has established a mighty bulwark against the dissolution of life, and others are by suggestion gaining from his strength. In a brutalised form, as deliberate action, it is found among ‘decadent’ playboys (“one should get married in time, and then the constraints will come of themselves.”) Thus one establishes a necessity in one’s life, exposing oneself to an obvious evil from one’s point of view, but a soothing of the nerves, a high-walled container for a sensibility to life that has been growing increasingl increasinglyy crude. Ibsen presents, in Hjalmar Ekdal and Molvik, two flowering cases (‘living lies’); there is no difference between their anchoring and that of the pillars of society except for the practico-economic unproductiveness of the former. Any culture is a great, great, rounded system system of anchorings, anchorings, built on foundational firmaments, the basic cultural ideas. The average person makes do with the collective firmaments, the personality is building for himself, the person of character has finished his construction, more or less grounded on the inherited, collective main firmaments (God, the Church, the State, morality, fate, the law of life, the people, the future). The closer to main main firmaments a certain certain carrying element element is, the more perilous it is to touch. Here a direct protection is normally established by means of penal codes and threats of prosecution (inquisition, censorship, the Conservative approach to life). The carrying capacity capacity of each segment segment either depends depends on its fictitious nature having not been seen through yet, or else on its being recognised as necessary anyway. anyway. Hence the religious education in schools, which even atheists support because they know no other way to bring children into social ways of response. response. Wheneverr people realise Wheneve realise the fictitiousness fictitiousness or redundancy redundancy of the segments, they will strive to replace them with new ones (‘the limited duration of Truths’) – and whence flows all the spiritual and cultural strife which, along with economic competition, forms the dynamic content of world history. The craving for for material goods goods (power) is not so much much due to the direct pleasures of wealth, as none can be seated on more than one chair or eat himself more than sated. Rather, the value of a fortune to life consists in the rich opportunities for anchoring and distraction offered to the owner. Both for collective and individual anchorings it holds that when a segment segment breaks, there is a crisis that that is graver the closer that segment to main firmaments. Within the inner circles, sheltered by the outer ramparts, such crises are daily and fairly painfree occurrences (‘disappointments’); even a playing with anchoring values is here seen (wittiness, jargon, alcohol). But during such play one may may accidentally rip a hole right to the bottom, and the scene is instantly transformed from euphoric to macabre. The dread of being stares us in the eye, and in a deadly gush we perceive how the minds are dangling in threads of their own spinning, and that a hell is lurking underneath. The very foundational foundational firmaments firmaments are rarely replaced replaced without great social social spasms and a risk of complete complete dissolution dissolution (reformation, revolution). During such times, individuals are increasingly left to their own devices for anchoring, and the number of failures tends to rise. Depressions, excesses, and suicides result (German officers after the war, Chinese students after the revolution). Another flaw of the system system is the fact that that various danger danger
Zapffe at sea, 1930
fronts often require very different firmaments. As a logical superstructure is built upon each, there follow clashes of incommensurable modes of feeling and thought. Then despair can enter through the rifts. In such cases, a person may be obsessed with destructive joy, dislodging the whole artificial apparatus of his life and starting with rapturous horror to make a clean sweep of it. The horror stems from the loss of all sheltering values, the rapture from his by now ruthless identification and harmony with our nature’s deepest secret, the biological unsoundness, the enduring disposition for doom. Wee love the anchorings W anchorings for saving us, us, but also hate them for limiting our sense of freedom. Whenever we feel strong enough, we thus take pleasure in going together to bury an expired value in style. Material objects take on a symbolic import here (the Radical approach to life). When a human being being has eliminated eliminated those of his anchorings that are visible to himself, only the unconscious ones staying put, then he will call himself a liberated personality. A very popular popular mode of protection protection is distraction . One limits attention to the critical bounds by constantly enthralling it with impressions. impressions. This is typical even even in childhood; without without distraction,, the child is also insufferable to itself. “Mom, what distraction am I to do.” A little English girl visiting her Norwegian aunts came inside from her room, saying: “What happens now?” The nurses attain attain virtuosity: Look, Look, a doggie! Watch, Watch, they are painting the palace! The phenomenon is too familiar to require any further demonstration. Distraction is, for example, the ‘high society’s’ society’s’ tactic for living. It can be likened to a flying machine – made of heavy material, but embodying a principle that keeps it airborne whenever applying. It must always be in motion, as air only carries it fleetingly. The pilot may grow drowsy and comfortable out of habit, but the crisis is acute as soon as the engine flunks. The tactic is often often fully conscious. conscious. Despair may may dwell right underneath and break through in gushes, in a sudden sobbing. When all distractive distractive options are expended, expended, spleen spleen sets in, ranging from mild indifference to fatal depression. Women, in general less cognition-prone and hence more secure in their living than men, preferably use distraction. A considerable considerable evil of imprisonment imprisonment is the denial denial of most March/April 2004 Philosophy Now 37
distractive options. And as terms for deliverance by other this major psychological law. means are poor as well, the prisoner will tend to stay in the The human yearning yearning is not merely marked marked by a ‘striving close vicinity of despair. The acts he then commits to deflect toward’, but equally by an ‘escape from.’ And if we use the the final stage have a warrant in the principle of vitality itself. word in a religious sense, sense, only the latter latter description fits. fits. For In such a moment he is experiencing his soul within the here, none has yet been clear about what he is longing for , but universe, and has no other motive than the utter inenduraone has always a heartfelt awareness of what one is longing bility of that condition. away from, namely the earthly vale of tears, one’s own Pure examples of life-panic are presumably rare, as the inendurable condition. If awareness of this predicament is the protective mechanisms are refined and automatic and to some deepest stratum of the soul, as argued above, then it is also extent unremitting. But even the adjacent terrain bears the understandable why the religious yearning is felt and experimark of death, life is here barely sustainable and by great enced as fundamental. By contrast, the hope that it forms a efforts. Death always appears as an escape, one ignores the divine criterion, which harbours a promise of its own possibilities of the hereafter, and as the way death is experifulfilment, is placed in a truly melancholy light by these enced is partly dependent on feeling and perspective, it might considerations. be quite an acceptable solution. If one in statu mortis mortis could The fourth remedy remedy against panic, panic, sublim sublimation ation, is a matter of manage a pose (a poem, a gesture, to ‘die standing up’), i.e. a transformation transformati on rather than repression. Through stylistic or final anchoring, or a final distraction (Aases’ death), – AS TO CLIMB PAST THE IT’S A MONKEY WHO HAS then such a fate is not the MAN IS A BEAST BANANAS IN THE TREETOP EVOLVED ITS CLIMBING SKILL worst one at all. The press, press, WHO HAS REACHED AND INTO EMPTY AIR! TO SUCH PERFECTION – for once serving the EXCESSIVE HEIGHTS. concealment mechanism, never fails to find reasons that cause no alarm – “it is believed that the latest fall in the price of wheat...” When a human being being takes his life in depression, this is a natural death of spiritual causes. The modern barbarity of ‘saving’ the suicidal is based on a hairraising misapprehension of the nature of existence. Only a limited part of OUR FOREMOST WEAPON, THINKING, HAS BECOME WE HAVE NOW REACHED SUCH A LEVEL OF humanity can make do with THOUGHT AND SCIENCE THAT WE CAN SO MIGHTY mere ‘changes’, whether in OBSERVE AND ANALYSE EVEN OURSELVES, THAT WE CAN work, social life, or or enterSEEING HUMAN LIFE AS IT IS, IN ITS USE IT TO TRAGIC DULLNESS. tainment. The cultured DEFEAT OURSELVES. person demands connections, lines, a progression in the changes. Nothing finite satisfies at length, one is ever proceeding, gathering knowledge, making a career. The phenomenon phenomenon is known as ‘yearning’ or ‘transcendental tendency.’ Whenever a goal is reached, the yearning moves moves on; hence its SOON, WE SHALL ALSO BE object is not the goal, but the ABLE TO DRAW THE HUMAN LIFE INESCAPABLE CONCLUSION very attainment attainment of it – the ISN’T THE gradient, not the absolute THING FOR HUMAN BEINGS! height, of the curve representing one’s one’s life. The promotion from private to corporal may give a more valuable experience experience than the one from colonel to general. Any grounds of ‘progressi ‘progressive ve optimism’ are removed by Now w March/Ap March/April ril 2004 38 Philosophy No
) s e n e g n a T e l s i G . r t ( 4 2 4 1 0 9 8 4 2 8 N B S I . 1 0 0 2 g a l r o F e g g a K , o l s O . d n a r t S e r o T & l a d g e H a l O y b
s s e a N e n r A , g e J
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artistic gifts can the very pain of living at times be converted into valuable experiences. Positive impulses engage the evil and put it to their own ends, fastening onto its pictorial, dramatic, heroic, lyric or even comic aspects. Unless the worst sting of suffering is blunted by other means, or denied control of the mind, such utilisation is unlikely, however. however. (Image: The mountaineer does not enjoy his view of the abyss while choking with vertigo; only when this feeling is more or less overcome does he enjoy it – anchored.) To write a tragedy, one must to some extent free oneself from – betray – the very feeling of tragedy and regard it from an outer, e.g. aesthetic, point of view. Here is, by the way,, an opportunity for the wildest way wildest round-dancing round-dancing through ever higher ironic levels, into a most embarrassing circulus vitiosus . Here one can chase one’ one’ss ego across numerous habitats, enjoying the capacity of the various layers of consciousness to dispel one another. The present essay essay is a typical attempt attempt at sublimation. sublimation. The author does not suffer, he is filling pages and is going to be published in a journal. The ‘martyrdom’ ‘martyrdom’ of lonely ladies ladies also shows a kind of sublimation – they gain in significance thereby. Nevertheless, sublimation appears to be the rarest of the protective means mentioned here. IV Is it possible for ‘primitive natures’ to renounce these cramps and cavorts and live in harmony with themselves in the serene bliss of labour and love? Insofar as they may be considered human at all, I think the answer must must be no. The strongest claim to be made about the so-called peoples of nature is that they are somewhat closer to the wonderful biological ideal than we unnatura unnaturall people. people. And when when even even we have have so so far been been able able to save a majority through every storm, we have been assisted by the sides of our nature that are just modestly or moderately developed. This positive basis basis (as protection alone cannot create life, only hinder its faltering) must be sought in the naturally adapted deployment of the energy in the body and the biologically helpful parts of the soul1, subject to such hardships as are prec precisel iselyy due to sensory limitations, bodily frailty frailty,, and the need to do work for life and love. And just in this finite land of of bliss within the fronts do the progressing civilisation, technology and standardisation have such a debasing influence. For as an ever growing fraction of the cognitive faculties retire from the game against the environment, there is a rising spiritua spirituall unemployment. unemployment. The value of a technical advance advance to the whole undertaking undertaking of life must be judged by its contribution to the human opportunity for spiritual occupation. Though boundaries are blurry, blurry, perhaps the first tools for cutting might be mentioned as a case of a positive invention. Other technical inventions enrich only the life of the inventor himself; they represent a gross and ruthless theft from humankind’s common reserve of experiences and should invoke the harshest punishment if made public against the veto of censorship. censorship. One such crime among among numerous numerous others is the use of flying machines to explore uncharted land. In a single vandalistic glob, one thus destroys lush opportunities for experience that could benefit many if each, by effort, obtained his fair share.2
The current phase phase of life’s life’s chronic fever is particularly particularly tainted by this circumstance. The absence of naturally (biologically) based spiritual activity shows up, for example, in the pervasive recourse to distraction (entertainment, sport, radio – ‘the rhythm of the times’). Terms for anchoring are not as favourable – all the inherited, collective systems of anchorings are punctured by criticism, and anxiety, disgust, confusion, despair leak in through the rifts (‘corpses in the cargo.’) Communism and psychoanalysis, however incommensurable otherwise, both attempt (as Communism has also a spiritual reflection) by novel means to vary the old escape anew; applying, respectively, violence and guile to make humans biologically fit by ensnaring their critical surplus of cognition. The idea, in either case, is uncannily logical. But again, it cannot yield a final solution. Though a deliberate degeneration to a more viable nadir may certainly save the species in the short run, it will by its nature be unable to find peace in such resignation, or indeed find any peace at all. V If we continue these considerations to the bitter end, then the conclusion is not in doubt. As long as humankind recklessly proceeds in the fateful delusion of being biologically fated for triumph, nothing essential will change. As its numbers mount and the spiritual atmosphere thickens, the techniques of protection must assume an increasingly brutal character. And humans will will persist in dreaming dreaming of salvation and affiraffirmation and a new Messiah. Yet when many saviours have been nailed to trees and stoned on the city squares, then the last Messiah shall come. Then will appear appear the man who, as the first of all, all, has dared strip his soul naked and submit it alive to the outmost thought of the lineage, the very idea of doom. A man who has fathomed life and its cosmic ground, and whose pain is the Earth’s collective pain. With what furious screams shall not mobs of all nations cry out for his thousandfold death, when like a cloth his voice encloses the globe, and the strange message has resounded for the first and last time: “– The life of the worlds is a roaring river, but Earth’s is a pond and a backwater. – The sign of doom is written on your brows – how long will ye kick against the pin-pricks? pin-pricks? – But there is one conquest and one crown, one redemption and one solution. – Know yourselves – be infertile and let the earth be silent after ye.” And when he has spoken, spoken, they will pour themselve themselvess over him, led by the pacifier makers and the midwives, and bury him in their fingernails. He is the last Messiah. As son from father, he stems from the archer by the waterhole. Peter Wessel Wessel Zapffe, Zapffe, 1933 Notes: 1 A distinction for clarity. clarity. 2 I emphasize that this is not about fantastic reform proposals, but rather a psychological view of principle
• Many thanks to Mrs Berit Zapffe for permission to publish this translation. March/April 2004 Philosophy Now 39
Letters When inspiration strikes, strikes, don’t bottle it up! Now w Write to me at: Philosophy No 43a Jerningham Road • London • SE14 5NQ, U.K. or email
[email protected] Keep them short and keep them coming! So Farewell, Philosophy?
DEAR EDITOR : I read with sadness your ‘obituary’ for the demise of the Philosophy Dept at City University, London. It seems that you may soon also have to write one for the Philosophy Dept at University of Wales Swansea. The new new Vice-Chancel Vice-Chancellor lor of the university has decided that “too broad a range of courses is being offered”, so he intends to do away with Philosophy, Anthropology, Anthrop ology, Sociolog Sociologyy and Chemistry! How can an educational institution call itself a university without these fundamental disciplines? The Departm Department ent was founde founded d in 1920 and is home to the journal Philosophical Philoso phical Inves Investigatio tigations ns . Wittgenstein was a frequen frequentt visitor, visitor, staying staying in Swansea with one of his favourite students, Rush Rhees, himself a professor in the department. The Wittgenstinian Wittge nstinian tradition has been been carried on by Prof. D.Z.Phillips, so you can imagine what a loss it will be to the academic community. The Departm Department ent is trying to gather gather support from politicians, academics and anyone else who may be able to exert any influence at all. I am not, myself, part of the Philosophy Dept – I read for my degree at Swansea and am now a senior lecturer at Swansea Institute of Higher Education, but I teach Philosophy on the part-time degree course at Swansea, and am currently pursuing a PhD there. BRIAN BREEZE WANSEA A S WANSE Eat Cuddly Bunnies
DEAR EDITOR : I was looking forward to a cogent argument in favour of granting animals the same – or at least some – of the rights we give ourselves. Instead, Jeremyy Yunt (Issue 44) gave Jerem gave us yet another re-run of the Cuddly Bunny Plea. OK, let’s all become vegetarians and stop killing pigs and cows for food. Should we also stop killing kangaroos and past-their-sell-by-date horses for 40 Philosophy Now March/April 2004
pet food, or should we explain to our dogs and cats that they have a moral responsibility to all those creatures further down the food chain? OK, let’s do away with hen-batteries, abattoirs and research labs. So who’s going to pay for feeding the millions of redundant chickens, pigs and monkeys now that we’re not going to eat them or conduct experiments on them? Tell you what: let’s let’s give give them their freedom freedom,, and let them starve to death. OK, let’s ‘find creative ways to pursue our own needs without conflicting with (a butterfly’s or a coyote’s) basic requirements for a sound habitat and food source’. Does this also apply to non-cuddlies such as houseflies and rats? And how far down the line does it go: the malaria-carrying mosquito? The AIDS virus? OK, let’s agree that “life – all life – deserves safeguarding from harm.” So do we safeguard the noble King of the Jungle by letting letting it feed feed where where it can, or do we safeguard the doe-eyed Bambi from being eaten? Or do we duck out of that particular argument on the grounds that we shouldn’t interfere with nature? (And while we’re on that subject, it seems to be the nature of an over whelming whelmi ng percentage percentage of the human race race to eat meat as well as vegetables. Why should we interfere with that? Simply because we can? But, then, that’s one of the reasons we rear, slaughter, butcher, cook and eat certain animals – because we can.) can.) As a Christian Christian omnivo omnivore, re, I deplor deploree the infliction of unnecessary suffering on animals. But I’m also a pragmatic Christian omnivore, and the operative word in my deploring deploring is ‘unnecessar ‘unnecessary’. y’. Battery farming is cruel; but I’m happy to eat a free-range chicken (not least because it tastes so much better). I’m not going to give up eating pretty little piglets or fluffy baa-lambs; but I agree that abattoirs should be closely regulated to minimise the distress of the animals to be killed. I agree that animals should not be used to test cosmetics; but I’d rather that controversial – but potentially ground-breaking – cures for
cancer/ebola/AIDS be tested on animals before being let loose on humans. (Unless we tie this in with another feature in the same issue: why not clone human beings for the sole purpose of acting as lab-monkeys? Would that satisfy Mr Yunt?) To return return to the the matter matter of animal rights, which Mr Yunt promised to address, but didn’t. There is no such thing as a natural right. Rights are granted by those in a position to do so. By all means let’s grant animals the right not to be abused or tortured. In our country (I can’t speak for Mr Yunt’s country), we already have laws covering that, and we have the RSPCA to monitor those laws. And it would be nice to think that Mr Yunt’s invading aliens might see things our way, and grant us a right or two: clean abattoirs, perhaps. But, for all our moral angst, let’s try to keep a grip on reality. PETER M MOTTLEY ANGBOURN OURNE E, BERKS P ANGB p.s. Mr Yunt asserts that “a plantbased diet is repeatedly proven the most healthy for the human body.” My own reading indicates that it’s been repeatedly proven that a balanced diet including a certain amount of meat is most healthy for the human body. I guess it all depends on where you choose to read your surveys... Pax Americana
DEAR EDITOR : After reading David Gamez’s article - ‘Pax Americana’ (Issue 44), I would like to respond to a few interesting points that he raised regarding “problems with the spread of Utopia by force of arms”. Point 1) “Although the pre-colonial government in Iraq used force, torture and secret police to maintain its rule, it still depended on the cooperation and support of a substantial number – perhaps even a majority – of its citizens. One man cannot repress twenty three million alone.” Does this mean all dictators received support from a majority of their
Letters citizens? If America uses Saddam Hussein’s way to run Iraq, it will certainly have an impressive result – gain 100% “support” from Iraq people. Is this statement extremely unfair to people all over the world who are still suffering from torture by dictatorship? Dictatorships blot out every form of internal freedom and independent thinking. As a result, only docile and subservient people are allowed to survive. Point 2) “interventionist wars generally have nothing to do with the achievement of utopia but are motivated by paranoia, greed and a slack domestic economy.” Americaa will have Americ have to pay $80 $80 billion billion for the rebuilding of Iraq. Is that good to their economy? Some Canadians heavily criticize US with respect respect to War on Iraq and Canada did stay away from this War despite both US and Canada sharing the same values – democracy and freedom. As neighbors to the US, it seems to me that criticizing George Bush is the safest thing we can ever do. However, just a decade ago, Kuwait was simply overrun by their socalled brother Iraq in a matter of hours even though Kuwaiti people did not dare to criticize Saddam Hussein. While some continue continue to doubt doubt the real intention of America for both the 1st and 2nd War on Iraq, do Kosovo in Europe and Somalia in Africa have oil fields? Point 3) “Downtown LA is an expanse of dirty and decaying streets lined with homeless people, hookers and madmen.” There is no a perfect system in the world. The American American political system is perfectly imperfect. At least, it does not need to establish something like the Berlin Wall. America does not need to hide its problems. Those homeless people have rights to vote against the government, and hold hopes for tomorrow, to say the least. Democracy is not a medicine for all ills, but dictatorship is a sure poison to everything. Point 4) “Americans might actually suffer more poverty than the people in the country that they are invading.” Why are a lot people people around around the world afraid afraid to fall behind behind others others to enter US both legally or illegally every year? Why Why do a lot of parents send their their children to receive education in US? Does that ever happen to Iraq? Point 5) “If the expansion of Empire extends the negative effects of capitalism without making the American American dream dream
into other countries’ reality, then we have little reason to support it.” Some may even argue the United Nations should be the ones to bring justice.. Not so long ago, justice ago, Libya Libya held the presidency of the U.N. Human Rights Committee. Do we want to apply the human rights standard of Libya in our society? How many UN members are still controlled by wicked oligarchies? How convincing is any conclusion drawn from such an organization? In a civilized society, we are not obliged to go to War easily, but we are obliged not to be indifferent towards right or wrong. Dictatorship is the common enemy of all who respect respect human human rights. rights. After After all, all, “We are citizens of the world.” Point 6) “There is the fact that over the last fifty years America’s record of achieving utopia anywhere outside of its borders has been extremely poor.” Without Ameri America’s ca’s interventi intervention, on, would Kuwait Kuwait still still be on the map today? today? Without Ameri America’s ca’s interventi intervention, on, what what would be be the fate of South Korea Korea or Kosovo? When Winston Winston Churchill Churchill talked about the Nazi threat, he said: “If we do not stand up to the Dictators now, we shall only prepare the day when we shall have to stand up to them under far more adverse conditions. Two years ago, it was safe; three years ago, it was easy, and four years ago ago a mere mere dispatch dispatch might might have have rectified the position. But where shall we be a year hence?” HONG-LOK LI NIVERSITY ITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA U NIVERS Perceiving and Sensing
DEAR EDITOR : I think Joel Marks got confused between perceiving and sensing when he refers to the ‘sense of gravity’ gravity’ as having nothing “to which we need or even can attend” as compared to our five senses. This is not comparing like with like. Our senses allow us to receive information (sounds, smells, etc.), but we do not ‘receive’ gravity – it acts upon us and does so irrespective of us having any means of controlling it (we cannot close our eyes or plug up our ears to it). Gravity is an external reality which (like the sound of the proverbial tree falling in the forest) acts irrespective of our ability to perceive it or not. It also acts without us having any means of shutting it off or otherwise controlling its effect on our bodies. In any case, we do not “perceive” gravity through its “direction”; what we perceive is our direction, or anticipated direction, in relation to its force upon us.
The question question,, however, however, of of what we we ‘sense’ when we feel ourselves being out of balance remains. As a rock climber, I am acutely aware of the problem of maintaining my balance – particularly when there’s there’s a lot of of air between between me and the ground. So what do I perceive when I feel myself starting to peel away from the cliff that tells me I’m out of balance? I perceive a long drop earthwards (and a desperate need to stop that happening). What I sense is a different different matter altogether. What I sense, i.e. the sensation I have, is fear. This sensation is obtained from previous experience; what I am fearful of, am anticipating, is hurt and pain (and although I have taken what is known as a ‘ground fall’ and know what its like to drop at 9.81m/s2, all that is necessary to anticipate pain is to have experienced falling over as a child; everybody does that). Therefore, I don’t think it’s possible to talk about ‘sensing gravity’, we can only experience its results. You don’t feel falling, you just feel the ground when you hit it! What I ‘sense’ in relation to gravity is my desire to avoid its negative effects. The only only reason reason Joel Joel Marks can expeexperience light by imagining it when he’s in a dark room is because he is drawing on previous experience. I would suggest that it’s not possible through imagination to encounter (with any accuracy) an experience you’ve never actually had (although ‘identikit’ approximations may be possible). It may very well be the case that “certain types of consciousness... are useless”, but gravity is not a helpful metaphor. The extent of consciousness may be defined by its contextual rele vance. Howeve However, r, if that that is the the case, case, and given the above, what is it that we are receptive to (sensing), what sort of consciousness are we referring to, when we talk talk about having a ‘sense ‘sense of direcdirection’? There is perhaps perhaps in this phenomena phenomena a metaphorical clue about moral objectivity. TUART T B C AMPB AMPBELL ELL S TUAR BERDEENSHIRE PORTSOY , A BERDEENSHIRE Dawkins and Darwinism
DEAR EDITOR : The attempt to discredit the logic of Richard Dawkins and thereby discredit Darwinism and atheism (guilt by association), did not succeed very well. Dawkins Dawkins can can be accused accused of being outspoken and offensive (ad hominem) yet it is hard to accept the other logical criticisms levelled against him by Peter Williams. There is a March/April 2004 Philosophy Now 41
Letters dichotomy in the way different people perceive the world. Some see enchantment and inexplicable wonders of demons and divine purpose, while others see a world of natural philosophy, where experiment and observation can enable reason to deduce cause and effect. The two sides cannot meet in agreement because no amount of prayer will change Dawkins’ mind and no amount of evidence will shake Williams’ faith. There is a danger danger that that ‘creationists ‘creationists’’ and ‘intelligent designers’ will make themselves look foolish by chasing the red herring of trying to reconcile religious faith with facts. Jesus did not come here to tell us about evolution, dinosaurs nor the Earth going around the Sun and whatever is ultimately discovered about the detailed nature of evolution it will not remove the need that some people have to believe in God. Nor the lack of such a need in other people. OODHEAD JOHN W OODHEAD EEDHAM , NORWICH R EEDHAM DEAR EDITOR : I read Peter Williams’ critique of Richard Dawkins with a sense of morbid fascination as one misinterpretation followed another. The arguments put forward were so flawed it is difficult to know where to start. Peter Williams starts by criticizing Dawkins’ statement that his daughter should doubt anything that is not well founded on evidence. He finds this statement to be self-contradictory because it is not itself based on evidence. If Richard Dawkins had been a philosopher he would no doubt have expressed it differently, exhorting his daughter to question statements not arrived at by induction on the basis of empirical evidence – which as far as any scientist is concerned amounts to the same thing and is clearly not self-contradictory at all. Statements of fact arrived at by induction are usually held to be valid and of of course course are the the basis basis of of all our scientific knowledge, not just the bits about evolution to which Peter Williams takes exception. If Williams genuinely doubts this and doesn’t trust the evidence of his own senses or the power of human reason, the world must be a frighteningly unpredictable place and one wonders that he has the courage to get out of bed in the morning! In any case Williams Williams goes on to use empirical evidence or the absence of it quite freely in the rest of his article. Essentially this is the same evidence that Richard Dawkins uses, the evidence for the evolution of species by 42 Philosophy Now March/April 2004
natural selection being necessarily somewhat limited by the passage of aeons of time. He continues his argument by criticizing Dawkins for saying that only a gradual accumulation of small genetic changes could do the job of producing what appe appear ar to be great great evol evolution utionary ary leaps in structure and function on the basis that this is a circular argument. Indeed on the face of it this does sound a bit like a biological version of the ontological argument. Richard Dawkins does not of course intend this to be a logical proof of evolution at all; he is merely making a point in a rather grand style. A point which is however soundly based on the empirical evidence and argument he so eloquently puts forward in Climbing Mountt Improb Moun Improbable able. Williams goes on to comment on the lack of functional intermediaries – a matter which occupies almost the whole of Climbing Mount Improbabl Impr obablee and for which Dawkins gives the most cogent explanations; all based of course on that troubling scientific evidence for which Peter Williams can see no logical case. It is also worth noting at this point that the evidence for this gradual evolutionary change is no longer confined to the fossil record. We now understand the mechanism by which it takes place, essentially, faulty copying of DNA; evidence which gives powerful support to our understanding and appreciation of the timescale involved and the incremental nature of the change. The theory of evolution by natural selection is now a highly cohesive theory. Williams’ William s’ next next pot shot shot consists consists of accusing Richard Dawkins of creating a false dilemma. He seems to believe that the theory of evolution and the idea of creationism are not mutually exclusive and that it is logically possible to hold both theories to be true. If this is so one wonders why he has spent spent so much much time time trying to suggest that the gradual progression of evolution through intermediate functional forms is so improbable. Unfortunately his assertion is not true, the reason being is that the theory of evolution specifically excludes any form of divine intervention, guidance or design. Evolution, which is of course still visibly going on on all around around us, us, albeit albeit very slowly, is and can only ever have been driven by chance and necessity. The whole of of life is merely merely a fortuito fortuitous us accident driven by random mutations in DNA, the only ‘design’ coming from the exigencies of existence. If Williams has examined the theory of evolution and believed it to be consistent with an element of design, he has misunderstood
the theory and created a quite new and very differe different nt theory theory of evolutio evolution n which is not consistent with the original one and which would of course require more of that scientific evidence that he has so much trouble with. Creating a distortion of the original theory like this is exactly what Williams Williams goes on to accuse accuse Dawkins of doing when he suggests that Dawkins has produced a ‘straw man’ argument. I would like at this point to deal with Williams’ comments on equivocation. Once again Richard Dawkins’ account perhaps lacks the precision in the use of words that Peter Williams as a philosopher would like, but is perfectly easy for any fair-minded person to understand. The meaning is clear: that some things that appear to be designed are not in fact designed. The rest rest of the article article consists consists largely largely of an attack on Dawkins’ views on religion and Williams concludes by saying that Richard Dawkins deduces evolution from his own atheistic world view. He has clearly done nothing nothing of of the sort; what he claims to have done is to deduce atheism from the theory of evolution. Whether he has or not, it is certainly not possible to deduce any sort of theory of intelligent design from the scientific evidence as Peter Williams claims to have done. A LAN LAN K EITH EITH OTHERHAM , SOUTH Y ORKSHIRE ORKSHIRE R OTHERHAM Pictures of the Big Bang
DEAR EDITOR : If you are looking for a photograph of the Big Bang (‘Did the World Have a Beginni Beginning?’, ng?’, Issue Issue 44), 44), a theory that was suggested by the Russian scientists George Gamow in 1948, I suggest that you contact NASA, as they may be able to assist. In June 2001 a satellite was launched to map the details of cosmic microwave radiation. There is available a photograph of this which shows in detail the thermal ripples of the birth of the universe over thirteen billion years ago, so confirming the theory of the ‘Big Bang’. This theory may still not no t be the complete answer to all our questions of ‘why?’ or ‘how is it?’ that we ask from the dawn of our childish thinking ability, but I think it is a possible way forward to understanding our place on this earth, in our galaxy, in this universe rather than the logic chopping of desiccated med-evil-ists. JOHN J ACKSO ACKSON N ENT BECKENHAM , K ENT
Marks by Joel Marks
Ignorance is Bliss
T
hank God, I’m not depressed. depressed. Or so my self-diagnosis self-diagnosis proclaims after an informal discussion with a philosopherturned-therapist friend friend of mine. He explained that the symptoms of clinical depression include loss of appetite for food and accustomed activities. I have none of that. Take these columns that I write: I throw myself into them not only when I am feeling light-hearted but also when I am in the depths of ... ... despair? Yes, I think that must be what I had been mislabeling as depression. depression. What I suffer from is a philosophical rather than a psychological ailment – existential rather than emotional at base, mental rather than behavioral in manifestation. When my friend asked asked me what exactly was the the problem or symptom, which would be logically prior to rooting out the cause or seeking a cure, I replied at once: “Pain.” “What kind of pain?” he pursued. “In my head.” “Like a headache?” headache?” “No, but it hurts all the same. So much so that I might wish wish anything to have it stop, even even the end of my existence. existence. Absent that, I sometimes do things to relieve it that I later regret: out of the frying pan and into the fire.” My friend friend contin continued ued to bob his his head head up and and down in good good therapist fashion. Eventually he attempted attempted to employ the cognitivist approach – which hearkens back to Socrates – of asking questions that were designed to lead me down a rational path of clarifying the problem and thereby (possibly) arriving at a solution. But precisely what makes makes mine a philosophical philosophical ailment is that thinking makes it worse. My non-phi non-philosop losopher her friends friends often make the simple simple obse obserr vation: vatio n: “You “You think think too much much.” .” And it’s no joke! joke! Not Not to condon condonee misology,, but even we of the ‘examined life’-stripe agree that misology certain matters are better better left un-pondered. un-pondered. Sometimes they they are just not not worth worth the effo effort rt (“Shall (“Shall we park here, here, or in the the next next space over?”). Sometimes it would break the mood (“Wasn’ (“Wasn’tt she a wonderful lady?”). Sometimes they they are too urgent (“Smoke! (“Smoke! Should I exit the premises?”). Yet Y et some some proble problems ms are prope properly rly philoso philosophica phicall because because they they do invite reflection although although they seem insoluble. insoluble. That is what can make them interesting to contemplate at one’s leisure (at least to a certain type of personality). personality). That is also what can make their their consideration dreadful (in the sense of angst -inducing) -inducing) if they bear on what we care about in some significant way. So ... ... I am en route to my second second marriage. I am experiencing experiencing the jitters that are normally associated with one’s first approach to the altar. I didn’t feel them then because I was caught up in the fantasies of love. love. This time I am anxiously anxiously aware of the realities of my previously failed relationship. In theory, one is supposed to be on firmer ground the second time around, having learned from past mistakes. mistakes. I have indeed become knowledgeable knowledgeable about many of the things that can go wrong.. But I have wrong have not not thereby thereby discov discovered ered how to prev prevent ent them, them, or how to deal with them once they arise. After all, marriage Number One ended ended in divorce, not reconciliation. reconciliation. Any
‘wisdom’ gained from that episode must therefore be purely speculative until put to the test, i.e., until the second marriage is a fait accom accompli pli . Furthermore, a second marriage will present a host of new problems – some general (advancing decrepitude, step-parenting, etc.), some particular to the personalities and circumstances involved. One can hope to transfer transfer some general knowledge knowledge from the first marital encounter; but generals usually know how to win the last martial encounter. In fact what I know is that the odds are against us: Most marriages end in divorce and of those that don’t many, if not most, are unhappy. unhappy. Furthermor Furthermore, e, second marriages marriages are in even worse shape than first first ones. ones. (It is not obviou obviouss how to to interpret interpret the statistics, and of course prognostications are always iffy; but the divorce numbers I’ve just picked off the Internet are 72% for second marriages in the U.S. and 50% in the U.K.) This is not necessarily an indictment of marriage per se se, as the same may be true for life prospects in general (if one could assess such a thing); maybe most people are unhappy with their lives, married or not. But it is little comfort to know that that one is likely doomed doomed no matter what. One still wants to know how to become become one (or in this case, one of two) of the lucky few. And of of course course I not not only know know about about the the general general facts; facts; I am intimately acquainted with the particulars of what went wrong in my own case. Given my philosophic philosophic nature, I have also introintrospected and reflected on these particulars ad nauseam. I believe I have gleaned insights by the truckload: I see where we went wrong,, where wrong where she went wrong wrong,, and most most importa importantly ntly,, where where I went wrong. wrong. But what what I have have not seen is the way to avoi avoid d any of of this in future (other than just not to get married again). In other words, part of my understanding seems seems to be that what took took place place was was inevitab inevitable le – and and not just just because because I did not not then have the insights I have now, but because of who I am and what peopl peoplee are and and the natur naturee of the the cosmos cosmos and perh perhaps aps even even of being itself. I have very specific specific premonitions about about the impending marriage because of all this philosophizing. Thus,, in this Thus this instance, instance, philo philosoph sophyy has prove proven n not to be for for me ‘the guide to life,’ life,’ nor even a consolation. I can no longer be taken in by the mantra, “We will beat the odds.” Just as I know that someday I am going to die, I know that this marriage is likely to fail. Perhaps that dose of of reality will focus my attention attention in such a way as to improve the odds of our having a successful, i.e., an exceptional, exceptional, second marriage. Or it could instead be a self-fulfilling prophecy prophecy.. Which way it will go is also something I feel I can do nothing about; it would be like trying to travel back in time to prevent my parents from ever having met. © JOEL MARKS 2004
Joel Mark Markss is Profes Professor sor of of Philosoph Philosophyy at the the Univer University sity of New New Haven Haven in West Haven, Connecticut. Connecticut. www.moralmoments.com He thanks Jerome Jero me Shaff Shaffer er and and Jack Jack Davis Davis for for their their sympathe sympathetic tic input, input, and, of course, his ‘altar ego’ for her leap of faith. March/April 2004 Philosophy Now 43
Books
Jean Cham Jean Chamber berss explains how Stephen Darwall’s ideas about care connect to an ambitious theory of rationality and ethics. Meanwhile Abdelkader Aoudjit reports on which beleaguered positions are still held After the Science Wars.
Welfare and Rational Care by Stephen Darwall IN Welfare and Rational Care, Stephen Darwall lucidly argues that a person’s welfare is best understood as what someone who cares for her should rationally want for her. Integrating ‘care’ into our understanding of ‘welfare’ promises to be a distinct improvement over the standard view of welfare as pure selfinterest as the person sees it. We all know people who do not know or do what is best for themselves. And the idea of rational care brings in a desirable impartiality. What is best for you is not not simply what you happen happen to want for yourself, yourself, or what what I, who care for you, want for you. you. It is what what I and others should rationally want for you. you. Darwall’s new view is a sophisticated culmination culminatio n of his work on rationality, sympathy and self-interest. Within the traditional view view of ratiorationality as self-interest, understood as maximizing one’s own welfare, people have at various times times insisted insisted that one’s one’s preferpreferences must be consistent, or fully informed, or must survive a deliberative process. But the attractive simplicity of all such theories is purchased at the price of defining away genuinely altruistic preferences as irrational irrational.. Is rational self-sacrifice necessarily a conceptual impossibility? Morality involves involves altruism, and even selfsacrifice. Is morality irrational irrational?? Moral philosophers philosophers have resisted resisted arbitrarily ruling out a rational basis for morality. They have tried hard to show that being moral is in everyone’s rational self-interest, but they have always run into the so-called ‘free rider’ problem. Even if it is in one’s self-interest to be a member of a moral community which eschews theft, and to be viewed by others as complying with the rule against stealing, nevertheless, a situation might arise in which one could steal steal with impunity, impunity, and the self-interest theory of rationality is likely to counsel that it would be rational for one to steal in that case. By ‘free riding’ on others’ compliance, one could gain the benefits of others’ upholding the rule without paying the price of abstaining 44 Philosophy Now March/April 2004
from violating it oneself. If everyone else abstains from walking on the grass, and I disobey the rule, I get both the benefit of having nice grass to look at and the pleasure of walking on it. Fortunately, the fact that human beings naturally have altruistic preferences is becoming widely accepted. Some have argued that such preferences are useful and should be included in a broader account of human rationality. In his 1983 book, Impartial Impart ial Reason Reason, Stephen Darwall argues that rationality should be understood as exceeding mere preference-satis preference-satisfaction. faction. It is a process of wide-ranging self-reflective and self-critical deliberation, governed by norms of rationality and resulting in, among other things, all-things-considered judgments judgme nts about what to do. do. Rather than taking our preferences for granted, we should question them, question the goals at which they aim, question the means to those goals and even question our own deliberative processes, in order to arrive at all-things-considered judgments about what to do in particular particular situations. situations. There is much more to rationality than simply trying to satisfy the preferences one happens to have, even including one’s altruistic preferences. One must decide, not only what to do, but also who to be, what sort of life to live, what goals and ideals to have and so on. In Welfare and Rational Care , Darwall redefines welfare in light of this broader conception of rationality rationality.. He believes that previous attempts to analyze the concept of welfare have missed its essential normativity. Instead, they have focused on substantive, descriptive accounts of what makes human lives good. Is pleasure the measure of the good life, as hedonists believe? Or is there an ‘objective list’ of the good things all people should want? All such descriptiv descriptivee accounts accounts must answer the next logical question – why should anyone want to promote promote human human welfare? Also, a person’s ‘welfare’ has been understood in terms of what seems good
from the person’s own point of view, but of course people are not always the best experts about what is good for them. Darwall hopes to avoid these pitfalls by defining ‘welfare’ as “…the concept of what we would would rationally rationally desire for someone insofar as we care for her, or equivalently, what is rational to desire for her for her sake.” (p.12) Rational care is impartial, in the sense that any rational person who cared about one would want the best for one. Also, if one were rational and cared about oneself, one would want those same things for oneself. Darwall suggests that depressed people and people with low self-estee self-esteem m do not care for themthemselves enough to truly want what is best for themselves. We have all experienced wanting the best for such people, people, for their sake, even when they do not want the best for themselves. Darwall is saying that the best we want for others for their own sakes just is their welfare. In developing his general account of care as a kind of sympathetic concern, Darwall is explicitly building on the work of Scottish Enlightenment thinkers David Hume and Adam Smith. The point of view of Adam Smith’s Smith’s ‘impartial ‘impartial spectator’ spectator’
Book Reviews
Books is like that of impartial benevolence which Darwall uses. In addition to his careful conceptual analysis and insightful interpretations of historical sources, Darwall canvasses contemporary psychological research on the development of sympathetic concern in infants and children, in order to show that ‘care’ is a natural-kind term which may be used in conceptual analysis. It is the natural human social perspective of caring for someone else which allows allows us to join join in the communi community’s ty’s shared values and determine what any rational person would want for another person for that person’s own sake. While Darwall acknowledges a debt to Carol Gilligan, Nel Noddings and others who argue for a feminist ethic of care, his view of where ‘care’ fits into moral philosophy is quite different. For Noddings – whose terminology identifying the members of a caring relationship as the ‘one caring’ and the ‘one cared for’ Darwall occasionally uses – the ideally caring relationship is the normative ideal. Each of us, on Noddings’ view, has a moral obligation to meet other people as ‘one caring’. This very high standard has been criticized as too demanding, leading to caring burnout, and as potentially morally compromising, as when one must care for a racist or other immoral person. Gilligan’s original view, and Noddings’ developed theory, characterize care as inherently partial to particular other indi viduals, and as naturally naturally extending extending out from the self through social relations and networks. By contrast, the hypothetical ‘care’ which defines ‘welfare’ on Darwall’s account is rooted in impartial rationality. This difference difference suggests suggests an interesting interesting challenge to the concrete particularity alleged to be definitive of care as defined by Nel Noddings, Lawrence Blum and others. The feminist ethic of care as involving partiality to family and friends is more like the kin altruism which sociobiologists and evolutionary psychologists claim is characteristic of our species. An impartial caring perspective might not be as natural as Darwall seems to suggest. Darwall’s view might also lend itself to paternalistic approaches to public welfare policy. Some policy makers might conclude that, since members of the general population tend to indulge in patently self-destructive behaviors such as drinking, drugs, gambling, and smoking, they must not care very much for themselves. The policy makers might feel that they care more for people than people care about themselves, and that their judgment of what is good for people rationally Book Reviews
constitutes the true welfare. Could Darwall’s theory of welfare, if adopted by policy makers, result in paternalistically overriding the autonomy of people whose ‘welfare’ was being legislated? Might we see paternalistic laws going far beyond seatbelts and motorcycle helmets – new laws which outlaw smoking, drinking, gambling, overeating and so on? Might legislators be tempted by this theory to override people’s autonomy for their own good? Darwall counters this possible abuse of his theory by embracing the doctrine of impartial respect for human dignity and freedom: “Think of a parent’s relation to his child at different stages of life. A toddler’s desires desires and will give normative reasons to a parent just insofar as they indicate or represent what is for the child’s good. If the child doesn’t want to eat his broccoli, broccoli, then this fact may have no independent weight except insofar as it indicates that it will be frustrating, painful, and so on, to the child to do so. When, however, however, the child child matures into into a compecompetent agent, then his will and desires do acquire independent weight. weight. For a parent to be regulated only by his child’s good at this point is paternalism in the pejorative sense.” (p.15)
Respect for people’s will and desires should, on Darwall’s account, check any paternalistic interventions in the lives of adults. If so, incorporat incorporating ing his care-based definition of welfare into ethical and policy debates could help to counter the standard tendency to reduce all costs and benefits to dollars and cents. Hopefully we want more for others than simple economic well-being or even preferen preference-satisfac ce-satisfaction tion in general. What should we rationally ratio nally want for other people, for their own sakes? Darwall embraces a neo-Aristotelian view of the good life which holds that anyone’s welfare consists in i n “active engagement with and appreciation appreci ation of values whose worth transcends transcen ds their capacity to benefit… The benefit or contribution to welfare comes through the t he appreciative rapport with with the values and the things that have them.” (p.76) His example of appreciating a work of musical art while playing it on the piano echoes Aristotle’s account of virtuous engagement in noble activities. Caring for specific other persons can include such appreciative rapport and so can directly enhance the welfare of the person who w ho cares. Darwall argues further that his metaethical analysis of welfare in terms of rational care is consistent with his neo Aristotelian normative nor mative account of the good for persons, since what anyone
should want for anyone else is just this kind of appreciative rapport, and that together these two accounts form a unity, a philosophical ethics. Welfare and Rational Care is more subtle than I have been able to show in a short review, but it is consistently readable and lively, including examples – ranging from Tarzan to Oliver Sacks – which demonstrate the intuitive plausiplausi bility of Darwall’s view. For those familiar with his earlier important coauthored article on methodology in ethics, Toward Fin de Siecle Ethics: Some Trends , this book serves as an example of naturalizing ethics without sacrificing analytical rigor or the independence of the normative stance. © JEAN CHAMBERS 2004
Jean Chambers Chambers receive receivedd her PhD from Brown Brown University in 1996 and is now an Associate Professor Profess or in philosophy philosophy at SUNY Oswego Oswego,, specializing specializ ing in theoretica theoreticall ethics, ethics, feminist feminist philosophy and social social and political philosophy philosophy.. • Welfare and Rational Care by Stephen Darwall (Princeton Univ. Press 2002) $24.95/ £16.95 ISBN 0-691-09252-4.
After the Science Wars Wars ed. by Keith Ashman & Philip Baringer WIDEL ELY Y accepted THE WID view accord according ing to which the goal of science is to explain how things really are has been the target of serious attacks in the last few decades – attacks by philosophers and sociologists of science, by postmodernists, feminists and postcolonial critics. The philosopher and historian of science Thomass Kuhn (1922 Thoma (1922-1996 -1996)) famously famously challenged the notion that there is a sharp distinction between scientific theories and other kinds of belief systems, that observation is theory-independent, and that science describes what the world is really like independent of what people think. He also argued that the historical and political contexts in which theories are embedded influence paradigm shifts in scientific thinking. Other critics have argued that social and political factors play important roles in the choice of research funding. Some commentators go so far as to suggest that the very content of science – the questions that are asked, the way observations are interpreted, even what counts as data – is subject to political, cultural and psychological influences. For example, example, the
March/April 2004 Philosophy Now 45
Books feminist Sandra Harding contends that science as it has been pursued until now, is patriarchal, sexist and homophobic. She also claims that the very ideas of objective reality and of value-neutrality are myths invented by neurotic males to satisfy their perverted psychological needs. Therefore, she urges that science as we know it be overthrown and replaced by another kind based on female ways of knowing. Postcolonial critics, in turn, argue that despite its pretense to be universal and to be the standard of knowing, science is ethnocentric; it not only represses some of its non-European origins but it also marginalizes other ways of knowing of other cultures. For much of the second half of the twentieth century, scientists were happily oblivious to the critiques of the sociologists, postmodernists, feminists, etc. Then, in the mid 1990s two major events ignited the Science Wars. The first was the publication in 1994 of Highe Higherr Supersti Superstitions tions:: The Acade Academic mic Left and its its Quarrel Quarrel with Scien Science ce by biologist Michaell Gross Michae Gross and mathe mathematicia matician n Michael Michael Levitt. The second was the so-called ‘Sokal Hoax’ of 1996 (see box). On one side of this controversy are the defenders of the orthodox view of science according to which it is fundamentally objective, rational, and value-free; on the other side are some of those Gross and Levitt called ‘cultural constructivists’ and ‘postmodernists’ who maintain – for different reasons and according to different premises – that everything in science ought to be understood in terms of socio-political factors and that what scientists take to be facts are constructs contingent upon the social context in which they are established. For a while, each side accused the other of ignorance, idiocy, obscurantism, sloppy scholarship and so on. It seemed as though the differences between the two sides were so deep that there was little hope for productive dialogue between them. The goal goal of After the Science Science Wars , which is the edited version of papers given at a conference on ‘Science and Its Critics’ at the University of Kansas in 1997, is to remedy this situation. The organizers of the conference wanted to encourage scientists and researchers in the humanities to talk to each other, to present various viewpoints from across a wide range of disciplines regarding the objectivity of science, and to find common ground. Following an introduction by the editors which provide providess important important backgr background ound information, the book opens with Sokal’s ‘What the Social Text Affair Affair Does Does and Does Not Prove: A Critical Look at Science Studies.’ Sokal tells the story of the hoax 46 Philosophy Now March/April 2004
and explains what motivated him to play a careful and thorough reading of philosophpractical joke on the editors of Social Text . ical texts demands a certain degree of Then, he repeats repeats his (in)famo (in)famous us critique critique of sympathy on the part of the reader; it also what he he believes believes is the misus misusee of science science demands that one appreciates the structure and scientific terminology by some promiof thinking underlying the conclusions of nent French thinkers. Finally, he mounts the writer. He compares the kind of an attack against what he thinks are “the reading that good scholarship requires to sloppy thinking and glib relativism that the way people who are in love read a love have become prevalent in many parts of letter and quotes Mortimer Adler: “When science studies.” He argues that this ‘sloppy [men and women] are in love and are thinking’ is due to the fact that social critics reading a love letter, they read for all they of science conflate five related but concepare worth. They read every every word three tually distinct levels of analysis: ontology, ways; they read read betwee between n the lines and in the epistemology, sociology, individual ethics, margins; they grow sensitive to context and and social ethics. He goes on to say that he ambiguity…. Then, if never never before or is willing to admit that social and political after, they read.” In the section called factors such as American militarism have ‘hatchet jobs,’ Stolzenberg provides influenced the selection of scientific examples of the kind of shabby reading he projects and their funding. He also associates with Sokal and his followers. concedes that the ethical investigation of Thus, accordi according ng to him, if Thomas Thomas Nagel Nagel the development and use, of quantum elec- showed a minimum of interpretive charity tronics, for example, is important. Yet, he and tried to understand what Luce Irigaray claims that these questions are totally irrel- means by ‘sexed’ and ‘privileged’ in the evant to the ontological question such as context of her philosophy instead of whetherr atoms whethe atoms (and silico silicon n crystals, crystals, transistransis- mimicking Sokal and Bricmont’s condetors, and computers) really do behave scension, he would not have dismissed her according to the laws of quantum as easily as he did. mechanics and the epistemological question In ‘Objectivity and Ethno-feminist such as how scientists might decide to Critiques of Science,’ Anne Cudd uses accept or reject a particular theory. examples from biological theories of intelliIn the next chapter, ‘Reading and gence, economics of the family, and the Relativism: an Introduction to the Science paleontology of human origins to show Wars,’’ mathemati Wars, mathematician cian Gabriel Gabriel Stolzen Stolzenberg berg how gender and racial biases can influence criticizes what he describes as the ‘shabby’ science. According to her, a number of scholarship of self-proclaimed defenders of researchers in the fields mentioned above science and reason. Gross, Levitt, Sokal fail to recognize that race is a cultural and their followers’ claims that the writings rather than a biological category and to of postmodernists and social constructivists distinguish between the biological concept are unintelligible, silly, absurd, and incomof sex and the socially constructed concept prehensible rest, according to Stolzenberg, of gender. As a result, result, gender and racial on insufficiently attentive readings of postbiases in the form of stereotypes, modernist texts. He accuses Sokal and his metaphors, and symbols are read into supporters of being more interested in ridi- science as if they were woven into the very culing their opponents than in underfabric of things. She believes that recogstanding what they say. For Stolzenberg, a nizing such biases, confronting them and questioning them “can make science better on science’s own terms, namely, the openTHE SOKAL HOAX minded pursuit of truth.” And the way to do so, according to her, is through logic, lan Sokal suspected that the writings of rationality and the pursuit of truth and many French theorists – complex, objectivity. Unlike Sandra Harding, Cudd erudite and larded with references to modern science – were so much meaningbelieves that these notions are not hopeless nonsense. Like a good scientist, he lessly male and can be used to advance devised an experiment to test this theory – science and women’s causes even though he concocted a deliberately nonsensical they have often been perverted by paper in a similar style, replete with trendy masculinist bias throughout the history of jargon and pseudo-sc pseudo-scientific ientific refere references. nces. science and philosophy. Titling it ‘Transgressing the Boundaries: Like Cudd, Keith Ashman argues in Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of ‘Measuring the Hubble Constant: Quantum Gravity’, he then sent it to a journall called journa called Social Text , to see if they Objectivity Under the Telescope’ that nonwould be fooled. They published it; he then scientific factors – in his case, loyalty, revealed the hoax and people have been careerism, desire for fame, and peer arguing about its significance ever since. pressure rather than sexism and racism – influence the process and results of science.
A
Book Reviews
Books Ashman uses the Hubble Ashman Hubble Constan Constantt as a case results, I see no sense in measuring in point. In 1929 Edwin Hubble found that anything).” the Universe is expanding, which suggests In ‘The stigma of Reason: Irrationality as that it had a definite beginning: the Big a Problem for Social Theory,’ Norman Smith argues that anti-science is part of a Bang. He also determined that galactic distance and velocity are related; the larger irrationalist movement which started galaxies nearer to us are moving away more with Romantic Romanticism. ism. He gives gives an an overview overview of slowly than the distant galaxies. This the philosophical aspects of this irrapresented a problem of determining the tionalism as it developed from the end of rate at which the universe is expanding – the 18th century to the middle of the 20th and its influence on what he calls ‘antithe relationship between the distance and the velocity or ‘the Hubble constant.’ To science.’ The main point of Smith’s essay, arrive at the constant, astronomers started however, is to argue against using logical by measuring the distances to several reasoning to refute postmodernist critics of galaxies, and then they compared the science because, in his view, postmodernists distances to how fast the galaxies are reject reason altogether and therefore, logic and arguments are impotent moving away. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, two to change their minds. He groups of researchers, one suggests that instead of in Texas and one in trying to debate the critics of California, consistently science, defenders of science found wildly different and reason should prove them wrong indirectly by values for the Hubble constant. The Texas group pointing to the social and found 100 km/s/megapolitical origins and influparsec, the California group encing factors of irrational found 50 km/s/megaparsec. beliefs. Smith concludes by Each group became set in saying: “For critics of irrationalism, who wish to its view of how to measure distances to galaxies and contribute directly to the stars, and how to measure understanding and undoing Sokal: Cruel-But-Funny Hoaxer the speed of a receding of anti-rational prejudice, I galaxy. “These were highly technical issues would argue that social social construc constructionism tionism … that outsiders had a hard time judging,” has much to offer.” Also inform informative ative are two two other other essays essays in says Ashman. “So for 20 years the community was far too influenced by the reputathe collection, one by Ziauddin Sardar on tion of these people, and that hindered non-European origins of modern science attempts to find a consensus figure for the and the other by Robert Pack on pseudoHubble constant.” Ashman goes on to science. In ‘Above and Beyond, and at the explain that depending on who a cosmoloCenter of the Science Wars,’ Sardar criticizes Western philosophy, sociology and gist’s friends were and whom she or he studied under, the scientist aligned with one history of science for forgetting the contricamp or the other. In addition, he says, the bution of other cultures to modern science. few dissenting voices suggesting that the In ‘Voodoo Medicine,’ an essay that isn’t correct value might lie between 50 and 100 directly relevant to the Science Wars but were ignore ignored. d. The right right value, value, as deterdeter which makes makes for for interesting interesting reading reading,, Park criticizes Deepak Chopra’s Quantum mined by the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope, Teles cope, event eventually ually turned turned out to be Healing Heali ng as an example of the kind of around 75. With more objectivity, quackery that is totally wrong by established astronomers might have learned that scientific standards, yet attracts large crowds sooner, says Ashman. Ashman. It is an increase in of followers and sometimes even gets the epistemic objectivity and the self-correcting support of corporations and governments. Most of of the essays in this book steer steer a nature of science rather than agreement, he contends, which solved the Hubble contro- middle course between extreme realism and versy:: “either versy “either the Hubble constan constantt was extreme constructivism – with varying solved by astronomers objectively degrees of success and originality – and to measuring this parameter and gradually this extent the book has achieved its eliminating uncertainties and biases, or intended purpose. Yet, some criticisms are in order. Firstly, although some of the astronomers have, through social and cultural pressures, mutually agreed on a articles included in the book, especially value of a parame parameter. ter. (In the latter case, I Cudd’s essay, are clear and direct, the suspect, we have to throw out ‘measurable’, ‘average reader’ for whom this collection is since if science is nothing more than a intended may have difficulty understanding process by which scientists agree on certain the articles by Stolzenberg and Fuller. Book Reviews
Secondly, the editors wanted to bring together the opinions of the opposing camps in one book but, instead, they ended up making the collection a defense of the kind of weak constructivism which sociologist David Bloor calls the ‘sociology of error.’ All the contributors who tackled the issue of the objectivity of science directly, Sokal, Ashman, Cudd and Smith argue that non-scientific factors only explain bad science; good science is free of non-scientific factors. The most most signific significant ant flaw flaw of the colleccollection, however, is the absence of any essay on the political aspect of the Science Wars. This is a major major weaknes weaknesss given given that much of the debate between the defenders of science and rationality and the science critics, especially the postmodern critics, hinges on the nature of leftism; each side claiming the other is undermining progressive political causes. Thus according to some science critics Gross, Sokal and Levitt are conservatives who defend science as part of a general defense of the status quo. In response, Levitt, Gross, and Sokal proclaim that they are the true leftists and their goal is to defend the old brand left against the relativism and irrationalism of ‘the academic left.’ In an article published in Dissent Sokal wrote, “I’m an unabashed Old Leftist who never quite understood how deconstruction was supposed to help the working class.” Despite these drawbacks, Ashman and Baringer’s book provides a fair and useful introduction to the Science Wars. © ABDELKADER AOUDJIT 2004
Abdelkader Aoudj Abdelkader Aoudjit it studied studied philoso philosophy phy at at the University of Algiers and at Georgetown University. He teaches at Northern Virginia Community College. • After the Science Wars edited by Keith Ashman and Philip Baringer, (Routledge 2001) pb £17.99/$27 £17.9 9/$27.95. .95.
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March/April 2004 Philosophy Now 47
Our movie maestro Thomas Wartenberg says that
Films A
Clint Eastwood’s recent film Mystic River is a tragedy – but in the good sense of the word.
lthough tragedy is one of the clasthis mystical notion. Rather, it requires sical genres of drama, it does not an acknowledgment that the everyday translate easily onto the silver sense of control that many people screen. While there are many film presume to be adequate for reflecting on comedies, varying in form from slapstick their lives has to give way to a broader to romance, there are far fewer examples perspective that takes account of the role of successful successful film tragedies. Certainly of circumstances and the actions of other there have been some. Just the mention human beings in determining the of Marcel Carné’s 1945 masterpiece outcome of an individual’s intentions. Children of Paradise or Vittorio de Sica’s Still, it is useful to call this fate. 1948 austere, neo-realist film The Bicycle Although the film’s film’s three protagonists Thief makes it clear that tragedy has been had grown apart since their days as fast presented on the screen in convincing friends playing together on the streets of terms. East Buckingham, they are brought And yet I still have a sense that film is together, as if by some ordained power, not a natural venue venue for tragedy. tragedy. One through the horrific murder of Katie possible reason for this has to do with Markum (Emmy (Emmy Rossum), the beautiful beautiful film’s relation relation to melodrama. melodrama. That daughter of Jimmy Markum (Sean Penn). popular art form became widespread Sean Devine (Kevin Bacon) is one of the two policemen called to investigate the during the late nineteenth century, as art became disseminated to a wider audience case and, because of his former friendship than ever before. before. Some theories of the with Markum, he remains remains tied to it. Dave form suggest that this broad audience Boyle (Tim Robbins), who was abducted explains the stylized and exaggerated and repeatedly sodomized as a boy, still nature of its emotional range. Given lives in the neighborhood and his wife, Celeste (Marcia Gay Harden), is the film’s imperative to reach as wide an audience as possible, melodrama has cousin of Markum’s second wife, seemed to many theorists a more suitable Annabeth (Laura Linney). Linney). Boyle thereform than the delicate emotional structure fore finds himself drawn into the web of of classical tragedy. this murder as if by a magnet. The occasion for these these reflections is the recent appearance of a genuine film tragedy: Clint Eastwood’s Mystic River . The film, based based upon the book by Dennis Dennis Lehane, explores the impact that the abduction and rape of a young boy by two pedophiles has on him and his two friends some twenty-five twenty-five years later. What’s remarkable about the film is its ability to render this tale about three working-class Irish men in East Buckingham, a poor neighborhood in Boston, in terms that Aristotle argued apply apply more readily to the lives of the great and superior. superior. Yet this film depicts the lives of three apparently ordinary men in just such archetypal terms. What Eastwood has accomplished accomplished in the film is the presentation of the lives of three Boston working-class men as determined by factors over which they seem to have no control. Although the Greeks called this fate, recognition that our lives fit into patterns that are beyond our conscious control does not need to involve 48 Philosophy Now March/April 2004
The earlier crime still exerts its influence over the lives of all three men. Markum and Devine are still haunted by their failure to stick by Boyle when the two men demanded that he enter their car. Boyle himself has never recovered recovered from the episode that so dominates his life that, despite his conscious denial of its significance, he floats from one odd job to another. Katie’s murder murder brings the former crime to life once more by uniting these three men and their fates. As the movie progresses, what dawns dawns on us as it does on Boyle’s wife is that Boyle has committed this heinous murder. When he returns from from a night of drinking in the early hours of the morning, his hand damaged and his clothes smeared with blood, Celeste does not question him. She simply cleans cleans him up and disposes of his bloody clothes. clothes. But as the fact of Katie’s murder spreads, she slowly comes to believe that her husband killed her. And we, following following her lead, accept that view, too. Slowly, as the film grinds inexorably on, we learn that Boyle is really innocent. His semi-coherent ramblings allow us to see that he did kill someone someone that night: a pedophile he discovered outside the bar as he was leaving. leaving. His unconscious rage at his own violation overtakes him as he beats the pedophile senseless after freeing his victim. What’s tragic about this is that Boyle’s working-class masculinity makes it impossible for him to find a way to acknowledge what has happened to him and thereby to make peace with it. Instead it dominates his life in ways he cannot comprehend. comprehend. Indeed, his ramblings about seeing things play a crucial role in convincing his wife that he is the murderer. Markham is no less a victim vic tim of the limitations imposed by his own sense of masculinity. When he learns from Boyle’s wife that she suspects that he is the murderer, Markum must follow the only course that accords with his sense of himself: to avenge his daughter’s murder by murdering the murderer, much as Orestes must do in the Greek myth. The only problem is that Markum kills an innocent man. The scene of his doing so is incredibly powerful since, by now, we
Finally, there’s Devine, the cop who is haunted by silent phone calls from the wife who has left him. him. Although Devine’s Devine’s life is the one that is least clearly presented by the film, we do learn that he, too, has been devastated by the demands of his masculinity, for his wife has left him h im because he is unable to confide in her. Her haunting phone calls are made in hopes that somehow he will open up and Although the film softens its punches fill the silence that pains him so deeply in the final scenes – most dramatically by with an account of the ghosts ghosts that haunt showing us Devine’s wife reunited with him as well. him – it conveys a sense of the lives of There are many deeply felt and these men as caught in a web from which superbly executed executed scenes in this film. One there is no escape. escape. Each in his own way is of the most chilling occurs between a victim of a rigid code of masculine Jimmy and his wife, wife, Annabeth, after he honor that constricts their potential for has confessed that he has killed an achieving full humanity. The film’s innocent man who was once his friend ability to portray this difficult truth justiand who is his wife’s cousin’s husband. fies the attribution to it of that term of Instead of being appalled by what has critical approbation – used all too transpired, Annabeth becomes aroused. frequently and easily today – of a master We watch in horror as she reacts to piece. © THOMAS E. WARTENBERG 2004 Jimmy’s words by telling him – as her her tongue feels its way down his body – that Thomas Wartenberg Wartenberg is the author of he has done what a real man has to do. Unlikely Couples: Movie Romance as The chill we feel feel comes from our awareSocial Criticism (Westview) and co-editor of ness that the violent masculinity that has Philosophy and Film(Routledge). He so appalled us is precisely what fulfills this teaches philosophy and film studies at Mount woman’s desire. Holyoke College College in Massachusetts. Massachusetts.
Films
have learned that Katie’s murderer is a young boy who kills her in his own cycle of unredeemed violence. As we watch Markum exact what he thinks th inks of as just retribution for Katie’s death, we are appalled. What we may may not realize at the time, as Markum tells Boyle of his earlier execution of a criminal associate who ratted on him, is that the previous illegal exacting of retribution set in motion a chain of events that resulted so many years later in Katie’s death. The workings of fate may be ironic ir onic and indirect but they exact their payment nonetheless.
March/April 2004 Philosophy Now 49
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[email protected] Gloucestershire Gloucestershire Philosophical Soc. meets in Cheltenham at C&GCHE, 7.30 pm most alternate Wednesdays. Contact Harry Cowen; 01242 543243. London Philosophy For All (PFA), organises lectures, debates, philosophical walks and introductory courses. Also Sartre Reading Group and Philosophy Film Club. Contact Andrew Dodsworth 020 8802 5567 London Philosophical Society of England (London Group) meets monthly. Contact Ben Basing: ben.basing@virgi n.net 01923 451157) Liverpool Liverpool Philosophy Pub, The Brewery Pub, Berry Street, Liverpool Contact Rob Lewis (0151 428 6685) or
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[email protected] Manchester Moral Sciences Circle. Last Tuesday of each month at 7.30, starting 30th Sept. Contact Ann Long (0161 766 9540) Newcastle Newcastle Philosophy Society. Study groups & Café Philo. 01388 747240 or see: www.newcastlephilosophysociety.org.uk Nottingham Nottingham Philosophy Club meets at 7.30pm on 3rd Mon. of the month at 34 Waldeck Rd, Carrington, Nottingham. Contact Alan Geary at same address address 0115 962 2087
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Events & Conferences British Isles • 9th-12 July 2004 Mind Assn - Aristotelian Society Joint Session University of Kent at Canterbury. Contact: Alan Thomas,
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[email protected] • 4-8 August 2004 American Association of Philosophy Teachers 2004, 15th International Workshop-Conference, University of Toledo, Toledo, Ohio. Mimi Marinucci,
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Gravity Mairi ri Wil Wilson son.. A short story by Mai
S
he was nine years old when she came of age, which is too soon for anyone to realise that they are alone, and that the entirety of their universe is contained within their skull, without connection to the universes of others. She found the knowledge a heavy heavy burden. Her mother was mad, whatever that might mean – it might just mean tragic – and no-one cared for her. her. She felt that her soul had been lost somewhere, or perhaps she’d never had one, after all, how does one acquire a soul? She surmised it had to be given, first, seed-like in a name and then as a beloved You, and she had known neither. neither. She felt cold and she was in relentless pain from her experience of nothingness. It’ It’ss strange how nothing can be so painful and exhausting. Soulless years passed. She changed, became more curvaceous, used peroxide on her hair, pouted her lips, but noone gave her her soul, and the black hole within her, which should have been full of something which gave out energy, just became the stuffing for her outer skin, absorbing everything but never being filled. An insatiable hunger. hunger. Soulless years passed. She flicked the pages of her magazine; the sunlight was too bright on the pages. She laid the magazine down and enjoyed the cooling shadow it cast across her midriff. She took a sip from her cocktail, rested her head back against the cushions of the lounger, touched her sunglasses, half closed her eyes. In her line of vision was a man on the high dive board, a glistening shadow against the sky. sky. He turned towards her and gave her a small wave. wave. She smiled back, raised her glass in acknowledgement. He prepared himself, launched himself himself into the atmosphere. He was trusting that earthly laws of gravity would not not alter during during his flight. flight. Now she closed her eyes completely and thought. I think he might be in love with me, but then many men are, men who have never even met met me. What are they in love with? The The picture picture in the centre-f centre-fold? old? How can colours colours printed printed on a piece of paper make people believe they love me? The voids voids she perceive perceived d made her her nauseous, nauseous, with with gooseflesh, at 83 degrees in the shade. She opened her eyes. eyes. She saw him reach the zenith of his trajectory. She took a deep breath breath and held it for him as he began his fall. I would rather have you dive into my consciousness and my subconsciousness, unconsciousness. I do not wish to be separate from you. I would that our struggles struggles might not be solitary. Go deeper, deeper, go deeper into the fluidity! Can you breathe here? Or do you fear you might drown? We believe we
live because our hearts are beating, but I sense that they are slowing. Are we approaching death? Are Are we alone, or together, in death, or are we non-existent because no-one knows our thoughts? Death sometimes seems attractive. Death wish. Sigmund Freud. He thought that we might might be driven to reduce life to inanimate matter. matter. But then he changed his mind. Is that why you leapt leapt into space? space? We We are driven driven to reduce reduce stress, stress, not to organic dissolution. Emotional and bodily peace are what we are driven towards, so much so that we will fight for it. Fight or flight. Warmongers and pacifists are on an equal moral footing; it’s it’s more a question of personal style. Any war can be justified justif ied by either either side side because because both are are fighting fighting for peace. peace. He folded his body into a pike and started turning over and over, over and over. Of course, ultimate peace is not physical death, but a state more perfect than embryonic life, where all bodily needs are met, food warmth, shelter, emotional completeness, wanting for nothing, the feeling that one is loved. Ah love! That word. word. Upside down, heels over head, over, over, which way is up? That word. word. Those words. I love you, you, I love love you. It turns your heart heart over. over. It should should all be turned turned over over.. I love you you means, means, I want you for myself because you make me feel loved. We should be more honest about that selfish word; it would make life a lot simpler. simpler. And it goes without saying that a person who has never been loved can never say, say, ‘I love you’ and mean it. A soulless hungry person with empty words, like me. If we were honest about that selfish word, we would stop being grateful when someone someone says, I love you. I make men feel feel they are loved by me, in a physical sense, so they love me, so they say, but they do not make me feel loved, so, if I’m honest, I cannot say I love them in return. Is their love better than nothing? Her nausea and emptiness grew fiercer. He straightened, all the time accelerating towards the water. His fingertips now touched the surface. She breathed out, then in again, to continue her life. There was nothing more she could do for him as his momentum forced the molecules of the liquid to part and he split the skin of the pool. Surface tension. The outer boundary boundary.. Perhaps I’m only held together by surface tension. She laughed at her pun. He disappeared below the surface and her line of vision. Her attention was caught by the heat of the sun on her legs. Ultimately it all comes down to skin, wouldn’t you say? Descartes was wrong. He said it was all down down to thinking, but it’s all down to skin in the end, sensitive skin, like mine: he only March/April 2004 Philosophy Now 53
felt confident in his existence when he was thinking. Me? I have confidence in my existence existence in all my activities, and my my being is only limited by the confines of my skin and what I do in this time and space. I do lots of things. I have to be alive to do lots of things, and the I comes from being contained, and from what is not-I being sensed and cognised as not-I. A volcano does lots lots of things, things, but it has has no sensation sensation of an an outer limit, nor cognisance of what is not-I, so it cannot distinguish what is I and what is not-I, not-I, so it cannot cannot say, say, ‘I do therefore therefore I am’, as I can. Skin gives me my my personal pronoun, but it does not give me my soul. And if I were dead, I would no longer be sensing what is I and what is not I. Without an I, I cannot say, say, ‘I do’, nor, ‘I ‘I live’. And if I were dead, my outer limit limit would be dissolving into the elements, so I would no longer exist. That’ That’ss why massage massage gives gives such such a sense of of well-being: well-being: it affirm affirmss existence. A flunky drew close close to her. her. “W “Would ould you you care for another another cocktail, Madam?” She watched her admirer pull himself out of the pool. “No thanks, I’ll have some some iced water. water. I’m thinking of detoxifying myself. Would you be so kind as to ask my masseur to come by?” “Certainly, Madam.” Huh! ‘Detoxifying ‘Detoxifying myself’. myself’. She laughed to herself. Here I am, a black hole surrounded by skin and without a soul. Is it possible for an abused child to grow into an unabused adult, as if the abuse had never happened? Is it possible for me to live my adult life as if I had had a different childhood from the one which made made me soulless soulless and wanting? wanting? Justice Justice says it should be possible. I need a bit of respect. She watched him start chatting to a bevy of girls at the side of the pool. They were desperate to introduce themselves to him. She noticed his tanned skin, his developed developed musculature, his narrow hips, the profile of his buttock, his crotch. Droplets glittered on his skin, like gilding. A golden boy, boy, a god, a divine one, one who is most blessed. The perfect perfect specime specimen n for a mate. mate. I want you you for myself. myself. I want to talk talk to you myself. myself. I’m jealous jealous of those girls. girls. I love you. She stood up from the lounger and sashayed over to where he stood. He spotted her. “Marilyn!” he called. “Mr President!” she purred. © DR MAIRI WILSON 2004
Mairi Wilson Wilson lives lives in Ipswic Ipswich. h.
On Real and Artificial Flowers by Chengde Chen
If an artificial flower is made more beautiful than a real one, more fresh and bright, more lively and touching, with more charm of of spring, and dignity of autumn, more tenderness of love, and fragrance of imagination, – it is more real than the real one, so that in comparison the real one looks artificial, … then, why is the real one still still preferred? The only reason reason is that it will wither and die. So, the possibility of death is its ultimate value, although no one realises this. Man appreciates appreciates living things, things, because he himself dies. The sense of of life, like that of sex, is something within the perceiver, through which that of the object can be felt Those that have have it respond to it. Those that don’t don’t won’t. won’t. The charm of real real flowers is in living men.
© CHENGDE CHEN 2004
(Chengde Chen is author of Five Themes Themes of Today: Today: philosophical philosophical poems poems , published by Open Gate Press)
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