Posts Tagged ‘self’

8 results.

Being & Time: Introduction (part II)

by Awet on August 29, 2011 at 4:58 pm
Posted In: History of Ideas, Nietzsche, Philosophy
Being & Time: Introduction (part II)

(for part I go here)

Knee-deep into ontological shit
I feel there’s plenty to mine from the first part of the introduction. :yup: On p. 16, Heidegger says that Dasein has a number of positions:

  • Ontic: the special position is ontic, in which existence determines this being in its being.
  • Ontological: Dasein is itself ontological, based on its existence. Dasein is the ontic-ontological condition of all ontology.
  • Dasein is ontologically primary being that precedes all Being that is the object of inquiry (or questioning).

Yeah, so? This piece is actually quite thought-provoking. That is, if you can handle the number of beings and ontologies and onticalities and existences… :roll: ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

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Next stop: Durkheim & anthropology

by Awet on August 4, 2011 at 10:47 pm
Posted In: History of Ideas, Philosophy

In a previous blog All Roads Lead to Ferdinand, I discussed Saussure as an opening of a new paradigm in the human sciences. Today, up at bat is Emile Durkheim, one of the founding fathers of the French social anthropology, who had a revolutionary insight that complements Saussure’s in linguistics. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

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So much for the philosophy of the mind

by Awet on August 1, 2011 at 1:01 pm
Posted In: Philosophy

I think both mind/body are incommensurate descriptions that vie for the title of truth of ontology of objects. We aren’t finished with demythologizing our ideas, and by getting rid of the Cartesian self we are de-divinizing philosophy by disposing an underlying substantial metaphysical center that grounds existence.  ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

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Juxtaposing deafness in society

by Awet on August 12, 2006 at 9:25 pm
Posted In: Deafness, History of Ideas, Poststructuralism

Is the word ‘deaf’ a label? How does it denote a person? Today, in this post-structural age, labels are everything. We use labels everyday, speak in labels, and we encounter labels everywhere. Sometimes we use labels for convenience, as shorthand for complicated concepts. Other times labels are used in technical vocabulary, to marginalize error. So, we identify ourselves with labels. Hence, the word “deaf” is a label that connotes a particular characteristic of a person. The dictionary explicitly signifies a person who is not physically able to hear, and that definition is derived from the norm of a society of peers who can. The identification of a person as deaf is a discursive product, because it is relevant only within a set of classification that is established by a particular discourse of deafness.

In the Norma Groce’s book Everyone Here Spoke Sign Language, a description of an independent community isolated on the small island Martha’s Vineyard, which was rife with a genetic predisposition to hearing loss, serves as an example where “deafness” was not a label of disability. Disability in this sense doesn’t necessarily result from a handicap, but rather is manifested through a society that devalues and segregates people who deviate from the physical norms. Consequently, any label that connotes disability is a socioeconomic passport for institutionalization.

However, this marginalization as a disability is a negative concept and does not satisfactorily answer the question – what is ‘deafness?’ Is there an alternative, more positive, definition?

One possible candidate is a social explanation, which is a departure from biological or existential explanations. As a label, deafness functions as a discursive formation that is socially constructed by discourse. The phrase ‘social construct’ is a celebrated description those radical freethinkers use to question the ideological beliefs of a modernist (that reality is a homogeneous entity, that knowledge is the sole result of a pure, sincere will to truth, and the meaning of anything is disinterestedly given).

Discursive formations are derivatives of discourse, which is the semiotic structuring of all social phenomena as codes and rules. This is practiced by a unity of discourse, by consensual agreement. Discourse defines identity and describes what characteristics are possible for a person. A discursive formation constitutes its object and generates knowledge about these objects. That means our knowledge is discursively determined, and the world is constituted in this way by discourse. However, nobody writes a discursive formation. There are no authors of discursive formations because they are constituted by archives, or anonymous collections of text.

These archives is the sustained recording of the history of the individual, and in doing so, the person has a place, a name, a number, a task, a credit history, etc., and never stray from the steady observation of authorities. This constant observation of behavior leads to a certain discipline: the person behaves as if they were under sustained surveillance. In the deaf person’s situation, especially in the USA, his life is observed, recorded, and probed under a microscope by a collaborative and cooperative effort of specialists (deaf teachers, guidance officers, speech language pathologists, interpreters or notetakers, and audiologists): a continuum of psychological profiles, aptitude test placements, audiograms, educational performance, objectives and other documented efforts.

The increasingly complex and technical serialization of the disabled person is an ongoing process of a biographical production. The biographical sketch of the individual, chronicled to a greater detail than ever, results in the ‘real,’ tangible and physical snapshot of the self! Panopticism is a disciplined, rational, detailed and bureaucratic surveillance, which signifies how behavior is directed by the machinery of society- an ‘automatization’ and ‘disindividualization’ of power.

The individual actively construct their social world, as opposed to having it imposed upon them. Therefore, it seems that the concept of deafness does not necessarily signify a disability, but is contingent upon what context the individual chooses to define himself. If labels are constructs, and language is the limit of thought, then I am nothing more than a social construct, that ‘deaf guy.’ However, I do not identify myself as a deaf person because of my existential nature as a free human being. To act otherwise would be bad faith.

(Originally published by the 49er, the CSULB newspaper, February 6, 2003)

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Human Nature: True, False, or merely a construct?

by Awet on August 11, 2006 at 12:54 am
Posted In: Philosophy, Poststructuralism, Sartre

Do you think there must be a human nature? If such a thing exists, at least a relatively fixed one, then true scientific understanding is possible. Because people, with a very limited amount or set of experiences, are capable of learning their own language, as well as use it creatively, then there must be some sort of “bio-physical structure” within the mind that enables individuals to deduce a unified language from the multiplicity of individual experiences. If you agree with this conclusion then you are a typical cartesian rationalist. You will answer questions with appeals to universal human nature and reason, the standard for intellectuals to judge and rationalize a precise conceptualization for a better society and the future. Violence, injustice, falsehood, etc., must be fought for the sake of justice, because there must be a guiding principle, a fixed and rational standard for knowledge, society… Otherwise we cannot judge which actions or claims are true or correct or just or determine which actions to take.

On the other hand, if you think human nature does not exist, because “existence precedes essence,” then there are no rational principles or a priori values. No transcendent values exist prior to choice, ready-made and perfect, waiting for your consent in your choice how to live, for you are nothing else but what you choose to make of yourself. Consequently you are responsible of yourself and for everyone else. You create a certain image of a person of your choices, through your actions. In choosing yourself you choose humanity. What you do contributes to humanity in general, hence, you are responsible of all mankind. Once you become aware that your choices actually chooses for everyone else, you will experience a deep-seated anxiety. Once you realize that there is no God, nobody with infinitely perfect wisdom who knows the “Right choice,” then your choice is completely your responsibility, your creation. Your choice cannot depend on anyone else. If there is no pre-existing human configuration, no perfect society, no standard of precise justice, then you are condemned to always choose freely.

However, if you wished to avoid starting with the abstract question by starting in a different direction and pose this – how does the concept of human nature function within society – then you evade the requirement of making claims of universal truths, and instead choose to historicize grand abstractions. This method distinguishes the actual operational categories within a discipline from a broad conceptual marker, like “life,” in which themselves may have had of little import regarding the internal evolution of the scientific disciplines. Therefore, because there is no external position or universal understanding that is beyond history and society, the task is to historicize the universal categories each time they’re encountered. I.e., it was not through the study of human nature that discoveries were possible, such as linguists with “consonant mutation” or psychologists, the “principle of analysis of dreams,” or anthropologists, the “structure of myths.” This way, the “why” questions are transformed into “how.” In the attempt to answer “why,” you are restricted to models of justice, knowledge, truth, or search for general principles that evaluate the condition or situation. Perhaps you realize this attempt actually hides the concrete function of power. The notion of truth or justice or moraltiy has been concoted in order to function as an instrument of a political and economic power. For knowledge is already soaked within conflicts small and large, not external or above the disagreements, or discord.

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Comments about Kierkegaard

by Awet on February 18, 2006 at 5:39 pm
Posted In: Existentialism, Philosophy, Sartre

Some thoughts about Kierkegaard, from a philosophical angle.

Truth is strange – for in the majority of all those philosophical tomes of thought, there seems to be some sort of self-disgust, an aversion to itself. We can see the truth always “just about to be,” but it never actually coincides with itself. Within reflection, I arrive at an unhappy position, entirely of my own choosing, and find the “state of philosophy” in tattered decrepitude. The agony of thought drains the world of color, and leaves behind splotches of gray, and the bland walls of tedium threaten to envelope me. This seems the revenge of life against my efforts of looking too deeply, into the abyss…

Kierkegaard interjects that with every step take in reflection, you are taking a step backwards from immediacy. This pronouncement seems to carry the implication that reflection can never spur anyone to scale the mountain and find enlightenment at the very peak of truth. Kierkegaard was forever the ironist, and within his writings the anticipation of Dostoevsky’s Underground Man is right under the surface. Interestingly, Kierkegaard chose to sign all his books with a multitude of pen names: Constantine Constantinus, Johannes de Silentio, Victor Eremita, and so on. All these pseudo-authors issue forth cryptic and penetrating insights on a wide spectrum of issues: aesthetics, ethics, and metaphysics. To Kierkegaard’s credit, his original genius was the transformation of pedantic philosophy into a problem of writing – and he also bequeathed a host of rich categories to existentialism (anxiety, dread, absurdity).

There was an incident in Constantinus’ Repetition that changed the author’s life, for even a speck of dust in the eye is enough to collapse an entire world view. Once the speck irritated Constantinus’ eye, he went to pieces and fell into the “abyss of despair.” Careful readers will immediately notice the allusion to the Gospel of Matthew, and realize that, for Kierkegaard, the world view is Hegel’s systematic metaphysics.

In the early 19th century, philosophy sort of out-smarted itself in the excessive rhetoric of the works of Fichte, Schelling, and most importantly, the tortured language of Hegel, yet Hegel was crowned as the king of all philosophy regardless. Kierkegaard was intimately familiar with Hegel’s works, and he also knew that the keystone of Hegel’s entire historical system of logic, the Aufhebung was the great dragon he must overcome. Aufhebung is translated into English as “sublation,” meaning that the contradictions in history are always overcome at once, but at the same time, also preserved by the elevation to a higher plane of thought.

You may say that this Aufhebung doesn’t seem so dangerous and nasty, and fail to see why Kierkegaard found it utterly dangerous. The French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre, in his book Search for a Method, laid out his path to existentialism, as well as the back door that allowed him to leave. Most scholars will insist that Kierkegaard was the founding father of existentialism, but Sartre actually demolishes this notion.

Kierkegaard argued that, despite its omnivorous power, Hegel’s philosophy overlooks the “unsurpassable opaqueness” of the lived experience. To this, Sartre didn’t object, and noted that Hegel was very absolute in his optimism, and probably too much so. Hegel would insist that the tragic experience of a single person – the suffering that lasted until death – is easily absorbed and sublated by the system in its passage towards the genuine historical absolute.

However, despite such unflagging optimism, Kierkegaard thought that the specifically real was primal, above and beyond thought. the real cannot be exhausted by thought, cannot be reduced and compartmentalized into spic and span system of philosophy. The supra-individual system glosses over the speck in one’s eye, for it is an existential coloration of mood. In other words, one’s subjective life can never be turned into the object of formally abstract knowledge.

There are contradictions in the individual, Kierkegaard thought, the agonizing choices that everyone has, but they are never “surpassed.” With a smile, Hegel dismisses this private agony as the “romantic unhappy conscience”, for it is a moment already known in essence and thereby surpassed in the process. However, Kierkegaard’s irreducible subjectivity has a “magical transcendence” up his sleeve, a mystical going beyond to God. This is not to be confused with the traditional religious sense of leap “up” to God, but a free fall into subjective inwardness of infinite depth. Kierkegaard places the individual on the very brink of the absurd, and his problematic is that the falling is inevitable.

In order to win God, in order to believe, one must lose one’s understanding.

Sartre called this a sacrificial transcendence, a last suicidally absurd insurrection against Hegel’s “science” of philosophy, and Hegel would have objected to the narrow paradox, and say that his Aufhebung is the better alternative, for it promises the enrichment of the objectivity of all people.

Kierkegaard’s “fallenness” into absurd faith is a quasi-suicidal transcendence, and a clever weapon, some would say desperate, against the systematizing Hegelian history. Hegel’s blatant optimism in the priority of philosophy over experience gnawed at Kierkegaard. Hegel saw philosophy, as a science, lacked the use for the relative question of the individual experience in the real movement of history. Outrageous, thought Kierkegaard, for there’s nothing to such “science” but to make a scandal of faith and turn Christianity into a faithlessly rationalist regime.

Christendom, for Kierkegaard is the society that is Christian in name only, but virtually atheist, for the society has institutionalized its own reason for being Christian. Hegel is correct, in this sense – the genuine experience of faith has already been bypassed for historical reasons of state. That means faith has no room to go, except Kierkegaard’s self-elected absurdity. Sartre himself is probably incorrect when he dismisses Kierkegaard for not being a philosopher, and that Hegel is the superior thinker. In a nutshell, Kierkegaard has lured the reader into the depths of subjectivity, only to pull the rug out under us and reveal that without God, unhappiness is ubiquitous. Kierkegaard was the first post-Christian who realized that Christianity has become a mockery of the Evangelical ideal, and that it is no longer a given belief, but nonexistent unless testified by faith in it.

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On character

by Awet on September 16, 2005 at 3:58 am
Posted In: Philosophy, Sartre

The concept of ‘character’ has had a pervasive effect in the history of human relationships, and has led to the twin myths of royalty and race.

To posit “character” as something that underlies behavior, or causing it, is worse than mythical, for the consequences of such assumptions leads to essentializing character as something stable, solid, a determinate nature underlying one’s existence. This “mystification” is perhaps the main reason why people convince themselves that a person cannot act other than what s/he did, and that they are resigned to supposing that one is forced to act out the “hidden” self.

Therefore, the conception of character merely disguises, or conceals the fundamental nature of man’s existence as freely choosing and self-aware beings.

As long the term “character” denotes a provisional empirical generalization of behavior, then this will not lead us into the bad faith of postulating an “essence” of a person, of which the actions are merely the “appearance” and derivative of the “real” character of the person.

To use a concrete example, a person who has behaved like an asshole up till now can be legitimately called a “asshole” but once he chooses to act friendly, he is no longer an asshole, and ceases “being” one.

Ergo, there are no such thing as “motives” behind actions, or motives causing the person to act, because that leaves out the all too subtle moment of choice. It is the choice that turns a potentially motivating factor into an acual motivation.

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Epistemological profiles of the Intellectual and the Pragmatist

by Awet on August 13, 2005 at 3:14 am
Posted In: Philosophy, Schopenhauer

Previously I had written and posted the following in response to Davidm’s rhetorical question (couldn’t we get along?):

Quote:
No good reason to comment, other than this: We cannot get along for certain reasons I’ve found to be the case with Internet Intellectuals or intellectuals of any other color. One of the reasons I enjoy the company of non-intellectuals (members of the working class or those lacking intellectual pretensions) is that they are usually blessed with a greater amount of humor than the so-called wordsmiths or scholars, and do not take themselves far too seriously. That helps foster healthier relationships, for socializing with a variety of people will aid in keeping one’s feet solidly on the ground and provide a sense of well-roundedness.The intellectual must regard himself as the model of sincerity, and in doing so he sets himself up for ridicule at every turn, no matter the noble aspirations. By being sincere in his pursuit of Truth, Knowledge, and Justice, the intellectual overlooks the more important things in life, such as comedy, pleasure, and conversation. The many Truths of the intellectual generates superficial ideological differences, the Knowledge of the intellectual also creates an air of pompous superiority, and the Justice of the intellectual determine the rules of Internet discussion boards and standards of scholarly Journals as divine, beyond the pale, beyond the various diversity of people. Therefore, intellectuals are bound to clash with other intellectuals and sink their relationships on the slightest of differences or infractions, being capable of neither forgiveness nor the insight of the common person: we’re human and we’re going to make mistakes.

I need to expand why intellectuals are crippled by their own greatest attribute – the powers of abstraction – and why the practical person always has an advantage over the intellectual in social settings, because of their own grasp of the understanding. That requires an exposition of the faculties of the mind, reason and the understanding, how they function in real world scenarios, and particularly how they lead to different personalities.

This is not to say that the Intellectual and the Practical person are persons in themselves, or that a person is entirely either an Intellectual or a Pragmatist, for these idealized portraits of human behavior are merely epistemological outlines of a profile, a persona that we may adopt at one time or another. Indeed, people may be closer to one or the other in their inclinations, habits of thought or action, or etcetera.

The intellectual’s chief attribute – reason – functions by dealing with abstractions in reflection. These abstractions are concepts that have been constituted by (acquiring language) the ability to formulate a generalization of many particular instances, or philosophically speaking, the mental activity of abstracting concepts from the representations of perception. These concepts are objects of reason, conceived and articulated via language. I.e., a car is a general representation devised to stand for many individual objects of perception, say, a Dodge Durango, but the concept of car always leave out many detailed elements of what is perceived or experienced in each particular case.

The practical person’s main attribute – the understanding – functions by dealing with the representations of perception. These representations are objects of perception, which contains and presupposes causality, because they are mediated through our sense organs and intellect. Representations in perception are conditioned by the formal and categorical framework of the mind. All perceived objects already conform to and are conditioned by the human senses and conceptual apparatus. Then all representations necessarily implies an object and subject, for they are always “object-for-a-subject.”

Each and every representation of perception presupposes the law of causality, or cause and effect, which is the sole function of the understanding. On the other hand, the representations of representations are themselves concepts – the “representations of reflection” – which are general concepts we employ when classifying phenomena according to common features.

Therefore, reason utilizes the intelligible perceptions in its application, but since it merely produces concepts from perception and organizes them, it cannot produce anything ex nihilio because it is itself nothing at all. Reason in its abstracting activity is limited to arranging the generalization of perception – representations – because in order to know anything, it must be known by the understanding and be intuitively apprehended before it can be abstracted by the faculty of reason as a concept. Then it follows that bodily activity in all forms is more original than the representations that generate intelligiblity. While it is possible to grasp existence through a more direct means of contemplative awareness, it is likely we cannot think without representations, or specifically, think without using language at all.

Additionally, whereas animals are deficient in conceptual representation, and are incapable of forming judgments, they make up for that in the understanding because they are capable of cognizing causality that is necessary for the cognitive ability of perception. Animals demonstrate amazing ability of coping with their environment (an elephant refusing to cross a bridge, despite having crossed many before, because it does not think the bridge will stand under its weight, a young puppy refusing to jump off a table at a great height, even though it has never fallen before) The behavior of animals indicate their ability to survive and flourish without the aid of reason, which consists of abstract knowledge of concepts. Then this should illustrate the crucial difference between the understanding and reason.

In people, the understanding works best with intuitive knowledge of the particular case where one perceives how to manipulate a certain object(s), such as driving a car. By driving a car one develops an immediate and perceptive knowledge in perception. An experienced driver, say a NASCAR racer, may himself possess brilliant intuitive knowledge of the laws of gravity, of inertia, all coded within the understanding, and for immediate perception. The driver is a pragmatist in practice who employs knowledge via perception in his driving. Incidentally, many inventors of machine or talented craftsmen function without any scientific knowledge whatsoever.

Reason only replaces the intuitions and perceptions with abstract concepts. Yet in the very act of abstraction, the concept loses the particular differences and instances of the perception, then they do not precisely represent experience, and can never come anywhere close to exhaust it.

The greatest value of rational knowledge is, besides its preciseness, communicability. The driver can affix concepts to his experience of representations in perception and communicate those concepts to other people who lack the experience of driving. People working on a collaborative project together require an abstract plan and exchange concepts that are understood by all.

Interestingly, the driver, who is supposed to be alone in his course of action, rational knowledge or reflection can be an obstacle because it is likely to divide his attention, causing him to lose focus and grow confused. There is no need for the driver to think abstractly and deduce the degrees and minutes the angle he needs to turn the steering wheel in order to get ahead and win races.

I’ve said my piece on why scholars (as intellectuals) are not genuine philosophers, so this exposition also alludes to that thread as well. However, the dichotomy between the Intellectual and the Pragmatist need not be so cleanly delineated, for there are certain individuals who encompass both personalities at the level of brilliance: they employ an exceedingly original means of intuition in their grasp of the understanding in their insightful discoveries (hooke’s discovery of law of gravity, Lavoisier’s chemistry, Einstein’s relativity, etc). Basically, the great discoveries of knowledge do not consist long chains of abstractions but rather the presentation of the immediate knowledge for the faculty of reason in a way that never happened before. The genius marries his intuitive understanding with the proper concepts of reason for others. The ideal type is not an over-intellectual scholar, nor an inarticulate but experienced loner, but a person who recognizes the limits and the profits of both the understanding and reason and maximizes them in his or her self-odyssey.

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