The Myth of Descartes

Rene Descartes is regarded as the father of modern philosophy. So what is what is Descartes contribution to philosophy? Why is Descartes regarded as the father of modern philosophy? Does he deserve the title? In order to understand Descartes we must destroy, what I call the "freshman understanding of philosophy". And we must understand Descartes method an his crowning achievement. To do the above we must know what Descartes aim. Before continuing I must acknowledge some intellectual debts. I have received much needed help from two individuals. I am indebted to Steve Barboni, a professor of philosophy at S.D.S.U. for the many pleasant and productive discussions we have had on seventeenth century philosophy. The other person I wish to thank is Rutger Hadge a grad. student at S.D.S.U. for giving me the final puzzle piece to the Cartesian method. We shall start with the freshman understanding of philosophy; I call it this, because it is how Descartes is taught in Introductory classes of philosophy. The trouble with the freshman understanding of philosophy is that people who go on to the higher levels of philosophy (including the PhD. level) seem to still subscribe to it. The way the freshman understanding of philosophy is inscribed into people is by thinking the "Second Meditation" is sufficient to understanding Descartes. Before examining the "Second Meditation we must understand Descartes goal for his philosophy. What he was trying to accomplish.Descartes' goal was to come up with a philosophy of science, or as it was called in his day, a philosophy of discovery. Descartes was first and foremost a philosopher of science, interested in practical results. Descartes was not a logic chopping metaphyscian. This is made clear in his writings where he insists that abstractions must have consequences, and condemns in the harshest terms "useless abstractions". For Descartes ideas or abstractions had to have a pragmatic function. When reading Descartes one gets the impression that ideas are like little levers that humans can manipulate for their benefit. If abstractions do not have a practical aspect they are useless. Descartes' goal was to find a method to produce ideas with consequences, abstractions that have pragmatic value. This is the purpose of the Cartesian method. Now we can begin to understand the "Second Meditation". So what is Descartes doing in the "Second Meditation"? What he is doing is showing off his methods ability to solve problems. To understand why there is so much metaphysics in the "Second Meditation" we must understand that there is an intellectual gulf between Newton and Descartes even though the were not separated by many years. Descartes, unlike Newton, had to lay a metaphysical groundwork for his theories, he could not start from givens or occult qualities like Newton. It also must be said that Newton's "Principia" would never have been written without Descartes' "Principles of Philosophy". So let us go right to the parable or myth of the "Second Meditation" that of Descartes sitting by his stove in a dressing gown calmly laying down the first principles of philosophy. Nothing could be further form the truth of Descartes. Descartes was high strung and highly emotional he did not calmly sit around when he had ideas. He tells us of the great excitement and enthusiasm that came over him on November 10, 1619 when he discovered his method. The parable or myth is a demonstration, and advertisement for his method. Before going on let us go Descartes explaining his method in the"Discourse on Method":( taken from "The Philosophical Writings of Descartes Vol 1" Cambridge university press 1985): "The first was never to accept anything as true if I did not have evident knowledge of its truth: that is carefully to avoid precipitate conclusions and preconceptions,and to include nothing more in my judgements than what presented itself to my mind so clearly and distinctly that I had no occasion to doubt it. The second to divide each of the difficulties I examined into as many parts as possible and as may be required in order to resolve them better. The third to direct my thoughts in an orderly manner, by beginning, with the simplest and most easily known objects in order to ascend little by little, step by step, to knowledge of the most complex, and by supposing some order even among objects , that have no natural order of precedence. And lastly, throughout to make enumerations so complete, and review so comprihensive that I could sure of leaving nothing out." It should be clear that Descartes' method is a way of thinking to create ideas or abstractions that have consequences or practical value. As I said earlier Rutger Hadge gave me the final puzzle piece when in a discussion he compared Descartes' method with trouble shooting algorithm. what Descartes did was to invent reverse engineering. Of course, people like Galileo, and Gilbert were using reverse engineering before Descartes, but the credit must go Descartes, he was the first to explain, systematize, and abstract the method out of practice. The same as the Pythagorean theorem. The ancient Egyptians were using the Pythagorean theorem before Pythagoras did the same for it. The genius of both Descartes,and Pythagoras was to abstract a theory out of practice to be universally used.Descartes claims a universal validity for his method. Most ideas originate in practice before they become theory. When we deep this in mind while reading Descartes' "Second Meditation" the parable becomes pellucid. As I said before Descartes does not have the luxury of skipping metaphysics. He has to do more than describe and quantize the world, Descartes had to show why things worked the way they do. So Descartes must first give us first principles or a metaphysical ground. It must also be said this is the weakest part of Descartes philosophy. Descartes recommended to his readers and correspondents not to get hung up on the metaphysics; so let us begin. The first thing Descartes needs for his foundation is a subject, and God. The subject is the famous 'cogito" a thinking thing to comprehend, for Descartes purpose he uses himself. Descartes needs God to establish eternal laws governing nature. God is the basis for laws, he holds them into existence eternally. Descartes of course gets God by using the ontological argument, which I am going to skip over. with the ontological argument Descartes has his subject the thinking thing, and the object the laws of nature. Enough has been said about the ontological argument already. In keeping with his method of reverse engineering he starts with mind. The next thing Descartes does is his famous substance dualism. Mind is the key of his dualism. Most students of Descartes wonder why did Descartes separation of mind and body is so radical. the reason is that Descartes may be the first philosopher who needs freedom for his epistemology to work. Descartes needs mind to be separate from body, because for Descartes matter of body is completely mechanistic; like a line of falling dominoes. Descartes has to exempt mind from causality, in order for there to be new inventions and new discoveries. He needs causality in matter, and freedom in body, so mind can become a causal agent. Matter or body is what the works on to achieve its ends. Descartes definitely has a view from outside.In reading Descartes the reader gets the impression that mind somehow hovers over matter in order to manipulate matter for its goals.This is a big step. For the Classical Greeks and the Scholastics freedom or in determinism was a bad thing. The Medieval Scholastics regarded freedom in a very limited sense; either one accepts the faith or one does not. In other words free will was only the freedom to make a mistake. Remember Thomas Aquinas' essence and existence. Essence is determined, while existence is indeterminate. Again the freedom not to follow the form, to make a mistake. Descartes realized the freedom to make a mistake is also the freedom to come up with something new. We know Descartes spent much of his time in Holland working on life extension. Of course Descartes did not realize the primitive state of science at his time. And Descartes was an optimist. This is why matter or body is determined and mind is free.The mind in order to invent new things must be a causal agent: free. Otherwise there is no philosophy of discovery. This is one of the things that distinguish Descartes form Spinoza. Descartes view is from the outside, while Spinoza has a view form the inside. I will have more to say on this later, but now back to Descartes' philosophy. Once Descartes gets the tools he needs, he moves to body; the famous piece of wax. Where he demonstrates how his method can create useful abstractions. The useful abstractions to understand the material world. Abstractions to collect, enumerate, and to synthesize, and to put into practice. In other works Descartes method. The freshman understanding misses the whole point of Descartes philosophy; which is practical. There is much more to Descartes than the "Second Meditation". The whole goal of Descartes' philosophy is to create useful abstractions. To sum up what is Descartes place in philosophy. In my opinion Descartes was much like Plato, or Nietzsche, he left a collection of fragmentary writings others would attempt to synthesize into a system. Descartes can truly be called the father of modern philosophy.

Critical Remarks on Political Science

There are tree theories of government in political science: the divine right of Kings, the social contract theory, and the utilitarian theory; all are false, yet each contains some truth. All the above theories are false for the same reason, they are abstractions. It is the nature of abstractions to magnify a part, thus distorting other elements. The trouble happens when the distorted parts of the subject are not recognized as distorted, or even worse dismissed as not existing. An analogy would be magnifying glass, by making a part bigger and more distinct it distorts and the other parts of the object. In this essay I shall attempt a new method to observe and explain the origins and function of government. When I say new method I overstate, it is not new but a novel approach to the subject. The subject being the "why" and "how" peoples gather together to form cultures that can become nations, or states. The approach taken in this essay is an inverse of the usual method. Instead of moving from sensation, and emotions to abstractions; an attempt shall be made the sensations, and emotions that lead to abstractions. Not only is this method not new, it is currently in wide use. The problem being that this method is not recognized as valid. While there is a term for moving to a higher level of abstraction "sublate" there is no term for moving from higher abstractions to lower abstractions, or sensation and emotion. This shows an unconscious bias in thinking, even though half the population regularly tries to communicate by moving from abstraction to shared emotion. I am of course, referring to male-female communications. the main reason men fail to understand women is that women often communicate through shared emotions, instead of universally held abstractions. As Novalis said: "Women demand the intellectual be sensualized" and vice versa for men. Is this a masculine bias in thinking? I shall leave that to feminist theorists to decide. The true basis of culture, society, and government is a combination of shared emotion, and instinct. By instinct I am referring to primate politics, which is innate in human nature. The two specifics that shall be examined are the territorial imperative, and the pecking order, that shall henceforward be referred to as the hierarchical imperative. These two factors the territorial imperative, and the hierarchical imperative are an immutable part of human nature, and any theory that seeks to deny, or change these factors is doomed to failure. It must be acknowledged that I have some intellectual debts to pay in this endeavor. In philosophy the names: Oswald Spengler, Julius Evola, and A.N. Whitehead must be mentioned. In his book "Modes of Thought" Whitehead uses the term "mood" to describe the shared emotions of a culture or civilization. That each culture is a shared mood by a people. On the side of anthropology I must acknowledge Desmond Morris and his book "The Naked Ape'. In history I am indebted to H. Katouzian for his book "The Persians" and specifically to the brilliant introduction. Also before proceeding the terms "culture' and "civilization" need some definition. These definitions are loose by necessity. Civilization is the history of successive or parallel cultures in a geographic area. The two examples that shall be used in this essay are Western civilization, and Middle Eastern civilization. Western civilization is comprised of two cultures: the Classical culture of the Greeks and Romans, and the present day Christian culture that was developed in the Middle Ages. We in fact are a late Medieval people, although in a late and decadent phase of the culture. The present challenge of the West is can it create a new culture to replace the falling Christian culture. Middle Eastern civilization compromises more cultures than the West. The only two that we shall be concerned with are the ancient Persian culture which comprises Achaemenid Persia to the Sassanid empire, and the present Islamic culture of the Middle East. As with Western civilization, Middle Eastern civilization is also failing. The challenge for the Middle East is can it create a culture that can accommodate modern technology and ideas. The Middle East has been dragged into the the crisis of the West, even though the have dealt with the crisis in a different way. Culture is a metaphysical construct, that is the result of the dialectic between human nature and geography. Culture results when humans accommodate themselves to a geographic location (a Land). We shall start with the territorial imperative. Humans like other animals mark their territory. This is of course, the origin of ownership, and property rights. If the occupation of a land is not interrupted by natural or human disasters, the occupation results in a homeland, and has the possibility to become a nation. Our closest relative in the primate family, the chimpanzee also exhibits the territorial imperative. Chimpanzee troops have been known to go to war to defend or enlarge their territory. Chimpanzee troops also have the hierarchical imperative, but let us stay with the territorial imperative. As was said animals mark their territory to warn off invaders. It is easy to recognize the same behavior in humans: building walls, fortresses, etc. Another more subtle way that humans mark territory is through religion. The metaphysical construct of culture is usually embodied in a peoples religion. Religion is the best indicator of the mood of a people. Religion is where a people interrupt their relationship with the cosmos. Of course, this all starts with a particular geographic area. So churches, temples, and mosques become territorial markers. History is full of examples of conquerors building victory temples, churches, and mosques to commemorate their conquests. This is also easily illustrated by religious symbols. One peoples venerated symbols, become symbols of fear and hatred to a competing culture. A modern example of the emotional depth generated by symbols is Saudi Arabia, where it is illegal for a cross or a star of David to be visible. The cross and star of David are symbols of cultures that have competed with Islam for control of territory in the Middle East. As is the case in reverse where the Islamic crescent is feared, and hated in many Christian lands that have suffered under Islamic rule, or aggression. Western civilization and Middle Eastern civilization have often been in conflict, thus making them good examples. The reason why Persia was picked as an example is worth a digression. The reason Persia from the Achaemenid to the Sassanid empires was picked as the archetypal culture was for two reasons. The two principal reasons are the arid climate of Iran is characteristic of the Middle East, and the Sassanid empire was the first developed culture conquered by Islam. The influence of Zorasterinism on Islam is immense, and should be further explored. So to examine the hierarchical imperative we shall illustrate with examples drawn from Persia and the cultures of the West. Unlike Europe , Iran's arid climate did not allow for a land owning nobility to emerge. As was said before it is impossible to separate the two imperatives. Without a hereditary nobility, the ruler of ancient Persia had what is called "estebdad" translated as " arbitrary power" or "arbitrary rule". In simpler terms there was no check on the power of the ruler. He could arbitrarily appoint anyone he chose as governors, or government officials. Remember it was the Barons that forced the Magna Carta on King John of England. No such force existed to check the power of the Shah. This is why stability in government was always an issue in the Persian empires. If the ruler was strong he was considered a just ruler, if not he was weak and there was chaos. In times of crisis there was no noble class to step up and defend the lands. This is why Persian rule collapsed like a house of cards, as do present Middle Eastern governments. Even though a hereditary land owning class put checks on the rulers authority, nobles are the first to defend a land or government in foreign invasions and time so unrest. Noble also have an interest in insuring a stable transition of power. There was no law governing succession in ancient Persia. The usual method was fratricide, or blinding rivals. An interesting example of this is the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II the Conqueror. Mehmed gave some thought to what would happen upon his death. Instead of trying to instate some law governing succession, he legalized fratricide. This illustrates one of the sources of conflict between the West and Middle East since the time of Herodotus. Whether to be governed by laws or men. Iran did not have a revolution for constitutional government until 1906. The Turks until the 1920s with Mustapha Kemal. This should be a lesson to Marxists and progressives without inheritable property rights there is arbitrary rule. This is why the Soviet Union also fell apart like a house of cards, there was no land owning class to defend the government. If a people cannot own property in the land they inhabit, they have no stake in the government of the land. A rootless society leads to an unstable society governed by arbitrary power. We now move to submission signals and the hierarchical imperative. Submission signals cannot be separated from the hierarchical imperative, although in practice they range from shows of respect to ritual humiliation. Chimpanzees will extend a hand, possibly to signify that it can be bitten or assume a prostrate position to signal submission. The act of saluting is a show of respect, probably derived form Knights lifting the visors of their helmets, thus signalling the person they were interacting with was a friend. Having to lay prostrate in front of a ruler is of course ritual humiliation. The more rule by law exists in a culture the less the ritual humiliation. As was stated before Iran and Turkey did not have constitutional governments before the early twentieth century, and most Middle Eastern countries were even later in adopting constitutional government. So we should expect to find ritual humiliation much more prevalent in Middle Eastern civilization, and in this we are not disappointed. The culture of the present day Middle East is Islam. The term "Islam" is defined as submission. Islam was heavily influenced by the ancient Persian religion of Zorastrism, it is hard to overestimate the influence of the Sassanid empire on Islam. Praying five times a day comes from Zorastranism and not the Quran. Muslims pray by touching their foreheads to the ground. It should be no problem recognizing this as ritual humiliation.The act of prostrating oneself to an authority figure signals that the authority figure has total power over the supplicant. Ritual humiliation has a long history in Persian society. As early as Herodotus we read about the act of giving Earth and Water to show submission to the Shah. This ritual of giving Earth and Water was done by laying prostrate in front of the Shah, while dirt and water were poured on the floor with the prostrate supplicant. Again there should be no problem recognizing ritual humiliation. Islamic society has a rigid hierarchy that is enforced through ritual humiliation. The Tizayah or the pole tax is an example. Everyone is aware that non Muslims are expected to pay a special tax, but it is often forgotten that the tax also came with ritual humiliation for the members of other religions. An example can be found in the proclamation of the Ottoman Sultan Murad IV (1623-1640) (taken form C. Finkel's book: "Osman's Dream") : "Insult and humiliate infidels in garment, clothing and manner of dress according to Muslim law and imperial statue. Henceforward, do not allow them to mount a horse, wear sable fur, sable fur caps, satin and silk velvet. Do not allow infidels and Jews to about in Muslim manner and garment. Hinder and remove these kinds. Do not lose a minute in executing the order I have proclaimed." It is instructive and illustrative to compare this proclamation with what was happening in the West. In England the issues were being debater that would lead to the English Civil War. This was the era of Hobbes and Locke. In the Islamic hierarchy Jews are at the bottom, women and non Muslims are below Muslim men as laid out in Sharia law. Islam divides the world into two parts those that have submitted (Muslims) and those who have not (non-Muslims). Those who have not are in the House of War. Even the briefest acquaintance with Islamic history shows that the defeated are suppose to be humiliated. Islam not only allows slavery,but encourages it even sex slavery on defeated populations. Women and children are the prizes of war. Anyone wishing to pursue the subject of ritual humiliation in Islam can find countless examples in Sharia law where the hierarchy is clearly spelled out, and in Islam's treatment of women. It should be noted that Islam did not originate most of these practices, but inherited them from the older culture of Sassanid Persia. Islam was influence by Sassanid Persia on its most basic levels. As was already state the proscription to pray five times a day comes form Zorastrianism. Other Persian customs would be the blinding of rivals, this can be observed in present day London with its epidemic of acid attacks, and the doctrine of eternal war with the West. All are inheritances from Persia. Lets us go back to the beginning where I stated that the three main theories of government wre false, but held some truth. We have already demonstrated the falsity, so let us observe the truth. We shall begin with the divine right of Kings. This seems a poetic way of expressing the hierarchical imperative, and how religion is the guardian of tradition and culture. The social contract theory is an invention of Western civilization. It was invented because the fertile lands of Europe allowed for a property owning class to develop. Which allowed for inheritable property. The utilitarian theory is true that it helps to have other people to help out, but before that can happen the people must be bonded through shared emotions. This essay is meant as a beginning, not an end. A new approach to an old subject. That is why it is incomplete and fragmentary, there much work to be done on the subject. There needs to be more research on the influence of Sassanid Persia on Islam. On how modern technology can change geography and culture. Examples would be how modern farming techniques change the arid land of Israel, and how great oil wealth has change the culture of Saudi Arabia from a nomadic society to a sedentary society. Also it would be interesting if anthropology and zoology would take more interest in political theory. This essay is an invitation to greater work to be done.

Remarks on Intersubjectivity

One of the most important insights to come out of German Idealism was the theory of intersubjectivity, and how it affects consciousness. The original formulation comes from J.G. Fichte, and was taken up and developed by the Idealist movement in Germany Britain, and America. Although Fichte is the father of intersubjectivity, I believe we can find the precursor of of the idea in Hermetic philosophy. To get us started in our brief examination of intersubjectivity lets go to a quote from Schelling "A System of Transcendental Idealism 1800" (translated by Peter Heath): "That objects really exist outside of me, ie independently of me, is something of which I can only be convinced if I am sure that they also exist when I do not intuit them. That objects existed before the individual did, is something of which he cannot be convinced by merely finding himself to be coming at a particular point in the succession, since this is simply a consequence of his second restrictedness. The sole objectivity which the world can possess for the individual is the fact of its having been intuited by intelligence outside of self. (I can also be deduced from this very fact that there must be states of nonintuiting for the individual.) The harmony we have already predetermined earlier in regard to the involuntary presentations of different intelligences, is thus at the same time to be deduced as the sole condition under which the world became objective to the individual. For the individual, these other intelligences are, as it were, the eternal bearers of the universe, and together they constitute so many indestructible mirrors of the objective world. The world through it is posited solely through the self, is independent of me, since it resides for me in the intuition of other intelligence: their common world is the archetype, whose agreement with my own presentations is the sole criterion of truth." The above quote contains a lot of ideas. So let us try to get at what Schelling is trying to tell us. Idealism is often criticized fro either being, or leading to solipsism, but as the above quote shows this is not true. It is only by interacting with other people that we can gain self-knowledge, and scientific knowledge. When we are young we learn by imitating other people. We not only learn techniques, by imitation, we also gain an idea of ourselves as an independent self. We often observe children looking to adults for cues on how to react to unexpected events. Other people become a mirror for children learning how to act and react in their society. That is why stable role-models are so important for children. Children internalize the mores and taboos of their culture from imitating the adults around them. Of course, imitation is the first step in all education; formal, and informal. The techniques of any craft must first be learned by rote. It is only after people master the basic skills of a craft or society that they can question the practice. The reason being one must be able to preform a technique to know whether it works or not. This of course, leads us to scientific or objective knowledge, and the creation of the objective world. If it were not for other people there could be no objective world. the objective world is an example of public reason. The objective is created by mutual agreement. Humans agree on properties, qualities, techniques, etc.; that can be universalized. The definition of "objective" is that it is the same for everyone. In simple terms there has to be a group of people if one is going to find out what is the same for all of them, and what they can all agree on. And this is where Fichte and Schelling part ways. Here is the difference between the subjective Idealism of Fichte and Kant, and the objective Idealism of Schelling and Hegel. Fichte does not give the objective world ontological status. In other words, the objective world is created, it is an objective view that is created by humans for humans. For Schelling and Hegel the objective world or view is a discovery not a creation: it is what exists. To sum up the two views: for Fichte and Kant the objective world is created, for Schelling and Hegel the objective world is discovered. For Fichte the goal was to subject all experience to human reason, in order to gain power over the world. While Schelling and Hegel believed that collective reasoning of humans actually discovers the nature of the cosmos. Of course for Hegel the nature of the cosmos was logic. Before proceeding to intersubjectivity and how it affects God's knowledge in Schelling and Hegel; it is instructive to take a diversion to the Hermetic doctrine that was the precursor to intersubjectivity. All of German Idealism was influenced by Hermetic philosophy. The Hermetic influence had two main sources: Jacob Bohme, and Giordano Bruno. Bohme influenced German Idealism from two sources. The first being being that all the major German Idealists read his books, even Fichte. We know from their writings both Schelling and Hegel held Bohme in high regard. The second way Bohme influenced German Idealism is through Pietism. Kant was brought up in a Pietist household. Again the two main sources in Pietism for Bohme's ideas were Bengel, and Oetinger. Both Bengel, and Oetinger were known, taught, and discussed at Tubingen university, where both Schelling and Hegel were students. (for more on Bohme, Bengel, and Oetinger see my essay "Cupid and Psyche: Part 3") The other main source of Hermetic ideas was the philosophy of Bruno. Schelling wrote a book titled "Bruno" in which the philosopher Bruno was the main person of the dialogues that are the book. The indirect influence of Bruno came from the philosophy of Spinoza. Spinoza's philosophy was heavily influenced by Bruno, and in turn Spinoza was an important influence on Schelling, and Hegel. Now let us turn to the doctrine that I believe was a precursor to intersubjectivity. That humans can help God know himself. In Hermetic philosophy humans act as a mirror for God. God does not understand his own nature, because he has no reference outside himself. So humans become that outside reference or mirror that God come to know himself. It must be said none of the Hermetic philosophers worked out the theory in detail. So let us turn to Schelling and Hegel. According to Schelling and Hegel each soul is a fragment of God, and God is complete in the multiplicity of human souls. God is not more than his parts. In other words, God is not transcendent, God is the parts. The external world is Leibniz's pre-ordained harmony. The easiest way to think of this is the analogy of a multiplayer computer game. The landscape of the game is generated from the program in each players computer, which in turn is in harmony with the program in all the other players computers. For Hegel this pre-ordained harmony become the Logic, which in turn is God. Schelling and Hegel both followed Kant in placing the terms or categories of the logic in human soul. To go back to our analogy the computer game must be up loaded into the computer of each player, so the players copy of the program becomes an innate category in the players character in the game. This program or logic is the Objective Notion of God in the philosophies of Schelling and Hegel. The only way humans can discover the terms of the logic id through mutual interaction, much like the player discovers the abilities of his character, and the landscape to the game by playing the game. This is how the fragmentary souls discover, not create as in Fichte, universals by comparing experiences with others. Therefore reason is a social phenomenon and not a private experience. Reason can only develop by mutual interaction. So much for the common idea that Idealists are solipsistic. Of course in Hegel and Schelling the fragmentary souls are part of a greater self. So this is how through the fragmentary parts or souls interacting that God gains self-knowledge. To finish this essay let us take a diversion to the world of art. Art is also a mirror in which we view ourselves as reflected in a mirror. I will use the aesthetic theory of A. K. Coomaraswamy, the Anglo-Indian philosopher and historian of art. For Coomaraswamy the function of art was to establish a communication between the artist and the observer. If we can reconstruct and understand the message of a work of art, we have achieved the aesthetic experience. Coomaraswamy asserts that there can be no progress in beauty. That a primitive mask or a pottery fragment are not inferior to a Renaissance masterpiece in a scale of beauty. In fact there is no scale of the aesthetic experience. This is not to say there is not a progress in technique, only that beauty is beauty once the communication is established. That the communication is all that is necessary. So what does Coomaraswamy's theory tell us about modern art versus ancient art? It art is a reflection of our inner life that we are trying to communicate what is the message of modern art? the most obvious difference between modern art and ancient art is the lack of detail, and ornamentation of modern art. My question is does this reflect the difference between the quantitative view of the world of the modern versus the qualitative view of ancients? I believe the answer is yes. That quantitative thinking has led to a bareness and sterility in the inner lives of modern humans. The modern prejudice is always to value function over form. One only has to look at the intricately detailed sculptures of traditional Indian art as compared to the best of Picasso. Not that Indian art is better or more beautiful than modern art, only that they reflect vastly different inner lives. Cubism and minimalism reflect the uniformity and sterility of our inner lives as compared to the rich inner lives of those that lived in more mythological times. The lack of detail and decoration represents the effects of standardization that quantitative thinking demands. Something to think about.

George Berkeley: Part 3

There may be disputes about Berkeley's best book, but there is no controversy about his strangest book: "Siris: A Chain of Philosophical Reflexions and Inquires concerning the Virtues of Tar-Water" hereafter referred to as "Siris". In this essay we shall examine this book, and make some general observations about empiricism, Hermetic philosophy, and Berkeley's philosophical career. "Siris" is indeed a strange book. It starts out with an endorsement of tar-water, and how to make tar-water. Then transitions to metaphysics. Which makes for a very strange book. There is a Hermetic reason for this progression of topics. It is to start from the lowest, and proceed to the highest, to illustrate the Great Chain of Being. So lets us "Siris" and how much of Berkeley's early philosophy survives, and what does not. We shall begin by examining Berkeley's empiricism. One of the few bright lines in philosophy is to be an empiricist, one must reject innate ideas or the doctrine of recollection. That the mind is a blank tablet. So let us go to Berkeley:"Siris" (sec. 309): "It is a maxim of the Platonic philosophy, that the soul of man was originally furnished with native inbred notions, and stands in need of sensible occasions, not absolutely for producing them, but only for awakening, and rousing, or exciting, into act what was already pre-existing, dormant, and latent in the soul; as things are said to be laid up in the memory, through not actually perceived until they happen to be called forth and brought into view by other objects. This notion seemeth somewhat different from the innate ideas, as understood by those moderns who have attempted to explode them." It seems from the above quote that Berkeley's empiricism is not only sick in bed, but is buried and forgotten. Another theory associated with Berkeley is the relativity of qualities. That there is no difference between primary, and secondary qualities; although we have observed that Berkeley was ambiguous on this issue. So to "Siris" (sec. 266) we go. "The Pythagoreans and the Platonists had a notion of the true system of world. They allowed of mechanical principles, but actuated by soul and mind: they distinguished the primary qualities in bodies from the secondary, making the former to be physical causes, and they understood physical causes in the right sense; they saw that mind infinite in power, unextended, invisible, immortal, governed, connected, and contained in all things..." The above quote also shows Berkeley never abandoned his theory that all motion is caused by spirits. One of Berkeley's early theories to survive his whole philosophical career. This acts as a bridge to our next topic: what is the carrier of the qualities? Berkeley in his early writings denied the existence of independently existing matter. Instead, of matter, qualities seem to be part of a virtual system, much like a modern video game. God acting as programmer of the game. The constant and uninterrupted activity of God survives throughout his career,but the medium that carries the qualities changes. In "Siris" Berkeley has finally decided on a carrier for sensible qualities. A most Hermetic answer, the Solar or Universal Fire of the Hermetics. It must be stated, that the Solar Fire is not the same as earthly fire, but the universal or cosmic energy. So let us go back to "Siris" (sec 52): "This Aether or pure invisible Fire, the most subtle and elastic of all bodies, seems to pervade and expand itself through-out the whole universe. If air be the immediate agent or instrument in natural things it is the pure invisible Fire that is the first natural mover or spring from whence the air derives its power. This mighty agent is everywhere at hand, ready to break forth into action, if not restrained and governed with the greatest wisdom. Being always restless and in motion, it actuates and enlivens the whole visible mass, is equally fitted to produce and to destroy, distinguishes the various stages of nature, and keeps up the perpetual round of generations and corruptions, pregnant with forms which it constantly sends forth and resorbs. So quick in its motions, so subtle and penetrating in its nature, so extensive in its effects, it seemeth no other than the Vegetative Soul or Vital Spirit of the World. The above quotes should be enough to prove that Berkeley left empiricism for Hermetic philosophy. I have used J. Wild's quote that Berkeley was "A passage from Locke to Plato" , but a better description would be Berkeley was a passage from anew way of thinking to an old way of thinking. So let us take a brief look at the two different ways of thinking. Both empiricism and Hermetic philosophy have certain standards and techniques, to interpret experience. We shall observe empiricism first, since it was first in Berkeley's philosophical career. Modern empiricism starts with John Locke. So even though there was an ancient empiricism we must start with Locke. Locke was a way more eccentric,and idiosyncratic individual than most students of philosophy realize, and so left his peculiar stamp on modern empiricism. Rene Guenon calls Locke the founder of modern psychology. For those who know Guenon this was not praise. So what was it that Locke was trying to accomplish with his book "Essay Concerning Human Understanding"? To answer this question we must understand the place of mind in modern science. Modern science tries to ignore mind in nature, and always take a third person standpoint. A sort of looking in from the outside, in other words mind adds nothing to what is there. This is the position that Locke was tying to justify. The first and main theme of his book is to deny innate ideas, or the classical doctrine of recollection. Locke's goal was to make the human mind completely passive. A blank tablet that experience writes upon. So of course, he had to get rid of innate ideas, but Locke goes farther; he want to get rid of what the Medieval philosophers called the active intellect. So let us go back to Locke's blank tablet. Imagine Locke's blank tablet is made of wax, and the entities of the external world are like a signet. The signet is pressed into the wax making an accurate impression; an ectype. This is Locke's conception of mind; mind adds nothing to experience. The mind is totally passive it only records impressions from the external world, like wax takes the impressions form the signet. The entities of the external world become the archetypes that create the ectypes in the human mind. Thus we have accurate impressions since the mind adds nothing of its own to experience. So far so good, but how, but how does the human mind put together all these impressions into concepts? Locke has no answer, instead he says it is a "happy accident". Locke has kept the Medieval conception of the passive intellect, but abandoned the active intellect, which leaves holes in Locke's psychology. This is why the "Essay Concerning Human Understanding" kept growing in length, but not solving the problems of Locke's psychology. It must be said that neither Berkeley or any other empiricist has been able to solve Locke's problems. So this is the empiricism that Berkeley found in Locke. So let us move to Hermetic philosophy. Hermetic philosophy has a long history back to the supposed writings of Hermes Trismegistus. During that time Hermetic philosophy also absorbed many ideas, the most important being alchemy. Alchemy seems to be a mix of proto-chemistry and mystical philosophy. Most modern thinkers dismiss alchemy as an anachronism. This view is refuted by Jacob Bohme and C. G. Jung who both used Hermetic ideas to striking, and original insights in modern thought. Like empiricism, Hermetic philosophy contains tools, and techniques to be used to interpret human experience, but unlike empiricism Hermetic philosophy is better at interpreting the internal states of humans than the external world. It is in the fields of religion and psychology that Hermetic philosophy excels. To go back to Jung, and Bohme we see what is missing in Berkeley's Hermetic philosophy; there is nothing new, or original in his Hermetic writings. All of Berkeley's original insights were made in empiricism. So now we turn to Berkeley. Anyone who reads Berkeley's early writings can feel the enthusiasm he had for the new empiricism he found in Locke. One of the problems Locke left was was what are the archetypes that leave the impressions or the ectypes on the human mind? As both Berkeley and Hume pointed out Locke posit of matter is reasoning from effects to cause. For Locke there is no way to ever really know what makes the impressions. Berkeley sought to solve this problem by giving the world of experience back to her common man. That the common man's experience is a true representation of the world. That the qualities we experience somehow inhere in the ectoplasm of spirit. This brings us to what is strange in Berkeley's philosophy. That he brought in entities or powers that are not empirically verifiable, and cause more problems than they solve.In simple terms, Berkeley was trying to solve the problems of empiricism by bringing in supernatural forces. When Berkeley dealt with subjects that empiricism can deal with he was spectacularly successful. The example being his work on optics and vision. The trouble starts when he tries to deal with metaphysical subjects. The best example being when he argues for God's existence. Berkeley's three arguments for God's existence must be the most unconvincing arguments ever posited. They do not even have the emotional tug of the popular irrational arguments. This is not to say that Berkeley's arguments are not extremely interesting. They show is how an empiricist has to argue for God's existence. This is why Wittgenstein famously kept silent about such matters. Empiricism is a failure when not applied to the external world. The third argument for God's existence (the visual language argument ) is the most interesting of the three, even though it is a failure for the purpose it was supposed to fill. It does bring up some interesting insights. Is the thinking involved in how we use vision the same as or related to the thinking we use for language? Is this why humans the most visual of animals also the language using animal? There is still much in Berkeley's writings to stimulate the modern student of philosophy. Berkeley does offer us an original way of looking at the world. To finish it should be obvious why Berkeley turned form empiricism to Hermetic philosophy. He realized that empiricism was a failure in exploring the topics he most cared about. END

George Berkeley: Part 2

As we examine Berkeley's middle period, we shall observe the passage from Locke to Plato. More accurately we shall observe the Berkeley's drift to Neoplatonism, and Hermetic philosophy. Berkeley like a lot of writers of his time seemed to confuse Neoplatonism and Hermeticism with Plato. First we must take care of some preliminaries, that shall become important as we proceed. The first issue is the distinction that Berkeley makes between ideas and notions. Ideas are products of sensation. What Locke would call simple ideas, such as: red, hard, pungent, etc. Ideas are purely passive they have no active power they are perceived by the agent. Notions are when as agent thinks about her ideas, and combines ideas into thoughts. What Locke would call complex or compound ideas. This is a good bridge to the second issue we must examine, the difference between ideas, and spirits. Only spirits have volition, or will. Only spirits are active. All motion is caused by spirits. Again ideas are completely passive, and have no power to generate themselves or other ideas, or notions. Berkeley's division between ideas and spirits can be instructive if we compare it to the dialectic of intellect and will. (see my essay "Cupid and Psyche) Berkeley never reaches the level of sophistication of later thinkers, of course Berkeley lived before Fiche, and Kant. Ideas would represent intellect, and spirits will. Remember ideas are passive, and spirits are active; so much so that all motions and force is caused by spirits. It must be said that Berkeley never has a completely consistent position on intellect and will, but he seems to come down on the side of intellect as the final term in the dialectic. God is seen as the supreme intellect, but he is also the supreme will. The two books we shall examine this essay are "Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous" hereafter referred to as "Dialogues" and "Alciphron or the Minute Philosopher" hereafter referred to as "Alciphron". "Alciphron" is also written in dialogue form, but more about this later. Many people regard the "Dialogues" as Berkeley's best book, an opinion I do not share. I would give that honor to "Alciphron". In the "Dialogues" Philonous represents Berkeley's position, while Hylas is usually the champion of the materialist position. Which should be obvious by the name "Hylas". Again like in the "Principles" Berkeley continues his defense of immateralism. That the qualities of simple ideas are somehow embedded in the ectoplasm of spirit, controlled by the guiding intelligence of God. To go back to one of my favorite analogies: that of video games. The program creates and coordinates the qualities we observe in objects, like the video game objects and qualities have independent existence. For the video game it is the program that controls the qualities, for Berkeley it is the mind of God. One of the few positions that Berkeley in his early writings that shall remain consistent to his last writings, is that God is continuously active. Unlike Leibniz where the preordained harmony would be a close analogy to the computer program, God being the programmer; in Berkeley there is no preordained harmony. Instead the constant laws of nature are a result of the continuous activity of God. This leads to Berkeley's two arguments for the existence of God: the continuity argument, and the passivity argument. The trouble with both arguments is for them to work one must already accept both Berkeley's immateralism, and his doctrine that ideas are passive. So let us move to the continuity argument. That there must be a mind to hold objects and ideas in existence when a finite mind is not perceiving them. Of course, one must accept that finite objects exist only when a mind perceives them, and there is no material substratum to hold ideas in existence when not being perceived. So let us now move to the passivity argument. That there must be a supreme mind to make sure that agents always experience a consistent law governed cosmos. Of course again, one must accept that ideas are completely passive, and cannot act on one another. In Berkeley's time this was not as much of a stretch as it is today. Causality was acknowledged by almost everyone as the mechanism governing change. That material substance or ideas comprising the external world were viewed as passive with no power to initiate change, or motion. Remember Berkeley was writing before Fichte changed the mechanism of change from causality to reciprocity. The most interesting part of the "Dialogues" is how it illustrates Berkeley's shift from empiricism to Platonism. Remember in the "Principles" ideas or sensations are real. We directly perceive reality. The objects really do have the properties we perceive. The trouble comes when two or more people perceive the same object or idea different ways. Let us first go to the classic example of Protagoras: two men stand in a wind, one says it is hot, the other says it is cold. Another example is two people are looking at the same tree at the same time, one a young girl the other a middle aged man with the typical male color blindness. The girl sees the tree as vivid green, the man sees the tree as greenish blue. So who is perceiving the idea rightly? In Berkeley's earlier view of the relativity of sensations gives no standard to judge by. Here is where Berkeley hammers the first nail into the coffin of his empiricism. His answer comes right out of Neoplatonism. That the idea or sensation in God's mind acts as an archetype, all finite minds only perceive an ectype. The archetype exists beyond finite minds, and cannot be perceived directly by finite minds; only the ectype is perceived by finite minds. So much for our direct perception of the properties of the external world, and the relativity of qualities; that all perceptions are equally valid. Berkeley has introduced a doctrine that shall dominate his later thinking. The great chain of being; that some things are more real than other things. So let us move to "Alciphron" which I consider Berkeley's best book. The book was written to combat English Deism, and freethinkers, it was also the most widely read of Berkeley's books in his lifetime. Although now largely forgotten. To start with let us examine the title: "Alciphron or the Minute Philosopher". Alciphron is one of the characters in the seven dialogues that compose the book. The Minute Philosopher is a reference form Cicero about those philosophers that diminish the place of humans place in the cosmos. Minute means diminished not the time measurement. Those that deny the immortality of the soul, reducing human existence to a mere pittance. Alexander Cambell Fraiser (Berkeley's best editor) calls Berkeley's position in "Alciphron" theological utilitarianism, which is a good description. "Alciphron" also contains much material that will seem dated by the modern reader, but is interesting if one examines it from the point of view that Berkeley was writing in an earlier phase of the moral crisis the West is still experiencing. There is also much that is of interest to a contemporary reader. "Alciphron" also shows Berkeley's drift from empiricism to Neoplatonism and Hermetic philosophy. The first Dialogue attempts to lay out the principles of free thinkers and Deists (minute philosophers). It starts with what is natural to humans, and that religion is form of social control. The Minute Philosophers argue to find what is natural to humans, we must find actions that can be universalized across all human cultures, that this is the only way to discover human nature in an uncorrected state. Of course in Berkeley's view this only leads to discovering what is base in human nature. For Berkeley reason and culture are both legitimate aspects of human nature. That different cultures can be compared to different climates and soils where plants grow. That just as certain climates, and soils make for lush, and healthy plants, so some cultures provide humans with a better environment to realize their potential. The other issue is that of religion being a method of social control. The Minute Philosophers think that only nature can provide a standard for our actions. Here we get our first glimpse of Berkeley's theological utilitarianism. That indeed religion does act as a form of social control, but that is not a problem. For in a state of nature no sophisticated culture could develop, That without social constraints culture and civilization would be impossible. And that if people believe there is a higher power overseeing their actions, they tend to act more honestly. The second Dialogue is to refute the position of Manedvllle in "Fable of the Bees". This is one of the more interesting Dialogues for a modern audience, because much of Mandeville's position is now accepted in the present day. The position being that private vice leads to public good. We still hear the same arguments today that vices such as tobacco and liquor increase prosperity. That the tobacco and liquor industries employ lots of people so help spread wealth around. That the vices of the vain rich are good for the other classes in society, since they create industries that employ people and promote commerce. Another example used the Dialogue (which is still used today) , is that the high end fashion industry employs lots of people, thus spreading the wealth around. Berkeley's arguments against are again familiar. That in the long run businesses like liquor and tobacco pose a higher cost to society. An example from today is of course tobacco, that it does employ lots of people, but the cost in healthcare is way more damaging to society that any prosperity it creates. One of the interesting points of this Dialogue is the case against vanity. Today it is hard to find anyone who regards vanity as a vice to be condemned. Like I said society today has accepted much of Mandeville's position. Berkeley claims vanity makes people shallow, and vain in their youth, and covetous, and acquisitive in old age. In other words vanity leads to the crudest materialism. (the whole book was of course written to combat materialism, both ethical and metaphysical) Thus it would be better for rich fashionable women to contribute the money to charity than buy extravagant clothes. I shall leave it to the reader to render her own judgement on Berkeley's position. In the third Dialogue it is Shaftsbury's ethics which are examined. That morality is a taste, and virtue is its own reward. In combating the position that morality is a taste, we can clearly observe Berkeley coming down on the side of intellect over will. That morality must be based on clear principles, not an emotion. That ethics is an aim, and function, not just a feeling. That people will not follow laws, because they are good or beautiful. That religion and a judgement in the afterlife, only promote good behavior, and provide the proper impetus for people to follow laws. The fourth Dialogue get back to familiar territory. Berkeley gives another proof of God's existence, but it suffers from the same flaws of his other arguments for God's existence. To prove that God exists, Berkeley claims that God speaks to us in a visual language. This recalls much of his book: "Towards a New Theory of Vision". Let us go to a quote from the fourth Dialogue: "But if it shall appear plainly that God speaks to men by the intervention and use of arbitrary, outward, sensible signs, having no resemblance or necessary connection with the things they stand for and suggest if it shall appear that, by innumerable combinations of these signs, an endless variety of things is discovered and made know to us:" What Berkeley is saying here is that God speaks to us in a visual language. Remember, his theory of vision, that the things we perceive by sight have no connection with the tangible qualities perceived by touch. That we must learn to use visual sensation like language. That visual signs stand for tangible qualities, not because they correlate naturally, but because we learn how to use visual perception, like we use language. Back to Berkeley: "The littleness or faintness of appearance, or any other idea or sensation not necessarily connected with or resembling distance, can no more suggest different degrees of distance,or any distance at all to the mind which hath not experienced a connection to the things signifying and signified, then words suggest notions, before a man hath learned the language" Although this is of doubtful value in proving the existence of God, it does again show Berkeley is backing off his claim that all perceptions whether visual, audio, tangible, etc. are of equal value. Instead, it is clear that tangible qualities act as a standard. Let us now move to Berkeley's criticism of abstract ideas, and again we shall observe ambiguity with his early writings. We shall use the idea of motion as an example. Berkeley seems to have has an interest in the subject, since he wrote a tract on the subject: "De Motu". Berkeley's theory that all our ideas of motion or force are derived, from effects. That there is no idea of motion that is not derived from observing how objects act. That the idea of motion is an abstract idea from observed effects; we only have the notion of motion buy abstracting out the objects that are affected. Berkeley does admit that the notion of motion is useful. So now Berkeley turns to the idea of "grace". So let us go to the seventh Dialogue to observe how he connects "grace', and "force or motion". "Ought we not therefore, by a parity of reason, to conclude there may be divers true and useful propositions concerning the one as well as the other? And that grace may be an object of our faith, and influence our life and actions, as a principle destructive of evil habits and productive of good ones, although we cannot attain a distinct idea of it separate or abstracted from God the author, from the man the subject, and from virtue and piety of its effects" It is clear that Berkeley still holds a correspondence theory of truth. Berkeley never made the leap that Bradley would make, that all our knowledge is experience alone. That we cut experience up to attain our ends,there are no independently existing ideas or material things, all our ideas and notions are only products of experience, and how we decide to cut up experience. It seems the analytic school could have saved a lot of time trying to solve Wittgenstein's riddles if they had just read Berkeley. We have only one more issue to examine in this essay. Berkeley is drifting towards an answer to all these ambiguities in his thinking; a very traditional answer. That of Neoplatonism and Hermetic philosophy, that there is a hierarchy of being; the Great Chain of Being. we can also clearly observe that Hermetic philosophy is becoming important to Berkeley. So there shall be no doubt about his drift to alchemical and Hermetic thought we go to the sixth Dialogue: "The volatile salt is properly the essence of the soul of the plant, containing all its virtue; and the oil is the vehicle of this subtle part of the soul, that which fixes and individuates it." Berkeley's empiricism is sick with its final illness

George Berkeley: Part 1

Most of us think of George Berkeley as just the connecting link between Locke and Hume. Thi view does not do justice the complicated and evolving philosophy of Berkeley. This is the reason for this series of essays on the philosophy of Berkeley. Berkeley is usually thought of as the inferior partner in the trio of Locke, Berkeley, and Hume, but this is a mistake. Berkeley may have been the greatest intellect of the three. So let us observe the evidence for this claim. Berkeley did work on optics, and found flaws in (minor flaws) in Newton's math. These contributions still stand today, neither of which can be claimed by for Locke and Hume. This is not to say that Berkeley's philosophy is free from problems. It is only to make the case he is worth examining more thoroughly than is usual. Berkeley is not a philosopher like Spinoza who offers a completed system. Instead, he is like Nietzsche, and Schelling. Berkeley's thought is a transition from Locke to Plato. So we shall start by examining Berkeley's early thought. To begin we must understand what it is Berkeley is trying to accomplish. Berkeley's early thought is a revolt against abstraction, and universals. Berkeley wanted to make philosophy concrete. A philosophy, or logic of the concrete was his goal. A description of how we experience our everyday world. So we shall start with his first important book: " Towards a New Theory of Vision." Berkeley seeks to develop a new logic; a logic of the concrete experience, instead of a system of abstract symbols that are manipulated by the law of no-contradiction. So how does one go about creating a logic? All our present logic systems are based around around the law of non-contradiction. this basis we shall follow Berkeley in calling the principle of order. So Berkeley to create a new logic must change the principle of order. He does this by replacing the law of non-contradiction with space. It is space that determines our interaction with the everyday world. Berkeley seems to be the first thinker to realize the strong visual bias in thinking. So let us examine Molyneux's problem to begin our examination. William Molyneux was a friend of John Locke, and he proposed a questions that would act as an inspiration of much of British empiricism. To state Molyneux's problem: imagine a person born blind, who can tell the difference between a cube and sphere by touch. Then this person suddenly is given sight. Could the person tell the difference between the cube and sphere by sight alone. The short answer is no, but it leads to some very interesting insights. Berkeley's position is that all visual perception must be translated into tangible sensation to be useful information for humans. In other words, we must be able to take visual data and turn it into where objects are located in space. Of course, we remember all of Locke's primary qualities are all tangible qualities. It is too bad Locke did not argue that secondary qualities must be resolved into primary qualities to be useful, It would have made his distinction between primary, and secondary qualities stronger. An interesting everyday example of this is the Locke's primary quality of quantity. We observe how quantity acts as a tangible quality when we watch someone count a number of units by moving the units from one pile to another. To put this insight into simple words: no matter how well you can see, if you walk into walls seeing is not doing you any good. So space becomes the principle of order in "Towards a New Theory of Vision". Berkeley then abandons this position in his next book, and this is the book that Berkeley in most known for: "Principles of Human Knowledge." It is in "Principles of Human Knowledge" that we get the positions that Berkeley is most known for, the denial of matter and, the denial of primary and secondary qualities. We shall first deal with the denial of matter. Locke inherited the position that matter is a substratum that all qualities inhere. Berkeley's argument against matter is simple. Matter by this definition is unknowable, so how can we know an unknowable exists? So Berkeley denies the existence of matter since there is no evidence for its existence. Only qualities are known or perceived, and only things perceived exist. Of course this is the context of Berkeley's famous quote: "To be is to be perceived." The trouble is what holds the qualities in existence so they can be perceived? And here Berkeley gets himself into a lot of trouble. It is the mind of God that holds the qualities in existence. Berkeley has gotten rid of matter, only to propose a more absurd solution. The denial of a difference between primary and secondary qualities follows from Berkeley's denial of matter. No quality can be more privileged than any other if they are only know by perception, and all equally exist in the mind of God. This is a denial of his earlier point of view expressed on his works on vision. This is of course, the reason why Berkeley was accused of solipsism. A charge which is justified. This discussion leads right into Berkeley's denial of universals. All qualities are equal none are prior to other qualities. The only reason we have category names is because we group a number of qualities together under a common name. An example would be the category name "red". We group a number of shades from red-brown to to pink into the category name of red. There is no universal or red, only a number of shades we associate together. Here again we have positions that Berkeley will abandon. In the writings "Towards a New Theory of Vision" and "Principles of Human Knowledge" Berkeley is still under the influence of Locke. It is both instructive and interesting to compare Berkeley's early philosophy with that of a twentieth century philosopher that had similar goals of getting rid of universals and getting back to the concrete: Ludwig Wittgenstein. It seems ironic that the analytic school of philosophy after banishing the Metaphyscian would embrace an Oracle.like all Oracles Wittgenstein speaks in puzzles, riddles, and parables. We shall examine the the underlying principles that hold together Wittgenstein's thought later. Wittgenstein denies the existence of universals like Berkeley. This is where Wittgenstein introduces his famous theory of family resemblances. Of course, this is just another formulation of Berkeley's idea that we group qualities together under a category name. What neither does is supply a consistent rationale of why certain qualities are included and why some are left out of the category name. To be fair the latter Wittgenstein of "On Certainty" asserts it is done for pragmatic reasons. Again like all Oracles Wittgenstein is not consistent in all his pronouncements. Wittgenstein's philosophy seems to have two underlying principles. These are the correspondence theory of truth, and the second principle follows on the correspondence theory of truth, being that the only certain knowledge is that which has third person point of view. It is hard to find another thinker that has a greater visual bias than Wittgenstein. That valid knowledge must be confirmed by a uninvolved third party. This is the only way knowledge can be validated. An example would Wittgenstein's claim that we do not know where a pain is located, until we can point to the location of the pain; where a third party can observe the pointing. An ostensive definition in Wittgenstein's terminology. Although like everything with Oracles there are ambiguities. In "On Certainty" Wittgenstein seems to endorse the coherence theory of truth, without abandoning the correspondence theory of truth. I know it is currently unpopular to take a psychological view of a thinkers philosophy, but I do not subscribe to this view. The reason being that we encounter thinkers that had a peculiar psychology that have given us valuable insights that were missed by those with a more normal psychology. Two examples of this would be Nietzsche and Bohme. In any case Wittgenstein's psychology is so transparent that I cannot resist. Wittgenstein was gay, but he was not happy or accepting of his sexual orientation. In simpler terms, his inner life probably resembled that of a Lovecraft character. That he was being controlled by eldritch forces (his sexuality) that were leading him to his doom. This is also this is probably the source for all of Wittgenstein's compulsions,and obsessions. To compensate for his hellish inner life, Wittgenstein became an inverse of Heidegger. Heidegger was concerned with a person's emotional engagement with the world, and found it inauthentic to get lost in trivial abstractions. A person who identifies with trivial abstractions sees to become one of the "they" in Heidegger's terminology. Wittgenstein holds the opposite or inverted view, that it is only in trivial abstractions (third person point of view) that we find real knowledge. It seems clear Wittgenstein fled into trivial abstractions to escape his self-loathing. To sum up, let us observe what insights we can still learn from in the early Berkeley. These are two; the ideal on logic and Berkeley's recognition of the visual bias in human thinking. The insight in logic is how to create other logic, by changing the principle of order. This is illustrated in Berkeley trying to come up with a concrete logic using "space' as the Principe of order. That it is space the relation between objects that dictates how we interact with our world. The second is of course related to the first. That until Berkeley overcame the visual bias he could not come up with a theory of optics. That secondary qualities must be made to collaborate tangible qualities (primary qualities). The trouble with Berkeley is his most famous book "Principles of Human Knowledge" is also his worst book.

Remarks on Science Fiction

Aristotle claimed that philosophy begins in wonder. The fictional genre that uses wonder to supply its emotional charge is science fiction.To grab a readers attention a work of fiction must have an emotional impact. Different genres of fiction use different devices to achieve this emotional impact. Detective and spy novels rely on sex and violence, romance novels use love, and horror stories achieve their emotional impact by invoking fear. Science fiction is the genre that uses ideas and inventions to invoke a sense of wonder in its readers. The emotional impact of science fiction is provided by a sense of wonder. Science fiction is the fictional genre most connected to philosophy. The first generally recognized science fiction writer was Mary Shelly, the author of "Frankenstein". Of course,the innovation in "Frankenstein" is the creation of an artificial man. What results from this innovation is the story of the novel, but let us move to Jules Vern and H.G. Wells. Vern, and Wells in the early novels, stuck to the Shelly formula of showing how an invention or innovation affects the people involved and around the invention. A real world example of this would be the invention of the automobile. The automobile affected a lot more than transportation in society. An invention or innovation can have far reaching effects on society, that no one can predict at the time. The science fiction writers job is to speculate on the effects. In Vern's most famous novel "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" the invention is a fully functional submarine. There had been real submarines before Vern's novel, but far from functional. The emotional impact of the novel is provided by the wonder of a submarine and its potential. In his early novels Wells follows the same formula. In the "Invisible Man" it is invisibility, in "The Island of Dr. Moreau" it is the idea of accelerating evolution in animals. Wells also shows his anthropomorphic bias by having the animals transform into human-like creatures. All this is of course speculation, and speculation is the life-blood of philosophy. Instead of speculating in non-fiction like philosophy, science fiction uses uses fictional stories to speculate. There is another type of science fiction novel, that uses philosophical ideas to tells stories.How a philosophic view would work in a society. One of the most conspicuous examples of this type is David Lindsay's novel: "Voyage to Arcturus" The novel is a Gnostic parable, that combines philosophy and fantasy and science fiction to speculate on theology. In the five different settings in the novel different philosophical world views are shown in different societies; how they would shape society. Let us now move to two of the giants of mid-twentieth century science fiction: Issac Asimov, and Robert Heinlein. Both published ground breaking books in 1951. At this point I shall make a disclosure of bias; my ideas are closer to Heinlein, but prefer Asimov's writing style. The two novels were "Foundation" for Asimov, and "The Puppet Masters" for Heinlein. We shall begin with the "Foundation Trilogy." The "Foundation Trilogy" is one of the most influential works in science fiction; the "Star Wars" movies and the "Warhammer" books are two examples. The premise of the "Foundation" novels is that humans have created a Roman Empire in space. A galactic Roman Empire and, this Empire is in decline. The reader cannot help but make comparisons to Gibbon. The innovation is the invention of a discipline named psychohistory. That by using psychohistory the future can be predicted and changed. So a select group using psychohistory is able to shorten the dark age following the decline: the Foundation. The inventor is Hari Seldon although not much is seen of Seldon in the first trilogy, his story is told in "Prelude to Foundation." So the original novels center around the two Foundations that are set up to shorten the coming dark age of humankind. The premise of psychistory is that the future of individuals cannot be predicted, but that the future of large groups can. The trouble is in the Asimov novel seem to disprove the premise, since it is always the actions of individuals that change the course of the future. The other character that every reader remembers is from the "Foundation" novels is the Mule. The Mule is the main villain of the trilogy. He is said to posses the unlikely psychic power of being able to alter peoples emotional make up. In other words, he can make people love him and be loyal to him. It also must be said that the Mule is a failure as a villain, he comes off as more pathetic than sinister. The other big flaw in Asimov is his paternalism. There is always someone behind the curtain manipulating events. This takes much of the drama out of the novels, in that the reader knows the hero is always going to succeed or be saved by the parental figure or group. The Second Foundation is the paternal organization in the original trilogy. In the" Prelude to Foundation" the paternalism is supplied by and almost all knowing robot. The robot saves Seldon and his girlfriend from every tight spot they get into. Now let us turn to Heinlein. Heinlein's novel: "The Puppet Masters" is a child of its age. It is a parable of the communist menace of the 1950s. The story is about an alien invasion. The aliens come from Titan a moon of Jupiter. The aliens are described as giant slugs which attach themselves to humans, thereby taking control of the human victim. The aliens promise a Utopian society if only humans consent to give up their freedom and become the servants of the Titans. There should be no problem recognizing the aliens represent communism; that offers a Utopian society if only people give their freedom to become servants of an all powerful state. Heinlein represent a definite break with the socialism of early science fiction. To conclude I am going to offer some suggestions and criticisms of science fiction. I have already criticized Asimov's paternalism, but I have more to say. I am against paternalism not only for dramatic reasons, but because there are no all knowing groups, so it is dangerous to think that humans can trust their destiny to any paternal organization or individual. We should not look for any such group. Of course, this is the theme of "The Puppet Masters". The loss of freedom by trusting the other. Now for some more general criticisms. Another problem with" Foundation" and much of the work it inspired is the assumption that colonizing space is not going to change humankind in fundamental ways. When humans do colonize other planets the new environments will shape the form human life takes. This also could be the result of planned change: genetic engineering. It is ridiculous to think that we shall not use genetic engineering to adopt to life in space. The present form of human life should be regarded as a larval form of a space going race. It may be that all present life on Earth is a larval form, it may take the D.N.A. of many present animals and plants to create space going races. This leads into my next criticism. That space going races shall diverge radically from each other; different gravity, atmospheres, etc. So the idea of one uniform empire becomes ludicrous. No uniform political system will be possible. When the leap into space is made our present uniformity shall become an anachronism. Instead of a shared political system there shall have to be a shared objective. And I believe the only possible objective is deification. As I have said before: if there is no god the only worthwhile goal is to be god. END