| | Jeanine,
I haven't read Sartre, though I intend to do so at some time in my life. I mean, he did win a Nobel Prize so he had to be a good stylist, even if I dislike his philosophy. Existentialism just had a very base view of reason (I once tried reading Heidegger in a library, and when I hear people talk about him, I shake my head, and as much as I respect Nietzche's intuitions - for lack of a better words - on human nature, I cannot stand his sometimes oracular-type pronouncements.) I do agree that the passions that Existentialists and fiery philosophers sometimes rouse in you can be intoxicating.. I just do not find fiery rhetoric to be reasonable any longer. Mmm; I never considered Heidegger to be an "existentialist", and am leery of the term. In the general sector of this philosophy, I recommend Husserl, Ortega y Gasset, Sartre, de Beavoiur, and Hazel Barnes (the latter a good introduction). I've hears Merleau-Ponty and Malraux oft recommended to me, but I confess I never got around to reading them. Anyway, I strongly disagree that "existentialists" have a 'base' view of reason. Sartre was actually accused often of Cartesian Romationalism, and 'twas on this account that Iris Murdoch called him a "romantic rationalist" and the mention of his name is taboo among poststructuralists. And Husserl, Ortega, de Beauviour are more on pro-reason than Sartre.
BTW, correct me if I'm wrong, but Bertrand Russell won a Nobel Prize in literature, did he not? Do you know why or what for? He could be a good writer ("A Free Man's Worship") but he never seemed to me a litterateur.
As for fiery rhetoric, here we strongly disagree. I think think that the emotions are rational, though not discerning; they cannot separate truth from error, but the experience of passion ultimately derives from truth. Partwise, this is because I agree with Rand that emotion in an interpretation by premises, henceforth and implicit and momentary frissioned complexity but nevertheless a precise articulation of one's weltanschuung in the relevant context.
And overall, I believe the purpose of philosophy is happiness via the examined life. Socrates, Diogeneses, Epicurus, Epictetus, Aurelius- these are my ultimate models as to what philosophy means, which united passion with reason by seeing the rational life's ability to be lived without contingency or appeal as permitting the most passion. I am not a philosopher myself; circumstances of illness jarred me for a time off that track if I wanted to live, and while my soul was in exile an experiment in a different life ended up leading me far astray from anywhere I thought I would call my spiritual home. But I ultimately think the philosophic life is about how we live- with philosophy as a profession, or history, or natural science, or literary criticism, or any aspect of the theoretical life, embodying this. And I stand with Walter Kaufmann that in the main existential philosophy captured the spirit of dedication to life and comforting serious questions that is one part of philosophy, but neglected careful analysis and sometimes respect for reason. My view of analytic philosophy is that is does use reason carefully, and this is a virtue. But it is also trivial, removes from life, and its very methods are unfriendly to the invariantly passionate portion of philosophy that involves radically changing one's life to fit the life that nature, not convention, shows to be best. One reason I appreciate and respect Objectivism is that it aspired to integrate the total passion of a Nietzsche or a Kierkegaard with the respect for reason of analytic philosophy. I don't think it always succeeds on either case, but it is one of the closet aspirants to reintegrate philosophy on the field today. My interest in Straussianism, Pagan intellectualism. and a few little-knowns such as Orlando Patterson and Ellen Willis, stemmed much from the same sources.
That said, there are some temperaments which can combine the true philosophic life with an academic setting. You speak as if you may well be one of these, and that is no small excellence.
If you do have a plausible on-line reference for the argument, I have no problem reading it. Give me time for this one; I'm much in the wrong state of mind for research... if I forget to get back to you, please tap my shoulder via SOLOmail.
At least, you know that your position on direct realism, when fully developed with the implications you attach to it, is not open to Objectivism - I doubt any Objectivist wants to defend mystical experiences and hallucinations, though as a Pagan, it is quite easy for you to do so. But I will elaborate that claim a little, because Rand's position on the issue isn't clear.
On Pagan issues, see below.
Well, Rand sometimes didn't consider a philosophical issue in depth,
True... sometimes.
so her *seemingly* direct realism was probably a badly thought-out (or expressed) position.
In OPAR, Peikoff fleshes out a better position that is a weird of direct realism, representationalism and epistemological dualism. It is weird not because it is wrong, but like many things in Objectivism, you can't know that he is messing up the issue unless you've actually read lots of traditional philosophy.
I like your use of the term "weird" (perhaps adjusted to: 'wyrd'?); this courtesan and Pagan shall adopt it.
Peikoff discusses the views in an incompatible way. He admits the reality of hallucinations, but if you are aware of the history, you can't mix direct perception with hallucinations/dreams and maintain a scientific realism. But to the common reader, it all makes sense, like it did to me when I first read it. After reading Blanshard, I made it a point not to take information on any topic from a single source again.
I think this gives far too much deference to traditional accounts of what positions are compatible with what- I very frequently think that traditional authors made implicit or purely linguistic assumptions when laying out their fundamental insights, which further tradition then codified as "common wisdom" of what positions should be package-dealed. Your association of my indeterminism as incompatible with learning or misjudging past experiences is a perfect example. In this case the assumption is where I believe the locus of volition to be. Actually, like Rand, I hold volition to be very strict singular and narrow, to what Rand called "focus" (I would use 'will' in other contexts). Unlike Rand, I think this implies that in moral judgement, one can only truly make an "evil" call in cases of evasive focus; the transmission belt of causality from ideas to emotions, ideas to action, etc., is blameless, which leads me to a much less "judgemental" socio-ethical approach... though I am not a total nonjudgementalist (i.e., when I believe I can work back to focus and any evasion), and I'm too easily tempted to judgementalism in the rare cases I share the hegemonic values... mea culpa.
Otherwise, I might surprise you that while I am totally against theories that posit "interference" with free will by genes, hormones, irrational passion, etc. (such as sociobiology)... I do believe that "social determinist" theories ofttimes contain much wisdom, if not ultimate metaphysical truth, and I am open to positions of logical or cosmological determinism which somehow integrate with free will. I honestly wish I could think of a good way those two positions could be reconciled (I'm not impressed with stoicism, Spinoza, Liebniz, Ryle, etc. on this issue... don't know Blandshard), because I have my own reasons to start really wondering, to my own astonishment, whether there is some "clockwork" including human volition in the larger picture after all. Actually, I believe I come to this conclusion precisely according to the influences (not theory) of the Stoa that led them to similar conclusions. Enough said.
BTW, by direct realism is not Anglo-American; I am a "constructivist" as in "social constructivist", a position which Randian perceptual contextualism is to my mind compatable. In other words, I believe that emphasis, focus, and definition originate from consciousness (Sartre: the 'for itself') upon existence (Sartre: the 'in itself') and that objective reality, in Rand's definition, is always not a representation but a selective focus. This is, as I understand it, Sartre's position, except Sartre believed one could strip away the Kantian categories and experience the sans conscious-created value universe of the in-itself. I'm not so sure whether this is possible myself; it seems more likely Sartre is selectively focusing in his own manner; I follow to some degree Foucault's (implied) criticism of Sartre here, though I would go past Foucault's conclusions.
I suppose my position could be termed less "direct realism" than "transcendental realism". I just made up that term, but I think it agree with the vague concept of "transcendentalism" qua Emerson, which isn't so surprising, as it was reflection on the continental post-Kantian line of philosophy that got me to this position, and I do thinking about it end up agreeing with the transcendentalists (to the degree I understand them) in just about every branch of philosophy. (Incidentally, my 'Pagan' philosophical conclusions in all but name ocurred prior to any sympathy with Paganism beyond the artistic and unserious speculations).
Now, to some degree, a disagreement on the nature of mystical experience is fundamental. However, I have a similar disagreement with many Christians, and many of them are practically reasonable. We can live in the everyday world, and hope that we never come across the fundamental conflicts that expose the clash between our views on mysticism in the worst possible way.
Mmm... actually, I remain dubious, though not closed, to the concept of "mystical experience". I would stress that mystical experience, proper, entails a feeling of indescribable wondrous and unity with the cosmos. This I remain hesitant on, because I have extreme epistemological trouble believing that perception *can* operate without the selective focus or intentionality that mystical experience implies... and if it did, half my instincts suggest that Sartrean nausea at meaningless would me more likely than unity with Brahman. However, I am very shaky and uncertain on this issue... so I will just say that mystical experience in the technical sense is something I have not experienced.
That said, I think you mean by mystical experiences something broader, generally termed "religious experience", which implies an inner sensory perception of an aware entity capable of being values as an axiological archetype (simpler: archetypical subtle body). You are correct that my philosophy does not bar perception of such an entity; beyond this, as a courtesan I must keep my own counsel.
On hallucinations- you might find it a little less scary if I say that mental hallucinations can easily by inner sensory ideas mistaken for outer sensory ones, and in some cases the proper response to hallucination is to remind oneself that this real entity is mental, not physical- and I see no reason that wither unwise valuation nor physical brain damage could not produce such a situation. That said, I am extremely skeptical of contemporary positivism's classification of all nonstandard perceptions as 'hallucinatory', and in some cases am quite upset because it is my opinion that valid perceptions ruled out by bad Cartesian ontology and epistemology are getting labelled as delusions and disorders, and fully rational and honest people are as a result being anywhere from scorned to imprisoned by a reigning scientific theocracy. I myself fall under plenty of DSM-IV descriptions- but I simply will not discuss this, precisely because positivism's self-supporting definitions will reduce me to a lab animal in seconds and treat my eccentricities by a double standard. (Perhaps the composers of the DSM would like to know that in order to qualify for transgender therapy, it is accepted cultural defense among transgenders to lie to psychologists and researchers to mimic the stereotypes to the closest degree feasible. This is something I can only say safely because I have a very liberal therapist, am very femme myself in presentation, and am most of the way through my transition- otherwise I'd risk being cut off from hormones.).
Yes, Bonjour can be tedious :). But for me, it is more important to be reasonable than entertaining. Blanshard was a good mix of both, as was Santayana (INCREDIBLE STYLIST), but given the choice, I go with the reasonable first.
I think this is a false dichotomoy. 'Entertaining' is a downplay of 'artistic'; and it is my opinion that the core of artistic experience is rational not nondiscerning (a position one can find support for in Aristotle). This is at the core of the intellectualist form of erotic philosophy (Blake is likely the best reference, or try Allan Bloom's Love and Friendship; Reich and the late Foucault are very close)are very close; though the main tradition is oral and esoteric {and very messed up with neo-Platonism and in most cases mixed in with the emotionalist philosophy of the times... sigh}). So I have nothing against art or insight in philosophy- Walter Kaufmann spoke of "the philosophic flight" from which one gets a new vantage, using G.E. Moore and Wittgenstein as examples. As for "reasonable"- I don't think it's a virtue generally. I think rationality is a virtue, but 'reasonable' to me is what makes sense according to our habitual perceptions. I accord honor both to what makes sense according to convention-crimping unsparing logic and convention-crimping unsparing insight- I respect the philosopher and the sensate. But I don't respect reasonableness, and am generally of the notion that the common sense Descartes thought was shared by all men is very petty and limited to a corrupted, minima;, and dishonest form of scientific reason adapted to day to day utility as shaped by social factors- exactly as I picture religion as practiced by most as less often containing sound wisdom than banality with a minimal base of real experience corrupted by power. I am, like Rand, and elitist in the sense that I think authentic experience requires a break from normal life (of many kinds)- convention and nature do not in principle mix. I think more people do this than Rand gave credit for, and not always in the places Rand credited them. But nevertheless, I don't care if my views are rational- I care if they are authentic and rational, for which the 'reasonable' and the 'decent', respectively, have mainly shunnings, slammed doors, prisons, hemlock, and the stake.
As for Santayana, I respect him highly, though I am not that well read in him.
As for Bonjour, I don't remember him well enough to render fair judgement. But analytic philosophy I find often all too reasonable and so narrow in lack of art and insight it is incapable of the imagination and vision from new angles to question wrong trains of thought without a massive waste of time and effort- and I think the same is true of, say, cognitive psychology or econometrics or other contemporary developments. I don't think their tediousness often masks excellence- though I do think the tedium of an Aristotle, and Aquinas, a Hegel, or a Heidegger does mask real excellence (and beauty). Ultimately, I would like to see more reason and more passion, and agree wit Herbert Marcuse's critique of analytic philosophy that contemporary philosophy is 'one dimensional', and that its narrow technical approach to truth allows it to take a form too adapted to contemporary society and, despite a fearless pursuit of knowledge, incapable of mounting serious or effective criticism of it (which doesn't commit me to look in a Marxist direction for such criticism).
No, I'm not easy to deal with!
Jeanie Ring )(*)(
stand forth!
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