[22] Originality may perhaps be defined the power of abstracting for one's self, and is in thought what strength of mind is in action. Our opinions are commonly derived from education and society. Common minds transmit as they receive, good and bad, true and false; minds of original talent feel a continual propensity to investigate subjects and strike out views for themselves;—so that even old and established truths do not escape modification and accidental change when subjected to this process of mental digestion. Even the style of original writers is stamped with the peculiarities of their minds. When originality is found apart from good sense, which more or less is frequently the case, it shows itself in paradox and rashness of sentiment, and eccentricity of outward conduct. Poetry, on the other hand, cannot be separated from its good sense, or taste, as it is called; which is one of its elements. It is originality energizing in the world of beauty; the originality of grace, purity, refinement, and good feeling. We do not hesitate to say that poetry is ultimately founded on correct moral perception; that where there is no sound principle in exercise there will be no poetry; and that on the whole (originality being granted) in proportion to the standard of a writer's moral character will his compositions vary in poetical excellence. This position, however, requires some explanation.
Of course, then, we do not mean to imply that a poet must necessarily display virtuous and religious feeling; we are not speaking of the actual material of poetry, [23] but of its sources. A right moral state of heart is the formal and scientific condition of a poetical mind. Nor does it follow from our position that every poet must in fact be a man of consistent and practical principle; except so far as good feeling commonly produces or results from good practice. Burns was a man of inconsistent life; still, it is known, of much really sound principle at bottom. Thus his acknowledged poetical talent is in nowise inconsistent with the truth of our doctrine, which will refer the beauty which exists in his compositions to the remains of a virtuous and diviner nature within him. Nay, further than this, our theory holds good, even though it be shown that a depraved man may write a poem. As motives short of the purest lead to actions intrinsically good, so frames of mind short of virtuous will produce a partial and limited poetry. But even where this is instanced, the poetry of a vicious mind will be inconsistent and debased; that is, so far only poetry as the traces and shadows of holy truth still remain upon it. On the other hand, a right moral feeling places the mind in the very centre [sic] of that circle from which all the rays have their origin and range; whereas minds otherwise placed command but a portion of the whole circuit of poetry. Allowing for human infirmity and the varieties of opinion, Milton, Spenser, Cowper, Wordsworth, and Southey may be considered, as far as their writings go, to approximate to this moral centre. The following are added as further illustrations of our meaning. Walter Scott's centre is chivalrous honor; Shakspeare [sic] exhibits the characteristics of an unlearned and undisciplined piety; Homer the religion of nature and conscience, at times debased by polytheism. All [24] these poets are religious. The occasional irreligion of Virgil's poetry is painful to the admirers of his general taste and delicacy. Dryden's Alexander's Feast is a magnificent composition, and has high poetical beauties; but to a refined judgment there is something intrinsically unpoetical in the end to which it is devoted, the praises of revel and sensuality. It corresponds to a process of clever reasoning erected on an untrue foundation—the one is a fallacy, the other is out of taste. Lord Byron's Manfred is in parts intensely poetical; yet the delicate mind naturally shrinks from the spirit which here and there reveals itself, and the basis on which the drama is built. From a perusal of it we should infer, according to the above theory, that there was right and fine feeling in the poet's mind, but that the central and consistent character was wanting. From the history of his life we know this to be the fact. The connexion [sic] between want of the religious principle and want of poetical feeling is seen in the instances of Hume and Gibbon, who had radically unpoetical minds. Rousseau, it may be supposed, is an exception to our doctrine. Lucretius, too, had great poetical genius; but his work evinces that his miserable philosophy was rather the result of a bewildered judgment than a corrupt heart.
According to the above theory, Revealed Religion should be especially poetical—and it is so in fact. While its disclosures have an originality in them to engage the intellect, they have a beauty to satisfy the moral nature. It presents us with those ideal forms of excellence in which a poetical mind delights, and with which all grace and harmony are associated. It brings us into a new world—a world of overpowering interest, of the sublimest [25] views and the tenderest and purest feelings. The peculiar grace of mind of the New Testament writers is as striking as the actual effect produced upon the hearts of those who have imbibed their spirit. At present we are not concerned with the practical, but the poetical, nature of revealed truth. With Christians, a poetical view of things is a duty,—we are bid to color all things with hues of faith, to see a Divine meaning in every event, and a superhuman tendency. Even our friends around are invested with unearthly brightness—no longer imperfect men, but beings taken into Divine favor, stamped with His seal, and in training for future happiness. It may be added that the virtues peculiarly Christian are especially poetical—meekness, gentleness, compassion, contentment, modesty, not to mention the devotional virtues; whereas the ruder and more ordinary feelings are the instruments of rhetoric more justly than of poetry—anger, indignation, emulation, martial spirit, and love of independence.
---
Source: John Henry Newman, Poetry, with Reference to Aristotle's Poetics, ed. Albert S. Cook (Boston: Ginn & Company, 1894), 22–25.
Showing posts with label Aristotle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Aristotle. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 31, 2018
Thursday, August 2, 2018
A Brief Talk on Music, Morals, and Culture
Among all the fine arts, music is perhaps the most evocative, the most beloved, and yet the most mysterious. The philosophical traditions of the West and East alike have commented on the power of music and its relation to culture, education, and morals. There tends to be two extremes: first, that music provides merely passing, recreational pleasure and has no educational, formative, or moral impact. On the opposite side, that music has a direct causal relation with the development of cultural and individual values and morals. St. Thomas formulated the golden mean between these two positions in his characteristically pithy manner: music does not cause virtue or vice but disposes one for either by being an imitation of the human passions.[1] Nevertheless, the twentieth-century Thomist Josef Pieper could assert without hesitation the existence of an “intimate relationship between the music made and listened to in a society on the one hand, and the inner existential condition of such a society on the other.”[2] I would like to flesh out Pieper’s proposition regarding this close relationship, especially by examining how music imitates the passions, the Thomistic understanding of the relationship between art and morality, and finally, the way music reflects and shapes the culture in which it arises.
St. Thomas bases his understanding of music principally on Aristotle.[3] Aristotle in his Poetics states that music imitates the passions (1340a 19), and in the Politics he notes that music can lead to an emotional catharsis in a way similar to the literary arts (790–791). In the same work, he lists three purposes of music: 1) moral betterment or education; 2) cultivated leisure or amusement; and 3) practical wisdom that is liberal and noble (1338a, 10–33; 1340a, 12–14). Jacques Maritain, another Thomist, noted that the exact meaning of art imitating nature, and in the case of music, the passions, is extremely difficult to specify;[4] nevertheless, it seems to mean communicating the essence of something in a distilled manner. The Thomist John Oesterle adds, “Art, in imitating nature, also perfects nature; it adds an intelligibility and beauty not found in nature as such.”[5] Pieper draws our attention to how man is dynamic, growing, how he is always standing in relation to the Good, pursuing it in truth and in error. Life is a journey, and the Good is our goal, and insofar as we come closer to the Good or are hindered in our pursuit of it, our passions are stirred in different ways. Music can suggest something of this great odyssey of life.[6] Quoting Schopenhauer, who was certainly not a Thomist but in this case accurately summarized the Western tradition, Pieper says, music “tells of weal and woe,” of our triumphs and tragedies.[7] The rise and fall of melody, the alternation of consonance and dissonance in harmony, the accelerating and calming of the rhythm, all of these suggest the movement of passion: from its inception, to its fevered heights, and finally, to its cathartic release.[8]
But what does St. Thomas say about the relationship between art and morality? First, St. Thomas argues a sharp distinction between the relevant virtues at play in these two areas: art is governed by the virtue of art, which is right reason employed in the making of things, and morality is governed by prudence, right reason in the doing of things (Summa Theologiae, 1a2ae.57.3).[9] St. Thomas says, “The good of [the works of art, whether useful or the fine arts] depends, not upon the disposition of the maker’s appetite, but on the worth of the very work done.” A knife is a good knife if it cuts well; a painting is a good painting if it is well executed. These have nothing to do with the morality of the artist or the subject matter of the art per se. Nevertheless, Aquinas continues, “In order that a man may make good use of the art he has, he needs a good will, which is perfected by moral virtue” (ibid., ad 2). He says prudence is necessary for a good life but not for good art: “Art is necessary, not that the artist may lead a good life, but so that he may produce a good and lasting work of art. Prudence is necessary, not merely that a man may become good, but so that he may lead a good life” (1a2ae.57.5 ad 1). And as for those artistic works that can be put to good or evil use, St. Thomas argues: if something is in the majority of cases put to evil use, it should be removed by the State, for art is subordinated to the common good (2a2ae.169.2 ad 4).
If art and morality stand in two completely different spheres, why do they seem so closely linked in our daily experience? St. Thomas gives us the key: “No man can live without pleasure. Therefore a man deprived of the pleasures of the spirit goes over to the pleasures of the flesh” (2a2ae. 35.4 ad 2). Man needs recreation and pleasure to renew his strength after working. Where shall he get this pleasure? Father Benedict Ashley, also a noted Thomist, responds,
“Let me make the songs of the nation, and I care not who makes its laws.”[14] Who can deny the moral effects of music on culture? Every year, high school faculty worry about the growing excesses of lewd dancing during prom nights; entire festivals and cultural events are dedicated to music and vice, such as Lollapalooza, Coachella, etc.; and most tellingly, there is no nightclub to be found where the dance music consists of the minuets and gigues of Bach, Handel, Haydn, or Mozart. Yet the same heavily rhythmic (and formulaic) music is common to all of the above. Pieper observes piercingly,
And yet Pieper adds, “There still exists … the music of Johann Sebastian Bach!”[16] The task falls upon us: to fill our lives with nobility; to make friends with Bach, Palestrina, and Mozart, for these are our true friends, who through their music give us a glimpse of the contemplation of heaven. They fill us with noble sentiments and evoke passions that are primed for virtue and heroic acts. Our life should be one steady melody of love to God, contemplating Him now hidden and then face to face. Benedict Ashley said that even when the virtuous man grows weary of contemplation because of his frail human nature,
Footnotes:
1. Basil Nortz, “The Moral Power of Music,” The Homiletic & Pastoral Review (April 2002): 17.
2. Josef Pieper, Only the Lover Sings, trans. Lothar Krauth (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1990), 48.
3. Aristotle’s views are summarized in Basil Cole, Music & Morals (New York: Alba House, 1993), 34–41.
4. Jacques Maritain, Art and Scholasticism, trans. J.F. Scanlan (North Stratford, NH: Ayer Company Publishers, 2002), 150–151, fn. 121.
5. John Oesterle, “Towards an Evaluation of Music,” The Angelus Online, 2.
6. Pieper, Only the Lover, 42–44.
7. Ibid., 42.
8. Cf. Marcus Berquist, “Good Music and Bad” (lecture, Thomas Aquinas College, October, 1991), 15–16.
9. Cf. also Maritain, Art and Scholasticism, 5–7.
10. Benedict Ashley, The Arts of Learning and Communication (Dubuque: The Priory Press, 1958), 275–276.
11. Ibid.
12. The full analysis is found in Chad Ripperger, Introduction to the Science of Mental Health, volume 3 (Lincoln, NE, 2005), 5–8.
13. Quoted by Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life, volume 1, trans. M. Timothea Doyle (Rockford, IL: TAN Books, 1989), 317, fn. 4.
14. Ashley, The Arts, 274.
15. Pieper, Only the Lover, 49.
16. Ibid., 50.
17. Ashley, The Arts, 281.
St. Thomas bases his understanding of music principally on Aristotle.[3] Aristotle in his Poetics states that music imitates the passions (1340a 19), and in the Politics he notes that music can lead to an emotional catharsis in a way similar to the literary arts (790–791). In the same work, he lists three purposes of music: 1) moral betterment or education; 2) cultivated leisure or amusement; and 3) practical wisdom that is liberal and noble (1338a, 10–33; 1340a, 12–14). Jacques Maritain, another Thomist, noted that the exact meaning of art imitating nature, and in the case of music, the passions, is extremely difficult to specify;[4] nevertheless, it seems to mean communicating the essence of something in a distilled manner. The Thomist John Oesterle adds, “Art, in imitating nature, also perfects nature; it adds an intelligibility and beauty not found in nature as such.”[5] Pieper draws our attention to how man is dynamic, growing, how he is always standing in relation to the Good, pursuing it in truth and in error. Life is a journey, and the Good is our goal, and insofar as we come closer to the Good or are hindered in our pursuit of it, our passions are stirred in different ways. Music can suggest something of this great odyssey of life.[6] Quoting Schopenhauer, who was certainly not a Thomist but in this case accurately summarized the Western tradition, Pieper says, music “tells of weal and woe,” of our triumphs and tragedies.[7] The rise and fall of melody, the alternation of consonance and dissonance in harmony, the accelerating and calming of the rhythm, all of these suggest the movement of passion: from its inception, to its fevered heights, and finally, to its cathartic release.[8]
But what does St. Thomas say about the relationship between art and morality? First, St. Thomas argues a sharp distinction between the relevant virtues at play in these two areas: art is governed by the virtue of art, which is right reason employed in the making of things, and morality is governed by prudence, right reason in the doing of things (Summa Theologiae, 1a2ae.57.3).[9] St. Thomas says, “The good of [the works of art, whether useful or the fine arts] depends, not upon the disposition of the maker’s appetite, but on the worth of the very work done.” A knife is a good knife if it cuts well; a painting is a good painting if it is well executed. These have nothing to do with the morality of the artist or the subject matter of the art per se. Nevertheless, Aquinas continues, “In order that a man may make good use of the art he has, he needs a good will, which is perfected by moral virtue” (ibid., ad 2). He says prudence is necessary for a good life but not for good art: “Art is necessary, not that the artist may lead a good life, but so that he may produce a good and lasting work of art. Prudence is necessary, not merely that a man may become good, but so that he may lead a good life” (1a2ae.57.5 ad 1). And as for those artistic works that can be put to good or evil use, St. Thomas argues: if something is in the majority of cases put to evil use, it should be removed by the State, for art is subordinated to the common good (2a2ae.169.2 ad 4).
If art and morality stand in two completely different spheres, why do they seem so closely linked in our daily experience? St. Thomas gives us the key: “No man can live without pleasure. Therefore a man deprived of the pleasures of the spirit goes over to the pleasures of the flesh” (2a2ae. 35.4 ad 2). Man needs recreation and pleasure to renew his strength after working. Where shall he get this pleasure? Father Benedict Ashley, also a noted Thomist, responds,
The contemplative activity of man is the goal of his life, but it must be moral. This means that we can take a true pleasure in contemplation only if what we contemplate is true—that is, God, or something which God has made as he intended it to be…. Because of this, a work of fine art ought to make us delight in what is true, noble, courageous, hopeful, pure, charitable, so that we may become like these things.[10]Fr. Ashley also reminds us that “we are not made evil simply by an occasional meeting with someone or something evil. But when this association is repeated, then the disposition to evil is produced in us.”[11] The same applies to the disposition for the good. Father Chad Ripperger explains in depth how this occurs. Because music “has the ability to affect the appetites, it has the ability to corrupt the virtues of temperance and fortitude.”[12] This is the Thomistic doctrine, for as Aquinas says, quoting Aristotle, “Every man judges of what is good according to his good or evil interior dispositions.”[13] When we expose ourselves habitually to certain types of art, these in turn create the habit of stirring certain passions, which we take pleasure in, and these habits affect how we judge matters. We are now in the position to see the relation between music and the shaping of a culture.
“Let me make the songs of the nation, and I care not who makes its laws.”[14] Who can deny the moral effects of music on culture? Every year, high school faculty worry about the growing excesses of lewd dancing during prom nights; entire festivals and cultural events are dedicated to music and vice, such as Lollapalooza, Coachella, etc.; and most tellingly, there is no nightclub to be found where the dance music consists of the minuets and gigues of Bach, Handel, Haydn, or Mozart. Yet the same heavily rhythmic (and formulaic) music is common to all of the above. Pieper observes piercingly,
If we now look at our society, what facts do we observe? … We observe how much the most trivial and “light” music, the “happy sound”, has become the most common and pervasive phenomenon…. The “happy sound” as well as the numbing beat, claim legitimacy as “entertainment”, as means, that is, of satisfying, without success, the boredom and existential void that … have become a common and pervasive phenomenon.[15]And he said this sixty years ago! We should not be surprised that our culture is simultaneously dominated by the cheap, consumeristic noise known as “pop music” and the greatest materialism perhaps the world has ever known. It is no wonder that the younger generations who are nourished by the emptiness of today’s “art” are also starving for a purpose-filled and grander vision of life.
And yet Pieper adds, “There still exists … the music of Johann Sebastian Bach!”[16] The task falls upon us: to fill our lives with nobility; to make friends with Bach, Palestrina, and Mozart, for these are our true friends, who through their music give us a glimpse of the contemplation of heaven. They fill us with noble sentiments and evoke passions that are primed for virtue and heroic acts. Our life should be one steady melody of love to God, contemplating Him now hidden and then face to face. Benedict Ashley said that even when the virtuous man grows weary of contemplation because of his frail human nature,
he does not wish utterly to put it aside. It is here that the work of fine art is so great a gift…. It recreates us because it gives the pleasure of looking at something beautiful … and yet it is itself a continuation of contemplation. Such recreation is inspirational, since it both rests us and elevates our soul.[17]Why should we settle for anything less than the highest and most beautiful art we have here below if we are made to contemplate eternally the infinite Source of all beauty?
Footnotes:
1. Basil Nortz, “The Moral Power of Music,” The Homiletic & Pastoral Review (April 2002): 17.
2. Josef Pieper, Only the Lover Sings, trans. Lothar Krauth (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1990), 48.
3. Aristotle’s views are summarized in Basil Cole, Music & Morals (New York: Alba House, 1993), 34–41.
4. Jacques Maritain, Art and Scholasticism, trans. J.F. Scanlan (North Stratford, NH: Ayer Company Publishers, 2002), 150–151, fn. 121.
5. John Oesterle, “Towards an Evaluation of Music,” The Angelus Online, 2.
6. Pieper, Only the Lover, 42–44.
7. Ibid., 42.
8. Cf. Marcus Berquist, “Good Music and Bad” (lecture, Thomas Aquinas College, October, 1991), 15–16.
9. Cf. also Maritain, Art and Scholasticism, 5–7.
10. Benedict Ashley, The Arts of Learning and Communication (Dubuque: The Priory Press, 1958), 275–276.
11. Ibid.
12. The full analysis is found in Chad Ripperger, Introduction to the Science of Mental Health, volume 3 (Lincoln, NE, 2005), 5–8.
13. Quoted by Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life, volume 1, trans. M. Timothea Doyle (Rockford, IL: TAN Books, 1989), 317, fn. 4.
14. Ashley, The Arts, 274.
15. Pieper, Only the Lover, 49.
16. Ibid., 50.
17. Ashley, The Arts, 281.
Monday, September 19, 2016
Jonathan Snow: Creating a Self Identity in a Social Media World - Some Thoughts
http://www.thewritingofjonathansnow.com/2016/05/creating-self-identity-in-social-media.html
Some thoughts on the above excellent article.
If I have any criticisms, they would mostly pertain to the ambiguous use of the notions of identity, self, and human nature. A consistent point of Snow's essay is that technology "fundamentally changes" humans, leading to or, more weakly put, encouraging a "cyborgian form of being and self-identification." The exact extent of this modification on the level of being isn't explained although its influence on the level of action and reaction is, especially in the areas of "human emotions and traditional forms of communication" as well as the action of "autobiographical self-writing." Snow repeats several times throughout his essay that "our very human nature is fundamentally shifted through" our use of various social media technologies into "a cyborgian form of being," but the demonstration is not clearly made.
The notion of identity isn't explicated. Snow jumps immediately into the psychological effects of Facebook's algorithms on constructing a "coherent narrative" that presents certain bits of information for the user instead of others. The precise effect is that the range of possible identity formation is inhibited or directed by those algorithms in such a way as to prevent deep thought and more extensive forms of self-expression, reflection, and discursive thought characteristic of humans. The permanent effect of these technologies is not argued for; in fact, Snow gives an anecdotal account of how he was able to personally reverse some of the effects after limiting his own use of those technologies. His essay ends with a call to be more wary regarding the use, implying that the shift into a cyborgian mode of living is not permanent. This lack of permanence only raises the further question of what Snow means by saying that human nature is "fundamentally changed."
Part of the inhibition occurs through the use of templates either in the form of the message (text, pictures with a single line of text as in Snapchat) or in terms of length (Twitter's 140 characters, Vine's 6 seconds).
Traditional natural philosophy (and metaphysics) distinguishes between the orders of being and the orders of action, or between the entitative and the operative. The traditional axiom is that action follows or flows from being. In other words, the very essence or form of a being delineates the range of actions of which it is capable. If we wonder why a rock cannot see or fly or speak, we can answer simply that its nature or form prevents it from doing so. Furthermore, the range of actions that may flow from a being may be hindered in various ways from being exercised, either externally as from some violence or internally as from some defect within the subject.
A claim that human nature is fundamentally changed must ultimately be intelligible metaphysically, that is, explained with respect to a modification in human being or doing. My criticism is that Snow's essay shows only changes on the level of doing, of actions characteristic of humans yet not so fundamental as to change the very essence of humans. It would be hard to see how a person could undo the effects of such technology if his very essence were changed, if he were no longer the same kind of being.
The effects of habits on human action are thoroughly explained in traditional natural philosophy. Examples of communication, human emotion, and the ability to focus or reason in an extended, discursive fashion are all examples of operations that flow from human nature. The argument of the essay is that the changes in these activities indicate a change at the level of being. It is not clear, however, that these changes cannot be explained as the formation of certain habits, which are accidental or non-essential changes, that inhibit the full operations of human nature as mentioned above, hindrances coming either externally from some form of violence (whether physical or perhaps in the case of Facebook algorithms on the level of sensory and intellectual input) or some defect.
We know from a growing number of psychological studies that attention and reasoning abilities require training to improve and can deteriorate over time either through misuse or lack of use. It seems more reasonable to say that social media fosters this deterioration and encourages the formation of habits that inhibit the full functioning of actions proper to human nature, rather than effecting any change in human nature on the level of being. In other words, the cyborgian form of living is not an essential or fundamental change but rather an accidental and secondary change, one that admits of degrees and can even be reversed by a change in one's actions.
This criticism brings us to a second possible criticism of the essay, namely, a confusion between the orders of being and operation. For example, Snow writes, "Furthermore, technology inhibits the deep thought and work that makes humans unique." If action flows from being and is determined by being, then the above quotation gets things in the opposite order. Deep thought and work do not make humans unique but are manifestations of a fundamental nature, and it is the nature that makes humans unique, and from this nature flows certain actions, namely, deep thought and work. Deep thought is a work that only humans can do because of their nature and not because of their environments. Their environments either help or hinder the exercise of this form of activity but do not cause them. To suggest so could imply that humans don't have a proper, stable nature to themselves but are constituted wholly by environmental factors, at which point it no longer makes sense to speak of a collective human race but only individuals that reflect certain actions at some points that can be called "human" for an otherwise arbitrary reason.
The opposition between deep work and mindless boredom is interesting but again ambiguous. Strictly, boredom is a lack of interest, and deep work is more than interest but an application of rational activity on some object. Perhaps it would be more precise to say that boredom is a symptom of a person who does not engage regularly in deep work or lacks the opportunities or environments to do so. Our attraction to novel distraction is not strictly correlated with the lack of opportunities for deep work but may also reflect a profound crisis in the modern notion of one's self-identity being in contrast with the demands of reality, even on the unconscious level.
The relationship between characteristically human activities and existential boredom is not clearly explained either. The need to have a certain self-identity is certainly a contemporary dilemma, but the importance of identity was not stressed in the past when certainly much deep work was done by plenty of humans.
On the other hand, digital technologies afford a certain distraction that can legitimately be used as a form of leisure. The same cautions that St. Thomas gives to leisure in general certainly apply to modern technologies and even more so by their ability to stimulate our nervous system in ways that traditional, physical forms of leisure could not. Above all, the need for self-control in the use and engagement of these technologies stands at the forefront. So while one may not be able to "effect a fundamental change in existential temporality" while playing Doodle Jump, on the other hand there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with Doodle Jump in itself when certain restrictions are kept in mind and it is remembered that Doodle Jump (hopefully) isn't trying to effect such a fundamental, existential change or at least prevent it from happening in the rest of the user's life.
It is not clear the extent to which technology cannot aid us in participating in or entering into "something beautiful, powerful, or peaceful." Social media technologies don't claim to try to do this although they do try to provide a platform in which we can share such experiences with each other, such as sending a photograph or video of a sunset or sharing a poem that was particularly moving to us. The Internet is a polymorphous technology with many possibilities of action, but at the end of the day, it is only one form of technology. We have to remember that writing is a technology, and so are pianos and musical instruments, yet these latter certainly are regularly part of many beautiful, powerful, and peaceful experiences. Is it conceivable that digital technology might provide a similar experience? Perhaps we can find something close in movies that contain noble themes and artful craftsmanship.
An interesting counterpoint to Snow's essay is that it is precisely through the Internet that more and more people are being exposed to the findings of psychological studies stressing the need to relax and to strengthen our natural ability to focus through regular self-discipline, such as mindfulness practices. In other words, the very technologies that have been destroying the exercise of our natural capacities have also been the vehicle to warn us of that fact.
It is further unclear what the effects of networked and fragmented thinking are on human nature itself. Such broad statements as "what does this lost ability mean for our humanity" are too vague to give much of a response to. As indicated earlier, it is perfectly explicable that intrinsic actions flowing from an essence or nature may be inhibited by habits that deform the natural exercise of those activities, and although habits have a certain semi-permanent quality, they are reversible and do not alter a subject on the order of essence. It is uncertain that networked thinking is really possible without a linear process in the mind on the level of consciousness and that the ability to shift rapidly between multiple elements is really anything different than what humans have always done in discursive reasoning.
Speculative questions about the potential future of human thinking and evolution and the "hive mind" are almost always too ambiguous to respond to.
The importance or even nature of a self-identity are left without the needed explanation to understand their relationship to existing and living in our world. Snow's invoking of Crawford's autonomy/heteronomy distinction is confusing because its contribution to his thesis is unclear. It remains unclear why whether a subject "flits about" or pursues "settled purposes and ongoing projects" is a problem to be solved. The notion of a sense of self can occur on multiple levels of discourse, psychologically, philosophically, socially, etc. What sense Snow is using isn't clear.
Finally, the actual danger of technology-guided or aided self-reflection also remains unclear. While an unquestioning reliance on algorithms that we have no understanding of may strike a note of fear in those desiring to construct an autonomous identity, perhaps on the other hand we should recall that many forms of modern identity are constituted precisely by the intersection between the false individualism and the totalitarian consumerism existing in a social-media soaked culture, and the very attempt to preserve any notion of coherence to this sort of identity is merely an unconscious fantasy desire to continue promoting what is at its very root in opposition to the full demands of reality and human nature itself. Perhaps an embrace of human nature rather than the non-essentialism so prevalent in academia and now popular culture would remind us of the basic need for restraint in the leisurely use of our technologies, whether digital or mechanical, and that identity formation must firstly run the way of reality and not virtual reality before it can lead to any genuine promotion of human flourishing. Technologies can certainly aid us in the exercise of properly human operation, for technology in its traditional understanding falls under art, which is simply the production of things according to right reason (recta ratio factibilium), and as such technology ought already to be a reflection of the right order of things, extending and aiding our natural faculties and operations, the way a telescope aids our natural sight to see what is truly there but without which we could never discover, or a simple organization schema can put into order the jumbled and quasi-related elements of our thought as we try to form coherent discourse.
Some thoughts on the above excellent article.
If I have any criticisms, they would mostly pertain to the ambiguous use of the notions of identity, self, and human nature. A consistent point of Snow's essay is that technology "fundamentally changes" humans, leading to or, more weakly put, encouraging a "cyborgian form of being and self-identification." The exact extent of this modification on the level of being isn't explained although its influence on the level of action and reaction is, especially in the areas of "human emotions and traditional forms of communication" as well as the action of "autobiographical self-writing." Snow repeats several times throughout his essay that "our very human nature is fundamentally shifted through" our use of various social media technologies into "a cyborgian form of being," but the demonstration is not clearly made.
The notion of identity isn't explicated. Snow jumps immediately into the psychological effects of Facebook's algorithms on constructing a "coherent narrative" that presents certain bits of information for the user instead of others. The precise effect is that the range of possible identity formation is inhibited or directed by those algorithms in such a way as to prevent deep thought and more extensive forms of self-expression, reflection, and discursive thought characteristic of humans. The permanent effect of these technologies is not argued for; in fact, Snow gives an anecdotal account of how he was able to personally reverse some of the effects after limiting his own use of those technologies. His essay ends with a call to be more wary regarding the use, implying that the shift into a cyborgian mode of living is not permanent. This lack of permanence only raises the further question of what Snow means by saying that human nature is "fundamentally changed."
Part of the inhibition occurs through the use of templates either in the form of the message (text, pictures with a single line of text as in Snapchat) or in terms of length (Twitter's 140 characters, Vine's 6 seconds).
Traditional natural philosophy (and metaphysics) distinguishes between the orders of being and the orders of action, or between the entitative and the operative. The traditional axiom is that action follows or flows from being. In other words, the very essence or form of a being delineates the range of actions of which it is capable. If we wonder why a rock cannot see or fly or speak, we can answer simply that its nature or form prevents it from doing so. Furthermore, the range of actions that may flow from a being may be hindered in various ways from being exercised, either externally as from some violence or internally as from some defect within the subject.
A claim that human nature is fundamentally changed must ultimately be intelligible metaphysically, that is, explained with respect to a modification in human being or doing. My criticism is that Snow's essay shows only changes on the level of doing, of actions characteristic of humans yet not so fundamental as to change the very essence of humans. It would be hard to see how a person could undo the effects of such technology if his very essence were changed, if he were no longer the same kind of being.
The effects of habits on human action are thoroughly explained in traditional natural philosophy. Examples of communication, human emotion, and the ability to focus or reason in an extended, discursive fashion are all examples of operations that flow from human nature. The argument of the essay is that the changes in these activities indicate a change at the level of being. It is not clear, however, that these changes cannot be explained as the formation of certain habits, which are accidental or non-essential changes, that inhibit the full operations of human nature as mentioned above, hindrances coming either externally from some form of violence (whether physical or perhaps in the case of Facebook algorithms on the level of sensory and intellectual input) or some defect.
We know from a growing number of psychological studies that attention and reasoning abilities require training to improve and can deteriorate over time either through misuse or lack of use. It seems more reasonable to say that social media fosters this deterioration and encourages the formation of habits that inhibit the full functioning of actions proper to human nature, rather than effecting any change in human nature on the level of being. In other words, the cyborgian form of living is not an essential or fundamental change but rather an accidental and secondary change, one that admits of degrees and can even be reversed by a change in one's actions.
This criticism brings us to a second possible criticism of the essay, namely, a confusion between the orders of being and operation. For example, Snow writes, "Furthermore, technology inhibits the deep thought and work that makes humans unique." If action flows from being and is determined by being, then the above quotation gets things in the opposite order. Deep thought and work do not make humans unique but are manifestations of a fundamental nature, and it is the nature that makes humans unique, and from this nature flows certain actions, namely, deep thought and work. Deep thought is a work that only humans can do because of their nature and not because of their environments. Their environments either help or hinder the exercise of this form of activity but do not cause them. To suggest so could imply that humans don't have a proper, stable nature to themselves but are constituted wholly by environmental factors, at which point it no longer makes sense to speak of a collective human race but only individuals that reflect certain actions at some points that can be called "human" for an otherwise arbitrary reason.
The opposition between deep work and mindless boredom is interesting but again ambiguous. Strictly, boredom is a lack of interest, and deep work is more than interest but an application of rational activity on some object. Perhaps it would be more precise to say that boredom is a symptom of a person who does not engage regularly in deep work or lacks the opportunities or environments to do so. Our attraction to novel distraction is not strictly correlated with the lack of opportunities for deep work but may also reflect a profound crisis in the modern notion of one's self-identity being in contrast with the demands of reality, even on the unconscious level.
The relationship between characteristically human activities and existential boredom is not clearly explained either. The need to have a certain self-identity is certainly a contemporary dilemma, but the importance of identity was not stressed in the past when certainly much deep work was done by plenty of humans.
On the other hand, digital technologies afford a certain distraction that can legitimately be used as a form of leisure. The same cautions that St. Thomas gives to leisure in general certainly apply to modern technologies and even more so by their ability to stimulate our nervous system in ways that traditional, physical forms of leisure could not. Above all, the need for self-control in the use and engagement of these technologies stands at the forefront. So while one may not be able to "effect a fundamental change in existential temporality" while playing Doodle Jump, on the other hand there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with Doodle Jump in itself when certain restrictions are kept in mind and it is remembered that Doodle Jump (hopefully) isn't trying to effect such a fundamental, existential change or at least prevent it from happening in the rest of the user's life.
It is not clear the extent to which technology cannot aid us in participating in or entering into "something beautiful, powerful, or peaceful." Social media technologies don't claim to try to do this although they do try to provide a platform in which we can share such experiences with each other, such as sending a photograph or video of a sunset or sharing a poem that was particularly moving to us. The Internet is a polymorphous technology with many possibilities of action, but at the end of the day, it is only one form of technology. We have to remember that writing is a technology, and so are pianos and musical instruments, yet these latter certainly are regularly part of many beautiful, powerful, and peaceful experiences. Is it conceivable that digital technology might provide a similar experience? Perhaps we can find something close in movies that contain noble themes and artful craftsmanship.
An interesting counterpoint to Snow's essay is that it is precisely through the Internet that more and more people are being exposed to the findings of psychological studies stressing the need to relax and to strengthen our natural ability to focus through regular self-discipline, such as mindfulness practices. In other words, the very technologies that have been destroying the exercise of our natural capacities have also been the vehicle to warn us of that fact.
It is further unclear what the effects of networked and fragmented thinking are on human nature itself. Such broad statements as "what does this lost ability mean for our humanity" are too vague to give much of a response to. As indicated earlier, it is perfectly explicable that intrinsic actions flowing from an essence or nature may be inhibited by habits that deform the natural exercise of those activities, and although habits have a certain semi-permanent quality, they are reversible and do not alter a subject on the order of essence. It is uncertain that networked thinking is really possible without a linear process in the mind on the level of consciousness and that the ability to shift rapidly between multiple elements is really anything different than what humans have always done in discursive reasoning.
Speculative questions about the potential future of human thinking and evolution and the "hive mind" are almost always too ambiguous to respond to.
The importance or even nature of a self-identity are left without the needed explanation to understand their relationship to existing and living in our world. Snow's invoking of Crawford's autonomy/heteronomy distinction is confusing because its contribution to his thesis is unclear. It remains unclear why whether a subject "flits about" or pursues "settled purposes and ongoing projects" is a problem to be solved. The notion of a sense of self can occur on multiple levels of discourse, psychologically, philosophically, socially, etc. What sense Snow is using isn't clear.
Finally, the actual danger of technology-guided or aided self-reflection also remains unclear. While an unquestioning reliance on algorithms that we have no understanding of may strike a note of fear in those desiring to construct an autonomous identity, perhaps on the other hand we should recall that many forms of modern identity are constituted precisely by the intersection between the false individualism and the totalitarian consumerism existing in a social-media soaked culture, and the very attempt to preserve any notion of coherence to this sort of identity is merely an unconscious fantasy desire to continue promoting what is at its very root in opposition to the full demands of reality and human nature itself. Perhaps an embrace of human nature rather than the non-essentialism so prevalent in academia and now popular culture would remind us of the basic need for restraint in the leisurely use of our technologies, whether digital or mechanical, and that identity formation must firstly run the way of reality and not virtual reality before it can lead to any genuine promotion of human flourishing. Technologies can certainly aid us in the exercise of properly human operation, for technology in its traditional understanding falls under art, which is simply the production of things according to right reason (recta ratio factibilium), and as such technology ought already to be a reflection of the right order of things, extending and aiding our natural faculties and operations, the way a telescope aids our natural sight to see what is truly there but without which we could never discover, or a simple organization schema can put into order the jumbled and quasi-related elements of our thought as we try to form coherent discourse.
Monday, January 19, 2015
Diagram of Ens Reale
Ens Reale (Greek: φύσις [physis]; mind-independent being):
Esse (To exist):
Esse (To exist):
-In
--Alio (another): Accident
--Se (itself): Substance
-Ad (towards/for): Relation
Hence although relation is grouped within the accidents because it isn't substance, relation is unlike any accident insofar as it does not exist intrasubjectively but suprasubjectively, dependent upon subjectivities as its foundation yet above them. Accidents properly speaking are intrasubjective determinations that specify the substance as an individual.
Ockham's reduction of relation to similarity existing between subjectivities that possess intrasubjectively a same quality or determination (accident) is a reduction of relation as suprasubjective to intra- and inter- subjective. Relation therefore loses its proper characteristic and becomes an expression of the multiplication of some similar quality or being; if two or more beings share this quality, there is relation in the shared quality.
Relation, interestingly, is characterized precisely by its indifference to the orders of ens reale and ens rationis, mind-independent and mind-dependent being. A relation may exist even if its fundament or terminus exist either in ens reale or ens rationis; hence whether the relation is a "real relation" or just a "logical" one. For example, a relation of fictions is still a relation even though fictions are related; hence even though the fundament and terminus are within ens rationis, the relation is real (not as in "real relation" but simply as existing). But an individual that is a fiction is precisely not an individual because an individual is that which exists independently of ens rationis. Relation bridges the gap and is therefore also the bridge between culture and nature.
Relation is also the bridge between subjectivity (individuality of substances, ens reale) and objectivity (ens reale that has become an ens rationis through the awareness of a cognitive or quasi-cognitive power). Something becomes an object precisely by coming into relation with a subject that possesses some power of awareness.
Cf. John Deely, Purely Objective Reality (2009), ch. 2.
Thursday, January 1, 2015
The Four Causes Defined
Principle: "that from which something proceeds in any way whatever" (Fr. William Wallace, OP, The Elements of Philosophy [Wipf & Stock, 2011], 44, §16.7); "the intelligible framework or conditions of change" (John Deely, Medieval Philosophy Redefined, 143).
Three principles of change in Aristotle's thought: 1) form; 2) matter; 3) privation.
Cause: "that from which something proceeds with a dependence in being" (Wallace, 44, §16.7; see also 100, §35.1) or that upon which something depends for its being.
Condition: "that which makes possible, makes ready, or prepares the way for an efficient cause to act, or for its action to be efficacious" (101, §35.3).
-the condition in which an obstacle is removed that "would otherwise block the agent's activity or render it ineffective" is called the removens prohibens.
-a condition that is an absolute requirement for the cause to function, a necessary condition: conditio sine qua non.
Occasion: "the opportunity for a cognitive agent to exercise its causality" (102, §35.4).
Four Causes (and Medieval subdivisions):
Material (Matter): "the intrinsic determinable principle that receives its actuation and determination from form" (103, §35.6); "that upon which the agent acts" (Deely, 140, fn. 6).
Efficient (or Agent or Productive): "the productive or transient action initiated by an agent [where] an agent be understood as anything capable of initiating a motion or a change" (Wallace, 104, §35.8).
Kinds of efficient causes:
1) Essential vs. Coincidental
2) Total vs. Partial
3) Principal vs. Instrumental (instrument: "something from which an effect flows by reason of its subordination to a principal efficient cause, to which the instrument ministers and by which it is moved" [ibid.]).
4) Primary vs. Secondary
5) Perfecting vs. Disposing
6) Natural vs. Non-Natural (e.g. violence, chance, artificial, voluntary)
7) Univocal vs. Equivocal vs. Analogical (depends on "metaphysical level" of the agent vs. patient)
8) Universal vs. Particular
9) Corporeal vs. Incorporeal
10) Agents that cause being vs. agents that cause becoming
(Intrinsic) Formal: "the intrinsic principle of existence in any determinate essence" or "the intrinsic determinant of anything that is determinable" (102, §35.5); "the result in or response of the material correlated with the action of the agent" (Deely, 140, fn. 6).
-Extrinsic Formal Cause (Exemplary or Ideal): that form which is introduced into matter "by an intelligent agent" according to a pattern or plan (ibid.).
1) Exemplary vs. Specificative (or Objective): that which specifies "cognition as an awareness of this rather than that object or aspect of an object" (ibid.).
(Intrinsic) Final (or Teleological): "the full development of the substance or the completion of the process itself," where "the end itself may be defined as that for the sake of which something exists or is done, or that for which an agent acts or action takes place"; "it is said to be first in the order of intention and last in the order of execution or activity"; also called the "cause of causes (causa causarum)" (Wallace, 105, §35.10); "the [intrinsic] pattern of development which an effect once produced exhibits over time" (Deely, 104, fn. 6).
-Extrinsic Final Cause (Exemplary/Ideal): "the determination or form of an effect as this is preconceived by an intelligent agent," which is "extrinsic to the effect and exerts its influence mainly as an idea in the intentional order" (Wallace, 106, §35.11); "the intention according to or purpose for which [an agent]" forms a material structure (Deely, 140, fn. 6).
Three principles of change in Aristotle's thought: 1) form; 2) matter; 3) privation.
Cause: "that from which something proceeds with a dependence in being" (Wallace, 44, §16.7; see also 100, §35.1) or that upon which something depends for its being.
Condition: "that which makes possible, makes ready, or prepares the way for an efficient cause to act, or for its action to be efficacious" (101, §35.3).
-the condition in which an obstacle is removed that "would otherwise block the agent's activity or render it ineffective" is called the removens prohibens.
-a condition that is an absolute requirement for the cause to function, a necessary condition: conditio sine qua non.
Occasion: "the opportunity for a cognitive agent to exercise its causality" (102, §35.4).
Four Causes (and Medieval subdivisions):
Material (Matter): "the intrinsic determinable principle that receives its actuation and determination from form" (103, §35.6); "that upon which the agent acts" (Deely, 140, fn. 6).
Efficient (or Agent or Productive): "the productive or transient action initiated by an agent [where] an agent be understood as anything capable of initiating a motion or a change" (Wallace, 104, §35.8).
Kinds of efficient causes:
1) Essential vs. Coincidental
2) Total vs. Partial
3) Principal vs. Instrumental (instrument: "something from which an effect flows by reason of its subordination to a principal efficient cause, to which the instrument ministers and by which it is moved" [ibid.]).
4) Primary vs. Secondary
5) Perfecting vs. Disposing
6) Natural vs. Non-Natural (e.g. violence, chance, artificial, voluntary)
7) Univocal vs. Equivocal vs. Analogical (depends on "metaphysical level" of the agent vs. patient)
8) Universal vs. Particular
9) Corporeal vs. Incorporeal
10) Agents that cause being vs. agents that cause becoming
(Intrinsic) Formal: "the intrinsic principle of existence in any determinate essence" or "the intrinsic determinant of anything that is determinable" (102, §35.5); "the result in or response of the material correlated with the action of the agent" (Deely, 140, fn. 6).
-Extrinsic Formal Cause (Exemplary or Ideal): that form which is introduced into matter "by an intelligent agent" according to a pattern or plan (ibid.).
1) Exemplary vs. Specificative (or Objective): that which specifies "cognition as an awareness of this rather than that object or aspect of an object" (ibid.).
(Intrinsic) Final (or Teleological): "the full development of the substance or the completion of the process itself," where "the end itself may be defined as that for the sake of which something exists or is done, or that for which an agent acts or action takes place"; "it is said to be first in the order of intention and last in the order of execution or activity"; also called the "cause of causes (causa causarum)" (Wallace, 105, §35.10); "the [intrinsic] pattern of development which an effect once produced exhibits over time" (Deely, 104, fn. 6).
-Extrinsic Final Cause (Exemplary/Ideal): "the determination or form of an effect as this is preconceived by an intelligent agent," which is "extrinsic to the effect and exerts its influence mainly as an idea in the intentional order" (Wallace, 106, §35.11); "the intention according to or purpose for which [an agent]" forms a material structure (Deely, 140, fn. 6).
Sunday, August 3, 2014
John Deely on "Creationism" vs. "Evolution"
[506] This is among the most enduring, baffling, and empty of the controversies of all of history, to say nothing merely of modern times, whence it continues to rage around us long past its time.
In 1945, Antonin Sertillanges, an excellent philosopher—not a great one, but a very, very good mind—wrote an entire book, The Idea of Creation, on just this question. This book should have shown everyone once and for all that this celebrated controversy is a nominalism, empty air delivered in withering blasts. For "there is nothing to prevent us from seeing in evolution, instead of a substitute for creation", which it could hardly be anyway, "simply another perspective on the manner in which the creative fact is bound up with the facts of nature" (Sertillanges 1945: 128). But not everyone read Sertillanges, and, anyway, he wrote in French, a language most proponents of "creationism" don't know.
But the doctrinal language that he spoke was pure Thomas Aquinas, from whom Sertillanges took the idea for his book. In the time of Aquinas, it was believed that the Bible taught that the world had a beginning. Aristotle taught, quite explicitly to the contrary, that the world was eternal. This, indeed, was one of the several reasons why the medieval church authorities tried to chop of Aristotle's head as soon as it appeared in Latin, by condemning his work and forbidding that it be read.
Thomas Aquinas, who clearly read Aristotle and thought for himself besides (you would have expected that, as a saint, he would have paid a little more attention to the church authorities), commented on this controversy by pointing out that the question of God's creation of the world has no least connection with the question of when the world exists but a question of how the world exists. And any system of interacting finite beings, statically or dynamically conceived, can be shown to be possible only on the assumption of an infinite being who imparts to them at each moment, and sustains them at each moment in, actual existence. The idea of creation reduced to its essential content is not the idea of a beginning in time but of a dependency in being, a dependentia in esse.
This is what Sertillanges repeated to his modern contemporaries in 1945. Creation is purely and simply a question of does God act presupposing something besides Himself, or presupposing nothing at all? That is a metaphysical question, not a scientific one. Evolution, by contrast, is a scientific, not a metaphysical, question; and still less one that can be decided by religion.
[507] There are some matters that can be decided by neither philosophy nor religion, and the question of whether the world as a matter of fact changes over time in its basic structures and specific features is one of them. If you want to know how the world changes in its physical being over time you have to go out, gather the evidence capable of revealing this, and not refuse to look at that evidence. Aristotle can tell you that if the environment on which the earth depends does not change, then neither will the earth. But Aristotle cannot tell you whether the environment on which the earth depends changes or not. For that you have to look at that environment. To babble philosophy or to quote scripture contrary to what you find in the physical evidence is inane. Said rightly Sertillanges (1945: 142):
---
Source: John Deely, Four Ages of Understanding (Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press, 2001), 506–507.
In 1945, Antonin Sertillanges, an excellent philosopher—not a great one, but a very, very good mind—wrote an entire book, The Idea of Creation, on just this question. This book should have shown everyone once and for all that this celebrated controversy is a nominalism, empty air delivered in withering blasts. For "there is nothing to prevent us from seeing in evolution, instead of a substitute for creation", which it could hardly be anyway, "simply another perspective on the manner in which the creative fact is bound up with the facts of nature" (Sertillanges 1945: 128). But not everyone read Sertillanges, and, anyway, he wrote in French, a language most proponents of "creationism" don't know.
But the doctrinal language that he spoke was pure Thomas Aquinas, from whom Sertillanges took the idea for his book. In the time of Aquinas, it was believed that the Bible taught that the world had a beginning. Aristotle taught, quite explicitly to the contrary, that the world was eternal. This, indeed, was one of the several reasons why the medieval church authorities tried to chop of Aristotle's head as soon as it appeared in Latin, by condemning his work and forbidding that it be read.
Thomas Aquinas, who clearly read Aristotle and thought for himself besides (you would have expected that, as a saint, he would have paid a little more attention to the church authorities), commented on this controversy by pointing out that the question of God's creation of the world has no least connection with the question of when the world exists but a question of how the world exists. And any system of interacting finite beings, statically or dynamically conceived, can be shown to be possible only on the assumption of an infinite being who imparts to them at each moment, and sustains them at each moment in, actual existence. The idea of creation reduced to its essential content is not the idea of a beginning in time but of a dependency in being, a dependentia in esse.
This is what Sertillanges repeated to his modern contemporaries in 1945. Creation is purely and simply a question of does God act presupposing something besides Himself, or presupposing nothing at all? That is a metaphysical question, not a scientific one. Evolution, by contrast, is a scientific, not a metaphysical, question; and still less one that can be decided by religion.
[507] There are some matters that can be decided by neither philosophy nor religion, and the question of whether the world as a matter of fact changes over time in its basic structures and specific features is one of them. If you want to know how the world changes in its physical being over time you have to go out, gather the evidence capable of revealing this, and not refuse to look at that evidence. Aristotle can tell you that if the environment on which the earth depends does not change, then neither will the earth. But Aristotle cannot tell you whether the environment on which the earth depends changes or not. For that you have to look at that environment. To babble philosophy or to quote scripture contrary to what you find in the physical evidence is inane. Said rightly Sertillanges (1945: 142):
Whoever does not see that has not grasped the essential import of the notion of creation. He has restricted and anthropomorphized the notion beyond what is permissible. Once that has been pointed out, moreover, we are free to return calmly to the biblical conception of an initial creation after or beyond which is a divine repose.
We henceforth know well that one can conceptualize this repose in any of three forms: as sanctioning the fixity of beings in their genus and species; as giving them over to their progressive unfolding through time; or, finally, as imparting to the latent psychism with which it has endowed them the responsibility for temporal creations more and more exuberant.
One is free to choose, awaiting further evidence. But it is to be fervently hoped that after so much vain quarreling, we Christians will cease bringing forward unjustified censures respecting this doctrine of evolution, to which, under one form or another [Deely comments: Under the second on of the three forms, as it turns out], the future seems certain to belong.The legitimate argument of the "creationists", therefore, is not against the idea of evolution but against those particular versions of evolutionary theory propounded by persons who so misunderstand the nature of the case and so confusedly grasp the ideas they propound as to think that it is enough to show that there has been an evolution to show that there is no God. Such was the actual case of the Soviet cosmonaut who went outside his space capsule and looked around, then equated the failure of his eyes to detect God with a proof that God does not exist.
---
Source: John Deely, Four Ages of Understanding (Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press, 2001), 506–507.
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
Repost: Lonergan and the Desire to Know
According to Lonergan, Aristotle expressed something fundamental in the opening lines of the Metaphysics: “All men by nature desire to know.” When the animal has its physiological needs met, it sleeps, but when the human has met its needs, we do math or theology or go exploring, for our intelligence is essentially dynamic love; so long as we want to know, so long as we care and direct our intelligence towards knowing, our consciousness continues to operate in a cumulative, self-correcting, and indefinite process of accumulating data and acquiring new insights. This dynamism is for some unknown, and we seek this unknown spontaneously, by some innate tendency, although it “is a conscious tendency . . . we do so intelligently.” Children ask incessant questions, without prompting, according to some inner impetus, although the dull child, the one who does not care to know, can rarely be coaxed or coerced into knowing if he lacks the desire, for knowledge does not just happen because the external data is present but because of the interior condition of inquiry and the interior operations by which we arrive at knowing. The interior condition manifests itself in questions, for we would not ask unless there was an unknown, and we could not ask unless we sought something. Something: what we seek exists as an ideal, but not clearly or explicitly or we would already have what we were seeking.
The transcendental condition of our questions is the dynamic desire to know, and to know what is unknown, an x, and this unknown x functions as a heuristic, as an intended ideal that as yet is not appropriated or known. It is whatever is intended by the question. But what is intended by questions is not empty or abstract. The condition of questioning is transcendental—the “pure question”—but “no one just wonders. We wonder about something.” Of course, we can wonder about many things, in many different ways, and there are different heuristics at different times, in different communities, and so on. The pursuit is intelligent and conscious, but it is not conceptually explicit, and it differs and develops as questions differ and develop, so “how do you proceed methodically . . . to the attainment of something that you do not know, something which, if known, would not have to be pursued?” According to Lonergan, the solution is precisely that metatheory by which we try to catch ourselves in the act of knowing which Budziszewski judged distracting:
Source: R.J. Snell, "The Meaning(s) of Natural Law," Intercollegiate Review, June 16, 2014, accessed July 1, 2014, http://www.intercollegiatereview.com/index.php/2014/06/16/the-meanings-of-natural-law/.
The transcendental condition of our questions is the dynamic desire to know, and to know what is unknown, an x, and this unknown x functions as a heuristic, as an intended ideal that as yet is not appropriated or known. It is whatever is intended by the question. But what is intended by questions is not empty or abstract. The condition of questioning is transcendental—the “pure question”—but “no one just wonders. We wonder about something.” Of course, we can wonder about many things, in many different ways, and there are different heuristics at different times, in different communities, and so on. The pursuit is intelligent and conscious, but it is not conceptually explicit, and it differs and develops as questions differ and develop, so “how do you proceed methodically . . . to the attainment of something that you do not know, something which, if known, would not have to be pursued?” According to Lonergan, the solution is precisely that metatheory by which we try to catch ourselves in the act of knowing which Budziszewski judged distracting:
The solution . . . to this problem is self-appropriation. . . . The ideal we seek in seeking the unknown, in trying to know, is conceptually implicit. There does not exist naturally, spontaneously, through the whole of history, a set of propositions, conceptions, and definitions that define the ideal of knowledge. But to say that conceptually it is implicit . . . that these statements differ in different places and at different times—they are historically conditioned—is not to say that it is nonexistent. While the conception of the ideal is not by nature, still there is something by nature. The ideal of knowledge is myself as intelligent, as asking questions, as requiring intelligible answers . . . and if we can turn in upon these fundamental tendencies, then we are on the way to getting hold. . . .---
Source: R.J. Snell, "The Meaning(s) of Natural Law," Intercollegiate Review, June 16, 2014, accessed July 1, 2014, http://www.intercollegiatereview.com/index.php/2014/06/16/the-meanings-of-natural-law/.
Monday, March 10, 2014
Medieval and Modern Meanings of Subjective and Objective
The modern meaning of these terms is what everyone is familiar with, so I'll begin there.
Subjective refers to the psychological and cognitive states in contrast to the "external world." It carries solipsistic overtones ("only in my mind" or "true for me"—hence, one can already see the relativism that will follow). Therefore, when we call a perspective subjective, its denotation (explicit meaning) is simply how a person happens to think or feel about something external at that given moment. Its connotation (implicit meaning) is that such a perspective is as valid as any other subjective perspective but useless for critical analysis, which requires "objectivity" (cf. Deely, Descartes & Poinsot (2008), 46).
Objective derives from modernity's humanism, stressing the "difference of man" (John Deely, "Primary Modeling System in Animals" (2007), 2-3; http://www.augustoponzio.com/files/12._Deely.pdf):
Subjective refers to the psychological and cognitive states in contrast to the "external world." It carries solipsistic overtones ("only in my mind" or "true for me"—hence, one can already see the relativism that will follow). Therefore, when we call a perspective subjective, its denotation (explicit meaning) is simply how a person happens to think or feel about something external at that given moment. Its connotation (implicit meaning) is that such a perspective is as valid as any other subjective perspective but useless for critical analysis, which requires "objectivity" (cf. Deely, Descartes & Poinsot (2008), 46).
Objective derives from modernity's humanism, stressing the "difference of man" (John Deely, "Primary Modeling System in Animals" (2007), 2-3; http://www.augustoponzio.com/files/12._Deely.pdf):
The quintessence of modernity in matters human was to stress “the difference of man”, and to embrace the conclusion that not only is the rational intellect superior to the rest of nature but also that the human being in possessing this “superior mind” is separate from nature as well. Whence developed the myth of the “objective observer” in that false sense of the word “objectivity” intended to signify synonymy with what is apart from any observation by which it may happen to become known, and in contrast with the systematically required sense of “objective” as simply that which is known by whatever means and regardless of any further status the known may or may not have in the physical environment as something common to all animals. The “objective” observer is a participant in the universe he or she observes, and there is no other kind of “observation”, certainly not one “detached” from the human condition as an animal among other animals. [1]Objectivity in the modern sense posits the possibility that the human mind can "go outside of itself" to observe something as though the human in its (modern) subjectivity were not observing that thing, observing something as though it were unobserved, how it is "in itself." Of course, this is impossible and is a very confused position resulting from an improper understanding of human nature when Descartes displaced "rational animal" with "thinking thing" (res cognitans). Recall that Descartes in his Meditations on First Philosophy (1641) argues that we have greater certainty as to our aspect as intelligent beings than beings with bodies, i.e. as being physical and hence animal. But when we are no longer animals but pure intellects, we become angels. The conclusions of our senses (our bodies) become subjectivity; our minds lead to objectivity.
All of this stems from nominalism, which denies relation as being in the order of ens reale (being that exists independently of whether it is within the awareness of a mind), reducing relation simply to ens rationis (purely mind-dependent being), for when there is no relation that exists suprasubjectively, then our connection to the "external world" is cut off, for there is no relation that takes us outside of our "subjectivity." Yet we find that we still have the capacity for "objectivity," for "going out of our minds into the world." Hence arise the curious, and strictly modern, definitions of subjectivity and objectivity and the problem of the external world (as well as epistemology) and all philosophy until semiotics took off.
The medieval notions of subjectivity and objectivity are far clearer and simpler.
Subjective refers to what exists in the order of ens reale, being either in itself (esse in se; substance), being in another (esse in alio; accidents dependent upon substance), or being towards another (esse ad aliud; relation). The subjective is that which exists regardless of whether any mind is aware of that being or not (cf. Deely, ibid., 40-41).
Objective refers to what exists in relation, being towards another (esse ad aliud), specifically when there is a terminus of a relation (an "object") and this terminus is in the awareness of the knower. A relation may exist physically (e.g. the relation between parent and child) but not objectively (e.g. the child was adopted and never was told about the adoption). The relation may exist physically and objectively (e.g. the child, under a set of circumstances, comes to realize whom its true parents are). Or the relation may not exist physically (the biological parents have since passed away) but only objectively (remaining in the memory of the child). Hence "things" with subjective being become "objects" of awareness with the relation being patterned after the thing (esse in) or, if the "object" of awareness is another relation, being patterned after the relation (esse ad) (cf. Deely, ibid., 42). It is only when there is an "object," whether the relation exists on the order of ens reale or ens rationis, that there is the objective dimension.
Anyone familiar with some of the Neo-Thomistic works will also notice that many Neo-Thomists foolishly assumed the modern usage of these terms, and many apologists today still use them as such (e.g. when talking about "objective morality" vs. "subjective morality" in trying to refute relativism, all of which ends up being another form of the same thing!), not realizing that they are what we could call "crypto-nominalists," unconsciously nominalistic, just as many believers are unconsciously fideists, separating reason from faith as Dr. Michael W. Tkacz has pointed out (cf. Tkacz, "Faith, Science, and the Error of Fideism," Logos 5, no. 1 (Winter 2002): 139-155).
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Footnotes:
1. Here should be mentioned the work of one of the great cryptosemiotians of the last century, Gregory Bateson, who (1972) identified just this view of “separateness” and “superiority” as the “original sin” of modern epistemology.
Footnotes:
1. Here should be mentioned the work of one of the great cryptosemiotians of the last century, Gregory Bateson, who (1972) identified just this view of “separateness” and “superiority” as the “original sin” of modern epistemology.
Saturday, March 1, 2014
The Unity of the Speculative and Practical Intellect
[St. Thomas Aquinas] made the – really quite brilliant – [observation that] what distinguishes human understanding is precisely the ability to come to know things as they are. And it’s from the knowledge of the way the things are that practical knowledge follows. So there’s not just a split between speculative and practical, there’s a sequence: The human intellect comes to understand things, and on the basis of what it understands becomes able to exercise control over what is understood. [1]
1. Aquinas’ phrase that “the speculative intellect by extension becomes practical” (“intellectus speculativus per extensionem fit practicus”) is from Summa theologiae, Prima Pars, Quaestio 79, Articulus 11, sed contra, cf. Aquinas c1252-73, and is a paraphrase of Aristotle’s statement (De anima, II, 10 433a 15) that “the practical intellect [...] differs from the speculative intellect by the end at which it aims” (“(intellectus) speculativus differt a practico, fine”), cf. Aristotle c350 AC.
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Footnotes:
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Source: John Deely, interviewed by Morten Tønnessen, "Tell Me, Where Is Morality Bred? The Semioethics Interviews I: John Deely," Hortus Semioticus 4 (April 7, 2009): 54, accessed March 1, 2014, http://www.ut.ee/hortussemioticus/4_2009/pdf/hortussemioticus_4_deely.pdf.
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