larvatus prodeo
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Below are the 30 most recent journal entries recorded in the "Michael Zeleny" journal:[<< Previous 30 entries]
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10:34 am
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better not to have been
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„Niemals geboren zu werden wäre das beste für die sterblichen Menschenkinder“, „Aber“, setzen die Weisen der „Fliegenden Blätter“ hinzu, „unter hunderttausend Menschen passiert dies kaum einem.“
Der moderne Zusatz zum alten Weisheitsspruch ist ein klarer Unsinn, der durch das anscheinend vorsichtige „kaum“ noch dümmer wird. Aber er knüpft als unbestreitbar richtige Einschränkung an den ersten Satz an, kann uns also die Augen darüber öffnen, daß jene mit Ehrfurcht vernommene Weisheit auch nicht viel besser als ein Unsinn ist. Wer nie geboren worden ist, ist überhaupt kein Menschenkind; für den gibt es kein Gutes und kein Bestes. Der Unsinn im Witz dient also hier zur Aufdeckung und Darstellung eines anderen Unsinns wie im Beispiel vom Artilleristen Itzig.
—Sigmund Freud, Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewussten, Deuticke, 1912, p. 45
‘Never to be born would be the best thing for mortal men.’ ‘But’, adds the philosophical comment in Fliegende Blätter, ‘this happens to scarcely one person in a hundred thousand.’
This modern addition to an ancient saw is an evident piece of nonsense, made sillier by the ostensibly cautious ‘scarcely’. But the addition is attached to the original statement as an indisputably correct limitation, and is thus able to open our eyes to the fact that this solemnly accepted piece of wisdom is itself not much better than a piece of nonsense. Anyone who is not born is not a mortal man at all, and there is no good and no best for him. Thus the nonsense in the joke serves to uncover and demonstrate another piece of nonsense, just as in the example of Artilleryman Itzig.
—Sigmund Freud, Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious, translated by James Strachey, W.W. Norton & Co., 1990, pp. 65-66
I got a real depressing letter from my folks about two weeks ago, because I haven’t been taking real good care of my money. They said, ‘Sam, we can’t send you any more money. You’re out of control, and you don’t know what the fuck you’re doing with your cash. And… you’re old enough to be on your own.’ I said, ‘Oh, okay’… and I called them. I said, ‘Mom, get dad on the phone too, wake him up, I know it’s late, but I want you both to hear this. You know, before I was your little son. Before I was your baby—before I was your loan—I was a free spirit in the next stage of life. I walked in the cosmos, not imprisoned by a body of flesh, but free, in a pure body of light. There were no questions, only answers. No weaknesses, only strengths. I was light, I was truth, I was a spiritual being, I was a God!!! But you had to FUCK and bring my ass down HERE! I didn’t ask to be born! I didn’t call and say: ‘Hey, please have me so I could work in a fuckin’ Winchell’s someday!’ Now you want me to pay my own way? FUCK YOU! PICK UP THE FUCKIN’ CHECK, MOM! PICK IT UP!
—Sam Kinison |
This year’s winner of the Bookseller/Diagram prize for the oddest title of the year is Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification. Other finalists included How Green were the Nazis?, Tattooed Mountain Women and Spoon Boxes of Daghestan, and the book I’m reviewing here. The title is indeed odd. But it isn’t intended merely to be catchy, another one of those volumes appealing on the cover but deadly dull within. Benatar appears genuinely to believe that we are all harmed, and fairly seriously harmed, by being brought into existence and that it would really be better, and better for us, had we never been born. There are two important and immediate objections: how can something that odd, that strange, possibly be true? And, if it is true, why don’t we all, or at least those who believe it, go and put an end to things now? Why is Benatar still with us? Is he still with us? He is, and he thinks he has an answer to these objections. I’ll come to these below.
[…]
So, give Benatar a charitable reading and there are still objections to be made. Give him what may in the end be a fairer reading, and the objections are stronger. Both in the paper and the book he argues thus: suppose you have to choose between two packages. The first contains something good and something bad, while the second contains something good and something neutral. The second package is to be preferred. But the first package is one in which we exist, and where our lives involve both goods and bads, or pleasures and pains. The second is one in which we don’t exist, and so there are no pains—something good, and no pleasures—something not bad, or neutral. So, on balance, existence is worse than non-existence. This is a dreadful argument. It’s most obviously dreadful in taking no account of the quantities of pleasure and pain involved. You might think that Benatar must at least anticipate this objection. Certainly in the paper he doesn’t. Not so in the book. There (pp. 45-47) he does attempt to address this challenge. But as he appears almost altogether to misunderstand it, there is just no force in his reply.
— Reviewed by Christopher Belshaw, The Open University
David Benatar, Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence, Oxford University Press, 2006, pp. 45-47:
[…]
Quadrant (1) must be negative, because it is bad, and quadrants (2) and (3) must be positive because they are good. (I assume that (3) must be as good as (1) is bad. That is, if (1)=−n, then (3)=+n.) Since (4) is not bad (and not good either), it should be neither positive nor negative but rather neutral.
Employing the value assignments of Figure 2.4 we add (1) and (2) in order to determine the value of A, and then compare this with the sum of (3) and (4), which is the value of B. Doing this, we find that A is preferable to B where (2) is more than twice the value of (1).35 [Where (2) is only twice the value of (1), A and B have equal value and thus neither coming into existence nor never coming into existence is preferable.] There are numerous problems with this. For instance, as I shall show in the first section of the next chapter, it is not only the ratio of pleasure to pain that determines the quality of a life, but also the sheer quantity of pain. Once a certain threshold of pain is passed, no amount of pleasure can compensate for it.
But the best way to show that Figure 2.4 is mistaken is to apply the reasoning behind Figure 2.4 to the analogy of H (Healthy) and S (Sick) mentioned earlier.
Following Figure 2.5, it would be better to be S than H if the value of (2) were more than twice the value of (1). (This presumably would be the case where the amount of suffering that (2) saves S is more than twice the amount S actually suffers.) But this cannot be right, for surely it is always better to be H (a person who never gets sick and is thus not disadvantaged by lacking the capacity for quick recovery). The whole point is that (2) is good for S but does not constitute an advantage over H. By assigning a positive charge to (2) and a ‘0’ to (4), Figure 2.5 suggests that (2) is an advantage over (4), but it quite clearly is not. The assignment of values in Figure 2.5, and hence also in Figure 2.4, must be mistaken. 36 [To take the implications of the value assignments in Fig. 2.5 for Fig. 2.4 as evidence that the analogy between the two cases must be inapt is another instance of treating the avoidance of my conclusion as axiomatic.]
To recap, David Benatar argues that uncontroversial symmetry between the presence of pain being bad and the presence of pleasure being good does not seem to apply to the absence of pain and pleasure. On the contrary, it strikes him as true that the absence of pain is good even if that good is not enjoyed by anyone, whereas the absence of pleasure is not bad unless there is somebody for whom that absence is a deprivation. Consequently, the absence of any possible subject of pain and pleasure would amount to an overall good in the balance of his absent pains and pleasures.
It is equally uncontroversial, and uncontested by Benatar, that absence of pleasure in an extant subject does add up to a deprivation, whence the traditional recognition of acedia, a condition of sloth or torpor leading to listlessness and want of interest in life, as one of the seven deadly sins. It might be argued that the absence of any possible subject of pain and pleasure would amount to a deprivation to his potential creators. Thus within the same framework of sin and salvation, potential parents may suffer from a lack of progeny required to honor them pursuant to the Fifth Commandment, just as God may suffer from a lack of humans required to honor Him pursuant to its predecessors. But this teleological account preempts the utilitarian reckoning of the presence and absence of pain and pleasure. Likewise the human duty recognized by Socrates in the Phaedo at 62b-c, to live as a ward (κτῆμα) of the gods, consigned to their care (ἐπιμελέομαι). The key consideration here is that utilitarianism arises as an exclusive alternative to imputations of human duties or purposes and narratological construals of human lives not lending themselves to a scalar summation of pleasures and pains. It is therefore pointless to bring up such imputations and construals as conclusive rebuttals of Benatar’s utilitarian argument. There are good reasons for rejecting utilitarianism, but the spirit of charity requires the philosopher to set them aside in assessing the merits of arguments made within its tradition.
In this context belongs a critical response to a passage from John Bunyan cited in an earlier discussion of Benatar on Crooked Timber:The figure in the Sermon on the Mount, contrasting the straight and narrow way to salvation with the broad highway to destruction, has been the basis of a number of sustained allegories, the best known being Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. To keep the figure of a way going for a whole book, the course pursued has to be a very labourious one: this is theologically defensible for Bunyan, even though we can see that the difficulty of the journey is a technical as well as a religious requirement. Toward the end of the second book Bunyan says:Some also have wished that the next way to their Father’s house were here, that they might be troubled no more with either hills or mountains to go over; but the way is the way, and there is an end. [fn. 41 See John Bunyan, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners and The Pilgrim’s Progress from this World to that which is to come, ed. Roger Sharrock (London: Oxford University Press, 1966), 355 (pt. 2).] One wonders if there is not a suppressed voice also in Bunyan’s mind asking why we have to be stuck with this spiteful and malicious God who puts so incredibly difficult an obstacle course between ourselves and himself. In the great danse macabre with which the second book concludes, the dying Valiant-for-Truth says, “Though with great difficulty I am got hither, yet now I do not repent me of all the trouble I have been at to arrive where I am,” [fn. 42 Pilgrim’s Progress, 397 (pt. 2).] where the suppressed voice is almost audible. When there are dissenting voices like this murmuring in the subtext, one wonders if the author does not feel some difficulty about his choice of metaphor.
—Words With Power: Being a Second Study of ’The Bible and Literature’, The Collected Works of Northrop Frye, Vol. 26, University of Toronto Press, 2008, pp. 90-91 Northrop Frye’s apprehension of a suppressed voice in Bunyan’s mind belongs to the spectrum of legitimate reasons for purging ethical thought of duties and purposes along with narratives that give rise thereto, reducing it to a dispassionate calculus of scalar values. As a famous philosopher pointed out, there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. Accordingly, saying that an argument is bad without a thought to back it up, amounts to nothing. Likewise gainsaying a premiss in the calculus of utility, in so far as it amounts to its thoughtless contradiction. The utilitarian project may be a failure, but it begins and ends in rational thought, and deserves to be addressed by rational means.
Insisting in response to Benatar, that some pleasures are worth the pains, let alone recognizing the existence of masochists taking pleasure in pain, gets us nowhere near an argument as an intellectual process comprising a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition. The correct utilitarian response to invocations of sadomasochism is reflected in Harsanyi’s distinction between self-regarding and other-regarding utility functions and preferences. Benatar’s argument would stand after discounting all social and empathetic factors. All such factors ought to be discounted in considering, of an individual life, whether or not it is worth being brought into existence. After all, the masochist patient does not take pleasure in any old pain, but revels in being inflicted pain by another agent. So the pain of natural suffering, as distinct from the social kind, suffices to motivate the top half of Benatar’s Figure 2.4. Pain is bad and pleasure is good; whereas lack of pain is bad, but lack of pleasure is indifferent, unless it is a privation. In the balance, better not to create a potential subject for such privation.
It might be objected that a masochist before God could take pleasure in the pain of cancer, as a means of proving himself equal to the challenges raised by his heavenly Father. This is the position of John Bunyan’s Valiant-for-Truth, shored up by many modern luminaries. Thus George Bernard Shaw:All that you miss in Shakespeare you find in Bunyan, to whom the true heroic came quite obviously and naturally. The world was to him a more terrible place than it was to Shakespeare; but he saw through it a path at the end of which a man might look not only forward to the Celestial City, but back on his life and say: “Tho’ with great difficulty I am got hither,—yet now I do not repent me of all the trouble I have been at to arrive where I am. My sword I give to him that shall succeed me in my pilgrimage, and my courage and skill to him that can get them.” The heart vibrates like a bell to such an utterance as this: to turn from it to “ Out, out, brief candle,” and “ The rest is silence,” and “We are such stuff as dreams are made on; and our little life is rounded by a sleep” is to turn from life, strength, resolution, morning air and eternal youth, to the terrors of a drunken nightmare.
—“Better than Shakespeare”, in Dramatic Opinions and Essays with an Apology by G. Bernard Shaw, New York, Brentano, 1906, Vol. 2, p. 147 And thus Robert Louis Stevenson:Last and most remarkable, ‘My sword,’ says the dying Valiant-for-Truth, he in whom Great-heart delighted, ‘my sword I give to him that shall succeed me in my pilgrimage, and my courage and skill to him that can get it.’ And after this boast, more arrogantly unorthodox than was ever dreamed of by the rejected Ignorance, we are told that ‘all the trumpets sounded for him on the other side.’
—Robert Louis Stevenson, “Bagster’s ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’”, in Sketches, Criticisms, etc., New York: Charles Scribner’s, 1898, p. 215 The anticipation of trumpets sounding on the other side may well inspire the faithful to withstand the pains of earthly existence. But merely pointing out that the ultimate pleasure of reuniting with God, or some interim ersatz thereof, would be worth the pains that precede it, is irrelevant in the setting of Benatar’s decision matrix. For this point amounts to a postulation that foreclosing the possibility of future pleasure in an as yet unrealized subject always already amounts to a privation. While this postulate is well suited to a hopeful narrative of posthumous salvation, it is less apt for a pure spiritual being about to be imprisoned by a body of flesh, and bears no relevance to a reckoning of worldly utility in prospective lives.
While social and empathetic factors are essential constituents in a worthwhile life, their role in evaluating whether an ongoing life is worthwhile does not find any counterparts in deciding whether a prospective life is worth being brought into existence. There may be no grounds for disputing that all social and empathetic factors ought to be discounted in considering, of an individual life, whether or not it is worth being brought into existence, just as there may be no actual lives having been brought into existence in complete disregard of these factors. In other words, while people invariably have children for selfish reasons, the only good reason to have a child is for its own sake. Some variety of methodological solipsism is indispensable as the correct framework for such deliberation. It may be impossible to understand a person in separation from other people or in separation from his environment. But there is a crucial difference between understanding an actual person in his connection with other people and his environment, and deliberating on the merits of bringing into existence a potential person with merely conjectural interpersonal and environmental connections.
In this regard, Benatar’s observation has devastating consequences for the utilitarian assessment of the choice to bring a new life into existence. If there is nothing bad about never coming into existence, whereas there is something bad about coming into existence, it is always preferable to choose a scenario that involves nothing bad. The same conclusion extends to the voluntary acceptance of bad pains in order to achieve greater pleasures, pursuant to Benatar’s analogy between existence versus non-existence and sickness versus health, as reproduced above.
Reproduced for, and summarized from, a discussion on CHORA; also see an earlier discussion on Crooked Timber.
Tags: bacchylides, classics, comedy, death, freud, game theory, herodotus, philosophy, shakespeare
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03:41 pm
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max weber on starting and ending fights
Welcher Mensch wird sich vermessen, die Ethik der Bergpredigt, etwa den Satz: „Widerstehe nicht dem Übel“ oder das Bild von der einen und der anderen Backe, „wissenschaftlich widerlegen“ zu wollen? Und doch ist klar: es ist, innerweltlich angesehen, eine Ethik der Würdelosigkeit, die hier gepredigt wird: man hat zu wählen zwischen der religiösen Würde, die diese Ethik bringt, und der Manneswürde, die etwas ganz anderes predigt: „Widerstehe dem Übel,—sonst bist du für seine Übergewalt mitverantwortlich.“ Je nach der letzten Stellungnahme ist für den Einzelnen das eine der Teufel und das andere der Gott, und der Einzelne hat sich zu entscheiden, welches für ihn der Gott und welches der Teufel ist. Und so geht es durch alle Ordnungen des Lebens hindurch.
What man will take upon himself the attempt to “refute scientifically” the ethic of the Sermon on the Mount? For instance, the proposition, “Resist no evil” or the image of turning the other cheek? And yet it is clear, from a worldly perspective, that an ethic of indignity is being preached here; one has to choose between the religious dignity that this ethic confers and the dignity of manly conduct that preaches something quite different: “Resist evil, lest you be jointly responsible for its empire.” According to our ultimate standpoint, the one is of the devil and the other of God, and the individual has to decide, which for him is God, and which is the devil. And so it goes through all the orders of life.
Befreien wir es aber zunächst von einer ganz trivialen Verfälschung. Es kann nämlich zunächst die Ethik auftreten in einer sittlich höchst fatalen Rolle. Nehmen wir Beispiele. Sie werden selten finden, daß ein Mann, dessen Liebe sich von einer Frau ab- und einer andern zuwendet, nicht das Bedürfnis empfindet, dies dadurch vor sich selbst zu legitimieren, daß er sagt: sie war meiner Liebe nicht wert, oder sie hat mich enttäuscht, oder was dergleichen „Gründe“ mehr sind. Eine Unritterlichkeit, die zu dem schlichten Schicksal: daß er sie nicht mehr liebt, und daß die Frau das tragen muß, in tiefer Unritterlichkeit sich eine „Legitimität“ hinzudichtet, kraft deren er für sich ein Recht in Anspruch nimmt und zu dem Unglück noch das Unrecht auf sie zu wälzen trachtet. Ganz ebenso verfährt der erfolgreiche erotische Konkurrent: der Gegner muß der wertlosere sein, sonst wäre er nicht unterlegen. Nichts anderes ist es aber selbstverständlich, wenn nach irgendeinem siegreichen Krieg der Sieger in würdeloser Rechthaberei beansprucht: ich siegte, denn ich hatte recht. Oder, wenn jemand unter den Fürchterlichkeiten des Krieges seelisch zusammenbricht und nun, anstatt schlicht zu sagen: es war eben zu viel, jetzt das Bedürfnis empfindet, seine Kriegsmüdigkeit vor sich selbst zu legitimieren, indem er die Empfindung substituiert: ich konnte das deshalb nicht ertragen, weil ich für eine sittlich schlechte Sache fechten mußte. Und ebenso bei dem im Kriege Besiegten. Statt nach alter Weiber Art nach einem Kriege nach dem „Schuldigen“ zu suchen,—wo doch die Struktur der Gesellschaft den Krieg erzeugte—, wird jede männliche und herbe Haltung dem Feinde sagen: „Wir verloren den Krieg—ihr habt ihn gewonnen. Das ist nun erledigt: nun laßt uns darüber reden, welche Konsequenzen zu ziehen sind entsprechend den sachlichen Interessen, die im Spiel waren, und—die Hauptsache—angesichts der Verantwortung vor der Zukunft, die vor allem den Sieger belastet.“ Alles andere ist würdelos und rächt sich. Verletzung ihrer Interessen verzeiht eine Nation, nicht aber Verletzung ihrer Ehre, am wenigsten eine solche durch pfäffische Rechthaberei. Jedes neue Dokument, das nach Jahrzehnten ans Licht kommt, läßt das würdelose Gezeter, den Haß und Zorn wieder aufleben, statt daß der Krieg mit seinem Ende wenigstens sittlich begraben würde. Das ist nur durch Sachlichkeit und Ritterlichkeit, vor allem nur: durch Würde möglich. Nie aber durch eine „Ethik“, die in Wahrheit eine Würdelosigkeit beider Seiten bedeutet. Anstatt sich um das zu kümmern, was den Politiker angeht: die Zukunft und die Verantwortung vor ihr, befaßt sie sich mit politisch sterilen, weil unaustragbaren Fragen der Schuld in der Vergangenheit. Dies zu tun, ist politische Schuld, wenn es irgendeine gibt. Und dabei wird überdies die unvermeidliche Verfälschung des ganzen Problems durch sehr materielle Interessen übersehen: Interessen des Siegers am höchstmöglichen Gewinn—moralischen und materiellen—, Hoffnungen des Besiegten darauf, durch Schuldbekenntnisse Vorteile einzuhandeln: wenn es irgend etwas gibt, was „gemein“ ist, dann dies, und das ist die Folge dieser Art von Benutzung der „Ethik“ als Mittel des „Rechthabens“.
First, let us free ourselves from a quite trivial falsification, that ethics may first arise in a role that is highly compromised morally. Let us consider examples. Rarely will you find that a man whose love turns from one woman to another feels no need to legitimate this before himself by saying: she was not worthy of my love, or, she has disappointed me, or whatever other like “reasons” exist. This is an attitude that, with a profound lack of chivalry, adds a fancied “legitimacy” to the plain fact that he no longer loves her and that the woman has to bear it. By virtue of this “legitimation”, the man claims a right for himself and besides causing the misfortune seeks to put her in the wrong. Likewise, for the successful amatory competitor, the adversary must be less worthy, otherwise he would not have lost out. It is no different, of course, if after a victorious war the victor in undignified self-righteousness claims, “I have won because I was right”. Or, if somebody under the frightfulness of war collapses psychologically, and instead of simply saying it was just too much, he feels the need of legitimizing his war weariness to himself by substituting the feeling, “I could not bear it because I had to fight for a morally bad cause”. And likewise with the defeated in war. Instead of searching like old women for the “guilty one” after the war—given a situation wherein the structure of society produced the war—everyone with a manly and controlled attitude would tell the enemy: “We lost the war. You have won it. That is now all over. Now let us discuss what conclusions must be drawn according to the objective interests that came into play, and what is the main thing in view of the responsibility towards the future that above all burdens the victor.” Anything else is undignified and will rebound. A nation forgives if its interests have been damaged, but no nation forgives if its honor has been offended, especially by a bigoted self-righteousness. Every new document that comes to light after decades revives the undignified lamentations, the hatred and scorn, instead of allowing the war at its end to be buried, at least morally. This is possible only through objectivity and chivalry and above all only through dignity. But never is it possible through an “ethic”, which in truth signifies a lack of dignity on both sides. Instead of being concerned with what the politician is interested in, the future and the responsibility towards the future, this ethic is concerned with politically sterile questions of past guilt, which are not to be settled politically. To act in this way is politically guilty, if such guilt exists at all. And it overlooks the unavoidable falsification of the whole problem, through very material interests: namely, the victor's interest in the greatest possible moral and material gain; the hopes of the defeated to trade in advantages through confessions of guilt. If anything is “vulgar”, then, this is, and it is the result of this fashion of exploiting “ethics” as a means of “being in the right”.
Tags: german, philosophy, translation, weber
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03:21 pm
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a slogan for two anniversaries
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Ἡράκλειτος τὸ ἀντίξουν συμφέρον καὶ ἐκ τῶν διαφερόντων καλλίστην ἁρμονίαν καὶ πάντα κατ᾽ ἔριν γίνεσθαι: ἐξ ἐναντίας δὲ τούτοις ἄλλοι
Heracleitus says, ‘Opposition unites,’ and ‘The fairest harmony springs from difference,’ and ‘'Tis strife that makes the world go on.’
—Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1155b1-6, translated by J. Bywater
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Thirty-three years ago the author of these screeds walked free after serving a fifteen day sentence for petty hooliganism with twenty-two codefendants, counting among the first Soviet political protesters to get away with a slap on the wrist. The Berlin Wall came down thirteen years later, to the day. Coincidence? You decide.
Meanwhile, the philosophy of freedom is making giant strides in Russia. On 18 April 2009, Vadim Karastelev, head of the local Human Rights Committee, protested the curfew forbidding anyone under 18 years of age from appearing in the streets of Krasnodar region by displaying a sign with the slogan “Freedom is not given, it is taken”, a paraphrase of an analogous quotation about rights taken from a play by Maxim Gorky:Прав—не дают, права—берут… Человек должен сам себе завоевать права, если не хочет быть раздавленным грудой обязанностей…
Rights aren’t given, rights are taken… Man must fight to win his rights if he doesn’t want to be crushed by a mountain of duties… Herewith the expert philosophical analysis rendered in connection with his public display: ( Read more... ) Vadim Karastelev’s slogan echoes the combative demon of Charles Baudelaire:Celui-là seul est l’égal d’un autre, qui le prouve, et celui-là seul est digne de la liberté, qui sait la conquérir.
Only he is the equal of another, who proves it, and only he is worthy of liberty, who can conquer it. In his turn, Baudelaire drew upon Goethe’s Faust calling for free humanity jointly creating universal welfare in a free society:
Ja! diesem Sinne bin ich ganz ergeben,
das ist der Weisheit letzter Schluß:
Nur der verdient sich Freiheit wie das Leben,
der täglich sie erobern muß. |
This is the final product of my strife,
The greatest wisdom mankind ever knew:
He only earns his freedom and his life,
Who boldly conquers them each day anew. |
The Faustian maxim is infinitely malleable, lending itself as the populist motto for the National Socialism of Alfred Rosenberg, the Marxism of Ernst Thälmann, and the dissident humanism of Andrei Sakharov. May it serve as the battle cry for the advent of freedom in Russia.
Tags: anarchism, baudelaire, french, german, greek, heraclitus, lawyers, philosophy, politics, russia, russian, translation
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11:59 am
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r.i.p., c. l.-s.
De la constellation initiale du poème, formée par les amoureux et les savants, les chats permettent, par leur médiation, d’éliminer la femme, laissant face à face—sinon même confondus—“le poète des Chats”, libéré de l’amour “bien restreint”, et l’univers, délivré de l’austérité du savant.
The cats, by their mediation, permit the removal of woman from the initial assemblage formed by lovers and scholars. The poet of “Les Chats,” liberated from love “bien petit, bien restreint,” meets face to face and perhaps even blends with the universe, delivered from the scholar’s austerity.
—Roman Jakobson, Claude Lévi-Strauss, “« Les Chats » de Charles Baudelaire”, L’Homme, 1962, Volume 2, Issue 1, pp. 5-21, at p. 21
Tags: baudelaire, death, french, language, philosophy
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01:10 am
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integrity and blame
Howard M. Kaminsky of 6130 Ridge Lane, Ocean Ridge, Florida 33435 writes in a letter to the TLS regarding Bernard Wasserstein’s Commentary on Hannah Arendt:As for his charges relating to Arendt’s use of Nazi authors and her inadequate love of the Jewish people, I admit, Jew that I am, to believing that some Nazi authors had important things to say not unrelated to their Nazism, above all the viciously anti-Semitic but incomparably brilliant Carl Schmitt (whom Arendt used even more than she says), and I also believe that Jews have created gentile hostility by demanding equal rights but refusing to surrender their ethnic integrity. Books have been written about this by a number of authors who are not overtly anti-Semitic—e.g. Kevin MacDonald and Albert Lindemann—and Arendt’s analysis of Jewish “responsibility” for anti-Semitism can hardly be dismissed as due to her “perverse world-view”, let alone her “combination of ira et studio [sic]”. Setting aside the insinuation of covert anti-Semitism, the notion of the Jews having created gentile hostility by demanding equal rights but refusing to surrender their ethnic integrity is baffling. Is it likewise possible to blame women for having created male hostility by demanding equal rights but refusing to surrender their sexual integrity? For that matter, is it possible to blame any man for having elicited the hostility of his peers by demanding equal rights but refusing to surrender his personal integrity? If the claim is that ethnic descent or religious confession are somehow unlike biological sex and personal identity in their moral implications, why is that the case, and how so?
Tags: jews, persiflage, philosophy, sex, usenet
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11:20 am
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hannah arendt’s wrinkled cunt rides again
 ( Read more... ) “…the true path to uber trolling lies in the careful study of Mikhail Zeleny.
His 1993 masterpiece, Hannah Arendt’s Wrinkled Cunt, was a milestone. Truly a Russian-American icon!”
—posted by cr8dle2grave on Fri Oct 06, 2006 at 02:52:27 PM EST
Tags: persiflage, philosophy, sex, usenet
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09:05 pm
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on the universal tendency to debasement in the sphere of love
Sigmund Freud’s Beiträge zur Psychologie des Liebeslebens, or Contributions To The Psychology Of Love comprise three articles:- “Über einen besonderen Typus der Objektwahl beim Manne”, Jahrbuch für psychoanalytische und psychopathologische Forschungen, Vol. 2, 1910, pp. 389-97; Gesammelte Werke, VIII, pp. 66-77; “A Special Type of Choice of Object Made by Men”, Standard Edition, Vol. 11, pp. 165-175
- “Über die allgemeinste Erniedrigung des Liebeslebens” (Beiträge zur Psychologie des Liebeslebens II), Jahrbuch für psychoanalytische und psychopathologische Forschungen, Vol. 4, 1912, pp. 40-50; Gesammelte Werke, Vol. VIII, pp. 78-91; “On the Universal Tendency to Debasement in the Sphere of Love”, Standard Edition, Vol. 11, pp. 179-190;
- “Das Tabu der Virginität” (Beiträge zur Psychologie des Liebeslebens III). Sammlung kleiner Schriften zur Neurosenlehre, Leipzig-Vienna, Vierte Folge, 1917, pp. 229-251; Gesammelte Werke, Vol. XII: 159-180; “The Taboo of Virginity”, Standard Edition, Vol.11, pp. 193-208.
In the second of these articles reproduced below, Freud discusses male impotence that arises from an incestuous fixation on mother or sister. In the broadest strokes that fall short of caricature, his approach derives from the hypothesis that human sexual desires are based on childhood developments that adults ordinarily no longer consciously access. In regard of these developments, Freud identifies two currents in erotic life. The older affectionate current, originally directed towards the infant’s earliest caretakers, typically the mother, eventually becomes complemented by the sensual current that attains its acme during puberty. The oedipal prohibition turns the sensual current elsewhere. But it often remains fixated to its original incestuous objects, whereby the whole of a young man’s sensuality becomes tied to incestuous phantasies in the unconscious. Impotence ensues. Short of this extreme development, pleasure departs from sexual relations. Men seldom combine the two erotic currents, taking complete satisfaction in the same woman instead of directing each current to different women. But perhaps the erotic instinct is bound to remain perpetually unsatisfied in the choice of object. In later work, Freud would develop the argument locating the gain in the processes of sublimation responsible for the development of civilization. ( Read more... )
Tags: freud, german, love, philosophy, psychology, translation
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08:46 pm
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last refuge, first duty
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) larvatus to aptsvet in regard of his reading of Kant:
Kant has no problems with recognizing and enforcing categorical obligations between parties in a contractual relationship. This principle applies in equal force to contractual relationships in marriage and citizenship, q.v. Die Metaphysik der Sitten 277 and 315. In other words, under the Categorical Imperative, patriotic duties have a similar footing with marital fidelity.
aptsvet:
Concerning these passages, I think, first, that Kant should not have included family into the orbit of ethics - this is something that was already obvious to Jesus. Second, his ideas concerning obligations toward the state do not fit into his system as a whole. If 'thou shalt not kill' is universal law, how is it compatible with patriotic duties ( Read more... )
larvatus:
In Xenophon’s Symposium at 3.10 Socrates says that he prides himself most on the trade of pandering (μαστροπεία) and boasts that he could make a lot of money if he cared to follow it. When his companions press him to support his pride in this disreputable profession, Socrates explains at 4.57, that the procurer (μαστροπός) is one who makes the procured attractive to those whose company he is to keep. He concludes at 4.60 that the best procurer is one who can make the procured attractive to the whole community (πόλις). It should go without saying that procuring on behalf of amorphous abstractions is all the more glorious than doing so on behalf of concrete individuals. In other words, promotion of patriotism rates among the best kinds of pandering; all the more so as regards promotion of ideals ungrounded in our tangible surroundings, such as the rule of law. In fairness, it bears notice that for all his pandering skills, Socrates ended up condemned to death by a popular court, failing at applying his art to himself. In so far as I am unfit to tie his sandals, my preference is to stay away from pandering in matters of life and death.[4] ( Read more... )
Tags: exceptionalism, kant, philosophy, politics, russia, russian
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04:55 pm
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doggy stylings
Some time ago I wondered, what Aristotle might have meant by claiming in the Rhetoric 2.24, at 1401a22, that to be without a dog is most dishonorable. My solution arrived ( Read more... ) Crossposted to ![[info]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) larvatus, linguaphiles, ancient_philo, classicalgreek, and classics.
Tags: greek, latin, philosophy, sex, traducement, translation
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09:59 pm
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изменник родины
larvatus:
Здесь полагаются памятка и анекдот. Вот Вам памятка:I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the armed forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.
—U.S. Naturalization Oath Так что насчёт “нас” и “их”, у меня с Вами общая система координат. А вот и анекдот: Для разрядки, так сказать, напряга, пожалуйста, анекдотик. Вернее, не анекдотик, а быль. Но быль до того невероятную, что она, паскудина, сама себя осознает вдруг легендарной и берет кликуху Анекдот, чтобы таким хитромудрым способом продлить на какое-то время свою жизнь. Да и само время, гражданин Гуров, само наше анекдотическое времечко недаром окрестили не столько вожди, сколько их плюгавые шестерки из поэтов и композиторов, временем легендарным.
Короче говоря, приводят к Будённому перебежчика. Белого. Так, мол, и так, Семён Михайлович, постиг я в мгновение ока происходящее, дошла до меня безысходность белого движения. Чуять начинаю за три версты красоту ваших кавалерийских идей, возьмите к себе воевать. Хорошо. Переодели, переобули, дали красавца-гнедого. Повоевал немного белый, но вдруг показалось ему, что снова постиг он в мгновенье ока происходящее и слинял к Деникину. Мужественно явился и говорит Самому: так, мол, и так, ошибся я. Будённый — полное говно, вокруг него мерзкий плебс, большей вони и совершенней лжи, чем советская власть, вообразить себе невозможно, и лучше уж, ваше превосходительство, смерть в наших безысходных рядах, чем торжество в смрадном каре обманутых маньяками плебеев. Простите великодушно. Время у нас смутное, возможен, согласитесь, поиск душой верного пути. Деникин не стал дискутировать на эту тему. Он отдал дважды перебежчика обратно Будённому. Белый стал втолковывать этой тупой усатой мандавше, что он не подлец, а человек ищущий, и наконец, в последней попытке спасти шкуру, брякнул что-то насчет раздвоения личности. Будённый вынимает саблю, пробует отточку клинка на коготище и врезает красно-белому по темечку. До самой жопы его расколол, а дальше тот сам рассыпался. “Мы—большевики,—говорит Будённый,—проблему раздвоения личности решаем по-своему: сабелькой!”
—Юз Алешковский, «Рука (Повествование палача)» Это к вопросу о паспорте, как о “средстве передвижения”. ( Read more... )
furia_krucha:
Детали могут различаться, спору нет. Но в принципе истории одинаковые так как демонстрируют, что „преданность“ (allegiance) вещь преходящая, как для вас, так и героя „анекдотика“.
larvatus:
Вы понимаете разницу между гражданским долгом проистекающим из свободного выбора и требованиями власти на основании места рождения? ( Read more... )
Tags: german, kant, philosophy, russian, russians
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09:27 pm
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felicitations ride again
С днём рождения, roganov_serge!
Tags: birthday, philosophy, russian
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03:45 pm
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гнилое лицо
Люди участвуют в обществе в факультативном порядке. В меру своего участия, они открывают, изучают и усваивают не только нравственные правила, но и более требовательные правила вежливости. Все эти процессы они осуществляют не столько личными усилиями, сколько путём взаимодействия. Вежливость—это ключ к соборности. Если вежливость более требовательна, чем нравственность, то нравственность более требовательна, чем законность. Если законность запрещает человеку сбрасывать обнажённую женщину с моста, то нравственность призывает его вытащить её из воды, а вежливость отворачивает его плотоядный взгляд от её влажного лобка. ( Read more... )
Tags: god, philosophy, russian
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07:11 pm
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nobody knows anything
1. Thomas Hobbes: “In the nature of man we find three principal causes of quarrel: first, competition; secondly, diffidence; thirdly, glory.”
2. Only artists and scientists compete for timeless glory. Only soldiers and statesmen compete for worldly glory. To the extent that they are exempted from these vocations, the world’s finest economists belong with everybody else, striving to lessen their diffidence by competing for lucre.
3. If their knowledge of economics enabled them to dope out the trends of supply and demand one step ahead of hoi polloi, we would see the world’s finest economists consistently prevail in this competition.
4. That has not been the case.
5. William Goldman: “Nobody knows anything.”
Tags: economics, philosophy
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01:31 pm
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how not to complain about capitalism
In his analysis of the protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism, Max Weber documented their conflict by quoting John Wesley writing in 1786:
I do not see how it is possible, in the nature of things, for any revival of true religion to continue long. For religion must necessarily produce both industry and frugality, and these cannot but produce riches. But as riches increase, so will pride, anger, and love of the world in all its branches.
By analogy, it is hard to see how it is possible, in the nature of things, for any revival of true socialism to continue long. For such revival must necessarily depend upon both industry and frugality, and these cannot thrive in the face of ubiquitous temptations to squander capital. But as capital dwindles, so will industry. Accordingly, any social arrangement that undermines returns on capital, would undermine the basis of its industry. ( Read more... ) This appeal to authorities has been extracted from an interminable debate on ![[info]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) real_philosophy, with snide asides.
Posted to larvatus; banned from real_philosophy.
Tags: persiflage, philosophy, politics
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12:30 am
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pwned
Nick Bostrom is the Director of the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University, who bills himself as “philosopher, polymath, leading transhumanist thinker and spokesperson”. In a recent publication, he popularizes the Great Filter of Robin Hanson. It is a response to the Fermi paradox, anticipated in a more lyrical vein by Blaise Pascal in his famous confession of fear elicited by the eternal silence of infinite space: “Le silence éternel de ces espaces infinis m’effraie.” (Pensées, Brunschvicg 206, Lafuma 201) While working at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Enrico Fermi transmuted religious fear into scientific exasperation, exclaiming: “Where is everybody?” More pedantically, modern followers of Pascal point out the conflict between the vastness of the universe leading to the expectation of a plurality of intelligent life, and the lack of its manifestation, let alone its presence, in our purlieu. Hanson enumerates plausible candidates for groups of hard trial-and-error biological steps: one hard step at the beginning leading to life, then zero to eight steps leading to complexity, then two to three steps leading to sex, then a double step to society, then a single step to cradle, and then perhaps a final step to language. Overall, this breakdown adds up to seven to nine hard steps. All of these steps lie in our past. Any one of them may have constituted a real hurdle. Unless we already overcame all of such hurdles, it is likely that another catastrophic obstacle will arise in our path to debar us from interstellar colonization. Conversely, every instance of past or present life found to be lacking in our extraterrestrial peregrinations, would yield an encouragement to persevere on our path to planetary conquest. Or so thinks Bostrom, oblivious of the greater American wisdom, “that the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.” Thus our most responsible choice in this matter would put Donald Rumsfeld in charge of SETI.
Here is a brief for Rummy’s assumption of responsibility for the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence. As a consequence of the Copernican principle, the place of man in the universe can not be unique. Accordingly, the universe must contain a multitude of minds with similar capabilities, and nothing could foreclose the emergence and development of superhuman minds elsewhere in it. Let us conjecturally identify the carriers of the most advanced class of intelligence with God, allowing for the possibility of plural divine minds. In other words, on the mediocrity principle, the human mind is most likely to occupy a statistically average place in the intellectual range that extends from prions to gods. Reformulating the simulation argument also due to Bostrom, we arrive at the following options, of which at least one must be realized in reality:- the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a divine stage;
- any divine civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of autocratic simulations of their evolutionary history or its possible but unactualized variations;
- human minds are almost certainly beholden to divine providence and depend utterly upon its autocracy.
The first option conflicts with the principle of plenitude, which asserts that in the long run, everything that can happen, will happen. The second option is rendered unlikely by meddlesome traits universally observed among eggheads. The last remaining option is occasionalism, which postulates continuous supernatural intervention in all human actions. The apparent lack of such intervention yields a real conundrum. One way to resolve it is through postulating a motive for supernatural meddlers to abscond. Along these lines, John A. Ball, a radio astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, proposed that Earth was a zoo and that extraterrestrials were its keepers, observing its inhabitants. In his article published in 1973 in Icarus, an international journal for solar system studies, Ball pointed out: “The perfect zoo (or wilderness area or sanctuary) would be one in which the fauna do not interact with, and are unaware of, their zoo-keepers.” Yet thirty-five years later, the “zoo hypothesis” continues to receive a short shrift from scientists. It stands to their reason that any sensible space aliens would commence their contact with mankind with a formal connection with political, economic, and intellectual elite. Since no such contact has been experienced by our betters, it follows that space aliens are not in attendance around these parts.
A more credulous, and canonically more credible scientist is José Gabriel Funes, who replaced the opponent of “intelligent design” theory George Coyne, as the director of the Vatican Observatory. Recently Funes has gone on official Vatican record (English translation here) with speculations that alien life forms could very well exist and even remain free from Original Sin. A logical extension of this thought, identifying guilt-free aliens with our angelic zookeepers, would afford a Catholic resolution for our conundrum.
Cross-posted to larvatus и philosophy.
Tags: persiflage, philosophy
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06:04 pm
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portraits from memory
My Debt to German Learning
My first serious contact with the German learned world consisted in the reading of Kant, whom, while a student, I viewed with awed respect. ( Read more... )
Portrait from Memory
Presenter: This is the BBC Third Programme. We have in the studio Bertrand Russell, who talks to us in the series, “Sense, Perception, & Nonsense, Number Seven: Is this a dagger I see before me?”
Bertrand Russell: One of the advantages of living in Great Court, Trinity, I seem to recall, was the fact that one could pop across at any time of the day or night and trap the then young G.E. Moore into a logical falsehood by means of a cunning semantic subterfuge. I recall one occasion with particular vividness. I had popped across and had knocked upon his door. “Come in”, he said. I decided to wait awhile in order to test the validity of his proposition. “Come in”, he said once again. “Very well”, I replied, “if that is in fact truly what you wish”.
I opened the door accordingly and went in, and there was Moore seated by the fire with a basket upon his knees. “Moore”, I said, “do you have any apples in that basket?” “No”, he replied, and smiled seraphically, as was his wont. I decided to try a different logical tack. “Moore”, I said, “do you then have some apples in that basket?” “No”, he replied, leaving me in a logical cleft stick from which I had but one way out. “Moore”, I said, “do you then have apples in that basket?” “Yes”, he replied. And from that day forth, we remained the very closest of friends.”
— Jonathan Miller, Beyond the Fringe, 1962
Tags: comedy, philosophy, russell
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08:51 pm
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does sex have a purpose?
Some answers are attempted here.
Tags: aristotle, evolution, kant, philosophy, sex, sodomy
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01:37 am
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Academic Expulsion Rules and Practices Query
On 29 February of this year, two days before the election of pint-sized Dmitry Medvedev to the post of the President of Russian Federation, performance art group Vojna (War), formerly best known for its eccentric commemoration of conceptual poet Dmitry Prigov in a moving train of the Moscow Metro, mounted another exhibition in the Biological Museum. This time, they performed in support of the survival of the bear as the totem animal of ancient Slavs. Notably, the run-up to the election prominently featured a spontaneous youth movement of “bear cubs” rallying in support of Vladimir Putin and his designated successor, whose last name fortuitously echoes notional kinship with Ursus arctos. Thus the most recent Vojna performance featured allegedly authentic sexual intercourse under the banner captioned FUCK FOR BEAR CUB’S HEIR.
In the wake of this affair, some of its participants were identified as students of the Philosophy Department of the Moscow State University, from which they were expelled after the mandatory hand-wringing faculty sessions. Their expulsion was allegedly motivated by considerations of philosophical decorum. Coincidentally, political technology is the most lucrative specialty taught by the MSU Philosophy Department at present.
In the ensuing discussion, several parties have posed the question of whether or not students engaging in similar behavior would have been expelled from Oxford or Harvard. I therefore ask all interested and informed parties to weigh in on this issue with considerations of rules and precedents.
Crossposted to larvatus and elitistasshat; banned from philosophy.
Tags: bullshit, philosophy, sex
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01:15 am
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pwned
Вследствие принципа Коперника, рядовое положение человека во Вселенной не может быть уникальным. Соответственно, во Вселенной должно иметься множество разумов с аналогичными возможностями, и ничто не могло препятствовать зарождению и развитию сверхчеловеческого разума в других местах Вселенной. Согласимся условно отождествить носителя наиболее продвинутого разума с Богом, не пренебрегая возможностью существования множества равно развитых божественных сверхразумов. Иными словами, по принципу усреднения, человеческий разум наивероятнее всего занимает статистически посредственное место в интеллектуальном диапазоне, простирающемся от прионов до богов. Переформулировав рассуждения Ника Бострома, мы приходим к следующим вариантам, из которых по крайней мере один осуществляется в действительности:- Весьма вероятно, что вселенское развитие разума прекратится, не достигнув божественной стадии.
- Очень маловероятно, что какая-либо божественная цивилизация займётся самовластной симуляцией её собственной эволюционной истории или её возможных но неосуществившихся вариантов.
- Человеческий разум почти наверняка внедрён в божественное провидение и находится в полной зависимости от его самовластия.
Первый вариант исключается принципом изобилия, в то время, как второй вариант противоречит вездесущей назойливости, особенно наблюдаемой среди прожжённых умников. Остаётся лишь вариант окказионализма, предполагающего непрерывное сверхъестественное вмешательство во все человеческие действия.
Помещается в журналы larvatus и ru_philosophy.
Tags: god, philosophy, russian
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09:57 pm
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анизономия
Как Геродот и Аристотель могли бы понять Сталина.
Tags: history, law, philosophy, russian
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09:07 pm
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golly, how truth will out!
Discourses and aphorisms on truth and lies, in an anaesthetic sense, with a sound disclaimer.
Tags: doggerel, history, lies, philosophy
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12:22 am
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one philosopher, four languages, seven translations
Aristotle, Poetics, in Greek, Russian, English, and French.
Tags: aristotle, french, greek, philosophy, russian, translation
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12:49 pm
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evolution without adaptation
The high tide of adaptationism floated a motley navy, but it may now be on the ebb. If it does turn out that natural selection isn’t what drives evolution, a lot of loose speculations will be stranded high, dry and looking a little foolish. Induction over the history of science suggests that the best theories we have today will prove more or less untrue at the latest by tomorrow afternoon. In science, as elsewhere, ‘hedge your bets’ is generally good advice.
— Jerry Fodor, Why Pigs Don’t Have Wings, LRB, Vol. 29 No. 20 dated 18 October 2007
Tags: biology, evolution, philosophy
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08:08 pm
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platonic lucubrations
True cakes exist only in ephemeral transition between props and shit.
Tags: philosophy, stupidity
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10:20 am
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the face of russian philosophy
Apart from scattered critical plaudits and academic credits as an author of an obscure masterpiece of originality far more profound than that found in popular literature of his homeland, Russian philosopher Dmitry Galkovsky is practically unknown in the English-speaking world. His finest moment took place a decade ago, in a 1997 award of a literary prize sponsored by Boris Berezovsky. Its report by The Voice of Russia deserves to be savored in its entirety: ( Read more... ) Galkovsky declined to accept the monetary award that accompanied his prize. Over the past decade, he emerged as one of pioneers of Russian literary Internet, reproducing his writings as an online hypertext, boasting a popular LiveJournal blog complemented by an online coven of acolytes dedicated to systematic study of their master’s aporematic opera omnia, and creating a community of bloggers periodically reconvening in “Real Life”.
Herewith the closing section of his programmatic 1994 survey of Russian politics and philosophy. It represents the first English rendering of his writings, to be followed by the first extended commentary on its content. ( Read more... ) Crossposted to larvatus, history, and philosophy.
Tags: bullshit, history, philosophy, russian, translation
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11:44 pm
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the basic laws of human stupidity
THE BASIC LAWS OF HUMAN STUPIDITY
by Carlo M. Cipolla
illustrations by James Donnelly
THE FIRST BASIC LAW of human stupidity asserts without ambiguity that:
Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.
At first, the statement sounds trivial, vague and horribly ungenerous. Closer scrutiny will however reveal its realistic veracity. No matter how high are one’s estimates of human stupidity, one is repeatedly and recurrently startled by the fact that:
a) people whom one had once judged rational and intelligent turn out to be unashamedly stupid.
b) day after day, with unceasing monotony, one is harassed in one’s activities by stupid individuals who appear suddenly and unexpectedly in the most inconvenient places and at the most improbable moments.
The First Basic Law prevents me from attributing a specific numerical value to the fraction of stupid people within the total population: any numerical estimate would turn out to be an underestimate. Thus in the following pages I will denote the fraction of stupid people within a population by the symbol å. ( Read more... )
Tags: bullshit, comedy, economics, game theory, philosophy, stupidity
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11:00 pm
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work in progress
Count Richard Nikolaus Coudenhove-Kalergi
Tags: history, philosophy, politics, wiki
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10:42 am
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vere tu es deus absconditus deus sui salvator
As is well-known, God helps those who help themselves, which renders God’s help rather superfluous. Now, let us consider an apposite God, one who is committed to helping exactly those who do not help themselves. We bear in mind that, unlike Russell’s barber, who is free to shrug off as impossible his duty to shave those, and only those, who do not shave themselves, the perfection of God requires that he actually do everything he is committed to do. Then is our God under obligation to help Himself?
(Originally published on 20 January 1993.)
Crossposted to larvatus and philosophy.
Tags: bullshit, god, jews, logic, philosophy
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09:50 pm
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the department of redundant orifices
Lioness Soonee and Jindo dog Tangchil
at a South Korean zoo in Chinhae
(REUTERS/You Sung-Ho)
As men fail to live up to the manners of beasts, a living dog tears a dead lion a new one:The back cover of History of Madness contains a series of hyperbolic hymns of praise to its virtues. Paul Rabinow calls the book “one of the major works of the twentieth century”; Ronnie Laing hails it as “intellectually rigorous”; and Nikolas Rose rejoices that “Now, at last, English-speaking readers can have access to the depth of scholarship that underpins Foucault’s analysis”. Indeed they can, and one hopes that they will read the text attentively and intelligently, and will learn some salutary lessons. One of those lessons might be amusing, if it had no effect on people’s lives: the ease with which history can be distorted, facts ignored, the claims of human reason disparaged and dismissed, by someone sufficiently cynical and shameless, and willing to trust in the ignorance and the credulity of his customers.
—Andrew Scull, The fictions of Foucault’s scholarship, The Times Literary Supplement, March 21, 2007 Fortunately, surgical solutions are on hand.
Tags: bullshit, history, philosophy
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04:21 pm
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all them sons of bitches
Максим Лебедев (maxim_lebedev) kindly refers us to the politically influential 2005 Demos Lecture by Dr Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth, which contains the following anecdote:I just love the story of the philosophy professor who was invited to give a lecture on epistemology to the University of Beijing. He did so and not being about to speak Mandarin was provided with a Chinese interpreter. He began his lecture and after a sentence paused to let the interpreter translate into Chinese but the interpreter said: No, carry on — I’ll tell you when to stop. After 15 minutes and the interpreter said ‘stop’ and delivered five words to the audience in Chinese — I will not even attempt to say what they were — and said ‘carry on’. The same thing happened after 30 minutes — five more words, 45 minutes — another five words and at the end of the lecture — an hour — four words and the audience duly stood up and filed out. The English philosophy professor went to the interpreter and said: I’m absolutely astounded. I have given an extremely complicated lecture about epistemology. How were you able to summarise it in so few words? And the interpreter said: Easy — after 15 minutes I said ‘so far he hasn’t said anything new’; after half an hour ‘I said he still hasn’t said anything new’; after 45 minutes I said ‘I don’t think he’s going to say anything new’ and after an hour I said ‘I was right — he didn’t’. We may relish the independently attested implication that philosopher is undergoing a transvaluation equal and opposite to the Foucauldian reverse discourse that encouraged “homosexuality [to] beg[i]n to speak in its own behalf, to demand that its legitimacy or ‘naturality’ be acknowledged, often in the same vocabulary, using the same categories by which it was medically disqualified.”[1] Thus Richard Cartwright:[2] Except for beginners who want to learn and who try to say what they really think, I do not like talking philosophy with nonphilosophers and avoid it whenever I can. In response to inquiries from fellow travelers on airplanes, I say I’m a mathematician. So far I’ve gotten away with it, for it appears that people who travel on airplanes never were any good at mathematics. I ease my conscience with the thought that, anyhow, non-philosophers would expect a philosopher to be something I’m not. Once upon a time,[3] Augustine of Hippo referred to yonder vir gravis et philosophaster Tullius. His usage inspired numerous XXth century philologists to argue that the passage in question could be squared with its author’s high esteem for Cicero only by amending to vir gravis et philosophus Tullius. Now that we have established that every kind of philosopher has an ass in it, no such emendation is necessary.
Or, as a more consequential man might put it,[4] “When you call me that, smile!”
Tags: bullshit, philosophy, sex
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