Tag: rationalism

59

Maybe it is very significant that analytic philosophy has a traditional consensus that words have meaning, not things.

An analytic philosopher is so used to the praxis of this consensus that this may sound like a bizarre attack on a notion that is trivially correct. But isn’t this actually a pre-supposition that’s both obviously contingent/questionable & vastly impactful/consequential? (& indeed ideological, begging much explanation?)

  • furthermore, words are taken as having (primarily or only) extensional meaning, which can be regarded as disconnecting/removing meaning from individual minds/persons…

so: Therefore, naturally focusing on that which seems most meaningful – and specifically words being that -, the focus of the analytic methodology and tradition in general is on words! – And this focus and prioritisation in turn(, especially considered beyond the limited aspects/interests of philosophical enquiry,) gives words[, in principal and in general,] authority and power.

or, more simply: The rational mind sees words as the locus of meaning, therefore focuses on words, thereby endowing them with power… Rational traditions supports the power of the words, and more specifically commands and law-utterances, of authorities. I.e. such traditions support [power-]hierarchy.

  • So, this seems to fit perfectly with the law & order of [the lord] god & [church] hierarchy – & theology?

– Both the things [esp. nature] & the common/lay people have no [inherent] meaning – & should thus submit under the law/order of the word, the word that is authority and power due to carrying/holding meaning, indeed the totalised, objective meaning of the god-perspective – whether explicitly or implicitly – whether administered by a monk or a philosopher…

p.s. just as a reminder for contrast: The alternative is to consider it generally reasonable and possible that things have meaning – natural entities, phenomena, people, etc. – whilst words are just compromising, abstracting tools of communication between minds and meanings. (And of course, why not also that things are meaning? – An absurd notion in our reality, but really not absurd at all.)

58

Are contradictions in things or between things?

 

Is an event nothing but the realisation of a contradiction,

its consequences developing in logical progression as a process in time?

 

or is every process, and thus every sum of processes or things, naturally free of any internal contradiction?

Is contradiction only to be found at the distinction and boundary between two things,

thus any and every two things, thus every individual and every part and every aspect? – Cartesian Atomism?

 

42

Horkheimer on instrumental reason, means and ends: selected quotation and comments

(aus: Gesammelte Schriften Band 6, 1991, p 27,28; Hervorhebungen etc. von mir)

“[…]dass vernünftige Dinge […] nützliche Dinge sind und dass jeder vernünftige Mensch imstande sein soll zu entscheiden, was ihm nützt. […] die Kraft, die letztlich vernünftige Handlungen ermöglicht, ist die Fähigkeit der Klassifikation, des Schließens und der Deduktion, ganz gleich, worin der besondere Inhalt besteht¹ – das abstrakte funtionieren des Denkmechanismus. Diese Art von Vernunft kann subjektive Vernunft genannt werden. Sie hat es wesentlich mit Mittel und Zwecken zu tun, mit der Angemessenheit von Verfahrensweisen an Ziele, die mehr oder minder hingenommen werden und sich vermeintlich von selbst verstehen. Sie legt der Frage wenig Bedeutung bei, ob die Ziele als solche vernünftig sind. Befasst sie sich überhaupt mit Zwecken, dann hält sie es für ausgemacht, dass auch sie vernünftig im subjektiven Sinne sind, d.h., dass sie dem Interesse des Subjekts im Hinblick auf seine Selbsterhaltung dienen – sei es die des einzelnen Individuums oder die der Gemeinschaft, von deren Fortbestand der des Individuums abhängt.² Der Gedanke, dass ein Ziel um seiner selbst willen vernünftig sein kann[…], ohne auf irgendeine Art subjektiven Gewinnes oder Vorteils sich zu beziehen, ist der subjektiven Vernunft zutiefst fremd, selbst wo sie […]sich Reflexionen über die Gesellschaftsordnung, betrachtet als Ganzes, widmet.

[…]diese Definition der Vernunft […] ist ein wichtiges Symptom eines tiefgreinfenden Wandels der Anschauungsweisen, der in den letzten Jahrhunderten im abendländischen Denken stattgefunden hat. Lange Zeit herrschte eine diametral entgegengesetzte Ansicht von der Vernunft. Diese Ansicht behauptete das Dasein der Vernunft als einer objektiven Welt – in der Beziehungen zwischen den Menschen und zwischen sozialen Klassen, in gesellschaftlichen Institutionen, in der Natur und ihren Manifestationen. […] auf einer objektiven Theorie der Vernunft begründet. Sie zielte darauf ab, ein umfassendes System oder eine Hierarchie alles Seienden einschließlich des Menschen und seiner Zwecke zu entfalten. Der Grad der Vernünftigkeit des Lebens eines Menschen konnte nach seiner Harmonie mit dieser Totalität bestimmt werden. Deren objektive Struktur, und nicht bloß der Mensch und seine Zwecke, sollte der Maßstab für individuelle Gedanken und Handlungen sein. Dieser Begriff von Vernunft schloß subjektive Vernunft niemals aus, sondern betrachtete sie als partiellen, beschränkten Ausdruck einer umfassenden Vernünftigkeit, von der Kriterien für alle Dinge und Lebewesen abgeleitet wurde. Der Nachdruck lag mehr auf den Zwecken als auf den Mitteln²,³. Das höchste Bestreben dieser Art von Denken war es, die objektive Ordnung des >Vernünftigen<, wie die Philosophie sie begriff, mit dem menschlichen Dasein einschließlich des Selbstinteresses und der Selbsterhaltung zu versöhnen.

[…]

Zwischen der Theorie, derzufolge Vernunft ein der Wirklichkeit innewohnendes Prinzip ist, und der Lehre, sie sei ein subjektives Vermögen des Geistes, besteht ein grundlegender Unterschied. Nach der letzteeren kann einzig das Subjekt in einerm genuinen Sinne Vernunft haben[…].”

comments:

¹ ‘Inhalt’ ist hier wohl Begriff- bzw Idee-inkludierend gemeint (was eigentlich allgemein der Fall sein sollte, da jeder Inhalt als Begriff gesehen werden kann)… Vom Inhalt abzusehen bedeutet eigentlich auch, dass man von den Begriffen absieht, sodass es eine [reine] Urteils-(lehre/logik/vernunft) ist, (bzw. sein soll)keine Begriffslehre… I think ‘Inhalt’, which means content, should here be read as: everything apart from the logical structure as per the formal logic( in which one abstracts specific concepts away, replacing them with predicates, i.e. stripped of internal structure/meaning and replaced by sets of objects of the reference domain.) I note this because this notion of reason becomes more radical/stark/abstract when one considers how it fits with the basic meta-philosophical distinction between philosophy as a structure of judgements and philosophy as a structure of concepts: Considering that logicians see only the logical form of a statement/argument as content-independent, with the logical form being such that the so-called predicates function independent of any specific identity of the predicate’s concept… ideas/concepts are thus counted to the realm of content and are ignored… So, indeed, this kind of reason is a mechanical system of deduction for external/abstract judgements like ‘true’, ‘conclusive’, ‘real’ or ‘useful’…

² Instrumental/teleological Ethics is all about judging/choosing something by whether it is a means to the end/telos… but this instrumental action/decision/thing  is judged/analysed/considered solely in relation to the telos, i.e. not per se…i.e. it is chosen through its instrumentalised abstraction, whilst the rest of its identity, relations & consequences are [deliberately] ignored!

³ …& thus paradoxically, in an E. that is about choosing means, any means are potentially acceptable – means are handled blindly…


after-thought:
choosing Urteilslehre [or Begriffslehre?]rests on the Urteil/Begriff dichotomy: on assuming that one can make a judgement within an objective, non-doxic concept framework… Which, given that, actually, each chosen concept is chosen,
amounts to the insane folly of believing that judgement can be independent of belief…

entry 36

two kinds of dualism: a second attempt at adequately expressing the distinction that I attempted to express in entry 25.

The first kind of dualism is a conceptual distinction: it simply says that if something exists, it is either material or mental and not both – and that these two categories are valid/adequate/complete.

The second kind of dualism is a statement of existence of things from both categories of the aforementioned distinction, so of [some] things that are mental and of [some]things that are material. In other words that some of the things that exist/are real are material and others are mental – that both categories are non-empty, thus of course also implying the validity/adequacy of the two concepts.

I want to make it clear that these are two very different statements, made on different levels.

The first kind of dualism is an idea about two ontological concepts as concepts. So, one could say, an idea about cosmology/ontology, a position in meta-cosmology, and in philosophical ontology.

While the second kind of dualism is an idea about entities/objects – a statement that uses two [pre-existing] ontological concepts as predicates/categories to state the existence/reality of certain sets of entities. So one could say the second kind of dualism is a position in cosmology or maybe in applied ontology: it is a determination made about the entities found in the language/culture of that thinker’s environment/tradition. Namely, it is the determination that some of the things of the thinker’s world that exist are material/non-mental, while other things of the thinker’s world that exist are non-material, mental.

Again, in the first meaning, dualism is a general statement made on the philosophical level, about all concepts, regardless of their domain of reference, especially regardless of whether their extension is non-empty. So, in this meaning, the distinction between dualist and non-dualist or monist is made in a philosophical/thought situation where neither the existence and non-existence of any entities is assumed, nor a particular [meta-]categorization of concepts into those for mental, non-material entities and those for material, non-mental entities. Here, dualism is itself a [meta]-categorization/taxonomy of ontological concepts – it takes all ontological concepts and places each in one of the two categories. This is philosophy.

In the second meaning, dualism is a general statement made about entities that one takes to exist/be real, i.e. the universe or reality: that the entities that exist/make up reality fall into two distinct, fundamental categories, so that some of the entities that exist/are real are non-conscious, non-mental, and extended  and others of the entities that exist/are real have the opposite set of properties, namely they are non-material, mental entities. It is doubtful whether this is philosophy.

Now, it should be clear that the second kind of dualism implies/pre-supposes the first, while the inverse is not the case. Significantly, one can hold dualism of the first kind while rejecting dualism of the second kind. (!) For example, one can be a dualist of the first kind [, accepting the material-mental categorization, ] and be a materialist, meaning that all the things one sees as existing/being real fall into the material category. In fact, this is normal for materialism: it is one of the options within a dualist conceptual framework – it is a dualist ontology/cosmology(which one?).

Furthermore, philosophical monism rejects the first kind of dualism, not just the second.

entry 35

this note concerns the law of non-contradiction (which is a pillar of mainstream scientific worldview or philosophy and which is implicitly or explicitly opposed by much of so-called continental philosophy, e.g. [Hegelian] dialectics)

 

The law of non-contradiction [in nature] pre-supposes the existence of a rational, omnipotent God, whose will is communicated faster than light and causality. *

Die Idee des ausgeschlossenen Widerspruchs (- und damit verbunden auch die Abneigung gegen widerspruch-zulassende dialektische Logiken und daraufbauende Philosophien -) – insbesondere angewendet auf Mengen von Sätzen/Propositionen, die sich auf raumzeitlich lokalisierte Tatsachen/Phänomene beziehen – beruht auf einer stillschweigenden/unbewussten Voraussetzung einer totalen Informationsstruktur derart, dass immer jede Tatsache darauf geprüft wird, ob es zu dem Zeitpunkt irgendwo eine Tatsache gibt, zu der sie im Widerspruch steht – bzw. ein solcher Widerspruch würde von diesem Informationsmechanismus oder abstrakten Gesetz verhindert werden. Die Existenz einer solchen totalen (allgegenwärtigen, allwissenden) Rationalität kommt der Existenz eines monotheistischen Gottes** gleich, dessen Wirkung/Wille/Gesetz sich schneller als Licht (also schneller als Kausalität) bewegen/ausbreiten muss um instantan überal Widersprüche zu verhindern/verbieten.***

…tatsächlich ist das Gesetz des ausgeschlossenen Widerspruchs höchstens angebracht in einem rein abstrakten, vorgestellten Gegenstand der gewissenmaßen rational geschlossen/beschränkt ist und weder Kontingenz noch Zeitlichkeit hat.

– Also, dieses Gesetz anzuwenden auf einen Bereich mit Zeit bzw. Kausalität – wo Wirkungen sich nicht instantan sondern mit Lichtgeschwindigkeit ausbreiten – ist eine Ebenenverwechslung.

* …which seems highly unlikely…

** etwa des Katholizismus oder des Xenophanes

***ein solcher Gott wird durch Spezieller Relativitätstheorie [bzw. ihrer Anwendung auf Information oder Kausalität] widerlegt – und somit auch ein solches Gesetz des ausgeschlossenen Widerspruchs

entry 28

meta-philosophical suspicion/hypothesis:

When philosophers (such as Richard Rorty and Paul Feyerabend) criticize contemporary philosophy through radical questioning of the legitimacy/foundations of epistemology (Erkenntnistheorie) – epistemology being right at the heart of philosophy – I think what they are truly attacking isn’t exactly epistemology in general, but instead specifically rationalist epistemology. And thus, despite providing cogent critiques of contemporary philosophical tradition, the negative conclusions that they draw on philosophy in general are too broad/general.

There is a trend of self-abasement in philosophy: of philosophers arguing that philosophy itself is a misguided, counter-productive and over-valued tradition/under-taking. In particular philosophy as an abstract tradition and philosophy as essentially epistemology. In this context, both Feyerabend and Rorty regularly draw connections to rationalism, e.g. to trends originating with Descartes or with pre-Socratics – their criticisms are made largely within contexts of identifying historical & theoretical consequences of various forms of rationalism. But they fail to reach the conclusion that this rationalistic form of philosophy which they criticize is of course contingent on whether philosophers operate within rationalism.The contents of their criticisms suggest that the epistemologies/philosophies they criticize are not the only possible/potential forms of philosophy…

And while I agree with their criticisms, I think that their criticisms are in fact themselves epistemology: they are epistemological, or meta-epistemological*, discussions and criticisms of rationalistic epistemologies! Their detailed, philosophical, critical exploration of the flaws of certain contemporary theories of and assumptions about knowledge are exactly what epistemology truly is! And indeed, this is philosophy.

*To me, it is relevant that a meta-level is involved, that the writings I have in mind are philosophy of epistemology. And, at the same time, I think a philosophical epistemology is one that includes – or rather appears only together with an attempt at – the next meta-level… And this goes for any topic or discipline… And this maybe a key distinction to rationalistic epistemology: that rationalistic epistemology is without the meta-level, presenting itself as an abstraction that is simply true in a vacuum. And this is anti-philosophical.

entry 26

This concerns philosophical discussions of the mind-body distinction and of the nature, concept and definition of consciousness & mind:

It maybe noteworthy that when more rationalistic philosophers, e.g. Karl Popper, are trying to define or explicate a notion of consciousness/mind for the purposes of a discussion/argumentation, they tend to emphasize sense-of-self as the defining or essential feature of consciousness/mind & de-emphasize actual qualia. (Which means they de-emphasize/ignore the concept that most directly and simply refers to subjective experience and the contents of consciousness in general – in favour of something more abstract.)

This maybe a consequence of the rationalistically stunted/inhibited introspection/vision of such thinkers: They fail to notice that one doesn’t actually see* a self – that self is a less concrete, more abstract entity, and that a sense of self is a very complicated basis for definition, as it is just an intuition/feeling of something that is already abstract and complex – unlike the more direct contents/constituents of consciousness, such as colours in a dream, which one does see. And the stunting of this kind of introspection or of introspective visual intuition occurs as follow:

Rationalists systematically ignore, neglect, devalue, inhibit, repress, and dismantle their intuition;**

then they destroy their understanding/idea of intuition;

then, in this new world where intuition is a broken and thus useless tool, they use just-based-on-an-intuition as an argumentative/rhetorical tool against opposing ideas, especially ones that clash with a rationalistic worldview.

*this can, theoretically, be generalized beyond the visual, but seeing suffices for the purposes of these points, and generalizing to something like perception in general to includes things like smells and tastes is counter-productively difficult because the notion of perceiving/perception is, in current philosophical discourse, too broken and confused.

**Taking intuition seriously/sincerely is antithetical to rational method/thinking, and intuitions are treated as something irrational and primitive that should be handled from the outside and treated with suspicion.

entry 24

a key concept/lesson in [philosophical] ethics

the catastrophic confusion between 2 types of *should*:

type I: as in expressing an ideal

type II: as in expressing a concrete duty or prescription in a concrete, practical situation of action/decision

A person’s actual behaviour and decisions can only theoretically conform to the ideal, because in reality, they are restricted – by reality, i.e. by the constraints imposed both by the nature of the individual person and of the reality in which the person is acting.

When actions and ideals don’t fit each other, which they practically never do, then confusing these two types of *should* leads to disappointment on the level of personal morality, judgement and psychology, and to systemic error on the level of inter-personal judgement and abstract ethical theory.

 

Ideals are something to strive or long towards, guiding practical action, not precisely determining and judging it.* Ideals are something to think about speculatively or abstractly. Ideals can be as general as basic deontological principles such as a principle of dignity or human rights. They can also be less theoretical and pertain to specific behaviour or action, permitting or prohibiting a general action or inaction of more or less specificity, such as don’t do anything that causes harm to other lifeforms, or, even more specifically, something like never resort to physical violence in a moment of anger.

And on the other hand, there is actual action, which is always a particular external and internal behaviour, and always exists in a unique practical situation. Factors that restrict an agent’s ability to match action to ideal: awareness of facts and relations relavant to a behaviour/action; the actor’s physical, mental and personal faculties in the precise moment; the person’s economic, material, social means; the person’s position within structures and systems of culture, society, reality, etc….

– In German, some philosophers utilize the difference between the two verb forms ‘soll’ and ‘sollte’: one can use ‘soll’ to indicate a concrete duty/prescription and ‘sollte’ to indicate expression of an ideal. This can be helpful, but doesn’t stop the confusion, as it is systemic:

The confusion is a systemic and often over-looked feature of rationalistic ethics, and by ‘rationalistic’ ethics I mean abstracting and generalizing actions out from their real-world, practical, particular context to the degree where one can consider the action in a vacuum** to enable manageable analysis/discussion. In other words, the unfathomable complexity of a real human acting and behaving within the constraints of themself and the real world are systematically ignored to enable analysis.

And all this makes the relevance of analysis to practical life and morality very questionable. And indeed, when philosophers are discussing ethics, speculating about what one *should* do, they often fall into over-looking this difference and taking their abstract speculations as exactly relevant to practical life. And not just philosophers, but also normal people who live under mainstream rationalist ideology that says that one’s actions should be in line with rational principles of action and that cool-headed, rational calculation/speculation should ultimately judge action.

* In a moment of reflection, one can remind oneself of an ideal, calling it into mind or imagining it whilst questioning how ones concrete actions and decisions align with this ideal, and then trying to re-align ones concrete plans and judgements with the ideal. (This is of course an endlessly difficult practical aspect of life, not something for a philosopher to solve – although many so-called philosophers think they can)

** with a much reduced number of relata of the predicate, logically speaking

entry 20

Rationality: speakable & correctly spoken thought

One key aspect of rational thought is that it is speakable: To be or become rational, a thought is reduced to its speakable part or version, and any part or aspect that isn’t expressible in language is rejected or denied.

A potential criticism of rationalistic thinking, philosophy and theory-building presents itself when one considers aspects of our world that are at the same time of deepest importance whilst not being speakable, for example beauty: Beauty can never be fully caught by definitions, transcending and eluding any attempt to [linguistically] capture or grasp or fix.* …And therefore, in a rationalistic worldview/reality, beauty is ultimately rejected or relegated to the level of mere relativistic & irrelevant ästhetics…

A further core component of rational traditions is that one must use language correctly [when expressing the speakable]… This makes the false assumption that we know how to use language correctly and thus have the ability to use language correctly and avoid using it incorrectly… I think it should be clear that this is an absurd assumption.**

 
This is one of many instances where I collect [suspected or observed] aspects of rationality or rationalism as part my anti-rationalism project:

I’ve been trying to find out what rationality and rationalism is and how related thought, theory, tradition, culture and history may be affected by this, i.e. how rationalism shapes our world and how it relates to other contemporary paradigms of mainstream [thought and] reality.

I think readers can agree that the concept of rationality is, explicitly or implicitly, a major factor/part in contemporary worldviews, both within and outside of intellectual/scientific institutions. I want to find out how important it is and what exactly it is – and what its function is. And by ‘rationalism‘ I mean whole methodologies or traditions that are built out of or on the more basic concept of rationality.

This project is a process of exploration and speculation. I neither want to simply choose some existing definitions and base my analysis on those nor simply stipulate my own definition/usage of the terms: What I’m doing is I’m trying to find out how ‘rational’ is actually used and functions in the world and in existing traditions – even if people aren’t aware of these functions and usages – and what the concept that best fits this usage/function ultimately looks like. This is a gradual process with many observations and speculations along the way.

This is necessary because – as can be easily observed – there is no  consensus on the meaning or importance or relevance of rationality. And it has become more obvious to me over time that rationality is an astoundingly murky and ill-defined or un-defined concept – and this is especially striking considering its prominence in traditions that value clarity and definition of language so highly.***

And concerning the critical aspects of this project: In my reading I came across criticisms of past and contemporary rationalistic traditions in philosophy. I was intrigued by this unusual case of criticizing something that is usually simply assumed to be something positive and important – & from there I’ve been exploring how far and deep these criticisms and the corresponding flaws of contemporary thought & theory may go: Firstly in schools of metaphilosophy and philosophy/methodology of science – but also exploring possible connections and influences this may have on any other parts of the human world – be it a scientific tradition or economic or political doctrine or ethics/morality or any other theory, tradition or culture. I’ve continued and deepened this endeavour because it has turned out to be fascinatingly fruitful.

*Beauty really IS ineffable – and by trying too hard to eff it, you will actually just f it up.

**I won’t directly argue this point here, but will just mention some points that should be considered in this context: Consider how language actually works as a pragmatic, psychological and historical process (or result thereof). It has intuitive components. It isn’t a fixed, perfect, objective system but rather a historically grown complex of temporary inter-subjective, co-operative conventions. It’s full of quirks and multiplicities of uses of elements. Attempts at correcting natural language or translating into formal languages – i.e. at making language completely rational – are vain attempts at overcoming this and removing all undefinable parts from our thoughts. An analytical philosopher can try to use new definitions to stipulate a new, limited language game, but even then you need to somehow provide a connection to other, broader language games for your artificial language game to have any relevance or meaning – this is the point/boundary at which the philosopher tricks themself into not noticing the intuitive/irrational components of what they are doing. And, of course, one shouldn’t forget that these imprecisions, intuitive/unconscious components, pragmatic mutabilities and fluidities etc are features that make language a wonderfully powerful, adaptive tool in an ever-changing environment and society.

***in fact so murky/dark that it can actually function as a kind of everyday dogmatic basis for modern thinking that – unlike explicit dogmas – isn’t even accessible to critical inspection.