Philosophy is less the pursuit of truth than it is the pursuit of the genuinely persuasive.
The obvious question: persuasive to whom? That depends on the philosopher’s temperament and circumstances – and perhaps degree of maturity.
All posts by anomalogue
Design etymologies
There’s considerable overlap with similar etymological posts, but I like to place the words together so I can take them together and see them as a whole.
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Design – Late Middle English (as a verb in the sense of to designate): from Latin designare ‘to designate’ (based on signum ‘a mark’), reinforced by French designer. The noun is via French from Italian.
Concept – Mid 16th cent.(in the sense of thought, frame of mind, imagination): from Latin conceptum ‘something conceived,’ from concept– ‘conceived,’ from concipere (see conceive ).
- Conceive – Middle English : from Old French concevoir, from Latin concipere, from com– ‘together’ + capere ‘take.’
- Comprehend –Middle English : from Old French comprehender, or Latin comprehendere, from com– ‘together’ + prehendere ‘grasp.’
- Prehensile (capable of grasping, chiefly of an animal’s limb or tail) – From French prehensile, from Latin prehens– ‘grasped,’ from the verb prehendere, from prae ‘before’ + hendere ‘to grasp.’
Synthesis – Early 17th cent.: via Latin from Greek sunthesis, from suntithenai ‘place together,’ from sun– ‘with’ + tithenai ‘to place.’
- Thesis – Late Middle English: via late Latin from Greek, literally ‘placing, a proposition,’ from the root of tithenai ‘to place.’
- Antithesis – Middle English (originally denoting the substitution of one grammatical case for another): from late Latin, from Greek antitithenai ‘set against,’ from anti ‘against’ + tithenai ‘to place.’ The earliest current sense, denoting a rhetorical or literary device, dates from the early 16th cent.
Analysis – Late 16th cent.: via medieval Latin from Greek analusis, from analuein ‘unloose,’ from ana- ‘up’ + luein ‘loosen.’ (antonym: ‘uptight’)
- Paralysis – Late Old English , via Latin from Greek paralusis, from paraluesthai ‘be disabled at the side,’ from para ‘beside’ + luein ‘loosen.’
- Decision – Late Middle English (in the sense of bring to a settlement): from French decider, from Latin decidere ‘determine,’ from de– ‘off’ + caedere ‘cut.’
- Precision – Mid 18th cent.: from French precision or Latin praecisio(n-), from praecidere ‘cut off,’ from prae ‘before’ + caedere ‘cut.’
System – Early 17th cent.: from French systeme or late Latin systema, from Greek sustema, from sun– ‘with’ + histanai ‘set up.’
Pattern – Middle English patron, as in something serving as a model, from Latin patronus ‘protector of clients, defender,’ from pater, patr– ‘father.’ . The change in sense is from the idea of a patron giving an example to be copied. By 1700 patron ceased to be used of things, and the two forms became differentiated in sense.
- Matrix – Late Middle English (in the sense of womb): from Latin, ‘breeding female,’ later ‘womb,’ from mater, matr– ‘mother.’
- Matter – Middle English : via Old French from Latin materia ‘timber, substance,’ also ‘subject of discourse,’ from mater ‘mother.’
Metaphor – Late 15th cent.: from French metaphore, via Latin from Greek metaphora, from metapherein ‘to transfer,’ from meta– ‘over, across’ + pherein ‘to carry, bear.’
Analogy – Late Middle English (in the sense of appropriateness, correspondence] ): from French analogie, Latin analogia ‘proportion,’ from Greek, from analogos ‘proportionate,’ from ana– ‘up’ + logos– ‘word, reason.’
Paradigm – Late 15th cent.: via late Latin from Greek paradeigma, from paradeiknunai ‘show side by side,’ from para– ‘beside’ + deiknunai ‘to show.’
- Anomaly – Mid 17th cent.: via late Latin from Greek anomalos (from an– ‘not’ + homalos ‘even’)
- Anomie – 1930s: from French, from Greek anomia, from anomos ‘lawless.’
- Antinomian – Mid 17th cent.: from medieval Latin Antinomi, the name of a 16th-cent. sect in Germany alleged to hold this view, from Greek anti– ‘opposite, against’ + nomos ‘law.’
- Nominal – Late 15th cent. (as a term in grammar): from Latin nominalis, from nomen, nomin– ‘name.’
- Denomination – From Latin verb denominare, from de– ‘away, formally’ + nominare ‘to name’ (from nomen, nomin– ‘name’ ).
Model – Late 16th cent.(denoting a set of plans of a building): from French modelle, from Italian modello, from an alteration of Latin modulus (from Latin, literally ‘measure,’ diminutive of modus.).
- Mode – Late Middle English (in the musical and grammatical senses): from Latin modus ‘measure,’ from an Indo-European root shared by mete; compare with mood.
- Mood – Old English mod (also in the senses of mind and fierce courage), of Germanic origin; related to Dutch moed and German Mut.
Represent – Late Middle English : from Old French representer or Latin repraesentare, from re– (expressing intensive force) + praesentare ‘to present.’
- Present (verb) – Middle English : from Old French presenter, from Latin praesentare ‘place before’ (in medieval Latin ‘present as a gift’ ), from praesent– ‘being at hand’.
- Present (noun, in the sense of in this time or at this place) – Middle English : via Old French from Latin praesent- ‘being at hand,’ present participle of praeesse, from prae ‘before’ + esse ‘be.’
- Interest – Late Middle English (originally as interess): from Anglo-Norman French interesse, from Latin interesse ‘differ, be important,’ from inter– ‘between’ + esse ‘be.’ The -t was added partly by association with Old French interest ‘damage, loss,’ apparently from Latin interest ‘it is important.’
Style – Middle English (denoting a stylus (an ancient writing implement, consisting of a small rod with a pointed end for scratching letters on wax-covered tablets, and a blunt end for obliterating them), also a literary composition, an official title, or a characteristic manner of literary expression): from Old French stile, from Latin stilus.
Gestalt – 1920s: from German Gestalt, literally ‘form, shape.’
Grok (understand intuitively or by empathy, or to establish a rapport.) – mid 20th cent.: a word coined by Robert Heinlein (1907–88), American science fiction writer, in Stranger in a Strange Land.
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Use / Useful / Usable – Middle English : the noun from Old French us, from Latin usus, from uti ‘to use’ ; the verb from Old French user, based on Latin uti.
Desire – Middle English : from Old French desir (noun), desirer (verb), from Latin desiderare (see desiderate).
- Desiderate – Mid 17th cent.: from Latin desiderat– ‘desired,’ from the verb desiderare, perhaps from de– ‘down’ + sidus, sider– ‘star.’ Compare with consider. (NOTE from anomaloge: shouldn’t we also compare with ‘president’?)
- Consider – Late Middle English : from Old French considerer, from Latin considerare ‘examine,’ perhaps from com– ‘together’ + sidus, sider– ‘star.’
- President – Early 17th cent.: from French presider, from Latin praesidere, from prae ‘before’ + sedere ‘sit.’
- Decider – Late Middle English (in the sense of bring to a settlement): from French decider, from Latin decidere ‘determine,’ from de– ‘off’ + caedere ‘cut.’
Morality, good and evil
The properties of objects generally remain constant or change predictably according to rules.
The properties of subjects may be constant or at least predictable, but they are also capable of drastic and seemingly arbitrary change. Change can come with little warning. When change comes it can alter the qualities of a subject so radically that the subject can even become unrecognizable. People say “you’ve become a stranger” or “I don’t know you anymore.”
If objects were like subjects a glass of water weighing a few ounces today could weigh fifty pounds tomorrow. The glass and its contents could simply vanish.
It would be difficult to exist in a world where this happened. But consider this: Our fellow subjects, capable of such arbitrary change, are (at least normally) what matters most to us in the world. To a large extent we are nourished, supported and sustained by our relationships to other subjects.
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Behavioral disciplines gives subjects constancy and predictability. They provide assurance to those who love us, depend on us, or simply co-inhabit the world with us that we will remain with them as who we are, neither withdrawing nor encroaching in any way that harms them. It stabilizes our shared inter-subjective social world to levels approaching that of our shared objective one.
When I discuss morality and ethics as something good, this goal of behavioral discipline is one I have in mind.
When I attack morality I am attacking something different: the claim of one person to the right not only to require another person to be reliably and usefully what they are but to decide for them what they ought to be and how they ought to be useful. To the degree a morality justifies regarding another person in predominantly functional terms to the exclusion of subjective considerations – that the morality demands of other subjects not only the stability of objects but also the passivity of objects – I regard that morality as illegitimate. The extreme of moral illegitimacy, where subjective considerations are completely eclipsed by functional ones is evil.
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To regard another subject subjectively is to regard the subject as essentially a subject: the center of a world that overlaps one’s own. The essence of morality is response to transcendent subjectivity. It begins with the acknowledgment of Namaste, and actualizes through living, enduring, mutually-beneficial relationship. In a mutually-beneficial relationship all members of the relationship feel improved by their own standards for participating in the relationship.
Buddy Holly songs
Buddy Holly died 50 years ago today.
An apocryphal Aesop’s fable
A loan shark appeared at the door of his debtor, demanding payment.
“I can not pay you,” said the debtor, “but further, I will not pay you.”
“OK, then!” laughed the loan shark, “Let us part ways, both discredited.”
Some consultanty etymologies
Consultants are notorious abusers of words, constantly verbing nouns, nouning verbs, gluing together superficial chunks of words into ugly-sounding lumps with confused meaning, mystifying the obvious. I hope the following etymologies somehow make it all worse by showing how the disgusting word-abuse at the heart of consulting goes back to the dawn of language.
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Practice – Late Middle English : the verb from Old French practiser or medieval Latin practizare, alteration of practicare ‘perform, carry out,’ from practica ‘practice,’ from Greek praktike, feminine (used as a noun) of praktikos (see practical ); the noun from the verb in the earlier spelling practise, on the pattern of pairs such as advise, advice.
Praxis – Late 16th cent.: via medieval Latin from Greek, literally ‘doing,’ from prattein ‘do.’
Pragmatic – Late 16th cent.(in the senses of busy, interfering, conceited): via Latin from Greek pragmatikos ‘relating to fact,’ from pragma ‘deed’ (from the stem of prattein ‘do’ ). The current sense dates from the mid 19th cent.
Method – Late Middle English (in the sense of prescribed medical treatment for a disease): via Latin from Greek methodos ‘pursuit of knowledge,’ from meta– (‘with, across, or after,’ expressing development) + hodos ‘way.’
Technique – Early 17th cent.(as an adjective in the sense of to do with art or an art): from Latin technicus, from Greek tekhnikos, from tekhne ‘art.’ The noun dates from the 19th cent.
Process / procedure – Middle English : from Old French proces, from Latin processus ‘progression, course,’ from the verb procedere, from pro– ‘forward’ + cedere ‘go.’ . Current senses of the verb date from the late 19th cent.
Approach – Middle English : from Old French aprochier, aprocher, from ecclesiastical Latin appropiare ‘draw near,’ from ad– ‘to’ + propius (comparative of prope ‘near’ ).
Strategy – Early 19th cent.: from French strategie, from Greek strategia ‘generalship,’ from strategos, from stratos ‘army’ + agein ‘to lead.’
Way – Old English weg, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch weg and German Weg, from a base meaning of move, carry.
Style – Middle English (denoting a stylus (an ancient writing implement, consisting of a small rod with a pointed end for scratching letters on wax-covered tablets, and a blunt end for obliterating them), also a literary composition, an official title, or a characteristic manner of literary expression): from Old French stile, from Latin stilus.
Design – Late Middle English (as a verb in the sense of to designate): from Latin designare ‘to designate’ (based on signum ‘a mark’), reinforced by French designer. The noun is via French from Italian.
System – Early 17th cent.: from French systeme or late Latin systema, from Greek sustema, from sun– ‘with’ + histanai ‘set up.’
Pattern – Middle English patron, as in something serving as a model, from Latin patronus ‘protector of clients, defender,’ from pater, patr– ‘father.’ . The change in sense is from the idea of a patron giving an example to be copied. By 1700 patron ceased to be used of things, and the two forms became differentiated in sense.
Matter – Middle English : via Old French from Latin materia ‘timber, substance,’ also ‘subject of discourse,’ from mater ‘mother.’
Consult – Early 16th cent. (in the sense of deliberate together, confer): from French consulter, from Latin consultare, frequentative of consulere ‘take counsel.’ (NOTE: I’d have thought: Not con– ‘together’ + + saltare, from salire ‘to leap.’ However, see counsel, below)
- Insult – Mid 16th cent. (as a verb in the sense of exult, act arrogantly): from Latin insultare ‘jump or trample on,’ from in– ‘on’ + saltare, from salire ‘to leap.’ The noun (in the early 17th cent. denoting an attack) is from French insulte or ecclesiastical Latin insultus. The main current senses date from the 17th century.
- Somersault – Mid 16th cent.(as a noun): from Old French sombresault, from Provencal sobresaut, from sobre ‘above’ + saut ‘leap.’
- Counsel – Middle English : via Old French counseil (noun), conseiller (verb), from Latin consilium ‘consultation, advice,’ related to consulere.
- Conference – Late Middle English (in the general sense of bring together): from Latin conferre, from con– ‘together’ + ferre ‘bring.’
- Converse – Late Middle English (in the sense of live among, be familiar with): from Old French converser, from Latin conversari ‘keep company (with),’ from con– ‘with’ + versare, frequentative of vertere ‘to turn.’ The current sense of the verb dates from the early 17th cent.
In mid-life…
“In media vita (In mid-life). — No, life has not disappointed me! On the contrary, I find it truer, more desirable and mysterious every year, – ever since the day when the great liberator came to me, the idea that life could be an experiment of the seeker for knowledge – and not a duty, not a calamity, not a trickery! – And knowledge itself: let it be something else for others, for example, a bed to rest on, or the way to such a bed, or a diversion, or a form of leisure, – for me it is a world of dangers and victories in which heroic feelings, too, find places to dance and play. ‘Life as a means to knowledge’ – with this principle in one’s heart one can live not only boldly but even gaily and laugh gaily, too! And who knows how to laugh anyway and live well if he does not first know a good deal about war and victory?” – Nietzsche
Some Christopher Alexander
This passage from Christopher Alexander’s Timeless Way of Building changed my life:
A man is alive when he is wholehearted, true to himself, true to his own inner forces, and able to act freely according to the nature of the situations he is in.
To be happy, and to be alive, in this sense, are almost the same. Of course, a man who is alive, is not always happy in the sense of feeling pleasant; experiences of joy are balanced by experiences of sorrow. But the experiences are all deeply felt; and above all, the man is whole and conscious of being real.
To be alive in this sense, is not a matter of suppressing some forces or tendencies, at the expense of others; it is a state of being in which all forces which arise in a man can find expression; he lives in balance among the forces which arise in him; he is unique as the pattern of forces which arise is unique; he is at peace, since there are no disturbances created by underground forces which have no outlet at one with himself and his surroundings.
This state cannot be reached merely by inner work.
There is a myth, sometimes widespread, that a person need do only inner work, in order to be alive like this; that a man is entirely responsible for his own problems; and that to cure himself he need only change himself. This teaching has some value, since it is so easy for a man to imagine that his problems are caused by “others.” But it is a one-sided and mistaken view which also maintains the arrogance of the belief that the individual is self-sufficient and not dependent in any essential way on his surroundings.
The fact is, a person is so far formed by his surroundings, that his state of harmony depends entirely on his harmony with his surroundings.
Some kinds of physical and social circumstances help a person come to life. Others make it very difficult.
Pragmatist terms
Some terms associated with pragmatism:
- Pluralism – A theory or system that recognizes more than one ultimate principle.
- Fallibilism – The principle that propositions concerning empirical knowledge can be accepted even though they cannot be proved with certainty.
- Meliorism – The belief that the world can be made better by human effort.
Random patriotic thoughts
Intention – a “why” – is an ethical question and is always future-tense, even if an intention in question occurred in the past. To understand a past intention is to reconstruct its future.
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An idea from Dewey’s Freedom and Culture that’s stuck with me: “We cannot continue the idea that human nature when left to itself, when freed from external arbitrary restrictions, will tend to the production of democratic institutions that work successfully. We have now to state the issue from the other side. We have to see that democracy means the belief that humanistic culture should prevail; we should be frank and open in our recognition that the proposition is a moral one — like any idea that concerns what should be.”
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Systems thinking is about taking responsibility not only for yourself but also for your determining conditions. It means taking an active stance toward your factical situation. It means acknowledging that much “inner work” must be done in one’s “outer world”.
It involves knowing the boundary: the ontologically peculiar region between where you as an autonomous being ends and the conditions that contain, exceed and determine you begin. Conditional determinations are strange and indirect in their effects and they defeat reductionist modes of thought.
The interplay is nonlinear. You change the conditions, you change the self who changes the conditions.
Perhaps many romantic and poetic intuitions are pre-thoughts lacking the right intellectual tools for practical understanding.
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Pragmatism appears deep only to those who think deeply. To everyone else, it just looks like mere expedience, arbitrary relativism, anti-spiritualism, chaos and superficiality.
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I’ve been reading American Pragmatists in the morning and Obama’s Audacity of Hope at night. A romantic and poetic intuition to play with: What if the USA can be loved – not despite its philistinism – but philosophically and culturally? What if the USA is on the verge of waking up to its own world-historic philosophical importance, which is so elusive that it looks pedestrian to the untrained eye, even/especially to those versed in European esoteric metaphysics and to their exoteric dupes, the rank-and-file American patriots who love the USA generically (as any Roman loved Rome, as any Nazi loved Germany?
Perhaps no civilization since ancient Greece has had something so philosophically revolutionary in its womb.
Repost from my old journal (4/1/06)
For the last week, I’ve been reading Richard Bernstein’s Beyond Objectivism and Relativism: Science, Hermeneutics, and Praxis.
Bernstein’s discussion of Kuhn’s concept of paradigm shift, specifically the difficulties that arise in conversation between representatives of incommensurable frameworks, has been valuable.
I’ve had an unusually high number of painful conversations in the last four years, and I’m getting a clearer picture of why this is happening. Inter-paradigmatic conversations are intrinsically intellectually demanding and anxiety-provoking, even for those who love them. I am becoming increasingly aware that my taste for this kind of conversation is not only uncommon, but perverse. It has occurred to me that the sort of reaction I get when I attempt to engage people in these conversations is a natural self-defense of society, similar to a body’s response to a disease.
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I can be buddies with nearly anyone, as long as I am polite enough not to try to establish a friendship with him. The catch is, if I sense that someone could be my friend but nonetheless insists on remaining a buddy, I don’t want to associate with him at all.
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I’ve been fixated on the doctrine of “the death of the author” since Wednesday. Something about it offends me deeply. It’s burst into a full-blown problem. I have managed to clarify it enough that maybe I’ll get some relief from it.
Here is what I’ve come up with: Refusing to try to understand the author and his intent as fully as possible, and making this refusal a principle, is to formally seal oneself within one’s own paradigmatic horizons.
If this were limited only to the act of reading it would be detestable enough, but I think here reading signifies far more than reading – and extends inevitably to listening – the receptive element of relationship.
For me, relationship itself is reconciliation of paradigms – the enclosing of author and reader, speaker-listener and listener-speaker, within a shared horizon that encompasses both participants. Without this receptivity to the being of another, love is impossible.
What usually happens in relationships (and in conversations) is a sort of “parallel play” where one listener collages an image of the other (or of the other’s idea) out of whatever psychic clippings he has on hand, and tries as hard as possible to ignore the discrepancies between his image and the actuality of the other.
This appears at first glance to be a gentle approximation assembled roughly due to limited time and access to data. Unfortunately, I’ve been stupid enough to test this appearance. What I’ve found is that it is very similar in structure to another of my bête noire concepts, “responsible freedom” – that illusory “freedom” that survives as long as you don’t exercise that freedom as if it were your right. Similarly, these approximate friend-images depend on polite falsifications – “masks”. (One of the more horrible suspicions I’ve entertained is that all freedom is to some degree “responsible freedom, and that all love is to some degree mask.)
What this means is if you are too different from another person, and this person feels dependent on his paradigm for his own sense of security, self-esteem, mastery or purpose, that person is likely to falsify his image of you in order to protect his paradigm. Press more, and he will attack you – with his image of you, sometimes with unexpected ferocity.
This is what I call “spiritual injustice”. Spiritual justice is the will to understand each person from his own perspective; spiritual injustice is the willingness to misrepresent a person to make him fit within one’s own perspective.
Seen from this angle, the doctrine of “the author is dead” is nothing more than making a virtue of systematic spiritual injustice.
This is why the doctrine of “the author is dead” is personally offensive to me: To declare the author dead is tantamount to saying “I do not want to know you.” Without the sincere desire to know the other – however incompletely realized in practice – there is no friendship, and no possibility of love. Weirdly, in my experience it’s most unjust people who see themselves as most “loving”.
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Politically “the author is dead” is also dangerous. Consider the spirit that dominates the world right now – Two paradigms: theocratism (the marriage of a dominant machiavellianism and a submissive religiostic fundamentalism) and liberalism (in the commonly used sense) distort one another’s images into strawmen.
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Getting back to Bernstein’s book, my hope is that by studying the phenomenon of paradigm shift I can have more justice toward injustice. I believe this is the supreme structure of virtue: the ouroboros. When justice has justice for injustice it is most sublimely just; when love loves the loveless it is the most sublime love; when the rational understands the irrational; beauty sees the beauty in hideousness, etc.
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A very tentative hypothesis: Understanding the term “ontological hermeneutics” might require a conversion experience – living through at least once the process of an invisible background becoming a foreground against a new background. Until then, hermeneutics remains an “external” or “Apollinian” study of perspective focusing mostly on effects of context on opinion.
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What most people call “Christianity” might very well be a spiritual injustice perpetrated against Christ – and the perpetual process of overcoming that injustice. By that I mean overcoming the injustices against Christ who spoke the parables, fed the hungry and healed the sick at least as much as I mean overcoming the injustice of killing the Christ on the cross. Only Christ can have justice for Christ.
Another version of the same diagram
I’ve been struggling with the same inchoate problem since early 2006. It appears to center on the meaning of the I Ching trigrams, but in fact the I Ching has only provided a form for approaching the problem. The interest I’ve have in the I Ching has been a by-product of struggling with this problem.
One thing I’ve noticed is that my interest in trigrams seems to move in step with my interest in pragmatist philosophy. I think what the trigrams mean is best accounted for in pragmatist terms. The trigrams are better understood in terms of how they are used than by what they represent. The use of the triads is unification and stabilization of the experiential flux. The trigrams are a typology of interpretive schemas used to unify experience.
This quote by C. S. Peirce always belongs with this diagram:
“Philosophy ought to imitate the successful sciences in its methods, so far as to proceed only from tangible premisses which can be subjected to careful scrutiny, and to trust rather to the multitude and variety of its arguments than to the conclusiveness of any one. Its reasoning should not form a chain which is no stronger than its weakest link, but a cable whose fibers may be ever so slender, provided they are sufficiently numerous and intimately connected.”
Plan for a short video clip
An animated depiction of individual and collective attention (intended as information design, not as art):
The scene is a large room with a table in the middle. It appears to be night time, the whole thing is filmed in shades of dark gray and black.
A young woman walks into the room, surrounded by two amorphous blobs of illumination, a dim larger one that expands and contracts smoothly and a brighter one that encases her body but flares and darts out in tendrils, sometimes several at once. When the woman walks into the room the brightness initially shoots around the room illuminating various objects, with the dim light seeps behind, gradually filling out the room. She sits at the table.
A young man walks into the room, also encased with two blobs of illumination. His light has a different character. His dim light stays closer to his body and holds a spherical shape. It tends to contract. His bright light moves more slowly and systematically than the woman’s. Where the woman’s brightness moves in abrupt, multiple streams the man’s tends to stay in a single, broader and smoother stream.
When the man sees the woman, his light immediately stops moving about and concentrates entirely on her, leaving his own body entirely.
Shortly after the woman spots the man. Her light extends from herself out toward him and then, following his light, the brightness traces back to herself, so her own body and his body are brightly illuminated with a connecting strand of light. Her dimmer light continues to illuminate the whole room, while his dimmer light contracts around the woman and the table, contracting even further as he sits down with her and begins to talk.
As they talk their lights move together in a sort of dance. Her bright light continues to dart out around around the room, and his follows behind. Sometimes his bright light moves upward, straight overhead, apparently on no object at all. Hers shoots along his line, then darts away, hitting random spots in the room simultaneously, then returning, leaving, weaving. Occasionally their lights converge and move together back and forth, alternating between the man and the woman, then the lights diverge again.
A third person walks up to the table and sets an object on it. The lights center around the object and begin to synchronize until the two brighter lights appear to be a single light with waves moving around its edges and the two dimmer lights blur into a gradation.
Dewey’s Hegelian moves
Dewey’s primary move appears to be the Hegelian dialectic (thesis / antithesis / synthesis ). An example of this move is his analysis of Marxism and Libertarianism. He saw the two of them opposed within a common assumption that collective human action is predominantly economic in nature. Within this view socialism appears to exist along the continuum between the extremes. Dewey, however, places socialism outside the continuum, for the reason that it acknowledges the existence and legitimacy of other forces which influence collective human life both at the individual and coordinated-collective (a.k.a. political) scale.
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I tried to draw the Hegelian dialectic structure before I knew Hegel (or Kant, or probably someone else) had invented it. I called it a “duodualism” diagram.
After I drew it, I began to see the form everywhere in both in ideas and in symbolism (for instance in the Carthusian cross).
My (mis)use of the term angst
Heidegger saw angst as the response of a being (Dasein) facing the certainty of death. I don’t know if Heidegger would have agreed with how I’ve extended his concept of angst. I understand all being as composite. Being is composed of beings, and it is the composing of being. Any being at any scale facing its demise experiences angst, and this demise does not have any necessary connection to biological death.
Through this interpretation of angst I connect Heidegger to Kuhn. The resistence of normal science to revolutionary science is not hatred of the novel, but the destruction to the familiar required to order the unfamiliar within a new scientific paradigm. I extend this also to practical paradigms (the breaking of habits) and poetic paradigms (the changing of spiritual vision or cultural tastes).
This is one of those intellectual moves (or “dances”) I half picked up, half invented and started using without explicitly acknowledging the modifications I made.
Involvement and alienation
Involvement (being involved) – ORIGIN late Middle English (in the senses of enfold and entangle): from Latin involvere, from in– ‘into’ + volvere ‘to roll.’
Responsibility (being responsible) – ORIGIN late 16th cent. in the sense of answering to, corresponding: from obsolete French, from Latin respons– ‘answered, offered in return,’ from the verb respondere.
Absolution (being absolved) – ORIGIN late Middle English : from Latin absolvere ‘set free, acquit,’ from ab– ‘from’ + solvere ‘loosen.’
Alienation (being made an alien) – ORIGIN Middle English : via Old French from Latin alienus ‘belonging to another,’ from alius ‘other.’
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It is interesting to notice where in society a particular person sees himself as a participant in something to which he belongs versus where he sees himself acted upon by something apart from themselves (to slightly misuse Heidegger’s term, a “They”).
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It seems likely that what defines a person’s political stance on the legitimacy of economic versus political power to regulate collective action is his sense of competence or incompetence (and vulnerability) in the respective social sphere. A person is likely to take responsibility where he is confident of his abilities and to feel alienated where he lacks confidence. A crude typology, based on this framing:
- Economic monist: The person who regards himself as a participant in economic life (an employee or employer) but views political organization (government) as something alien which corrupts, oppresses and/or impinges.
- Political monist: The person who regards himself as a participant in political life (a citizen or activist, working at anything from the neighborhood to international scale) but views economic organization (often the corporation) as something alien which corrupts, oppresses and/or impinges.
- Social nihilist: The person who regards himself as an individual trying to live his own life with minimal economic and political impingement.
- Social pluralist: The person regards himself as a community leader, working politically and economically to control the condition of his own, his family’s and his community’s life.
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There are other examples of alienation. There are those who feel that history goes on entirely outside of themselves. There are also those who believe God is a being who exists outside of apart from themselves. Finally, some people think friend exists outside of and apart from themselves.
Relating to the past
I make a distinction between remembering, recollecting and recalling. Remembering is reproducing on demand the content of memory. Recollecting is assembling disconnected memories into something coherent. Recalling is evoking immemorable meaning and filling the hollowness of memory.
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Yin is remembered and recollected. Yang remembers, recollects memories and recalls.
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Reading is to remember.
Comprehension is to recollect.
Hermeneutics is to recall.
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Facts are remembered.
Arguments are comprehended.
Meaning is understood.
Edwin Muir – “The Animals”
They do not live in the world,
Are not in time and space.
From birth to death hurled
No word do they have, not one
To plant a foot upon,
Were never in any place.
For with names the world was called
Out of the empty air,
With names was built and walled,
Line and circle and square,
Dust and emerald;
Snatched from deceiving death
By the articulate breath.
But these have never trod
Twice the familiar track,
Never never turned back
Into the memoried day.
All is new and near
In the unchanging Here
Of the fifth great day of God,
That shall remain the same,
Never shall pass away.
On the sixth day we came.
Responsibility for conditions
If a subjective being is influenced by his conditions (which includes both fellow subjects and objects) a being who wants to be responsible for himself must also take responsibility for his surroundings.
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An experiment: if you haven’t read the preceding etymological meditation, trying reading it then rereading the sentence above.
Etymological meditation
Perspective – Late Middle English in the sense ‘optics’: from medieval Latin perspectiva (ars) ‘science of optics,’ from perspect– ‘looked at closely,’ from the verb perspicere, from per– ‘through’ + specere ‘to look.’Perceive – Middle English : from a variant of Old French perçoivre, from Latin percipere ‘seize, understand,’ from per– ‘entirely’ + capere ‘take.’
Conceive / concept – Middle English : from Old French concevoir, from Latin concipere, from com– ‘together’ + capere ‘take.’
Participate – Early 16th cent.: from Latin participat– ‘shared in,’ from the verb participare, based on pars, part– ‘part’ + capere ‘take.’
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Whole – Old English hal, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch heel and German heil, also to hail. The spelling with wh- (reflecting a dialect pronunciation with w-) first appeared in the 15th cent.
Holism – 1920s: from holo- [whole] + –ism ; coined by J. C. Smuts to designate the tendency in nature to produce organized “wholes” (bodies or organisms) from the ordered grouping of units.
Organize – Late Middle English : from medieval Latin organizare, from Latin organum ‘instrument, tool’ (see organ ).
System – Early 17th cent.: from French système or late Latin systema, from Greek sustema, from sun– ‘with’ + histanai ‘set up.’
Synthesis – Early 17th cent.: via Latin from Greek sunthesis, from suntithenai ‘place together.’
Synopsis – Early 17th cent.: via late Latin from Greek, from sun– ‘together’ + opsis ‘seeing.’
Articulate – Mid 16th cent.: from Latin articulatus, past participle of articulare ‘divide into joints, utter distinctly,’ from articulus ‘small connecting part’.
Article – Middle English (denoting a separate clause of the Apostles’ Creed): from Old French, from Latin articulus ‘small connecting part,’ diminutive of artus ‘joint.’
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Object – Late Middle English : from medieval Latin objectum ‘thing presented to the mind,’ neuter past participle (used as a noun) of Latin obicere, from ob– ‘in the way of’ + jacere ‘to throw’ ; the verb may also partly represent the Latin frequentative objectare.
Subject – Middle English (in the sense of (person) owing obedience): from Old French suget, from Latin subjectus ‘brought under,’ past participle of subicere, from sub– ‘under’ + jacere ‘throw.’ Senses relating to philosophy, logic, and grammar are derived ultimately from Aristotle’s use of to hupokeimenon meaning material from which things are made and subject of attributes and predicates.
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Individual – Late Middle English (in the sense of indivisible): from medieval Latin individualis, from Latin individuus, from in– ‘not’ + dividuus ‘divisible’ (from dividere ‘to divide’ ).
Atom – Late 15th cent.: from Old French atome, via Latin from Greek atomos ‘indivisible,’ based on a- ‘not’ + temnein ‘to cut.’
Collective – Late Middle English in the sense of representing many individuals): from Old French collectif, –ive or Latin collectivus, from collect– ‘gathered together,’ from the verb colligere.
Cooperate – Late 16th cent.: from ecclesiastical Latin cooperat– ‘worked together,’ from the verb cooperari, from co– ‘together’ + operari ‘to work.’
Collaborate – Late 19th cent.: from Latin collaborat– ‘worked with,’ from the verb collaborare, from col– ‘together’ + laborare ‘to work.’
Coerce – Late Middle English : from Latin coercere ‘restrain,’ from co– ‘jointly, together’ + arcere ‘restrain.’
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Apprehend – Late Middle English (originally in the sense of grasp, get hold of (physically or mentally): from French appréhender or Latin apprehendere, from ad– ‘toward’ + prehendere ‘lay hold of.’
Comprehend – Middle English : from Old French comprehender, or Latin comprehendere, from com– ‘together’ + prehendere ‘grasp.’
Contain – Middle English : from Old French contenir, from Latin continere, from con– ‘altogether’ + tenere ‘to hold.’
Content – Late Middle English : from medieval Latin contentum (plural contenta ‘things contained’ ), neuter past part. of continere.
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Influence – Late Middle English : from Old French, or from medieval Latin influentia ‘inflow,’ from Latin influere, from in– ‘into’ + fluere ‘to flow.’ The word originally had the general sense of an influx, flowing matter, also specifically in astrology of the flowing in of ethereal fluid affecting human destiny. The sense of imperceptible or indirect action exerted to cause changes was established in Scholastic Latin by the 13th cent., but not recorded in English until the late 16th cent.
Inspire – Middle English enspire, from Old French inspirer, from Latin inspirare ‘breathe or blow into,’ from in– ‘into’ + spirare ‘breathe.’ The word was originally used of a divine or supernatural being, in the sense of imparting a truth or idea to someone.
Intend – Middle English entend (in the sense of direct the attention to), from Old French entendre, from Latin intendere ‘intend, extend, direct,’ from in– ‘toward’ + tendere ‘stretch, tend.’
Extend – Late Middle English : from Latin extendere ‘stretch out,’ from ex– ‘out’ + tendere ‘stretch.’
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Responsible – Late 16th cent. in the sense of answering to, corresponding): from obsolete French, from Latin respons– ‘answered, offered in return,’ from the verb respondere.
Conditions – Middle English : from Old French condicion (noun), condicionner (verb), from Latin condicio(n-) ‘agreement,’ from condicere ‘agree upon,’ from con– ‘with’ + dicere ‘say.’
Context – Late Middle English (denoting the construction of a text): from Latin contextus, from con– ‘together’ + texere ‘to weave.’
Situation – Late Middle English: from French, or from medieval Latin situatio(n-), from situare ‘to place.’
Circumstance – Middle English : from Old French circonstance or Latin circumstantia, from circumstare ‘encircle, encompass,’ from circum ‘around’ + stare ‘stand
Environment – Middle English (formerly also as inviron): from Old French environer, from environ ‘surroundings,’ from en ‘in’ + viron ‘circuit’ (from virer ‘to turn, veer’ ).
Surroundings – Late Middle English (in the sense of overflow): from Old French souronder, from late Latin superundare, from super– ‘over’ + undare ‘to flow’ (from unda ‘a wave’ ); later associated with round . Current senses of the noun date from the late 19th cent.