Pragmatism: More from Peirce

The other selections from Peirce in the book I've been reading are "How to Make Our Ideas Clear", "A Definition of Pragmatism" (probably online somewhere, but a quick search didn't find it), "Evolutionary Love" and some selections from longer works, presumably chosen because they shed light on pragmatism.

Of these three, the first is probably the most interesting. In essence, Peirce argues that the only way for an idea to be clear is to look at its effects. He doesn't use the words "testable" or "falsifiable" but it would be reasonable to think of Peirce's idea of "clarity" in those terms. He argues that if two seemingly different ideas would produce exactly the same observable effects, then those two ideas are merely different variations of the exact same idea. To a certain extent, this makes sense, but just because all predictions thusfar agree is no guarantee that all predictions will agree. Either we need to establish an isomorphism between the ideas to see why they should be the same, or we need to think some more to find a way to distinguish between the two.

In the second, I think I finally found at least part of what Heidegger was arguing about when he discussed "signs" and "signification." He repudiated it outright, and now that I've seen what he was trying to repudiate, I may have to go back and reread those pages. It's very frustrating to read a refutation of an idea when you've never actually encountered the idea itself. There are also strong hints of phenomenological thought in Peirce's writing, so I have a suspicion he may have been an influence on, say, Husserl, and probably other phenomenologists.

For the third, I'm not quite sure what to think. Essentially Peirce is attacking the "nature red in tooth and claw" interpretation that was often attached to Darwin's ideas. Not having read Darwin myself, I can't say whether that was a misunderstanding on Peirce's part or just an early idea that turned out to be an oversimplification for how evolution actually works. Peirce is arguing that there are also love, altruism and cooperation in animals, and so a model based solely on competition is inadequate to explain the diversity in nature. This is quite correct; I just don't know when, exactly, such ideas started to be widely incorporated into evolutionary theory, but they're certainly incorporated now. I'm not sure how this article fits with an intro to pragmatism, either, unless it was an example of applying pragmatic thought to the sciences.

At any rate, if you're going to read just one of the articles by Peirce, I'd recommend "The Fixation of Belief". If you want a second, I'd suggest "How to Make Our Ideas Clear". The others, so far, don't seem to add as much.

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The Stranger

We actually didn't quite make it to Albert Camus' The Stranger in Existentialism this semester. Levenson wound up making it an optional read, though he spent the last ten minutes or so of the last class discussing some of its themes. It's...a strangely compelling, yet disturbing, read. Meursault is the main character, and he is pathologically without attachment. Whatever comes his way, he accepts, and accepts without examination or thought, or even much resembling a reaction. In the middle, this leads him to kill a man.

There can be pathological detachment as well as pathological attachment. The latter is more common, so most people need to learn some distance. Meursault, though, is too detached. What came to mind when I was trying to think what bothered me about his character was a taiji reference. The goal is to relax the body, but not have it be limp: alert relaxation, we often call it. The muscles are relaxed but there is still life in them, and they can respond. Meursault only ever yields; throughout most of the book he never actually responds. "Yield and neutralize" is a decent summary of all you need to know for push-hands, but if all you ever do is yield, you eventually are pushed further and further back until your root breaks. This is a surprisingly apt description for all that happens to Meursault.

Perhaps the strangest thing about this book is how much I wanted to keep reading it, to find out what happened next. The next strangest thing is the effect the ending had on me. I don't want to spoil it, but what should by all rights have been a depressing, demoralizing ending is instead empowering and freeing, and I'm not quite sure I understand why just yet. Perhaps it's because Meursault finally responds to his situation rather than just passively accepting it. I'm not entirely certain.

I am certain that the Matthew Ward translation is excellent. It does not feel like a translation at all. The prose is brilliantly crisp.

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Last Concert of the Season

The symphony concert tonight was awesome. I knew that they were going to be doing Carmina Burana, which would have been sufficient in and of itself to make the concert great. But the first half of the concert was The Pines of Rome by Ottorino Respighi. I'm sure I'd heard the first movement before (Pines of the Villa Borghese), but I don't think I'd heard the other three movements.

The really interesting thing was during the fourth movement. There is a strong, driving beat on the kettledrum throughout this part. I had allowed the music to take me into a middling meditative state, and I noticed that my heart was beating exactly in time with the beat. It was fascinating. As the music changed tempo, my heartbeat would take a beat or so to "catch up", but it would then beat exactly in time with the music again. I'd heard such a thing was possible, but never before experienced it.

Here is the fourth movement of Pines of Rome, and here is the first song of the Carmina Burana (O Fortuna!). We sang this one when I was in senior choir in high school, as well as Fortuna Plango. I think the next year, they did Ecce Gratum. There were actually several versions on YouTube. I picked that one because it seemed to have the best vocalization. I was extremely disappointed with the Trans-Siberian Orchestra version. It needed the quiet spots to contrast with the loud.

The Carmina Burana is a somewhat odd work, in that the lyrics are all from 13th century poems. About half of it is in Latin, and the other half is in archaic German. It's a mixture of songs that glorify love and songs that despair of fate, or at least acknowledge that fate is fickle and there's no getting away from it. The overall effect, if you pay attention to the translations, is rather existential. However, the music itself is enjoyable whether or not you pay attention to the translations.

(Apologies if this is a bit incoherent; I'm short on sleep)

AM ADDENDUM: Forgot to mention this last night, but after Pines of Rome, I heard the people behind us wondering aloud how the symphony could possibly top that in the second half. I just grinned to myself. Apparently these people hadn't encountered the Carmina Burana before! (And I'll let the disconnectedness from last night stand, as I find it mildly amusing now that I'm more awake.)

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No Exit

Apparently we weren't responsible for it until next week, but I got Sartre's play No Exit read this afternoon anyway. The full text is available online if you don't mind giving scribd some basic information (fyi: I haven't had any junk mail from them; just one, solitary, registration confirmation message).

It's...strange. If you've ever heard the phrase, "Hell is other people," well, it comes from this play. These three people find themselves in a place which they know is hell, yet it's nothing like the sort of hell people usually imagine. It's a room, furnished in what the characters all agree is hideous fashion. These three people are to spend eternity stuck in this unchanging room with only each other for comfort. There's a door leading to the outer corridor, but, as soon as it opens, they all feel a strong dread of actually leaving the room, even though in the moment before they were all desperate to get away from one another.

It's...interesting, in a macabre sort of way. I don't think I'd say that I liked it, but I found it fascinating and worth reading, so I can't say that I disliked it, either.

Levenson has an interesting idea about Sartre, and all of the 20th century existentialists, actually. He said that they were all wounded, in such a way that they could never completely appreciate what he calls "the Good", yet the wound was such that they were better able to perceive the path to "the Good". I'm still pondering this, but I think there may be some truth to it (though I would use different terminology; "the Good" is how Plato's ideal is usually translated).

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Sartre: Bad Faith

We start on Sartre's Being and Nothingness on Wednesday. So far, I like Heidegger better. Yes, he's more difficult to read, but he also makes more sense. Every so often, I got a sense of depth from Sartre, but mostly it seemed extraordinarily shallow. I also found it irritating that it wasn't always clear when his examples were supposed to be general and when they were specifically intended to illustrate his understanding of "Bad Faith." I'm currently working on the assumption that they were all specific to Bad Faith, as otherwise I have to conclude that Sartre is an idiot.

For the record, my preferences thus far are (1) Heidegger, (2) Husserl, (3+) Sartre. I felt less of an urge to write on Heidegger because I agreed with 90% of the parts that made sense to me. Another 5% I reservedly agreed with, and the other 5% made me uneasy, as it seemed to presage his slide into fascism. Anyway, my journal entry for this bit of Sartre is below the fold. (FYI: I'm not going to hunt through and fix all the italics that got formatted out in the pasting.)


Sartre’s “Bad Faith”

I liked the first few paragraphs and the last section. The rest… left me puzzled, irritated, and somewhat amused.

“In irony a man annihilates what he posits within one and the same act; he leads us to believe in order not to be believed; he affirms to deny and denies to affirm; he creates a positive object but it has no being other than its nothingness.”

I like the concept of an ironic statement annihilating itself even as it is uttered. I’m not sure this is how I would characterize irony, but I can’t think of anything better at the moment.

“Take the example of a woman who has consented to go out with a particular man for the first time. She knows very well the intentions which the man who is speaking to her cherishes regarding her.” … “If he says to her, ‘I find you so attractive!’ she disarms this phrase of its sexual background.”

I find this entire discussion very strange, as I cannot conceive of not analyzing both my behavior and the behavior of the “Other” as it transpired. The passage reads as if Sartre is generalizing this encounter to all such encounters, yet later (S. III) he backtracks and indicates that there is a chance for Authentic behavior as well as behavior in Bad Faith. (picking up Heideggerian habits of capitalization…) And I’m not entirely sure what Sartre means by “transcendence” throughout this selection. It seems to have negative connotations.

“To prove that I am right would be to recognize that I can be wrong.”

Of course! That’s the whole point! If it were impossible to be wrong, no proofs, or even discussion, would be needed.

“Being sad means first to make oneself sad” … “There is no inertia in consciousness.”

I disagree completely and utterly (unless he is referring solely to the case of Bad Faith; this is unclear in the passage). Sadness arises. Sometimes it stays awhile. Sometimes it can be persuaded to leave. Sometimes it persists despite all efforts to convince it to leave, and I would call that inertia.

“But how do we distinguish my consciousness (of) being sad from sadness? Is it not all one?”

Sartre never provides a clear answer to this question, instead veering off into a discussion of Husserl and the Other. But it is possible to be sad without being conscious that one is sad. Sadness can arise, color everything in perception, and not be perceived until some time after it has arisen. Then one realizes why everything has seemed flat and stale.

“as soon as we posit ourselves as a certain being, by a legitimate judgment, based on inner experience or correctly deduced from a priori or empirical premises, then by that very positing we surpass this being—and that not toward another being but toward emptiness, toward nothing.” … “In introspection I try to determine exactly what I am, to make up my mind to be my true self without delay—even though it means consequently to set about searching for ways to change myself.”

I have a feeling that Sartre has a negative view of “nothing” in mind, rather than the more positive “wu wei” of Chinese thought. And what of the process of merely observing identity unfold without seeking to influence it or force it? If I assume Sartre is only referring to Bad Faith, I can make sense of this passage. Otherwise…

“The man who confesses that he is evil has exchanged his disturbing ‘freedom-for-evil’ for an inanimate character of evil”

This sounds like Heidegger’s notion of “idle talk”. That is, by naming what he is, the evildoer tries to lessen its import, turn it into something “average” and of no significance.

“In truth, I have not persuaded myself; to the extent that I could be so persuaded, I have always been so.”

Er, didn’t Sartre just say that there was no inertia in consciousness? And isn’t this inertia?

“To believe is to know that one believes, and to know that one believes is no longer to believe. Thus to believe is not to believe any longer because that is only to believe”

It is possible to believe something without realizing that you believe it. For example, I believe that there are no invisible giant spiders hanging over my head, though I didn’t know that I believed it until I formulated the thought. And, yes, I am now considering the possibility that there are invisible giant spiders hanging over my head, and I still don’t believe that this is the case (though, in fact, I can’t prove it; a la Quine, I could modify my description of the invisible giant spiders to justify any lack of empirical evidence, if I was so-minded, to preserve the possibility that they were there).

“Thus belief is a being which questions its own being, which can realize itself only in its destruction, which can manifest itself to itself only by denying itself.” … “one never wholly believes what one believes.”

Here, I think he’s trying to get at the notion that to assert, “I believe X” is to implicitly acknowledge the possibility of “not X”. However, I think Sartre’s characterization goes farther than this. (once again, unless he is specifically referring only to Bad Faith, which he never really makes clear)


“But the first act of bad faith is to flee what it cannot flee, to flee what it is.”

And finally something I can agree with without reservation. Denying-what-is is the first step away from that-which-is.

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First Paper of the Semester...

...is now in a semi-final draft format. I need to read through it after a night's sleep to make sure it's coherent (particularly since "incoherency" is part of the title). It's for my political philosophy class, and I almost wound up using one of the tentatively suggested topics. Almost. I had thought about contrasting Locke and Montesquieu on the role of monarchy, but I couldn't get into the topic enough. One of the suggested topics was to contrast the views of Rousseau and Mill on the role of dispute in a democracy. I wound up arguing that an official system of censorship was incoherent in a democracy, using Montesquieu, Rousseau and Mill as sources. So my topic is very closely related to the suggested topic, but with a different primary focus.

Next paper of the semester will be an in-class "midterm experience" for existentialism; Levenson doesn't like the word "exam" or "test", and uses them only reluctantly. Thus it will be a "midterm experience" not a "midterm exam."

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More on Heidegger

We started discussing Heidegger in class today, and spent close to half the time pondering what his connection to Naziism might mean. Levenson's take on it is that the tragedy of Heidegger is that he misread and misapplied his own philosophy, since Being and Time indicates that every person is an entire world (in some sense), and so destroying a person is destroying an entire world.

I'm not sure about that conclusion, as every so often I got the impression there was something ominous buried deeply under the words in Being and Time, but I've only made it through the introduction and the first two chapters thusfar. Levenson also indicated that Heidegger's later work contained some softening, and, perhaps, "rectification", which suggests to me that his earlier work was not quite ... right, yet.

I'm not ready yet to write about Heidegger's ideas, but here's what the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's article on Existentialism has to say about Heidegger's politics:

Heidegger suggests that it was this concept of historicality that underwrote his own concrete political engagement during the period of National Socialism in Germany. Disgusted with the political situation in Weimar Germany and characterizing it as especially irresolute or inauthentic, Heidegger looked upon Hitler's movement as a way of recalling the German people back to their “ownmost” possibility—i.e., a way for Germany to constitute itself authentically as an alternative to the political models of Russia and the United States. Heidegger's choice to intervene in university politics at this time was thus both a choice of himself—in which he chose his hero: Plato's “philosopher-king” (see Arendt 1978)—and a choice for his “generation.” Much is controversial about Heidegger's engagement for National Socialism (not least whether he drew the appropriate consequences from his own concept of authenticity), but it provides a clear example of a kind of existential politics that depends on an ability to “tell time”—that is, to sense the imperatives of one's factic historical situation. Heidegger later became very suspicious of this sort of existential politics. Indeed, for the idea of authenticity as resolute commitment he substituted the idea of a “letting-be” (Gelassenheit) and for engagement the stance of “waiting.” He came to believe that the problems that face us (notably, the dominance of technological ways of thinking) have roots that lie deeper than can be addressed through politics directly. He thus famously denied that democracy was sufficient to deal with the political crisis posed by technology, asserting that “only a god can save us” (Heidegger 1981:55, 57). But even here, in keeping with the existential notion of historicity, Heidegger's recommendations turn on a reading of history, of the meaning of our time. (S.E.P. Existentialism)

Sartre, too, took the call to authenticity as a call to political action, for whatever that's worth. He, however, did not manage to join a group that gained any lasting notoriety.

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Heidegger: Being and Time

I was rather dreading starting to read this one, but I've made it through the introduction and I actually enjoyed it. I particularly like that the translation we're using makes comments about the way that certain phrases and terms were translated. The idea of the book seems to be to examine what it means "to be." That appeals to me, much like Quine's attempt to determine what "meaning" means appealed to me. I like to see people going at the very basic, fundamental concepts, and I'm particularly fond of it when they rip the foundations right from under them.

Full disclosure, Heidegger was a member of the Nazi party in Germany. I've encountered the view that this was a move of sheer expediency/safety on his part, and the view that he wholeheartedly embraced the party, plus several in-between views. I have no idea which is the case, and intend to take the work on its own merits, whatever they may be.

So far I haven't thought much about the work itself, but it got me thinking about space and being for a while, and I had this odd sort of "vision" ... If we think of all matter/energy/etc. as little vibrating strings (a la string theory), and consider that their forms might rise and fall and recombine somewhat at random, it seems like a stable form might arise, and not be broken back down. Then if a stable form capable of "nudging" the other wavelets into similar forms arose, we'd have an explosion of whatever that form was (say matter, for the sake of argument). Then matter would find stable forms, then stable forms capable of producing copies of themselves, etc. I found it a rather beautiful, enlightening image. Particularly when I tried to picture a human body as made up of all these vibrating wavelets.

Of course, a vision proves absolutely nothing, but I find it worth pondering.

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Existential Musings, III

This is likely our last selection from Husserl before we move on to Heidegger. I'm not sure that all of it comes from the same document (Dr. Levenson did a lot of cutting and pasting on his photocopy), but at least some of it is from Husserl's Cartesian Meditations.


“if what belongs to the other’s own essence were directly accessible, it would be merely a moment of my own essence.” I think this is trying to get at the idea that we cannot perceive anything directly from any point of view but our own … which begs the question of how we know for certain that any point of view but our own actually exists.

“what is appresented by virtue of the aforesaid analogizing can never attain actual presence, never become an object of perception proper.” Similar to the previous point: if another’s point of view exists, we will never be able to perceive it directly. We can only perceive apparent results of that point of view, and infer its existence. However, if Husserl wants to build a certain foundation for knowledge, this sort of inference requires an awful lot of assumptions.

“I, as the primordial psychophysical Ego, am always prominent in my primordial field of perception, regardless of whether I pay attention to myself and turn toward myself with some activity or other.” In most cases, I would tend to agree, but I know of at least one exception. Push-hands. You cannot do push hands well while being aware of ‘I’. Instead, all of your focus is on your partner, your partner’s movements, your partner’s balance. In that instance, when push-hands is happening correctly, there is no ego. There is only the moment and the movement. After a good exchange, the ego can come back and analyze it, so it is in the background somewhere, recording data, but it is not “prominent in my primordial field of perception.” There is no conscious awareness; there is only the movement and the response. Somewhere underneath the ego, there is something that is aware, but it is not the ego: the ego is continually surprised by the resulting exchanges. Don had a student who became supremely frustrated with this; he’d say things like, “But I wanted to do it!” To me, that misses the point entirely. While absorbed in the ego, one cannot be completely aware of and one with the moment.*

“my animate bodily organism (in my primordial sphere) has the central ‘Here’ as its mode of givenness; every other body, / and accordingly the ‘other’s’ body, has the mode ‘There’.” Brings to mind a zen quote: “The fundamental delusion of humanity is to suppose that I am here and you are out there.” ~ Yasutani Roshi

* And suddenly it dawns on my why the concept of a "personal god" makes no sense at all to me. In order to have a personal god, the ego, the personality, must be prominent, and that requires such a god be unaware of the actual moments. I suspect "all-powerful" would be the rallying cry for those who object, yet that, too, is an idea of ego. When the ego is the least of that-which-is-myself, why should I take seriously a god who seems to consist only of ego?

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Existential Musings, II

Our reading consisted of selections from Husserl's Phenomenology: Eternal Time Conscious, some of which is available on Google Books. I found myself arguing less with this selection than with the previous one.

“the duration of the sound apprehended in the now … constantly sinks back into the past and an ever new point of duration enters into the now or is now” Very nice, very zen. Recognition that this instant, this moment, is all we ever directly perceive.

“the further we withdraw from the now, however, the greater the blending and drawing together” The further we get from a particular moment, the more it blends into all the other moments surrounding it, blends in. For ordinary moments, perhaps, yet some moments can be brought to mind nearly as clearly as they were in the instant of experience. So there’s something missing in this formulation.

“the way in which we are conscious of it [the immanent Object] as actually present or as past” What about memory-objects that are so vivid that they almost seem to be present? What about hallucinations that occur in the present?

Interestingly, he hits on the idea of a time-cone, albeit from a different direction (and intention) than that of relativity (i.e. that our sphere of experience is limited by the speed of light, as is our sphere of influence: events can only radiate out from us at the speed of light): “every subsequent phase of running-off is itself a continuity, and one constantly expanding, a continuity of pasts.” Tangent: What is the speed of time? What do I even mean by that? Er, what determines how fast time passes? We know that gravity can slow time, as can any massive grouping of energy or mass. Yet in the near-absence of mass and energy, time doesn’t seem to speed up to infinitely fast: the opposite of it seeming to stop at the event-horizon of a black hole. Would it go to infinity in the complete absence of mass or energy or space? Would that mean nothing happening or everything happening all at once? Or something else entirely that I can’t begin to imagine?

“Since a new now is always presenting itself, each now is changed into a past, and thus the entire continuity of the running-off of the pasts of the preceding points movie uniformly ‘downward’ into the depths of the past.” Not to the Chinese. The Chinese language has the past “above” and the future “below.” So you descend through time, and the past rises behind you, as if going down a staircase. To be honest, I’ve tended to think of it more as flat, just moving straight along an axis in the t-direction. I wonder if the Chinese would want to orient the t-axis vertically, with the future down…

“It is not true that lengthwise along the flux each earlier retention is merely replaced by a new one, even though it is a continuous process. Each subsequent retention, rather, is not merely a continuous modification arising from the primal impression but a continuous modification of the same beginning point.” This is good. It is a good description of the way that memories can alter as they are maintained. At least, I’m assuming that “retention” is to be interpreted as “retention of a previous now”, i.e. “memory.”

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Phenomenology

There are things that I really like about phenomenology, things that I find strange, and things that make no sense to me. This post is mostly going to be me rambling about some of these.

The idea, as I understand it, is that the one thing 'I' can be certain of is that while I am experiencing X, I am experiencing X. Husserl seems to take it further, to say that I can be certain that I have experienced X if I can remember experiencing X. However, there is still the possibility of some sort of Last Thursdayism, and that my memories are false. This may be why Husserl spends a great deal of time discussing time, and the phenomenology thereof.

I also find it strange that language itself is "allowed" to be used. I mean, take a word, like "jar." What do I experience when I read that word? I see a series of shapes. Those shapes I experience as connected to a sound and to a meaning. Why? Why should those particular shapes connect to those particular sounds and that particular meaning? Ah... I just figured out what's been bugging me. There is no why in phenomenology. There is only the experience. There is only "what", and, possibly, "when" and "where". It provides no explanation.

That's not to say that it has no practical use. I can think of plenty of places where a phenomenological approach would probably improve things vastly (medicine comes to mind). But I don't like the tendency to treat it as a be-all and end-all in itself. It is very useful to recognize what you've actually experienced vs. what you have inferred/assumed/etc. about the experiences. It is not so useful, to my way of thinking, to assume that the experience you had is all that there really is. We were talking about experiencing the "stream of time" today in class, and a Zen quote kept coming to mind: "Jump into the river of time and swim, instead of standing on the banks and noting the currents!" (as best I remember the quote) Phenomenology seems to be a bit too enamored with watching the currents.

The funny thing is that there's a strong relationship between the phenomenological viewpoint (Husserl's Transcendental Subjectivity) and the eastern notion of detachment. Yet in the latter case, I feel no objection; it makes sense to me. The way it's been described thusfar, transcendental subjectivity seems too detached somehow, to the point that I just might understand why some people have trouble with the notion of detachment. It may just be that the language that Husserl uses makes his version seem colder. I'm not sure.

The other zen quote that kept coming to mind tonight (again, as best I remember it) was, "Before I gained enlightenment, mountains were mountains. While I was seeking enlightenment, mountains were not mountains. After I gained enlightenment, mountains were mountains again." Phenomenology seems to be in a "mountains may or may not be mountains" stage, of just reporting what the experience of some collection of sense-data labeled a "mountain" is like.

I think that's the last of my coherency on the subject for tonight.

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Existential Musings, I

Part of the course requirements for Existentialism is that we keep a journal of thoughts that occur to us as we're reading at least some of the texts. I have a funny feeling that I'm going to have to do a lot of cutting and pasting, as he wanted about 20 pages, double-spaced, and after reading half of one article, I've got 2.25 pages, single spaced, so about 4.5 double-spaced.

The reading consisted of selections from Husserl's Paris Lecture, and the first part was pages 2 through 10 as available on google-books. Interestingly, he advised that we not read both sections in one sitting, which I found odd, as the first part wasn't that difficult a read (much easier than Quine, for instance, or Heidegger, who was one of Husserl's students). Anyway, my random musings are below the fold. Mostly I just noted a quote of interest and typed "out loud" about it.


“absolute foundation for knowledge” … What does “absolute” mean? Unable to be doubted? Certain? Perfect? I don’t know. And I don’t think that it is necessary. What is necessary is that all presuppositions accompanying a supposed piece of knowledge be examined and brought to light. If one is found wanting, then the piece of “knowledge” must be re-examined, to see if it can survive without that particular presupposition. Quine realized that even things which are considered known truths based on their meanings alone could be called into question. A qualifier is needed: given a particular set of definitions and an understood grammar, certain statements are known truths based on the definitions and the grammar.

“It is the spirit of science to count nothing as really scientific which cannot be fully justified by the evidence.” In one sense, yes… in another, absolutely not. Nothing in science is ever considered to be “fully justified”. There is always room for doubt, always room for the possibility that new evidence may arise and force us to throw out the old conclusion. Still, it is true that evidence must exist that supports the scientific hypothesis, and that the more evidence that exists in harmony with the hypothesis, the more confident we are in that hypothesis. But we always must leave room for the possibility that we’ve missed something. “fully justified” implies that it is certain and settled, that there is no room for doubt; i.e. we’re back to “absolute.”

“we, the beginning philosophers, make it a rule to judge only by the evidence.” What counts as evidence? Are thought-experiments “evidence” or merely suggestive? Are subjective experiences evidence, or must there exist others who can confirm X for it to count as evidence? In general in science, “evidence” must be equally available to all, in the sense that anyone with the same equipment and the same test subject would get the same results. If everyone gets different results, that, too, is evidence, but now the differences need to be explained before the results can mean anything.

“We can no longer say that the world is real — a belief that is natural enough in our ordinary experience — instead, it merely makes a claim to reality.” If the world makes a claim, then it presumably must exist to make the claim. So can things exist without actually being real? Presumably this is where Husserl gets the reality of the phenomena: they make a claim to reality on him, so the phenomena themselves must exist, whatever their correct interpretation must be. Sidetrack: Hallucinations also make a claim to reality. They also are phenomena. Can we label them as having the same degree of reality as other phenomena? Generally there is something that is observable going on in the brain/blood chemistry to cause the hallucination, but it must be measured by a machine, almost certainly operated by someone not experiencing the hallucination. Supposing that the hallucinatory is so far gone that he/she is unaware of the machine and cannot observe its results, would the hallucination then be real to that person and the machine not? Is there an observer-independent reality? Husserl’s early comments about science notwithstanding, the lack of an at least mostly observer-independent reality would render science useless.

“On the contrary, it is precisely the phonomena themselves which, without excption, render possible for me the very existence of both reality and appearance.” If the observed phenomena are all that is real, how is it meaningful to distinguish between reality and appearance? And in the same paragraph, “I no longer judge regarding the distinction between reality and appearance.”

“I must similarly abstain from any other of my opinions judgments, and valuations of the world.” Is not the decision to abstain also a phenomenon? Is not the decision to adopt a phenomenological framework also a phenomenon?

“ubiquitous detachment from any point of view regarding the objective world” also a phenomenon. Also implies that there is an objective world which might differ from the phenomena. Something in all this strikes me as circular. It’s one thing to decide to take all observed phenomena at face value, and just examine them. It’s another to claim that this is in any way detached.

“Everything in the world, all spatio-temporal being, exists for me because I experience it, because I perceive it, remember it, think of it in any way, judge it, value it, desire it, etc.” (emph. mine) Then would we say that if I experience the sight of a dragon in my living room, which no one else reports, that dragon is real for me? I would say yes, but I’m not sure that’s particularly helpful in coming up with a basis for knowledge, as Husserl seems to want to do.

“I cannot live, experience, think, value, and act in any world which is not in some sense in me, and derives its meaning and truth from me.” Seems to presuppose that the phenomena are all that exist, and so whatever meaning they induce in the one experiencing them is automatically true. Thus he has exchanged an assumption of an external world for the assumption of a solely internal one. Yes, the internal world must be considered, but it seems vacuous to allow it to be the sole world, and to allow that all truth depends on the person experiencing…whatever. It seems to be advocating an extreme form of relativism.

“I do not exist as a human being … But through all this I have discovered my true self. I have discovered that I alone am the pure ego, with pure existence and pure capacities.” I suspect part of the problem here is the simple limitations on language for discussing these ideas, but what is the ‘I’ of which he writes? He identifies it with himself, but is there really an ‘I’? Is there really an ‘ego’? If there is no ‘I’, how can ‘I’ be the pure ego? I think what he means to say is that the ‘I’ goes away when it is sought, and seems to expand into pure existence. (could also be a translation issue)

“Consciousness is always consciousness of something.” Agreed. But isn’t consciousness itself a phenomenon? Likewise, consciousness of consciousness being a phenomenon, is itself a phenomenon.

“the concrete contents of experience, precisely as these are experienced” Oh, good. Concrete. Another synonym for absolute. This passage also presupposes the existence of adequate language for describing experience, and the existence of adequate memory of said experience and the existence of adequate processing power so that every aspect of the experience can be held in awareness. Recent research indicates that when we remember something, our memory of it will change. Our brains function on the “Save As” modality.

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Dimension Mismatch Error(s)

Admittedly, I tend to overuse this phrase, but it's literally applicable in this instance:

Results 1 - 4 of about 2

It doesn't much matter what phrase I was searching for. I can see the point of Google rounding down the number of results when it's in the hundreds or higher, but this? I don't get it. Oh, but that just reminded me of a beautifully odd segement from my Existentialism class:

All respectable ants begin with the ant-hill, and they will probably end with it too, which does great credit to their constancy and their positive characters. But man is a fickle and disreputable creature and, perhaps like a chess player, is interested in the process of attaining his goal rather than the goal itself. And who knows, (nobody can say with certainty), perhaps man's sole purpose in this world consists in this uninterrupted process of attainment, or in other words in living, and not specifically in the goal, which of course must be something like twice two is four, that is, a formula; but after all, twice two is four is not life, genetlemen, but the beginning of death. At least man has always feared this 2 x 2 = 4 formula and I still fear it.

...

Twice two is four is, in my opinion, nothing but impudence. 'Two and two make four' is like a cocky young devil standing across your path with arms akimbo and a defiant air. I agree that two and two make four is an excellent thing; but to give everything its due, two and two make five is also a very fine thing.

~Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground pg 40-41

I fixed a few typos that were on the typed sheet Dr. Levenson handed out, and made it clear that there was a substantial amount of text where the ellipsis is. Somewhere between a third and a quarter of a page, anyway. It's a very odd bit of text. Levenson picked it as portraying existential dread and/or defiance. Btw, two and two don't always make four. Particularly if you put two electrons with two positrons. They make zero! 2 cups of water mixed with 2 cups of alcohol does not result in four cups of liquid. And in Z₃, 2 and 2 make 1. ^/^


ADDENDUM: I just found another one:

No Active Advisories (US Severe Weather)
Dense fog advisory in effect from 8 PM this evening to 11 am MST Saturday...

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