in the austrian philosopher's theory of language and I will even try to make a brief comparison throughout my essay between his mature text, "Philosophical Investigations", and a very early book of his, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.
EXPOSITIO
The first and only book Wittgenstein published during his lifetime was Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Though this is a very controversial book, many scholars have agreed on some points on the theory of language presented in it. Therefore it is well known and widely accepted that Tractatus is a book defined by epistemological optimism. When we speak of language there are two poles to be taken into account. First of all, there is the objective pole, represented by reality, i.e. the world around us with everything in it, from inanimated objects to animals, plants, human beings, chemical reactions and so on. Secondly, there is the subjective pole, represented by the perception of the objective pole in the mind of a certain epistemic subject. For the young Wittgenstein a proposition was true or false if and only if there was a perfect compatibility between what a person was thinking about the world and the way in which the world was. This theory is considered to be optimistic due to the fact that it emplies that our mind has direct access to the objective pole so we can know reality as it really is in itself.
This way of seeing the relation between the self and the non-self (the self being the subjective pole, and the non-self the world, i.e the objective pole) determined the way in which lanuage was conceived. As I have already said earlier, a proposition was true or false whether it did or it did not match the fact it was reffering to. This way of thinking was very common among philosophers. It was first developed by Plato in the Sophist where he defined this concept (which we can name Epistemological Realism) as follows: to say about things which are not that they are or of things which are that they are not means saying a false proposition and to say about things which are that they are and of things which are not that they are not means saying a true proposition. So it a was big tradition in thinking in this way , a tradition which started with Plato, continued with Aristotle and Chrysippos, in Ancient Greece, Thomas of Aquinas, in the Middle Ages, and continued with Frege and Wittgenstein.
Tractatus was first published in 1921 and until the 30' it remained the written form of Wittgenstein's conception of language. Starting with the Brown and the Blue Books and some letters to Moritz Schlick from 1933, Wittgenstein's conception of language changed. And fragment 203 is part of the most important work of the second part of Wittgenstein's philosophy. Now I shall introduce all the essentialconcepts in order to make fragment 203 clear.
II. ii) For the older Wittgenstein the objective pole had become ocult. No longer could anyone establish whether a proposition was true or not just by comparing a certain sentence with a certain objective fact. Let me give an example. If a person enters a dark room with black shades covering the windows and tell the people inside that outside there is a sunny day, to establish the true value of that sentence one has to go outside and look to the sun. But if for the traditional thinkers this act of looking to the sun would have meant that that person who was looking was simply comparing that other person's sentence with the objective fact, for the old Wittgenstein this only meant that the person looking to the sun will form his own conviction of the real world in general, and of that day in particular, and then compare his own conviction with the conviction of the person who entered the room and declared that there is a sunny day (conviction expressed through the sentence he addressed the people in the dark room). This will at first seem silly, but Wittgenstein proved that this change in perspectives is a crucial one. What if the person going outside to check whether there was a sunny day or not had learend as a child that we call "sun" the star that shines from 7 p.m. to 3 a.m. each night and that we call "moon" the star that shines from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. each day. Then, that man would have declared that the person pretending that there was a sunny day was wrong (supposing that the time was 3 p.m.) because, in fact there was a "moony" day. From this type of arguments Wittgenstein draws the conclusion that we agree with one another only because we have all learnt the same code (a certain way of connecting words and sensations). This is quite the opposite of what the Tractatus told us (it is very interesting to read Wittgenstein's work, as he is one of the few philosophers who changed their view so dramatically during their lifetime). This theory implies a great deal of pessimism. The objective pole is no longer accesibile to us, not by direct, nor by indirect means. We will understand the world around us not by understanding the way in which it really exist, but by understanding what we were taught the real world is when we were little (so we don't understand the objective pole but only the way in which we were learnt to think).
III. iii)To fully understand the way in which this proccess takes place I will like to comment a little bit on what Wittgenstein called "language game". This concept is one of the most problematic concepts in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations (and of all his works after 1930, and I need to say this because the concept first appeared in the Brown Book). I would like, based on a couple of texts, that I will shortly indicate to analyse this concept by means of another concept which is much easier to understand. The relation between "language game " and this other concept I tend to believe is a relation of isomorphism. The other concept is the concept of "paradigm". There are two main sources for supporting this isomorphism between "language game" and "paradigm"; one the one hand there is a book by Wittgenstein called On Certainty, edited by G.E.M. Anscombe and G.H. von Wright representing Wittgenstein's last notes from the last 18 months of his life, and an article called Patterns of Discovery written by Karl P. Feyerabend. In On Certainty, Wittgenstein, trying (and, to my mind, even succeeding) to give counterarguments to G.E. Moore's articles supporting common sense, uses the expressions "language game" and "system of convictions" as synonims. His argument, in this book, is based on the fact that, indeed there are facts that seem obvious too all of us, e.g. we all agree that the Earth existed 100 years ago, but this is so only because we all have been taught the same thing when we were little children. We accept certain facts as obvious and true because we have accepted a certain language game. In what determinig the truth value of propositions is concerned, in order for a proposition to be true/false we have to compare it to the other propositions we have already accepted as true, so, if it is in contradiction with one of the propositions from our "system of convictions" then that proposition is false, but if it is in agreement with all proposition of our "system of convictions", then that proposition is true.
Feyerabend notices that the way in which Wittgenstein uses the term "lanuage game" is similar with the way in which the term "paradigm" is used in the philospohy of science. Thomas Kuhn, in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions first defines the concept of "paradigm". In science, the paradigm represents the system of convictions that, for a period of time, are accepted by all the scientists of a certain scientifical community. This "core" is not to be questioned by anyone , on the contrary starting from the propositions contained by this core, all other propositions, experimental facts, etc. are given a truth value. A scientific revolution is when such a core is denied, but after a period of chaos another paradigm is accepted. A very important aspect of a paradigm is that it is not nor true not false, nor right nor wrong. In order to have science a paradigm is necessary, but which paradigm no one could say, not because we don't know yet which paradigm is the right one, but because, according to Kuhn, it is impossible to take such a decision. The same thing with the language games, there are essential to comunication. A proposition which is not addressed to someone who has accepted a language game, will be totally useless, there can be no communication without language games, as there can be no communication between people who have accepted different language games. The famous example for such an inter-language games communication is the example given by Kuhn in the Essential Tension in order to illustrate that there can be no communication between members of different paradigms: he tells a story about what happened to him when he was student. He had read Aristotle's Metaphysics, which he found very well written and then he decided to read Aristotle's Physics. After reading it he was amased how can the same person write a marvellous book, as the Metaphysics were and a book full of absurdities, like the Physics were. He then realised that Aristotle, in treating nature was trying to answer to different questions, very different to what scientists are trying to answewr to nowadays. Then, he realised that he and Aristotle were placed in two different paradigmas.
iv) I think that we can now move to the interpretation of fragment 203 from Philosophical Investigations by Ludwig Wittgenstein. There will be a very brief interpretation as I have already explained above all the key concepts from the text, and what is left is to indicate these concepts in the text. So, first the excerpt:
"Language is a labyrinth of paths. You approach from one side and know your way about; you approach the same place from another side and no longer know your way about."
I have identified three concepts within this excerpt:
1. labyrinth paths
2. side
3. to know your way about
First of all, the "labyrint paths" represent the different language games that can coexist within different communities in the same time, or even within the same community at different moments in time. Secondly, "side" is in the logical structure of this text an equivelent of a labyrinth path, so it stands for a certain language game. And in the third place, "to know your way around" means accepting a certain language game. Let me enlarge a little bit on that. People who accept different paradigmas are totally different. They have different ways of looking to life, to determing the truth value of certain propositions, and so on. Hence, if it were to be confrunted with a certain proposition that has meaning in their language game they will know how to deal with it, but, if, on the contrary they encounter a proposition that has no meaning within their language game, then they will not know haw to react, in other words they will not find their "way around". There is a very common example of such cases, when a children askes why is the mountain higher than a house. The parents usually answer by telling him that the height of a mountain is larger than the height of a house, and so on, and the child will continue to ask for clarifications, and at a certain point he will ask why is 2 larger than 1. And at this point the parent won't "find his way around" any more, as such a question is unaskable (I am sorry for this silly form, but I believe it to be the best way to deliver you what I want to say) according to his "system of convictions". These type of propositions are those that are always to be accepted as true by every member of that language game, just like in the case of a paradigm. Questioning the truth value of such questions mean questioning everything we believe in and it means supressing any form of communication. (Even though the change of a language game is possible, it is very difficult, and therefore it is very rare) These propositions are what Plato would call ananche stenai, meaning the necessary stop in argumentation. No argument can go ad infinitum, and the concept of "language game" is the Wittgenstein's way of expressing the ancient ananche stenai.
CONCLUSION
Even though language games, as paradigmas, can neither be right, nor wrong, and despite the fact that there is no strong argument for choosing a certain language game, language games are essential to communication. Therefore, in order to establish an intersubjectivity, to establish interpersonal relations, it is essential for us to be members of the same language game, or, as it is written in fragment 203, to walk the same labyrinth paths.
POST SCRIPTUM
In the end, I woulkd like to justify my choice of presenting the traditional theory on the relation between language and reality, as I did in Expositio (i). Having been the dominant theory, the epistemological realism was very well known, thus those who began writing another sort of philosophy of language presented their concepts, mostly in contrast with the traditional concepts. Therefore, I am firmly convinced that only a cronological approach to the theory of language can clarify some otherwise very difficult issues concerning the terms and their definitions.
On Topic IV
by Marta Sznajder (Poland)
The attempt to discover not the object of human understanding, but the true structure of its subject - man's reason with its boundaries and opportunities, came into fruition in The Critique of Pure Reason. Kant's concept created a new answer to one of the oldest questions of philosophy. Do our senses provide us an exact image of the world? No, but not because they're misleading us, but because our reason is built as it is and nothing can change it. We receive some sensual data, but the world emerging from them is mostly our own creation, shaped under the conditions of categories of human reason.
World created by a human mind - not some solipsistic idea, but honest try to explain the most surprising fact that our thoughts, which use general notions (like 'a chair'), fit and can describe the world made by always particular things (like that chair I am actually sitting on now). This was the question Ludwig Wittgenstein was trying to find an answer for in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. As for him then, there exists a part common for our minds and the outside world - a logical form.
This concept led to a vision of a totally logical language, using strict rules and clear definitions - the language that Schlick, Carnap and Neurath were calling for. But also this concept gave raise to one vivid difficulty: it didn't fit the actual language, with all its misconsequences. The usage of language is something really different than its grammar and its dictionaries. And that's why Philosophical Investigations are so different than Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.
A language is a living structure, not a system of written words, but a sum of all meaningful behaviour. Man lives within it from his first breath. The way we are learning our mother tongue (and this is our real language, the one we live in, no matter how many others can be taught at school) is still obscure. A child does not learn words - it doesn't even have an idea what a 'word' is - it learns some basic 'particles' of behaviour. Throughout our lives, we learn so much forms of life: how to declare war; how to buy five red apples (which is a whole different action than buying pears!); how to order and to apologise. Those are safe ways of communication, learned by usage - safe paths through the labyrinth of language. In day by day living they are just at their place, ready to be used again, ready to cause expected reaction in other people. We know how to respond to them when somebody else uses them. It has been all exercised millions of times: after 'How do you do?' say the same; after hearing the price, give money; and so on.
This idea was caught by some English philosophers and linguists and was called 'the speech acts'. Austin and Searle were the first after Wittgenstein to maintain that what we say consists of not only the literal sense of the phrases (locutive act), but also of what we want to say (illocutive act) and what reaction we want to hear or see (perlocutive act). When somebody is leaving home while heavy clouds are gathering, by saying 'It's going to rain' we do not only inform our comrade about this fact, but we are also making suggestion about taking an umbrella and we expect him doing that.
The use and understanding of whole our behaviour is based upon habits and habitual reactions. But sometimes this familiar scheme can be broken. Let's imagine such a situation. In the middle ages throwing a glove upon somebody's feet was a sign for a desire to fight with that person. Now that tradition is absolutely useless and forgotten outside the theatres and cinemas. A student says something rude to his teacher. What would happen if the teacher took his glove, threw it to the student's feet and cried: 'I call you for a fight'? People in the classroom would start to think: what does it mean? And maybe one or two of them will follow this first surprise and proceed their thoughts?
Astonishment, perplexity - this is the moment when philosophy is being born. Under normal conditions of daily usage, the language is transparent for most - or every one - of us. We follow well-known 'paths' of speech and don't think too much about them. But sometimes comes this moment when we find a difficulty in our way. When we come to a familiar place and don't know which side to go next. 'I had to say something - but how to do it?', 'Isn't that funny, the difference between the figurative and the literal meaning?' - those questions can start an investigation that can turn into a philosophical investigation.
That first confusion can lead into serious and deep questions about man's comprehension, about our way of existing in language. In my opinion, one of the most important of them is the one quoted here before: how it is possible that, in spite of the fact that it is absolutely different, our language can correspond with things it is referring to? So, firstly: what does it mean 'to mean'?; and secondly: how the notion can describe a particular thing? An attempt to answer those questions can be found in every stage of history of philosophy.
The problem of meaning would be easier if there existed only non-abstract nouns. We could then treat the language as some kind of mathematical function, which matches words - written signs and spoken sounds - witch material objects, in a one-to-one pattern. This is, obviously, impossible, since we have words like 'love' or 'wisdom', whose meanings cannot be shown in a material world. On the other hand, there remains the 'universal-particular' problem of non-abstract nouns. We have one word for infinite number of objects (as in the previous example of chair). That is why we need something more than ostensive defining by pointing a thing with a finger. The problem of plurality in matter and identity in thought can be resolved as Plato did it - by claiming that there exist some ideal entities - ideas, the notions brought into sovereign exixtence. But this is not a only answer, Aristotle gave his own, and so Locke or Hegel did.
The whole problem with language is that we cannot discuss it from a position of an independent investigator. We cannot leave it for a moment to watch from outside, like we observe plants or animals. To say anything about language we have to use it - it is impossible to escape from it. The only way of winning with our languages is surprise and confusion about them - and tracing new ways through the labyrinth.
On Topic IV
by Antti Saarilahti (Finland)
Language is an area of philosophy that has got the attention it deserves only in recent times. In fact, before the 20th century, there hardly even existed an area of philosophy that could be called the "philosophy of language". The course set in philosophy by such highly influencial characters as Rene Descartes with his rationalist epistemology and later Immanuel Kant with his revolutionary ideas regarding metaphysics, dominated Western thought for hundreds of years: it was taken as self-evident that language is merely a tool with which to convey ideas, and more precisely, a tool whose effectiveness need not be questioned. Is it possible that no one simply came to think that there could be something very interesting and very critical in this phenomenon we encounter daily? Possibly; perhaps language is so closely intertwined with thought that taking a critical stance towards it would have been uncomfortably similar to criticizing one's own capability to think. Nonetheless, it was only decades ago that a certain Austrian engineer brought about a major revolution is Western philosophy.
If Descartes can be called the father of modern epistemology, Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) can with no qualms be called the father of analytic philosophy. A pupil of Russell's before the First World War, whose thoughts he influenced greatly, he completed the only work to be published in his lifetime, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, as a soldier in the Austrian army. It dealt not with how we are able to say something meaningful about the world and what that would be - the legacy of Descartes -, but rather how we are able to say anything at all about the world. Written in extremely concise numbered sections rather than in the standard prose format, the Tractatus as it has come to be called explores the limits of meaningful expression and the form that underlies it all. The emphasis is on the relationship between language and reality: what are we doing when we say something about the world, how do we do it? How are we able to do it? He presents his famous picture theory of representation, a sort of a special version of the correspondence theory of truth, claiming that logic is what unites the expression and the expressed. This relationship cannot be described, however, for to do so we should have to be able to explore "both sides" of expression, which is a logical impossibility: we can only show what this relationship is.
Expression cannot be expressed; this, and his cryptic remarks about what he calls the "mystical" - namely, ethics, aesthetics and religion - prompted him to write the well-known conclusion of the book: What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence. Philosophical problems arise when we attempt to transcend the boundaries of expression, and thus the correct task of philosophy is to clear language of all such nonsense. While I have given here only a brutally simplified version of Wittgenstein's thoughts in the Tractatus, it can be said that with this, he thought he had said all there was to say about philosophy.
Following his own teachings, Wittgenstein did retire from philosophy after publishing the book. The book's initial impact was rather modest: it was mostly Wittgenstein's colleagues in Cambridge who read and discussed it. However, for the group of logical positivists called the "Vienna Circle", the Tractatus was a godsend. It provided the answers to certain crucial questions that had plagued the radically empirist agenda they advocated, namely their problematic relationship to logic and mathematics. Wittgenstein hardly agreed with all of what logical positivists had to say, however; it suffices to say here that through the Vienna Circle, Wittgenstein's thoughts about language and logic became more known. As well, discussions with the Circle's leader, Moritz Schlick, contributed to Wittgenstein's eventual return to philosophy.
Wittgenstein himself tells a following story: When he was explaining his ideas about language and logic to a friend of his, an Italian businessman, he got an unexpected retort. The man brought his hand up to his jaw and brushed it with the tips of his fingers; a sign of serious disdain where he came from. "What is the logical form of this?", he asked. What indeed? It became to dawn on Wittgenstein that perhaps there was something important he hadn't thought about when it came to language. He died of cancer before completing his work, but two decades of thoughts with renewed philosophical vigor were published posthumously. In 1953, two years after Wittgenstein's death, the world was presented with Philosophical Investigations (from now on to be called simply PI), which contains the bulk of what he had come up with during this time. Another philosophical revolution followed.
The quote given is only one of the many metaphors with which Wittgenstein describes his new attitude towards language. Language is no longer the perfectly logical construction with clear limits, as in the Tractatus: rather, it is now something very vague that adapts to fit people's needs in different situations. He starts off PI with a citation by Saint Augustine where a view on how language is learned is given: as infants, we notice other people pointing at certain objects and uttering their name - that is, language is learned ostensively. Wittgenstein retorts to this with an example, a shopping list. You enter a shop with a shopping list that says "five red apples" and hand it to the shopkeeper. How does the shopkeeper know that he is supposed to hand the customer five red apples? Of course he would know what "five", "red" and "apple" mean, if Augustine's explanation is correct - but it is only the meaning of the words on their own. The point given here is that how we really use language in different situations has very little to do with simple ostensive definitions.
Wittgenstein introduces the idea of language games. The use of a word is entirely dependent on the context it is in; the same sentence can have entirely different uses in a school, during a dinner, in a funeral, in a play, in a casual conversation. Language comprises of different forms of life that evolve constantly. Some are born while some others die out. Philosophical problems are now seen as arising out of different uses of language: we no longer are on a "quest for truth", but rather, "quest for meaning". Clarity is the proper task of philosophy, Wittgenstein asserts.
It is interesting to note that despite that many contemporary philosophers praise Wittgenstein's achievements and hold especially PI in high regard - make no mistake that the Tractatus still has its own share of faithful followers as well, however - no one really knows how to apply the book's message to philosophy. We still discuss the the same subjects in the same manner, as if they were real problems: the view that philosophy cannot seek out truth, only clarify the mess of language we are tangled in, is not one that many people prefer. Is this simply a question of intellectual integrity, or are there real philosophical problems? Where could Wittgenstein have gone wrong if that is the case?
Wittgenstein never gave any concrete support for the generalizations he made, neither in the Tractatus nor in PI. He seems to have assumed without a second thought that what he says applies to all of philosophy, and it is this that I hold to be the greatest flaw in his works. Yes, there are many situations where philosophical debate is going nowhere because the debaters do not "speak the same language", so to speak - but what about those situations where enough common ground is shared to have an understanding of the other person's views, do such not also exist? Are language games not more of a communicational problem rather than an obstacle preventing traditional philosophy altogether? A hilarious example would be the so-called incident of Wittgenstein's poker, of which even a book has been written. Karl Popper, a contemporary philosopher of Wittgenstein's, met with Wittgenstein and his students as a visiting lecturer and got into an argument about this very problem - whether there are real philosophical problems or not. It is said that Wittgenstein, known for his temper, grabbed a poker and insisted that Popper give an example of a philosophical problem that is not merely confused use of language, waving the poker at him as he did. Maintaining his civility, Popper answered: "Visiting lecturers should not be threatened with pokers." Wittgenstein, enraged, threw the poker on the floor an stormed out of the room.
Just how enlightening Popper's retort was is certainly debatable, but it begs an important question: why should we not be able to find real problems under all the "bad language"? Why is it that visiting lecturers, and fellow human beings for that matter, should not be threatened with pokers? (Or with anything else, for that matter) Where do such rules originate from, whether they are only rules of conduct or written in law? Moreover, what kind of rules would be optimal for a given society? How am I being "bewitched by language" if I want to know such things?
Moving onto epistemology, let us ask the core question: what can we know? We shall certainly have to define very carefully the words we used - define them in this context only, mind you - so as to prevent the kind of linguistic mess that Wittgenstein warns us about, but is the problem not real after that? We could say: "we" refers to human beings overall, and "know", or "knowledge", refers to true, justified beliefs, as per the classical definition of knowledge. We then have to define even more words - "human being", "true", "justified", "belief" - but it is clear that, in order for these words to mean anything at all, we are capable of stopping the chain, else we would be going round. Wittgenstein would say that once we have done this, the problem has disappeared, that the answer is already evident. If that is the case, I must congratulate him for eliminating an entire branch of philosophy with a relatively short chain of analysis. That is the problem - philosophical questions are not purely analytic, they grope for an understanding of the world we live in. Problems regarding the world we live in are quite synthetic, in my opinion, and not all of them belong to the field of the natural sciences.
Wittgenstein's merit as a philosopher is impossible to doubt. The problems and views he has presented were unique at the time, and he in effect gave rise to the whole tradition of analytic philosophy. I maintain, however, that to believe everything he has to say about philosophy is a mistake: philosophy does have problems of its own, even if it is a problem in itself to make sense of these problems.
On Topic II
by Nora Labo (Romania)
In a way, today's world is literally breaking to pieces from a philosophical point of view: all great metaphysical concepts which have served as a guideline for centuries of philosophical inquiry and political thinking and action are now proven either void of meaning or completely inadequate for thinking the world as it is today. On the one hand, philosophers such as Wittgenstein have clearly shown that metaphysical questions like the ones concerning the meaning of concepts such as 'time' are actually false problems and that the whole of speculative philosophy originates in a poor understanding of the way our language works and in a faulty use of language games; this means that such concepts can no longer serve as a solid core on which to build our view of the world. On the other hand, beginning with the revolutionary thinking of Nietzsche, who stated that truth does not have an objective criterion on which to be established, but rather that it is a question of perspective, philosophers such as Heidegger and, later on, Derrida, have proceeded to the systematic deconstruction of the main categories and structures of Western speculative philosophy. Thus, today we have no universal criteria or concepts left, but instead we rather see the world as a place where different paradigms and knowledge-power structures compete with one another.
The quote from J?rgen Habermas my essay is inspired by acknowledges and takes into account some of the problems that arise from this new epistemically fragmented world, but unfortunately fails to face up to this entirely new situation that we are living nowadays, when, paradoxically, as the world is becoming more and more globalized, our perception of reality is becoming more and more fragmented, as I will explain throughout my essay. The main point I will be trying to prove is that, while Habermas is trying to suggest a way of establishing truth through dialogue in a world of differences and his intention of doing this is admirable, he is operating with concepts that can no longer find support in contemporary reality or which, at least, belong to a paradigm which we have already left behind (and I will show why) - the project of the Aufklarung. Throughout my paper, I will be discussing the possibility of finding criteria for truth and establishing authentic communication between different cultures (and universes of discourse) through the perspective of the knowledge-power pair, which functions as a whole, and I will try to propose an alternative model to that of Habermas's. I also consider it important to mention that, although the quotation from Habermas might initially seem to strictly refer to epistemology, at closer reading it becomes obvious that it has deep connections with social and cultural issues related to culture clash in the contemporary world.
Baudrillard uses a very expressive term when he refers to our status in today's world: he says that all people are now 'indifferent paroxists', meaning that we are realizing that modernity, with all its desire of establishing universal values and strong fundamental truths is coming to an end, and that we are living the moments right before its final breath, so that is why we are paroxists (this word coming from the Greek word 'par?xiton', which means 'the one before the end'); on the other hand, we refuse to acknowledge these changes and we go on living completely indifferent to these changes, as if they wouldn't affect us at all. In a way, Habermas falls into the mistake of being an indifferent paroxist, as he admits the fact that truth is today dispersed into many universes of discourse, but at the same time proposes a solution which is possible only within a single universal pattern of discourse.
Firstly, let us see what Habermas correctly notices and how this affects the way we can interact with our fellow human beings: it is true, truth is today dispersed across many different universes of discourse, which of course implies a thing that Nietzsche first explained and was later considered a milestone on the difficult effort of parting with speculative metaphysics - that there is no absolute truth. Stating this is common sense today, but Nietzsche's development of this idea is worth a closer look, as it can give valuable insights both towards Habermas's opinion and possible solutions of dialogue. Nietzsche states that truth does not have an origin - 'Ursprung', thus that it is not a value apriorically given to us, but that truth is an invention - 'Erfindnung'. Truth is a fiction invented by human beings in order to help them exert their domination, truth is actually a matter of power. Nietzsche's follower in developing the relationship between knowledge and power, the French philosopher Michel Foucault, takes this one step further and states that any order of discourse and, of course the criteria for truth it gives through its laws of discourse, is generated by power and domination structures within society; from this it is then easy to imply that Habermas is again right when he says that it is impossible to establish a hierarchy between different universes of discourse, as we know know that there is no other criterion for truth, which is a fiction anyway, than the way it serves this or another power relationship. A hierarchy would require some common ground, some trait that all universes of discourse should share in order to be compared, but such a common definition of truth can never be found, as truth is produced by social and political power structures whose criteria might be very different from culture to culture. This means that, Nietzsche's work having been written and us having realized that there is not one truth, but as many truths as there are ways of exercising power, we cannot go on living with the belief that some universes of discourse are more prone to produce the truth than others.
Moreover, as I have stated before, the later Wittgenstein showed how all talk about defining absolute values and concepts which could then be laid as foundations of our conception of the world is useless and impossible, as it is originating from a fallacious perspective over the world, induced by our misuse of language, of our overstretching the borders of certain language games' area of use. Coming from another domain of philosophy, but still attacking the same ambition of metaphysics to find originary, absolute concepts, the French philosopher Jacques Derrida proceeds to the systematic deconstruction of metaphysical concepts, doing this in two ways: first, by proving traditional oppositions suck as mind versus body, subject versus object, immanent versus transcendent not to be as clear as they were once thought, but on the contrary, being able to merge into one another (and he shows this through the analysis of 'les indecidables', concepts which belong to both the opposed categories, such as the pharmakon, which is both poison and medicine, while still remaining the same substance); second he does it by introducing the concept of 'differance', which comes from a Latin word stem that means both 'to differ' and to 'send further to'. The importance of this concept is that it refers to the fact that such a thing as an originary concept/idea/truth does not exist. Every concept sends you further to another one which explains it, another one that is both similar to the first one and separated from it through this 'differance'. Thus, we must accept the idea that we can find no absolute origin of truth or any other origin whatsoever. At this point, it becomes obvious why, in the contemporary world, we must redefine our criteria for dialogue and for analyzing discourses different from our own, as we can no longer count on having established an universally applicable 'origin' of truth.
However, up to this stage of my essay, I have only shown what Habermas rightfully accepts when stating that truth is no longer unitary, no longer belonging to only one universe of discourse and that it is impossible to compare or establish a hierarchy between two different truths which are the product of two different orders of discourse. Maintaining the need for a hierarchy implies establishing an universal criterion which would call for a 'totalitarian' view of truth we can no longer accept. But a problem appears here: the presence of involuntary double speech in Habermas's quotation, because, while stating the fragmentation and relativisation of truth, he then uses some notions which he does not define and which he takes as granted from the same metaphysical tradition that is made impossible by giving up the possibility of an absolute truth. The problems I see in this text connected with what I have just stated are:
1. what does Habermas mean by the word 'all' (is an 'insight that can convince all' an absolute truth? - but he has just admitted that this is impossible; are all people endowed with the same kind of rationality? - and if not, does he mean by 'all' only the ones who posses a similar kind of rationality and truth validation patterns to the ones we use?)?
2. who does the word 'we' that Habermas uses in the same quote refer to(is it people who belong to the Occidental civilization? Who share the same opinions as he does? Does he refer to humanity in general - and if yes, what guarantees the possibility of setting a common ground of dialogue on the basis on which 'we' could 'all' search for the same kind of persuasive insights?; who gives him the authority to speak in the name of humanity?)?
These two points I consider very problematic because they perpetuate what Lyotard calls the 'great stories', the great eshatological myths of Occidental philosophy, which believe in an universal and continuous progress of the whole humanity, and instead of considering individual communities and historical moments in their uniqueness and individuality, analyze them as parts of a great progressive destiny of humanity, which is all encompassing and demands universal recognition. When Habermas takes for granted the fact that, although truth is dispersed in many universes of discourse, it is still possible to get to an insight which could convince all (and since ' all' has no other determinant, we are suggested to take it in its widest possible sense), and that this is the ideal which guides our discourses, he implicitly assumes that there is one and only one reason that is common for all people and all types of discourse, and which is like pole of stability and a common trait in a world otherwise such disbalanced by relativity. This assumption is very well criticized by Lyotard, who argues that one of the greatest mistakes in philosophical tradition is merging of all the varied and different kind of reason that exist simultaneously under the absolute concept of a single Reason; if we keep our minds open, though, it appears quite obvious that the type of reason guiding philosophical inquiry is a very different kind of rationality from the one guiding capitalist economies. It is a specific trait of these 'great stories' of modernity, whose failure Lyotard argues, that they are trying to reduce diversity, multiplicity and difference to the unity of some originary concepts (the ones Derrida was deconstructing), which can then be made to play a part in the great stories of progress and emancipation, which actually are used by Occidental civilizations to legitimate their own power structures. Lyotard states that these myths of emancipation, initiated during the Aufklarung, have been proven wrong by recent history, and that atrocities such as Auschwitz prove that humanity is not in a continuous process of progress and improvement. But Habermas argues that the Aufklarung has not failed, but has not yet been accomplished, this also being the reason why he sticks on to concepts such as humanity seen as a whole, which are highly specific to the Aufklarung's project of emancipation.
I find Habermas's opinion in a way inadequate for the era we live in. In the first place, it is very risky to reach for 'insights that can convince all' when it is becoming more and more uncertain whether there are such things as humanity as a whole or human history as a whole. As Lyotard again smartly argues, now that the great stories of legitimation are dying out, legitimation is beginning to be made through an intricate net of small local stories, which are all connected, but at the same time distinct. Lyotard only says that this is a process that is taking place right now; but if we judge it by the Occidental values of tolerance and mutual understanding, I guess it can easily be argued that this a desirable situation too. A culture lives through its stories, and its universe of discourse is what defines it. But different universes of discourse are incommensurable, as are different language games, so it is impossible to compare them and, thus, to even hope of convincing all people of the righteousness of an opinion. This means that Habermas is developing an utopia of dialogue through his theory of truth through consensus; but then again, does that mean communication between cultures is impossible?
Hopefully not. Although Habermas's talk about humankind in general is too anchored in a paradigm of the past - the one of the Aufklarung and of modernity's tales of progress in general, it could somewhat be amended through the mediation of Rorty's pragmatism. Actually, although Lyotard is basically right about the difficulty of comparing different cultures' universes of discourse, two such universes might be able to interact, while still without any common ground shared by all cultures; but it is obvious that there is no such thing as a power structure not suffering any influences from outside itself: such self-sufficiency is impossible and, even if possible, probably deadly to the culture which would apply it. So if a breech were possible so that participants to a certain order of discourse could enter another one, communication would be possible. But in order to be able to develop this idea, we must give up concepts such as that of a single reason common to all humankind. We must, as Rorty teaches us, become self-aware of our own unsurpassable ethnocentrism: however much we try to be open to other cultures, we still perceive their values through the perspective of our own society's values, which formed us as made us, in a great degree, become who we are now. But this is not a tragic limitation in any way, and we should neither feel ashamed that we have an ethnocentric perspective: we should take advantage of the fact that one of the values valued by the civilized societies we live in today is tolerance and dialogue and rejoice at the fact that we see the world through the prism of this value. Still, we have to remain aware of two things: that our perspective is not the only one, and that it will never be possible to make all people share our perspective, because some belong to universes of discourse that have no breeches between their universe and our own (for example, it would be impossible to convince a Ku Klux Klan member to accept that black people are humans too, because it would simply be impossible to find any common values on which to establish a dialogue). Thus what we must try to do is not, as Habermas says, try to reach an unanimous truth, but do something more modest, which kind of continues the German philosopher's idea, while also truly taking into account the relativity and fragmentariness of today's world: we should try to augment the extension of the word 'we' that we use when referring to the community within which we share the same rules of dialogue as far as possible - or, said in another way, try to obtain the widest possible intersubjective agreement. But this should not be an absolute ideal: there are situations in which an intersubjective agreement simply cannot be reached. In this kind of situations we should try, as far as our values permit it, to arrive at a situation of mutual tolerance and respect and to the acceptance of differences.
Thus, in a world in which truth has long been proved to be multiple and historically determined and in which the great universal stories of legitimation are being replaced by a mosaic of local stories, when all the concepts of speculative metaphysics are shown not to be able to serve as an originary basis anymore, it is irrational and naive to keep searching for an objective truth, as if this truth could exist outside human dialogue (and without dialogue, the notion of truth does not make sense). But this should not depress us or demotivate us from our exchange of ideas with other people: we must appreciate the fact that postmodernity has freed us form the the domination of unique criteria and values and opened our way to the true appreciation of the otherness, and not of the identical. If the capitalist mechanisms of globalisation are threatening our identity, what we have to do is resit to the totalitarianism of absolute values, and cultivate difference and relativism.
On Topic II
by David Himler (Austria)
Some time ago, a man - dressed like a gold-digger - came running towards me, crying from the top of his lungs:"I found it! I found it!".
Trying to calm him, I asked:"What did you find?".
"The truth", he answered exhausted, "I found the one, the only truth...".
Although I must admit that, as you might already suspected, this incident never actually happened, it is nonetheless a handy way to approach a very complex problem and as a result of that problem a very difficult question: Does the one truth, which the gold-digger claimed to have found exist? Is there an insight, which, as Habermas stated, could convince all?
To me, the idea of one particular insight in a discourse, which would convince all persons, groups, or even cultures involved, is a very troubling and, more important, unrealistic concept, because it is based on the asumption that there actually is one answer, one truth, or one insight to each question to be found, or at least a compromise which would satisfy all partys involved.
But could, for example even only two people (which is most likely the smallest group), engaged in a discussion, be expected to end up with one statement, one opinion, or - as stated before - one compromise, which would convince both of them?
We find ourselves not only asking "How could they?", but as a result "Why should they?".
Is a compromise, even if it is a shabby one, always the goal we should try to achieve?
Far from it.
In the search for thruths or insights in a, for example, philosophical discourse the aim to reach a compromise is not only a big hindrance to the discourse itself, but it also, probably unconsciously, causes a serious lack of variety and "substance" of the conversation, because it reduces the value of all views and ideas involved before the discussion even begins.
So, what should be the goal in all these discourses about the truth?
To answer that question, it is essential to answer another - fundamental - one first: "What is the truth really and how is it formed?"
Of course, the mere try to answer that question properly would require another essay, but just like the gold-digger, another picture could provide a sufficient answer for our cause here. From the day they are born, all humans try to define their place in the world, or more specifically, in the systems (like family, neighborhood, professional environment, etc..) they are a part of. Humans therefore create (influenced by culture, social background, education, etc..) a picture, or a map of the world and how it works, or should work, in their minds combined with a legend to read that map to provide them with the orientation they are looking for.
This "map", which inculdes our views, opinions and values, form our truth, which is the way we see world and also a set of instructions on how to react to this world and its inhabitants.
This image is very helpful in discovering that there is more than one truth, just because there is more than one map for every human on the planet. Every human has his/her own map, which is constantly developing and changing based on the experiences humans make every minute. What we come to realize is the mere impossibility that two people on earth share the same map.
Is it therefore likely to find a way (i.e. an insight) that would find its place on both maps (of the two people engaged in a discussion)? Not at all.
We must realize that this "way" could not just be drawn on all maps involved without affecting other parts of the map as well, which are very likely to be important parts the map's owner is not willing to abolish.
That means, to leave the picture's sphere again, that no compromise works without more or less radical incisions on both sides.
Why should the compromise be then the desirable goal to look for, if it is that unsatisfying?
That is the point. It is not.
The first and foremost goal in a discussion must not be to agree on one shared insight but to agree on differences between our insights. That might sound rather troubling, but it is the only way to create a basis for a desirable discourse, which moves beyond mere tolerance, which is likely to turn into a "false friend", when it is reduced to just the acceptance of the existence of another map, or like J.W.Goethe put it: "Tolerance has to be a temporary view (...) to tolerate means to insult."
Therefore the goal should not only form a basis made of tolerance, but made of respect for the other "maps" we are facing in a discourse. This simple presupposition enables us to evaluate the map without obligations to find a shared view, to question it and even include parts of it into our own map, if we feel like those parts would enrich our views.
The one insight (of this particular discourse) is getting clearer and clearer: The one truth in a discourse does not exist, because there are as many truths as there are participants, which, when combined, examined and shared enrich all people involve, much more than the lowest common denominator of their views.
So the goal is not to find the one truth, but to find as many as there are. Those, who are looking for the truth are no gold-diggers, but collectors who seek to not only see the whole world with their own eyes, but with many others as well.
After thinking about it for a while, I said to the gold-digger: "You found the truth? Great, let me see it, do you want to have a look at mine?"
The gold-digger smiled a knowing smile
La Patrie, plutot mon ami
Les limites de la Philosophie
by Patricio Kingston (Argentina)
" Si j'avais a choisir entre trahir mon pays et trahir mon ami, j'espere que j'aurais les tripes de trahir mon pays ", soutient E. M. Foster. Cette phrase me souvint de la conception camusienne de la Guerre d'Algerie. En effet, quand on demanda le philosophe et ecrivain franco-algerien son avis sur le conflit belique entre la France et l'Algerie dont l'origine etait les demandes d'independance d'un grand secteur de la societe algerienne, il repondit: Justice, plutot ma mere. Voila pourquoi on a appele cet essai: La Patrie, plutot mon ami.
On est certes souvent temptes de condamner ses positions au nom des devoirs civiques face a la Societe, a nos responsabilites face au corps social dont on fait part. On voit l'egoisme dans ses positions, mais, par contre, qui pourrait repondre a une telle question sans hesiter un moment? Mieux, qui pourrait repondre a cette question et soutenir universellement cette reponse?
Voyons un cas concret, raconte par Sartre dans son oeuvre L'existentialisme est un humanisme. L'auteur de L'Etre et le Neant y raconte qu'un eleve lui avait demande pendant la guerre comment pouvait-il savoir s'il devrait rester chez lui en accompagnant sa mere (et donc etre susceptible d'etre accuse de colaborationisme) ou bien joindre la Resistance (et laisser sa mere toute seule).
L'etudiant avait parcouru toutes ses connaissances de philosophie, tous les systemes ethiques dont il avait la connaissance, sans arriver a une reponse universelle qui lui convainquit. Il eut donc recours a son professeur (Sartre), et celui-ci lui repondit qu'il ne trouverait jamais la reponse dans les livres de philosophie. Etant libre comme il est (Sartre defina l'homme comme pure liberte), c'etait a lui de choisir, de faire son election.
Evidemment, cela ne voulait pas dire que n'importe quelle election que l'on fasse soit bien (selon Sartre, on doit choisir toujours la liberte pour l'Humanite), mais qu'il faut etre authentique, reconnaitre que c'est soi-meme qui fait l'election, et ne pas chercher a la situer dehors, en essayant de trouver une reponse automatique dans un systeme donne. Chaque action, c'est une election.
De toute facon, ce qui nous interesse de cet exemple, c'est la difficulte posee par le probleme lors de sa traduction - s'il m'est permis d'ainsi m'exprimer - en faits concrets. Parfois on peut bien repondre - et meme presqu'automatiquement - a la question theoriquement, mais dans la situation concrete on commence a douter de toutes nos connaissances, et l'on a recours souvent au simple sentiment.
Que peut donc faire la Philosophie pour repondre a cette question? En principe, la Philosophie a elabore a travers son histoire des differents systemes ethiques qui reglent le comportement de l'homme. S'il ne peuvent apporter automatiquement la solution, parfois ils peuvent nous illustrer sur certains aspects en nous aidant a choisir.
Ainsi, les ethiques qui font part des systemes organicistes sont contre la position de Foster: elles soutiennent que le Tout (dans ce cas, la Societe - soit, le Pays -) precede la Part (l'Individu - soit, l'ami -), alors ces-ci doivent etre sacrifiees a celui-la. Deja Aristote (Politique, Liv. I Ch. I) avait ennonce la subordination du bonheur individuel au bonheur publique, soit, la subordination de l'individu a l'Etat.
Ces conceptions holistes - dont on rencontre Hegel et Taylor parmi ses representants les plus importants - concoivent la Totalite comme une entite distincte des Parts qui la conforment: la Societe n'est pas la simple addition des individus; au contraire, elle est une entite independant et superieure, meme dote de son propre esprit (le celebre volksgeist si apprecie par l'Ecole Historique du Droit d'Hugo et Savigny). Etant donc une entite superieure, son bonheur est plus important que celui des individus qui y sont compris, alors s'il faut sacrifier son ami ou sacrifier son pays, on doit toujours sacrifier le premier, puisqu'il est moins important que le Tout.
Neanmoins, parfois ces conceptions subordonnent insupportablement l'individu a l'Etat (le fascisme aussi bien que le communisme ont ete les champions du holisme): l'homme n'est pas un esclave de l'Etat, une simple part dans mecanisme absolu (tel que le pretendait la Sociologie de Duguit). Ce type de systeme ne peut qu'engendrer la tyrannie, et donc ne doit pas etre approuve (personne ne suivra jamais les schemas de la tyrannie que lorsqu'il est surveille, donc personne n'elirait pas librement cette version extreme du holisme). Meme Hobbes, qui a ete le theoricien de l'Absolutisme monarchique, soutint qu'il y avait des limites pour l'Etat, soit, la Loi Naturelle qui emmene a l'homme vers sa conservation physique.
De l'autre cote, on a les conceptions atomistes ou individualistes qui font de l'individu le centre de leur pensee, et de la Societe la simple addition des individus. Cette conception n'offre pas une reponse unique non plus. En effet, d'un cote quelques individualistes soutiendront que l'homme est libre de trahir son pays lorsque ne pas le faire lui ferait miserable d'apres le sacrifice de son ami. On ne pourrait exiger a un homme qui soit malheureux, qui tue son ami, son frere, ses parents.
Pourtant d'autres diront que la Societe doit rendre heureux le plus grand nombre de gens, alors si trahir le pays ne rendrait heureux que le traitre et son protege, et le sacrifice de celui-ci, la majorite de la Societe, alors l'homme doit agir pour le bien du majeur nombre.
En outre, d'autres systemes tel que celui de Kant nous exigeront choisir la reponse que toute l'Humanite en agissant rationalement choisisserait. Voila l'essence de son imperatif categorique. Le probleme, c'est que l'Humanite generalement n'agit pas rationalement dans ces situations, et il faut avouer que c'est assez difficile de trouver une reponse universelle pour cette question: choisisserait-on toujours l'ami ou l'Etat?
De toute facon, en parcourant les differents systemes philosophiques on se rend compte que l'on ne peut arriver a une reponse unique, universelle et eternelle. C'est une veritable question de sentiments que l'on ne peut repondre a priori, et surtout pas in abstracto. On pourrait bien dire que l'on croit que l'on doit respecter ses devoirs civiques, mais on ne cesserait de comprendre, dans certains cas, ceux qui s'ecarteraient de cette voie. Par contre, on pourrait aussi bien dire que l'on sauverait l'ami, mais le plus probable, c'est que l'on ne pardonnerait pas celui qui nous aurait condamne comme societe pour sauver son ami.
Ainsi, je crois que Foster se trompe en affirmant universellement de trahir son pays plutot que son ami: on finit par approuver les deux cas, selon les circonstances. Que peut donc faire la Philosophie pour quiconque se trouve dans la malheureuse situation imagine par Foster?
En fait, je dois avouer que je ne trouve pas une reponse qui me convainque pour cette question: d'un cote, je trouve que l'elle pourrait clarifier les principes qui gouvernent les differentes choix, mais d'un autre cote, je sens que cette election, malgre le temps qu'on lui dedie, finit par etre la decision d'un instant. Apres on trouvera les arguments pour justifier la decision, mais au moment de l'election, ce n'est qu'un acte de volonte, un sentiment.
C'est a peu pres comme la methode de jugement decrite par Cardozo: on decide d'abord la sentence, et apres on trouve les arguments pour la justifier. Ainsi, l'aide que la Philosophie peut nous donner dans ce domaine est indirecte, a travers nos structures mentales, qui voire inconsciemment conditionnent quoi que ce soit partiellement nos choix.
Il y a certaines questions qui peuvent etre resoutes philosophiquement, mais il y a d'autres qui nous posent dans des situations dans lesquelles il est impossible de raisonner. C'est ainsi que Saint Thomas d'Aquin a tres bien dit que l'on n'a pas de foi avec la raison, ni raisonne-t-on avec la foi.
Ainsi, je conclus que la Philosophie n'a pas d'outilite directe pour la resolution de la situation proposee par Foster (soit, je crois que son affirmation est un simple discours depourvue consequences pratiques). La situation proposee trouve sa solution irrationellement, donc je crois qu'elle est au-dela des limites de la Philosophie. C'est-a-dire, la solution peut etre justifiee par la Philosophie, mais elle ne peut etre directement prise par elle.
Finalement, il faut acclarer que cela ne veut pas dire que la philosophie morale n'ait pas d'outilite, c'est-a-dire, qu'elle soit " seulement theorique " et ne puisse etre applique. Je crois que la Philosophie (Morale) est donc similaire au Droit tel que concu par R. Dworkin: en general, elle nous permet de resoudre assez facilement nos problemes, mais il y a certains hard cases (cas difficiles) qui ne sont pas gouvernes par les regles generales, et donc la personne (ou, dans le cas de Dworkin, le juge) n'a pas une election unique.
Il n'y a pas, donc, le bon choix.
On Topic III
by Woo Chan Lee (Korea)
Evaluation of things according to the pleasure and pain they accompany- at first hearing, it does strike one as naive. What harsh prejudices we reserve for those playful Hedonists: immature, vulgar... "Sensuality" and "pleasure", is automatically oriented with lowly sentiment. We've been reared in an environment in which we are constantly urged to hide our instincts- to curb our desires for pleasure in the name of courtesy and wisdom. Society and culture around us continuously condemn actions based solely on pleasure, and those who evade pain willingly are called cowards. Nowadays, one can never be too noble as to face the world with sight devoid of pain and pleasure, and to act as as subjectively as he can in estimating the value of an object.
This exercise of trying to eliminate the instinct that leads us towards and away pleasure and pain compels us to abandon a perception based upon feelings, and emotion. Those who seek the value of an object by pleasure and pain, resort to emotions. A man does not think that it is painful when he steps on a pin, but he feels. Pleasure and pain are not decided after a process of reasoning, but are communicated directly in form of feelings and emotion. Childhood revolves around this system. What is pleasurable is good, and the child demands more, and what is painful is bad, which the child would try to evade.
As we age, however, things become significantly different. One ceases to rely on emotions. Life becomes more complicated as a process of thought takes place of spontaneous feelings. We refrain from acting by whim. Our education compels us to think before taking action. Reason! If feelings are of emotion, then reason, or thought- the thing of the mind! The Apollonian exultation of stolid reason as the tool towards the truth and value of life, which Nietzsche believes to have begun with Socrates, has led to a direct line of rationalism through Descartes and Russel/Whitehead. How Socrates preached the power of mind to Plato who was once a Dionysian poet, but later became the first great analyst. Before thought, the Greeks were men of pleasure, extolling sensuality through tragedy and comedy. After Socrates, the Greeks became Plato, Aristotle, and Euripedes. Life that once sought meaning in pleasure became the culture of dialogue and reason.
And this is precisely what the lonely German abhorred. True- from the unorganized, illogical philosophy of Heraclitus to Aristotle's canon of knowledge, mankind has certainly made a step forward by adopting mind as the most powerful tool in life. Yet, so Nietzsche argues, the transition from emotion to thought leads to decadence, as is what he thought happened to the Greeks. The lonely German loved the early Wagner for his apotheosis of untamed passion in music, which had previously been marked by the classic organization of Mozart. Once the great musician turned to dialogue from drama, Nietzsche abandoned him. Such was Nietzsche's love for human emotion. Such was his respect for the "artist" who can regard the shunning of emotion "with irony and pity from a distance."
No one can disagree with the fact that emotion has been constantly undermined for a large part in the stream of history. He who can suppress his desires and emotions, and revert himself from pleasure, has been praised ever since the ascetic teachings of Christ. Buddhism, too, and other religions, ask of men to seek a goal higher than immediate pleasure. And yet how natural it is to desire pleasure and abhor pain, that even the compensations that come for heeding the religious doctrines is in fact eternal pleasure in the fields of Heaven! Behind the complex reflections and thoughts of the messiah, what can lie there except the eternal satisfaction of the emotions? Experience surely tells that emotion is Man's first tool. As children, we rely on feelings and not thought. Before civilization and even language, the earliest human being struggled for survival with the doctrine of pleasure and pain. It is through his preference for pleasure that mankind lives today.
But why this dependence on reason? The truth is, despite all its powers and merits, we know that emotion alone is not a sufficient key to life. One might make connections between the lack of rationalism in both artists and children, but all of those who linger in childhood are not certainly bound to become artists. Emotion is a powerful determinant- but it must be channeled. Culture, to a certain degree, is incorporation of rationalism to the barbaric mind. And even within art, where there is no dictated rule, a certain order is present.
So Nietzsche, in his passionate disgust towards Apollo's harmonious order, overlooked the fact that Siegfreid would not have been possible without Wagner's mind aiding the musician's emotions, and that even his Zarathustra would not have been as great without thought organizing and weaving the threads of inspiration. Order created by the mind does not always overshadow the explosive beauty of the heart, nor eliminates pleasure, but crafts it into presentable form.
All forms of development may be viewed as this incorporation of thought into primal emotions. As one grows older, he realizes that his actions imply more than a choice between immediate pleasure or pain- that behind a thing, there is something more that does not necessarily involve his individual emotions alone. He gains this knowledge, as the term knowledge itself implies, through thought. A man is capable of sacrificing immediate pleasure, not because he does not desire it as much as a child does, but because (through thought) he perceives a greater pleasure in the long run. All that a child knows about running around in a restaurant is that it is fun. He does not perceive that it is disturbing to others, and his loss of reputation does not present itself to the child as pain. Neither can he perceive, due to underdeveloped reason, that it will happen. A grown man, however, sees that people around him do not appreciate noise, and remains in his seat. His pleasure is derived from knowing that people will think of him as a man of etiquette. On the contrary, one's inability to channel his desire for immediate pleasures may well lead to more pain. It is common that we laugh at he who cannot curb his desires when restraint is polite. We call such a man naive, and condemn his lack of morals.
So, much to Nietzsche's pity, we may say that hedonism that does not pursue beyond immediate pleasure is naive and shallow- and the same for utilitarianism. But what else can we say of the above mentioned development of morals, of a certain behavioral code set by society on what is wrong and right, except that it is utilitarian? Surely, if everybody acted without moral code and indulged in whatever rudimentary pleasures that came to mind, that would be damaging to everybody's pleasure. We cede to moral laws because we know that, by following them, life on the whole will become more pleasurable. Wait then! If the development of order is led by thought, as from a meaningless jumble of words to a carefully crafted essay, and utilitarianism must accompany a certain degree of a process of discerning and organizing what the ultimate pleasure for the majority is, Nietzsche was certainly wrong to dismiss systems such as hedonism and utilitarianism to be devoid of thought and reason.
Nietzsche failed to grasp that those who devised hedonism, pessimism, or utilitarianism, are not all "artists" who advocate the superiority of pleasure over order, emotion over mind. The British utilitarians were people of the business class- those who desired pleasure of the majority to be the right course of actions did so because they themselves were part of the majority, not the artistic few. He was right to divide the world into Dionysian and Apollonian forms, but he fell into that dogmatism which he so hated, and forgot that both passion and order are necessary.
We should not overestimate the power of thought- and it may well be that rationalism is an exaggeration of the faculty and importance of mind. But emotion is not an omnipotent key to the world either. Not that we should all concur to the saying that "agnosticism is the only true philosophy," but wouldn't have Nietzsche and humanity on the whole done better if they had searched for the Golden Mean? Wise was he who turned our attention back to pleasure and pain, but it was his blunder to miss the ubiquitous power and necessity of human reason.
On Topic IV
by Jutta Obertegger (Italy)
NOMENESTOMEN
Once Aristoleles established a discriminating feature for living beings: movement. Every being that is moved by itself can be considered living. Things like stones are not capable of moving, they are just the object of the action which makes them move. So Aristoleles said that every living animal must have a soul because only the soul is capable of moving itself. This tendency comes from the desire of the soul because the soul wants to take part in.the great harmony, which is perfect and eternally moving. At this point we could add that an exzpression of this moving soul is the language because only living creatures are capable of speaking, but not all in the same way, as Darwin noticed. Plants are moving verz slowly, and so they are not forced to deal with each other in a fast and not always direct way. So they use other ways of communication, like hormones. On the other hand animals and exspecially the human being have to communicate directly because they can change their position and so they have to organize their meetings. For this these beings created or expressed a communication which should express their desires and their needs, that is why a lion rows and a human being shouts. The human being is a creature which establishes states and so the tendency to organisation is a necessary conclusion.
As we said before that living animals or their souls want to express something, language is the sum of different sounds put together. The members of the language group give meanings to the different combinations of the words, so that they can use them in an universal way, they think. In addition, humans have elaborated and specified the language in a special way: When animals, like lions, have concentrated their communication on special sounds or expressions, human beeings have given their ;anguage an abstract sense. Human beeings established certain rules or laws, like in mathematical sciences or in logistics, by using their language, so that they have been creating new combinations of sound for new contants. So no person of the middle age would be able to understand a theory about radiation or could understand the word "computer" because these things did not exist at that time. So the developmtent of the human is also a developmtent of his language because he is adictetd to use words as his way of communicating.
Nevertheless it is obvious that language can not be seen in an absolute way because there are many circumstances which have their influence on language and no thing that depends on something else can be considered as a basis: There are some primary influences: Every individuum is influenced by its family because before an individuum startes to make its own experiences it needs a guide, as Augustinus said. And so every persons learns the first words directly from its family. The necessity is after that the most important feature because the capaticity of speaking depends on your own ability to it, that means that if there is a lot of dialogue in a family the children or the members of this family are trained by this so that they can deal with other people well.
Secondary, language depends also on education. People who have the possibility to go to school or to university can often much better express certain things than others because they confronted theirselves with such things.
Tertiary, it depends on the direct culture area to which an individuum belongs because you can find special words just in special parts of the world because the culture which lives there has found a special expression for it. Every culture area has got a specified number of expressions, which are the result of historical development. So for example, in certain parts of Asia there exists no word for "love" because the marriages depend on social circumstances, not on personal agreements. This makes translations also very complicated. Thats also why some jokes can not be translated because the combination of the difFerent words expresses the joke.
In addition, we found also the "enlarged" culture area as a discriminating feature because the language depends also on the personal development. If a person speaks to people of other countries, of other cultures there would may be found some differences in expression and then these persons can explain why they are using these expressions. The contact with other language groups gives an essential influence on the way of thinking of a person or a culture because every "historical grown" word has a specified content and a meaning behing its "normal" meaning. The most difficult thing is nonetheless that diffenent countries have created difFerent languages and dialects, so that not national, but also global communication is very difficult to establish. If every word is the result of a "movement" of the soul, and if every movement is equal to an idea, every word must have its origine in an idea. So the differences in language are also the differences of ideas of an area. So that we can say that the language is the expression of a culture and everything is related to it, for example art. Before an artist can start his work, he must think of it, he has to express his vision, he has to form the basis of his work. After that he can start to elaborate and to concentrate his work. Before the human is HOMO FABER, he is HOMO COGITANS. So it is necessary to enlarge the vision of Descartes "Cogito ergo sum " to "Cogito ergo loeuor". The human reason tries to organize the world in a way that the human can understand the world and so does also the arist. In life many different feelings and much information comes to the ma?, but the artist can filtrate this information and send a message to the viewer. But before you can send a message, you have to form this message. Referring to Wittgenstein, you can just speak clearly obout things, if you have a clear vision of it.
So that every artificial expression is first an coginitive action, which is controlled by the language which speaks your reason. It is obvious that the active thinking depends on language and the words a language uses. Thats also why Chinese art styles more are connected to philosophy and religion and poetry than the European and American styles because these three topics has been ever together in this land. So for example retained the exams for the civil servants of the imperator not only poetry, but also painting. Exspecially poets use the huge crowd of expressions to create a special atmosphere, for example Edgar Allen Poe was very good at it, for example in his ballad "The Raven": "But the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain". He takes human expressions to describe the movements of things which created these feellings in the reader. So you can see, that, as long a culture could form its own language and writing, language correspondes to the way of thinking. So it seems like every idea forms a word which has an influence on the actions of the person who has thought it. The transformation of this thought returns in this way again to the mae who has thought it, like Cusanus noticed, that the human being creates a whole world out of his soul and this world returns to him again. Language is not a "causa sui", but a "creator sui" because the human innocation corresponds to the creation of new words for a new part of the human world. Also language is a part of this world, but many often some words are misunderstood. This phenomenon has started by the beginning of language because language is not necessary for an individuum, but it is essential for a group of at least two people. Because as Cusanus said that every human being is the centre of the universe because every individuum creates his own world, every human being has similar, but always different ideas or expectations. So that we must say that every person in his personal thinking is like an elemental wave similar to the elemental waves of the light: You see every point as the starting point of such a wave, but every point of this wave is again the starting point of a new wave. So that the visible light is nothing else than the intersection, the coincidence of all these elemental waves. A culture and its language can now be considered as the coincidence of all the single expressions of society, which is the sum of all the individuals. And the yisible wave is the language which this society speaks. But the danger is that all these waves do not correspond totally to each other, so that sometimes a group has different visions about the same thing. So that we must admit that the human as a creature is a universal creature because he is able, he forces himself to this, to try, to explore many things; the ma? must have some own yisions which are fixed, which he cannot change, Heimito von Doderer calls this " Befangenheit" (diffidence), but in this state the ma? is or should be always totally able to take something in. At this point we see that language is not universal because it depends on certain things, there is and there can not be a common basis because language is a very big part of the identity of a nation or a group of people. That is also the explanation why the assimilation of people is always or nearly ever the reason for terrorism orthe soure of deeply hate against the "con?uerer". If somone is forced to speak another language which is not his native language than he has also to refuse some parts of his own thinking and the meaning of the words are known, but did not become content. So Hegel said that you just can understand something when you can connect the sensual imputs, the feelings with the word itself. Otherwise you have no clue about it because you do not understand the content. This could also be the reason, why Wittgenstein said, that little children can speak, can communicate much more better to each other than scientists who have studied at university. Wittgenstein called the use of language "Sprachspiel" (game of language) because we are not able to transform an idea 100% to reality, to words because, as Plato said, ideas are perfect, they are a part of this transcendental harmony. Nothing real, means part of our reality, can be considered as a perfect thing because also a diamond can be destroyed, but it is not possible to destroy perfect, eternal things. Even Goethe in his great work "Faust" said: " Das Wort erstirbt schon in der Feder" (The word is even dying in the pen). So you can think of a perfect thing, but you can not establish it because you are not able to do so. Language is not able to show realitiy, to express it, so we just can play these game, but we have always to be very careful that we know, which game we are playing. Society gave strict rules which control these games, so that people get lost, misunderstood, if they are playing the false game. So these games try to lead us through this labyrinth called language, called life because language is the nearest and directest connection to life because life is the source of language. And so we must confess that the limits of our language are the limits of our world, but these limits do not mean that the world behind them does not exist, only that the "universal" human has refused of some part of his universality and has so refused wisdom. So language can be considered as a sum of different historical, social and economic developments, it is ergo a result called "a posteriori" because it depends on the experience, on the big memory of a culture. That is the reason why different cultures have problems in communicating with each other. Different countries speaking different languages are the starting points of different elemental waves and so they have not the same basis. There can be some coincidences, for example is or was the ma? in almost every culture considered to be the leader of the family. But nevertheless some features are incompatible and then, when different elemental waves meet each other, there almost happens a collision (arguments, fights, war). Sometimes language can m?k? it worse because often some word are similar to word in other languages, but they often have different meanings. Sometimes the meaning of one word is exactly the opposite of the other word and then there can happen a collision, like once it was after a Yolleyball- match between two countries. In an interview a player wanted to say that she liked the game, but in the language of the other country the word for "good" means "bad" and so the other country became really angry and this conflict still goes on.
So, as Wittgenstein noticed, language can give different basis because of its yariation in view or starting point. You can speak to a person of your own language and not understand this person, not only because you have different visions, but also because you started from different exspectations and meanings. The Greek colonisation and the their trading power was just an result of their politics because the Greek men were very elitist, but nevertheless they were trading a lot with other people and cultures. The reason for this is because merchants are always openminded for new ways of trading and new goods. They have the intention to do a good swap and for this they want also to meet other cultures, to study their languages and to understand their way of life. The common basis, respecting each other, is the universal basis. Even Wittgenstein warned, that if rwo people say the same things, it means not, that they have the same intention. Language can also manipulate the sense, when you, for example, want to say that something is ugly. Then you can say that you do not like it or you say that you hate it.
So we need for the dialogue between different cultures a common basis because once it was possible to say that other countries, which are far away do not belong to our "little world" because they are in Afiica or somewhere else. Today every country is a string in a very complacated and complex in structure net. Otherwise it would have never been possible that the Second World War has influenced so many countries. Almost every country was connected with annother one and so it is not possible to say during the time of globalisation that some things do not belong to "our" world. "Our" world does not exist. The word "our" expresses just the simulation of a subjective world, "our" is just an elemental wave which can not be considered to be the whole yisible wave. An individuum or a single state can not distinguish which parts of the world take part in the word "world". So a dialogue between diferent countries is necessary, is essential not onlz for our future, but also for our present because we can have more influence on our present than on our future. That is also why Goethe"s Faust trasnlated the Greek word "LOGOS" with "action". This word, logos and action, is a part of this common basis, This common basis must be "a priori" because it is the pre- cognitive state of the human mind, that exists apart from language because it is universal. It can not be transformed into language, it can only be described. Language gives just a sign of this awareness. This pr?- cognitive thinking is a feature of every living beeing, it is the soul who moves the materia©© and it is the common basis which is necessary. During the Italian "Risorgimento"-Wars the famous writer Manzoni said that every nation (in this case the Italian nation) should have its own state, based on a common language, but in the end h? had the romantic opinion of a united Europ?, of a united world, and every state is a part of it. The pr?- cognitive thinking is the essence, the ?uinta essentia, which is the feature of humanity.
On Topic IV
by Jae Won Choi (Korea)
Is true communication of humanity through language possible?
Sound communication between people is a crucial basis of the establishment of a peaceful society. Moreover, the importance of communication has been increasing in the 21th century where the world is working tightly together and needs mutual understanding through communication. And along with gestures, tones, or emotions, communication includes the use of language with which we deliver our thoughts to other people and listen to different thoughts of others. Yet, despite the desperate need of well-functioning communication, I believe perfect communication through language between individuals, societies, or even communication within an individual himself is hardly possible.
Wittgenstein vividly shows a reason why communication through language must cause difficulties and misapprehensions by comparing language to the image of a labyrinth. One characteristic of language he presents here is that language is complicated. The other characteristic, which I believe to be more reponsible for the miscommunication, is that language has different meanings to each individual. Not only different person but also the same person can perceive words differently as he changes over time. I will discuss furthur about the role of language in the society, and how the characteristics of language make the perfect communication impossible.
Whether men form a society to oppress inate evilness and aggressiveness inside humanity as Hobbes insisted or whether men form a social contract to maintain natural peace and benevolence as Rousseau said, men are now living together according to the rules of the society. And the role of language in the aspect of social life is crucial. Language is the method with which people express themselves. It is the main root of interactions. Also, language enables the transfer of knowledge and wisdom of contemporary society to our descendents so that the society continue developing on the accumulation of knowledge. Much of the knowledge and wisdom pondered, discovered, and studied by one generation could not have survived if there was no language. Language is used to make laws, the social agreements. All the functions and roles of language can be summurized into one: communication. And It can be communication of different generations or communications among different cultures. The bigger the role of language in the society, the more conflicts arise when the language fails to clearly convey meanings.
And the failure of language in communication is inevitable. First of all, language changes, becomes obsolete or even becomes distorted. words, the cells composing a great universe - language, are begun to be made from the ancient times. Objects must be named after complicated agreements to the question, "what is this?". It is unlikely that people suddenly established all the names to all the objects on one day. This gradual, and complicated formation of each word unavoidably causes the gradual changes in words. Some words people used long time ago, such as 'thou or thee' are not used anymore. Some words people didn't use before such as 'missile, nano technology' are frequently used. Some words, such as 'hedonism', the meaning of the word is distorted and misunderstood from pursuing sound, everlasting peace to blindly desiring physical ecstacy. This incessent transformation of language creates gaps between meanings and the word.
Secondly, connotations of words are different. When a person who lost his finger from a dog bite will think of fear, hatred, or evilness when he talks about dogs while a person who loves and lives with ten dogs will imply adorability of his dogs. To old people, climbing a mountain may cause a feeling of strenuousness and fatigueness while young, active people may imagine how the sunshine penetrates through the forest like spears of light. So, according to the differences in age, experience, culture, and personality, just as every individual is different from one another, the concept and feeling one has about a word are completely different. Even the same person would perceive a word differently if he changes over time.
Thirdly, in case of abstract words, the exact definition is limited. As Schopenhauer said that "a person's limit of perception is the limit of the world", no one can set the definite, concrete, exclusive definition of words such as happiness, freedom, and love. According to the limited experience of their own, people give definitions regarding some aspects of the word. To a man whose fiancee elopes with another man, love is no more than a betrayal. Yet, if he falls madly in love with another woman, and at that moment, nothing can be sweeter or more important than love. Even great philosophers who proposed conclusive theories regarding the definitions and explanations of the world, human, free will, or death, cannot escape the limited human experience and perception. They are all bound to 'their' experience, and concepts attained from 'their' experiences. And as Bertrand Russel said all questions are bound to be asked once more, people change over time and their definition of words change which prove that their previous meaning, and potentially their new meaning they came up with is not perfect. Even Wittgenstein himself proposed another theory, a game theory, refuting his previous picture theory about how language was formed. Concepts and meanings of abstract words are imperfect and incomplete.
Plato and idealists would say that there exists an idea before the objects and words. An apple, a dog, love, and freedom exist as an ideal concept, a concept that everybody must agree, and the concept which is perfect that there is no room for misunderstanding. However, language, and our everyday use of words do not coincide with this ideal. "Truth is the correspondence to reality by words", said Nietzsche. And we know our words are not perfect. When we perceive this ideal, the reality, the ideal goes through the process of digestion with our words. With language, we redefine the reality as we see it. This process, rather than to just swallow whatever concept you are given, gives you the power of creation, and novelty at the expence of deviation and misunderstandings of language.
According to the reasons above, because there exists subtle, but inevitable gap between concepts and definitions of words people use, the perfect communication through language, which is crucial for the society to be maintained is almost impossible. And we can easily see the outcome of the failure of languages in our society.
Since language's most important role was to enable communication, it's greatest failure is the miscommunication. In our everyday life, we encounter misunderstanding. The first step of speaking is to form what is going on in your head into a language, to a generally agreeable word corresponding your thought. This is the first gap in communication. We often say "I do not know how to say this", or "This is really hard to explain" meaning that changing abstract 'thoughts' to 'words' is very difficult and there will always be a gap, no matter how small it is, between your thought and what you want to say. After you succeed in finding the word closest to your meaning, you will start communicate. And on this course, since your concept of the word and your partner's is different, what you say and what your partner understand is different. This, is another gap in communication. In broader sense, wars between countries or terrorism arise due to both lack of communication and miscommunication.
The public is being isolated from the knowledge. Since the academic fields develop, the become more and more fractionalized. Each subdivided field has it's own language which people who did not study the field thoroughly would understand. As people do not know the language, they do not understand the concept, and they are being separated from their reality. When their cellphone is broken, they cannot fix it themselves. We use computer everyday, but we do not know how semiconductors or transistors work or even what they are. Philosophy, despite it's importance, is only shared among a very limited people because concepts and languages are hard to define.
To sum up what happens because of the impossibility of a perfect communication, the society is being partitioned to groups of people who share similar language and concepts. The conflicts arise between these groups. Within the group, each individual has conflicts with each other. And within oneself, one may suffer because he knows he cannot explain the reality with his limited words and experiences.
Gaps caused by different concepts of the word will always there unless we think everything uniformly, meaning we should be all the same as a manufactured robot to have a homogeneous thougt. So, at the expense of the miscommunication, ambiguity, subtlety, and different perceptions of language ensure the uniqueness of an individual. Moreover, the fact that perfect communication through language is impossible does not mean that people should give up communicating with each other. We shall not and cannot elliminate the gap by inducing people to think in a uniform way.
The miscommunication can, and should be minimized by our understanding, concession, and accomodation. When a person who thinks love is painful betrayal talks about love with a person who believes that love is like a piece of chocolate, since their concept of the word, love, is completely different, they will face difficulty communicating. However, through understanding and accepting other concepts, each will accommodate their original concept to a new, broader, and more inclusive one. They will understand each other by thinking that "ah, love can be both sweet and painful". This should be how the humanity continue to communicate to each other even though language is imperfect. We should expand, accomodate and concess to new concepts by our limited, imperfect but still, hopeful chance of understanding.