Yet There Is Method In It

Several very interesting news items:

“A federal judge says the University of California can deny course credit to applicants from Christian high schools whose textbooks declare the Bible infallible and reject evolution.” Interesting state and religion issue. SFGATE

UK Government proposes wide reaching surveillance powers to investigate … well anything. I expect we will soon be given a helpful reminder by an anonymous camera operator when I forget to turn the oven off. I am now thinking the balance of power to the government from the individual is getting extreme. Individual rights are fraying at the edges and are almost torn apart. PCPRO

China: where an application to hold a protest is met with arrest for “disturbing social order”. BBC

Interesting piece on atheism in the US - The Guardian

And a subscription only news item, the New Scientist had a issue exploring the boundaries of reason. I have not finished reading all of it yet!

AC1

The government should adopt a Bill of Rights for the UK, a cross-party committee of MPs and peers has urged. BBC

I cautiously welcome this idea but I hold many reservations. If the present UK government has such a feeble grasp of human rights, how can they hope to advance this cause?

Building on existing protections is a noble aspiration which will be difficult to fulfil as long as so many other politicians denigrate our existing Bill of Rights - the Human Rights Act - in thought, word and deed. Shami Chakrabarti

An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals by David Hume

After reading his work “Concerning Human Understanding”, I was eager to see if Hume had any insight into morality. He previously pointed out the is-ought problem and I did wonder how Hume could overcome this limitation to say anything useful on morality. His primary argument is to avoid the question of the basis of morality and describe everyday morality and how might might have arisen. Hume argues people judge morality based on public utility (utilitarianism as far as I can tell) and sentiment.

Usefulness is agreeable, and engages our approbation. This is a matter of fact, confirmed by daily observation. But, USEFUL? For what? For somebody’s interest, surely. Whose interest then? Not our own only: For our approbation frequently extends farther. It must, therefore, be the interest of those, who are served by the character or action approved of… (Par 177)

This descriptive ethical approach is partly true but also partly false. To some extent, people held in high regard have provided some service to the public. Typical is the award of titles to those providing public service. But other public figures are rewarded for being a social parasite - this applies to celebrity culture. Also not all people who make moral judgments fit into Hume’s model. One man is called a freedom fighter and also a terrorist. Hume does not seem to address diversity of opinion.

Hume observes the praise given to acts of public benefit, both for their intended outcome and also for their actual outcome.

For a like reason, the tendencies of actions and characters, not their real accidental consequences, are alone regarded in our more determinations or general judgements; though in our real feeling or sentiment, we cannot help paying greater regard to one whose station, joined to virtue, renders him really useful to society [...] In morals too, is not the tree known by the fruit? (Par 185 Footnote)

But any great enterprise requires a degree of risk. It is said “the distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success”. So an unsuccessful pioneer is bad, a successful pioneer is good? It seems so arbitrary - but Hume is attempting to describe how morality works in the majority of people.

This point on the majority of people’s morality is not far from the truth. Epicurus claimed the purpose of life was the pursuit of happiness. Nietzsche also claimed most people made moral judgments by condemning threatening forces (ressentiment).

Hume repeatedly claims his argument is true because it is a “reasonable presumption”. His assumptions and over-generalisations did begin to wear me down. A key example is this:

All men, it is allowed, are equally desirous of happiness; but few are successful in the pursuit… (Par 196)

How can he, of all people, claim that all a group have a particular property without observing them ALL? The statement is also untrue. Many humans seem to want unhappiness by their choices that will tend to bring them pain and misery.

All men are equally liable to pain and disease and sickness; and may again recover health and ease. (Par 200 Footnote 3)

Again, we only have to look around us to see not all men are equally liable to sickness. Someone who is at death’s door cannot be said to be equally liable to recover than someone who merely stubs his toe!

Although Hume resists making statements on what ought to be good and evil, he finally succumbs in the conclusion.

And though the philosophical truth of any proposition by no means depends on its tendency to promote the interests of society; yet a man has but a bad grace, who delivers a theory, however true, which, he must confess, leads to a practice dangerous and pernicious. Why rake into those corners of nature which spread a nuisance all around? Why dig up the pestilence from the pit in which it is buried? (Par 228)

He admits himself that a theory - even a “true” theory - should be disregarded if it is “dangerous and pernicious”! And, even though he denies it on the first line, he implies that a theory is good if it promotes the interests of society…

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. But at least Hume is direct in his arguments.

It is trivial to observe that to condemn an act because it is “pernicious”, he is saying either “you should do X because Y is true” (and violate his own is-ought principle) or even the tautological “you should not do X because X is evil (i.e. X is something you should not do)”!

Amusingly, he goes on to say anyone who disagrees with him is obviously a bit weird.

I must confess that, if a man think that this reasoning much requires an answer, it would be a little difficult to find any which will to him appear satisfactory and convincing. If his heart rebel not against such pernicious maxims, if he feel no reluctance to the thoughts of villainy or baseness, he has indeed lost a considerable motive to virtue; and we may expect that this practice will be answerable to his speculation. (Par 233)

He here condemns someone’s disagreement because it is “villainy or baseness” BUT what “villainy” and “baseness” are is currently the subject under discussion!

This book predates existentialism by about a century. I think Hume would have been a great existential philosopher but he did not make the conceptual leap. To that branch of philosophy, this book does not qualify as philosophy at all. I think it is more a work of anthropology since, as a description, it has some merits.

I can think of several more objections but it is almost too depressing for me to attack Hume. I will just leave it to the debunker-king Nietzsche to spell out his objection:

The most general formula on which every religion and morality is founded is: “Do this and that, refrain from this and that — and then you will be happy! And if you don’t…” Every morality, every religion, is based on this imperative; I call it the original sin of reason, the immortal unreason. In my mouth, this formula is changed into its opposite — the first example of my “revaluation of all values.” An admirable human being, a “happy one,” instinctively must perform certain actions and avoid other actions… (Twilight of the Idols)

I needed this as an antidote after that book!

Anti Citizen One

The Russian literary giant (and Nobel Prize Laureate) Alexander Solzhenitsyn passed away this week at the age of 89. Famed for being a dissident in the Soviet Union his star shone so brightly across the world that the authorities dared not harm him but forced him into western exile. An idealistic communist his criticisms of western capitalist decadence shocked many of his supporters, and on his eventual return to post-soviet Russia he once again regained the mantle of being the spokesperson for the russian national conscience.

Much has been written about him and many eulogies are available on the internet, so I will add no more. I shall simply quote from his seminal and epic work “The Gulag Archipelego” this short existential meditation on good and evil - a conundrum that he insists we all face - and a conundrum which many posts on this blog explores.

‘If my life had turned out differently, might I myself not have become just such an executioner? …

‘If only it was so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them.

But the line dividing good from evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of their own heart?’

Owen Matthews has written an excellent article on Solzhenitsyn for todays Daily Mail, which is well worth a read (particularly for the uninitiated). As well as the philosophical quote from above he reminds us of a more political point made by Solzhenitsyn - and one that I think transcends nations, eras and ideologies and is applicable to all governments and peoples.

He saw himself as a prophet not just for Russia but for all mankind, and in his later years turned to denouncing the corruptions of Russia’s chaotic brand of freedom and the dangers of liberalism.

But for all his unfashionable conservatism, he believed adamantly in the value of human dignity - and that a state abdicated all moral authority to order society if it abused its citizens.

Unspeak by Steven Poole

Another insightful book on the power of words and how they can be used to control how a debate is conducted - and ultimately the outcome of a debate.

[Unspeak] represents an attempt to say something without saying it, without getting into an argument and os having to justify itself. At the same time, it tries to unspeak - in the sense of erasing, or silencing - any possible opposing point of view…

So called “Unspeak” uses ideas we associate with words to control how we think about other idea. I suppose this is a standard technique in rhetoric. Once something is labeled with a word, that word brings associated value judgments to the bear. So to control vocabulary is to control thought. This is well known in politics and public relations.

Wolfowitz acknowledged that, according to international law, the US was in fact engaged in ‘occupation’, but still argued that they shouldn’t have ‘accepted that label’. In other words, he seemed to think that if they had simply called it something else - perhaps a mass sleepover - then no one would have noticed that the occupation was actually an occupation.

You may notice that the US and UK parliments do not have “wars” any more - at least they are not declared. We now are told we have peace keeping operations, liberation operations, etc. And the author points out the word “operation” has medical and beneficial connotations. How easy it is to accept another’s language!

The case of the ‘insurgents’ was a small triumph of journalistic resistance to propagandistic terminology.

… we should at the very least expect, and demand, that our newspapers, radio and television refuse to replicate and spread the Unspeak virus.

The book claims a small triumph against Unspeak was the media (or a subsection of it) rejecting the word terrorist - which instantly condemns the subject - and substituting the word “insurgent”. This word supposedly had no prior meaning so had no previous value judgments. This is a compromise between calling them “freedom fighters” or “terrorists”. The catch is the word “insurgents” previously had no meaning at all and so conveys no information. Is it the job of the media to invent neutral vocabulary? In the extreme they might invent a new word for everything to make everything “objective” - but this would make the media void of meaning.

Naturally, in such a book, it is impossible that I will not myself have committed barbarous acts of Unspeak. I leave it as an exercise for the interested reader to identify them.

I take it as a gauntlet thrown down! The very concept “Unspeak”, subtitled “Words are Weapons” implies it is a bad thing and should be avoided. But the book does not say why “Unspeak” is bad! It also avoids the point that all words contain value judgments. “Unspeak” implies that some ideal “Speech” exists. It does not exist, as has been outlined many times on this blog. Invent a word and apply it to a set of “stuff” requires someone to do some valuation (see the Will to Power). What is needed is not a rejection of Unspeak but more critical thinking.

Anti Citizen One

PS “Do not all words lie to the light ones?” FN

Perhaps the most famous story in the Zhuangzi is to be found at the end of Chapter 2.

Once Zhuang Zhou dreamt he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting and fluttering around, happy with himself and doing as he pleased. He didn’t know he was Zhuang Zhou. Suddenly he woke up and there he was, solid and unmistakeable Zhuang Zhou. But he didn’t know if he was Zhuang Zhou who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was Zhuang Zhou. Between Zhuang Zhou and a butterfly there must be some distinction! This is called the Transformation of Things. Basic Writings p45

This seems to me to be a remarkable forecast of Descartes deus deceptus and the postmodern revisitation of epistemic and ontic uncertainty in the ‘brain in a vat’ thought experiment.

Obviously similar themes are being approached. It is interesting to note that the uncertainty that he peddles is not total scepticism. In other words he does not say there is no Zhuang Zhou or there is no butterfly, or that there can only be one and not the other. Rather his scepticism is an exercise in the uncertainty of objectivity. Note that he is convinced of being a butterfly at one point of time and in the next instance convinced of being Zhuang Zhou, and it is only on reflection between these two states of seeming certainty of being that he is led to uncertainty. That he has being (that he is) does not change but what, how and where he is undergoes metamorphoses. The ‘transformation of things’.

It is a wonderful piece of literary symbolism that he should pick the Butterfly as his alter ego. Quite aside from its similar flightiness and anarchic lifestyle to Zhuang Zhou, the butterfly is of course a marvel of nature and a paradigm example of a creature born of transformation.

Zhuang Zhou is certain of his being a butterfly - a state of being though that exists only in the “dream”. His dream like state was one of certainty. Similarly once awake he seems certain that he is Zhuang Zhou, it is only the transition from dream-state to waking-state that causes his uncertainty.

The controversial message here is that dream is objective, and that awakening is to enter into uncertainty and ignorance. Thus in reality we are all dreaming.

But as with all of the Zhuangzi each story has a point, a message. As already noted much of the Zhuangzi expounds a relativistic, pluralistic and perspectivist approach to philosophy and life, and the dream of the butterfly is not different. Whereas Descartes was concerned to find objective truth by scrutinizing and discarding all that he could be uncertain of, the Zhuangzi is concerned to open us to the possibilities of “transformation”, metamorphoses and flux.

Chinese philosopher Kuang-Ming Wu in his famous Dream in NIetzsche and Zhuangzi makes some comparisons between the two.

Having concluded that reality is subjective and dream is objective, Nietzsche did not say that we should regard dreams as some nocturnal fantasies that we should dismiss. Instead, he advises us that we should use them as a guide in our daily activities. Simlarly with Zhuang Zhou, having concluded that there must be, ontologically, a distinction between the butterfly and himself, though epistemologically unsure, and that this is nothing more than a transformation of things, he, too, advises us that we must forever live and be content with this constant transformation. - C.W.Chan The Philosopher, Volume LXXXIII No.2

That a dream may possess sights, sounds, feelings and emotions that seem real at the time, is a famous example of how one may argue for epistemic uncertainty. But the next question most philosophers normally ask is - how do we get ourselves out of this conundrum (the ultimate solopsistic paralysis - unsure or even convinced that there is nothing other than ourselves and that all reality is illusion)? Not so though Zhuangzi, he is content that we should suffer uncertainty. It is a lesson in detachment (note how this influences Zen buddhism), if we can realize the apparent reality of dreams, can we not also appreciate the dreamlike quality of the real?

And in finally subjugating the concept of the objective and allowing in its place the chaotic flux of possibilities, we can become (like the hinge of dao that moves freely) a butterfly “flitting and fluttering around, happy with himself and doing as he pleased.”

It is a challenge to reject absolutes and abstract labellings, the ideal person (as discussed in earlier posts) is one who is able to transfer themselves effortlessly and seamlessly from one situation to another without the disablement of distinguishments between real and unreal, right and wrong, etc. In this case the transformation between butterfly and man, dream and awake need not be painful. Uncertainty need not mean solopsistic paralysis, but an openness to flux, change and various different realities.

Like the flitting and floating butterfly, Zhuangzi alludes that the fully realised person follows the breeze yet arrives at the flower, its actins are spontaneous and free and it never wears itself out fighting against nature and things as they are.

In conclusion it seems novel to me that such a profound epistemic uncertainty and sceptical relativism should be proposed in such a therapeutic manner. And as often appears to be the case in Eastern Philosophy a profound philosophical widsom is expounded with the hope for practical effects (an aim that western philosophy in its ever increasing abstraction seems sometimes to neglect).

Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig is a book that I found to be highly interesting and thought provoking. It is very well researched and prefers illustration by example rather than abstract arguments. The author’s position is pro-law but anti-lawyer which provides interesting fusion.

The book addresses the cultural impact of the internet and its relationship with copyright law - particularly American law. His conclusion is we need reform of the copyright system, not to remove rights from profitable works, but to free the culture of all non-profitable works to allow them to be preserved or reused in new creative work. This is in obvious contradiction to current law makers who continually attempt to extend the copyright term:

“A 95-year term would bridge the income gap that performers face when they turn 70, just as their early performances recorded in their 20s would lose protection” Charlie McCreevy

I think McCreevy has forgotten the purpose of copyright law. But what is that exactly?

The first copyright law was the Statute of Anne, passed by the British parliament in 1710. (Patent law is a slightly longer history). Before that time, book publishers had claimed a perpetual exclusive right to books under their control - a perpetual monopoly. Parliament limited that right by establishing copyright and after the term for the work to pass into the public domain (which did not previously exist). Note that the purpose of the first copyright law limited the publishers right to a finite time.

The limitation on terms was an indirect way to assure competition among publishers, and thus the construction and spread of culture.

This intention was explicitly expressed in the US Constitution. Americans must be complimented for being organised!

Congress has the power to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries. Article I, Section 8, Clause 8

Note again the word “limited” and the purpose “to promote [...] Science and [...] Art“. Why should copyright holders insist on their rights being perpetual? What purpose does it serve? Only self interest at the expense of public good! (and making “20 percent of America into criminals” by music downloading)

Lessig is very clear in distancing himself from copyright anarchists and unambiguously condemns copyright violations. He claims that ideas are “property”.

A free culture supports and protects creators and innovators. It does this directly by granting intellectual property rights.

I consider this a misused of the word “property” since property is, to my mind, a physical object that I possess. I might cautiously allow intellectual “rights” because it does not imply all the associations that “common sense” associates with “property”. If we think of an item as property, it becomes too easy to assign it to the owner (and heirs) for eternity. (I will touch on this again in a review of “Unspeak”.) This flies in the face of all creativity which relies on:

If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas. George Bernard Shaw

and this idea has been adopted by the free culture movement as the slogan “Information wants to be free”. I agree with this view even if, according to Lessig, I might be an anarchist.

Lessig will remain correct when he states:

However convincing the claim that “it’s my property, and I should have it forever,” try sounding convincing when uttering, “It’s my monopoly, and I should have it forever.”

Right on. And an illustration on the power of the choice of words.

The book covers may more topics than these small points. A fascinating chapter describes his day in the US Supreme Court, in which he faced his nemesis of copyright extension. I don’t want to spoil the ending but it is a matter of record for those interested.

Anti Citizen One

PS This blog’s content is licensed under a Creative Commons license, written by a group that was co-founded by Lessig. And Lessig’s book is also freely available for legal download.

Being lazy and not writing reviews. Speaking of language, this made me laugh: NZ judge orders ‘odd’ name change

AC1

I have returned from holiday and I have been busy reading.

Yes Man by Danny Wallace

After enjoying his previous book “Join Me”, I was looking forward to a new series of adventures of Danny. He vows to say YES to every opportunity or suggestion that presents itself. This temporarily leads to his new appreciation of life and to enjoy embracing opportunities. After a time this reverses to a weariness of this irresponsible life style.

‘…I don’t want to be like I was, but I’m so sick of saying Yes. All it does is tire me. It was supposed to help. It was supposed to be exciting.’
Ian put his pool cue down, and nodded, sadly.
‘What Yes giveth,’ he said, ‘Yes also taketh away.’

Danny begins to question the value of Yes and the existential value of his project.

What was I doing with my life? I mean, really? What was the point in all this? To waste six hours of my day on a train? To wake up confused and bewildered in a Dutch hotel room? To severely annoy my ex-girlfriend? What was I gaining from this, really? Apart from a car and some mild abuse?

He does find new energy to persist saying Yes to life. It begins to become instinctual and effortless.

…I wasn’t saying Yes because I was playing the Yes game. I’d all but forgotten about that. I wasn’t saying Yes to prove anything to myself any more, or to Ian, or to anyone else. I was saying Yes because I wanted to. I was saying Yes because all of a sudden it was coming naturally.

The book ends with a transition away from “Yes” to a more settled and mature way of life. To gratuitously quote Nietzsche, he would have approved of Danny’s embrace of life:

“Aye, for the game of creating, my brethren, there is needed a holy Yea unto life” Zarathustra

but probably would not have agreed with saying Yes to all opportunities. Sometimes No is necessary.

“All-satisfiedness, which knoweth how to taste everything, that is not the best taste! I honour the refractory, fastidious tongues and stomachs, which have learned to say “I” and “Yea” and “Nay.” To chew and digest everything, however- that is the genuine swine-nature! Ever to say YEA that hath only the ass learned, and those like it!” Zarathustra

The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster by Bobby Henderson

The Gospel is a parody and reductio ad absurdum against the Intelligent Design movement. The core argument is if religion can be taught in schools and given legal protection, then this spoof religion, featuring the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM) as God, is equally deserving of the same benefits.

I think we can all look forward to a time when these three theories are given equal time in our science classrooms across the country, and eventually the world; one-third for Intelligent Design, one-third time for Flying Spaghetti Monsterism, and one-third time for logical conjecture based on overwhelming observable evidence.

The book takes several of the classical arguments (First Cause, Ontological, Design, Logical arguments) and adapts them to suit the FSM. The fact that their logic is flawed is presumably intended as a criticism of the original arguments. There is also an amusing spoof of Genesis featuring the FMS as a very incompetent, slightly insane, ego-maniacal creator God. One or two sections are intended as an improvement of Christian values. The Eight “I’d Really Rather You Didn’ts” basically reduce to “be tolerant of others”, “have a good time” and “don’t be religiously pretentious”.

All in all a good read for people interested in the Intelligent Design movement.

I will write a review of Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig when I have a chance.

Anti Citizen One

The Zhuangzi offers a relativistic, perspectivist and non-essentialist analysis of language. In one analogy the author describes language as being like a fish net, an item that is only useful until the fish has been caught, but which is then obsolete and should be forgotten about until a new fish (or in this case a new meaning) is sought.

Words are not just wind. Words have something to say. But if what they have to say is not fixed, then do they really say something? Or do they say nothing? People suppose that words are different from the peeps of baby birds, but is there any difference, or isn’t there? - Ch2. Basic Writings.

It is possible to interpret this text in a sort of proto-wittgensteinian way. An anti-essentialist (and by extension logical-positivist) exposition of language is proposed. In the manner that the late Wittgenstein proposed “meaning is use” there seems to be a similar approach to language in the Zhuangzi.

Words are “signifiers”, that is they represent something, but that which they signify is not meaningful or discoverable in and of themselves. One cannot take a word, isolate it and strip it down to its essence and essential meaning (a claim that the logical positivists made). Meaning is not constant, rather it is dependent upon and itself contributes to the general context of the “text” in which it finds itself; statement, sentence, paragraph, discourse etc. Words do not have a pancontextual meaning, but only have or gain meaning when we attribute meaning to it in particular circumstances.

There is an interesting parrallel and bridge between the Zhuangzi and the early and later Wittgenstein. Towards the end of the Tractatus Wittgenstein teasingly tells us that the book (and indeed philosophy and language) is senseless:

6.54 My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.) Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

Similarly having advocated that we throw away language once we have caught the meaning, Zhuangzi asks:

Where can I find a man who has forgotten words so I can have a word with him? Basic Writings p140

The Zhuangzi proceeds beyond this general contextualism to provide a more detailed analysis of language, quite remarkable considering its antiquity and the comparitively recent interest that philosophy has given to the topic.

The Zhuangzi distinguishes between three kinds of language. Watson (1968) translates these as “imputed words”, “repeated words” and “goblet words”. The first are words attributed to a great historical or legendary figure, which increases the impact that they have. The second are words which gain credibility by virtue of repetative familiarity, the analytical conclusion being that the familiar is often mistaken for the self-evident. Finally the third type “goblet words” are words whose meaning changes, Zhuangzi describes these as “words that are no-words”. It is a type of language that constantly refreshes itself thus more accurately being able to convey meaning - much like a goblet it is a vessel which may filled and emptied and thus more closely mirrors the distinctions necessary for understanding.

Zhuangzi it seems was influenced by his teacher and debating partner Hui Shi who held a similarly perspectivist philosophy of language. He focused on comparitive language - the type which is most transparently relativistic and perspectival. For example he said the word “tall” has no fixed range of reference (or therefore meaning). Tall for a Giraffe is not Tall for a Horse. Hui Shi generalised this relativistic aspect and concluded that no distinctions or differences rested on external reality, they are all merely projections of different perspectives.

Apart from the interesting superficial comparisons between the Zhuangzi and more contempory philosophies of language (Wittgenstein, Lyotard, Barthes, Derrida etc.) the ideas expressed fundamentally underpin an anarchic epistemology and existential morality, some more of which I hope to explore in subsequent posts.