Philosophy does not consist of statements. Statements are vocabulary only, pure and simple. Philosophy is the THOUGHT that goes between the lines, it is the intuition that we trace between statements. Which is precisely why analytic philosophy failed in its ambition to "nail language" (as the older Wittgenstein writes about the younger Wittgenstein). So you can quote Kant for all you like, you may still not grasp what he was THINKING which is what philosophy is all about (just like Art transcends a work of art, if not, then it is not a work of art but just a piece of craft etc).
So what is Spinoza aiming for? He is aiming for a STRONG ETHICS (the title of his most important work) and this ethics is an ethics that disregards the whole issue of determinism and/or contingency, and just demands a full identification with the things our bodies go through. The best example of Spinozist ethics is Zizek's study of Antigone in the spirit of Jacques Lacan. The fascination of the Greeks with Antigone was with the ice cold determined mindset that Antigone showed when acting upon her brother's unjust death. So there is a certain and efinite COLDNESS involved in pure ethics, in the ethical act as such. It is not an emotion we wait for, it is an ACT that is possibly (and possibly not) followed with the emotion we normally associate with "joy".
Ushta
Alexander
2009/9/15 Special Kain
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That's not a very clear answer. I know that the questions I raised are though and haven't been answered properly even within academic philosophy, but they're here to stay unless someone has a more interesting vocabulary on offer.
Could you please elaborate on Spinoza's joy as an ethical imperative and aesthetics replacing metaphysics as its foundation? And where does Spinoza make such statements? So far I only see Spinoza praising cognition in a universe that we can only experience as deterministic (without one's will interfering successfully). And where does contingency fit with this ethical imperative?
We have to be clear about these issues in order to move on and not talk past each other! The problem is far too interesting!!!
Ushta, Dino
--- Alexander Bard
Von: Alexander Bard
Betreff: Re: [Ushta] Contingency and Spinozism
An: Ushta@yahoogroups.com
Datum: Montag, 14. September 2009, 22:59
Dear Dino
I don't believe that Spinoza's "joy" was even remotely close to the everyday concept of "joy".
What Spinoza is an attitude towards life that is far from emotional. It is much closer to the Zoroastrian concept of "asha" as an ethical idea rather than a summary of the physical laws of the universe.
As such, it is ETHICALLY inreresting. Spinoza was clearly the first thinker to see radical aesthetics as a foundation for ethics. Art replacing religion as the ultimate horizon of metaphysics.
Ushta
Alexander
2009/9/14 Special Kain
The problem with this ethical imperative is its call for undifferentiated affirmation. Do we have to accept anything that is going on? How do we draw a distinction between right and wrong choices? How shall this ethical imperative include our liberal hopes for a society that's less cruel? Where shall we draw a distinction between these liberal hopes and our private desires for self-creation and experimentation? If we are to seek joy in whatever we do, doesn't this mean that we have to become "partners in crime" and joyfully take part in our hegemonizing repression? These are questions that were posed decades ago, and they're still important. I haven't found any decent thinker who would have stepped beyond them and discovered new lands.
Yes, the will is a product of drives and contingency - an idiosyncratic and fragile construct that is continually being (re-)shaped. It's a collocation and arrangement of different drives that are competing with each other - a ceasefire.
Ushta, Dino
--- Alexander Bard
Von: Alexander Bard
Betreff: Re: [Ushta] Contingency and Spinozism
An: Ushta@yahoogroups. com
Datum: Sonntag, 13. September 2009, 21:31
Excellent thinking, Dino!!!
I'm grateful that you take the time to help us look at the "Zoroastrian thinkers" of the European tradition.
I would add that Spinoza stipulates an ethical IMPERATIVE. Joy is not a product of what we do or even of us doing the right thing, but rather joy is an ORDER. We should always seek joy in what we do. In this, Spinoza is totally in line with Zarathushtra. Zarathushtra's imperative is to LOVE THE WORLD FOR WHATEVER IT IS. This is identical with the ethics of Spinoza and also with the concept of "amor fati" with Nietzsche.
The important thing with Spinoza is that he removed the concept of "will" from its central place in our belief about our selves and replaced will with "drive" which later both Nietzsche and Freud could develop further towards our understanding of who we are today. Drive is the will of the body rather than the will as in the will of consciousness. Sure there is a will too, but the will is a product of drive mixed with contingency. That's how I would put the words.
Ushta
Alexander
2009/9/13 Special Kain
The next question would be: how deterministic was Spinoza?
According to him, we can't make conscious decisions. All decisions have been made unconsciously, without involving our current state of mind based on past experiences. There are only effects, since we're ignorant of any causes.
One's will is not unconditioned, but self-control being applied in the present and learning experiences projected into the future enable us to make conscious decisions and actively create new possibilities. Linear time being objectified and disconnected from the string of current events enables us to make plans. There are constraints, yet there's contingency in the sense that we could have chosen differently. Anthony Giddens' structuration theory could be useful here (as a vocabulary grasping the interplay between determining and influencing factors and one's conscious decisions based on self-control) .
Rorty's liberal ironism is all about accepting the fact that our vocabularies aren't final at all. There will always be something new and unanticipated around the next corner.. Spinoza's proto-determinism is all about accepting fate as it is and being affected and moved by positive feelings and thoughts, throwing ourselves into experiences and encounters that increase our happiness and help us realize, no matter how frosty and nasty the reactions will be. There's no unconditioned will, but there seems to be a call for unconditional optimism (but that's too simplistic).
Accepting contingency probably means to throw ourselves into new experiences consciously and joyfully, living without regrets, searching to increase our understanding in order to refine the enjoyment of life - always being aware that any decision could have been totally wrong (according to new environments taking shape). It's probably a fight against contingency, since we're struggling to create an environment that's most stimulating and affecting.
So, these are first steps (in English), I'm not supposed to answer the question once and for all (this question is resting on centuries). Any feedback, suggestions, corrections?
Ushta, Dino
--- Alexander Bard
Von: Alexander Bard
Betreff: [Ushta] Contingency and Spinozism
An: Ushta@yahoogroups. com
Datum: Sonntag, 13. September 2009, 9:47
Excellent issue!!!
Before we dig deeper into this discussion, this is how Wikipedia defines contingency according to Richard Rorty:
1) The contingency of language
Here, Rorty argues that all language is contingent. Because only descriptions of the world can be true or false, and descriptions are made by humans, humans must make truth or falsity, as opposed to truth or falsity being determined by any innate property of the world being described. Green grass is not true or false, but "the grass is green" is. For example, I can say that 'the grass is green' and you could agree with that statement (making it true), but our use of the words to describe grass is independent of the grass itself. Without the human proposition, truth or falsity is simply irrelevant. Rorty consequently argues that all discussion of language in relation to reality should be abandoned, and that one should instead discuss vocabularies in relation to other vocabularies. .
He states that he will not exactly be making "arguments" in this book, because arguments, as communication mostly within one vocabulary, preclude novelty.
2) The contingency of selfhood
Rorty proposes that each of us has a set of beliefs whose contingency we more or less ignore, which he dubs our "final vocabulary." One of the ironist's greatest fears, according to Rorty, is that he will discover that he has been operating within someone else's final vocabulary all along; that he has not "self-created." It is his goal, therefore, to recontextualize the past that led to his historically contingent self, so that the past that defines him will be created by him, rather than creating him.
3) The contingency of a liberal community
Rorty begins this chapter by addressing critics who accuse him of irrationality and moral relativism. He asserts that accusations of irrationality are merely affirmations of vernacular "otherness." We use the term "irrational" when we come across a vocabulary that cannot be synthesized with our own, as when a father calls his son irrational for being scared of the dark, or when a son calls his father irrational for not checking under the bed for monsters. The vocabulary of "real monsters" is not shared between father and son, and so accusations of irrationality fly. As for moral relativism, for Rorty, this accusation can only be considered a criticism if one believes in a metaphysically salient and salutary moral, which Rorty firmly does not.
Rorty then discusses his liberal utopia. He gives no argument for liberalism, and believes that there have been and will be many ironists who are not liberal, but he does propose that we as members of a democratic society are becoming more and more liberal. In his utopia, people would never discuss restrictive metaphysical generalities such as "good", "moral", or "human nature", but would be allowed to communicate freely with each other on entirely subjective terms.
Rorty sees most cruelty as stemming from metaphysical questions like, "what is it to be human?", because questions such as these allow us to rationalize that some people are to be considered less than human, thus justifying cruelty to those people. In other words, we can only call someone "less than human" if we have a metaphysical "yardstick" with which to measure their prototypical human-ness.. If we deprive ourselves of this yardstick (by depriving ourselves of metaphysics altogether), we have no means with which to dehumanize anyone..
So where does that leave us? What is dear Dino's own opinion???
Ushta
Alexander
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